Fortress of Solitude

After lots of discussion Chris decided this was the weekend to get started on our front yard makeover. We've decided to put up a fence in the front yard, making a little rectangle courtyard. Both to keep our crazy neighbors from eye shot and to help muffle the sound of the diesel, jet engine powered transit buses that drive by every five minutes. After I cleaned our breakfast dishes this morning I went outside and found Chris laying the fence parameters:
While he worked on the yard I ran out and did some errands. When I got back he'd started removing sod:
That strip of dirt is on the outside of the fence line. We're going to put low perimeter logs along the outer edge of that swath and then fill it in with soil and shrubs. The dirt swatch follows the fence line at a rounded angle to keep the fence area from looking so square. After lunch Chris headed back out to pull all the sod out of the courtyard area which we are going to replace with either bricks or paving stones.
The fence is a white vinyl material with the top foot or so made out of lattice. We're buying them in 6' wide panels. Then you buy the coordinating posts and snap them all together. At least that's how it works in the perfect world, or on TV. In reality we're going to have to do a little ground leveling first with the help of a rented rototiller and a rented friend. Then we've got to do some exploratory work in the area of our posts for water and sewer lines. Today's goal was just to get the sod up, any tilling will probably wait until next weekend. Plus we still need to run over to Lowe's and buy the fence panels. Details, details.

Other than that, the week went pretty fast. I had bible study here this week so I made the crock pot chili that I included in Wilson's cookbook, cornbread muffins and broccoli salad. It was my first attempt ever at broccoli salad, but I dare say it came out very tasty. But how can you go wrong following a Paula Deen recipe (and no, there wasn't a stick of butter included).
Broccoli, cheddar cheese, halved cherry tomatoes, sunflower seeds, bacon, red onions and cranberries. The dressing is a mix of fat free mayonnaise, sugar and white wine vinegar. Surprisingly very tasty. Not that I would make something gross on purpose, but the idea of broccoli salad has never interested me and I had no intentions of actually eating any (raw veggies are a no-no for my tummy). But one little sample bite had me hooked so I doubled up on my tummy meds and served myself up a serving, too.

For dessert I made a homemade pumpkin cheesecake with Splenda. It's okay. I think when you use Splenda exclusively in a recipe and in such large quantities (1 1/4 cups) you're bound to get an odd aftertaste and consistency. Nobody spit it out, but I would never make it again and I think they deserve a real dessert next time for sitting through this one.
Speaking of food, I picked up some teriyaki mahi mahi from S&S yesterday for Chris to bbq. It's not as spine tingling delicious as the cajun catfish, but it's still good. Chris made it even better with a little glaze of additional teriyaki and some of my Thai chili sauce.
I'm making baked chimichangas tonight. It's a recipe of Kari's that she's made for me before. I'm crockpotting a rump roast right now in onion soup mix which I will shred later and add to a pan with cumin, southwest seasoning, salt and red wine vinegar. Then you spray both sides of a tortilla, pile some filling in the center and roll it up like a burrito (when a folded over bottom) and bake it until golden brown in a 450 oven. Then you top it with cheese, salsa and sour cream. They're really good. Hopefully I do them justice. Either you'll see photos, or this will be the last you hear of them.

Tomorrow we're going to Mum's for Easter dinner. Ham, potatoes and asparagus. Mr. A's still in Orygun so it'll just be the three of us (and Izzy). And of course I'll be stopping in to say 'hi' to Jesus in the morning. It is Easter after all. When I told Kari that Easter service was one of my least favorites because I don't like singing all the reserection hymns and as an example I belted out a couple of lines of "He Lives" to which she said that was her favorite song to sing. Ugh. That just ensures that we'll be singing it tomorrow. Way to go, me.

Tennis for Two

We had a wild hair today to dig out and dust off our tennis rackets and go for a jaunty game of tennis at the Pleasant Valley High courts. We actually had a couple of good rallies, but that was followed up by mile high lobs and me yelling "sorry" a lot. Rusty skills + new balls = good times.


Yesterday we relaxed, went to Barnes & Noble's and got Chris' fro cut.
Chris would only let me take a photo if I turned off the flash so that nobody saw me. He didn't want to be embarrassed by his wife taking pictures of him being a big boy.

For dinner that night I picked up some cajun catfish from S&S Produce for Chris to bbq. It's our absolute favorite fish from there. The marinade is to die for and Chris gives the fish a fabulous crispy coating on the bbq. Since the fish is a little spicy we serve it on a bed of herb and butter rice a roni.

I took Friday off from work since I have a ridiculous amount of vacation time and I didn't have to be up in town for nails. Instead, I stayed home and slept. And I managed to get some grocery shopping in too. The 'rents called and invited us over for some evening wine after dinner. Since I don't drink white or red wine (I prefer rose) I brought a mug of coffee with me, but Chris is no stranger to the red. We drank and caught up with them about their trip to North Carolina. They brought a t-shirt back for Chris and Mum got me a handmade lapel pin that is a woven flower basket with sewn flowers.

Mr. A. is heading up to Oregon for a week so Mum has already made plans to have us over for Easter lunch/dinner with her next Sunday. I think Chris is going to spend Thursday night with her, too, since bible study is here this week and I expect a full house, which is 6 too many for Chris' liking. My bible study group has decided to go to Spirit West Coast this summer in Monterey at Laguna Seca. It's a big Christian woodstock with a bagillion bands. We all bought our tickets last week while they were still at the cheaper $98 rate. It's a three day concert so that's a pretty good price. We're going to rent a house there, too, so that should be fun.

Oye! It's gym time already! Gotta run. Figuratively and literally!

All done babysitting

The 'rents are back! No more babysitting. We went over last night and had a last chance love fest with Izzy.
We also stopped by California Pasta Productions and bought them a family meal pack for their return since it's not like they'd have a bunch of groceries awaiting them. We also left them a note about all the naughty things Izzy was up to in their absence. All night kitty keggers and catnip parties.

Other big news? I got my hair cut. Actually I just had my wanna be mullet cut off. The back was getting too long and was taking the attention away from my mustache so I called Colleen and she got me in that same day.
I tried another new recipe earlier this week. Homemade peanut butter cups. A mix of cool whip and peanut butter scooped into muffin cups and topped with sugar free chocolate syrup and then frozen. Cool whip doesn't freeze completely so you can't actually peel them out of the paper wrappers and hold them, but they were still delicious none the less.
Next time I think I'm going to line the cups first with chocolate because that seems to harden up well, freeze them and then scoop in the filling. Then maybe you could pop them out of the wrappers.

Speaking of food, Chris finally popped open his jar of homemade kimchee from his old co-worker in Oregon that was at the Sacramento conference with Chris. It looks hideous, but doesn't really smell. Until it comes out the other end....
I steer clear of any kimchee that isn't the sweet stuff from Asian Gardens.

Oh, other news; I got a new camera! It's the top rated camera for it's class last year and it happened to be on sale this week at Home Depot. It's a Canon PowerShot A1000. It's smaller than my Panasonic (like Jessica's), but not the super compact kind. I made a promise I wouldn't drop this one on the ground. You can't trust me with anything!

Lunch at the Lake

Since the 'rents are still in N.C. we're still on Izzy duty. Today we decided to bring some lunch grub with us so we could let her out to roam around. Chris bbq'd up hot dogs and we had some chips with them while we watched Izzy stalk the neighborhood walkers from behind the bushes.

Mum has done a lot of work to the front "yard" of their condo. It came with complimentary ivy and ugly bushes which Mum immediately pulled out and made the yard maintenance people haul away. The finished result is very nice:
We figured once we let Izzy out she'd be off like a bullet, but no, she actually wouldn't get away from us.

We kept telling her to scram and make some friends, but she just kept coming back. Oh well, it made it easier to get her inside when we were ready to leave.

We got home around 3:00 and Chris hit the front and back yard with the lawn mower while I tackled the inside. Sweeping, vacuuming, wiping, de-cluttering, etc. Now I don't fear the cops kicking in the door wondering how people can live like this.

A pot of rice just finished cooking which needs to cool for a new Rachael Ray recipe I'm making tonight. I saw it the other day at work, turkey burgers with pinto beans and rice mixed in. It looked pretty tasty and I happened to have some leftover ground turkey from my crockpot barley soup last weekend. I seem to have hit or miss luck with her recipes so we'll see.

Planting Time

Being the seasoned farmers that we are, we took advantage of the recent good weather to get our summer vegetable garden together. And by 'we' I mean Chris while I sat and supervised. Chris came home from work yesterday with an array of veggie delights:




Chris moved our garden bed a little closer to the fence this year (or at least it looks that way to me) and brought home some extra riser material from work (fiberglass access rings for septic tanks) to plant in too. After a little magic and fairy dust here was the end result:


The tall riser in the back with the lid is our new compost pile. At the Green Summit in Sacramento I got a free under sink compost bucket which inspired Chris to dedicate a spot in the yard for the scraps. You know what else we planted that I just realized I didn't take a photo of? Japanese eggplant (the long skinny ones). That's in the middle riser. I just remembered looking at the plant tag in the riser when I took the photo. Some of the starters came in six packs, but we didn't plant them all. I think Chris is going to offer up the leftovers to Mum when they get back from North Carolina.

Wilson and I had lunch today at T Bar in Chico. I enlightened her to a new delicious place to take her friends next time she's in town. Besides fabulous food they have yummy frozen tea concoctions.

In other breaking news; look at the milestone my car, Tango just hit today:


As soon as I backed up, out of the driveway, it hit 20,000. Sniff, sniff....he's no longer a shiny new baby.

Tuesday night we went to the movies and saw 'I Love You, Man'. It was funny. Not as funny as Knocked Up or Pineapple Express, but still good. We want to see Duplicity, too (with Clive Owen and Julia Roberts). Maybe this weekend since we have no big plans except to sleep in.

So it's only March and my Project 365 is already getting behind. That's the scrapbook project where I take a photo everyday. I'm taking the photos, but I'm not being consistent about printing them and getting them in the album. I think I'm three weeks behind, with two of those weeks still sitting at Walmart waiting to be picked up. My goal this weekend, besides cleaning up this pig sty, is to get that stuff caught up. And world peace.

And lastly, my nail lady had my Partylite candle order for me today. I'd ordered three mini jar candles in two different scents; teakwood & cardamon and tamboti safari. They're both musky with patchouli for the damn dirty hippie hidden inside of me. Mmmm.....patchouli. The Partylite order I placed at my coworkers' party had a frosted glass lampshade that fits over these jars so I hope that order comes in soon, too.

We are the Champions!

Despite me dropping the camera, Chris having to be towed in yesterday and the car leaking noticeable amounts of fluids today, we managed to finish the race each day and win our class. Today I brought Chris' camera and saw what a superior job it does of action photos over my crippled and devastated camera.

Saturday morning started way to early:
Did anybody else see the sunrise? I bet not. You know why? Because normal people are still asleep at that hour on the weekend.

First session out on Saturday:
Yep, that's a tow truck dragging the vee back to the pits. Not a good way to start the weekend, but much to the excitement and delight of our millions of fans we were able to get back on track:
Oh right, there was just me.

This weekend there were also stock cars (Nascar) there running with the race group (that's us).
Yes, that last one is sponsored by Hooters.

Today started off better just by virtue of not needing a tow truck. Luckily we missed all the rain this weekend. It rained a little in Chico yesterday while we were at the track and it rained over night, but was done by morning and everything at the track was dry. But it was crAzY windy today. It didn't quite lift the cows up in the air, but almost.


And the grand finale:
The winner of each race class gets a checkered flag at the end of the race so that they can tout their superiority over the other drivers as they cruise through the paddocks back to their pit. Ha ha, other loser drivers! Sure, some of the loser drivers drove over 20 seconds faster a lap than us, but they're not in our class so they get nothing and like it!

It was after that moment of glory that we noticed a trail of fluid coming out from under the car. Even I, who is by no means a car expert, knows that's not good. Now the highly decorated speed machine is sitting in pieces in the driveway drying off after a good hose down while we watch some of that second rate child's play racing called Nascar. They only wish they could be as cool as us.

Cameras + Me = Bad Mojo

Long story short, I dropped the camera on the bathroom floor at the racetrack today and rattled it up enough that the zoom toggle is stuck on 10x, the picture button won't depress and apparently the menu buttons on the back won't work so I can't get the photos off of it. Hahahahahahaaaaaaa!!!

Ok, it's really not that funny. At least I can use Chris' ginormous paparazzi camera in the mean time, but now I have to take my camera in somewhere (assuming A. Chris can't fix it, and B. there's somewhere to take it to local).

It was just that kind of day today. First off we had to be out of here at 6:00 am to get to the track for tech on time. Then during Chris' first session out, his engine stopped working and after he got towed back to the pits we saw that he was spewing oil, too. He managed to piece together a couple of things before his race qualifying session so he could go back out, but the car was just fighting him today. He did win his class in the race, granted we were the only one's in our class, but a win is a win, right? He was racing with old nascar cars. They're loud, in case you're wondering. It's a double header weekend so we go back out tomorrow for the same fun and games.

For dinner tonight I'm trying a new crock-pot recipe that's one of the recipes a co-worker gave me for the cookbook I'm putting together for a gal at work who's getting married in the fall. It's a beef and barley soup. It was easy and quick. We'll see how it tastes...