Riddle

What does Tampa Ice hockey have to do with the Lone Star State?

 

Well this week one was the determining factor for our traveling plans to the other.

My big-little brother Joseph is leaving Texas in a month to move closer to his Fiancé in Minneapolis.  He has been begging me to come visit since he moved there in 2008.  And I’ve wanted to go-but you know…life.  So with the move coming up my time to visit was limited…but tickets aren’t cheap-ever-for Houston.

I asked Adam “Can I go see Joe?” And he replied “Well I want to go too”…enter the Ice Hockey connection. 

The Tampa Lightning are in the NHL Playoffs.  Adam works at the arena they play in.  Playoff games draw large crowds…of beer drinking people.  Adam gets a percentage of the bar sales each event….are you following?

Wednesday night they played game 7 in Pittsburg.  If they won, they go on to the next series and Adam is guaranteed two more home games…meaning extra cash.  So Adam said “If they win on Wednesday we’ll go to Houston.”

Well guess what.

They won. 

We’re going to Houston…finally.  Or as Joe put it “about friggin time”

It will be a quick weekend trip-but joseph is “super pumped” and we’re looking forward to checking out this “cowboy” lifestyle he’ll be leaving behind. 

This melts my heart.

 

I saw this picture when I finally got to log onto Facebook.

You know how some people are born to be mothers? Well he was born to be a dad.

Easter

I woke up early and headed into the kitchen to finish my dish for the party later in the afternoon.   Nibbled on candy and looked forward to the beautiful day ahead. Adam didn’t have to work, our friends were having a brunch and it was a beautiful day.

Getting a late start to church I chose the outdoor service (which stated 15 min later) It was hot and sweaty and the bugs were in full force. But every once in a while there was a nice breeze.
Back at home I grabbed my cous cous salad and headed over to st. Pete.  John and Ivee always through great pot lucks and it’s so good to see our friends whom we don’t see as much now that we’re both in Tampa.

But I didn’t stay long. Because you see, it was just I, there was no we. Adam was home, in bed sick.
I went to mass alone (I missed holding his hand).  I drove over the bridge alone (I missed sight seeing and chatting with him).  I socialized with our friends (I missed our across the room glances).  But most of all I missed my husband.  Our schedules are so crazy  we rarely get a day together.  So, like I said, I headed home early and found him up on the couch watching cartoons.  He felt better he said, but not 100%.  I had gotten him the good Sudafed “the stuff they make Meth out of” is what the pharmacist said. “Yes! that’s the stuff-I want that!” I told him.
So we sat on the couch and watched movies all. afternoon. long.
It was a gorgeous day.  I was itching to be outside, to lay by the pool.  But I wanted to hang with him more.  So we drew the drapes and curled up and ate our Easter candy.
It ended up being just what we needed.  A day together. Nobody else, just us…and our Easter Lab.

No, It’s not done. Yes, we’re still making it.

I get asked a lot “How’s your table coming?” Well to be honest, it’s not.  We got busy. Adam got a 2nd job.  His shop got swamped. And our poor table top has been shoved under his work bench since November.

We did have good intentions of getting done by Christmas-but it just didn’t work out.  Life got in the way.  The good news is things are slowing down at the Ice Palace and there has been some progress at his work. 

I realized I never did do a follow up with the work we DID do.  I think it was Halloween that we got into the shop one Sunday afternoon and got started on our boards. 

If you recall they were in pretty bad shape.

And even after pulling out a ton of nails at the store, there where still more that had to come out.

So Adam got to work and I snapped pictures. Ha ha no…I did help.

On a side note; I was wearing an old pair of tennis shoes I kept in my car.  Well a few years in the trunk of a car in Florida is not good for shoe glue we found out.

Yes, that is the sole of my shoe. 

But not to worry, Adam had a solution…

He shrink wrapped my shoe! 

Unfortunately it didn’t last….so I waddled around sole-less for most of the day.

Ok. Back to our wood.

Adam’s shop has this nice wide sanding belt.  He explained how you adjust the grit and height and you put the wood in and it spits it out all pretty.  Well if I recall right-it wasn’t that simple. 

We spent the better part of the day sanding and sanding and sanding our boards until finally they looked…..

Great!

 

Before:

After:

I kid you not that is the SAME board!  We got very excited as the layers of paint/stain/age were sanded off and this beautiful wood was revealed beneath.  Most of the wood is, we think, Heart Pine.  It’s very hard and has a really pretty grain.  About 1/2 of the wood was a blond color and the other a deeper amber color.

After we had everything sanded we started to cut our pieces.  We needed to cut off the bad stuff and see what we were left with.  And in order for the table to layout it had to be all the same widths. 

I think this is where we got into an argument over how wide the boards should be and blah blah blah…but it was so long ago it’s not worth brining up.  But I’m pretty sure I did use the Architect card.oops.

It didn’t take long for us to realize our 15-12’ boards might not be enough for our gigantic table.  There were a lot of unusable pieces.  We focused on the main top, since the leafs are smaller and laid out what we had.  After some finagling we ended up with this:

Keep in mind there will be another blond full length on the left making it 42” wide and close to 6’ long.  She definitely went from an ugly duckling to a sawn! We were very happy and excited. After the  LONG day in shop Adam stayed after work the following week and glued the pieces together then cut it down to size.  The leaves still need to be laid out and we think we finally found a solution to the non existent hinge I “used” when designing it.  We’ll stack the folding legs which will be a much easier solution.

New design above. Old design below.

It might be a little awkward looking when they’re up-but if they are we figure there will be 12 people around it and no one is going to really notice:

So why after all these months am I finally writing about this again? Well we’re gearing up to get back to work!  Adam, after a mishap with disappearing wood, has the legs cut and glued, ready to be sanded and stained. (we’re using poplar).  All that we need to do now is put the legs on the main part of the table and sand/finish/stain it all.  Adam feels that the leaves (which are in a nice pile in our dining room) can be installed at home. Plus since we don’t really NEED our 12’ of dining space right this instant we can hold off…a smidge…on that.

I appologize for the 6 month laps in updates on this project…but like I said, Life got busy.  Hopefully I’ll have the final product for you soon…then you can all come over for diner!

Windy City!

A few weeks ago my mom called me asking if I was free the following weekend and if I could come to Chicago. I was free and so she bought me a ticket and a week later off I flew to my favorite city!  Unfortunately Adam had to work all weekend :(

My little brother Jonathan has a summer internship north of the city so our purpose was to get him settled. Lucky for me they took care of that on Thursday so we had 3 days to play.

   The weather was typical mid-western weather. cold and rainy one day. sunny and cool the next and HOT the last day. It was great to get away and see part of my family and now I’m really excited to go back with Adam this summer.

My Montras

I read this a while back on line someplace…I don’t recall where, but I kept it, emailed it to myself and keep it on my phone. I read it whenever I’m feeling … frustrated … deflated … confused …

I find that it snaps me back.  Some are harder to accept than others…but I do think they all apply to living a positive life.

So here you go, take what you like, and live a positive life.

1. Learn to live with uncertainty.

2. Be patient.

3. Practice a positive attitude.

4. Realize that life is seriously beautiful.

5. Stay in the present.

6. Laugh at yourself.

Like all my clip art?? very creative-huh?

Hope your week ends on a positive note.

What’s for dinner?

If you smart () you’ll make this:

Bourbon Pecan Chicken.

Now, I can tell my cooking adventures one way or I can tell it the real way. Let’s just say I was trying to cook in our tiny kitchen with a sink full of dishes.  I asked Adam to wash them while I was busy clarifying butter! Clarify What?  Yes, I learned what clarified butter is.  Basically, if you don’t know, you melt it and scoop off all the milk  that separates (the white stuff).  Well I was doing this, cooking chicken and trying to make the sauce-while telling Adam he’d better start the rice when things started flying out of the cupboard and landing on my tiny bowl of the butter froth I just skimmed off…uggg.  Adam stuffed a cracker with cheese in my mouth and I opened a beer.  Better.

When the dinner was finally ready ( in 30 short min) we sat down and both said “mmmmm this is good!”  Of course, Adam the sauce monster, needed more sauce (I’d made enough for 3!) but over all it was delicious and despite my grumpy experience in the kitchen-relatively easy to make! The best part-I had all the ingredients in house.  Love it when that happens.

So strap on your apron and get your cute self into the kitchen and whip this up!

Bourbon Pecan Chicken (from allrecipes.com)

(this recipe is for 8, but you can adjust the servings on the website)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup finely chopped pecans

1/2 cup dry bread crumbs

8 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves

1/4 cup clarified butter, melted

1/4 cup Dijon mustard

1/4 cup dark brown sugar

2 2/3 tablespoons bourbon whiskey

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

3/4 cup unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small cubes

1/2 cup sliced green onions

Directions:

1.
Stir together the pecans, bread crumbs, and 2 tablespoons of clarified butter. Spread the mixture out on a plate. Press the chicken breasts into the mixture to coat on both sides. Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of clarified butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Place the coated chicken breasts in the pan, and fry on both sides until nicely browned and chicken meat is cooked through, about 10 minutes per side.

2.
In a small saucepan, whisk together the Dijon mustard, brown sugar, bourbon, soy sauce, and Worcestershire sauce until smooth. Bring to a simmer over medium-low heat, then remove from the burner, and whisk in the 3/4 cup of unsalted butter one piece at a time. Do not return to the heat.

3.
Arrange the chicken breasts on a large serving plate. Pour the sauce over the chicken, and sprinkle with green onion.

Sunday Funday

Adam had a day off on Sunday-his only day off for two weeks. So I told him we’d do whatever he wanted.
He wanted to go to KMart…to start another garden.  You see had had planted some seeds in a “jiffy grow”(?) and they had sprouted.  Well we left there with a cart full of dirt and pots.  He was elbow deep on the patio as he mixed the dirts and potted his sprouts.  And now the patio looks like this:

He’s very excited because the beans are really taking off:

And the dogs were of course very curious as to what was going on…and why their viewing space was now blocked.

(ugg maybe I should clean the window!)
Speaking of dogs, I had suggested we take them someplace since they have been cooped up all week.  So while Adam was busy planting I was online looking into the Tampa dog parks.  We settled on Davis Island Dog beach.  The area of Davis Island is very nice and the park is next to a private plane airport and the yacht club.  The beach however needed a good clean up.  But the dogs were happy and Jordan actually swam!! Bruiser did good with the other two dogs and enjoyed biting the waves.




It was cool to watch the police helicopter practice it’s drills!

We ended the day with a trip to PetSmart, where Bruiser was fascinated with the cats in the cages. We headed home for steaks on the grill and a special edition bells I just happened to come across.

It was a good day.