Telling time...

I've been able to tell time for nearly 25 years.  I've lived in a different time zone from my parents for nearly 7 years.  But every time we enter/leave daylight savings time, I have an abnormally long adjustment period.  Add in the fact that we've recently moved from being an hour ahead of Texas (where my folks live) to an hour behind them, and I can't make heads nor tails of when is the right time to try to call home.

Of course, I shouldn't be complaining too bad.  My husband Brett has even more complicated add/subtract mental math when trying to adjust for the time zone differences between our Colorado home (in Mountain Time, US) to his parents in Adelaide (South Australia, Australia).  I used to have it figured out and I knew that late Friday nights (which are Saturday mornings down under), Brett would be up late to talk to his folks.  But, now that we've moved (which put us two hours earlier) and the time changed both here and there, it is hard to figure our when he's supposed to be online (I usually try to be the one to remind him to do these keep-in-touch things).

I found a very useful website online (World Clock Converter) that I can use to find out what time it is in Adelaide.  For instance, right now:

Colorado Springs (U.S.A. - Colorado) 

Saturday, November 24, 2012 at 6:30:00 PM  MST UTC-7 hours 

Adelaide (Australia - South Australia) 

Sunday, November 25, 2012 at 12:00:00 Noon CDT UTC+10:30 hours 

So, while we usually try to call Brett's parents early Saturday mornings before they start their weekend, the fact that he is just now talking to his Mom (and pleading for her to post his cricket bat as an Xmas present or bring it with them when they come visit) means that we will need to remember to call them mid-afternoon on Fridays rather than waiting until after dinner.  Good to know (harder to remember, but we'll try!)

A new addition to Team Beattie

Say hi to the newest Beattie! He's a beagle, 5 years old, and very energetic. Plus, April says he's much cuter in real life than the picture.  :-)

Today we went back to the animal shelter for the Nth time and found a puppy love match with this adorable dog.   Here is the description they had for him:  Well, howdy. I'm Buford. I'm a-searching for a home that will love me just as much as I love them. I'm the energetic sort, ya see. I love to play, and I love to explore new places. I'm just a good ole boy who is friendlier than apple pie. If you want a southern gentleman who will love you forever, I'm your dawg!

We definitely want to change his name (Buford Beattie...um, no!).  And getting the cat and dog to play nice is a high high priority. We have a busy next few days with teaching, meetings, data work and writing for Brett, and an Aussie/Kiwi Club meeting Saturday, but we hope to get the dog acclimated. 

P.S.-->  Brett has decided that we should name the dog Baxter the Beagle. 

Visit from the Texas Gang

This past weekend, Brett and I were lucky to have my mom, sister and 6 month old nephew come visit us.  It was a whirlwind three day adventure trying to balance rest, work, and family time.  It went by so fast, but we had a lot of fun.  Thanks for coming y'all and we look forward to seeing you again soon.  Here's the short version of the weekend:

The Texas gang drove all through the night Wednesday to arrive in Colorado Thursday mid-morning (it is about a 14 hour drive if you don't stop except for gas!).  This would have been ideal except that Brett and I thought that they were going to show up FRIDAY morning.  So, imagine our surprise when we got a text message from them on Thursday at 9am saying that they were 30 minutes away. Panic attack time (note: we were the ones who had gotten the arrival date wrong, oops!!).  We had worked like crazy for two days straight Tuesday-Wednesday on grading papers and being on campus for teaching, office hours and meetings, so our house was a mess.  We spent those 30 minutes trying to run around and do everything we could to make it more presentable.  Mom insisted that it didn't matter, but we cared plenty! Our new vacuum (bought because my 13-year old one finally died this fall) was still in the box from the store, but we put that together and got the floor clean by evening so the baby could play without "Aunt April" freaking out about him licking the carpet.

Thursday was a rest day for the Texas travelers while we cleaned a bit more.  We had an easy lunch and dinner (since we still hadn't gone to the grocery store yet-we really thought we had another day to get ready!). Friday, my Mom and Brett went grocery shopping and everyone pitched in to make an early Thanksgiving dinner.  It was nice, though there was the inevitable question to Brett about Australian Thanksgiving traditions (the answer, for those who are wondering, is that they don't do Thanksgiving outside America, it is an America-only thing!).  Saturday we went and drove around Garden of the Gods and toured the UCCS campus where April works.  Then we came back home for a quiet evening to rest before the Texas gang headed home.  Everyone (well, not Brett) got up about 5am on Sunday for goodbyes before they headed back to Dallas.

We wouldn't have traded the visit for anything (well, perhaps a longer visit that included my step-dad and brother-in-law Brian), and we had a wonderful time.  The rest of the weekend was spent grading more papers (it never ends!!!) and preparing for another week. Luckily we only have a few more weeks of the semester.  And we have a visit from Brett's parents coming up (and we won't mix up their arrival dates!) to look forward to too.

Homemade Chicken Salt

Well, I bought Brett a fryer as an early Xmas present.  So, today he is busy watching college football and wanted to make a proper Aussie burger (with the lot except NO BEETROOT) with those special, work-intensive thrice-cooked chips (fries to us Yanks). Of course, chips aren't the same without chicken salt just like they use in the corner fish and chips shop, so we went on a mission to find some.

Now, some of you know the terrible sad story of our last attempt to acquire Chicken Salt.  Brett packed it in our suitcase on the trip home from visiting his family in Adelaide and (I am sure you can tell where this is going...), the bottles exploded somewhere over the between South Australia and Pennsylvania and we ruined the luggage, but worst, we lost the precious chicken salt.  :-(

So this time, we were going to leave the shipping to professionals.  We tried our trusty new international food store find, World Market, but they don't carry it.  It wasn't on the shelves at the local British Shoppe, and while we could order from a couple online places, it was WAY overpriced for 4-6 oz. of salt and misc. seasonings.

At last, we decided we would just make our own.  This was easier said than done however because it appears that the recipe for chicken salt is practically an Australian national secret.  It isn't listed anywhere! We found two random blogs that had recipes and Brett decided he wanted to try the one based on Aussie KFC's version of chicken salt. Here it is:

Chicken Salt Recipe

6 Tbsps Salt
2 Tbsps MSG (Use Salt if one is averse to this ingredient)
3 tsp Sugar (Superfine, or Castor variety)
3 tsp Onion Powder
1 tsp Garlic Powder
1 tsp Cornstarch (i.e. Cornflour: Yellow variety)
1/2 tsp White Pepper
1/4 tsp Citric Acid (Crystals: This creates that zesty flavor!)
1/4 tsp Turmeric (For that "nuclear" yellow color!)
1/4 tsp Paprika
1/8 tsp Celery Seed (Finely Ground)

Mix it all up, use immediately, or allow to meld for a few hours before use...  
THE VERDICT:
 Well, first, I'll note the few issues we had with the recipe listed.  1) We didn't have MSG, but substituted salt as suggested.  2) Celery seed is incredibly hard to actually grind up. 3) We use regular white cornstarch instead of yellow so ours didn't have the typically coloring of Aussie chicken salt.  4) The recipe makes enough to fill an entire spice bottle (we bought a new empty one from the spice store, but you could save an empty one to refill with this new mix).

Overall, the recipe as listed wasn't too bad.  The onion powder and garlic powder were overpowering though, so we would definitely reduce the amounts to 2tsp and 1/2tsp the next time we make it.  Because we already had the mix, to fix it, we added 1 1/2 tsp sugar and 1 tbsp salt to counteract the onion/garlic and it immensely improved it. 

I don't see myself using chicken salt all that much (to me, it has limited applications), but Brett assures me that he is going to be using it plenty.  Makes me happy that we went the extra mile...

P.S.-->  In case Lyn reads this, know that I am probably never going to attempt trying to recreate Brett's favorite tomato paste from scratch.  He'll have to go home (Aus) for that.