In honor of St. Patrick's Day (and an upcoming trip to Ireland), here is my twist on that most Irish-American of sandwiches: The Reuben.

Ingredients
Focaccia bread
Corned Beef - freshly cooked or sliced from the deli
Thousand Island dressing
Colby-jack cheese (or any type of cheddar)
Marinated artichokes
Steps
Slice focaccia into squares; slice these squares lengthwise to open it up into two sandwich slices.
Pile one side of the sandwich with corned beef slices, a few pieces of artichoke, and a layer of cheese.
Bake in the oven on a cookie sheet until the cheese is melted nicely.
Serve with thousand island dressing.

It's that simple. I cooked up a hunk of (WIKIPEDIA - corned beef) last night, and wanted to have a snack of it before I freeze the rest. This is a sandwich inspired by the delicious panini at Panera Bread. The artichokes, a useful substitute for the traditional sauerkraut, gave an appropriate amount of crunch and flavor. I like the Co-jack cheese more than Swiss, anyway, so that's what I used.

I have a pile of stuff to do for the Ronald McDonald House
I have a pile of information for a certain special project.
I have a pile of wedding magazines, lists and related materials.
I have a pile of information for a (sigh) name change. At least I'll keep my initials, but it is an absolute mess to change my name.
I have a pile of shirts to decorate for a certain floor hockey team.
I have multiple piles of clothes to put away.
I have a pile of clothes to hang, and a pile of spring/summer clothes to sort through.
I have a pile of things to go to goodwill.
I have a pile of older wedding magazines (any takers? I'll deliver to north buffalo/amherst).
I have a pile of socks that may or may not have mates.
I have a pile of papers to file.
I have a pile of winter accessories that have, mercifully, been put in a closet until winter comes again.
And I have a puppy whose sole purpose this evening has been to step on, in or near every pile, knocking them over when she can.

Now that most of the snow has melted from our yard, I finally had the chance to do one of my most dreaded, most hated, most feared chores: dog poo duty.
I have a sturdy, easy-to-use scooper, which came in handy while picking up at least 15 pounds of the stuff. Note to self: next year, do this while the ambient outside air is still below freezing. Frozen bits are easier to deal with than mushy bits.
That being said, the temperature felt much higher than 52 degrees, and I was happy to be outside for - gosh, I think it took me twenty minutes.
So if you happened to drive on my street today, I was the girl in the pink jacket, muttering disgustedly to myself and talking to my muddy dog. If she had the capability, I swear she would have been laughing at me.

Does anyone have a carfax subscription (or whatever it's called). I need to look up a VIN. I'll spend the $19.99 if I have to, but I hope I don't have to.

(As an aside, if you type a VIN into Google, it automatically brings up the fact that it is a VIN, and provides a friendly link to Carfax.)

Cool links from this past week:

Zillow find out the worth of your house, and your neighbor's house.
What is tapioca? I shared a bowl of tapioca pudding this weekend; wikipedia says exactly what this delicious food is made from.
Subpixel rendering if you love photoshop, you'll appreciate this info. Also check out DesignFruit for some unique photoshop brushes.
Do you know what Tyler Durden would do?
Create and publish with lulu . It's been on my list of things to do for awhile.
The Six Thousand interesting people, every day or three.
Suckerfish when they work correctly, these CSS (with a 12 line javascript addon) menus are awesome.