Yes, we are alive. There just hasn't been a whole lot going on around here lately. I think we've got a serious case of the blahs. But there haven't been any more fires, so that's a good thing.
We finally pulled our act together on Saturday and went out to dinner to a Thai place that is one of my favorites, to celebrate my promotion at work. It's downtown, and we used to go there more earlier in our relationship, partly because our old apartment was really conveniently located no more than 10 minutes away. But now it's more of an endeavor, and as the downtown area has really grown up in the past few years, it's crowded, we feel old, and it has lost some of its allure. But driving in on Saturday night, I made a list of at least 5 restaurants that I wanted to go to. Maybe this will help us get out of a rut, too. When we eat out, 90% of the time, it's Moe's, Panera, or Doc Chey's. We tried a new Chinese place last weekend, and were a bit disappointed. For what it was, it was kind of pricey, and if I'm going to spend that much, then we'll go to PF Chang's and get Chang sauce, dang it.
The weather this weekend was gorgeous, with highs in the mid 60s. We had windows and doors opened, and the cats were just loving it. (The feel of wind through your whiskers, I guess.) Most of the daffodils around have already bloomed, but ours (like usual) are a bit behind. The ones right outside the front door are almost ready to bloom... maybe Monday or Tuesday.
Saturday was spent in pursuit of flooring. We had this whole, big elaborate PLAN to get our new downstairs flooring from Costco. There's a coupon that came out months ago for the stuff, that starts on Monday. So, since January, we'd been planning on going to Costco on March 3 to get the flooring. Well, last weekend, we noticed that Costco no longer had the color we wanted. We looked at Costco, Sam's, BJ's (no, we're not giant club whores. They're all free through work.), and Lowe's. Lowe's was easily double the price of anywhere else. BJ's didn't have a whole lot. We definitely found some good options at Sam's, though. They have some additional colors available online, and I think we're happy with that. I looked a little bit more closely at the Costco coupon today, and realized that it does actually say "flooring with padding," which is what all of the stuff they now have is; when we were first looking at it in January, the stuff they were carrying didn't have the padding.
Also trying to break the blahs by trying some new dinner recipes this week. We tried this
meat loaf recipe from Cooking Light, which calls for dividing the meat up and cooking it in a muffin tray (so it's done in like 25 minutes). It was really, really good! I'll report back if the other new ones are any good.
I think we finally decided on a vacation for this year, but don't have much planned yet. We want to go out to the Pacific Northwest, and drive around Oregon and Washington for a week. We've just started reading up some information, so if you have recommendations, let us know. It will probably be early June. (No, it's not *just* to make a Starbucks pilgrimage...)
Oh, but there was one other stop along the way -- we went into an Old Navy, because we were both looking for pants. So I'm bending down, sifting through jeans, when my need for new pants took on a new urgency, as I hear my pants rip! I knew they were getting worn, and that's part of the reason why I was looking for new ones. They didn't rip down the seam or anything; it was kind of across the inside of my thigh. Not super classy, but it could have been worse. So I ran and found Greg and made him sift through the jeans, because I was afraid that if I bent over again, the rip was just going to get bigger. :) So I came out of there with a new pair of jeans; borrowed scissors from the cash register and cut all the tags off. Then we went to a deserted corner of the parking lot so I could change my pants. Sigh. I think it's been said that, if it can happen, it will happen to me. :)
I forgot to tell you about my newest favorite Costco find - new tupperware! We are finally repurposing the old Martha Stewart (Kmart) stuff that leaks all over our lunch bags. This new stuff is crystal clear, and doesn't leak. We like it so much we got a second set (we really needed more of the extra small ones). And the NSF certification doesn't hurt, either, because it makes me feel like, if an astronaut needed to save and reheat leftovers, this is what he'd use. And that's good enough for me.
Our new recipe for tonight was kind of a "needs to be tried again" endeavor. We tried Sesame-Orange Chicken, but the sesame seed toasting and mashing went awry, the chicken was a little overdone, and the sauce was a little runny. Tomorrow we're back to an old stand-by, Lemon-Peppercorn Tilapia. Although right now, I'm craving those meat loaf leftovers for lunch tomorrow...
We finally pulled our act together on Saturday and went out to dinner to a Thai place that is one of my favorites, to celebrate my promotion at work. It's downtown, and we used to go there more earlier in our relationship, partly because our old apartment was really conveniently located no more than 10 minutes away. But now it's more of an endeavor, and as the downtown area has really grown up in the past few years, it's crowded, we feel old, and it has lost some of its allure. But driving in on Saturday night, I made a list of at least 5 restaurants that I wanted to go to. Maybe this will help us get out of a rut, too. When we eat out, 90% of the time, it's Moe's, Panera, or Doc Chey's. We tried a new Chinese place last weekend, and were a bit disappointed. For what it was, it was kind of pricey, and if I'm going to spend that much, then we'll go to PF Chang's and get Chang sauce, dang it.
The weather this weekend was gorgeous, with highs in the mid 60s. We had windows and doors opened, and the cats were just loving it. (The feel of wind through your whiskers, I guess.) Most of the daffodils around have already bloomed, but ours (like usual) are a bit behind. The ones right outside the front door are almost ready to bloom... maybe Monday or Tuesday. 
Also trying to break the blahs by trying some new dinner recipes this week. We tried this meat loaf recipe from Cooking Light, which calls for dividing the meat up and cooking it in a muffin tray (so it's done in like 25 minutes). It was really, really good! I'll report back if the other new ones are any good.
