Tuesday, March 29, 2011

In the kitchen

Today was my second day at home nursing a stubborn cold. I'm sure I'll be back at work tomorrow since my coughing and sniffles seem to be subsiding. That means no more dinner on the table when Chris walks in the door from work.
Personal pizzas to order. Chicken pesto for me and bbq chicken and bacon for the boy. It'll be back to Chris slowly dying on the couch of starvation while I make a racket in the kitchen.

Tomorrow is a co-workers birthday and since one of the few treats I know he'll eat is rice crispy treats I asked Chris to please make a batch tonight. I didn't want people to avoid them if I made them in fear of my cooties.
I scraped the crumbs out of the mixing pot and they were delicious. I can't wait until they set up so I can shovel mass quantities into my mouth.

Tonight kicked off the initial assault of "Operation: Payback" against our dill-hole, white trash neighbors across the street. The man of the house seems to buy a new (used) car every week, park them all over the street and then sell them only to buy more. Even though they know we park in front of our house on the street (along the side street) they've decided to long-term park one of their wrecks there so now Chris is having to park further away from the house. So, to repay the favor, he's parked the truck in front of their house and so far forced their sailor-mouthed daughter to park down the street. Mwhahahahaaaa!!!! Tune in for the next episode where Chris starts up the sleepy diesel at 7:30 am right after the mom comes home and goes to sleep from her graveyard shift job. This shall provide us with hours of entertainment!

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Invitation to partnership

This afternoon was a lunch at the First Baptist Church up in p-town that I grew up in for Susan C. to share with the congregation about her upcoming missionary assignment in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Mom met me there so that she could hear about C's new adventure and have a chance to pledge her monthly support.
The tables were decorated in a tropical theme to get our minds on the PNG way of life.
While we dined on our lunch of rice, teriyaki chicken and green beans, Todd and C. took turns talking to everyone about their plans and how we could participate.
Afterwards they retreated to a table in the back of the room full of information about their missionary work and forms for financial support for anyone who was interested.
We sat at C's table and had a good time trading plantain recipes with Todd after his recent trip to Samoa. He also filled us in on their upcoming April presentations where hopefully they'll get the rest of the financial pledges they need in order to be able to ship off to PNG in January 2012 as planned.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Pub Crawl

Today our home brew club went on a Sacramento pub crawl. It was more of a brewery tour crawl, but nobody says it that way. We met at a preschool in Chico this morning at 8:30 am, boarded a charter tour bus and headed down to Sacramento for 5 scheduled brewery tours. As soon as we boarded the bus club members starting pulling our their stashes of beer and pouring everyone samples. That's when I figured out why we were supposed to bring our plastic party cups from breakfast with us on the bus.
There were probably 4-5 pours already downed before we got to our first brewery, Rubicon Brewing Company in downtown Sacramento.
Chris took the brewery tour, but I stayed behind and babysat the beer and made some new friends with the ladies in our club. I didn't try any beers there, though in retrospect I wish I'd had the apple cider since our visit to Two Rivers Cider was canceled. Our second brewery visit was to Lockdown Brewing Co. in Rancho Cordova (still Sac).
It was hard to find because it was literally a tiny cubby in some storage looking building in an industrial park.
The club paid for the beers at Lockdown so Chris tried the sampler. I stuck to the non-alcoholic root beer, it was delicious! On the way to the next brewery, Hoppy Brewery, we had a raffle for lots of prizes and goodies on the bus and Chris' number was called. He chose the Hop Variety Handbook much to the envy of fellow onlookers.
Our stop at Hoppy was also our lunch break so we were able to stuff our faces with some much needed pub grub after the brewery tour.
Chris had what he called 'the best Reuben sandwich' he's ever had for lunch there. I had a turkey and gouda sandwich was was edible, but certainly nothing special. In fact I skipped the second half for some more of Chris' fries. Back on the bus we finally got to sample some alcohol the event organizer, Joanie, had brought called Green Moon that was an anise-flavored vodka that tasted like absinthe. Since Chris hates licorice flavor, I called dibs on his sample shot;
Yikes! That's harsh! No bueno. After lunch we stopped at Brew It Up in downtown Sac for a super quick in-n-out tour since the place was reserved for a wedding reception 20 minutes after we showed up.
Our last stop wasn't in Sacramento, but rather at Feather Falls in Oroville on our way back home. We'd already been there once and loved it, but this time we got the behind the scenes tour by the actual brewmaster.
Since we were there during the 7:00 pm hour we decided to grab some dinner as soon as the tour was over. Seafood tacos of course, our favorite from our last visit. We were loaded back on the bus and headed back for Chico by 7:45 pm. It was a long day, but utterly fun. The brew club members were a hoot and it was great having somebody else do all the driving! There's already talks of doing another brewery trip next year, maybe to the Santa Rosa/Petaluma area. We'd definitely be first in line to sign up!

Breakfast

This is how the brew club puts together a breakfast. Some token fruit and a crap load of hard alcohol!

Sent from my HTC Inspire™ 4G on AT&T

Friday, March 25, 2011

Friday matinee

Watching the first showing of Lincoln Lawyer.

Sent from my HTC Inspire™ 4G on AT&T

Thursday, March 24, 2011

News worthy

Since we've got trees and power down the local news finds it worthy of doing a story on.

Sent from my HTC Inspire™ 4G on AT&T

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Cootie attack

Snotty nose and sore throat....uh oh!

Sent from my HTC Inspire™ 4G on AT&T

Most spirited

I like to change my computer desktop image for each season/holiday. Now it's all about Easter eggs!

Sent from my HTC Inspire™ 4G on AT&T

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Cooking with coconut

We tried a new recipe tonight, mahi mahi in coconut curry sauce over coconut cardamon rice;
It's a WW receipt and very delicious. Fillets of mahi mahi marinated in red curry paste and lime juice and then baked in lite coconut milk with slices of red bell pepper. Instead of serving it over plain white rice we used the rest of the coconut milk to cook the rice and added some ground cardamon. It smelled and tasted divine.

Mad for plaid

The official uniform of engineers.

New release

New Sierra Nevada beer with the Vina monks.

Sent from my HTC Inspire™ 4G on AT&T

Saturday, March 19, 2011

B&N night

Just another Saturday night reading mags and drinking coffee at Barnes &Noble.

Sent from my HTC Inspire™ 4G on AT&T

Scrap cards

I'm helping put together scrap cards this afternoon for a fundraiser next month. Two cards and one, two-page layout for $25. What a deal!

Sent from my HTC Inspire™ 4G on AT&T

Friday, March 18, 2011

Finders keepers

Chris' parking lot treasure from CholoMaxx.

Sent from my HTC Inspire™ 4G on AT&T

Dinner out

Yummy dinner at Franky's tonight!

Sent from my HTC Inspire™ 4G on AT&T

Smile!

Super lame passport photo, here I come!

Sent from my HTC Inspire™ 4G on AT&T

Raining on my parade

Why does it always start raining when I'm getting ready to go grocery shopping?

Sent from my HTC Inspire™ 4G on AT&T

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Special delivery

The Canadian was excited to see that his mail order hops arrived in the mail today.
While I got dinner ready he went out and planted them in the risers he'd placed over the weekend. Hopefully they take to their new home.

After four weeks of compression therapy, here's how my fatty right foot compares to normal;
I'm hoping my recently ordered compression toe sock (toe cap) will help with that last bit of swelling. My therapist said the rest of my right foot, calf and thigh is very comparative to my left side based on the measurements, it's just the forefoot that is being stubborn. It had better start cooperating soon because I refuse to buy a larger shoe for my right foot!

Planting time

Chris surprised me with some new plantings in our citrus plant barrels. A nice burst of spring time color!

Sent from my HTC Inspire™ 4G on AT&T

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Therapy day

The best part of physical therapy is the coffee afterwards!

Sent from my HTC Inspire™ 4G on AT&T

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Fire up that crockpot

..it's time for corned beef and cabbage!
I know it's not until Thursday, but it's too hard to create this masterpiece on a work day. I had mine served with a leftover cornbread muffin from serving Salvation Army dinner tonight. Delicious!

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Hop garden

The Canadian's newest project involved preparing an area of the back yard as a hop garden to supplement his new brewing craze. He placed large, fiberglass risers (septic system parts) along the back wall of the house (basically outside our bedroom window) and set up an irrigation system for them.
Then I helped him string twine from each riser up to the roof ledge and back down as climbing guides for the hops.
The hops have been ordered online and will soon be providing Chris with hours of drunken happiness.