Sedona: Day 1

We are in Sedona, Arizona.

We drove over 12 hours yesterday, arriving just before midnight. While it was a v.e.r.y long drive, it was very nice, too. We drove through the California desert where we grew up, so it's always fun making fun of reminiscing about the high desert. As a bonus, we ate at one of the western most Cracker Barrel's for dinner. Bring on the sweet tea!

That catches us up to today, Wednesday, our first day in Sedona. After lunch at Oaxaca Restaurant uptown, we headed to the Sedona Off-Road Center to rent a Tomcar for the afternoon.
The tomcar is a street legal vehicle made to handle rough terrain. And while all the roads we were on are legal forest service roads, the dips, bumps, rocks and dust definitely made it a very adventurous ride that brought us to locations we couldn't have seen in a regular car.

These are a few favorite pics of the day:
Along Schnebley Hill Road

Indian Paintbrush

At a vista point overlooking Sedona




Soldier Pass Trail

Balancing rock

I tried my hand at the wheel. It was a lot of fun, but admit that I prefer being a passenger so I could enjoy the views rather than the road.
_

It was a sunny day in Claremont, California

Just how the heck did 17 years go by in a flash? Must mean that its been a great ride.

The other day we had dinner with the Bowen's at La Fondue to celebrate. Their 14th wedding anniversary this month, too. Have you ever had fondue? Can I just say that it's one of the best inventions ever. Get yourself to a fondue place if you've never tried it. Just be prepared for a long dinner, ours lasted 3 hours. Which isn't nearly enough time to digest all that cheese, meat and chocolate. But the pain is worth it, I promise. :)
_

Cloudy Day at Clear Lake

Jimmy and Drew have been buddies since they were 12 and played little league baseball together. He was one of the groomsmen in our wedding nearly 17 years ago.But in the past 21 years since graduating from high school, they hadn't spent more than a few hours together. Sound kind of familiar? It's reminiscent to my visit to Alaska and rekindling a friendship with my high school friend, Linda. In our junior year, before Jimmy and I started dating, both Jimmy and Drew were in my American History class. That's the class that we all became friends. We sat in the same row, Jimmy in front, Drew behind him and me behind Drew. They called me The Flip. One test day, Drew was absent and Jimmy sat in front of me. That was the turning point in our relationship when Jimmy prevented me from cheating on the test. Oh yea, this isn't about me, but about Jimmy and Drew, huh? Anyway, after graduation, Jimmy and Drew kept in touch, but didn't see each other much aside from the occasional get together with other buddies, once every 6 or 7 years whenever we'd get back to the high desert or San Diego. Fast forward 20 years and Drew's parents found their own little hideaway in Northern California about 3 hours from us. Drew was here for the week to ride in the Konocti Challenge so we went to visit him for a couple of days. He took us to a few historical sights, showed us the scenic views from his ride the weekend before, took us wine tasting and brought us to a couple of really great restaurants like the Blue Wing Saloon and TNT on the Lake for great Mexican food right on the lake.

The Lakeport Courthouse built in 1871 served the county until 1968. It's currently a museum that houses many county records along with artifacts from the local Native Americans.

Jimmy and Drew check out some of the historical data. We were pleasantly surprised that we could freely browse through these old books.

In my previous post I probably wasn't very convincing about the fall colors. But as you'll see now, we were surrounded by autumn's beautiful bounty.
Walnut groves for miles and miles.

Ranch horse among the trees.

Clear Lake is about an hour north of Napa and the vineyards have steadily crept more and more north.


One of the wineries Drew took us for wine tasting was Ceago.
We don't really drink, but with a purchase they give you 5 tastings. Drew bought a bottle and gave me the tastings. I don't like wine and in general I don't typically like the flavor of alcohol. And Jimmy doesn't drink at all. So I started out skeptical and the first 2 tastes were bitter as I expected. But the 3rd taste, which happened to be the same one Drew bought, was actually decent. It was their "Del Lago" Muscat Canelli. I ended with that and forgo the other 2 tastings. After the tastings, we walked around the winery awhile.

Lavender fields at the winery.

Ceago has a dock to the lake. Clear Lake is the largest fresh water lake in California.

Enjoying the views at the winery.

Our last and most creepy visit for the day was to see the Castle near the northern shores of Clear Lake. It was originally a lake resort ill-timely built in 1927 just before the Great Depression. As can be imagined, there are rumors of ghosts that haunt the tower. Despite it's look of disrepair, it's currently used and operated by the Castlepoint Ministries.
After our long day touring the area, we headed back to his hideaway, had some dinner and the boys stayed up talking and laughing about who knows what for who knows how long. I hope we can make this an annual thing. We had so much fun!!
_

Yes, I kept the menu.

We celebrated Jimmy's birthday at a new for us restaurant, McCormick and Schmick's. When I called to make reservations, they asked if we were celebrating a special occasion, of course I said yes. When we were seated, there was a card at the table for Jimmy and all of our menus had "Happy Birthday Jimmy!!!" printed on them. Sweet, yesh? The food was fantastic, too. We shared the crab cake appetizer, each ordered a salad and we both got the salmon stuffed with crab, bay shrimp and brie. I split a chocolate mousse with his sister and he got vanilla bean ice cream with fresh berries for dessert. Could possibly be our new favorite seafood restaurant.

Happy Birthday Jimmy!

_

Hockey inCalifornia?!?

The Anaheim Ducks won the Stanley Cup tonight! Go West Coast hockey! The Ducks are bringing the Cup to California!

Ok, truth is, I'm not a sports fan. But Jimmy plays the game so by marriage osmosis:
Hockey is my favorite sport!!
This photo is a flashback to 1996. The Hockey Hall of Fame is in Toronto and we went that summer. Jimmy's standing next to the Stanley Cup for a photo op.

Maker Faire

Went to the Maker Faire on Saturday. The Maker Faire (in case you don't feel like clicking over) is:

"A two-day, family-friendly event that celebrates arts, crafts, engineering, science projects and the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) mindset. It's for creative, resourceful folks who like to tinker and love to make things. We call them Makers."

Lots of inventions, hacks, robots. Several opportunities to make and learn new things. And for me, lots of opportunities to be completely clueless. And I have a fair amount of geek knowledge but nothing even close to this level.

The highlight of the day was meeting a blogger friend. It was the first time I've met one of my bloggy friends and it was really cool. She and her husband had a booth, showing their prize winning Dorkbake oven, giving information about their Hollywood chapter of Mobile Movie and information about 3D imaging. Really cool stuff! I just wish we had more time to chat so we could have gotten to know each other better.

Jimmy also has a friend who had a table there. It was a "Multitouch Multimedia Device". I don't really know what that is, but he had a hands-on table where we could play with the devices. There were 3 touchpads and a video camera and each touchpad created different effects on the screen, all controlled by your fingers.

This is the 2nd year for this event and I had only heard about it last week when Phin and I were in San Francisco and the guy at the Paper Source talked about it. So I expected more crafty things till I talked to my husband about it and realized that it was way more science and engineering oriented. The Faire is sponsored by Make Magazine and I found out through Jodi that the editor-in-chief of Make mag is married to the editor-in-chief of Craft Magazine so the faire is a combination of both of their passions. The crafty part filled about 1/4 of the main expo hall, which included the Bizaar Bizaare, what is dubbed as "Not your granny's craft fair". There were about 30-50 (?) eclectic crafters selling their handiwork. Lots of temptations to spend. Many things called my name. But I left with just one purchase of a pair of silver earrings made by a local artist.

Here are a few other highlights of the day:
A hacked Roomba vacuum cleaner. Make art with Roomba.

The Art Of Motion Control
I want one of these. There's a computer program that controls the magnetic ball that automatically "draws" in the sand. Too bad Jimmy has to work otherwise I'd make him make one!

Of course, a geekfest wouldn't be complete without aliens.

And alien/government (same thing, right?) thought-protecting beanies. Make your own!
edit: oops. I shouldn't have said that about aliens/government being the same thing. I don't wanna offend any aliens. My bad.

Tesla Coils
I don't know much about tesla coils. Something to do with electricity. And some other stuff. So here's a wiki link if you're interested in more info. But it was really cool to see.
These were in the big expo hall. Lightning inside a building. Craziness! (I like how in this picture it looks like the lightning is going thru the head of the kid in red and out of his right ear.)

Now this guy. Take a look at his hair. And eyebrows for that matter. The electricity that's charging thru him. He would touch the tesla coil and when the...victim...went to touch him, he would create a bolt of lightning between them.
If you make this photo bigger, you can see the tiny bit of electricity that's being passed between the scientist and the victim. There were other bolts that were more impressive, but this was the best I could capture.

And a faire wouldn't be complete without carnival rides. But the coolest thing was that all of the rides were human-powered.

A bike powered...
Yo-Yo Swing ride.
Actually, it took 4 bikes to power this ride.

The nose picker was also a carnival attraction. The human runs in a hamster-like running wheel to lift the finger into the nose. A popular attraction for the kids, you can imagine.

Geekfest
Onlookers, ready to watch the...

Life size Mousetrap
Now, I have a unexplainable phobia of cranes. This kind, not the bird. But I clicked a quick photo of this as they were lifting the 2000 pound safe before they started the mousetrap. It's like the game we all played as kids.
Including the bathtub.
They just used bowling balls instead of marbles. And smashed cheese with the safe instead of capturing a big mouse with the trap.

Another fun event of the day was the Swap-o-rama fashion show. Look for that in another post.

BBQ Rules

Since it's all in good fun, I couldn't resist doing a layout with these BBQ Rules (click on pic to enlarge to read 'em) that Phin sent me the other day.
Love ya Sweety! You do make the best burgers and grilled veggies! It's all about timing to make 'em so delicious, right? :)

Code Monkey

My husband is a code monkey. He totally relates to this song. Hilarious! I liked this version:


But he preferred this one: (if you can handle listening to the song again)

Who's that knockin' on my dogwood?

When we got to the cabin Friday night, it was a crisp 50 degrees so no chances of snow. When we got there, I did a little dusting and found just one spider in the sink. There’s almost always a spider in the sink when we get there, no matter if we’ve only been away for a week or 3 months. Much scarier than the spider were the items in the fridge. The fridge that hasn’t been opened in 3 months. The fridge that had food left in it because we didn’t think we’d be away as long as we were. You see, if all is good with the universe and all the planets are aligned, we like to go up to the hideaway every weekend. Or at least 3 times a month. So I usually don’t worry too much about leaving food in the fridge. Now, I don’t leave prepared food, I’m not that naive. But I will leave milk, eggs and cheese. Well, they don’t last 3 months. So you can imagine how…pleasurable that task was to my olfactory senses. But when all those little duties were done, we settled in for a nice, quiet weekend.

Saturday we had to go into town. I keep the pantry fairly well stocked, but I needed those valuable perishables and Jimmy had to look for some sort of rock to fill a ditch we had to have dug for water drainage. We stopped at a favorite Mexican restaurant for fish tacos and crab enchiladas to celebrate Cinco de Mayo.

Back at the hideaway, I snapped a few photos of our dogwood tree, catching the blossoms before they died.

I also snapped a few photos of my lilac bush before pruning the flowers to bring them in the house. My mom had a lilac bush in our yard in the desert so I always think of my mom whenever I smell lilac.

I donno what happened to Sunday. I went out a couple of times to take more pictures of the dogwood and this woodpecker. Then before I knew it, we were packing up and heading back home to the Bay Area. A great, but way too short weekend away.

New Patio Furniture

We acquired the parentals old patio table and chairs this weekend. Love it! Now we have lots of room for friends to come over and eat. Hurray for bbq's! Hurray for spring, summer and fall! Hurray for friends!

We invited Phin for dinner our first evening with the table. Gotta admit that it got a little chilly sitting out there in the shade. But Jimmy made some yummy burgers and lots and lots of veggies.
All I have to do is sand and stain it and it'll look brand new. It's suppose to rain on Wednesday and possibly through Friday, so will probably wait till next week to start that project. Not gonna stop us from using it though, obviously. :)

The Interview

I couldn’t resist playing when Zann offered up her Interview Challenge. We’re collaborators in an art blog but just getting to know each other on our personal blogs so decided to take this opportunity to get to know a little more about each other. It’d be a lot of fun if you’d like to play along, so lemme know if you do and I’ll send you 5 questions for you to answer on your blog, too.

1. How did you choose your screen name, Madretz?
Mad is the first 3 letters in my first name and Retz is the first 4 letters of my last name. A few people call me that personally but most call me Madeline or Mad. But I don’t like “Maddy.” Makes me cringe just thinking about it

2. What is the biggest life obstacle you've had to overcome?
Ou, this is a tough one. I’m actually gonna have to plead the 5th on the biggest life obstacle, it’s super personal and highly emotional and I’m still going thru “overcoming” it. But my 2nd biggest obstacle is nearly just as tough, and that was losing my mother 9 years ago. The funny thing is that I was closer to my dad, but I was at peace with his passing. I think because my mom died suddenly, so much was left unsaid. Also...I had to make the decision of keeping or taking her off life support and no matter what the statistics are or what the doctors said, I think I will always question the "What Ifs". Phew, that was tough. I’ve never spilled those beans on my blog before.

3. How did you meet Jimmy?
We’re high school sweethearts. We had classes together since the 9th grade but didn’t really become friends till our Jr. year when we sat next to each other in history class. I remember the beginning of our senior year and the first 4 periods, I was so disappointed that I didn’t have any classes with him. Happily, he showed up in my 5th period English class, we sat next to each other and continued our friendship. I was working at KFC (fried chicken anyone?) and he started working there, too. By December in our senior year, we were dating. Been together ever since.

4. What draws you to the medium of photography over other mediums?
I’ve been documenting my life since I was in the 5th grade when I got my first diary and I started taking snapshots around the same time. My first camera was a Polaroid, then in the 80s I got one of those new-fangled disc-cameras – remember those? The quality of the photos were awful, but they were small and fun for a young teenager. It all changed in 1993 when I got a film SLR camera. That’s when I started learning more about the creativity and art of photography. Still, most of my photography is to document the events that have happened in my life: people/places/things. But I take time photographing things that are visually appealing to me. I like framing the shot, paying attention to how light affects something, or playing with depth of field to focus on a certain object or make it blurry. When I switched to digital, I learned so much more because I can experiment without worrying about wasting film. Also, I’m a lot more confident in my photography skills than my writing skills, so my posts will almost always have photographs to accompany what I write. Often, I’ll let the photograph speak for itself.

5. What is your favorite children's book?
Ah. This is easy! The Madeline series by Ludwig Bemelmans. As a child (or teenager in my case), when you discover a book that’s titled with your name, spelled exactly the right way, then it’s gonna be your very favorite. Maybe that’s sort of cheating, so aside from that, I've loved Richard Scarry books since I started reading.

Thanks for the questions, Zann!
Hope some of my bloggy friends want to play, too. :)
-

Saturday In The City

Very little resembles "Sunny California" this weekend in the Bay Area. But when you live in an area that gets a fair amount of rain, you can't just hunker down in your comfy cave-like home till it passes. Well we can actually, but not this weekend. We had plans with the Bowen's to go into "The City", perhaps exploring the Wave Organ, walking through Chinatown, riding the carousel and seeing the sea lions at Pier 39. The threat of rain changed our plans so instead we headed to the Palace of Fine Arts for a quick picnic lunch before heading inside to the Exploritorium. This place is so awesome for kids. Everything is hands-on and there's always a lesson involved. It's very science oriented, which is perfect for our little group because the husbands are science dorks and the wives are number geeks.
Ewwww! Drinking out of a toilet?!? Well, it's all about perception. The water's clean and filtered. But would YOU drink out of a toilet fountain?

When you look into this mirror and spin it, your head spins. It was a really cool effect and of course, I had to take the opportunity to take a photo of little miss A and me. It was fun listening to her "wow"ing and "whoa"ing and giggling at the silly things she discovered.

Prince W was laughing so hard at himself pretending to be a flower child. When in Rome, right?

On our way home, we got stuck behind a bus. Really, not that unusual when you're in the city. The buses in San Francisco are electric and apparently the electrical line that this bus was hooked up to failed. So the bus drive had to get out (in the rain) and move the connectors to the other wires.
It was actually kinda cool to watch. He did is so fast, I barely got the camera on in time to snap a photo of him changing the connectors over.

Red Egg and Ginger Party for J

We celebrated another wonderful birthday today and it was the biggest birthday celebration we've been to! Our friends hosted a feast to celebrate their daughter's first birthday. A traditional "Red Egg and Ginger" party is often given to celebrate the birth of a child and Jimmy and I were so honored to be a part of the celebrations. We were surrounded by friends and ate oh so much delicious food. BTW, if you've ever heard of the theory that after eating Chinese food, you'll be hungry 2 hours later...then you've never been to a Chinese banquet before. Seriously. I ate soo much food, I just couldn't help myself. The food rotates around the table on a big lazy susan, so every time the food swings by, ya gotta grab another bite or two. It's 8:45pm, the party was at noon, and I'm still not hungry. Dinner isn't even a consideration. (which works out because I'm not even gonna calculate the Weight Watcher's points I ate today, LOL!).

Here we are with the guest of honor and her proud parents. Isn't she adorable? She's such a good, patient little girl. The parents went to every table and little J was just content as could be.

So, this photo is mostly to share history of the friendships that formed. These guys, along with the daddy above, have been friends for over 10 years and have all worked together at one time or another. Jimmy and the two guys on either side of him have been buddies since college. The wives (we've called ourselves the Wives Club) also formed friendships outside of our husbands relationships. It's an amazing group of friends. There is a definite similarity in all of our personalities. It's pretty cool. They've all started families so it's really fun watching how our friendships continue to grow and include kids in the picture.

So happy birthday little miss J! Thank you so much for inviting us! Me, you and your mommy must do lunch again soon!

One Conversation About 13 Things

Whenever Jimmy’s cousin calls, I usually get the pleasure of talking to him first because I answer the phone. We usually chat for about 1-2 hours before I hand the phone over to Jimmy and then they talk for another 4-6 hours. Marathon phone call at it’s finest. When Andrew called last night at 10:30, Jimmy was asleep but expected to wake up within the next hour or two, so I told Andrew that if we chatted long enough, Jimmy might be awake by the time we were sick of talking to each other. Our topics of conversation crack me up. So random and all over the place, but always witty, sarcastic and smart:

-Art of Guitar Design
-The Resurrection of Christ
-Cast Away, the movie
-Rupturing hernias
-Planet Earth
-Hi-def TV
-Palm Sunday/Ash Wednesday/Lent
-The Elderly
-Native Americans
-Faith and Devotion
-Hauling hay
-Idiocracy, the movie
-Organization including the lack of it
-Don Imus
-Installing Vista on a virtual machine
-Getting a Macintosh instead
-Replacing disc brakes
-Making toast
-Air filters
-Magnets

Then typically, Jimmy and he talk for hours about computers, politics, music and who knows what else because it's waay beyond me. And by then I'm sawing logs...relative to the two of them, I have a normal sleep schedule.

Jimmy and Andrew chatting on our deck at the hideaway last summer.

Reminiscing

It's hard to believe that it's already Thursday and I've been home for 3 days. My visit was waay too short and I wish I was able to spend more time with my cousin. I had a great time with her, every moment was cherished!The above view of Seattle was taken from Beacon Hill.

Moi, enjoying the tulips.

Me and Jimmy at Tulip Town. Windblown but happy. :)

This is Pacific Medical Center, which sits atop Beacon Hill. Amazon.com's global headquarters is here.

Cherry Blossoms on Beacon Hill.

In 8 hours

Jimmy and I will be leaving for Washington for a much anticipated weekend with my dearest cousin. I haven't seen her in 8 months and it's going to be so much fun!

I should start packing. Laundry still needs to be done. Gifts still need to be wrapped. Cards need to be made. Emails need to be sent. Dishes need to be done and miscellaneous putting stuff away must happen. But instead I'm playing around in photoshop with some new brushes I downloaded from Designfruit and blogging. Have I mentioned already that I'm the queen of procrastination?

I can't stop laughing at this

Project of the day

Six Years Ago

Family

Success.

Saturday home alone, events as planned. :)

I'm happy to report that the tv works. Hurray. I'm hesitant to admit that it was merely dead batteries. Yes, I am a loser. But to my defense, the remote acted like it was working - the screen was on and the transmission signal was going "whaa-laa-laa" because that's the noise it makes if you had extra sonaristic hearing. Which I do. So I recharged the suckers and the remote worked like new.

Well, I didn't spend any time watching the glowing tube on Friday because I went to Tracy with Doris for a class with Ali Edwards. We made these cute "Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, Always" mini books.The enameled covers were made by putting a flower mask over the cover, covering it with embossing ink, removing the mask, pouring ultra thick embossing powder over the entire thing, then melting the powder with a heat gun till it glazes.

This is the inside of the book.
Lot's of fun!

I didn't get home till 11 so really didn't watch tv. My poor kitty wasn't feeling very well, so I spent the rest of my waking hours comforting her and making sure she was ok. I did wake up once in the middle of the night in a panic because she wasn't in the room with me (unusual) but I found her asleep on my desk. She's totally acting normal today so maybe she just ate a bad bug or something.

I decided to do a few errands before plopping in front of the 36" for the rest of the day. Went to Michaels to get some artwork framed.I spent over 1/2 hour there deciding on mat color and frame. The guy helping me was actually quite helpful. It's hit or miss sometimes at Michaels. It'll be done in about 3 weeks.

When I got home, there were packages for me! Ok, there was one for Jimmy, too, but he's not here, so no point getting excited about a box I can't open, right?The top package is a cool tshirt from my SIL in NY from Magnolia Bakery. It says "Cupcakes Make People Happy". Love it! I can't wait to visit her and get cupcakes from here. The 2nd package is from my girl Danielle and has some fun pamper-me stuff in it.

After opening my packages, I soaked some beans to make ham and bean soup then skillfully plopped on the couch for marathon Joan of Arcadia viewing.

Yikes.

My tv won't turn on.
I.don't.know.what.I'm.going.to.do.
My IT guy is gone till 11:30 Sunday night, and that tv is so complicated, i can't diagnose what's wrong with it.
And believe it or not, we're a one tv household. No crawling into bed and watching re-runs in there.
And did TiVo record Grey's Anatomy last night?

This is really gonna screw up my weekend plans of doing absolutely nothing except watch dvd's.

Well, hopefully Jimmy can talk me thru fixing it. And I'm not gonna be home till midnight tonight so really, it's only 2 days that I might have to go with tv. Two.Long.Days.

Pathetic, isn't it?

Home Alone

Jimmy's in Dallas so I'm solo for the weekend. The odd thing about this is that it's normally me that leaves him home so I'm a little out of sorts figuring out what to do with myself. Actually, I have a massive pile of DVD's waiting for me to watch, so I know I'll be cozy on the couch most of the time. Maybe, just maybe, I'll do a little crafting, too.

It was pouring rain when I dropped him off this morning, but by the time I left to meet one of my girlfriends to celebrate her bday at Junnoon's in Palo Alto, there were white fluffy clouds and blue skies. This place was awesome, so any of my bay area friends who occasionally read my blog, I highly recommend it if you like Indian. They call it "eclectic modern Indian." I just call it really good. It's kind of a special occasion restaurant and a little uber trendy but oh so worth it.


Afterwards, I wandered to downtown Los Altos and did a little window shopping. I was this || close to buying a Waterford crystal bowl because...well...I love crystal, and Waterford? Hello, can't go wrong with Waterford, AND it was 25% off. But I talked myself out of it because really, who "needs" a Waterford Crystal Bowl even if it was only $33. V, if you had been with me, you so could have talked me into it! But I walked away, hoping to find something more useful to spend my ducats on. Like cake.

No, actually, I didn't buy cake from this place. I certainly was tempted, but instead got the best fruit ice tea and a small package of cashew butter cookies. I would go back for the ice tea alone. Almost...almost as good as sweet tea from the Cracker Barrel and I don't have to go to the south to get it. Phin, it's "earl grey tea with syrup and assorted fresh fruit". And they describe themselves as "Japanese innovations of European style cakes." I know. Hard to believe that I walked away not buying a slice, huh?

On my way home I noticed fresh snow on Mt. Hamilton. (Click on pic to enlarge and see the snow, really, it's there)Now, I know there's a lot of controversy about driving while talking on a cell phone, but no one's ever said anything about driving while trying to focus an SLR digi camera, have they? Well, I learned today that you can clearly watch the road thru the little viewfinder and totally stay within your own lane. I digress. Yea, so that snow was from this morning's storm. And it was sunny when I took that photo. And my temperature gauge thingy in my car read 61 degrees. Cool!

So I came home and decided to make a big pot of beef stew. Jimmy doesn't like stew, so I could eat it the whole weekend. After all the ingredients were in and I was patiently waiting the 2 hours for it to cook, I heard the rain again. It was practically pouring. With the sun shining. Weird freaking weather we're having today.

Perfect stew weather, me thinkith.
Beef Stew
4 T olive or canola oil
1 C flour
1 T garlic powder
2 t kosher salt
1 t black pepper
2 pounds beef for stew, cubed
12 small boiling onions
4-5 large potatoes, diced chunky
6-7 carrots, sliced chunky
3-4 stalks celery, sliced chunky
32oz beef stock

-In a large pot heat oil over medium heat. In a resealable plastic bag, mix together the flour, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Add a handful of meat at at time, shake and coat well. Brown small batches in hot oil till browned, about a minute per side. Remove and set aside.
-Brown onions in remaining oil for about 3 minutes per side. Drain any excess oil.
-Add to pot with the onions: carrots, celery, meat and beef stock. Stir and bring to a boil. Stir, cover and reduce heat to low for 1/2 an hour.
-In the meantime, peel and dice potatoes. Keep potato chunks fairly big if you don't want all of them to break down. Some will breakdown, which will create the thick stewlike gravy.
-Add potatoes and continue simmering for another 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally. Makes a lot.

Lost: Voice.

Found: time to be hypnotized by a glowing monitor. and do too much photoshop altering to a simple little photo.

I think I'm starting to feel a little better, except my voice is crackly or missing all together.
But now that I'm home, I can think about the upcoming trips the following year might bring. When we got home from the hideaway last night, a wedding invitation awaited us in our mailbox. A wedding in Anchorage. I don't know if you know any other Anchorage, but this one is the one in Alaska. Yes, we might (keyword: might) be going to Alaska for a wedding in July. July 7th, 2007 to be exact. Vows will be exchanged at 7:07pm. Thank God not 7:07am. I think it'd be fun. It's just a matter of A) can Jimmy take that much time off of work and 2) who else is going. It'd be cool if more than just us went. I told Jimmy that we have to go because I'm the self-proclaimed family photographer. Not sure if he'll buy into that.

So I don't mislead anyone...

This is "MY" bookshelf. Yup, all in a disarray. Equals my life. ;)
Most of my reading type books are at the hideaway.

The technical ones in the previous photo are the husband's.

Married 16 years, together since we were babies

Not really babies, but sheesh! Lookie how young we were.

We started dating December 1985 so, wow, we've been together for over 21 years. This is our graduation picture June 1986. Four and a half years after this, we were married at 22.

Happy anniversary sweets. It's been a blast!

Upsidedown Christmas Tree

Now, I don't normally take photos of the inside of strangers home. But how could I resist a tree hanging upside down from the ceiling? Besides, I bet I'm not the only one who's taken a photo of their tree, afterall, they leave all their blinds open for all to see. Best to enlarge the photo since it's so blurry - hard to capture a detailed photo in the dark from the street in a moving vehicle.

Currently listening to festive Christmas tunes, including ones from Ragged, thanks so much! Oh Holy Night is one of my very favorite Christmas carols and I love both Jim Brickman's instrumental and Bing Crosby's traditional versions.

We're home for the evening after an intimate dinner. Food was fantastic. I don't eat pork tenderloin very often, but tonights may have been the best I've ever had. For dessert, we ordered a chocolate souffle. When the waiter brought it out, he said "I'll be back with some chocolate sauce". When he returned, he smiled, said "Chocolate sauce" then he broke the top of the souffle and poured the chocolate sauce in the steaming middle. It looked delicious. After he finished pouring, he said "I'll leave the rest of this here in case you want more. It's an espresso cabernet sauce." Um. Excuse me? Espresso cabernet is not chocolate sauce. Oh well, we enjoyed it nonetheless, despite the overwhelmingly alcohol flavor. And now we've got another one of those pukey cute couple's secret language sayings. Whenever we'll come across something that isn't what they say it is, we'll call it "chocolate sauce".

Christmas Eve

Just finishing up the last family calendars. The printer is smokin' - it's been printing nearly non-stop for 3 days. Jimmy and I make 14 calendars each year, one for each household and one each for any nieces and nephews no longer in the roost. It's a tradition we've done since 1995. Love doing it, it's totally brings together all of my passions: scrapbooking, graphic design, photography and family.

Last night went to the parentals for an Eve before Christmas Eve dinner. Enjoyed the evening with 9 of the clan, playing rummicube, figuring out puzzles and eating Christmas cookies.

Today has been more solitary and surprisingly very enjoyable. I've been wrapping presents and folding and printing calendars all day while watching the Anne of Green Gables series. I haven't watched it in over 5 years and am totally enjoying it just as much as I ever have. It's so ultimately uncool, like Little House on the Prairie (which, incidentally, I loved watching, too - big surprise). Besides, Matthew reminds me of my dad. A sincere man who can pour his heart out without having to say a thing. So there. It also reminds me of my SIL who I just tavelled with and her daughter. 10 years ago we actually made the trek to Prince Edward Island together and saw the Green Gables house.

Our dinner plans with the Chancey's changed so Jimmy and I are off to the Plumed Horse in Saratoga for a romantic dinner alone in about an hour.

I wish you all the merriest of days!