The Web Cam

Am I the only one who finds this amusing that we have the Exeter web cam? Click here to view the exciting bandstand and Town Hall.

NHPR is Back-- Very Cool

So NHPR is back with a very cool Town meeting project. Here's the info from their Executive Editor Jon Greenberg:
Exeter Friends –
I hope you will give a gander at our hottest contribution to the web – our interactive Town Meeting Map. If you didn’t have time to get to the earlier meetings in Exeter and you want a snap shot of some of the more scintillating warrant articles, this feature is a dream come true. Your very own Russ Dean added Exeter’s information to the site and now you can see what’s up and …
ADD YOUR OWN COMMENTS, FOR OR AGAINST, A PARTICULAR WARRANT ARTICLE.
In keeping with the principle that an email without an exhortation to post is an email not worth sending, I invite you to help break the ice on the Exeter-specific discussion page -- even if you just want to write that you like everything on the warrant and welcome the chance to pay property taxes. FYI, you will need to register on the NHPR web site to post a comment if you’ve never done so before. It is a process that asks much less than the PPO sign-up. Sorry if this takes you an extra 30 seconds but we haven’t figured out how to merge the two data bases.
Should you be inspired to send one of these links to your Exeter friends, that would be nifty.
By the way, the Town Meeting project is statewide. Every town has been invited to participate and every town gets its own discussion page. About 80 towns have signed up already and more are coming in every day.
Interactively yours,
Jon Greenberg, Executive Editor

And here's the link to the Exeter page: Click here

The Sick House

Here it is 10 a.m. and I'm still in my PJs...Not because I'm sick, that was last week. Now it's poor Willie. He came down with a fever Sunday, followed by congestion, runny nose, etc. For the past 3 days, we've been relegated to the couch together. By this morning, I didn't even bother getting dressed. He woke up at 3:23 a.m. today, screaming, cranky. And he's been up ever since, though in a semi hypnotized sick state. I had grand plans of catching up on work this week... Now I've accepted (this is a hard thing for me) that when your child gets sick, you can pretty much forget about anything else. Are readers of the newspaper really going to care if I don't write yet another story about the Cooperative School Board this week? some might. But in the long run, that's not really part of the big picture.
So it's back to the couch to hold my little boy and wipe his runny nose as we make our way through another day of cartoons. There's nothing quite like the feeling when he turns to me upon waking up, smiles briefly and says "MAMA" before wiping his runny nose on my shirt.. again. And I'm really getting into the deep plot of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Sesame Street.

Week 3 South Beach Diet...

Wayne wanted to know how the diet's going.. Well, it's here in part. Gone in part. Somehow I've lost 12 pounds. Don't know how? The snow this afternoon forced me to buy some more of that wet stone wine, good stuff, which is definitely not on the diet.
I tried. I really did. One day I was so sick of eggs, cheese sticks, salads and the rest of the stuff I was supposed to eat, I hit rock bottom. Determined not to eat something not on the diet, but naseous thinking about more eggs,etc., I ate fat free/sugar free fudge pops, pistachio nuts, sugar free jello cups and sugar free flavored water all day. And this is why my husband often calls me neurotic.
And then there was the little incident called going to Margarita's last weekend with my old roommate Missy. Can you say cheese, more cheese, and more cheese?? And margaritas, aka, sugar fest.
I've also been eating the 10 pound loaf of whole grain bread affectionally known as the "lead bread" which is so hard to digest it allegedly slows absorption of all fats. My jaw hurts for days after eating a piece of this stuff. I've convinced myself that if I eat a piece of this stuff I have clearance for at least 10 hours to eat whatever I want.
Wet stone wine and cheese dip sound good!

Pork and Beer Hooray

Courtesy Epicurious.com
This is so tasty.. A great one to put in the fridge in the morning and then grill up at night. YUUM

2 cups water

2 cups dark lager beer

1/4 cup coarse salt

3 tablespoons (packed) dark brown sugar

3 tablespoons mild-flavored (light) molasses

1 cup ice cubes

6 1- to 1 1/4-inch-thick center-cut bone-in pork chops

7 large garlic cloves, minced

3 teaspoons coarsely ground black pepper

2 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons dried sage leaves
Preparation

Combine 2 cups water, beer, 1/4 cup coarse salt, sugar, and molasses in large bowl. Stir until salt and sugar dissolve. Stir in ice. Place pork chops in large resealable plastic bag. Pour beer brine over pork chops; seal bag. Refrigerate 4 hours, turning bag occasionally.
Prepare barbecue (medium-high heat). Remove pork chops from beer brine; pat dry. Mix garlic, pepper, 2 teaspoons salt, and sage in small bowl. Rub garlic mixture over both sides of pork chops. Grill pork chops until instant-read thermometer inserted into center of chops registers 145°F to 150°F, about 10 minutes per side, occasionally moving chops to cooler part of rack if burning. Transfer chops to platter; cover with foil, and let stand 5 minutes. Serve.

Selectmen Candidates to Face Off

This just in.. Three of the four candidates for selectmen will take part in a candidate's night Wednesday at 7 p.m. in the Nowak Room of the Town Offices. Matt Quandt, Bobby Aldrich and Bill Campbell will be present. The other candidate, Tanis, is out of the country. It's being sponsored by the Exeter Area Junior Women's Club.

New Book by Local Author

I've been down and out with the flu all week... so haven't been up for blogging. But I'm back and with news of a new book from local author James Buchanan called Selling Their Childhood.

From the web site on the book:

The stories collected in this book are compelling, real, sensual and experiential. They are narratives that draw the reader into the lives and experiences of people quietly, yet bravely facing the complexities of life as they seek the most simple of goals—happiness.There is the teenage boy sitting on the steps of a bus station in Omaha trying to see that there is a life for him beyond prostituting himself to the men who drive in from the suburbs.There is the woman losing herself in the deep blue of the landscape as she patiently and painfully waits as her husband and sister work to make a child as a last hope to build a family.And there is the new dad desperately trying to calm his child as he wrestles with the reality underlying his wife’s idealism.These as well as the other stories collected in this book explore the textures of life and are told in a manner that allows the reader to see and feel the worlds these characters inhabit.

James, 42, who used to work with me at the newspaper, lives in Exeter with his two children, Quincy and Violet, and their cat Jesse and leopard gecko Spotty. You may remember him from the first campaign of State Senator Maggie Hassan (He was the campaign manager).

Check out James' web site at http://www.orchardwriting.com/ for more info.