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Puppy Pics!
Jeff captured this darling photo of Fang sleeping the other day. He's such a cutie pup.
Here's a funny picture I took of the boys getting their after work belly rubs. They usually try to crowd onto our laps for their belly rubs, but this method seems to work better.
No decision yet on the treadmill. I think we've figured out which one we want, but Jeff thinks we should tour a couple of gyms first to be sure we wouldn't rather join one instead. He think he might be interested in using additional equipment. I guess it's back to rowing for a few more days.
Today is House of Boy & Girl get in shape day! We've been contemplating joining a gym for a while, but we decided in the end that we really didn't think it was worth the price of admission because we wouldn't use all the features, and that we would have trouble going on a regular basis, mostly because Girl won't go by herself, and Boy doesn't see the need to go, and it would take three times as long to get in a workout as it would if we had the equipment at home because we'd have to drive there and back... So, we're off to buy ourselves some running shoes and a treadmill today. We already have a rowing machine at home, so we'll add to our little gym and hopefully get started on a more regular work out schedule. The rowing machine is great exercise, but sooooooooo boring if you do it day after day. Wish us luck!
Mid-day update: Buying shoes = easy. Buying treadmill = HARD!!! Too many choices, too many mixed reviews. Bleh.
We spent a few hours at the Wichita Jazz Festival last night. This is an annual event that brings in middle school, high school and college jazz bands, mostly from Kansas, some from outside Kansas, to Wichita State University for clinics and performances. We went to hear Michelle's brother, Nathan, play with the Fort Hays State Jazz band, of which he's been a member for several years.
We met Nathan, his girlfriend Ashley, and Matthew and Joella at the concert hall at about 7:30, sat through a couple hours of performances from college jazz bands, and then got to hear Nathan's play. They were pretty good, and we all enjoyed listening to him. He's semi-easy to pick out if you know what to listen for. He refuses to play solo parts, but he's excellent at hitting high notes on his trumpet, so he gets all of those, and he has this amazingly beautiful tone, and on the occasional number, he'll get a pretty little run of notes going when no one else is playing that just brings tears to your eyes. Well, to mine, anyway. :)
Here are a couple of pictures from last night's performance. Nathan is the second trumpet from the left - the tall guy with the red shirt and the ponytail.
Nathan also brought along his new graphic equalizer t-shirt at my request. This is hilarious! He's not allowed to wear it to performances, so we took a video at home this morning.
Here's a picture of Jeff and Fang sitting on the couch after work today. Aren't they cute?
I also took a movie of another game we like to play with Fang. Well, Jeff likes to play it, and is much more tolerant of being licked all over his face than I am. I'm good to go with about one near lick a day...
We finished watching "There Will Be Blood" tonight. I liked the first half better than the second, but I think I still like it better than the other four Oscar contenders I've seen. Actually, like is a bit too strong of a word. I think it's a better film than the rest, but I don't plan to watch it again. The only one of the five that I haven't caught yet is Juno. It's in the queue, though. Gotta love Netflix - they make a lazy pastime even lazier!
This evening was a bit of a fiasco. We had grand plans to come home from work, drive over to Andover to pick up our lawn mower which had been in the shop for its annual checkup, then come back home and try out a new recipe, Fricassee de Poulet, which takes about an hour and a half to cook, for dinner.
We managed to get away to the shop ok and got the mower picked up. We don't have an appropriate car for doing these sorts of things, so Michelle's GTI (a little VW hatchback, a speedy Rabbit, if you will) gets the back seat headrests removed, the seats folded down, and the cargo cover removed. These items are all stowed in our garage when we're gone. The mower gets folded up and stuffed in the back for the ride home. Anyway, we get the thing picked up, and are driving back home when we are hit with a monster storm. Close range cloud to ground lightning, driving rain, gusty winds, etc. It started to hail just as we pulled in to our subdivision. We sped into the garage and tried to close the garage door behind us, but the button didn't get pushed right, and the door stayed open long enough for a massive amount of rain and hail to blow in behind us and soak my cargo cover, douse my leather headrests, and blow about and drench my reusable grocery bags that Jeff had placed on the floor of the garage by the door. What a mess.
We had just managed to get the grocery bags and headrests toweled off, and we had put the cargo cover on something to air out, when we noticed an odd hissing/gurgling noise coming from my car. Lo and behold, we had picked up a screw in one of my tires! Which tire, you ask? Why, yes, the very same tire that I had repaired just a couple of months ago! Sigh. We decided to leave that alone for the time being and go inside to start dinner.
We got the first part of dinner going, and Jeff went back out to the garage to swap tires on my car. He had the car jacked up a few inches when the jack slipped, and the car went flying off, thankfully NOT in the direction of Jeff, and landed about a foot away from where it started. Luckily Jeff wasn't hurt, and the car is still straight.
We managed to make dinner come out quite well in the midst of all of this. Unfortunately, Jeff deemed it "not pretty enough" to photograph, so you don't get to see it. Perhaps we'll post on it sometime in the future. It was pretty tasty, though.
We finished the night out with the first half of the movie, "There Will Be Blood." It's decent, so far. Odd characters, but I have to agree that Daniel Day Lewis does a fine job acting his. This is the fourth best picture Oscar nominated film that I have seen in the last month, and I think I like it best so far. The rest have nothing on Ratatouille. LOL
Woo hoo - we won!!!!
Jeff and I watched the game at home together. There was much yelling at the refs and the players, much pounding on the coffee table, and much jumping around the living room. It was pretty fun. Errol fled to the relative quiet of the office couch, while Fang did his best to be available for comforting puppy rubs during commercial breaks. We watched the post game show afterwards and agreed that this year's "One Shining Moment" was adequately full of shots of our team.
I tried to find a good picture to post, but I'm guessing you have a) seen them all already, or b) don't care. LOL
Oh, by the way, did we mention that our alma mater is playing in the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship game tonight? No? Well......
WE ARE!!!
GO HAWKS!!!!
I've got nothing new to post on, so I guess it's time for another crescent fresh recipe from the House of Boy and Girl! Yes, friends, more pork chops. We really only eat these things about once a week, although it seems like every recipe we post is some form of pork chop, doesn't it? Well, you're just going to have to deal with it. This one comes from Jacques Pepin's "Simple and Healthy Cooking," pairs extremely well with German Riesling, is really easy to make, and has a bonus lemony sauce factor that tastes great with green veg like broccoli and asparagus. We had it tonight with polenta and broc.
Broiled Pork Chops with Sage
6 servings
2 cloves garlic, peeled, crushed and finely chopped
1/2 tsp soy sauce
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
6 pork loin chops (about 7 oz each and 1/2" to 3/4" thick)
1/4 tsp salt
6 fresh sage leaves, chopped (about 1 tbsp)
Grated rind of 1 lemon (1 1/2 tsp)
2 tbsp lemon juice
1. Preheat the oven broiler. Line a baking tray with aluminum foil.
2. Combine garlic, soy sauce and pepper in a small bowl.
3. Sprinkle the pork chops with the salt and brush them on one side with half of the seasoning mixture. Place the chops, seasoned side down, on the tray and brush them on the other side with the remainder of the seasoning mixture.
4. Place the chops under the broiler so they are 3" to 4" from the heat. Broil for 4 minutes, turn, then broil for 4 minutes on the other side.
5. In a small bowl, combine the sage, lemon rind and lemon juice.
6. Turn the chops so the moist underside is facing up and arrange them on a platter. Add any accumulated juices from the tray to the sage mixture in the bowl. Using a pastry brush, paint the chops with the mixture. Cover loosely and let rest for 5 minutes before serving.
(10 points if you know where "crescent fresh" came from!)
