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.
We also took some time out to spy on our neighbors down the street who were having some kind of beauty pageant party going on. It was a group of young teenage girls being dropped off who were all wearing pageant sashes. Except for the boy who was dressed up like Woody from Toy Story. I don't think they were from gold nuggy days because they weren't period dresses. Some of them were wearing prom like dresses, others were wearing sundresses, one was wearing shorts and a tank top. It was mysterious and weird, but luckly we have this handy new fence we can peek through unobserved.
On a more productive note, Chris did do the finishing tap work to the sand in the patio area. We needed to make sure it was completely compacted before we laid the brick.
Nice, huh? This is the point at which Wilson and Raquel stopped by to say hello. I don't actually have any photos of them, if you can believe that, so you'll just have to trust me that they were here.
In addition to flowers they also arranged for a breakfast spread from Juice and Java to be delivered. There were bagels, muffins, coffee and orange juice. I couldn't eat any of it, but I did have some delicious coffee.
Let me rephrase that, Chris watched while Justin started leveling out the patio.
This time the boys broke out power tools to break up the soil and that made it go much faster. By the end of the evening the area was all excavated.
We went to Lowe's this afternoon and bought all the fixin's for the fence. $600 worth. Oye! Even though the panels are vinyl they really do look nice.
Gee, do you think this picture was posed? Boys!
Chris measured and marked where all the post are going to go. Now he and our friend Justin are going to dig the post holes this week after work.
We had a dinner date at Mum's at 5:00 for some ham extraordinaire. She made ham, homemade mashed potatoes (maybe she didn't know they make those boxed now), asparagus (ha ha Jessica) and fruit salad.
For dessert we had some lemon cake from a Barefoot Contessa recipe. Of course we made out with bags of leftovers and we each got to take a colored hard boiled egg. Not too bad for no effort on our part.
I also got a little scrapbooking in this weekend. I have a co-worker who's birthday is this coming Tuesday so I needed to make a card to go with her gift. I borrowed the cover from a design I found online, but the construction of the inside was my pure genius!
Check that out! I made the extra length a folded back flap that holds the gift card with the help of some stellar sewing along the edges. And by stellar I mean that it looks like a blind person sewed it. Whatever, nobody will notice because they'll be so impressed with the awesomeness of the design.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I steer clear of any kimchee that isn't the sweet stuff from Asian Gardens.