Stay tuned campers, this one is gonna be good...
So here I lay; half-asleep, half-naked, half-drunk preparing to give you half a blog. Now I know what you're thinking, "I paid absolutely nothing and expect to receive a whole lot of goodness." Normally I'd oblige, but tonight there are too many half-thoughts floating around to form a coherent post.
Hey quick question, how do I get Jillian on my blogtastic pile of brain droppings?
So even with the weather gods trying to dump on my rainbow (see today's 1st post), we managed to grill out and pull off the dinner party. Teriyaki Ginger Chicken on the grill with Italian Herbed Veggies, absolutely one of the easiest and tastiest meals you can make. Plus the wife and I pulled off a made from scratch Lemon Meringue Pie. All the more impressive considering neither of us had ever made one before. Plus an Italian Pasta Salad, courtesy of Jana, with a nice blend of olives and feta really made for a nice night. Once we added in the bottle of Shiraz and Jen's Ghirardelli Chocolate Cookies the night was about perfect. This may have to become a semi-regular gig, good friends and good food can't be passed up. So if you are in the greater metro Madison area sign up now for a visit. (I'll update with recipes ASAP)
{to my favorite East Coast readers, feel free to make the trip out. I'll cook raw, vegan goodness for you}
Now onto the Hopplets and The Wife's impending intervention. So The Wife is addicted to babies and while I can sympathize, I mean honestly we do make cute babies this is getting a little out of control. I received an official notification that we want to have twins or possibly triplets, hence the Hopplets and that I would subsequently be driving a Siena. WTF! A minivan for Hippie, say it isn't so. Someone please pinch me, remind me that this is just a dream and comfort me with the fact that I couldn't possibly be barefoot, pregnant and responsible for five babies under the age five. To any and all of you that love and care for The Wife and hate to see this terrible addiction tear her life apart, I'm calling on you to join me for an intervention. It's not too late, we can still make a difference. On the other hand, this is mostly my fault. I'm an enabler and I do so enjoy being a stay-at-home dad that I may have pushed an innocent habit into full-blown addiction. What can you do, I guess we just roll with it the best we can.
In completely unrelated news, Sunday will now come complete with a new segment where I share what you should be eating, listening to, watching or doing. Pretty much whatever strikes me fancy at that given moment. So here goes (drumroll)
TV Show - Lie To Me
Music - Endless Boundaries podcast
Food - Larabar
Charity - Earrings for The Wife (cash, credit, no checks please - we accept Paypal)
Okay friends, the sleepy time fairy is singing sweet lullabies of Grateful Deadness to me so I leave you with the reminder that while I may be a difficult and contrary P.I.T.A. you are all my sweet chosen lambs and I dearly love my flock. Until next time...
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Curse you Caillech, Freyr & Oya!
This weekend was supposed to be about enjoying the outdoors and the nice weather, but the aforementioned weather gods are conspiring against me. We were supposed to make our first outing to the Dane County Farmers' Market on Saturday and then use our fresh produce to grill out with friends on Sunday. Instead my weekend was mostly about walking dogs in the rain and sitting on the couch. So if anyone has a spare virgin, please let me know so I can prepare the sacrifice immediately and appease the fickle weather gods. All is not lost, our local Woodman's has a wonderful variety of fresh produce and beer. Both these items are key ingredients to a successful barbeque. Now that I'm stocked up, I just need to brave the weather and grill out in the rain, no problem. I can do this.
Since the weather wanted to do its best to keep us locked up inside, we decided to explore our local library. Funny story here; when we moved, I talked to our previous library about updating my address. They informed me that because of where we were moving to, I would need to get a new library card for the county not just the city. Fast forward to yesterday and the librarian there tells me I need a new card and that it'll actually be a City of Madison card, which was what I originally had. Does it really matter what color my library card is. I'm going to check out the same books at the same library regardless of a red or green or white card. Come on people, it shouldn't be this tough.
Saturday Lunch: Homemade Mushroom, Onion & Pepperoni Pizzas
Saturday Dinner: Leek & Bean Cassoulet with Biscuits
4-6 Yukon Gold potatoes, cut in 1/2 inch dice
3 cups vegetable broth
3 tbsp cornstarch
2 tbsp olive oil
2 leeks, washed well and thin sliced
1 small onion, medium dice
1 1/2 cups carrots, cut in 1/2 inch dice
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 heaping tbsp chopped fresh thyme
Fresh ground pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup frozen peas
1 can navy beans, drained & rinsed
For the biscuits -
3/4 cup plain soy milk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup shortening
Preheat oven to 425.
Boil potatoes for about 10 minutes, while they are boiling start prepping the biscuits. Add the vinegar to the soy milk and set aside to curdle. Mix the flour, baking powder and salt.
Back to the stew, mix the cornstarch into the stock until dissolved. Saute in the oil the leeks, onions and carrots until soft and just starting to brown (about 10 minutes). Add the garlic, thyme, pepper and salt and cook an additional 1 minute. Add the cooked potatoes and frozen peas, then pour in the vegetable stock mixture. Bring this to a simmer and allow to cook about 7 minutes. Finally, mix in the beans.
Time to finish up the biscuits. Add the shortening to the flour mixture in small slivers and work into the dough until you have large crumbs. Drizzle in the soy milk and mix with a fork until moistened. Gently knead the dough about ten times. Now you are ready to add the biscuits to the top of the stew. Roll about golf ball sized chunks and place on top of the stew about an inch apart.
Transfer everything into the oven, bake for about 15 minutes or until the biscuits are just slightly browned on top. Garnish with some more of the chopped thyme, serve and enjoy!
One last note of rainy weekend fun, don't play Wii Bowling with the wife, she's a hustler. She whooped up on me pretty good over a nightcap Saturday night. It wasn't pretty folks, I lost 4 straight games to her. Embarrassing!
Since the weather wanted to do its best to keep us locked up inside, we decided to explore our local library. Funny story here; when we moved, I talked to our previous library about updating my address. They informed me that because of where we were moving to, I would need to get a new library card for the county not just the city. Fast forward to yesterday and the librarian there tells me I need a new card and that it'll actually be a City of Madison card, which was what I originally had. Does it really matter what color my library card is. I'm going to check out the same books at the same library regardless of a red or green or white card. Come on people, it shouldn't be this tough.
Saturday Lunch: Homemade Mushroom, Onion & Pepperoni Pizzas
Saturday Dinner: Leek & Bean Cassoulet with Biscuits
4-6 Yukon Gold potatoes, cut in 1/2 inch dice
3 cups vegetable broth
3 tbsp cornstarch
2 tbsp olive oil
2 leeks, washed well and thin sliced
1 small onion, medium dice
1 1/2 cups carrots, cut in 1/2 inch dice
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 heaping tbsp chopped fresh thyme
Fresh ground pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup frozen peas
1 can navy beans, drained & rinsed
For the biscuits -
3/4 cup plain soy milk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup shortening
Preheat oven to 425.
Boil potatoes for about 10 minutes, while they are boiling start prepping the biscuits. Add the vinegar to the soy milk and set aside to curdle. Mix the flour, baking powder and salt.
Back to the stew, mix the cornstarch into the stock until dissolved. Saute in the oil the leeks, onions and carrots until soft and just starting to brown (about 10 minutes). Add the garlic, thyme, pepper and salt and cook an additional 1 minute. Add the cooked potatoes and frozen peas, then pour in the vegetable stock mixture. Bring this to a simmer and allow to cook about 7 minutes. Finally, mix in the beans.
Time to finish up the biscuits. Add the shortening to the flour mixture in small slivers and work into the dough until you have large crumbs. Drizzle in the soy milk and mix with a fork until moistened. Gently knead the dough about ten times. Now you are ready to add the biscuits to the top of the stew. Roll about golf ball sized chunks and place on top of the stew about an inch apart.
Transfer everything into the oven, bake for about 15 minutes or until the biscuits are just slightly browned on top. Garnish with some more of the chopped thyme, serve and enjoy!
One last note of rainy weekend fun, don't play Wii Bowling with the wife, she's a hustler. She whooped up on me pretty good over a nightcap Saturday night. It wasn't pretty folks, I lost 4 straight games to her. Embarrassing!
Thursday, April 22, 2010
How to pick a lock (And other useful skills with a toddler around)
So funny story today, I got locked out of the house by a two year old.
This amazing tale of suffering and ultimate triumph in the face of toddler misbehavior starts innocently enough. Mr. Jack McPuggle is on antibiotics which can cause some nausea and diarrhea, poor guy. So when he comes over by me and I can see that he is trying not to have an accident on his mother's nice hardwood floor, I have to act quickly and take him out. Since the monsters are up and about and I don't want to leave them in the house alone, I hit upon a brilliant idea. Hook the puggles up on their chains tied to the deck. What could possibly go wrong?
As I attach Bailey and Jack to their chains I hear Luke start to cry. Danger, danger unhappy baby! I bound up the stairs and rush through the door to save the poor, suffering baby. Oh wait that would have been perfect, but instead I run into a door that won't open and can hear Liam giggling inside. Dear God, please tell me that little turd didn't just lock me out of the house while I was taking care of the dogs. As calmly as I can (which is not very calm at all) I tell Liam to unlock the deadbolt on the porch door. He laughs and runs into the living room. This seems to be going from bad to worse. What to do what to do? Finally Liam comes back over to the door and when I tell him to unlock it he reaches up, jiggles the handle a bit and runs off. As an apoplectic rage threatens to overtake me I ponder the irony that just yesterday the wife told me to start deadbolting the door to the garage so that Liam can't get out by mistake. Hmmm, did I actually remember or is it unlocked, please be unlocked door. Thank you, thank you. It's a good thing that I'm lazy by nature and didn't get around to locking the back door or there would be either a broken window and strangled toddler or a daddy sleeping on the porch and two babies with the run of the house when the wife got home tonight at 10:30.
To ease my mind after this torturous affair, I made Curried Carrot Dip tonight, enjoy!
Curried Carrot Dip
1 lb. carrots, peeled and chopped into 1/2"
1/4 cup roasted sunflower seeds
2 tsp grapeseed or other vegetable oil
1/2 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1. Boil the carrots about 10 minutes or so until tender, let cool.
2. Put sunflower seeds in food processor until crumbled, then add remaining ingredients and blend until smooth.
3. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes
4. Serve with crackers, pita bread or fresh veggies.
This amazing tale of suffering and ultimate triumph in the face of toddler misbehavior starts innocently enough. Mr. Jack McPuggle is on antibiotics which can cause some nausea and diarrhea, poor guy. So when he comes over by me and I can see that he is trying not to have an accident on his mother's nice hardwood floor, I have to act quickly and take him out. Since the monsters are up and about and I don't want to leave them in the house alone, I hit upon a brilliant idea. Hook the puggles up on their chains tied to the deck. What could possibly go wrong?
As I attach Bailey and Jack to their chains I hear Luke start to cry. Danger, danger unhappy baby! I bound up the stairs and rush through the door to save the poor, suffering baby. Oh wait that would have been perfect, but instead I run into a door that won't open and can hear Liam giggling inside. Dear God, please tell me that little turd didn't just lock me out of the house while I was taking care of the dogs. As calmly as I can (which is not very calm at all) I tell Liam to unlock the deadbolt on the porch door. He laughs and runs into the living room. This seems to be going from bad to worse. What to do what to do? Finally Liam comes back over to the door and when I tell him to unlock it he reaches up, jiggles the handle a bit and runs off. As an apoplectic rage threatens to overtake me I ponder the irony that just yesterday the wife told me to start deadbolting the door to the garage so that Liam can't get out by mistake. Hmmm, did I actually remember or is it unlocked, please be unlocked door. Thank you, thank you. It's a good thing that I'm lazy by nature and didn't get around to locking the back door or there would be either a broken window and strangled toddler or a daddy sleeping on the porch and two babies with the run of the house when the wife got home tonight at 10:30.
To ease my mind after this torturous affair, I made Curried Carrot Dip tonight, enjoy!
Curried Carrot Dip
1 lb. carrots, peeled and chopped into 1/2"
1/4 cup roasted sunflower seeds
2 tsp grapeseed or other vegetable oil
1/2 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1. Boil the carrots about 10 minutes or so until tender, let cool.
2. Put sunflower seeds in food processor until crumbled, then add remaining ingredients and blend until smooth.
3. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes
4. Serve with crackers, pita bread or fresh veggies.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Back from my mini-vacation.
Hey everyone -
I've been lazy the last week or so with all the family coming for Liam's birthday, so finally I'm back. Booper is back to NYC and Matt left for Hawaii, terrible for poor Liam. He walks around the house saying "Matt, Booper, Matt, Booper" wondering where they are.
So Mr. Luke has been having a rough week after his vaccinations on Tuesday. Somehow, he seems to think that anywhere from 1-5 AM is the best time to make sure that dad is listening. So we are running a little ragged with no sleepy sleepy. Now Luke has decided that I'm too cool to drink my bottle. Fussy babies and no sleep make me a sad panda! Apparently all this is acceptable because according to the wife, he's cute so he can do what he wants.
Since I'm still feeling somewhat lazy and wanted to play with the new vegetable chopper, dinner tonight was an Italian inspired pasta salad.
TGIF Picnic Pasta Salad
Penne pasta
Italian dressing
Chicken tenders
Basil
Tarragon
Penzey's Spices Old World seasoning
Diced Red & Green peppers
Diced Red Onion
Black Olives
Broccoli
Grape Tomatoes
Fresh Mozzarella Cheese
Mix, chill & serve. Enjoy!
I've been lazy the last week or so with all the family coming for Liam's birthday, so finally I'm back. Booper is back to NYC and Matt left for Hawaii, terrible for poor Liam. He walks around the house saying "Matt, Booper, Matt, Booper" wondering where they are.
So Mr. Luke has been having a rough week after his vaccinations on Tuesday. Somehow, he seems to think that anywhere from 1-5 AM is the best time to make sure that dad is listening. So we are running a little ragged with no sleepy sleepy. Now Luke has decided that I'm too cool to drink my bottle. Fussy babies and no sleep make me a sad panda! Apparently all this is acceptable because according to the wife, he's cute so he can do what he wants.
Since I'm still feeling somewhat lazy and wanted to play with the new vegetable chopper, dinner tonight was an Italian inspired pasta salad.
TGIF Picnic Pasta Salad
Penne pasta
Italian dressing
Chicken tenders
Basil
Tarragon
Penzey's Spices Old World seasoning
Diced Red & Green peppers
Diced Red Onion
Black Olives
Broccoli
Grape Tomatoes
Fresh Mozzarella Cheese
Mix, chill & serve. Enjoy!
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Homemade pizza, Flying Dog Beer & Matt's birthday.
Today started out with walking the puggles in a freakin' blizzard at 12:30 in the morning! You have to love Wisconsin weather. So Bethany, our NY fashion consultant, has arrived and brought this craptastic weather with her. I show up at the MSN airport around 10:30PM to pick her up and there's a great storm going. Then an announcement comes on that they are diverting flights to Chicago because of the weather. The next announcement tells me that her flight is being rerouted. So I join a large group of people trying to find out what is going on from Delta. So the worker bee tells us that the flight is going to Chicago because of the storm and our passengers will have to find their own way to Madison or wait for another flight up. So here I am passengerless, tired and ready to see Bethany. As I walk back to the parking ramp, another announcement comes on to say that the flight from NYC has landed. Hmmm, what is going on here? I was just told by the company flying the plane that it was going to Chicago. Wouldn't you think that they should have some idea of when the pilot was going to divebomb out of the clouds? I mean there wasn't that much of a gap, I'm thinking that they were already descending when we were getting our erroneous message about Chicago.
Hooray! The Hawaiian has arrived. He's freezing because he was fooled into thinking that it was in the 80s in Wisconsin, but no one told him that was so last week. We've finally assembled our cast for Liam's party. It should be a fun weekend, at least after Matt performs his native Hawaiian sun dance and sacrifices a virgin to the volcano.
Tomorrow night, the gang - (me, the wife, the Hawaiian, & Booper) are off to the Ivory Room. It's a piano bar in Madison, where we will proceed to enjoy the fermented fruits of some random brewers labor.
Tonight's meal included a couple of homemade pizzas, Spicy Thai Chicken & Vegan Veggierific.
Spicy Thai:
Flatbread crust
Peanut sauce
Vindaloo chicken
Broccolislaw mix
Black Sesame seeds
Bake at 325 for about 15 min, eat and enjoy!
Vegan Veggierific:
Flatbread crust
Maninara sauce
Spinach
Baby bella mushrooms
Red onion
Red & green peppers
Black olive
Broccoli
You can add cheese if you want to be vegetarian instead of vegan, bake it at 375 for 15 min.
Stay tuned for drunken reviews from the Ivory Room tomorrow night! Thanks everyone for tuning in.
Hooray! The Hawaiian has arrived. He's freezing because he was fooled into thinking that it was in the 80s in Wisconsin, but no one told him that was so last week. We've finally assembled our cast for Liam's party. It should be a fun weekend, at least after Matt performs his native Hawaiian sun dance and sacrifices a virgin to the volcano.
Tomorrow night, the gang - (me, the wife, the Hawaiian, & Booper) are off to the Ivory Room. It's a piano bar in Madison, where we will proceed to enjoy the fermented fruits of some random brewers labor.
Tonight's meal included a couple of homemade pizzas, Spicy Thai Chicken & Vegan Veggierific.
Spicy Thai:
Flatbread crust
Peanut sauce
Vindaloo chicken
Broccolislaw mix
Black Sesame seeds
Bake at 325 for about 15 min, eat and enjoy!
Vegan Veggierific:
Flatbread crust
Maninara sauce
Spinach
Baby bella mushrooms
Red onion
Red & green peppers
Black olive
Broccoli
You can add cheese if you want to be vegetarian instead of vegan, bake it at 375 for 15 min.
Stay tuned for drunken reviews from the Ivory Room tomorrow night! Thanks everyone for tuning in.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Pedestrians, You've Been Warned!
Okay kiddos, as of today, the following rule is in effect: Pedestrians will be treated like deer when encountered on the road!
Seriously, I'm in a giant hunk of metal that only wants to turn you into a human pancake. Why is it that people seem to think the world exists for their use. If you are moving solely under the power of your own two feet, you should not walk in front of me, stop in front of me or play in front of me. I will win! From now on, when the slow or stupid in the human herd run out in front of the car, you have to just drive through the collision and hope that their body doesn't come in the windshield. If they are still alive, but badly injured just call the DNR to put them out of their misery. It's the humane thing to do.
Even worse than idiot pedestrians are all the jackasses on their bikes around here. Hey FYI moron, if you change lanes in front of me without looking or signaling and I run you over, I'll still sleep at night. You might have more serious problems though. The people that ride their bikes around town seem to think that they own the road. I'm pretty sure that lots of taxpayer dollars go to making a very enjoyable network of bike trails all over Madison and probably the rest of the country. Use them! That's what they are intended for.
Lastly, we have the amazing drivers of Madison's Beltline and their complete lack of driving skills. If these cretins spent a little less time on cell phones, turned around talking to kids or generally not paying attention we could probably reduce a few of the daily accidents that occur. I'm always amazed that these people manage to drift between lanes and cause accidents, but never quite take themselves out of my misery. Just once could it be one of the terrible, inattentive drivers that is hurt or killed instead of some poor bastard on his way to work. Oh yeah, teenage drivers and old people shouldn't be allowed on public roads either. We should create special road preserves where they can drive under the illusion that they are free to go where they want!
One final warning to all the incompetents on the streets, if you cause an accident with my kids in the car, I will beat you to death with my flip flop. It will be a slow, painful death and if I'm feeling generous I might just leave a rock in the bottom to speed you along. Anyways, the doctor says if I limit my exposure to the roadways my blood pressure should return to normal in no time.
On a happy, fun note we are bringing in a fashion consultant from NYC who assures me that "naked is the new black". She'll be sharing wisdom here for the next week. Love you Bethany!
Seriously, I'm in a giant hunk of metal that only wants to turn you into a human pancake. Why is it that people seem to think the world exists for their use. If you are moving solely under the power of your own two feet, you should not walk in front of me, stop in front of me or play in front of me. I will win! From now on, when the slow or stupid in the human herd run out in front of the car, you have to just drive through the collision and hope that their body doesn't come in the windshield. If they are still alive, but badly injured just call the DNR to put them out of their misery. It's the humane thing to do.
Even worse than idiot pedestrians are all the jackasses on their bikes around here. Hey FYI moron, if you change lanes in front of me without looking or signaling and I run you over, I'll still sleep at night. You might have more serious problems though. The people that ride their bikes around town seem to think that they own the road. I'm pretty sure that lots of taxpayer dollars go to making a very enjoyable network of bike trails all over Madison and probably the rest of the country. Use them! That's what they are intended for.
Lastly, we have the amazing drivers of Madison's Beltline and their complete lack of driving skills. If these cretins spent a little less time on cell phones, turned around talking to kids or generally not paying attention we could probably reduce a few of the daily accidents that occur. I'm always amazed that these people manage to drift between lanes and cause accidents, but never quite take themselves out of my misery. Just once could it be one of the terrible, inattentive drivers that is hurt or killed instead of some poor bastard on his way to work. Oh yeah, teenage drivers and old people shouldn't be allowed on public roads either. We should create special road preserves where they can drive under the illusion that they are free to go where they want!
One final warning to all the incompetents on the streets, if you cause an accident with my kids in the car, I will beat you to death with my flip flop. It will be a slow, painful death and if I'm feeling generous I might just leave a rock in the bottom to speed you along. Anyways, the doctor says if I limit my exposure to the roadways my blood pressure should return to normal in no time.
On a happy, fun note we are bringing in a fashion consultant from NYC who assures me that "naked is the new black". She'll be sharing wisdom here for the next week. Love you Bethany!
Sunday, April 4, 2010
The Weekend Review: Easter Edition
In honor of the Easter holiday, today's post will be dedicated to a rebirth theme with a cast of drunks, Nazis, peeps & my impending godhood in the Jaspalist faith! Enjoy!!!
So the puggles are idiots, and I'm hoping that they are reborn with half a brain. So Friday night/Saturday morning they kept me up until 2AM with their whining and walking and assorted BS. Then to make it even better, at 7AM they were up crying to go out for a walk. So the boys finally start sleeping in and now the dogs think that they have to be up before the sun. What in the hell is wrong in my house? All I want is some sleep, just one day out of the month.
Easter Sunday has been a difficult day for Liam & Luke. Luke is apparently teething and decided to scream all day. AAAARGH! Oh wait, I stopped screaming for half an hour to sleep this afternoon. Liam got to hunt down the vicious easter eggs and treats this morning with his mommy, so then he decided to skip on the breakfast.
Have you ever lost a battle of wills with a two year old? It's humiliating! I'm stronger, smarter and faster but I lose to this uneducated monkey whose brain isn't even wired straight yet.
He would put the spoon in his mouth and then take it out and throw it on the floor. Three and a half hours later, still over half a bowl of cold, nasty oatmeal sitting on the table. Lunch was somewhat better, only an hour and a half to eat some raisins and a bowl of soup. He was helpful when it came to baking our cake for tonight, go figure. He helped grease, mix, stir, bake and kind of clean up a bit. Now onto fixin' our dinner. We made a ham with maple-citrus glaze and cheesy potatoes.
Maple-Citrus Glaze
-Maple Syrup
-Brown Sugar
-Honey
-Orange Peel
Cheesy Potatoes
-Hash Browns
-Cream of Mushroom Soup
- Shredded Cheddar
Nice simple, delicious Easter meal. Thanks Nana for bringing the green fluff for dessert.
So back to our rebirthing, if I'm going to be reborn I'd like to be a living deity in Nepal. Sounds pretty sweet, I'd even be willing to be dead for a couple days before I get to be a god. Get to hang out, do what you want and have fanatical followers do whatever you want. Now that is the life. So I found some interesting Easter facts that I would like to share with everyone.
1. Had the Gregorian calendar not been introduced in 1582 to correct increasing inaccuracies in the earlier Julian calendar, within a century, Christians would have found themselves in the confusing situation of commemorating Jesus Christ's rebirth on Easter Sunday three days before his death on Good Friday, rather than the other way around. In addition, the fast of Lent would have extended almost year-round, leading to widespread malnutrition, while the holiday of Pentacost would have been bloated into Hexacost.
2. Marshmallow Peeps candy is chemically similar to those novelty business cards made of compressed sponge that expand dramatically in water. In 1982, this similarity was successfully exploited by Israeli Nazi-hunters who surreptitiously replaced the Easter candy of a fugitive war criminal living in Argentina with a deadly substitute, rupturing his stomach and killing him.
3. For a time, legendary actor John Barrymore was considered particularly devout for his re-enactment of the Easter story, in which he feigned death on Friday evening, remained confined to his bed throughout Saturday, and finally rose and publicly re-emerged on Sunday morning. Later, it was discovered that the celebrated drunkard was simply passing out and sleeping off the effects of a particularly bad hangover, and this was more of a weekly event than an annual one.
Quote of the day: Nikki said; "My mom is like the Nana elephant."
Hope everyone had a great day and we'll talk to you soon. Looking forward to Liam's birthday, the family all flying in and the opening of our Farmer's Market next weekend.
So the puggles are idiots, and I'm hoping that they are reborn with half a brain. So Friday night/Saturday morning they kept me up until 2AM with their whining and walking and assorted BS. Then to make it even better, at 7AM they were up crying to go out for a walk. So the boys finally start sleeping in and now the dogs think that they have to be up before the sun. What in the hell is wrong in my house? All I want is some sleep, just one day out of the month.
Easter Sunday has been a difficult day for Liam & Luke. Luke is apparently teething and decided to scream all day. AAAARGH! Oh wait, I stopped screaming for half an hour to sleep this afternoon. Liam got to hunt down the vicious easter eggs and treats this morning with his mommy, so then he decided to skip on the breakfast.
Have you ever lost a battle of wills with a two year old? It's humiliating! I'm stronger, smarter and faster but I lose to this uneducated monkey whose brain isn't even wired straight yet.
He would put the spoon in his mouth and then take it out and throw it on the floor. Three and a half hours later, still over half a bowl of cold, nasty oatmeal sitting on the table. Lunch was somewhat better, only an hour and a half to eat some raisins and a bowl of soup. He was helpful when it came to baking our cake for tonight, go figure. He helped grease, mix, stir, bake and kind of clean up a bit. Now onto fixin' our dinner. We made a ham with maple-citrus glaze and cheesy potatoes.
Maple-Citrus Glaze
-Maple Syrup
-Brown Sugar
-Honey
-Orange Peel
Cheesy Potatoes
-Hash Browns
-Cream of Mushroom Soup
- Shredded Cheddar
Nice simple, delicious Easter meal. Thanks Nana for bringing the green fluff for dessert.
So back to our rebirthing, if I'm going to be reborn I'd like to be a living deity in Nepal. Sounds pretty sweet, I'd even be willing to be dead for a couple days before I get to be a god. Get to hang out, do what you want and have fanatical followers do whatever you want. Now that is the life. So I found some interesting Easter facts that I would like to share with everyone.
1. Had the Gregorian calendar not been introduced in 1582 to correct increasing inaccuracies in the earlier Julian calendar, within a century, Christians would have found themselves in the confusing situation of commemorating Jesus Christ's rebirth on Easter Sunday three days before his death on Good Friday, rather than the other way around. In addition, the fast of Lent would have extended almost year-round, leading to widespread malnutrition, while the holiday of Pentacost would have been bloated into Hexacost.
2. Marshmallow Peeps candy is chemically similar to those novelty business cards made of compressed sponge that expand dramatically in water. In 1982, this similarity was successfully exploited by Israeli Nazi-hunters who surreptitiously replaced the Easter candy of a fugitive war criminal living in Argentina with a deadly substitute, rupturing his stomach and killing him.
3. For a time, legendary actor John Barrymore was considered particularly devout for his re-enactment of the Easter story, in which he feigned death on Friday evening, remained confined to his bed throughout Saturday, and finally rose and publicly re-emerged on Sunday morning. Later, it was discovered that the celebrated drunkard was simply passing out and sleeping off the effects of a particularly bad hangover, and this was more of a weekly event than an annual one.
Quote of the day: Nikki said; "My mom is like the Nana elephant."
Hope everyone had a great day and we'll talk to you soon. Looking forward to Liam's birthday, the family all flying in and the opening of our Farmer's Market next weekend.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Holy poo-bags Batman!
Okay so today we have a dual purpose post. For those of you with children of your own, sit back smile and reminisce. On the other hand, anyone without children, today will serve as a PSA about birth control!
As some of you may be aware, we are working with Mr. Liam on potty training. This brings its own special challenges and rewards, mostly positive happenings. Liam has been doing really well. He will go pee pee on the potty and will even sometimes go poo poo. He has also started to tell us once in a while when he has to go. I really appreciate that he is making my life easier with this. Today we did none of these wonderful, positive things.
Today we forgot to tell daddy that we had to go poo poo, we were too busy in the kitchen playing with tupperware and spoons. We also forgot to tell daddy that we learned a new trick. Apparently, since Liam doesn't like to have a poopy pullup on, he pulled it to the side when he had to go. The net result of this new development is that the nasty, stinky poo was on the kitchen floor, dishes, Liam - from the bottom of his foot to his back, the bathroom floor and daddy! Hooray! So before I get to the rest of my chores for the day, I will be washing the floors, doing all the dishes including the clean ones in the cupboard that he might have been playing with, giving Liam his second bath in 14 hours and washing a very soiled load of laundry.
Oh the joys of parenting. On the plus side, now that Liam is cleaned up he is in a very good mood! These are the things that make us crave hard liquor at 8AM on a school day.
As some of you may be aware, we are working with Mr. Liam on potty training. This brings its own special challenges and rewards, mostly positive happenings. Liam has been doing really well. He will go pee pee on the potty and will even sometimes go poo poo. He has also started to tell us once in a while when he has to go. I really appreciate that he is making my life easier with this. Today we did none of these wonderful, positive things.
Today we forgot to tell daddy that we had to go poo poo, we were too busy in the kitchen playing with tupperware and spoons. We also forgot to tell daddy that we learned a new trick. Apparently, since Liam doesn't like to have a poopy pullup on, he pulled it to the side when he had to go. The net result of this new development is that the nasty, stinky poo was on the kitchen floor, dishes, Liam - from the bottom of his foot to his back, the bathroom floor and daddy! Hooray! So before I get to the rest of my chores for the day, I will be washing the floors, doing all the dishes including the clean ones in the cupboard that he might have been playing with, giving Liam his second bath in 14 hours and washing a very soiled load of laundry.
Oh the joys of parenting. On the plus side, now that Liam is cleaned up he is in a very good mood! These are the things that make us crave hard liquor at 8AM on a school day.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
The Greatest Trick The Devil Ever Pulled...or April Fools 2010
I love April Fool's Day and my wife....they go together so well! I may have managed my greatest prank to date this morning.
Our story begins on my online poker profile (free - unbeknownst to the wife). So this morning when she joins me for coffee, I tell her that I've been working on kind of a "job" for the last couple months. Then I proceed to show her the poker profile, which shows a balance of about $141K and tell her that I took $2500 out of our savings and started playing poker online at night while her and the boys were asleep. Even though she didn't want to believe me at first, eventually she accepted that this was real. Unfortunately, she wasn't excited about the money (WTF!) because I didn't tell her that I took the initial money. So the trust issue on the initial money outweighed the $100k+ that we have now. She wanted me to cash out and be done with this because she thought I might have a gambling problem and would lose all of our money. I countered that now I had enough money in the account to really start playing some high stakes poker. Later, after I had told her it was a prank, she decided that she would like to have the money after all.
Anyone else have a good April Fools story, please share. Sometimes we just can't help ourselves!
Gute Nacht
Our story begins on my online poker profile (free - unbeknownst to the wife). So this morning when she joins me for coffee, I tell her that I've been working on kind of a "job" for the last couple months. Then I proceed to show her the poker profile, which shows a balance of about $141K and tell her that I took $2500 out of our savings and started playing poker online at night while her and the boys were asleep. Even though she didn't want to believe me at first, eventually she accepted that this was real. Unfortunately, she wasn't excited about the money (WTF!) because I didn't tell her that I took the initial money. So the trust issue on the initial money outweighed the $100k+ that we have now. She wanted me to cash out and be done with this because she thought I might have a gambling problem and would lose all of our money. I countered that now I had enough money in the account to really start playing some high stakes poker. Later, after I had told her it was a prank, she decided that she would like to have the money after all.
Anyone else have a good April Fools story, please share. Sometimes we just can't help ourselves!
Gute Nacht
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