Puppy Pictures Prevent Homicide

I know I’ve ranted and ranted and ranted before, but I am just going to say this one more time (because I’ve now seen it AGAIN, and this now makes time #94759348679348 and I’m bloody well sick of it.)

In the world of academia, if you use someone else’s work, without citing it, you are hauled before a board and either fired, or you fail the class, or, in most cases, you’re entirely eliminated from the school. Expelled. Ex-comunicato. Donzies.

In the land of blogging, you can “take a cue” from this blogger or that blogger and get well away with it.

• If you didn’t take the picture, and you didn’t pay to use it or get permission, don’t post it.
• If you didn’t write the recipe, DON’T POST THE RECIPE ON YOUR BLOG. Do you have a clue how much work goes into writing a good recipe? A lot. If you didn’t write it, you don’t deserve the traffic from it. You realize that if this were any other venue than blogging, you’d be publicly humiliated as a filch, right? It’s no better than going to a seedy area and buying counterfeit dvds.
• If you can’t back up a claim, either say that, or don’t effing make it.
• Oh, and please, please post more pictures of your dogs…totally serious here, I love puppy pictures, they make me less homicidal. Cats are ok, too….just keep dressing them up like humans, they’re more appealing that way.
• I would also like more ass workouts. Mine is still flat.

Now that’s out of my system for .5 minutes, let’s talk about my head….it still hurts. Apparently, being nearly concussed, is not something you just blink away and go on about your week while barely noticing. Fooey. I have big plans for tonight, I need to improve my overall grouchiness so that I can properly behave. I don’t want to be all prickly and cross. I also tend to have a viper’s tongue when I am crabby. If you’ve been the target of my wrath, you know this isn’t the happiest place on earth. (insert mirthless laughter here)

I am not quick to anger, though I am quick to become irritated. I should’ve done my graduate studies on passive aggression, because I’d never have needed to study. I wonder if Magdalen or All Souls College has a DPhil programme in subterfuge. (I figured I should spell “program” in the proper queen’s spelling, as Oxford is British and all.) I would rock that dissertation like a hurricane.

I’m working on finding my “zen” or whatever it is that my friendly neighborhood Buddhist (the Navajo) calls it. So far, we’ve determined that I am at my zenniest? Yingyest? Yangyest? is when I’m running, apart from that? I’m usually at a low simmer. When I run with him, he says it’s like being next to an entirely different person. I can’t decide if I find that calming or disturbing…I understand that this is pretty typical of type-A, high-strung, ADHD addled people. How many of us there are is anyone’s guess….maybe we should have a convention! It’s too bad we’d all be way too busy doing our own thing to go…

There are other times I’m pretty zen, and I’d tell you…but my mother reads my blog.

I’m relatively calm when I bake. It’s probably what keeps me in the kitchen. That, and I do so like to eat. I find cooking helps with that. Today’s recipe is healthy, delicious, and oh.so.yummy.

Homemade Oatmeal Cinnamon Bread

I would put up a recipe, but the bread recipe isn’t mine so I will link back to the original. I used this recipe from King Arthur Flour, and subbed white whole wheat bread flour for their flours and used traditional yeast/warm water because I never use instantized yeast…it’s a pain in the ass. I then let it rise twice, rolled it out into a long rectangle, as wide as a loaf pan, sprinkled it liberally with cinnamon, used a bit more brown sugar, and rolled it up. I then let it rest/rise AGAIN in the loaf pan, egg washed, and baked it. It’s TO DIE FOR. Firm crumb, tight roll, great flavor. I die.

that’s probably more butter than I’d typically use. I admit it.