2009 Craft Project

As Jessica probably knows, in the last issue of Creating Keepsakes there was a new project introduced called Project 365 where you buy a handy dandy kit, take one picture every day and do a small journaling blog about it. The kit sold out in minutes, so I'm doing it myself. I missed most of January because I didn't really read about it until it was too late, but I did catch the last week of January. Here's what we've been up to:

Monday: Stopped at lookout point, where they've made a lovely visitor parking/viewing area, on the way home from work.

Tuesday: We watched fat camp as per usual. This year we have chosen to despise the silver team, Carla and Joelle. Please vote them off next, Jesus, please.

Wednesday: Finished working on my bible study. We've been on a break for most of January while our new books were being ordered. We've moved our meeting day to Thursday instead of Wednesday which is nice because I don't get home until late, but I get to sleep in on Fridays.

Thursday: I rescheduled my usual Friday nail appointment for Thursday afternoon because I had to stay home with Chris on Friday since he was scheduled for the first part of his tooth implant (ouch). I also had bible study that night in P-town at my co-worker's, Denise's, house. She has the house on the canyon that Chris and I housesat for last fall.

Friday: Chris had to have the post for his tooth implant drilled into his jaw at 9:00 am in the morning. After this we wait 4-6 months for the bone to heal around the post and then we go to one of his other dentists to have the actual tooth screwed on. He's doing okay other then the fact that he didn't sleep at all last night. The drugs kept him up so he's really groggy this morning. But not too groggy to go work in the garage on his toys!

Today, while he's in the garage, I'm running over to Target to check out some workout pants that have been on sale this week. Then I'm going over to New York and Company to see if there's anything worth while for my 40% purchase coupon. Tonight we're having dinner with the 'rents (per their invitation) at Italian Cottage. I should have known that since they love Sin of Cortez (disgusting breakfast food), they would love Italian Cottage (equally disgusting dinner food). Oh well, there's always soup, right? I'm also 80% done with my latest scrapbook page about Wilson's tattoo.

Alright, gotta boogey, I don't want to miss out on all the good sale stuff!

Sunday News

I actually got some scrapbooking done today amongst some other things. We spent most of the afternoon going for a twelve mile hike to Longs down on East Ave to return Max Payne.
Next I'm working on a page of Wilson's tattoo.

It was supposed to rain today, but it turned out to be a total dud and was actually a little sunny. It's starting to get cloudy again so I expect more rain this evening.

We have a short work week this week. Chris has a dentist appt on Friday morning that they have to put him under for so I'm taking Friday off, too to be his chauffeur. I expect a good time since last time they put him out at the dentist office he was so dopey he danced his way down the dentist office hallway out to the car. I'm bringing my camera this time!

We're having broccoli beef for dinner tonight. I got up at a quarter to eight this morning (way too early) to start the crock pot. The beef has been simmering away in special sauce all day. In about a half an hour I add the broccoli and start the rice. Keep your fingers crossed.

Rainy Weekend

Not a whole lot going on around here today. Chris worked out in the garage with Mr. A. on the race car while I read magazines and made a short trip over the Michael's for random goodies. It's been raining the past couple days and today was no exception.

Chris was in charge of dinner today per his request. He made his crockpot chili (Wilson, look it up in your cookbook). For a change he threw some rice in it, too. It was good as per usual.
I put the 12 servings of leftovers in the fridge next to the Jambalya leftovers from last night. Mmm....

We picked up Max Payne (Marky Mark) from Redbox today that we're going to watch tonight. But first we're running over to Wal-mart real fast to pick up my online photos and to look at tents for the racetrack. There's a chance our first race in February could have rain so we want to be ready. Plus they're nice for the summer since there's absolutely no shade at the track.

Alright, got to go - got to get back soon to watch our movie!

Cinderella, Cinderella

I had today off for MLK Jr. Day. You know, there are 49 black people in Paradise according to the demographic study I just got at work. I think they meant 4.9 with Jess and Don (Sarah's family) being two of them. I wanted to spend my day like this:
In pj's surfing the web, but nooooooo.....there were things to do, places to clean. Instead I spent my day like this:
Cleaning bathtubs. Ugh.
Sweeping and mopping.
Ironing all of Chris' work shirts so he won't feel compelled to wear the same shirt all week. Not that multiple clean, ironed shirts would stop him.

I learned how to use my timer setting and tripod today. Now I'm going to go photo crazy!!

I did get a little down time this afternoon to do some baking. I made my coffee cake muffins. I was supposed to put more topping on them, but I didn't look at the recipe photo until after I'd finished them. The topping is ground up Fiber One with egg and sugar. That's why it looks so thick and chunky.
The batter was to die for, so I can't wait to try one. I'm brewing up a pot of coffee right now to go with them. Mmm....

Speed Racer

Chris has been unsuccessfully trying to get the race car ready for our first race on February 13th. At this point it looks like he's going to have to race Tango instead.
Now I can get to work real fast!

Not much going on around here. Chris got his fro cut yesterday so now he doesn't look like such a hippie. We went to Mum's for dinner on Friday night since Mr. A. was up in Oregon helping Mark get settled. She made a delicious shrimp salad. She baked some sort of mix of shrimp, artichoke hearts and bacon in a small casserole dish and then let it cool (or we were just so late it wasn't warm anymore, I'm not sure). Then she set up a buffet of lettuce, cucumbers, avocado, tomatoes, parm cheese and hard boiled eggs and let us build our own salads, topping it all off with her shrimp concoction and Italian dressing. And of course buttered bread. Mmmmm.......

Last night we picked up Appaloosa from the Redbox. It was okay for a buck. You know, a period western, how much was I going to like it? Tuesday, Max Payne comes out on video with Marky Mark. I think it's a comic book movie, I'm not sure, but we're going to reserve that one too.

We're just handing out at home cleaning this weekend. I have tomorrow off too, to celebrate all 49 black people in Paradise for MLK Jr. Day. So I'm saving some of the really "fun" stuff until then like scrubbing the shower and toilet. I need a maid, desperately.

I've been trying out some new recipes lately on my guinea pig, Chris. We made a good casserole last night that was chicken, broccoli and egg noodles in a cream of chicken sauce. The leftovers were actually better than the original. Tonight I'm making a kielbasa and lentil soup from my 2008 Light and Tasty book. It looks fabulous. I've also started making my own baked onion rings with crushed fiber one cereal. They're really tasty. I make them when we have our fake soy hamburgers. I'm giving a try at homemade fried rice later in the week and orange glazed chinese chicken. Every week I make some kind of muffin/bread for morning snacks throughout the week. Last week were blueberry and peach muffins, tomorrow I'm going to make some sugar free coffee cake muffins. A standby favorite is a low sugar pumpkin and cranberry bread. I've made that one quite a few times. I've got a recipe for blueberry scones that I might try the week after since I have a good amount of frozen fresh blueberries (good sale at Trader Joe's).

Mum and Mr. A. just showed up. I knew Mr. A. was going to help Chris figure out the engine problems, but I didn't know Mum was coming. She's out working in our front yard while I sit here on the couch typing. Who feels like a douche? But, I didn't ask her to come do yardwork while we're home, I prefer to have her come while we're at work so I don't feel guilty. :) She's given up on us and any thoughts that we are capable of taking care of and triming our plants and flowers. So basically we have guilted her into doing our landscape maintenance. We rake and mow ourselves, of course. We're not completely retarded. Ahhhhhh!!!! I just saw her take huge clippings off the Japanese Maple by the front door! Sweet Jesus, what is going on out there?!? Our rose bushes have been completely cut down to their bases, so I'd better go rescue the Japanese Maple before it suffers the same fate!!

Sunshine & Beer

Whew! What a chilly winter day in the middle of January! It's so cold Chris had to dig out his winter clothes:
63 degrees takes a special kind of wardrobe, right Jessica?!

Since Chris got so many new drinkable treats for Christmas we decided to put up a second beer shelf in the dining room. Luckily, last time we were at IKEA, we had bought two shelves. We're already half way through filling the second shelf and we're not even out of beer yet. Next we'll have to ditch the dining room table and just make it a beer wall.
We just got back from running errands and picking up Pineapple Express from the redbox at 7-Eleven. If you're in to drugs and car chases it should be a riot!

Look who's famous....again!

The new issue of Motorcycle Classics just came out and guess who's mug is on page 45?
Vroom, vroom! This photo was of course taken two seconds before I laid the bike down in a cloud of doom and disaster. Funny, those photos didn't make the spread.

I haven't done any scrapbooking lately, but here's the last page I did right before Christmas of the Japanese Gardens in Portland:

No big plans for the Hartmans this weekend. We're meeting the 'rents Sunday at 11:00 am at Sierra Nevada for Mr. A.'s birthday and that's about it. We've already watched both our netflix movies for the month (Stepbrothers and Eagle Eye) so we might get a redbox rental. There's nothing out at the theater we're interested in at the moment. So movie rentals and football playoffs will be the height of our weekend.