Stupid Flying Time...

Last weekend Scott's Dad, stepmom, and aunt came for a visit to see Scott for his 40th birthday and to see DC. His aunt had never been here, so on their first day we went to the city. The rest of the long weekend was spent touring the greater DC area- dinners in Frederick, drives through the mountains, etc. It was nice to see the folks, and we were happy to see they're still doing well.

Work still drives me a little nutty, but it's been better since a new engineer-guy came along. I think he was hired to be an intermediary between the winders and our current boss, and to help out with fixing the machines and such. I love that he is not at all pushy or demanding- he's the sort of guy that would be good at teaching people to drive. I think having him around will spread out some of the stress we feel.

Not feeling like work is suffocating me has made me a little bit more productive this past week. I finally fixed our yellow accent wall by applying a faux finish to tone it down. No more McDonald's house! Hooray! Or, at least, partial Hooray... Scott isn't too thrilled with it, but he says he's okay with it. It's just a Mocha glaze sort of blotched on with a rag. I loves it, and I think it's nice for a small area. It's not something I'd want to see over an entire room. Here's a before (with Spencer) and after:



Poor Scott has another eyesore to deal with, in the form of a new kitty perch. The cats only had one small scratching post, and nowhere to climb, so when I saw this marked down at Petsmart I jumped on it:

They love it, and it keeps them from messing with the couch so much. They like having a new place to nap and climb, and it's conveniently located within curtain-destruction range. Plus they can keep an eye on whatever's going on at the dining room table. That seems to be important to them. I like that it has 3 scratching options: wood, sisal, and carpet, for all their scratching needs.

The cats and the dog also got a new water bowl this week. It turns out that Sam has a pretty intense attraction to his reflection on the side of the ceramic dish we had before. I kept waking up/coming home to the water bowl being 5 feet from it's normal location, and water all over the floor. Eventually I caught him... Sam would catch a reflection and pounce at the side of the dish, pushing it a few inches and causing the water to slosh over the side. He also had a weird fascination with sticking his feet under the plastic mat that the bowl was on. I never figured that part out. So anyway, Scott suggested this type of bowl, as it would probably be too heavy to move around. I wanted to get a fountain, but decided to try his idea first since it's way cheaper.

I also got a new mat- it's a bit sticky on the bottom, so it won't slide around, and it's absorbent (Sam also likes to stick his feet in the water before drinking, which can be bit messy). Both cats watch it fill when I clean it, so they like that it's "moving" water- I guess they see it as less stagnant? And it's matte on the outside, so there's no reflection. It hasn't budged since I put it down, and I haven't had to clean up any big puddles of water. As an added bonus, the cats really like when big bubbles form in the water jug. Or they're alarmed. It's hard to say.

On the knitting front, my mojo is coming back slowly but surely. I finished a pair of socks for my brother-in-law, and started a matching pair for his wife. I just need to wash them up and ship them out! His wife's pair will be a lovely sort of Spring green, which I hope will bring a little color into her otherwise soon-to-be-dreary Wisconsin Winter (where she has temporarily relocated from sunny California).

After that, I don't know what will be next. Maybe finish Ludivine? Maybe a sweater? Mittens? A scarf? Who knows! But whatever it is, it will be mine mine mine mine mine. Mine. I enjoy knitting for others, but sometimes I miss knitting for me.

Special Birthday Dinner

Yesterday was Scott's 40th birthday. He didn't want to take the day off work, since it's Labor Day weekend (and therefore likely to be busy), but he'll have off several days next weekend when his Dad and step-mom are coming to visit. Still, I wanted to do something nice for him on his actual birthday... in the form of a huge meal. Normally, I'm not much of a cook... I tend to cook in the tradition of my mother, which means everything comes out of a box. Scott, however, grew up amongst Italians and the super awesome food that comes with them. Several years ago I had attempted to make meatballs and sauce from scratch, and it ended rather tragically with mushy meatballs and sauce that was edible but not great. I thought maybe I would try again for his birthday, going all out with sauce from scratch, meatballs, sausage, garlic bread, and a dessert.

I broke down my day into 4 Objectives: 1. Find recipes and make a shopping list 2. Do the shopping (for both Scott's gift and dinner) 3. Make the dessert 4. Make the sauce.

Objective 1. I saw that one of us (neither of us remember doing it) bookmarked a recipe for sauce online. It goes into great detail, and includes a recipe for the meatballs, and the same site has a recipe for garlic bread, too. I decided to go with it. For the dessert, I chose Coffee Cake- Literally from the Pioneer Woman website. I went through both recipes, noted what I'd need to pick up, and moved on to my Second Objective.

Objective 2. I asked Scott several times what he'd like for his birthday to no avail. His recent de-cluttering kick was rather inconveniently timed, it seemed. But like any good wife, I ignored his requests for "nothing" and "just to spend time with you," and went where I knew I couldn't fail: the knife store. Edgeworks is in downtown Frederick, and every time we're downtown we stop in. We've been talking about getting a nice Santoku knife for a while, but never got around to it. He really admired the Shuns, so that's what I got. It is an incredibly sexy knife, and makes our other knives look like crap by comparison.


My next stops included the liquor store for Chianti and the grocery store. The guy at the liquor store steered me toward a bottle of Chianti that he said was good (I don't drink wine, so I'm no good at picking them). The grocery store was, well, the grocery store. I'm sure you've seen them.

Objective 3. Back at home, I got to work on the dessert. It was about 2pm. I had to time all this out just right in order for it to be ready when Scott got home at 10:15, which could be tricky. Of course, being me, I would fine a way to throw a wrench or two in the works. Like when I was confident there were two cups each of flour and sugar in the canisters but it turned out to be slightly less in both cases, and resulted in my having to run back to the grocery store; and how I would have needed to go back anyways because I managed to forget to buy any pasta for dinner. Luckily, the dessert took less time to make than I planned for, and I got back on track. The coffee frosting is the best part of this cake. I just want to eat it by the spoonful, it's so good. I mean, coffee, sugar, butter, cream, salt... what's not to love? I had looked for a little tube of brown frosting (for the writing) at the store, but the closest I could get was chocolate frosting meant for brownies. It turns out that it's even better. Just check out that lettering...


And the coffee/chocolate combo is always a winner in my book. I couldn't really think of anything filthy to say. I know, I'm a little disappointed in me, too. But I didn't want to write anything mean, and everything I thought of just seemed a little tired. Cuntflap? Done it. Lewd stick figures? Check. Dick jokes? Played out. I just went with "goofy" instead. Blame my soul-sucking job for my lack of creativity. The cake is really good- it's dense, and reminded us a bit of carrot cake. I'm eating it right now. Mmmmmm...

Objective 4. This was the scary part. In preparation, I fed the pets, walked the dog, and put the cats in the bedroom upstairs. With the sauce needing to be stirred every three minutes, I couldn't take any chances with pet hijinks. I had cheated a little, and chopped the onion while the cake was baking. My biggest pitfall with cooking is that I don't know how to properly chop things, and tend to be overly systematic about it, which means that it takes me half an hour to mince an onion. I also did the dishes, peeled the garlic, opened the wine, and put the diced tomatoes through the blender (Scott doesn't like chunky sauce). By the time I was ready to start cooking, it was about 4:30.

The first two hours were brutal. The constant stirring really challenged my poor sense of time, but I somehow managed NOT to burn it. For the meatballs, I used my meatloaf recipe (which Scott had said would make great meatballs), but made a couple of changes to make them a bit more Italian- like subbing Chianti for the Worcestershire sauce. I did follow the recipe's directions for cooking them, but browned them in our cast iron skillet since we don't use non-stick cookware. I did not make the Braciole, but did throw in the package of Italian sausage. Around 9:30, it seemed like it was done, so I let the sauce rest as suggested while I jumped in the shower, let the cats out, and walked the dog again. At 10:00, I started the water for the pasta and got to work on the garlic bread.


The recipe for the garlic bread seemed a little involved, so I simplified it a bit. I cut two 5-6" lengths of Italian bread, and halved them. I spread on a mixture of softened butter (one stick), 4 cloves of pressed garlic, about a 1/4 tsp of garlic powder, and a couple tsp of Italian seasoning. Then I baked them for about 10 minutes at 350, and broiled them for about 5 minutes until they were nice and toasty.

Once the pasta was finished, we ate. A lot. It was a total success, worthy of my wonderful husband's birthday. I hope that he had a great birthday, and that there are at least another 40 left in him. He really is the best thing that ever happened to me, and I don't even want to think about what life would be like without him. I love you, Husband!