Tennis, anyone?

Cheddar laced with Irish porter today. Screw the wine cheese, I'm up for some beer cheese.

It was a productive weekend. I even scrubbed floors on my hands and knees and dusted heating vents/air returns.

To reward ourselves, we came back into Madison to play yesterday. I had $100 of birthday money burning a hole in my pocket. He had errands to run at hardware type stores. I bought a new tennis racket with some of my money. I'm soooo looking forward to playing this spring! I've never really played as a sport, more just in high school gym class and playing around with friends when I was younger. My super nice Prince was stolen in high school, so I needed something new. It's blue and yellow. I wanted the pink one, but it was $80. Oh, and this tennis talk reminds me that I have a bridal shower this month at a fancy country club. I need a new dress. I should ask Monsty what they wear at the club these days for events.

I also bought an el cheapo bookcase from Target. It was time and I have other things I'd like to spend money on. Like that cool $1200 outdoor kitchen at Target. *drool* :-)

We then went and watched basketball at a bar and had a great afternoon. *burp*

Catch up

String cheese for a fun Friday.

I was out of the office all week with various activities. Monday and Friday I was doing fieldwork for a research project. Tuesday and Wednesday I was babysitting my nephews. 7-10-13. A deadly combination. The food issues were driving me crazy. Due somewhat to the oldest's Aspergers and more to being raised with no limits/rules about food, they all won't eat the same thing. I've tried to force them when I babysit them at their house in the past, and you know what? One or two days isn't going to change them and it's hell for all of us. So I just tried to be more relaxed about it this time and do as well as I could.

Breakfast day one: N-cereal, B-Pop Tart, M-cinnamon toast
Lunch day one: N-canned fruit and toast, B-easy mac, M-grilled cheese
Dinner day one: N & B-spaghetti (yay, two at the same thing!), M-grilled cheese
Breakfast day two: N-waffles, B-scrambled eggs, M-strawberries and toast
Lunch day two (mcdonalds): N-fries and apple dippers, B-nugget happy meal, M-cheeseburger happy meal.

I always had cut up fruit around, but other than the one eating strawberries, there was no interest. I limited their snacks severely, thinking that would force them to eat meals better. Not really.

In other news, I had a McDonald's fish sandwich, no cheese. I hadn't had one in about 20 years, and I won't be having one again. Blech.

This weekend? Brewing beer for Chris, spring cleaning for me.

Easter weekend randoms

How bout guyere puffs today? They seem Eastery.

1. I received a big consulting check yesterday and need to make it to the bank before noon, but have to meet with my boss first. Grrr for banking hours! Grr for my pokey boss! I'm ready to meet now!

2. I will be getting a $100 birthday check from my FIL. What should I spend it on?

3. Wallflowers are on sale at Bath & Body Works. Why are all their lotion smells so foodie or perfumey these days? I'm not a fan of foodie or overly perfumey scents. I'm going to boycott them soon (but I love wallflowers and their body butter so much...better than other brands!).

4. Wisconsin won their game last night..yay! My bracket is not doing well. 10 right, 6 wrong so far.

5. SNOW! I have to plow tonight. Chris won't be able to and we are expecting 8 inches total. GRRRR.

A quickie

British cheddar soaked in porter, today. You just might like it.

I'm keeping my eye on the brackets. Xavier is disappointing me, and most of the world, right now.

I went to Trader Joe's this morning. I have many fun TJ things to keep my tummy happy for the next few days.

I must watch LOST online afterwork. I missed last week's episode and need to catch up before the new ep tonight. The new episode will also compete with the Badger game (NCAA tournament). See, another reason we need a DVR.

Stood up

My lunch date, that was supposed to pick me up at 11, called my office at 11:05 cancelling. *pout* So no Flat Top Grill for me. Now I must go to the cafeteria. Don't get me wrong, I have a very nice cafeteria. But the specialty salad sucks on Tuesday (chicken bacon ranch) and that's my favorite "treat." The shrimp ceasar and thai chicken ones rock.

Will I get the grilled chicken quesedilla, a chinese entree (if there's anything that appeals to me), or soup and a jalepeno cheddar roll? I need something warm or I'd go for the southwest veggie sandwich. It's my usual standby. Or will I go really crazy and get the calzone or maybe the bbq pork sandwich?

Wish me luck. I had a leftover blue cheese burger at home that I should've just brought in case of this happening.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Ardrahan cheese, an Irish nibble for today. Also, the tapper is open, so pour yourself an Irish pint, or toss a little whiskey or Irish cream in your coffee this morning.

We did our annual St. Patrick's Day outing yesterday. Nobody else wanted to take off work today with me, and the parade was yesterday, so we celebrated a day early. It was a good time, thought not as rowdy as last year (when we made it on the 10:00 news).

I ate horribly this weekend and gained 2 lbs. for it. We went to BIL's on Friday and drank a lot of sangria and yummy, olive oil soaked appetizers and cheese. Saturday we had bar food for lunch and stopped at Dairy Queen. Sunday, well, it was bar food and drink fest. Ugh. I need to detox.

Blah Blah Blah

Baby swiss cubes today. I'm in too blah of a mood to put anything else out.

I've been a bit of a grump this week. I'm not sure why.

My bubble bars turned out like crap. My second and third batches of bombs turned out much better. I think I've got the consistency down.

LOST has been on at 10pm for the last two weeks due to stupid state high school basketball tournaments. I stayed up last week, but it was 10:10 and the game ended, and there was still the 15-20 minute awards ceremony/post show to air, so I turned in early. Now I'll have to watch it online or at my sister's (Tivo). We really just need to get a dvr of our own.

I'm arranging a rib cookoff at our house, and nobody's dates are working out. BIL wants to do it in April. YUCK! Wisconsin in April is a bit unpredictable, but you are pretty much guaranteed ugly browness and rain all month. No thanks.

The Experiment

Somem Irish Dubliner cheese today! Tis the season.

If anyone talks to Jen or Glow on a regular basis, mention the cd thing to them. I don't think either of them are on blogs much, but both are music lovin' peeps and I'd hate for them to miss out.

I made my first bath bombs last night. They are interesting. Let's count my misteps.

1. I didn't buy powdered micas because they didn't have the kind I wanted at either of the two stores I bought stuff from online. I thought I'd start by using food coloring in small amounts (as many recipes I found did this). Unfortunately, there is almost no liquid in bath bombs, so it's hard to mix food coloring in. Plus, I didn't add much, so the bath won't be that pretty. I need to pony up for the powdered colorants.

2. I added too much water. You spritz it in with a spray bottle so the stuff doesn't foam up, yet is moldable. I spritzed too much, apparently. It was a great texture to put into the molds, yet when I unmolded them, they sat and began to slowly lose their shape. So I rolled them and stuffed them back into the molds overnight. This morning, they were expanded significantly (the added water started to react with the baking soda/citric acid mix) and now the molds are stuck on they don't look very nice! I'm going to try Witch Hazel and see if it reacts less, as one recipe suggests. And just use less moisture.

For a first batch, I'll chalk it up to learning. I don't love the scent either. I was trying to make it similar to bath and body works brown sugar & fig. It's close, but a little too sweet.

One of my bottles of foaming agent for the bubble bars seems to be adversely affected by the cold weather, so I'm not sure if it will work as is. I'm checking tonight. If it's ok, I'm hitting the bubble bar path. Wish me luck.

The new Jeep

Have some Italian marinated mozarella this morning and look at our new vehicle.



It's a 2008 Jeep Patriot. Very reminicent of the old Jeep Cherokee Sport. It's AWD, automatic, has plenty of space and still gets 24 Hwy. Chris has already decided for less than $1000 we'll add some after market stuff that doesn't void the warranty and will up the fuel economy by at least 3 mpg. It has a CVT (Continuously Variable Transaxle) transmission, which is new and funky, but it takes some getting used to. It provides smooth, intelligent auto shifting (It learns your driving style and adjusts). In addition, is has a 6 speed auto stick. Chris is having fun using that. Oh, and we upgraded the tires and rims, mainly for more ground clearance, but also because Chris thinks the ones in this pic are hideous.


I picked the color. It's Steel Blue Metallic. I wasn't sure I'd like it, so I was nervous. I wanted Inferno Red (a burgundy red) or Jeep Green, but those were a few hundred dollars extra, and I thought I'd be just fine with this color. In person, I really like it. Whew. We got it for about $2500 under sticker, so I'm pleased with that. And? 4.99% financing on a nice long 72 months to keep our payments low, so that was nice. Unless we have major problems with it, I forsee us keeping this a long time. It's a perfect "bigger" vehicle for us.

1-2-3

First, I posted in my last entry that I'll let all of you know when the cd is done so you can request copies. If you haven't seen the last post re: the coolest peep cd evah, then go read and comment.

Second, we might be buying a new vehicle tonight. As you may have seen on OT, we are in search phase, but Jeep has really good incentives now. We test drove a few others on our list and liked the Jeep Patriot best. We'll see how this all shakes out. We might end up waiting til June. It's all hinging on them letting us out of our lease early/making up in discounts the $1000 in payments we have left.
UPDATE: We are getting the Patriot. It's not red. Sorry, Bob. Red was an upcharge. Financing guy is being a dick because we are using USAA for financing and not going through them. They can't even get close to touching USAA's rates, so they can bite me. Apparently financing guys also get some sort of kick back/commission. That's so, so wrong.

Third, My bath bomb and bubble bar making supplies should be arriving in the next few days. Let's hope I don't blow the house up.

Hi!

*blows dust of platter* I've missed this place. The fridge needs some serious cheese restocking.

I'm doing a little project. I'm making a blogland cd. You get to give me ONE song that I can find to download. It will go on a mixed cd, so I can think of you when I play it.

For a lot of smooches, I might even send you one.

So what is one song that represents you? It might be a song that represents your favorite musician/s, a fond memory, your personality or is just a current favorite.