New signs

Last night I got started on the new signs for the coffee room to distinguish our two coffee pots for the discerning coffee drinkers at work. After the first layer of glue and sealant dried, I got busy this evening decorating the signs. I'm happy with the final result, I've just got to wait for the hanging twine to dry that I glued to the backside.
The background paper has been modge-podged to a thin piece of wood I got at Michaels so it's got some strength. While I was getting crafty with myself, Chris was taking care of our kabobs for dinner. Some seasoned shrimp, pineapple, red onion, and mushrooms.
Other than the fact that the onions needed more time on the grill to be edible, they were tasty-la-roos. I love bbq season!

So, let me tell you a little story about yesterday. Yesterday was my singing day at church and while up on stage getting ready to sing a song one of my co-singers, Al, started leaning into me and then passed out against me. I tried to catch him, but he his dead weight was too much and we both fell to the floor. I gave myself a nice rug burn on my knee, but today my thighs are so ridiculously sore and stiff. I must have been trying to support him with sheer leg strength. I took some Aleve this morning which took the pain away, but my left leg is still really stiff and I'm walking with a limp today. Next time I'll know to just step aside.

Chocolate Coffee Cookies

If I'm going to bake sweet treats, it's going to be on Sunday that way I can take the leftovers to work the next day. Today's recipe was for chocolate coffee cookies I got from the Pillsbury website.
A few for us, a ton for work. Espresso makes everything so much better.

Dinner tonight of Hawaiian chicken was not that memorable, but last night's was fantastic.
Caramelized salmon (brown sugar, orange peel and pepper) with a tropical salsa (mango, cherries, mint, balsamic vinegar and red pepper flakes). Loved it!

Not much going on around the ol' Hartman household today besides a little church time. Later in the afternoon we took a family trip over to Michael's. I needed to get some materials to make some signs for the coffee machines at work. A co-worker had asked me to make a 'regular' and 'half-caff' sign for the coffee pots because he was sure that people were confusing the two. So three weeks later I finally got off my duff and got some supplies. Putting them into a finished product could be another three week production though. Speed and completion of projects is not my specialty. Especially when I'm sitting on my ass watching the Emmy's for seven hours.

Rainy day weekend

Well isn't hasn't rained yet, but it sure looks like it wants to. This week went from 109 degrees down to mid 60s today. There was chance of an afternoon sprinkle, but it hasn't materialized yet. We got up "early" this morning (7:30 ish), got beautiful and went out to breakfast at our favorite place downtown, the Golden Waffle.
Some breakfast, coffee and morning paper are an excellent way to start a Saturday. After breakfast we ran over to Kohl's for some odds and ends and to use the two, $10 off of $20 coupons I had. A year and a half later, Chris finally ran out of k-cups for his Keurig coffee maker and Kohl's has the best selection of flavors at the best prices.

This afternoon I went to a Silpada party (silver jewelry) up in p-town at a co-worker's house. It was originally scheduled to be a pool party too, but something about chilly temps and impending sprinkles put a damper on those plans. Instead we stayed inside chatting, eating and trying on beautiful necklaces. Still a lot of fun. And now the countdown begins until my newest set of jewels shows up in my mailbox.

I have salmon steaks marinating in the fridge right now for some supper time grilling, but I'm not sure I'm going to make it since I'm about to crash into a nap any second. Apparently 7:30 am was a tad too early to be getting up this morning....zzzzzzz.

My new friend, the dentist

As embarrassing as it to type this, I finally went to the dentist today after a 16 year hiatis. Nothing was wrong with my teeth, I just figured it was time to go in. Plus I'd been eyeballing what looked like a crack down one of my front teeth. Chris, who has three dentists (because he's that awesome), sees a family dentist down the street from our old place, Dr. Huseth - or as we refer to him at home, "Gentle Hands", so that's who I went and saw. Long story short, yes he does have gentle hands and I had one cavity. My first cavity ever. To my defense, it was in a spot I couldn't have got to. One of my lower wisdom teeth grew in at an angle right into the side of my last molar and it's at the impact point between the two teeth that the cavity formed. Sooooo, I go back in about two weeks and get a super deep cleaning (2 1/2 hours worth!) and then follow up a month later with a nice polishing. After that I need to go get my wisdom teeth pulled (Face, you need to come fish the noodles out of my soup!), then go back to Gentle Hands to have a filling put in my last molar. Since I don't have any other fillings I'm going with a tooth colored one so that nobody knows my dark, dirty tooth secret. I'm glad it's only one cavity, and short of having my wisdom teeth pulled sooner, I couldn't have prevented it so it's almost like I still have no cavities, right?

Earlier in the week I took my damn dirty wisdom teeth out to dinner with my bible study girls at a new restaurant in town. When it's time to pick a new book we always meet at the Christian book store, pick a new book and then head off for a night on the town. This time we went to Gooney Bird which is in the old Albatross restaurant off of upper Esplanade, past Eaton. I'd checked out their menu ahead of time online and knew exactly what I wanted when we got there; the garden salad with baked salmon on it.
It really should have been called the anti-garden salad though since it was lettuce, candied walnuts, dried cranberries and feta cheese. You know, all things that don't grow in a garden. But it was really, really tasty. I didn't even need to use the raspberry vinaigrette that came with it. For dessert we all shared a piece of their island pie which had a chocolate crust, ice cream filling, a chocolaty, caramel syrup and five pounds of whipped cream.
I would definitely go back again. Maybe even bring the Mr. next time.

Work's been busy this week. My boss, the Planning Director had the week off so I was the only planner on staff and had to cover accordingly. That included doing the landscape inspection for the new Rite Aid in p-town. For you friends and family that have since fled the area, at the corner of Clark and Elliott (across from AM/PM where Barney's was), they bulldozed all the existing crap-o-licious buildings and built a big new fancy Rite Aid for the Rite Aid up at K-Mart to move in to. Anyway, new commercial projects require landscaping so I went out and met with the landscaper and the project manager to assess the finish product.
Because of the economy they were actually able to get much larger plants for the same prices as the smaller seedlings so it already looks really good there even though they're new plantings. Or at least I thought so.

Only one new recipe this week. Chicken breasts cooked in Italian dressing and then simmered with celery, carrots, sun dried tomatoes, and cannellini beans.
We both really like it which is fortunate since we're eating the leftovers tomorrow night. Tonight is steak and potatoes.

You know why I love my co-workers? Because they keep giving me hand-me-downs. Usually it's clothes, but today it was a cute pair of heels.
I traded them for what I was wearing first thing this morning and spent my day feeling super tall, maybe even 5'2"!! Hellooooo down there! Dear free shoes, you're awesome.

Turning out the tamales

My mom, Chris and I took a tamale making class up in p-town this morning given by my co-worker and friend, Sherry. Class started at 10:00 am which came much sooner than I was ready for, but Sherry was ready with margaritas, chips and salsa. It's never to early for a wake up drink, right?
Class outlines were available to review which promised a day full of adventure and food. Lots of food. Since tamales take a lot of time to steam once assembled, we got started right away with preparing the masa dough and fillings.
Six students cranking out dozens and dozens of homemade tamales can make quite an impressive tower of deliciousness.
Sherry had already made a couple of batches of tamales the day before for us to eat for lunch while ours steamed for the hour and a half necessary. There was also baked black beans, Mexican rice and a green side salad.
After lunch we got busy preparing to make churros for dessert.
A dough, very similar to cream puff dough, is piped into a deep fryer from a pastry bag until it's a nice golden brown and then dropped into a bag full of cinnamon and sugar.
What does one serve with churros? Homemade cinnamon ice cream of course!
Four hours later and the Canadian was tuckered out and ready to go home.
One of the perks of the class is that you each get to bring home a dozen of the finished, steamed tamales we made that afternoon. And since there was two of us we got two dozen.
Everybody had a great time, though I don't think I would invite the Canadian to another class as he had ants in his pants by the end and wanted to leave. But since he did help make the tamales, I suppose I'll share the leftovers with him. Especially since those two dozen aren't going to eat themselves!

Dinner party

Last night was a couple's dinner party up in p-town at my friend Kari's house. There was Chris and I, Kari and her husband Steve, co-workers (and spouses) Paul and Sheila, and Dina (co-worker) and Don. We haven't been to a big kids dinner party in a long time and we had a blast. Kari and Steve provided the main dish (rotisserie turkey) while the rest of us brought sides, appetizers and dessert. I made a Mediterranean orzo salad with orzo (of course), sun dried tomatoes, olives, marinated artichoke hearts, diced red onion, fresh spinach and feta cheese all covered with a Greek vinaigrette.
The shindig started at 6:00 pm and while we waited for the turkey to roast we hung out on the back porch enjoying some drinks and appetizers.
When it was finally served, dinner was delicious. Turkey, my orzo salad, marinated veggies, and bread.
With all the chatting and eating we didn't start cleaning up until 10:00 pm. Way past our curfew.
It was a late night for us, but a lot of fun. After a somewhat restless night, we're getting ready this morning to head back up to p-town for our tamale class. Hope I can stay awake!

Air conditioning drama

Soooo....last night Chris and I met up with some work friends after work at La Hacienda for drinks and nachos. When we got home Chris noted that the house felt warm so he checked the a/c control panel and sure enough it said the house was 84 degrees instead of the 80 it's set at. He put his hand up to one of registers and only felt warm air blowing out. Great, a busted a/c unit in the middle of August. He spent the next hour or so checking wiring and electrical panels, but no luck. So first thing this morning we called an HVAC company to come by and check it out. It's only supposed to be in the mid 80s this weekend, but next week is heading back into the 100+ territory so we really needed to get this thing fix pronto. Around noon the service guy showed up and is actually out back with Chris fixing what turned out to be a bad fuse and some sort of connection wires. A little easier to swallow than a whole new HVAC unit.
While we were waiting for the service man to show up this morning, we spent a little time in the front yard doing some well needed yard maintenance. Chris tackled trimming back the plum tree in the front yard;
And I got the distinct honor of de-weeding the roses.
I only fell on my ass once when I was giving a weed (the size of a bean stock) the old heave-ho and wasn't ready for it to give so suddenly.

After my traumatizing foray into yard work, I cleaned up and headed over to the downtown farmer's market. I had a hankering for sweet, orange cherry tomatoes. Somebody had brought some to our work potluck on Thursday and I've been craving more ever since.
Dear cherry tomatoes, you are my new best friends. Note to self though, never again go to the farmer's market so late on the first weekend the college kids are back in town. It was like a freaking cattle call. Horrific. Yeah, I'm talking to you - slow moving, skanky college kids and hippies.

Our neighbor, who just lost her house to auction, is having a yard sale today and everybody and their brother is parked on the street, half-way around street corners, in OUR driveway (promptly told to move by old man Hartman), in front of the mail boxes, and sometimes right in the middle of the street. All for what appears to be some half-melted candles, random serving platters, an ugly painting, and other household "treasures".

Oh! The a/c service guy and is done and we are once again living the high life with a/c. Woo hoo! And only $150 to put new parts in and give a thorough run down of the system to Chris. By far the best money we've spent so far this weekend!