The Prince and the Paw-Paw

Tonight's Dinner:
Main course
Steak and chilli bean wrap with chunky guacamole and sour cream

Dessert

and

Both delicious. One less than a tenth of the price of the other!

Results

The blood test came back "entirely normal and so no further action is needed". I think that's good!

I do however need a new inhaler to get my asthma back under control. Stupid rain/pollen!

Strawberries & Passionfruit

I have started a new blog.

This one will continue to be for the fluffy/everyday stuff.

Over there will be where I talk about more serious stuff.

It's at http://wayofmicah.blogspot.com.

I don't like needles

But that didn't stop a lady using one to pinch some of my blood this afternoon and taping a little bit of cotton wool taped to my arm... although I guess I did ask her to and she was a phlebotomist.

After several people in the past week have mentioned having issues with their thyroids, I thought I would look up what that meant. And the symptoms were rather familiar, so I concluded that I wouldn't lose anything by getting checked out and if I was right then it might explain why, among other things, I am *always* tired, even when I get a decent amount of sleep.
So, I was at the GP this afternoon (4:10pm). He said he thought it unlikely, but he sent me for a blood test anyway to check - for TSH, kidney, iron, potassium, sodium, liver and full blood count. I guess he thought while I was there we may as well look at lots of things to check those too. I had to go to the hospital for the blood draw, but they were open until 5 so I thought I may as well go tonight and then I'll get the results back sooner (about a week).

I'm not too worried. I've been tired for nearly as long as I can remember, so if it's simply that I don't get enough sleep then that hasn't changed, and if there's something wrong, it can be treated/fixed, etc.


And Stephanie... Here's how I did my favicon:

• First I made a 16x16 pixel image. The maker I linked before is good for doing that.
  
• Then I saved it as favicon.ico. I put mine in the images folder of the website, but you don't have to.
  
• You then need to insert the following code into your Header section of the website:
  <link rel="shortcut icon" href="images/favicon.ico" type="image/vnd.microsoft.icon">
  <link rel="icon" href="images/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon" />
  <link rel="shortcut icon" href="images/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon" />
  where the green bit is the location of the picture.
  I'm not totally sure how or why those work, but they do. I think you need them all because different browsers work in different ways.

Hope that helps.

Still Here

I have once again left this blog abandoned for far too long! Life has been just a smidgeon hectic of late though!!

I last blogged just after getting back from St.Albans for Easter. Since then, I have spent a week in Mallorca with Michael's family, staying in a village called Fornalutx (near Soller, NW-ish of island). The week was lovely (~20'c for most of the week) and the house was amazing. (I've not got long, but I'll try to post pictures another time).

The following weekend, we went to Hob Green Hotel (kinda near Harrogate) to celebrate Michael's brother's 21st and his maternal grandad's 80th. I'd met some of them before, but some of them I hadn't. They're all really nice people and I had a fab weekend.

This weekend just gone, Mum, Dad & Tim were up visiting. Many yummy meals and a visit to the Minster were enjoyed by most (Michael & Tim went to watch Man Utd v. Chelsea in the pub instead of the Minster trip because they've done it before. A really, really wonderful, relaxing and silly weekend.

Oh, in other news, I doubt I will be working at the hospital for more than another week or so, as the films are being moved to off-site storage, so there won't be a job for me to do. I don't know what I will be doing next.

Life looks like it *might* be letting up a bit... we'll see.

(And Stephanie, I saw your message - I will post here about that, hopefully soon, too!)

Iconic Spring Clean

I've been having a bit of a spring clean round here and have cleared out my Blogroll on the right. A number of dead links have gone and the still-alive-but-barely links have been moved to the bottom of the sidebar in their own list. I have also found a rather shiny new icon for the Updated indicator (found at http://www.iconarchive.com/).

Which reminds me - I had my first attempt at a bit of pixel art this week, trying to convert this:

into an icon to use as a favicon for the HRMC website.
I tried shrinking the file with FrontPage, but that produced this:

and then this:

Rather blurred and thus not so good.

So I tried this website and created this:

Which I'm quite pleased with. (Click icon for larger version).
To check how it looks in situ, go here.

Btw, I doubt there will be more updates for a week or so, as I am going away (Will tell you more when I get back...)

PS. And thanks to Michelle for bringing the Google translator to my attention - it can now be found towards the bottom of the sidebar. And apologies to her & Jim for the intermittent fault with the BitmapWorld graphic that keeps vanishing (or at least it does for me!). Can anyone else see a graphic link for it on the sidebar...?

Less-than-Multiple Choices

On a slightly silly note...

Michael & I came up with a new term last night...

When answering multiple choice questions, it's frequently the case that there is at least one answer that it just could not be. I commented on this and came up with the following example:
Question: What colour is the sky?
A: Red
B: Yellow
C: Green
D: Blue
E: Parrot

This lead to the coining of the term 'the Parrot', meaning the option/answer that it just cannot be because it makes no sense at all.

A more 'real life' example might be a TV phone-in with the question: "For the Benefit of... who?" was a song by the Beatles? A: Mr Kite, B: Mr Jones, C: Mr Blobby. (In case you missed it, C is the Parrot!).

A bloom by any other epithet (aka Language 1)

England is a single country, right? Where everyone speaks the same language, yeah? Not so much!
Since moving 'oop North' about 18 months ago, there have been a number of occasions where I have felt like I am speaking a whole other language to those around me.

The first and most obvious perhaps is the area of Dialect. I have learnt a surprising number of new words in the past year or so. Do you know what the following mean (answers will be given later)?

1. Nithered
2. Pack-up
3. Sand shoes (I have come across 4 different terms for these!)
4. Bread cake
5. Riggweltered
6. Canny
7. more to come

And similarly, in my various dealings with American English, there have been a number of words that I have had to look up, often resulting in an outburst of "Oh! It's one of those!" when the item turned out to be something I knew very well, but not by that name. Such as:

1. Skillet
2. Ground meat
3. Shredded cheese
4. Rutabega
5. Thrift store
6. Duplex
7. Jumper (US)
8. Biscuit (US)
9. Sausage (US)
10. Baseboard
    

Look-alikes 2

For part 1, see here.
Watching the rugby just now, I was struck by how much the French Manager, Jo Maso, looks like celebrity tapdancer, Lionel Blair:




And just to let those few who still visit here know... there are about 4 posts in the pipeline (including 3 'themed' ones!). However, unlike Michelle, Jenni or Kate/Cakes seem to, I struggle with writing anything coherent and thus these things take a lot of mulling-over-whilst-filing-Xrays. I'm working on it, though!

Chilli is the Spice of Life

About 2 weeks ago, something happened to me that does not happen very often but is serious when it does... I ran out of chilli powder! Now, I know that several of you who read this blog know about me and my chilli con carne.
For those who don't know, chilli con carne is my 'trademark' recipe. Now, I'm not saying that it is a very good recipe or that it is particularly delicious. It is simply a recipe that I know how to do very well, is cheap, very flexible and I can cook & serve it in less than half an hour. I try to always have the ingredients to serve 4 in the house to cook at short notice, although that doesn't always work out.
So, the other week, I was making chilli for tea. I was part way through and well beyond the point of no return, when I added the all-important chilli powder... and a very light dusting came out - and that was it! I looked at the tub and it was indeed empty! I was amazed firstly that I had managed to use a whole jar up, and secondly that I hadn't noticed that it was getting so low. I managed to make up for it with alternatives, but still!

So, I hear you wondering (possibly so quietly that even you can't hear it), what is this amazing recipe? Well, Marie once asked me what goes into chilli and I said that you needed: minced beef, some sort of beans and something spicy as a minimum. However, here is the slightly more advanced version...

Serves 4 hungry people (easily feeds 5) - can be doubled/trebled/halved as needed, ~100g meat per person.

You will need:

• 500g/1lb minced beef/ground beef
  (I use lean/low-fat because it comes out less greasy and more tasty)
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• a small amount of flavourless oil, eg. vegetable.
• 1 bell pepper, chopped (any colour, though I think red looks best)
  


• 1 clove of garlic, crushed/chopped very finely (optional)
• 1 can (~400g) kidney beans in chilli sauce (in brine works, but doesn't taste as good)
  


• 1 can chopped tomatoes
• Tomato puree
• 1 beef oxo (stock) cube
• Chilli seeds in oil (comes in a small jar or a tube, usually in spice aisle)
  


• and of course... Mild chilli powder (using mild gives more control over the strength)
  


• A big wok or frying pan to cook it in!

What you have to do:

1. Heat the oil in the pan over a medium heat (I usually put a tiny piece of onion in - when it starts to sizzle it's ready). Fry onion and garlic with 1tsp of chilli powder, until soft (2-3 mins).
2. Add beef and fry until brown, stirring frequently.
3. Sprinkle oxo cube over meat, add a good squirt of tomato puree (1-2 tsp), a good sprinkling of chilli powder (maybe 2tsp) and about 1 tsp of chilli-in-oil and stir in. Taste and add more powder/chillis as desired.
4. Add beans and tinned tomatoes and stir in. Heat for a few minutes, until hot through. Add chopped pepper, stir in and simmer for a few minutes.
5. Serve with rice (or pasta). Also good with sour cream or grated/shredded cheese on top. Nachos work well with it too.

There you go. Enjoy!