Cooking!

Big Fish Games has been down all weekend - a fire in the building in Seattle where their servers are located caused a two day outage. Withdrawal started early yesterday morning when I had to have my morning coffee without my usual dose of Riddle of the Day and Farm 51. By mid-morning, I found additional info explaining that while we were all hoping the outage was because they were getting ready to roll out their new game site (including a new Farm 52 game which I cannot wait for!), the outage was due to the fire and there was no ETA on when the site would be back up.

So, I got busy. Yesterday, J. and I did a healthy dose of 'gardening in the pool' - pulling weeds, etc. while taking frequent dips in the pool to stay cool. I also made Monkey Bread for breakfast and a triple batch of brownies. It was a fun day and I felt like I got a lot done - and had sore muscles today to prove it!

The site was down again today so I cooked some more. Made home-made tomato sauce using our garden tomatoes. Turned out pretty good - simmered chopped tomatoes with some spices and a bit of garlic. Only thing was: I used a lot of tomatoes (about 10, I think - though our tomatoes are pretty small) and ended up with about a cup of sauce. So it will take A LOT of tomatoes to make enough sauce for a meal for four. Still, it was fun to try it and I will use the sauce on some pasta for lunch or dinner tomorrow for me and J. - which will be fine 'cuz it's usually just us these days anyway. Then, I went to the store to pick up 'supplies' for our 4th of July BBQ - hamburgers, baked beans, home made vanilla ice cream and home made blackberry cobbler. All was delicious and we have plenty of ice cream and cobbler for tomorrow.

I also pulled out all the family room furniture, etc. away from the walls and cleaned and vacuumed. Cleaned out the track of the sliding doors and then re-lubed the tracks. Did several loads of dishes ('cuz cooking from scratch uses a lot of bowls, etc.).

J. and H. used the 14 foot ladder and cleaned the cobwebs and window sills off on the upper floor windows in the living room - finally!

There are fireworks going off in the house behind us and it really pisses me off, since they're illegal. Makes me worry about fire.... [J. just said 'you're tired, honey'. Because this sentence was originally written as 'their our'. Yikes. I'd like to think it's 'cuz I'm tired but I'm pretty sure it's 'cuz I'm getting old].

B. had a really hard day at work yesterday - but he held it together and talked to his bosses today about another employee that's been hassling him. His instinct was to quit but J. did a good job talking him through the initial reaction part and B. held it together....he had a much better day today and is showering now to head out for some time with friends. On a good note, he worked a full 8 hour shift today and it's holiday pay! And he's getting around 20-24 hours per week these days which is good. Allowing him to have his spending money (the kid has a hefty discretionary budget these days) and still put some money in savings for future expenses.

I'm looking forward to Monday - our new superintendent's first official day. We are welcoming him with a breakfast - I'm bringing the latte machine and making lattes. It will be a nice way to start the week - and I'm really looking forward to him being here officially, full time! He's going to be terrific! and we are all really excited to have this change. It's the right time for it.

Cancun is two weeks from today! I'm starting to make our packing lists and shopping lists...and lists of things to get done around the house.

J. is really excited about the trip to Vegas - we are already really looking forward to it. He's promised that we can do something for my 50th - which would be great if we can afford it. He suggested Vegas again and I said 'well, maybe Disneyland?'. We'll see. Anywhere the two of us go is fun so I'm up for anything.

I think the weekend of 'no games' was good for me. I feel like I accomplished a lot - and I still have tomorrow 'left'. It's been a nice, relaxing week off. I feel ready to dig back into work. And ready to work around here more tomorrow. The weather is perfect for more 'in the pool' gardening! And there's more tomatoes ready for sauce making.