Midnight Snack

Buckwheat pancakes, peaches, bananas, and cream. We didn't share any with the little girls who came out of their rooms way past their bedtime...

What all of you just missed...

For dinner, I made Steak Pizzaiola, cilantro lime rice, cracked pepper buttermilk biscuits, and fresh picked zucchini. I had never had steak pizzaiola before. It was very, very good. I could eat that every single day. I'd be fat, but it would be a happy fat...

Life and Death (of restaurants) in a college town

We tried to go to a pulled pork place on the south end of campus this evening. They were all out of food. They still had ice cream if we wanted some, but no food. Last time I go there. I think if they want to stay in business around here, they better rethink their food service model.

Next door is J Dawgs, which started out in a little shack. They have recently moved in right next door into a permanent place. This is a place with a good business model. Beef or Polish dog, $3. Want a drink? $4. That's all they sell, and they don't run out. Tara got a Polish dog tonight with a drink. So did about 15 or 20 other people with in 15 minutes. They have one thing they do very well, and they appear to be doing very, very well at it. They also have tables in there that look like they might have made themselves.

Tara had a book club, I went to iBuffet. We've been there before, I kind of wanted to try the Mongolian BBQ. (And we had a babysitter, I took some magazines to read.) Tonight there didn't seem to be anyone manning the Mongolian BBQ. It looked like nothing had been disturbed from it for quite a while. I don't know if they were down an employee, or just didn't want to bother with it or what, but I didn't get Mongolian BBQ tonight. The quality and flavor of the food seems to be slipping as well. It's the bane of all Chinese buffets in the area. Eventually the food is no good, people stop going, and the place shuts down. If they continue on the road they are on now, I think this place will eventually shut down. I might have left after the first plate of food, but I was committed by then. Dinner kind of made the gut ache I have had lately worse tonight, hopefully it will die down soon.

My prediction? Two will close, one will continue on...

"Unfinished project" update

You may recall, I have a set of unfinished projects from the first of the year. In July I last talked about these projects. Tara would be front and center to explain that there should be about 20 different things on the list at this point, but it is time to report on what was there then.

1. Little path behind the house. Long done. Still looks good.
2. Garden wall. Also long done, which is good, because the stone manufacture place near us is going out of business. No more cheap stones.
3. Bedroom closet. Way long done.
4. My 200 puzzle suduko book. I finished this thing last night. There were 2 difficulty levels in this book, "Difficult" and "Beware! Very challenging" I ended up getting 79 of the 100 'difficult' puzzles done right. (I just moved on if I messed something up. Too much erasing otherwise.) I wondered a the time how much more difficult 'Beware! Very Challenging' was, figuring maybe it wouldn't be. {How do they figure the difficulty on sudoku puzzles, anyway? Do they have some dude in a little padded room, and time how long he takes to solve the thing? Is it a setting based on how many numbers are pre-populated? Do they use some sort of computer program to solve the puzzles and rank them?} Anyway, I figure that difficulty settings have some measure of error in rankings. How did I do on the "Beware! Very Challenging" puzzles? 79 out of 100. Exact same as the "Difficult" puzzles. What does that mean? Not much, really. Maybe I got better at sudoku somewhere along the way, and did just as well on the harder puzzles. Or maybe they are the same difficulty, and they just put different labels on them. Or maybe something else. The point is that it's not a scientific little test. And I'm done with sudoku. I retired last night. At least until they come out with the "Super Duper Mensa Man" difficulty. (I predict 79 out of 100 puzzles correct on that difficulty...)
   
5. Little closet behind the washer and dryer. Long gone. I consider the kitchen pantry a little victory over this thing. Much nicer.
6. Thing around the dishwasher. Strangely, with all the other work that got done on the house this summer, this is not done. And it needs to be lower about 2 inches to fit our new dishwasher. (Or I need to raise the dishwasher up...)
7. The shed. The shed was looking good earlier this year, but now it is full of junk collected from working on the house. I am ignoring it.
8. Mission journal. Not done. Not looked at this year at all. Not looking good.
9. Wii games. Still working on these, but not as much as I could be. Maybe I will do that now.
   

That's all for now.

Way to volunteer

Yesterday afternoon we took the girls to go get flu shots. We didn't tell them that was what we were doing, we just loaded them into the van and took them over there.

There were three nurses giving shots, Tara and Ruth went first, because Ruth had to go to the bathroom. I had Lily, Emma, Mary, and Kate all line up to wait. When a nurse became ready, I asked them who was going to go first. Emma and Mary both took a step backwards.

I told Kate "Way to volunteer, Kate, go right ahead." Kate looked to both sides of her, and realized that her sisters were now behind her. Just like you see on TV, it was pretty funny.

More pumpkin

A couple of days after pumpkin fest, I found another large pumpkin hiding in the garden, ready to pick. I was pretty sure most of the family would not tolerate a lot more pumpkin themed meals in a row, so I cooked the thing in the oven, chopped and puréed pieces up, and froze them. We can make pumpkin bread and pumpkin cookies at our leisure.

I took a picture of the second pumpkin, but we can't find the camera.

Why does any of this matter? Our garden currently is sporting two other pumpkin, not yet ripe...

A Confession

I really like chips and salsa. No way around it. Sit me done, had me a bag of chips and tub of salsa, and tell me that was my meal? No problem.

After Stake Conference tonight, we went with a bunch of friends to a gelato place. Nothing there for me. Next door was a Mexican restaurant, I went and got a take out order of chips and salsa.

Brian and Sid were daring each other to drink half the container of salsa. (and occasionally just a cup of it.) I could have pounded it down and ended the conversation (and maybe started another), but I wanted to see if Sid would do it. Sid did not.

I've got a third of the thing of salsa left, should make a good lunch tomorrow...

Pumpkin before Labor Day

In kindergarten, the kids here have a thing on plants and stuff, and the teachers let them grow pumpkin plants. We tried to grow Kate and Mary's pumpkins, but they didn't take. Emma brought on home last year, and it grew. (And grew, and grew...)

We have had a fairly decent sized pumpkin going for a while, when I went out today, it was ready to pick, so I did. It's not exactly Fall here yet, I didn't know what to make.

I decided to make pumpkin stew. Not really stew weather here, but I made a lot for us to freeze for later. Also included from the garden is zucchini and tomatoes. I guess I didn't completely ignore the garden this summer after all, we are going to have a ton of tomatoes out of it this month...

Anyone want some stew?

Bizarro John

This morning after my shower, I noticed that the towel did a half decent job combing my hair the opposite direction than normal. I thought - "Why not?" - and finished the job. I'm not sure the results were what I expected.

I drive in the truck with the window down. On the way to work, I noticed the wind, which doesn't normally bother me. I tried brushing my hair back where it was supposed to be, and it was the wring direction. Weird.

Walking into work from the parking lot, it felt like my head was a bit off kilter. Someone from work observed that I was finally walking a bit straighter.

We took Ruth to look around her preschool late this morning. I was telling Tara about the hair thing, she tried combing it with her fingers the normal direction. I think she just made the hair mad. (Don't make my hair angry, you wouldn't like it when it is angry...)

I spent something like 7 hours in meetings today. Didn't bother me too much. I missed breakfast and lunch. Didn't miss it all that much. I got up out of bed in time to take the girls to school. I think combing my hair the other direction turned me into the "Bizarro John".

When I got home from work, there was a comic book that came in the mail, this month's DC Super Friends:
It was about the "Bizarro Super Friends" getting bored and coming to Earth. Mayhem ensues.

I think it was a sign. The hair is going back the other direction tomorrow.