Nesting

I'm spending my favorite kind of weekend day. I did some shopping yesterday so today can find me safely on my property without any need to leave. I got up at 4 - no reason, no panic, just awake - and settled on the couch with the dog behind my knees and cat between my arm and tummy, and watched a DVD until I was sleepy again. After disturbing my mini-zoo, I shuffled back to bed until 8.

Then I made the best of decisions for a lazy Saturday at home. I turned on College GameDay. For some reason, having college football (or talk thereof) on television makes me insanely productive. I'm not interested enough to sit and watch for any length of time, but I like the noise. Something about seeing thousands of people on screen, spending their Saturday by finding parking and fighting crowds and watching players run and throw a ball makes me eager to accomplish stuff at home. (Not that I think going to a game is wasting time. I enjoy football. But I've also enjoyed being busy so that when people in grad school would ask if I went to the game, I could say, "Nope! But I bought groceries, cleaned my apartment, read three papers, and analyzed some data." I'm not sure why - it's a quirk. But I used it to my advantage.)

So football has remained on while I cleaned the kitchen. Put a few things in the attic. Organized and picked up and threw away garbage. Ate lunch. Cleaned Sprout's room. Put away my meager Halloween decorations and organized a closet a bit. Dusted, vacuumed and cleaned some glass. Lit some candles (mint in the kitchen, honeysuckle in the living room). Cleaned out my flower beds as everything has died. Mowed the yard. Poisoned some weeds that insist upon attaching to my house. Showered. Watered plants and swept the kitchen.

Now I'm using my new external storage device to back up some data on my laptop. Then I'll clean off some stuff I'm not using anymore so I have more room. I'm down to 5 GB of free space, which is relatively ridiculous. So I'm fixing it. But backing up 75 GB of crap (I really don't know what it all is) is going to take some time. So I'm blogging! Because I'm productive!

Unnamed Friend is coming over for steak and bleu cheese salad and my crab dip that I adore. Charlie asked for the recipe a long time ago, so I'll tell you how I do it. I had Shrimp & Crab Fondue from Pizzeria Uno several years ago and found it delightful. So I played around until I was happy with something I could make.

2 bricks of cream cheese (I use 1 regular and 1 reduced fat for texture purposes)
1 bag of shredded (not grated) parmesan
1/2 red pepper
handful or fresh parsley or 2 green onions (it depends on my mood, but I like some kind of green)
1 can of crab
1 can of shrimp

I suppose if you can get fresh seafood, it would be better. I wouldn't know - I've always lived far from any coast.

I let the cream cheese soften until impatience takes over and I put it in the microwave for 30 seconds.

I mince the pepper, parsley or green onion. Sometimes I like the onion very much, but I'm always careful about quantity. It can overwhelm the entire spread. Toss veggies in and mix.

I'm fond of cheese, so I'll use 3/4 bag of parmesan (or you could get a tub in the deli case or shred your own). Then I mix again so I don't have to do much once the crab and shrimp are in.

Open and drain seafood and mix gently.

Bake at 350 for (I don't know - I always get impatient) 20 minutes or so.

This is the important part - Uno serves their fondue with tiny pieces of buttered, toasted bread. So I buy a baguette, saw through it until my arm is tired, brush with melted butter then lightly toast it on a cookie sheet for 2-3 minutes. You could have the spread on crackers, but it's just not as good.

And, clearly, butter is necessary for the bread because there aren't nearly enough calories or fat in the dip.

Now I'm getting a bit cold since I opened all my windows as part of my "Let's air out the house! And clean! And listen to football!" routine. So I'm going to go ahead and warm the rooms back up before my company arrives. I hope you're all having lovely weekends.