Tag: food

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Ridgewood Gang

I woke up a bit before Summer this morning and played some Animal Crossing. When she got up, she had to run to the shop to help with their bay door that wouldn’t open again. Then when she returned, we went to the Ridgewood Brothers’ BBQ and waited in line for roughly an hour.

Social distancing had the line wrapped way around the back of the parking lot, but either way there were quite a few people there. Brandie was there just in front of the last person in line, so we chatted for a little bit. It was overcast but still warm to be out in line like that, so I’m thinking it’s preorders from here on out. We picked up a Hog Trough with some friends-benefits, as well as three giant beef ribs, which were my favorite of the day. Still didn’t get any burnt ends though.

When we finally got through the line, we stopped by to pick up the girls from their friends’ house. Then we went up the hill to eat. Summer developed a headache and napped for a while, and I just laid in bed with her watching YouTube for a frustratingly long time. I didn’t have any other plans, but it would have been nice not to burn an entire day just sitting around doing nothing.

Eventually she felt good enough to leave again, so we went back to my house so she could get her car. I immediately discovered the cat had chewed up the top of my avocado sprout, which sent me into even more of a rage. Summer went back home while I cooled off at home for a while. It wasn’t productive, but I did eventually get a shower that helped.

When I got back to their house, the girls were all finishing up Frozen II. Then we watched an episode of Game of Thrones before bed.

Three words: Bone Wind Chime

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Happy Mother’steak

I beat everyone else up this morning and ordered some breakfast pizzas for Summer to pick up while I took my shower. The kids finished watching Back to the Future Part III, and then I took them to Walmart so they could get something for Summer while I picked up what I needed for our family dinner.

They all went outside to play cards in the weather while I baked potatoes. Then Eaddie and Noah wanted to ride bikes to my parents’ house, so Summer took them while I drove with Autumn.

The kids wanted to swim in spite of our warnings that the water was ice cold, so they ran around outside while Julie and I got things cooking inside. Summer helped me scoop potatoes out so I could twice-bake them, and Dad got the charcoal going so Julie could grill the steaks she picked up at the butcher in Centerville.

Dinner was pretty great, though I had the same frustrations I always have with steak dinners. The steaks always end up cold by the time we get salads and everything else ready to eat. That’s why I prefer to eat the salad while I’m cooking everything else, and then have my steak right off of the grill.

Eaddie and Noah really wanted to ride around on the bikes some more after dinner, so Summer finally relented and let them ride to Sequoyah until we were ready to leave. Then she rode out to them while Autumn and I drove everything else back home.

Summer dropped Noah off and took Eaddie home, then Autumn and I followed after some cleanup at my house. Then we watched an episode of Iron Fist before bed.

I’m glad we could all make time to meat like this.

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Sign of the Times

I unintentionally slept in super late today. Summer took the rest of the week off, so she was up doing things long before I got around. When I did finally get up, I rushed to check on the Stalk Market in Animal Crossing, then sat down to try and get some work done.

The high school got their new sign installed, and now they want to use it to showcase their virtual graduation somehow. I watched a recording of the training Ben got on the software, and though 500 slides seems like a lot, they weren’t really taking into consideration the fact that animations take up around 100 frames of that. It certainly felt to me like we were oversold and under-delivered.

It took me all day to get the beefy software downloaded and installed, I’m guessing mostly due to the large file size of all the animations. I didn’t pay too much attention to the noise the girls were making, but I know Autumn did spend a good portion of the afternoon preparing dinner.

She made an orange chicken dish that called for freshly battered and air-fried chicken breast chunks. The air frying was a no-go for me, but the overall dish was pretty good. If I’m going to “fry” something, I’m going to fry it. Toaster ovens need to stay in their lane.

After dinner, Summer tried to get the girls to complete some chores and I headed home to clean up for their impending arrival. My Gorilla Ladder arrived via UPS in what amounted to a tattered plastic trash bag, so it got roughed up a bit more than I would have liked. It really won’t make any difference when I use it though.

When the girls got here, I made some popcorn for Autumn, then pulled out my old Cuisinart ice cream maker. I picked up a couple clearanced strawberry ice cream mixes at Walmart a while back, and finally had the milk and cream to put it all together. I think I should have split the batch, but as I pulled some out for us to eat, the stuff that was left in the bowl iced up quite nicely for storage.

Autumn and I were going to start Game of Thrones, but she got sleepy about three minutes into the first episode, and gave up. I put Summer to bed, and Eaddie and I watched another episode of Iron Fist. It was much better than the first episode of the season, and actually got me wondering about the future episodes. Time will tell.

In five years, I see myself with the same job title, about the same salary, and significantly more responsibilities.

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Ache Rolls

My body felt completely battered this morning. We took our time getting out of bed, then Summer woke Eaddie up and we had some leftovers for lunch. Julie wanted to uncover the pool, so the girls sat around watching The Voice and I did laundry while we waited for her to be ready. Eventually we did get out of the house and across town, and we uncovered the pool pretty quickly and easily by shifting the whole cover, then fan folding it from the middle.

My parents had egg rolls ready to fry when we finished with the pool, so I stood out and fried them before we went inside to eat. They stayed busy cleaning up outside, and the girls and I ate inside once the rice was done. Summer eventually had to get home to do her own chores around the house, so I went home to clean up. Jack showed up online and I spent some time catching up with him before Johnny got on. Then I joined them in a really terrible game of PUBG where the game seemed to run pretty smoothly, but my mouse lagged nearly a full second behind for some reason. One game was enough, and then I was off to Summer’s.

Eaddie was still up and bored, and I was super hungry, so I snacked a little bit. Eaddie shared some of her apples and Tajín with me, and we watched an episode of Luke Cage until I was ready to pass out.

Overripe Banana: 3/5
With Tajín: 2/5
With Cheddar: 4/5

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I Made Sliders

My medication alarm kept nagging me awake this morning, and I got up to make an “everything” sandwich for lunch. I got the girls up and had to go out to air up my front bike tire again since it was completely flat. Then we rode to the shop for lunch with Summer. There was quite a bit more traffic in the middle of a Friday, but we managed without too much trouble.

They were pretty busy, so Summer had us go upstairs to eat inside away from the paying customers. I guess the bagged sandwich was too loose and the meat and cheese slid down through to the other sandwiches, leaving Autumn’s first end piece without. It wasn’t terrible to correct though, and we had a feel-good lunch. Afterward we rode back home, the long way again, through the city park. The heat was hot and the ground was dry, but the air was full of sound.

When we got home, we drove back to the shop so Autumn could stay and work for some money to “buy” the Matrix from her grandparents. Eaddie had to get her bag with a change of clothes too, since she forgot to bring the bag inside last night.

With just the two of us left, Eaddie and I decided to try and clean up the house a little bit. We were going to start in the garage, but as it got warmer that felt less appealing to her, and she landed in the kitchen instead. She poked around a little bit while I got some dishes shuffled. We didn’t get a whole lot done, but at least it seemed like a noticeable difference.

Summer and Autumn eventually came home and we had to figure out dinner. We were craving Chinese but decided against Sumo because of the price. Then Summer got set on Brown’s but I discovered they had shut down for a few days to remodel for social distancing. At a buffet. Still seems like a bad idea, especially with how many old people eat there.

We ended up getting Wendy’s, then came back home and ate while we watched Autumn’s pick of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Summer seemed a bit broken after a decidedly non-happy ending, but we made it better with some Yahtzee and Moana. Julie invited us to kayak tomorrow, so we called it an early night to give us plenty of time to get everything together for Summer’s first time on the creek.

Listen. For a thousand years, I’ve only been thinking about keepin’ this hair silky, getting my hook, and being awesome, again.

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Not Friday

I wanted to sleep in so much this morning, but one of the cats came up and bit me on the forehead. The cool weather all night with the windows open had me at an absolutely perfect level of cozy, but I had to get up and face the day. Autumn got up and made bacon and pancakes for breakfast, but we didn’t have any syrup, so they sent me to Dollar General for that, Nutella, and ice cream for later. I used the app to check out, but the tablet at the front was turned off for some reason. Luckily I found the power button and got it booted up, and was able to check out without any trouble.

Breakfast was great, and then I got into some work for a while. I took some game breaks either with Animal Crossing or Grid on Stadia. Since Google was giving away two month trials of Stadia, I figured I could hop back on and try it again now that there are more games available, and I was pretty pleased with Grid. I wasn’t any good at it, but it looked and played well.

Eventually I had to get the girls out of their rooms to do something, so Autumn started on some laundry and cleaning the house while Eaddie went outside to mow the front lawn. They get along way better when they’re separated and productive, but Eaddie definitely takes the lion’s share of the work without too much fuss. We’ll have to watch for that though, and still need to reign in their screen time.

When Summer got home, we had some leftovers while the girls went outside and had dinner with their father. Then we packed up and headed to my house for the evening since I didn’t get to go during the day. I played a game of Yahtzee with Autumn, then she went to sleep watching Alice in Wonderland. Eaddie and I ended the evening with a pretty good mid-season episode of Luke Cage.

Calloo-callay, no work today. We’re cabbages and kings!

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Stiff Upper Lip

I got up this morning after a pretty decent night’s sleep and began another week of working from home. There wasn’t a whole lot going on, but we’re used to that by now. I took a break when Travis invited me to his Animal Crossing island, and he taught me how to bury fruit in holes to grow new trees.

Arby’s had another $1 special on roast beef sandwiches, so I left for lunch, took a shower, and took Summer some lunch. Then I made my way back to the girls so they could eat before I took Autumn to her physical therapy. While she was there, I went back home to clean up a bit more, then loaded up some of Dad’s tools from our bathroom demolition.

Autumn didn’t want to get out of the car, so I went up to return the tools and visit with my parents for just a little bit. Then we went back home to start dinner. I wanted to make refried beans and carnitas, but I had already run out of time as it was. The carnitas recipe was pretty simple, but I had Autumn help with some of the prep work.

At the end of the day, the food was really good, especially when lifted with some specialty Great Value salsa we found yesterday. Somewhere along the course of the day I got into something that had the middle of my upper lip swollen. It got worse as the evening progressed, and after a near-panic attack for seemingly no reason, I laid down in bed until everyone went to sleep.

I had started the beans after the carnitas were done, so I had to get out of bed to try and finish those. I blended them too early though, and ended up with more of a bean soup than anything else. I don’t know what was so different from last time, but I don’t recall having any liquid left after cooking. Hopefully leaving the thing on overnight won’t end horribly.

Relax. It’s fine, probably.

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Off Trail

Summer and I got up late today and went to Walmart for the last few things we needed for lunch. They had a bunch of “everything” bread marked down, so we got all of it to freeze, and I took one loaf to make a sandwich. Since it was already late and a bit warm outside, we decided to eat at home rather than take it all to the bike trail. It was a quick lunch in the back yard, and then we loaded up the bikes and headed to Old Post.

When we got there and unloaded, I climbed onto my bike only to find the front tire was completely flat. I loaded it back up and went home for air, and decided that a portable pump is probably a must-have. While I was gone, Summer and Eaddie checked out the trails but couldn’t leave Autumn behind, so they all rode downhill to the main park area. I made it back and met up with them, and we rode all over the flat park area.

We stopped for snacks on the amphitheater stage, then made a couple more loops around the drive before packing up to head back home. The girls left pretty quickly after we got back to my house, and I spent a few minutes doing a major trim in my shrimp tank. Then I loaded up and headed up to their house for the evening.

Summer made sloppy joes with mashed potatoes and corn for dinner, and then I planted all of my trimmings in Autumn’s aquarium. Summer, Autumn, and I played a game of Sorry, and then they went to bed while Eaddie and I started the second season of Luke Cage. We both got bored with how slow the first episode was, and decided to quit there for the night.

Back to the grind.

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Ride Along

Summer had to stop by the shop this morning, so she picked up some Wendy’s breakfast for us on the way home. Then she took Autumn to pick up the car her parents were planning to give her so she could practice at the high school. The brakes were so bad that they ended up leaving it, and she ended up practicing in Summer’s car anyway.

Eaddie rode her bicycle out to meet them, and I followed along on the Grom so Summer could get some time on it. I rode around the lot for a while, practicing some little wheelies while Eaddie rode down the trail she had found before. I eventually stopped to warm up in the sun on the arbor bench for a little while until Summer was ready for some time on the bike.

Autumn did a pretty good job of driving me around, and I tried to have her focus on parking and spatial awareness. She was pretty bored by the time I got to her, so we weren’t there much longer before we headed back to my house.

We were pretty hungry by that time, so Summer and I rode across town to try and pick up some BBQ from the Ridgewood Brothers. Grant said they had just sold out though, so we sulked back toward home. We stopped by the Neighborhood Market briefly to pick up some groceries first, and then Summer took the girls home to clean up.

When they got back, Nick wanted to come by and eat with the girls, so we all sat out in the backyard together where we could maintain a decent space. He brought us all an assortment of food and stayed to chat for a little while since he hadn’t really seen the girls since the quarantine started.

After he left, the girls came inside and wanted to play Jackbox games. I had just picked up the fifth collection in the series, so we played a round of each of the games in the pack before settling in for bed. Eaddie and I outlasted everyone else as usual, finishing up the second season of Jessica Jones before bed.

Even the littlest bikes can buck the unsuspecting rider.

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It Slices! It Dices!

We had another conference call this morning with a company we’ve never dealt with before. By way of chance, the guy actually got through to Ben on the phone, and we actually happened to be reviewing classroom management software, so Ben scheduled the meeting today after the two prior days of the same. I liked this one guy a lot more than the four we talked to yesterday, and though he didn’t demo the Windows functionality for us, he at least acted like he knew that it existed.

After the call, Ben and I went to Dairy Queen to pick up lunch. I decided to try the chicken and biscuits basket they had, and spent over twice what Ben did on his meal. I ended up getting plenty that I could split it with Summer on the way back to the shop. Ben was talking about phone shopping anyway, and wanted to compare the size of his old Nexus with Summer’s Pixel 3.

The afternoon went by really quickly with a few more work orders, and then I went to get Autumn for her physical therapy. I killed a little time in Animal Crossing until it was time to drop her off, and then I ran home for a bit. When she called for me to pick her back up, I stopped by Casey’s for a free water and ran into Keith and chatted to him for a minute in the rain.

Once I got Autumn, we ran back by my house to get my package from UPS that didn’t arrive until after I left. Then we ordered some Papa John’s for dinner and picked it up on the way back up the hill.

I mostly waited for Summer to eat, and decided I didn’t much care for their rendition of the Philly cheesesteak pizza. The girls liked their buffalo pizza enough. I brought in the toaster oven/air fryer/dehydrator/roaster/whatever-elser and set it up in the kitchen, and then Eaddie and I watched an episode of Jessica Jones while Summer watched some of her show. When we finished that episode, we all got together for an episode of Glee before Summer went to sleep. Eaddie and I caught one more episode of Jessica Jones, then went to bed ourselves.

Sometimes it’s 10 minutes. Sometimes it’s an hour.
It depends what inspiration hits, and what deals are found.