04-14-05
The chickens, the rabbits, the cats, and the turtle....

Urban farm

Hey Ladies!

Gambit & Ace
 Sylvia and her posse were out of town camping, so Sean and I held down the farm. Which means I held down the farm. The first morning there were fourteen eggs! I took them to work and Lauren W. took them home and made egg salad for a bunch of people at work the next day. Not including me, because egg salad frightens me.
Plus? It's a sandwich.
Remember Baby Ace? This is him with Gambit - he wouldn't look at the camera because he was hungry.
The chicken on the left is laying on the eggs keeping them warm, and eyeballing me because she knows what I'm after. Then the old hag on the right climbs up on the shelf to squawk at me and make me fear for my eyes. Three day egg total: 24.
I WIN.

Bunnies

Bunny butt

Bunny butt
Eddie the turtle not pictured, because I totally forgot to take a picture of him.
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04-13-05

Cary & Lauren W.

Stupid lunch
 Cary's model and Lauren's project were featured on the cover of the Daily Journal of Commerce. Lauren is not only leaving us, she is also leaving South Park Library project, which just so happens to be in the neighborhood she lived in.
It was cool to see Cary's model on the cover of the paper!
I ordered a quiche at Gretchen's because the others went to Great Harvest Bakery (I'm just not a sandwich fan) next door. This quiche is called the "spinach

Todd helps out
 feta, red onion quiche". Now take a look at my plate - do you see all that evil? It's green olives and black olives. Look at how many there are! And it was a small piece of quiche! Now I can understand that some of you freakshows like olives and I'm relatively cool with that, but olives are expensive! Wouldn't they want to advertise it like "Twenty Olives Quiche" or something? You know that the taste of olives spreads throughout. Arrrgh I was so mad. They list three ingredients but not the MAIN ingredient?!? Am I dwelling? YES I AM.
Also? Wasabi potato chips + espresso = NO.
Left the lights on again yesterday. That's twice in, um, four years? Looking forward to Canadianizing my car with automatic running lights!
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P.S. Okay I'm wrong - I just googled my own page and saw that it was only two years ago. At least we didn't pop all of my fuses and freak out my electrical system this time. One of my reverse lights still doesn't work from that incident.

04-12-05
And finally!
Lauren W's Going Away Party
Okay I'm going feed the rabbits, collect the chicken eggs, feed the cats and the turtle, then go to work.
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04-11-05
Amy's Bridal Shower
...and now Coal's Introduction Party
(Lauren's BBQ is next.)
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04-09-05
Hey Everyone.
My comments got hacked tonight and we think we've fixed everything, but if things here are awful, I'm sorry. I can't stay up all night just waiting for them to hack me again.
I apologize if you were here earlier. All of my comments were redirecting to T ubgirl.
Ugh.
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04-09-05
Lauren M's Surprise Mani-Pedi Bridal Shower from Work!

The Johnston Architects Girls

The bride getting pampered

Pedicures

Alison & Sonia!
Lauren knew something was up, but she wasn't sure when or where or what. We told her fiance Kyle to keep her schedule clear for Friday evening.
At 4:30 we told her it was time to go, and we all walked across the street to Kathy's Nails. I made cookie bars, Sara brought truffles, and Chris brought a bouquet of flowers. It was fun having the women from work being relaxed and girlie. We also gave her a fat gift certificate (thanks to Ray & Mary and all of us collectively) to Chez Shea for her and Kyle to have a super-romantic meal.
It was such good timing since it was a stressful week for many people in my office!
(Lauren Woodward moves to Texas next week.)

Chris, Lauren W., and Sara

Disco!

High class flip-flops

Going home all shiny and new
Amy's Bridal Shower this morning. Coal's Introduction BBQ this afternoon, and Lauren Woodward's Going Away BBQ tomorrow afternoon.
Stay tuned....
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04-08-05
There are some people in your life that you will never, ever be able to describe. You can start a sentence but then you'll just start laughing and you can't even finish. Or you may not be able to find the words, because those words aren't in our language.
It's just....Shane.
Shane likes to do somersaults anywhere. He likes to go to the park to throw things. Frisbees, marbles, anything. He doesn't walk, he stomps. He doesn't have normal conversations for more than a few minutes without changing it to "Okay! So would you rather eat a bag of worms or have to have sex with your brother?" or "How far do you think I can throw this?" And to make it worse, Sean and I continue the conversation as if it's completely normal. "Can I cook the worms? Can I be on drugs?"
I bet you can throw it from *here* to *here*.
I have decided that when I have kids, Shane is going to be "Uncle Robot", because he's the most un-human human I know. I have no doubt that our kid(s) will be convinced that he is, in fact, a robot. His energy is ceaseless. He doesn't simply move, he darts. He is hilarious seconds upon waking up, and his brain doesn't move in a straight line. Ever.
Shane asked us to wake him up when we got up yesterday morning. This is a fun game we play every morning. And he'll say "No! Really! Make sure I wake up!"
The next morning:
Sean: Shane! Wake up!
Shane: Okay! Good night!
Sean: SHANE! It's time to get up!
Shane: Okay! I love youuuu! Zzzzzzz
(An hour later)
Me: Okay Shane, no really, you wanted us to get you up.
Shane: Okay I'm just going to count to uhh, three hundred, then I'll get up.
The best part of this is seeing Shane in his element - with all of the cousins in one room. The conversation just bounces off the wall in Canadianisms and insanity and brilliance all combined. Michael, Jason, Roxanne, Debra, Sean..... I can think of no better crowd to just sit and talk with. They're all cuckoo.
No reason for this post, really. I just wanted to post these pictures, and I wanted to make it clear that this wasn't a big funny thing or some strange event. It's just.... Shane.
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04-06-05
As promised...

Looking at Sean to save him

The inside of my right thigh

Looking at me to save him

Damp cat

Clingy cat (he was wet and he just wanted to sit on my lap)

The bath water after (Eeewww!)
He's an indoor cat - how did he get so dirty since last August?!?
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P.S. I'm heading to the store to get groceries. It's not even 7 a.m. yet. Ugh.

04-05-05
Real quick, for Andrea
First of all, Andrea, I just realized when I set up that title link - you never even asked me to bake these! I must've seen Danica and assumed it said Dayment and jumped right down to the recipe. We made these stupid cookies for no reason! Which brings me to, Second of all, they aren't almond biscuits as much as they are biscotti. No matter how you slice it. Booorrrrrrring. And sticky to roll out. And dry. And meh.
No butter?!?
No vanilla? No almond flavoring?
Oh and I also did an egg white instead of an egg yolk which made them even drier. Mmmmm. (It was an accident - I mean, how do you pick out an egg white?)
And Estella? I was all "Okay! Hunker down! Give Jalen a bath!" and then I realized that I haven't updated for 48 hours and I'm losing blog readers by the DOZENS and suddenly I feel pressured to update or I'll lose my blog friends.
I know sad huh?
And I just don't want to give him a bath.
Okay, okay I'm going now.
And I promise to take pictures.

Slicing the sticky dough

I think it's time for a new Silpat
Stupid, stupid cookies.
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04-03-05
Mmm... anyone up for some second-day chocolate fondue? Since it was so yummy the first time?
I didn't do much this weekend - a bunch of work for Amy's final project for school, training for the World Championship of Moraff's MoreJongg, making Kraft dinner because I didn't want any of the leftovers in the fridge, sleeping too much, and, ummm... I'm sure I did something useful....
IS THERE ANY REASON WHY OUR STEREO LOVES TO PLAY ALANIS MORISSETTE? IS THIS REALLY NECESSARY?!?
Our cat Jalen is in dire need of a bath. He doesn't even go outside. I can't figure it out.

Hee hee! Rabbit ears

TOUR BUS!
Saturday morning Sean yelled "Baby? There's a tour bus at our house!" and yup, there was. Some group to look at our ditch, as groups tend to do. But this was the first time the group had a tour bus. I wonder if they were from another city. It's strange having a big group of strangers staring at your yard and discussing it.
Man, we need to mow the lawn.
I wonder if they thought that.
Tonight was dinner at Noah & Monica's, and they made turkey balls, lamb chops, a big honkin' salad, cheese and bread, and chocolate souffles with coffee & Bailey's. DUDE. I was stuffed. It was hours ago and I'm still stuffed.
  Check out Noah's rubber boots. Don't they complete the outfit? With the towel over his shoulder?

Good picture of Noah & Sean!


Jon & Amy woke up to this today
I had a list of things to get done this weekend.
It was a good list. I'm going to miss it.
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04-01-05

Noah & Dominique

Monica & Jalen
 I'm so happy March is over. That month took WAY too long. I must've thought that it was the 31st about four days in a row.
Last night we had Noah & Monica (the couple that got married on our pool) over for dinner. We are going to their house for the same on Sunday night. We hadn't seen them in a long time, so we need two sessions to catch up.
Tonight we were invited to dinner at our landlords' house, with the deal that they would make dinner, and we would bring dessert....
I hopped onto my trusty recipezaar.com and searched out the perfect socializing dessert - chocolate fondue. This recipe got rave reviews from everyone who made it, so I proudly told anyone I saw that I was going to make a super-duper-special chocolate fondue, and set out to find the best chocolate I could (ScharffenBerger - can you say EXPENSIVE?!?), and lovely dippins, and e-mailed the recipe to Sean this afternoon to get crackin. I figured if he started early, say, 4:30, then he could melt the chocolate verrrrrry slowwwwwly over a double-boiler, and it wouldn't get scorched. Smart, right?
When I called him at five, he said something wasn't working right, and maybe it's because he's not used to working with chocolate, or maybe something just... went wrong.
How can it go wrong? It's four ingredients melted in a bowl!

GROSS

Store-bought replacement
I saw this stuff in the pan and panicked. I added more chocolate. More cream. Butter. Salt. More cream. Whisked-whisked-whisked. $25 worth of chunky, greasy glop. How could this be possible? I took pictures and posted a cry for help on the recipezaar forums, but in the next half-hour, nobody replied (at 6 pm on a Friday - go figure).
I was seriously very, very angry. I probably spent about $30 on this dessert, only to be so embarrassed because we'd have to go buy a store-bought dessert on the way, which would give Nick one more reason to make fun of me. We ditched the dippins and packed only the strawberries, bought a cheesecake at Central Market, and arrived a mere half-hour late.
Maureen's theory? We cooked it for too long and it separated, or we didn't heat it enough (to a boil) to break down the sugars. After further consideration (and later comments on the forum), I know it's because of my grand idea to slow-cook it for too long. Grrrrr.

Our hosts

Nick & Daniel downstairs watching 24
 Turns out Nick didn't even join us for dinner, so I was spared his ritual chiding for most of the night. And he did come upstairs to make me a mocha - a real cafe-style mocha! So it was all good.
(And I reminded Nick that when a boy picks on a girl, it means he likes you.)

Mocha!
Look who's home! Coal joined Sean and Chris earlier this week! And they aren't getting much sleep!
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