Another Tasty CSA Meal

We finally used most of what we had left from last week's CSA. We haven't eaten a lot of meals at home over the past week because of the holiday. This was some chicken that I pounded out so it was thin and would cook faster. It has salt, pepper, and some thyme from our back yard. Then I sauteed some garlic and onion along with the crimini mushrooms and fleur de choy from the CSA. We had a salad conisting of the baby lettuce mix and some pea tendrils. Everything was very tasty but Chad couldn't finish his because he has shrunk his stomach!

Oh yeah, we got our first delivery of our fruit share this week! We got some lovely strawberries and we are very excited. This is going to be a good season of eating really fresh fruits and vegetables!

Monte Christo Sandwiches

Tonight I made Monte Christo Sandwiches from Bon Appetit (I'm still on track with that goal!). You can find the recipe here. I used mustard greens from the CSA and the sandwiches were very good! Yum!

Chlor-Trimeton

I woke up this morning with some pretty crazy allergies. I think I went through at least 6 tissues before I was about to head out the door. I decided I didn't want my whole day to go like that, so I took a chlor-trimeton tablet. Those things work wonders for me, but I always forget that they have a high chance of causing slight to moderate drowsiness. Since they are slow-release capsules that are supposed to work for 12 hours, this basically means that I had a sustained level of moderate drowsiness pretty much all day long. It probably didn't help that I couldn't fall asleep last night and was staring at the clock after midnight wondering why I was still awake. Plus, my professor tonight decided to keep us in class until almost 8:40 when usually we get out at 7:30 so that I didn't get home until about 9:15 or so. Anyway, I'm going to bed now, hopefully I'll get a restful night's sleep.

Bird Feeders Galore

We had a barbecue at my parents' house today for Memorial Day. Every time I am there I can't help but notice the multitude of bird feeders they have hanging on the oak tree in the back door. Today I took a photo of them. The suet feeders need to be filled, but my parents say that the starlings eat it all before the woodpeckers can get it, so it isn't really worth it. Oh well.

Devil Chad

Today we went to Chad's family's house for a Memorial day barbecue. Aunt Beth had the girls doing a project and they had out this gigantic pair of scissors! Doesn't Chad look simply devilish in this photo? I was going to remove the red-eye, but then decided it was too perfect to remove. Click the photo to see it better!

Red or Black? Make up your mind!

Chad and I took a trip to H Mart today to get some groceries. It was a bizarre trip because when we go there, the parking lot was MOBBED and it took forever to find a parking spot. But then there was hardly anyone in the store! Then when we left, this guy started asking me questions about what I thought about Al Gore because I was wearing a Clean Air Council T-shirt. Very bizarro. Anywho, the funniest thing was that Chad bought some tea for himself but apparently they aren't sure if it's black tea, or red tea. The box makes it sound like it is trying to say: "100% Natural Black Tea, or in other words, Red Tea." So is it red tea because it is 100% natural, or is it just that black tea and red tea are the same thing? Very funny.

My Big Fat Greek Festival

This is the wonderful dessert we had at the Greek Food Festival tonight. Baklava, something with custard, and some kind of spice cookie. Everything was very tasty. The Greek church near our house does this festival for 4 days every year and it is such a delicious time!

CSA Pickup #2

Today we picked up our second CSA delivery. It was much more satisfying than last week because this time we got everything we were supposed to get. Plus, Amy left us a couple extra items because we didn't get any romaine last week so that was quite exciting! This is what we got before splitting with Erin and Matt. You see here: crimini mushrooms (also known as baby portabella), radishes, scallions, Fleur de Choy (look it up), baby red kale, lettuce mix, mustard greens, pea tendrils, and bok choy. We're not sure yet how we are going to use it all, but it all seems to be really fresh (as it should be)!

Serious Car Crash Damage

Today on my way home I was coming up on this telephone pole that was leaning over a bit. When I got closer, I saw the reason for it. Someone, or something, did some serious damage here! I'm assuming it was a car crash. Insanity.

Our Very Own Office Skylight

Heather and I decided to take the liberty of giving ourselves a skylight today. Look at that beautiful view of the sky! Oh wait, I lied, it's just a printout of a cool photograph I found on the web. This picture is blocking the unreasonably cold air that blows on us all day long. You see, in their infinite wisdom, whoever made the decisions about HVAC for our building decided it would be best to get just ONE unit for the entire office (not including the boardroom, of course, which needs to be kept at a temperature of approximately -40F all year long!). This one, very large unit happens to sit IMMEDIATELY ABOVE OUR OFFICE! This means that we get the very first blast of air (and thus the COLDEST) whenever the AC turns on. This then has to reach to the complete opposite side of the building, probably a couple hundred feet away. Needless to say, it is quite cold in our office. On a common day, if the AC is set to 73 degrees F for the entire office, it might be somewhere in the range of 61 to 65 in our office and somewhere between 73 and 77 up near the front desk. We put this paper up using strong magnets from A.C. Moore. It has been quite effective at moderating the temperature! And it looks cool too!

Golder Barbecue

We had our first barbecue of the season at my office today. We collected donations for the Golder Trust for Orphans, which is an organization within golder that raises money to support projects for children orphaned by AIDS in Africa. All the food was very tasty, although apparently we had to buy two new grills because our old ones got stolen, and then one of the new ones caught on fire and we had to get a new one. Fun times. I had ice cream with peanut butter sauce! Yumm.

Second CSA Meal

Since yesterday I posted our first CSA meal, I thought I would post our second one as well. Tonight it was the bok choy along with some steak. We supplemented the bok choy with some from H-Mart, but we probably shouldn't have because it was way too much food. Very tasty, though. The wine is "Hunter's Red" from Hunt Country Vineyards on Keuka Lake.

First CSA Meal

Here is our first meal from the CSA vegetables. You see here some grilled chicken with a spice rub (not from the CSA), asparagus which has been lightly brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper and then grilled, and the mixed greens we got - some baby lettuce and mesclun. You might also notice the lovely drink that Chad made - it's a mojito! The veggies were so fresh and wonderful. You can tell they were just harvested very recently and didn't travel very far to get to us! It's like having a garden at home but without all the work!!

Another Roofing Estimate

I worked from home today so I could be there to meet with another roofing company for an estimate. This one was a bit different than last time ... he only stayed for about 20 minutes or so, whereas the last guy that was here stayed for 2 hours or maybe a little more. It will be interesting to see what their estimate comes in as. We should have that on Monday and then we are going to have a big decision to make (unless the estimates are very close, then it will be easy to decide).

First CSA Pickup

Today was the first pickup for the Community Supported Agriculture program we joined. We were really excited about it. Last night the list came out saying what we would get. Erin and Matt had decided to split it with us so they were coming over to pick up their half. Well, we were a little bit disappointed because when we got to the pickup location, there was no more lettuce left. There was supposed to be two heads of romaine lettuce for everyone but I guess some other people had taken more than their share. Hopefully this won't be a recurrent theme. Here's a photo of what we kept after Erin and Matt got their portion. We got the asparagus and they took the radishes. What you see here is bok choy, asparagus, and a bag of baby lettuce mixed with mesclun (I think). I wonder what we'll get next week.

My MacBook

So yesterday I was reading the blog that originally inspired me to do this photo-a-day thing and one of the tips was "Never stop, no matter what." He said that if there was a day when you didn't have any good pictures then you should just look around inside your house and take a photo of something that's really important to you. Today I did take a photo of our yard, but I've done a lot of those so I decided to do one of something that is VERY important to me, and that is my MacBook laptop from which I do all this posting! I love it like crazy! I highly recommend Apple's notebook computers to anyone in the market. On a side note, we are having a wonderful thunderstorm right now. The rain is just drizzling but there is intermittent thunder and lightning, which I love! We have the windows open and it sounds so nice. Plus the smell during a rain is intoxicating to me. I just love it. What I don't love is that our internet always goes out when it storms (it just went out so it might be some time before I actually post this).

Little Condiment Packets

On my way out of the office today I noticed that there was a plastic bowl full of ketchup and Texas Pete Hot Sauce packets. Last week I had used some ketchup from one of Chad's co-workers because we had leftover burgers and hot dogs on Monday and Tuesday nights for dinner. So I thought it might be nice to replace the packets I had used and I thought Chad might like to have some hot sauce lying around, so I took these packets to his office.

Shattered Wine Glass

This morning as we were getting ready to go, I thought I would be helpful and put some dishes away since I had some extra time. I picked up this glass and then it fell out of my hands and shattered all over the floor. I was just saying recently that we should buy some more glasses from Ikea since they are so cheap. Now we only have 5 wine glasses, so I guess we have to go to Ikea soon! Hehe.

Mother's Day

I went to my parents' house today for Mother's Day brunch. I love this picture. We went to sit outside. It was about 75 degrees and very sunny. When the wind wasn't blowing it was very hot. Well, of course, my grandmother (Nannie) was still feeling cold. You can see she has a blanket and a fleece wrapped around her while my mom and sister are looking pretty warm with less clothing. Very funny!

On another note, I took Deb a Mother's Day card and Bud had given her the exact same one! Great minds think alike as they say.

Dinner For Two

Chad and I had dinner on our patio tonight. I grilled some fillet mignon steaks and some shanghai cabbage (from Han Ah Reum) and made a garlic/soy sauce sauce to go on it. We had "Hunter's Red" red wine from Hunt Country Vineyard (New York State). It was lovely outside! I love this time of year.

Our Very Own Witch Hazel

We went to the Morris Arboretum plant sale today. It was the member's only day and it was packed! We got there a little after they opened and it was a nut house! We went there looking for a witch hazel, which is one of our favorite trees. The flowers bloom in the later winter and are generally very fragrant. We're not sure how well it will grow and how big because they can spread out quite a bit, but we love them so we wanted to give one a try. Here is the one we got, it has an orange ribbon because it is supposed to have orange blossoms. We can't wait to plant it and watch it grow! For some photos of witch hazel blossoms, check out my flickr photos.

Messages in my Tomato?

I was eating my salad at dinner tonight and noticed something funny on one of the pieces of tomato. See if you can find what I saw. It disturbed me a bit so I didn't eat the tomato.

Gray Day

I took this photo on my way to work, and I did not take it using a black and white setting or anything. It was just a very gray morning and the sun looked really neat because you could look right at it and it wasn't too bright. It's amazing how perfect of a circle it is (or at least it looks like it is). It turned out to be a pretty nice day, although I didn't get to spend much time enjoying it since I was at work. I went out to dinner with some other Golderites and didn't get home until almost 10 pm. Tomorrow is the third day of my project management training course and we'll be learning all about contracts. How exciting! (Actually, it kind of is! Haha.)

New Grass

Chad and I planted new grass about a week and a half ago. It started coming up this weekend and it looks so cute when it is new! Here is a closeup of some of it. It's growing pretty quickly (except where the stupid One-call people stepped on it ... grrr). Hopefully it does well and we can get a nice full lawn! The rest of the lawn is patchy and we need to reseed. Hopefully someday we'll have a real lawn.

Organized Bookshelves

One of Heather's and my bookshelves got damaged in the move from the old building so we've been waiting since then (early October) to get it replaced. Because of that, we never really shelved our books and reports and papers and such in any organized fashion. On Friday we finally got our new bookshelf (it's the one you can barely see all the way in the right side of the photo). We spent a little over an hour taking everything off the shelves, moving them around, and then re-shelving them. I was greeted by the lovely sight of our uncluttered bookshelf area when I got to the office today. It's great! Hopefully we'll keep it this way. I'm thinking about getting some under-shelf lighting from Ikea to put on the top shelf of the one with her pottery. I think that would look really nice.

On a side note, I went to park in the city tonight for class and there were already 29 minutes on the meter so I was pretty excited. I put in a quarter and it went to 44 minutes and I put in another quarter and it didn't change! Then all of a sudden the screen switched to "Out of Order - See Time Limit" That was kind of weird, but it meant I didn't have to pay. Of course, sometime while I was in class it switched back to working so I ended up getting a ticket. I'm definitely going to fight it (I even took a photo of the "Out of Order" image with the meter number and everything so they can't really argue, can they? Photo of the day blog to the rescue (I always have my camera!).

First Barbecue of the Year

We had our first barbecue of the year today. It was a load of fun. Here's a photo of the fire soon after I started it. I had some trouble because my charcoal must have sat out too long and it wouldn't light, so I had to wait for my dad to get there with his new charcoal. He was a lifesaver. Anyway, I like this photo because you can see the flames dancing above the coals. It probably looks better if you click on it to look at a bigger version. The weather was a little bit cooler than we might have liked for an outdoor gathering, but it wasn't too bad. On another note, we also had a roofer come out to give us an estimate for getting a new roof and it was kind of a shocker ... We'll see what happens with that.

No More Yews

Today we spent the day going to the garden center (Meadowbrook AND Primex) and then taking out the Yew bushes in between Deb and Bud and our houses. Chad did the actually removal today and I did cleanup. We also planted some new perennials in the empty space. It was a long day but I think we got a lot accomplished!

Wawa again - but not really

So I guess I'm a little bit retarded sometimes, but that's okay. I stopped to get gas this morning at the Wawa in Pennsauken. I almost always get my gas here. They are pretty efficient, it appears pretty clean, the people are generally friendly, and they almost always have the lowest prices. Anyway, when I stopped this morning, I thought to myself "Wow, it's amazing how much lighter it is at this time than it was a few months ago. I should post a picture to show people the contrast from the photo I posted back in January." Well, it turns out, I never posted a photo back in January. I think I meant to but it got replaced with this one of Heather being stupid.

Anyway, this is the photo I meant to post back then. You can see the difference in the lighting. Both photos were taken at the same time except 4 months apart. I think the one from January is a lot more interesting!

The Infamous Red Spraypaint

So I figured that everyone would be interested to see what the damage was from the PECO people (actually, on second thought, it may have been the "PA One Call" people who are responsible for the lines and not PECO exactly ...). Here is a photo of the red paint that went onto Deb and Bud's slate tiles ($18 per tile). There is red like this at either end and it doesn't wipe off. It's kind of funny because Deb had called Bud at work to tell him how horrible it was and how upset she was. But when he got home from work he said "Where is it?" He really didn't notice it because he was looking for something that was all over the sidewalk due to the way she had described it.

Sorry that this is a continuation of yesterday, but nothing all that interesting happened today, so I had to go with an old topic.

Stupid PECO

I had a number of possibilities for my photo of the day today, but the others had to do with food and plants, two things I post about a lot. So I went with this one. It all started last night ..
When we got home from work we noticed there was spray paint all over the street and even on our sidewalk. There was also some on our neighbor's very nice slate tiles along the side walk. We then received a phone call that night from PECO (our power company) telling us to call a 1-800 number and enter some really long code. We called and it was a bill payment center and there was no option to enter a code. So we gave up. Then this morning I noticed there were tons of foot prints all over the new grass seed we just put down last weekend which is totally lame. I have no idea why they had to come up on our property and wander around, but apparently they did. I'm pretty pissed about it. Then our neighbor Deb walked up to our front porch and I said "Deb, they walked all over our new grass!" and she said "Yeah, I just called them and left a really nasty message because of the spray paint on the sidewalk." You see, in our neighborhood, the residents are resonsible for maintenance of all walkways. The township only takes care of the actual road. So she was pissed that people along the street had paid a lot of money to have the sidewalks redone and now there was paint all over it, and who knows when it would wash off. Oh yeah, there was also a huge sign in the street in front of our house saying that work was being done. Deb put this little note on the sign asking that they remove the paint. It was pretty funny, but it's also pretty darn disrespectful if you ask me. There was no warning given about this work being done and it's right in front of our house so I couldn't park my car there! Rude!

Tie Troubles

Well here is a rather frightening photo I took of myself. I borrowed this lovely lilac colored tie from Chad. When I got to work and went to put it on, I realized it was the longest tie I had ever seen in my entire life. I tried to tie it a few times but couldn't get it right. Mike Borda walked in the office and said "That's the longest tie I've ever seen!" So he helped me (or rather, he did the whole thing for me) tie a double windsor so it would use enough fabric. After he was finished it looked perfect but I was a bit concerned for a while there.