(98). Productive Monday

Today was a great day for tying up loose ends.  Not in terms of housework unfortunately, but in terms of other stuff.  For example:

• Pinot had her follow up vet exam yet again, and the ear infection is *finally* gone!  Woo hoo!  She got the first dose of the doggie flu shot too.
• Got the remaining original picture files from the Munich trip today.  Keyword tagged people, approximate geo-tagged, and rolled in to existing folders.  Created a webpage for ALL of the original prints that will be unveiled later this week….to those in the circle.
• Booked a hotel for New Orleans – this was the cheapest, best rated, close to the French Quarter AND close to the start line giving a discount for people signed up for one of the races, and I wanted to book it early to make sure there were rooms available.  done!
• Figured out our plans for Thanksgiving/weekend.  Now I just need to convince Nick that he wants to do a Turkey Trot with me on Thanksgiving morning.
• Confirmed the Christmas plans with all the key players and everyone is on board.
• Finished and ordered a fun surprise.  Stay tuned.

The housework did live to see another day, but at least we had a really yummy dinner to go along with the season finale of Greek tonight courtesy of this  Onion Custard Pie Recipe.  I have no idea what the difference between this “custard pie” and a “quiche” is, but I do know that this recipe was pretty darned good.  I’ve started making a batch of pie crusts and freezing the dough so it’s ready to go at a moments notice on nights like this, when the urge for something with a crust arises.  I’d like to think that I made the recipe a bit lighter by skipping the 1/2 and 1/2 and subbing skim milk, but the butter probably counteracted any of that.  This took a bit to make, between the parallel (onions cooking/pre-baking crust) followed by the actual oven time, but the result was quite tasty and filling.  Considering how much Nick was wandering around the house before dinner complaining that he had to tighten his belt to forget the hunger pains, one serving and the boy was filled.

Bonus points to those of you that got the Troll 2 reference. 

(97). A great big hooray for …

….  daylight savings time.  An extra hour of sleep?  ‘Nuf said.

…. Indian buffet.  Today we hit up a buffet with some of the crew in Bethesda before Nikhil took off.  Lots of veggie options, tasty food – yum.

…..  sale fares!  This afternoon, the goals were to figure out what we were doing for Christmas and to get stuff working for New Orleans.  New Orleans reservations ended up being closed till tomorrow, but we did spend a good hour or two putting together and discussing this chart.  (  another shout-out hooray…. marker board!)  Driving, leaving from WAS or somewhere in upstate NY and different dates made for the complex chart, balanced by Nick and I having different priorities for the whole thing.  My best option was driving, though I was not excited about 40 hours in the car over 9 days; Nick’s best option was flying from DC though the price was almost double that of driving.  << more discussion>> << checking email>>  Low and behold, I saw a midwest airlines fare sale announcement delivered at that moment.  Clicked it a second after receiving it, and found the exact flight we wanted for the price we originally wanted to pay, and booked it on the spot.  Big WOOHOO to the best balance of all the options! (And to the timely way that happened – double checked the sale fares an hour later and they’d gone up substantially!)  So nice to have Christmas figured out.  A bit too brain dead from that to even try to tackle Thanksgiving this evening.

….final hooray goes to Melanie and to my mom, for driving and watching Pinot for the holidays, respectfully.  (Cashew gets the place to herself, since we won’t be gone for that long.  Independent kitteh!)

(96). Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

Relaxing day today for the most part.  The 6 mile run this morning was not as enjoyable as it was last week.  Not sure if it’s due to the fact that I’ve been trying to do more hill workouts on the treadmill mid week, or if it’s because last week I took Friday off and yesterday I got stuck to the schedule and got a workout in (late albiet, but in!).  I guess we’ll see how next week goes.

The Huskers won against Baylor (! finally after the past two weeks of insanity), which set the day off on a good note.  Roasted some pumpkin seeds while Nick was at the airport picking up Nikhil….  made them in three flavors this year:  salted, curry, and smoked paprika.  Tried to brine them before roasting (based on this post I found last week), but I didn’t notice a difference at any rate. The flavored seeds were good, but I think good ol’ sea salt and olive oil is still my favorite.

And we were off to Patterson’s Happy 30th/Halloween festivities!  I’m still not a huge fan of our point and shoot camera, so the pictures taken on it were minimal, but alas – for your viewing enjoyment.  I do with we had a before picture of Julie as a bunch of grapes – what a brilliant costume!  Melanie may be posting more pictures at some point today – hers are sure to be more complete than ours!

Nick & Colleen as German Folk

Mehul & Liz as Cash for Clunkers

Hilary as Swine Flu, Christy as a Redskins Fan, Patterson & Lee as Star Trek folk

Greg as Dan Snyder, Nikhil as the Big Bad Wolf

Julie as a bunch of (here, deflated) grapes

(95). Getting my Minges Fix & Halloween Baking

I’m very all or nothing when it comes to a lot of things.  Exercise is one of those things, and with the ramping up of the running, I’ve been back to working out 6 or 7 days a week.  Which is great – overall I fell a lot better when I’m doing that (somehow I lose all motivation with moderation of 3-4 workouts a week) – but I’m finding that it’s taking a bit to adjust and I’m really tired in the mornings.  To the point where yet again today, I slept in till 6:30.  Must start getting up a bit earlier once again.  Maybe that can be the goal for next week.

Anyway, I was really looking forward to getting out of work today because Melanie and I had plans for lunch and a dog walk in Bethesda this afternoon.  The rain held out this week (we’ve had to postpone twice now due to the rain and Snowy’s stitches which can’t get wet), so this was the first time since we got back from our trip that Mel & I had a chance to just hang out.  It was a great afternoon!  Even with the chill in the air, the walk was all festively autumn, and lunch at Cosi never disappoints.

Got home, power nap – and baking for tomorrow nights festivities.  Wasn’t really sure what to make, but then I saw this post and thought these Ghost Cupcakes were adorable – and was thus inspired to make them at home.  (Added bonus – I’ve never made fondant before, and with the hot tip that marshmallow fondant is much better than regular, found a recipe and was able to try that at home!)  My cupcakes turned out pretty cute – I couldn’t find gumdrops as the ghost base so I used Halloween Peeps which worked out pretty well.  I think I probably should have made the ghost eyes a bit bigger, but all in all, no complaints – AND I’m really excited to try out the chocolate chip cookie dough cupcake!

Tonight, Nick and I are rocking the scary movies for Halloween  – starting with Killer Klowns from Outer Space, which I’ve actually never seen before.  Totally excited

(94). Pumpkins!

Tonight was a night that I had been looking forward to this week.  The night of…. pumpkin carving.

My pumpkin this year was inspired by this post, and I think looks a bit better in the light than it does in the dark, so it is the only pumpkin you’ll see with the lights on:

Nom nom nom. Tasty mini pumpkin.

So yes – tonight, Mehul and Liz joined us for a bit of Teen Wolf, a bit of Veggie Chili, and a bit of pumpkin carving!  (And – they brought a tasty bottle of Finger Lakes wine &&  Pumpkin Whoopie Pies – YUM!)

Really happy about how all the pumpkins turned out – Liz’s pumpkin is so cute, Mehul’s is all artistic, balancing front and back carvings with wall reflections, Nick’s is really scary, and mine turned out pretty decent for freehanding it.

Liz's Pumpkin

Mehul's Pumpkin & Reflection

Colleen's Nom Nom Pumpkin

Nick's Scary Pumpkin

The perfect end to a day that started out sort of eh,  was pretty good at work actually, got a bit worse after work, and then was blue skies and clear sailing all evening.  Is it Friday yet?  Oh so close.  Are roasted pumpkin seeds in our future this weekend?  I’d say the chances are pretty good!

(93). The holidays are stressful

All in all, today was a pretty good day.  Even managed to pick up the CSA and the dry cleaning and get home earlier than I did yesterday.  Nick surprised me by working from home today and running with me this afternoon.  Good stuff.

And the low key nature of tonight lead to pondering about what to do about Christmas, leading to what to do for Thanksgiving.  To drive or not to drive, how to incorporate what I’d like to give my mom this year, where Pinot and Cashew will be for the holidays – *sigh*.  We finally thought we had it worked out – what days were were going to fly and how all the other pieces fit into the puzzle, when we checked plane tickets from DC to Omaha.

Now, usually I’ve priced this flight enough to know what to expect.  And usually, we buy our tickets pretty early in the season.  So tonight, when we finally worked out the arrangement that fit everything in, after hours of conversation, when checking the flight costs, we found this:

Why yes, that does say that the flight I’ve searched for on the days that are the most optimal is $700 per person.  (and yes, that price grid is the picture of the day today.)  Normally, if we pay $250 for this flight (direct), I wonder if I should have held out for a better deal.  Living in DC normally has its perks in terms of flight costs and availability, but wow – booking this much closer to the holidays, the airlines really get you, don’t they?  Leaving a day earlier cuts it down by a few  hundred, but is still a bit.  Considering that it would cost about $450 to drive both of us, round trip, it really starts to make you wonder how much your time is worth.

As a side note on time, have you ever read the book Momo?  Great book to read that helps one to stay grounded about losing yourself in time, always rushing to be somewhere or do something.

And so, we’re officially back to the drawing board.  And the pre-holiday holiday stress continues.  Maybe stress isn’t the right word.  What is normally a fun holiday to plan is becoming one of those taboo topics that you try to avoid as long as possible.  Eigh yeigh yeigh.

Other randoms for today – I thought that this article about marathons in the NYT was interesting.  Since I’ve been ramping up my mileage (slowly albeit) with the goal to do a longer race in the coming months, I have said from the start that I would be racing to finish, not to go super fast.  Sometimes it helps motivate me to tell myself that it doesn’t matter if I’m running a 12 minute mile, the important part is to get out there.  I’ve always averaged out to about a 10 minute mile, even when I was running daily back in the day, and now is no exception.  I think the important part is for people to get out there and try, regardless of time.  The Biggest Loser marathon episode last season has huge motivation points, and I think he finished in 10+ hours or something like that?  Seeing it written up as a bad thing as opposed to a ‘isn’t it great that people are finding something that motivates them and gets them of the couch’ was an angle that I hadn’t seen before.

On another exercise related note, I had to smile a bit when reading this article.  Though, this sort of brings up the whole ‘plus size models aren’t really plus size – they are normal size, so why are we calling them plus size’ thing in the sense that the article talks about the benefits of being overweight, though it defines being overweight as carrying an extra couple of pounds.  (Technically, I guess that is ‘overweight’, but ‘overweight’ has the connotations of much more than a couple.  Anyhow.)  This article was almost refrigerator worthy for those days when you just wonder why on earth you weren’t given the ‘eat anything and be super skinny’ gene.

And, the hump day is almost officially over.  I’m looking forward to some non-stressful, Halloween holiday fun tomorrow. 

(86) Pinot’s Entry to the Dogtopia Pet Halloween Costume Contest

Right up until the deadline to pull out the camera and get some pictures this year – this is Pinot the Pumpkin’s entry into the contest. (Voting starts on Friday – and she’d love your vote )

Cashew is not sad that she can’t go to dog daycare, but she is a bit upset that she wasn’t allowed to enter the contest. Alas, she’s taking her anger and frustration out on the grass she got for her birthday this year.

Happy 4th of July!

I was totally inspired by Bakerella to make this entirely dessert burgers and fries for the 4th! Have a great day all!

Happy Easter!

We got up early this morning and headed to brunch at Mario’s in Rochester before driving back to DC.  Brunch was okay (not worth the price, but considering we didn’t have to cook, it made it worth it) – and we got back to DC at a reasonable hour after a sunny drive the entire way back.

Due to popular demand…

….  I will start being better about updating the blog with things that are happening once again.  In a timely fashion, rather than months after the fact.

With that said, I may as well do a quick catch-up post to bring us up to date.  So let’s see – since the last time that this was posted – wow.  I just realized I didn’t even do an inauguration post.

January was cool for us, living in DC, and being pumped about Obama.  C&J were very nice to host us at their pad on Pennsylvania Avenue, prime viewing location for just about everything, but especially the parade.  Obama and Biden got out right in front of us and waved right at us, which was the cool – and after that, we (along with Mehul, Liz & Julie) threw our very own Presidential Inaugural Ball.  It was the awesome.  (And three of us were in the exact same dress – thank you to Melanie for letting me borrow her bridesmaid dress from our wedding!)  A slideshow of that is below.

more about “Picasa Web Albums – Colleen – Inaugur…“, posted with vodpod

February, already posted about Miami.  Otherwise we were playing volleyball and getting through the cold.  March came, and my mom came down to visit  – we took her out for her first sushi experience and I now have a favorite roll, though I don’t remember what it’s called (blasted chef’s special).  We went to Colorado for the annual Pender gathering at the end of Feb/early March, but it was cool because in addition to Nick’s usual group of high school folks, we also got to hang out with Seth and Dave & Rach.  Oddly enough, our flight back was delayed by 1.5 days due to a snowstorm on the east coast (Denver was like 70 degrees that day).  We got a free flight out of the deal though so we were pretty excited (and honestly, I would have worked from home that day anyway, hate driving in DC when it’s snowing.)  Highlights from the Colorado trip are below.

more about “Picasa Web Albums – Colleen – Colorad…“, posted with vodpod

End of March/early April, thus far, has been very eventful, and I think Nick and I are both looking forward to some ‘down’ time, if that ever really exists – especially with the summer coming.  Cooking wise, made a really good chocolate cheesecake on a pistachio crust covered in chocolate ganache, went all Polish with pierogui && glumpkies, and a bit Irish with corned beef & cabbage and Irish bread & cheese.  YUM.  Nick’s grandpa Rutar recently became very sick, and Nick, Pinot & I made the drive from DC to Nebraska for a last visit with him.  I’d been bugging Nick to drive to Nebraska for a long time, and though I wish it had been under better circumstances, I admit that I did enjoy driving out.  Pinot sort of stressed us out though – we think she was abused by younger children before we got her (rescue dog thing, so we don’t really know), but Derrek, Dalton & Dannika were her first real exposure to kids and that went….well, not as well as we’d hoped.  We’ll have more time to practice when Derrek comes out to visit in May though!  Anyhow, we drove back from NE (with a big old print from Hobby Lobby – aka best store ever – and a mini Heineken kegerator in tow) just in time for the Cherry Blossom Festival.  We checked that out – and the naval observatory open house, booked tickets for Derrek and Louie to come visit for Memorial Day, and then found out out that Nick’s grandpa had passed – he made it to 92 and said that was enough, so earlier this week Nick flew back for the funeral.  We’re in Rochester this weekend to discuss some family matters with my mom and siblings.  Busy week, to say the least.  We’ve also been to a Caps hockey game and the Cavs/Wizards game recently which were both fun.  OH – and my big computer thing – we upgraded to iLife 09, and I recently went though and tagged faces and places of all 21,234 pictures in our album.  Been keeping up with the family tree site too.  Anyhow – a few pictures of recent stuff is below.

more about “Picasa Web Albums – Colleen – March/A…“, posted with vodpod

So yeah!  If I keep this up, then lots of fun stuff coming up ahead – Easter brunch tomorrow, possible iPhones in our near future, Pinot’s 2nd birthday coming up, heading to Vermont to see K’s derby dames finale this season and possibly a last minute trip for my birthday – and fun fun, Louie & Derrek’s trip out for Memorial day – and that only takes us through May.