Tag: food

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9,000 Miles

It was back to the office today, this time with Ben and Greg. I kind of feel bad that Ben hasn’t really taken any time at home, but maybe he likes to get out of the house away from the kids to get things done. It was a quiet day except for a conference call with the Impero chaps. They all really do have the best accents, because they’re 100% understandable, but they just sound like a more formal version of ourselves. The software demo went well, and they can fill the gaps we’ve had for the past three years, but it’s going to cost us.

Greg and I ran to Wendy’s for a quick lunch, and then the afternoon was pretty relaxed. I actually ended up leaving before the other two just because I didn’t really have anything going on.

I ran by Staples to pick up a little table I ordered, and then went to get Autumn for physical therapy. I had enough time to put the table together before dropping her off, then I ran home to clean up a bit and check on the new aquarium organisms. The guppies seemed to be doing great, but were hungry enough to swarm the food I dropped in. The red root floaters seem to be struggling a bit, but it’s too early to tell really.

When Autumn was done, I loaded up the trolling motor and went to get her, and then we stopped by my parents’ to see them for a minute. Dad and I unboxed the motor to test fitment on the boat, and then we headed back to Summer’s to wait for her to get off.

Once she got home from work, I got to making salads out of leftovers. When everyone went on to do their own things, I pulled Autumn’s failed pizza dough out of the fridge, and tried to make cinnamon bread. It wasn’t awful, but it rose quite a bit more than I expected. While it baked, I cut up the pineapple we bought a while back.

And just like that, I found a stopping point.

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Burn Everything…

I didn’t sleep very well last night just because I hadn’t slept in my own bed in so long, but at least I didn’t wake up in pain like I have been. Summer had to work, so the girls and I took our time getting up and around. Eventually I started putting together an everything-loaf sandwich for lunch, and we packed a couple backpacks for a bike ride. We rode to Summer’s shop and had a surprise lunch with her while they were slow.

When we finished eating, we rode over to the city park for just a moment, then took the long way around Detroit back to 4th to get home. The girls did a great job of riding together, and the pandemic has traffic manageable, so it was a great time. It was under an hour total, but my hands and arms were still pretty sore by the time we got home.

I let the girls rest for a little while inside, and then we went outside to start cleaning up the yard. They were both pretty slow to get productive, but eventually we got a little bit of a fire going, at least enough to reduce some of the brush we pulled up. They pressure washed the back patio until they ran out of power cord and hose, so there was a strip of black concrete still on the north side.

Brittany stopped by to give me a few more plants and some guppies she had been breeding. I had too much going on, or I would have thought to send her on with a couple little baby shrimp. I guess they’re a little more sensitive to the alkalinity of the water anyway.

Summer came over when she got off, and brought hot dogs to cook over the fire. We spent a good long while trying to get a decent fire going in the fire pit since the logs weren’t burning well at all. It was enough to get the food warm, but it was a lot of work to maintain. I was pretty upset that some embers blew up and melted a couple holes in a couple of the cushions, but it’s all over now. I would have hoped for something a little more retardant.

As the sun went down and we lost all of our light, the girls filtered back into the house and I trudged back and forth getting everything else put away. I could barely move after being so active all day long, but I had to get a shower before bed.

…the calories too!

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The Villa My Dreams

I really didn’t want to get out of bed today, and when I finally did, I got up with some pretty bad neck pain. It worked itself out pretty quickly though as I got to work. The girls got up and ate, and I set them up with the pressure washer again.

Autumn had physical therapy, so I took her in and then went home to shower. When I picked her up, we decided we would be staying at my house for real tonight, and we’d get Taco Villa for dinner. We went to get Eaddie and packed up a few things to take to my house, and met Summer there when she got off of work.

It took me a little while to get my call into Taco Villa, but when I finally did, the girl said it would only be about five or ten minutes, so I headed out. They had the lobby wide open with a posted limit of six customers at a time. I almost didn’t recognize Chelsea in the back corner waiting for her food. I think I’d seen her maybe twice since graduation. After just a little wait, I boxed up my food and headed home.

The girls kept arguing about what to watch, so I put on an episode of New Girl while we ate. They had never had Taco Villa before, and it seemed to really fill them up. Reviews were about like I expected them to be. It’s not amazing. It’s pretty good. Sometimes you just get a craving.

After we ate, I tried putting on Brightburn, but couldn’t get it to play well. I bounced between a few things and settled on Batman v Superman just in time for everyone to feel sleepy. I put Summer to bed, and Eaddie and I watched an episode of Jessica Jones before I started feeling pretty sleepy and called it a night.

Wrinkles in time, indeed.

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Go Pro or Go Home

Today was undoubtedly the most productive day of the week. I woke up to a little Animal Crossing before taking Autumn on a ride-along to get $1 roast beef sandwiches from Arby’s. We stopped by to feed Summer at work, then went back to their house to eat with Eaddie.

When we finished eating, I set the girls up with the pressure washer out back and had them clean the side of the house and the deck. They didn’t stay outside very long the first time, and Autumn came in complaining about not feeling well. She immediately laid down on the couch and started watching Harry Potter while Eaddie complained that she didn’t want to be outside alone. I gave them a few minutes inside, then made them go back out for over an hour before I’d let them back in. They got a lot more done that time, and the house looked so much better.

I eventually had to run home to clean up, then stopped by Walmart to fill some gaps for dinner. Autumn wanted to try making a copycat Chick-fil-A nuggets recipe along with some homemade macaroni and cheese. Summer got back from work shortly after I got there, and Autumn got to work on dinner. I helped a very minimal amount while Summer and Eaddie went on a run. We ended up deep frying the chicken instead of frying it in a pan, and they came out really great. Everyone was really impressed with dinner, and baking the mac and cheese with some extra cheddar broiled on top was the right decision for everyone’s lives.

Afterward, I finished WALL-E with Autumn, then started an episode of Jessica Jones with Eaddie. We quit after just one episode because we were both really tired, but then she started chatting away, so I sat and talked with her for quite a while.

Earlier in the evening, Julie started asking for my opinion on a waterproof case for her phone. I suggested a purpose-built camera instead, arguing for hours that spending more on camera was a better value than spending less to protect a phone that also has a camera on it. In reality, the resulting photos or videos will probably be seen half a dozen times before they’re forgotten in the great digital cloud vault. Such is the nature of our instantly reminiscent age. She even ended up calling me after she got tired of texting, but in the end I won because I am so smart.

So, so smart.

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They Say It’s Only Tuesday

I got up a little earlier today, but focus was still a huge struggle. I just didn’t want to do anything. It’s been a little cooler with the rain the past couple days, and it just made me want to lay around and do nothing.

The only thing I really managed to accomplish today was pull a bunch of moss out out of the bathroom aquarium because it had gotten way out of hand, and choked out all my other plants. Hopefully the others take off again, but I had no idea how bad it had gotten.

Summer came home with a headache and was in bed by the time I got back. Autumn threw together some hamburgers super fast, and I got them grilled and fried up some fries. While I was finishing up the cooking, Kevin called just to catch up. I don’t think he’s ever reached out first, so it was a bit of a surprise. I may see if he wants to give us the tour of the Old Post bike trail when Eaddie’s ready to go up there.

After dinner, Autumn went straight to bed while the rest of us laid in bed watching TV for a bit. Then when Summer fell asleep, Eaddie and I continued with The Punisher. We’re only about halfway through the season, but the past couple episodes made it feel like we were nearing a conclusion. I wanted to watch more, but we were both tired and decided to turn in early.

Penny and dime.

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Reluctant Day

With a surprising exception of Autumn, nobody wanted to get around to doing much of anything today. She started a few chores early in the morning and then wanted to sit in her room the rest of the day. I rolled around first thing and tried my hand at day trading, but ultimately only saved myself from losing about 50 cents. Then I spent the rest of the day working between breaks in Animal Crossing. A part of me really hates the grind in that game, but another part of me feels satisfied enough with the progression that I keep going back for more.

The girls went outside for a while in the afternoon and tried cleaning up their weird nightmaremobile that’s been parked under the back porch for as long as I’ve known them. Eventually Summer came home from work and demanded dinner in the way that a working spouse would.

I baked some chicken thighs and legs in some Buffalo sauce and tried my hand at frying some sliced potatoes and onions. Summer warmed up a can of peas to round out the meal, and the girls all seemed pretty happy with it all. After dinner, Autumn wanted to watch WALL-E with us and Eaddie absolutely refused on account of hating wonderful things.

In the end, Autumn couldn’t even finish the 103-minute movie, so she and Summer went to bed. Eaddie and I stayed up for too many episodes of The Punisher. It’s been moving quite a bit faster than some of the others in the franchise, so it’s kept us hooked.

One batch, two batch…

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Rabbit Seeds

BUTT STUFF

Summer and Autumn made biscuits and gravy with eggs for brunch this morning. Then we all colored some eggs for Easter. It didn’t take long because we only had around 20 eggs between the four of us. I guess we could have made more. I think Dad used to make a few dozen for us when we were growing up, so we always had gallon ice cream buckets of eggs for weeks after Easter.

I joked that the girls would have to play Russian roulette to find a single raw egg I had hidden in the batch. Just seconds later, Autumn accidentally cracked one that completely fell apart with a raw yolk, and we discovered that the eggs hadn’t cooked all the way through for some reason. We had a couple different sizes of eggs all mixed together, but didn’t figure that made all the difference. A week or two ago we had frozen eggs because the refrigerator was too cold, so maybe that was the problem. In any case, I ended up boiling them again to make sure they were all done, and the colors all faded to a uniform pink.

We thought briefly about going to my house for the night, but in the end we left the kids home and Summer went with me for a workout while I took care of the cat and cleaned up at home. She was surprised by how much of a workout she got from doing the P90X yoga video.

When we got back to their house, I made a big “everything” French loaf sandwich that everyone devoured, and then played some Animal Crossing until bed.

The wind is always better on the hilltop.

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Caught in the Shower

We slept in a bit today before getting up and ready to venture into town. Summer warmed up a pizza while I cleaned out the deep freezer. Then after we ate, we went to Walmart for supplies for dinner. On the way out of the store we got caught in a rain storm, but it blew over pretty quickly.

Summer made a really good lemon pepper shrimp linguine with some Brussels sprouts, and we had a bit of an early dinner. Then we were going to go to my house for the evening, but I caved and picked up Animal Crossing with a leftover game voucher I had. With no major titles coming out before it would expire, I figured the girls might really enjoy it while they’re stuck at home.

Eventually Eaddie started bugging us to watch some Glee. By the time we finished, everyone decided it was too late to leave. Summer went to bed, and Eaddie and I stayed up to start The Punisher on Netflix. As usual, the first episode was kind of dull for me, but it picked up quickly.

I’ve always loved spring thunderstorms.

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Into the Unknown

I spent all morning learning Wikitext to actually start entering articles for work. The translation took a while because even with a visual editor, the markup text made things look way cleaner. I still didn’t even finish publishing my first article, but at least what I have so far looks nice.

Ben got a Fat Daddy’s gift card for doing some work for someone, so he bought us lunch today. I brought prawn chips to fry since I still had the deep fryer there too. It was a really light lunch for me to choose ribs, but it was pretty good. I think I would’ve been happier with one of my usual orders though.

Ben wanted me to go try to break a touch panel before I left, so I went to the high school to a classroom with known issues. On the way, I had to deliver six iPads to the PAC. They had everyone using the main entrance with a sign-in sheet, but I just snuck in with my Technology superpowers before continuing on to the classroom. I could never get the touch to quit working, but I got so frustrated with how bad the SMART Ink was. I could draw in Paint and it would be flawless, but the SMART software lagged so hard. I hated it.

Autumn called when I forgot about her therapy appointment, so I ran home to drop off some things and then got her to therapy about 20 minutes late. Then I stopped by my parents’ house to wish Mom a happy birthday and chatted with them a little bit. She was outside power washing, and Dad was up on the roof cleaning gutters. I didn’t stick around too long though, and let them get back to work.

When I got home, I cleaned up and played a little bit of Overwatch until Summer and Eaddie came over. Then we rode bikes around the neighborhood, stopping by Allen’s, then going over to the high school. Eaddie wanted to take me to the trail that she and Noah found, so we did that. I tried riding over to Julie’s house too, but the field was so long and rugged with too many back yards that I didn’t want to disturb. We headed back around the new practice facility, then made it back to my house.

The girls headed home and I followed a little later. Autumn had some leftover fish sticks out, so I got the deep fryer going again for some of those, some more prawn chips, and some sweet potato fries for Summer. Then Autumn wanted to watch a movie with Summer, so Eaddie and I went to the bedroom to finish The Defenders. The end escalated pretty quickly, but we were happy with it.

Next up: Jessica Jones

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Gotta Get Down on Fryday

I’ve been a little worried about my coughing the past couple evenings, but it seems to just come and go throughout the day. I felt pretty good this morning though, aside from not wanting to get out of bed. Zach wanted to clean up the graveyard, so I went upstairs and helped him until lunch time.

I took my little deep fryer to work so we could make fries for the smoked pork Ben brought. Zach didn’t see my message that I was bringing baked beans, so he brought a couple cans of his own, along with a frozen strawberry pie. We all sat together in the break room and chatted a while. It’s actually been really nice at work this week, and I wish it could always be this way.

After lunch, I spent all afternoon even working a couple hours late trying to set up a wiki. I decided to use BlueSpice just sort of on a whim because it seemed to have good reviews and features. The first part of the setup was annoying just because of restrictions on the server, but after I learned some tricks it turned into step after step after step of installing different components. In the end I felt like it would have just been easier to install all the prerequisites for a MediaWiki, but in the end I would have probably missed some features.

I stopped by Casey’s on the way home for a free rewards Kickstart, then got changed so I could take my Sun Joe pressure washer out for a spin. I spent a little while trying out different arrangements of my garden hose quick disconnects, and then got started washing all the things. With only 2,000 max PSI, it wasn’t going to blow anything away, and at first I was even a little bit disappointed. The sprayer was too large and annoying to hold, and I just generally did’t have a great time with it. The more I used it, the more satisfied I felt. It’s not as strong as the car wash down the road, but it’ll be perfect for little jobs around the house.

As the evening came to an end, I headed up to Summer’s and picked at some leftover Popeye’s she had brought home. Then I tried fixing a little oscillating fan she brought home from work. When she went to bed, Eaddie and I watched one episode of The Defenders that actually started to get really exciting. It was too late to continue on though, so we’ll have to pick up again tomorrow.