November 26, 2007 at 10:30 am
- Five days off makes it very tough to come back to work. Where it all went, I have no idea.
- After five years, we finally got a rug for our bedroom. It’s one of those things we never got around to, but thinking that it would help us keep the room warm, it was time. So we had to move almost all the furniture out of the room to put it down, but we were too lazy to completely move everything out. So after an hour of struggling with it, and moving the furniture back in, we realized that the rug was crooked. Being completely anal, we of course had to fix it. So in a mad dash during one of Tess’s naps, we moved everything out and fixed it. We’re idiots.
- The annual jarring of the sauce is complete. We made so much that we ran out of jars and had to go buy some more. The final jar count: 29. That’s a lot of sauce.
- After a two and a half year hiatus, our backgammon set made a surprise appearance. For a while, we were obsessed with it, playing games all the time. Once we moved, the set ended up in a closet, and we sort of forgot about it, but I’m glad that it’s back. I’m not one to gloat, but I have yet to lose a game since its reappearance. I don’t expect that to last though.
- I spent Saturday blowing leaves around the yard. I suppose I could have just raked them, but it’s a lot more fun blowing stuff around. After fighting with the whole vacuum/mulching part of it, I’ve decided that it’s just easier and quicker to bag them by hand. I hate leaves. But not as much as snow.
- We made our first batch of pumpkin bread of the year. Last year, the pregnant Lovely Suse went through this stuff like it was going out of style. I think we made it every other week for a while. I can’t blame her. It is that good. And it makes George go loco.
- It takes us two days at the minimum to make it through a movie now. Usually three. We’re pathetic.
- With enough time, patience, research, and an understanding wife, you too can make one of these. Not that I’m saying you should. But you could.
- Thanksgiving was as hectic as I expected. With 26 people, including 6 little kids, it wasn’t exactly a calm event. Hell, I don’t even think I got to talk to half of the people there. On the bright side, Tess got passed from one cousin to the next, so we got to actually eat in peace. And watch our nephew throw green beans and potatoes around the room. That was fun.
Tags: 2007, topten
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November 19, 2007 at 12:17 pm
- I gotta say, I like two day work weeks. Why don’t the powers that be just go ahead and give everyone the entire week of Thansgiving off. That would be something to be thankful for. I was thinking about the Thanksgiving meal and what I like best about it, and I came to the conclusion that there’s not a single part of it that I love. Turkey, no matter how well it’s cooked, is just sort of eh. Potatoes are ok, but everyone eats potatoes all the time. Green beans and other vegetables are fine, but nothing to get too excited about. Stuffing? Well, i do like stuffing. But only the kind cooked inside the bird, so it’s all juicy and mushy. Desserts and pies are sort of an afterthought for me. I’m not a big pumpkin pie fan, and most fruit-based pies don’t get me too worked up. I think the only pie that I really love is blueberry pie, and that’s rarely a Thanksgiving treat. The thing that I dig about the Thanksgiving meal is the complete mess that my plate becomes. When you take the individual elements and pile them all up and then hit the whole thing with a river of gravy, now we’re talking. Plus, I love a holiday that is purely about eating without any gift giving or religious overtones.
- Our dog is completely addicted to the duck poppers from Polka Dog Bakery, and while we’re happy to buy them when we’re in the neighborhood, they’re expensive and we’re constantly running out of them. The last time we bought them, we asked what was actually in them that made dogs go insane for them. The ingredients? Duck and rice. Well, this sounds like a project, right? So on Friday night we stopped over at Super 88 and picked up some duck, ground it up, cooked up some rice, mixed it all together, made little balls of the mix, and then baked them for a couple of hours until they dried out and browned up. Although a little higher rice-to-duck ratio than the originals, George was frigging nuts for them. So for $10 worth of duck, he’ll get his fix for a nice long time. Ah, the things we do for our puppy.
- Also at Super 88 is Yo! Berry, delicious frozen yogurt topped with all sorts of fruits and toppings. We tried the original flavor (the other is green tea) topped with fresh raspberries, and I suddenly understand why people become addicted to Pinkberry.
- We hit up Full Moon on Sunday for brunch with Danny and Butler and families. It’s well known for being the family friendly restaurant, and despite living around the corner for three years, we never considered going there without a kid in tow. I gotta say, it was great. Sure there were a million little kids running around, but the food was good, the kids could go entertain themselves in the toy corner, I got to do some coloring with crayons. And if your kid happens to have a total breakdown in the middle of your meal, no one notices or cares. I get the feeling that we’ll be back as eating out at normal places gets tougher as Tess gets older. Plus, they have booze!
- My computer caught on fire. Well, not really the computer, but it sounds more exciting that way. The power supply for my speakers started sparking and smoking after I vacuumed the area. Who knows what caused it, but I learned a valuable lesson from it. Vacuuming is bad.
- Watching the Pats steamroll everyone this year is fun. Plus, I can usually stop watching after the first half if they’re up by at least 30. Maybe I’ll actually start watching the C’s again since, you know, they’re actually awesome again. I guess I owe it to them.
- I think that this will be the weekend that we make our yearly batch of sauce. People now expect it for the holidays, and last year we waited until the last minute. Plus, we’re all out of our own stash of sauce, so we need to stock up. Hopefully, we’ll make a bigger batch this year so we won’t have to be so stingy with it. We haven’t had to buy jarred sauce for a few years now, but we use it pretty sparingly throughout the year. The Lovely Suse makes some good sauce.
- Tess got her first taste of sweet potatoes this weekend. After the initial shock of “what the hell is this stuff that actually tastes like something”, she warmed up to it in a hurry. Like, sitting there with her mouth open waiting for more. After 6 months of drinking and eating stuff that doesn’t have a lot of flavor, sweet potatoes must be a total shock to a kid’s tastebuds. I think next is squash and green beans and then pizza. And do you really have to ask if we’re making our own baby food? We’re making the dog duck poppers, for crissakes!
Tags: 2007, topten
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November 12, 2007 at 3:07 pm
- Ahhhhh, it feels nice to go back to being a lazy, tv-watching slob. I missed it.
- The return of Gordon and Karen back to Boston! Has it really been two years since we saw them? Rest assured that Gordon’s hair is looking as luxuriant as ever.
- We spent last New Year’s Eve watching the complete marathon of Everst: Beyond the Limit, a fascinating show following a group of climbers attempting to summit Everest. Well, it’s back for a second season, and I couldn’t be more excited. Two things I’ve learned thus far from the show: climbing Everest is one of the stupidest and most dangerous things you can possibly do. Every year, people die trying to do it, and their frozen bodies remain on the mountain as a reminder of the fact (and it’s too dangerous to attempt to bring them down). Second, I would die in about 4 seconds. I don’t exactly like the cold weather or heights or snow, so this is pretty much the last thing I would ever want to do. But, I love watching other people try to do it. The site has a blog, and of course I couldn’t help myself, so I already know how the expedition turns out. I’ll still watch every episode.
- I spent the weekend weatherstripping doors around the house. I get a sick satisfaction out of it for some reason. Of course the first door I did it too wouldn’t close after I installed it, so that sort of defeated the whole purpose, but I eventually got it right. I even did that old school window insulation on some old back door windows where you put the plastic up and use a blowdryer to make it tight. Hell, it actually works. Who knew? Our back hallway is still freezing cold, and I can’t figure out where the draft is coming from. I suspect it’s coming from out upstairs neighbor, so I’ll have to investigate. On the brighter side, if I ever want to keep a side of beef refrigerated, I could keep it in the back hallway and it would stay nice and chilled.
- I’ll be on my own with the kids for two days this week. Pray for me.
- You know what’s awesome about daycare? Getting sick. A lot. I’m pretty sure that last Thursday, I had about 10,000% of my daily recommended dose of vitamin C between pills, Emergen-C, and Airborne, along with lots of fluids and echinacea. I fought it off for the most part, but I still have some lingering symptoms. Again, pray for me.
- For the past few months, we’ve watched this small arts and crafts style house in our neighborhood get renovated from a falling-apart mess to a thing of beauty. It’s just the kind of house that we’d want to live in: small, cozy, lots of character, great wraparound porch, sleeping porch on the second floor, in our neighborhood, etc. We happened to drive by yesterday (or as the Lovely Suse puts it, “Let’s go drive by my house.”) and they were having an open house, so of course we had to check it out. The house was purchased in August for not a whole lot more than we paid for our place, and they just put in on the market for more than twice the price. So if anyone has a spare million bucks and wants to come live in a great house in our neighborhood, come on down. Or better yet, if you want to buy it for us, I’ll promise to cook you dinner every night for as long as you want.
Tags: 2007, topten
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November 5, 2007 at 10:42 am
- We have a lot of leftover Halloween candy, and I have no problem with that. Peanut M&M’s, Whoppers, Kit Kats, and most importantly, Junior Mints. I love me some Junior Mints. “Who’s gonna turn down a Junior Mint? It’s chocolate, it’s peppermint– it’s *delicious*!…It’s very refreshing!”
- The dehydrator is a big hit so far, and all of our remaining apple picking apples are now in a moisture-free state. We’ve also done some bananas, and a batch of cranberries are working as we speak. Who wants some jerky?!
- I finally swapped out the annoying dimmer switch in our kitchen so that we could swap out the halogen lights with CFL’s. I’ve been working on trying to find bulbs that both look good and have a short warm-up period, and my goal is to finish replacing the rest of our bulbs by the end of the year. We only have the hallway, bathroom, and dining room chandelier left to go, with the bathroom being the biggest challenge. That’s the one room where you don’t want to mess with the lighting too much.
- We made some frogurt using Oregon Chai, and amazingly enough, it tastes almost exactly like our beloved Sweet Scoops Pumpkin frogurt. Unfortunately, it doesn’t taste anything like the Mexican cinnamon ice cream that our friends served us on Saturday night. When you taste homemade ice cream made with an egg custard base, you realize what real ice cream is supposed to taste like. However, if we ate this every night, we’d each gain about 40 pounds.
- Easiest, tastiest chicken recipe ever. Take a box of kosher salt and completely line the bottom of a baking dish with a layer of salt. Put chicken on top, completely douse with more salt. Put in oven for an hour or until the thigh temperature is 170, take out, scrape off the salt, eat.
- Joes’s Bears for Babies!
- After this coming week, I’m going to watch a lot of TV. I can’t wait.
- I’m playing around with Jango, yet another customized streaming music site, which so far, is pretty good. I don’t know if it’s any better than the likes of Last.fm, Pandora, or Slacker, but I’ll give it a go. If anyone wants a beta invite, I have three to give away. Let me know if you want one.
- Sometime soon, I will own one of these. I. Must. Have. One.
Tags: 2007, topten
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