Holy Crap! We're Having a Kid!

I guess it's real now. As if having pictures of the kid growing in Amy's belly wasn't enough for me, tonight was our first "baby class." My, how time flies....

Tomatos

Last week Tom and I picked our tomatoes and made some yummy spaghetti sauce. In years past we actually had enough to can a dozen or so jars. Not so this year- blame it on the weather or the lack of our gardening skills :) Any way sauce was made it was yummy and we have enough leftover for two more meals.

Before:


After:

And In Other News...

The shelves used in the modern mega-baby-mart are solidly build, and my head is not a good demolition tool.

And that's all I have to say on the matter...

My Latest Diversion

My friend, Darrin introduced me to this game today, and I had to play it until I solved all the levels. Thanks, Darrin, I really owe you one. Or maybe you're getting me back since I introduced you to my most recent game... :)

I'm Back

I've just got back from a long weekend spent with my friend, Rattus, and his friend, Aaron at the Abbey of Gethsemani in rural Kentucky. I'm still digesting everything, but suffice to say that it was wonderful. Among the many things I've learned are the following little nuggets (in no particular order):

• 3:15A is a splendid time for worship, if I can go back to sleep afterward
• I need another hiking hat
• Sandals do not make good hiking shoes on steep, rocky, muddy, narrow paths
• My belt is not currently optional with the pants I own
• Tick repellant bug spray and a backpack would have been appropriate gear to have packed
• The monks' vegetable stew left something to be desired
• The monks' cabbage soup was good in the mouth but explosive in the belly
• You just never know when you're going to bump into friends
• Hanging with Jim and Joyce is a fun way to spend a couple of hours (yes Jeem and Elizabeth, THAT Jim and Joyce)
• Rich Pinkerton is still the best organist I've ever listened to (with no disrespect intended to all the other organists I've known, met, or listened to)
• Not talking is hard even for a confirmed introvert like me
• Singing psalms can be a tremendously moving experience
• I could be a monk for a week, maybe a month, perhaps a year, but I couldn't stick with it because I love and miss Amy too much
• The Abbey of Gethsemani is a place to which I want to return
• God has a way of making his points...
• ... even if I don't understand them yet...

More later, once I've digested things a bit more.

Ahhh- isn't the kiddo cute?

I just wanted to be the proud mama and show off pictures! The Ultrasound Technician and the Doctor said everything looks fine.

Six Things I Loved About Today

1. I stayed up until after midnight this morning. I'm a night owl by nature, and it's not often that I get to stay up late without consequences.
2. I slept in until almost 10AM WITHOUT BEING INTERRUPTED BY CATS!!! That nearly never happens!
3. Amy and I went caching today, and it was super-duper, extra special fun. One of our long-term goals is to find a cache in each of Ohio's 88 counties, and today we picked up six new counties. That in and of itself is fun, but as we've said before, caching is just such a fun adventure. You just never know what you're going to find. Today, we drove through parts of Ohio that we've never seen before. There's some absolutely beautiful country side out there just waiting to be explored. Plus, there's just plain odd stuff out there. See that picture over there at the left? That's a huge scoop once used for mining coal. And that little blue spec with the light glinting off the top? That's me standing in it. Way, way cool!
4. This conversation I had with my good friend, Xabu:
   • BMT: Hey Xabu!
   • Xabu: Hey!
   • BMT: I got a strange question for you...
   • Xabu: I'm good at answering strange questions.
   • BMT: There's a pizza place in Zanesville.
   • Xabu: Yeah...
   • BMT: What's it's name?
   • Xabu: Adornetto's.
   Now, there's gotta be 50 pizza places in Zanesville, but he comes up with the exact one I'm thinking of without a second thought!
5. The pizza from Adornetto's. If you ever blow through Zanesville, you should stop and give it a try.
6. I spent this entire day with the love of my life :)

Happy Birthday

Our cats were 9months old when we adopted them. We really don't know when their birthday "day " is but we know it is sometime in July, and July 4th is an easy date to remember. So Happy 3rd birthday Kona and Sidamo, thank you for bringing joy to our house.

For your summer reading pleasure...

Last night I went to Barnes and Noble and splurged on a hard cover book. (I admit to being a library girl!) An old co-worker and friend Sue Ellen found out that one of our favorite columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner, Connie Schultz was in town to speak and sign her new book .... and His Lovely Wife. I have been a huge fan of Connie's for years. She is passionate about her beliefs and stands up for the underdog and an advocate of women's rights. I wish I could be more like her. I wish I had her passion and could take a firmer stand on somethings in this world. The book is her memoir of her life on the campaign trail while her husband, Sherrod Brown, was running for the US Senate. Please check out her bi-weekly column in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, her first book Life Happens (a collection of her columns and another great read) and her new book.

Graeter's and a Walk Tonight

Why, you might ask? Because 5 years ago, Amy and I went on our first date, and that's just what we did then. Thanks for 5 wonderful years, Sweetie :)

Well Worth the Weight (and the Wait)

Tonight, Amy took me out to dinner for my birthday. Yeah, yeah, so my birthday was a few months ago, who's keeping track? Anyway, she took me to a place called The Melting Pot at nearby Easton. I've been wanting to go there since she went there last year with her girlfriends, but she told me she'd only take me for a "special occasion." Evidently, this qualified.

Well, after looking at the menu, I know why she wanted to wait. Suffice to say it was somewhat pricey. But lemme tell you, it was great! Not great enough to entice me to pay that kind of price very often, but every once in a while (maybe every decade or century or so) it'd a lot of fun. We had more food than we could eat, and it was very, very tasty. Good thing I'm walking 9 miles per day during the week, I'll need all that exercise!

Anyhow, I'm very grateful to my lovely wife for dinner. It was more than worth not having a "week of birthday" like she gets... :)

It's That Time Again...

Amy was out with the girls again tonight, which as you, the loyal reader know, means it's Chili Time! So, I grabbed the recipe from my last experiment tried again. For added pressure, I invited my friend, Darrin over to sample my wares. How did I fare?

Bald Man Tom's Skillet Chili, Take Four

The Players

The Pan	12" cast iron skillet, well seasoned
The Ingredients	12 oz. chuck roast, cut into small cubes salt 3 oz onion, finely diced 2 clove garlic, minced 3 oz pickled jalapenos, minced ~1-1/2 oz chipotles in adobo sauce, minced ~1 tbsp adobo sauce (from the can of chipotles in adobo) 2 tbsp chili powder 2 tbsp cumin (ground) 1 tbsp coriander seed (ground) 1 tsp turmeric (ground) 2-1/2 c beef broth, plus 3 tbsp 3 tbsp masa harina Vegetable oil

The Method

Season the meat with a few pinches of salt about 5 minutes before cooking begins. Heat the skillet over high heat. Coat the skillet thinly with oil, then sear the meat quickly on all sides, maybe 1-2 minutes max. Remove the meat from the pan and set aside. Lower the heat to medium, sautee the onion and garlic until softened a little, about 1 to 1-1/2 minutes. Add the minced jalapenos and minced chipotles, stir and let sautee another 1 to 1-1/2 minutes. Add the meat back to the pan with 2-1/2 c of the broth, spices and adobo sauce, mix and simmer 5 minutes. Make a slurry with the masa harina and the remaining 3 tbsp of the beef broth, then add to the pan and give it a good stir. Place in a 350 degree oven for 75 minutes.

Makes 2 servings.

Notes

Much better portioning when I was cutting up the beef tonight, I actually ended up with 12 oz beef, huzzah! As per my notes from last time, I dropped the amount of adobo sauce and increased the amount of cumin, which is now abundant. I also served slightly sweetened cornbread with the chili tonight, as Darrin prefers his cornbread sweet as opposed to savory.

The Verdict

<slobber> That was my best effort to date. Boosting the cumin and dropping the adobo ended up being the perfect switch in this batch of chili. The heat was present but not overwhelming, and the smokiness was excellent. I think that I didn't sear the beef quite long enough before stewing, it wasn't quite as tender this time, but it was still darned tasty. It'll be hard to top this particular bowl of red.

Lessons Learned

Lessee:

• Excellent balance between heat and smokiness. I think I got the right balance of cumin and adobo
• I think I could still use an accessory flavor or two. Need to put on my thinking cap
• I still need a "manly" chili bowl
• Sweet cornbread still = yum!

Weekend Update

Tom and I had a fun weekend down in Kentucky. We got to watch the oldest nephew play tee-ball and the youngest celebrate his 4th birthday pirate style!

blog update

For anyone interested, a baby countdown ticker was added to the very bottom of the blog.

Makes sense to me...

We don't keep junk food in the house. The main reason is that we have no will power. If it is in the house we will eat it. However, I was craving chocolate earlier this week. (Sometimes a girl needs chocolate) I found the very end of the Easter candy. So when I was in the store tonight I thought I came up with a great solution. I bought chocolate syrup so I can make chocolate milk. I get my chocolate fix and I am getting a nutritious glass of milk. Sounds good to me. Tom laughed at my logic. Hmmm- laughing at a pregnant woman's cravings....could get him in some trouble :)

Longer Commute

Yeah, my commute just went from about 10 minutes, one way, to somewhat over an hour, one way. Why, you might ask? Well, have a look at my new ride, pictured to the left.

Yep, that's right. I'm walking to work now. I'm doing it for a few reasons. First, it just isn't that far. The walking commute is somewhere in the 3.5 to 4 mile range, so it's not insurmountably far. Second, I really, really need the exercise. Third, well, it's cheaper than an electric car and fuel is well up over $3 per gallon.

We'll see how long this lasts, I'm hoping to keep it up until the weather turns nasty...

UPDATE: I brought along our Garmin eTrex Legend this morning, as it has a trip odometer, and the route I take comes out at 4.5 miles!

New Arrival

No, it's a little early for that arrival. But it's not too early for this one! Actually, it's two weeks earlier than we were expecting, so we were very surprised and very happy. Now when people come over, this will be a very common sight...

Back In the Kitchen

Amy was out with the girls again tonight, you know what that means.... CHILI! So, I grabbed the recipe from my last experiment and sought to create a still better bowl of red. How did I fare? Read on, loyal reader, read on...

Bald Man Tom's Skillet Chili, Take Three

The Players

The Pan	12" cast iron skillet, well seasoned
The Ingredients	8 oz. chuck roast, cut into small cubes salt 3 oz onion, finely diced 2 clove garlic, minced 3 oz pickled jalapenos, minced ~1-1/2 oz chipotles in adobo sauce, minced ~2 tbsp adobo sauce (from the can of chipotles in adobo) 2 tbsp chili powder 1 tbsp cumin (ground) 1 tbsp coriander seed (ground) 1 tsp turmeric (ground) 2-1/2 c beef broth, plus 3 tbsp 3 tbsp masa harina Vegetable oil

The Method

Season the meat with a few pinches of salt about 5 minutes before cooking begins. Heat the skillet over high heat. Coat the skillet thinly with oil, then sear the meat quickly on all sides, maybe 1-2 minutes max. Remove the meat from the pan and set aside. Lower the heat to medium, sautee the onion and garlic until softened a little, about 1 to 1-1/2 minutes. Add the minced jalapenos and minced chipotles, stir and let sautee another 1 to 1-1/2 minutes. Add the meat back to the pan with 2-1/2 c of the broth, spices and adobo sauce, mix and simmer 5 minutes. Make a slurry with the masa harina and the remaining 3 tbsp of the beef broth, then add to the pan and give it a good stir. Place in a 350 degree oven for 75 minutes.

Makes 2 servings.

Notes

Bummer. I started with a 12 oz cut of chuck roast, but by time I got done trimming it, it was down to 8 oz. Double bummer. I was running low on cumin, so I couldn't bump that up. However, I still had plenty of adobo sauce, so I bumped that up for extra smokiness and heat. I threw in ground coriander seed and ground turmeric from my old recipe because I like what they add (I know they're not authentic, deal with it). I increased the amount of onion and garlic, because I could, and I backed off on the cooking time in an attempt to make it slightly less thick.

Cornbread again (is there any better chili go-with than good cornbread?) but I added the chili powder back in because Amy stated for the record that she wouldn't want any.

The Verdict

Good, but not as good as last time. It was considerably hotter than last time, but was lacking the smokiness of the last batch. Not nearly enough beef, though that's my own darned fault. The thickness was pretty much right on, so dropping the cooking time was a good thing. I think if I were to get a lidded pot, something like a cast iron dutch oven, I could safely bump the cooking time back up. As it is, so much liquid escapes from the pan that the shorter cooking time is needed.

Lessons Learned

Lessee:

• Need more cumin
• Bumping up the adobo didn't increase the smokiness, only the heat
• The coriander and turmeric were good additions
• A cast iron dutch oven would be a very nice chili pot (I think)
• I need a "manly" chili bowl
• Chili cornbread = yum!

I Love Baseball

If I haven't said so before, let me say it now: I love baseball.

On last night's news, the sports reporter mentioned that one of my all-time favorite baseball players, Jim Thome, would be playing a few rehab games in town with the visting Charlotte Knights against the Clippers, so Amy and I decided to catch tonight's game. He didn't hit any of his trademark rain-maker homers, but it's always fun watching him at the plate.

But tonight was more than just a chance to watch a favorite player, it was a chance to just enjoy Baseball. I haven't yet developed an attachment to the Clippers, though now that they're no longer affiliated with the Pinstriped Pigheads, I'm no longer averse to rooting for them. And I have no particular like or dislike for the Knights. So tonight was just Baseball for the sake of Baseball, and that's a beautiful thing. I know that some people out there find it boring, confusing, too slow, whatever. I wish I could let you experience Baseball through my senses and background. For me, there's just something right about sitting in the crowd, watching a good pitcher and a good hitter in a battle of wits and talent, watching a shortstop and second baseman execute acrobatic maneuvers to turn a double play, watching a center fielder run down a hard liner and save the inning with a sliding catch, watching the power hitter hit a shot that won't land until next Tuesday. It's all well and good when I watch my favorite teams play, but sometimes it's even more fulfilling when I'm not emotionally invested in either team, because I can enjoy the game completely, revelling in great plays and bruising offense without regard to who is winning or losing. It's times like tonight when I remember just what I love about Baseball.

Something Interesting...

Here's something that might be interesting for runners or walkers who want to plot out their routes.