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Holding pattern

As you can tell, this blog has become dormant for now.

That’s not to say that I’ve given up on blogging…it’s just twitter, and other forms of social media have become the primary way for me to disseminate thought.

As well as other projects such as Melts In Your Pocket.

The domain andrewseely.com will soon hopefully go under a redesign, with this blog more or less going into archive mode until a new use for it can be found. Sidenote: Geocities where I hosted the images for the header and such is now closed so that adds to the decay of this blog in its current form.

See ya round the internets.

~andrew

ghetto 120

New Ghetto Blog

MiYP 001

Well here we go. The first episode of Melts In Your Pocket (formerly known as Sooper Seekrit Project) is now up and ready for your viewing. Head over to www.meltsinyourpocket.com and check it out!!

Thanks.

sooper seekrit project

Well here’s the big announcement:

www.MeltsInYourPocket.com

go there see what all the fuss is about.

ghetto 119

New Ghetto Blog

day29

I felt creative and made a little video. Inspired by my friend Natasha.

Enjoy.

http://www.viddler.com/player/352876d2/

day29
brought to you by viddler.com

day28

If you know me at all you know I like to cook. Though I usually never share recipes, since I don’t really believe in them and only use them for inspiration. And I never really measure either. But here you go.

This weekend I made (twice) a little chicken pot pie. I have bisquick lying around my house and figured I there’s got to be a recipe online for a bisquick version of chicken pot pie.

Turns out there are a few. I used them as inspiration for my own version.

Most of them called for precooked or frozen veggies or even cream of _____ soup. All of which I thought didn’t sound as tasty as fresh ingredients.

Here’s my version of bisquick chicken pot pie.

1-2 Breasts of chicken
1 med/large potato
1/2 white onion
3 stalks celery
1-2 large carrots
3-4 cloves garlic
a few handfuls of frozen peas (just easier than trying to find fresh)
a few sprigs of fresh rosemary
1/4-1/2 cup bisquick mix
1/2 cup milk

bisquick topping
1 1/2 cup bisquick
3 tbs butter
1/4-1/2 cup water

Pre-heat oven to 350-375

Cut chicken and veggies into small cubes about 1/4″ pieces. Mince garlic and rosemary.

Put chicken into a large pot with olive oil to coat, start to cook over med/hi heat. Once chicken starts to turn white (some pink ok) add in veggies and garlic and rosemary. Cook another 3-5 min, until veggies start to soften a little. Add salt and pepper to taste.

After 3-5 min, sprinkle dry bisquick mix onto everything, stir to coat, should absorb some of the moisture. Add milk to your desired consistency, note that sauce will thicken in oven, so add until slightly soupier than you want in the final product.

Remove from heat.

Either while veggies are cooking or after they have been taken off the heat. Take the 1 1/2 cup of bisquick, cut butter up into small pieces. Add butter to mix, coat with mix. With fork start to mix butter and bisquick, slowly adding water until dough starts to combine, add water in small amounts and then stir to combine. Dough should be somewhat sticky. On a clean surface, turn out dough onto a dusting of bisquick, and lightly kneed, adding more bisquick as needed (a little at a time) until dough is slightly tacky to the touch but not sticky. Either flatten or roll out dough into a square about 8″x8″.

Take filling from pot and fill a 9″x9″ pan with filling. (Add more milk if mixture seems overly thick). Cover filling with dough, spreading to edges. Place 9″x9″ on a baking sheet (might bubble over) and place in oven for 30-45 min or until top is brown. Remove from oven and let cool 10-15 min. Enjoy. Serves 4-6.

It’s turned out quite tasty. Let me know what you think or what improvements you make to it.

day27

Looking back on the progress of this project, I guess I am impressed with myself somewhat. While not totally satisfied, as can be seen by the few gaps in the days that I’ve posted, I have noticed that I have largely stuck to my guns about writing. This in no way has been easy or natural. In fact the last month has screamed by and I feel that in lot of ways this has been a huge challenge for me. More often than not, when I didn’t post, it was more than likely that I had gotten busy and was unable to carve time out when I wanted to, though there were a few days when I just didn’t feel like it.

I think it will help me get back in a regular pattern of blogging and has helped me see blogging as more a discipline than anything else. It takes time and effort. The ideas do not come easily and it is something I have to really want to do.

There has been a lot of talk about how services such as Twitter, has been killing off the blog faster than the usual abandon rate of most blogs. Which I can attest to. Often times ideas come to my head, but then it’s too easy to not write them because I cannot concisely sum it up in 140 characters or less.

I have debated back and forth with batch posting, where I sit down and write 2 or more posts at once and then schedule them to go live over a period of time, which frees me up to not to have to sit down and post everyday. Tonight is an example of that, I have 2 posts in my head that I want to get down and would allow me the freedom of two days of not having to worry about coming up with something to write or forgetting what I wanted to say by the time it comes to write them.

What do you all think? What have you liked best about this experiment? What would you change? What would you have done differently?

day25

(sorry this is late, I just got home, so I’m counting it as day25)

I had a nice chat today via skype with a great friend Sloane. You see Sloane is a Kiva Fellow with the organization Kiva (if you don’t know Kiva you should!!) working in the Philippines for the next 3 months.

She just got there in the last 48 hrs and quickly we got to talking about the culture there and she mentioned that seemingly no one there get divorced. And this got me thinking about marriage in general, and more specifically about marriage here in the US. No, this isn’t going to turn into a post about gay marriage, but I want to think critically about why in this 3rd world country that has a large population of Christians, divorce is so low.

I really want to think hard about the fact that we might have something to learn from this country when it comes to marriages and divorce. With the US’s divorce rate at more than 50% I think we have a lot to think about. I don’t have any material about even the possible reasons behind why the rate is so low there. Sloane did mention that the fees to annul are really high, but she was completely surprised that the rates of divorce were pretty much non-existent.

I begin to wonder if being part of an impoverished country forces people to rely on one another more when it comes to family. Or is it because the wealth and freedom of the US gives us the mindset that if we don’t like something we can always replace it? Or is it something deeper in the culture and minds of the people there versus the people here?

This is the sociological side of my brain working over time here. I tasked Sloane to dig a little deeper and I’m excited to hear more thoughts from her as her journey continues.

Sometimes it’s easy to think that our little country doesn’t have it all figured out compared to the rest of the world. It’s too easy because we have plenty and we control so much that our thinking always falls towards thinking that our way is always the best way.

There are many times I deeply long for things to be simpler. Could it be that all our stuff, all our wealth, all our choices and all our powers have actually made things more complicated? Not just in terms of marriage but in life as well.

There’s certainly a lot to think about here. And I definitely don’t have all the answers. Though I am processing things, I am searching, I am digging deeper, because simply ignoring these issues won’t move us any closer to understanding them.

I’m jealous of Sloane’s trip and the work that she’s going to be doing, helping people with micro-lending and hearing stories of people who are moving from poverty to self-sufficiency. It will be an amazing 3 months. I’m glad to know people like her who are willing to serve others for the good of mankind. If only more people were willing to sacrifice in order to do good, the world would be a much better place.

Blessings to you Sloane, like I said before, love others, serve them, listen and learn. The trip has just started, but your life will be changed forever.

day24/vlog34

http://www.viddler.com/player/a9894487/

day24/vlog34
brought to you by viddler.com

note: I did shoot this on the correct day, but had uploading issues, hence the delay.

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