whoo - Chickenish neophyte that I am, I lurked through about 300 amazing posts... unschooling - who's flirty -... now sending health~ma and general good~ma to everyone for good measure.

And what, you ask, rocked me out of my lurk? why:

I do want a large oval one for roasting a chicken, but I want a different color. Most of my kitchen stuff is blue and yellow, so I have a blue one now and I want a yellow one.

Yup, le creuset - personal fetish (though education and children [especially late-sleeping, messy, smart-as, awesome children] are personal faves too - you just can't get them in all the cool colors like lemongrass). I'd used mine about twice and wasn't allowed to even mention another color - until I found this recipe book [link] anyone else ever really annoyed that in order to cook stuff in a crock-pot for 6 hours, you have to, um, cook it first? ie - "brown the chicken..." grr. This is the first recipe book I've found where you don't have to cook anything (even pasta) first. A lot of chopping - but that's kind of fun. and the recipes (veg and not) are really good.

ok - slinking back into shy corner...

Happy day, beth. I thought I remembered you saying you were taking off Wednesday to celebrate! Two birthdays better than one.

Huh. The only thing I've ever cooked before putting in the crockpot is ground beef or dried beans. I've thrown rock-hard frozen whole chickens in the crockpot and eight hours later had to use two big slotted spoons to remove the bird because all the meat was falling off the bones. Mind you, the chicken skin was by no means crisply brown like it might have been in the oven. But then again, it didn't have that creepy uncooked pale look it gets in the microwave.

{{Suzi}} Less stress and more fun change for you!

ya'll might want to see my pictures from york

Beautiful pictures! Even a cute SA in there.

It's not a bad one! There's a couple more I have to put up, of my new pin and my new hippo shoes.

Oh man, SA, those photos make me so homesick (for a place that's not my home, but English lacks a word for that).

Did you visit the Minster? And the Shambles? And the Botanical Gardens? And Wippmawoppmagate?

Does Heslington still have that ugly-ass watertower?

Now I want fish and chips from Petergate Fisheries, followed by an apple turnover.

I'm perversely glad that the ducks and moorhens are still crapping all over everything.

Have you visited Cardiff yet? Do you have a sense whether you'll choose Wales or the Dales?

In mememe news, since Friday suddenly became my last day of work, work had a small ceremony for me today and gave me a generous award. Everybody said really nice things, and now I'm all verklempt.

So, yesterday was Practice beth's Birthday Day? Ok...I'm good with that.

Happy Birthday, beth! Hope today is even more fabulous than yesterday!

Awww...Raq, that's so nice!

Raq, I'd been to York before so I didn't really plumb its depths--we checked out the campus for a long while, and popped into Heslington to grab something from the shop. But didn't go much further into Heslington, and only poked around a little in the city centre. I did go to the Minster, though (and got in for free!) because I wanted to visualise that scene from Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, having read it a few months ago.

I haven't visited Cardiff, and I won't get the chance to before I need to make my decision. But I remember the city very clearly.

It's an insanely difficult choice, and one I haven't made yet. My friend and I realised that I'm the heroine in a romance novel, with this choice between York and Cardiff. York is the nobleman, a bit frayed around the edges, but with excellent breeding and stature. Quirky, though, with a bit of a dark side. And Cardiff is the always-cheerful blokey dude, frank and open and welcoming. Not as prestigious, but there's just something about him...

And then we anthropomorphized the cities. Where York was David Tennant (more his HP character than his Doctor) and Cardiff was Rhys from Torchwood.

And then I realised I essentially had to make a choice between Doctor Who and Torchwood.

And now I can't stop laughing.