I've been very busy behind the scenes and can't quite get it together to put up the posts that I had planned on. I guess in time. Unfortunately, patience is not my virtue. If there is any trait that must be my life's work, it's patience. I think I have the shallowest reserve of anyone on the planet. Well, this about what I can muster for today and it will just have to be enough. My perfectionist tendencies are SCREAMING for me to do more. But for now, I'll try and let it be. Anali's First...

I was tagged by Suldog to do The Fives Meme and by T in an email to do a book meme. I'll start with the book one first, since it's short. 1. Pick up the nearest book.2. Open to page 123.3. Find the fifth sentence.4. Post the next three sentences. I have a bunch of books next to me, but the one at the top of the pile is the one that I have been planning to write a post on for months. I loved this book and a post with special commentary will be coming up soon! The book is A Clearing In The Distan...

Today is my two year blog anniversary! I cannot believe that time has passed so quickly. One of the best things about blogging is meeting so many new fun people. Yesterday I had the best time meeting up with another one of my favorite bloggers. T from the blog Notes of an Anesthesioboist! T is just as lovely and fun as I thought she would be from reading her blog. She's an anesthesiologist and writes about work, but she also started playing the oboe and writes about that too and all sorts of oth...

I haven't written any tales from the T in quite some time, because nothing particularly remarkable has happened. Well I don't know what was in the air last night or in the stars, but I couldn't help but noticing three couples arguing. Maybe they weren't arguing, but just having animated conversations at a heightened volume. I don't know. Walking down Summer Street towards South Station, to my left I heard a woman talking rather loudly. She said, "You always do that!" Then he denied it. She was...

I couldn't let Earth Day pass without saying something about the day. Our planet certainly is in peril, so I'm sure that most of us are trying to make changes, no matter how small, whenever we can. I stopped buying bottled water and bought a reusable plastic bottle. Although now with the current discussion about the dangers of plastic bottles containing BPA, I may have to replace this bottle with a safer one. I've only recently become aware of these dangers even though articles like this on...

When I think about the Philadelphia Sound, the first song that comes to my mind is Disco Inferno by The Trammps. I loved that song! The refrain, "Burn baby burn" and those horns playing in the background are ingrained in memories of my youth. Watch the video here and enjoy a real classic. According to the Wikipedia entry, the song first came out in 1976, which I remember as being the year of the Bicentennial. The 4th of July was huge that year! I think that my parents brought me and my brother ...

Back in the fall, I saw this post for a quick vegetable dish and filed it away to try later. Recently I started thinking about a can of cannellini beans that I had sitting in my cupboard. I also had some Brussel sprouts. Then I remembered this recipe. I didn't follow the recipe exactly. I sauteed the rinsed beans and quartered sprouts in a little butter, sesame oil, and some lemon olive oil too. I added just a pinch of salt and sprinkled some pepper. These are really good and the colors...

I just found the coolest blog and had to share it with you guys. Click here to see it. It's called The Metaphysical Poll and it's broken into three different blogs. You can read random peoples' dreams about the presidential candidates. If you had a dream about either one of them, or the election in general, you can submit yours and share it with the world. Check out I Dream of Barack, I Dream of Hillary, and I Dream of McCain. After everyone watching the debate tonight, I'm sure many o...

No, I didn't waffle on filing my taxes. They are finally done! But I did make waffles for breakfast. And since they are a nice golden color, I thought they'd be perfect for my submission to A Taste Of Yellow.Barbara's annual event helps raise cancer awareness as part of LiveSTRONG Day, which is May 13th this year. Click here to read my submission from last year. Look here to read last years' roundup of submissions by 149 food bloggers. These Rice Milk Brown Sugar Waffles were really good. Very...

This reminds me of a confession that I should be sending to PostSecret. But it's my truth and I own it. If you've never visited PostSecret, it's a pretty interesting phenomenon, but kind of tragic sometimes. This post grossed me out. Why did it have to be about cookbooks? This CVS post I found quite funny in particular. The CVS Coupon Post that I wrote has given me more hits on this blog than any other. It's the post that keeps on giving. However the bitter anonymous comments are starti...

Check out some more Spring photos on flickr. Anali's First Amendment © 2006-2008. All rights reserved. This Post's Link ...

If you checked out my most recent post on Leap183, you'll see a few plastic and paper bags on the floor. For my normal weekly grocery shopping I go to Stop & Shop. I always ask for paper and plastic. I hate when they don't after I ask. My reason is so that the bags are sturdy enough to make it all the way from my car and up the stairs to my apartment. I've had several rips with just plain single paper or single plastic. It's not fun. Also, instead of buying trash bags, I re-use the grocery b...

If I tried to make a slightly healthier version of my adapted version of the famous Swedish Visiting Cake. And what if I used a smaller and taller pan to make it even cuter? This is what happened. It's a mini-cake! Or a GIGANTIC cupcake! And it was still really good. I'm having so much fun with this cake. Below is the recipe at the moment. I'm sure I'll think of something new to do with it next week. I think I'm becoming obsessed with this recipe. It's getting to be almost as bad as the World P...

The Strawberry Seduction Roundup is finally here! Click here to take a seat at Mikes's Table and enjoy the view. Anali's First Amendment © 2006-2008. All rights reserved. This Post's Link ...

Last night I made some chai tea. Not real chai tea. I have tea bags. I do plan on making some from scratch soon though. I've been saving recipes for the past few weeks. So anyway, I use vanilla rice milk and add a chai tea bag. I was so tired last night, I forgot that I was steeping the tea until I was ready to go to sleep. So I just put some plastic wrap over the cup and stuck it in the fridge. This morning, I was making my oatmeal and getting ready to put in the rice milk. I figured t...

I'm not a huge fan of Mexican food. I do enjoy it, but I usually don't crave it like I do Italian or seafood. When I got home from work today, I received the usual junk mail and bills, but I also received this very stylish advertisement, well more like an invitation. It was addressed to "Resident" so it wasn't really for me personally, but I do reside here and will take free stuff where I can get it. To whoever designed this campaign, "Good job!" I'm assuming that the restaurant Chipotle s...

I did it! I made my Homemade Bread Pledge back on December 3rd and vowed not to buy any bread from the grocery store through the end of March. The surprising thing is that it wasn't really very hard. I don't buy that much bread anyway. I'll buy some here and there, just to have it in the house, but it usually lasts for a long time. I almost slipped once, but that was it. I'm looking forward to buying some interesting breads, especially when the Farmers' Markets come back. Whenever it rains now...

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Can be found on the second and a half floor. In this very old Boston building, there is a very old elevator that I prefer not to use. They creep me out a little. I did use it going up, but I took the stairs when I left. Walking down the stairs and seeing this little door, I feel like a giant even though I'm only 5'3". It's very Alice in Wonderland. Because not only does my size seem to change relative to everything else, but it's not everyday that you encounter a half a floor. It's rather surpr...

I am loving this blog that I just found about yesterday. I was reading this article about another very popular blog. I cannot believe that this guy got a book deal already! *Updated* - You're right Nance. I guess I should at least tell you a few things from the list that I like too. Okay, I'm going down the list and just scanning quickly. Yes, I like day spas! Oprah, yup her too! Jazz, check. And of course I love all of those on the list! But I guess sadly for me, I realized how much I loved Ell...