Another busy weekend following another busy week!
Thursday night I went with my friend Lauren to see The Secret Live of Bees. We both read the book and loved it – and fortunately the movie was pretty true to the novel, though Jennifer Hudson’s character could have been developed a bit more. We also saw the trailer for Marley & Me which deserves its own video posting:
I don’t know if I can stand the wait til Christmas for that one! I’ve already ordered the book from Amazon
Friday we went out to dinner as a family to a new restaurant in town called Liberty Market. It’s in downtown Gilbert just across the street from one of my fave restaurants Joe’s Real BBQ, and not coincidentally has the same owner. Liberty Market’s menu has tasty sandwiches (including pressed paninis), wood fired pizzas and fresh salads, but the dining experience is unique and fitting to the downtown Gilbert area. The restaurant has a somewhat nostalgic market feel, with little touches like grocery carts to hold bags of potato chips and bottles of coke. We enjoyed dining on their patio overlooking Hale Theatre and the now-desolate Grain Belt aka Rock City Bar & Grill aka Mahogany Run aka Gonzo’s and a host of other names/owners/concepts. The difference? Liberty Market’s owner knows how to create a friendly, unique dining experience while keeping prices low (sandwiches range between $7 – $12 for dinner). And if you go to Liberty, be sure to visit the unisex bathrooms – it’s a must.
Saturday we got up early and drove to Anthem to watch Justin’s game. They won! All the kids played well, especially Justin’s friend Stephen who has grown leaps and bounds since the start of the season. Coaches say he’s got tremendous potential as a football player.
Saturday evening we went to Lauren & Matt’s house for a lovely Italian-themed birthday dinner. She had a gorgeous table set and waiting for us in her back yard that was reminiscent of a garden restaurant in Italy, complete with flowers, candles, wine adn string lighting. The food was brought in from another restaurant favorite Rigatony’s and the company was just as wonderful.
Tonight (Sunday) we’re getting a visit from Terry’s Aunt Bobbie and Uncle Vern who are visiting from Ohio. Right now I’m simmering the sauce for the lasagna I’m making. We’re really eating like kings this weekend! Tomorrow it’s back to the diet for sure!
Bunco, pigging out, football, shopping and a recipe
This weekend, as usual, was a busy one for us. Friday night was spent hanging out with my Bunco girls, then they guys joined us and we just all chatted til midnight. At Bunco we had a gift exchange (or as Terry calls it “Nazi Christmas”) and I was thrilled that I ended up with one of the books on my Amazon wish list – Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia
Saturday was spent vegging, doing some light housework and then going to 4pm Mass. Saturday night we had our friend Jim over for dinner because his wife Kathy had a girls-only work party at her house. I made a roast pork loin and it turned out pretty good taste-wise, though maybe a bit dry. I’m always afraid to undercook pork and it’s rare that I get it just right.
This morning we slept in, then hosted the neighborhood for football since we have the Sunday Ticket on DirecTV. Terry won the football pool! I made pulled pork barbecue, which turned out absolutely wonderful. I modified a barbecue sauce recipe I found online which I’ll post below. I made a double batch since I had over 3 lbs. of meat to cook, I’m sure it can easily be modified to serve 1/2 as many. We have a lot left over, but it will not go to waste this week since we’re so busy a family dinner won’t likely happen and leftovers will be a hot commodity.
Christmas shopping is almost all done – just a few miscellaneous gift cards to pick up and I’m set. Eric wants me to take him to the new outdoor mall we have here next weekend so he can get his shopping done. I am NOT looking forward to fighting mall traffic and crowds, especially on the weekend, so we’ll see how that goes. He needs to get a present for his brother and girlfriend.
I hope everyone is staying warm and dry, but I know much of the country is covered in snow. We watched the Bills vs. Browns game and loved seeing the snow-covered field. Now THAT’S football! Of course it was nice not to be experiencing it first hand!
Southern Style Pulled Pork BBQ (Crockpot)
Place ribs in crockpot and set at 8 hours on low, or 6 hours on high. Add about 1 1/2 cups water and sprinkle with a bit of salt.
Make barbecue sauce ahead of time: In large saucepan, combine all ingredients in order, stirring thoroughly after each ingredient. Cook on medium heat 5 minutes or until brown sugar is dissolved in sauce. Transfer to a heatproof bowl, cover, and place in refrigerator.
One hour before serving time, use a ladle or baster to remove as much liquid from the crock pot as you can. When all liquid has been removed, use two forks to shred pork, removing any fat chunks along the way. Add barbecue sauce and stir until meat and sauce are well combined. Recover crock pot and heat through for the remaining one hour. Serve on fresh sesame rolls.
Work hard, party hard, read and bake
After working hard all week it was nice to have a selfish weekend of relaxation with a bit of partying mixed in. The boss was out Thursday and Friday and I got more done in those two days than in the previous whole week! Friday night we went to Eric’s scrimmage and a ceremonial jersey presentation where we parents lined up on one side of the football field, and the kids on the other. They called each player’s name and number, and the corresponding parents met him on the field mid-way to hand over the jersey and hug, shake hands, belly jump or whatever. It was nice, but we didn’t appreciate the 45-minute wait to get his jersey in the first place! Afterwards we went to Zipp’s to celebrate, where the waitress proceeded to dump three mega-sized cups of soda on Eric’s lap. I took him home but felt so bad for the kid – it was supposed to be his ‘big day’!
Saturday morning he had practice followed by his first-ever chiropractic appointment. Dr. Miller took X-rays and found that the pain and breathing trouble he was having breathing was the direct result of a misplaced vertebra from a hit he made at practice. The adjustment Doc made on him yesterday aligned him perfectly, but he was warned that it could happen again very easily, so we are wondering about his ability to play football. Doc told him to take it easy and no practice on Monday or Tuesday – instead more adjustments.
Last night we went to the Marquee Theater and enjoyed B/S (AC/DC / Bon Scott tribute band), the Atomic Punks (Van Halen tribute) and a few others. It was a lot of fun hanging out with our neighbors. Today is a typical lazy Sunday for me other than my morning trip to the grocery store. I did make a 7-Up cake which I think turned out pretty good! I also finished reading The Nanny Diaries – I thought it was okay, this may sound odd but I expect the movie (coming out Friday) will be better than the book.
My next book will be another early reader edition – the third book about Sarah Agnes Prine, one of my favorite all time characters. It doesn’t come out for a few weeks but I was lucky enough to jump on someone who put it up at BookMooch and it should appear in my mailbox this week! Hopefully by Friday’s jury duty session as I believe I will have ample opportunity to read it there.
This morning Terry got a call from a friend who is in a tournament and had a spot open. “Free golf – NOW” got him out the door in like, 5 minutes. I bet he had fun, but whew – with the temps at 113 he must really be roasting out there!
Tomorrow back to work with a ton more to do, and on Friday JURY DUTY! Ugh, not looking forward to that. Plus, I have to drive for about an hour and a half just to get there!
7-Up Cake
Cake:
1 pkg white cake mix
1 (3 oz.) package lemon Jello
4 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1 cup 7-Up
Glaze:
3 cups confectioner’s sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3 tablespoons 7-Up
To make the cake:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a Bundt pan.
- Put all cake ingredients in a large mixing bowl and beat 2-3 minutes at medium speed. Pour batter into pan.
- Bake at 350F 45-60 minutes until cake tests done and just barely begins to pull away from the sides of the pan.
- Cool 15 minutes on cooling rack; remove from pan and transfer to cake plate.
- Glaze with lemon glaze while still warm.
To make the glaze:
Sift confectioner’s sugar into medium bowl; add lemon juice and 7-Up slowly while whisking. If needed, add more 7-Up. Drizzle over warm cake with spoon or paper cone.
Weekend winding down
It is late Sunday afternoon and has been a good weekend so far (which probably won’t change). “Good” meaning not having to work, clean house or be anywhere at any given time.
Friday evening started out with an adjustment from Dr. Miller which included a special wrist snap for rolling well at BUNCO. I guess it worked, because I had the 2nd most wins that night, which netted me one of the $10 prizes, a decorative spice rack. Of course there was more fun in actually playing and interacting with the ladies, especially since it was enhanced with a six pack of Mike’s Hard Light Cranberry Lemonade, only 2 points per bottle. I was especially glad to see our newest player, my friend Dana, enjoy herself despite some mortifying xxx-rated stories from one of the subs. After the game, some of us girls joined the guys at Jim & Kathy’s where the fun continued until after midnight. We just have the BEST friends!
Surprisingly, Saturday started with no hangover, just some dehydration and general feeling of scumminess which was easily washed away in a hot shower. Terry had the unfortunate duty of taking Eric to football practice from 7-9 and after having new tires put on my Santa Fe, I went to Trader Joe’s and picked up some of my favorites – organic apples & bananas, frozen margherita pizzas (which proved to taste incredibly similar to the ones we devoured in Rome), Italian red table wines and the ingredients for my favorite Caprese salad. We went to the 4pm Mass and Terry and I decided to go see The Bourne Ultimatum which was just as good as the first two. Jason Bourne is my hero! And I just love Julia Stiles so it was nice to see her again, though I wish she had more of a role in this movie. Her hair was completely adorable and I think I might go with that look after the summer heat has gone for the year.
I was proud of myself today as I was able to go to the grocery store and return before noon, allowing me to throw the necessary ingredients for chicken & dumplings in the crock pot for dinner. Boy, it sure smells good! I have been using my crock pot for summer dinners more and more often – it’s just so nice not to have to fuss over a stovetop or with an oven. Last week I made Barbecue in it, using bone-in pork ribs that were on sale for $1.99/lb. I simply placed them in the crock pot, added a little water and cooked on low for 7 hours. Then I removed the bones, clear liquids and fat chunks, and broke up the meat. I poured in a bottle of barbecue sauce and continued to cook for one more hour – which produced the most wonderful and tasty barbecue sandwich meat! And the whole dinner (with plenty of leftovers) was under $10.
Tonight’s Chicken & Dumplings started with a couple pounds of boneless chicken breasts, a can of cream of chicken soup, a can of cream of celery soup, cumin, seasoning salt and a finely chopped onion, with chicken broth to cover. Cooked on high three hours, then added a bag of frozen vegetable mix and 1 can of refrigerated biscuit dough, torn to small pieces, cooked 3 more hours and done! I’ll just serve it with a salad and sliced bread and it’s dinner.
The week ahead will be filled with work and more work, kids’ homework, and the other usual stuff. Friday Terry and I will be presenting Eric with his game jersey for football, followed by a team barbecue party. On Saturday we’re going to the B/S (AC/DC tribute band) concert to see Kevin play and hang out with his wife Kathy and many of our friends & neighbors. I’m looking forward to that, and also catching the Van Halen tribute again too. Oh and how could I forget – the season premiere of Weeds is on tomorrow night. I can’t wait to see whether Nancy, Silas and Shane come away from their perils as posed in the season 2 cliffhanger!
Today I also finished up a book called Queen of Babble by Meg Cabot. It was a cute book, but not as good as anything Sophie Kinsella has done. Maybe because the main character Lizzie is younger – fresh out of college – and I don’t relate to her as much as Kinsella’s Becky (Shopaholic) or Emma (Can You Keep A Secret?) Now I’ve started a book called The Guardians by Ana Castillo. It was given to me for free from Random House – they sent it to me with the only stipulation being that I write a review on LibraryThing and Amazon. Pretty cool, huh?
Speaking of babble, this has been a long post so I’d better sign off now.
Family news update, local tragedy, movie & book
Last week, Terry’s boss from hell was demoted and sent to another office; another undesirable peon is likely to follow – he gets a new boss tomorrow and couldn’t be happier about it.
Justin’s birthday was fun – we went to Chili’s to celebrate. I took him to Guitar Center to pick out his presents which turned out to be two books of sheet music from bands including AC/DC, Green Day and other favorite bands. I also got him two really cool CDs of generic background music – one Rock and one Blues. He can play them on his stereo and then “jam” as lead guitar to them. It’s like having his own backup band and it’s teaching him how to improvise. Plus it sounds really cool when he plays!
Eric isn’t up to much but this Wednesday he’s going to get his schedule at school. He accidentally (?) signed up for girls’ Phys Ed which I don’t think will fly with the school. He’s getting nervous about playing football, evident by the doubts he’s raising – which he always does with things like this. We are confident he will do well and enjoy it immensely as always.
You may have heard about a terrible helicopter crash that happened in Phoenix on Friday. Such a tragedy – it’s the top story on all the local news channels (TV, paper and Internet). Several news helicopters were reporting a police chase and capture when two of them collided mid-air and crashed to the ground. All four persons aboard were killed.
On a much lighter note, I went with my friend Kathy to see Hairspray on Tuesday night. It was a cute movie, very much a chick flick. I have three things to say about John Travolta:
- His performance as a woman was not convincing (though maybe not meant to be) and very distracting
- It’s disappointing that the person who makes the decisions about casting didn’t instead find a beautiful heavy white woman to take the role instead of making this character out of a man.
- I recognize it was a huge P.R. stunt that wouldn’t have gotten many people to see the movie (probably including myself).
I also finished another cute book by Sophie Kinsella called Can You Keep a Secret. It was just as enjoyable as her Shopaholic books, but with a different character. It is probably the 6th or 7th book I received from www.bookmooch.com and I am just loving this site! I love that you can get a book for FREE simply by accumulating points (partially accomplished by sending some used books of your own).
Big meeting this week so I had better get back to my to-do list. This blog entry was a nice diversion though!
Travels, working at home, books
Did ya miss me? I guess you can always tell when I’m busy or traveling due to my lack of blog posts. This week, it was both.
I was in Galveston doing a site visit for a May 2008 meeting. All looks good and I think we will be going to contract with the hotel – Moody Gardens. The place is really nice – great rooms and lots to do right on the hotel grounds. They have an aquarium, rainforest exhibit, IMAX theater, special effects/4D film, manmade beach area (far better and far cleaner than the “real” Galveston beaches) and a brand new Schlitterbahn water park. I will tell you something else Galveston has, especially this time of year – HUMIDITY. I was reminded of those hot, humid summer days growing up in upstate NY when we would break records. Add about 10 degrees to that. Needless to say, I’m glad to be home. The flight was a nighmare – try sitting in the back of the plane outside a restroom that decides it wants to spew raw sewage odors for a 2 hour 20 minute flight.
So tonight I’m enjoying a quiet evening at home while Terry’s out at the baseball game with a friend. Tomorrow night we’re going to play euchre at a friend’s house but no other major plans for this weekend. Oh yeah, except for work. I have to make up for being out and having limited Internet access. At least I can pick my hours and even work poolside if I want. Ah, the miracles of modern technology.
Last weekend I took the kids to see Shrek the 3rd – it was cute, but we enjoyed Transformers (all of us went on Sunday) much more. The special effects were awesome, and although it was a bit juvenile in some places, it was a good story which kept us on the edges of our seats.
Last week I read The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, a book that I highly recommend. It’s a touching story and very well-written, though it is not exactly “light reading.” It’s about a man who grew up in Afghanistan, then when in his late teens moved to the USA with his traditionalist father. Usually when I’m done reading a heavy hitter like that one, I like to follow with something light, so this week I chose the fourth Shopaholic book, Shopaholic and Sister by Sophie Kinsella. It was a really cute story and I enjoyed reading about Becky Bloomwood-Brandon again – now I have to finish up the series with her fifth and final (as of yet) Shopaholic and Baby.
On another subject, Eric thinks he’s found a place that might hire him. Dairy Queen apparently will take applications from kids about his age, so we picked up an app tonight and will be returning it tomorrow. Gotta love him – he’s anxious to make some money of his own instead of relying on me for allowance. I don’t have the heart to tell him about all the taxes that will be taken out of his check on a regular basis. Ah well, life is full of disappointments – maybe I’ll let him figure this one out on his own.
Books, books and more books!
Book Swapping
Do you like to read? Are you tired of paying a premium for books? Did you know you could get them for FREE? Yes, really and truly, free! I just recently discovered this online book swap website – it’s awesome! Here’s how it works:
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You’re done reading a book or for whatever reason have no more use for it. List it in your Inventory. (Get 0.1 points for each listing)
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Someone on the site sees it in your inventory and sends a request. You mail the book to them. (Get 1 point for each shared book).
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You want to read a book – search for it in someone’s library and place an online request. They send you the book (Cash in 1 point for each book obtained).
There is a feedback system in place so there is some accountability. Plus, you have the option to share books worldwide or just in the USA. You can always refuse a request, too. How cool is that?
Book Cataloging Online
I’m always looking for good book recommendations but I’ve grown tired of Amazon.com’s limited search engine. Often I want to read a book similar to another I’ve enjoyed. At LibraryThing you can catalog the books you’ve read and share reviews. You can also get recommendations by clicking on the book’s page. If that fails, there are several active discussion groups to lead you in the right direction. Or, simply find another user with a similar collection and see what’s in their own library.
Links:
Books: Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella
Who wouldn’t love Rebecca Bloomwood? She’s funny, hip, fashionable, a bit quirky and of course, British! Rebecca (or Becky) likes to shop – what woman doesn’t? But Becky has a talent for justifying purchases that border on the absurd, and in Confessions of a Shopaholic
Becky, who ironically works as a personal finance writer, buys only the best gifts for her friends. She finds a great deal on a Hermes scarf for a friend, but since it’s such a great deal, why not pick one up for herself in a different color? She needs some cute strappy sandals to go with a special occasion dress, but when she finds some in the perfect orange color, she discovers they also come in the most adorable green too! Before you know it, she’s using her overdraft (in England, apparently known as bank credit) – only when the bank won’t extend it for her she runs into trouble and expends her energy running from her troubles.
Of course we all know that things will catch up with her and the story revolves around her relationships with best friend and roommate Suze and her love interest Luke, intertwined with lessons in personal responsibility.
Each book is fun and at times laugh-out-loud funny, and each book is written well enough that you just can’t wait to read the next. I have read the first three in the series (this one, plus Shopaholic Takes Manhattan
Synopsis: If you’re looking for a fun, easy, light read a la Bridget Jones these books are for you. They’re not heavy or thought-provoking so perfect for travel or beach/poolside reading. My rating: 5 out of 5
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