Random Thoughts

WTF?

Almost nothing pisses me off more than people not showing up on time for a meal when they're already in the house.

As in: "Do I have 30 minutes to wash the car?"
"No, I'll be ready in 5."
-cut to father washing the car-

However, reaching into the narrow, cluttered pot spoon/spatula drawer beside the stove and cutting myself on a fucking carving knife that shouldn't be there will do it. Idiots.

Naomi Jade

Went to see little Naomi Jade Corban, Jen (and Dan)'s new baby girl. Isn't she cute? You wouldn't know it looking at her but this kid's got a set of lungs on her and can do an awesome siren impersonation for someone only 20 days old. The pic is a bit oddly colored - the best I could do without a flash indoors. For some better pics, try here.

I brought over some lasagna for the proud parents to snack on :)

Poured Footing

They've poured the concrete into the footing frames and got some gravel over the ground. It appears that things are progressing...

Mom's Birthday

Forgot to take pictures, but it was good :)

Shrimp stirfry with snow peas, mushrooms, onions, garlic, red peppers and broccoli. Some aweome rib eye steaks. A trifle loaded with custard and cream. It was yummy!

Cook, Eat, Clean, Repeat

I've been doing a heck of a lot of cooking lately (all of it, really). Cooking extra doesn't really help because no one really wants to eat the same thing more than twice in a row. Tonight, we had leftover lasagna for dinner, but that meant that there were no leftovers for lunch. So I grilled some lamb chops and brocolli and boiled some rice.

All that cooking made me hungry, so I also grilled a strip sirloin steak and snacked on half of it (it was gooood). But there's not enough for lunch and dinner tomorrow, so I'll need to cook again tomorrow evening (roast chicken, it looks like).

It's ALIVE!!!

Finally, FINALLY, they're getting started! This is the framing for the footing (footer?) of the foundation. I imagine it'll be poured by next weekend. I'm still pretty sure that they're going to be delayed past the beginning of February, though. I've got my bets on the end of April.

I actually walked all the way into townn to take this. It was a beautiful day except my legs are a bit sore from the 2 hours spent walking. I picked up some Swiss Chalet on the way back and ate while I read Robert Jordan's latest book, Knife of Dreams.

Stupid Bell Canada

I was just looking at my telephone bill and noticed that they're charging me a fee to be on a plan that I never signed up for. When I moved my telephone line from the apartment to the house, they added on a plan fee.

If you're with Bell, they charge you $3 a month to be on a "long distance plan" (ie. they bill you for the privilege of billing you). You can opt out of their stupid plan and not pay their so-called "network charge". Your rate per minute will go up slightly, but you can just use casual calling plans like Caztel or Yak and get even lower rates that way instead. With no network charge.

I had explicitly opted out and they added me back without telling me! They're going to be getting an irate call from me tomorrow.

Pasta Piggy

Had a TON of pasta this weekend

Had spaghetti on Friday/Saturday/Sunday (made a huge batch of slightly spicy meatballs - they were very yummy!) A practice lasagna with homemade tomato meat sauce just came out of the oven and I'm sampling it now.

It's good, but not fantastic. I think it could use a bit more cottage cheese but I really like the spinach. I used the dry lasagna noodles that you don't have to pre-boil. They worked nicely and made it a lot less work. Unfortunately, I have a whole bunch of the regular dried kind in the pantry to use out.

It's a Girl!

Jen delivered a baby girl on November 2nd!

Welcome to planet Earth, Naomi Jade! *vulcan hand gesture*

Inanity

I had a random bout of OCD and spent about 10-15 minutes brushing/flossing my teeth. It was a bit of a pain but my teeth now feel like shiny cold bits of porcelain in my mouth.

Alas, the pie, she is gone! Though the crust was very flakey out of the oven, it was not as flakey the next morning. Either it lacks the preservative powers of hydrogenated fats (used in commercial cookies for that reason) or it wasn't quite cool when I covered it before bed last night.

Lard Crust Apple Pie

This just came out of the oven.

Yay, lard is no longer considered evil! I used to use vegetable shortening, but now we know it's full of eeevil trans-fats (it's hydrogenated vegetable oil). Butter's also a saturated animal fat, so there's no reason not to use lard. Working with it was a pleasure, it has more body than shortening and it sticks to the flour better than butter. Supposedly, it gives the flakiest crust. My beloved butter tarts from the Maid's Cottage use lard in their pastry. So we'll see!