so you wannabee a Domestik Goddess?

So, we’re watching the river rise in the St. John River valley… feeling grateful for living up on very high ground… and the radio says this could be the worst flood in 35 years. Everyone’s talking about The Big One back in 1973 and wondering what will happen overnight.

When Nature gets nasty, know what we do around here? We rush out and take pictures, of course. And gather at the Department of Highways barricades to chat with neighbours and feel sorry for our friends and family who built their homes on the flood plain. Maybe bring a thermos of coffee and the dog… All of which is to say, I’m planning to go out and do just that, right now — to return later with a few scenic shots (low light levels permitting) of the soon-to-be famous Flood of 2008. Meanwhile, CTV News is doing a pretty good job with the video coverage at www.ctvnewsnet.com.

On top of losing 7 pounds in 10 days — yes!! yes, that happened! — one of the best things about doing my 4-week Healthy Eating Challenge is discovering new cool guilt-free recipes.

Low fat, low calorie, high in all sorts of dandy nutrients and vitamins, and pretty frugal, too… This recipe, discovered in the PC Healthy Living Recipes vault, is definitely going into the regular rotation in our household:

Chicken Thighs in BBQ Sauce

Combine:
8 boneless skinless chicken thighs
+
1/2 cup barbecue sauce for chicken and ribs
Put on an oil-sprayed pan.
Bake for 20 - 25 minutes at 400°F, turning once.
Eat.

I’ve been enjoying the BBQ Chicken Thighs with a small baked potato and a hefty side salad, as called for in my 1500-calorie Menu Plan. Now, what could be quicker and easier for a healthy supper?

Madly off-topic, I know…

but I’ve really got to have a rant — followed by some truly useful links, I promise! — about the Vile Pond Scum known as Scrapers.

Scraper blogs are those ad-splattered automated blogs that steal content from the RSS feeds of hard-working real human bloggers, slap on some Google Adsense ads, and churn it back out again with flagrant disregard for law or ethics. They’ll even hijack your illustrations — so you pay for the hosting space and bandwidth, the Pond Scum Scrapers flash your pretty pictures to make their blogs look deceptively genuine…

Yep, those scraper blogs have finally ticked off the mild-mannered Domestik Goddess enough to make me drop the oven mitts and fight back.

They’ve cost me money, created confusion, sucked up my high quality crafting and gardening time, and (worst of all) spoiled much of the idle socializing that I’d had planned for this past sunny spring weekend.   Read the rest of this entry »