Good Things in 2011 - March

March 1 - Kick-off dinner for Foundation Group...I think we have a great group of people and great leaders!  We are excited to get to know each of these couples better.  We know we will be blessed, and we pray that we will be a blessing as well.
March 2 - On his way home from work, Michael stopped to at the store to pick up a few things for dinner tomorrow night.  When he got home, he walked in with his hands behind his back and told me to choose one.  I immediately got excited because I suspected that he'd bought the strawberry and chocolate-filled Twinkies that I'd seen the night before (unfortunately I had run into the store to pick up tortillas and had just enough cash in my pocket for the tortillas).  I chose his right hand and found that it was the strawberry-filled Twinkies.  Then I immediately also chose the left hand, which revealed chocolate-filled Twinkies.  Both are delicious!  The strawberry ones taste a little like strawberry shortcake.  YUM!
March 3 - Even though I feel tired today, I woke up WITHOUT a headache!  That was great news after waking up and going to bed with one yesterday.  Fellowship night with our small group...fun times!
March 4 - Girls' night at Kristen's house.
March 5 - Great day filled with lots of wonderful company and yummy food!  (Impromptu breakfast date with Mom and Dad at Garland Cafe.  It was an amazing breakfast for an even better price...especially since Mom and Dad picked up the tab.  :o)  Pilates class with Jessica...very fun.  Johnny G's with Tim and Stephanie.  Banana pudding milkshake at Chick-fil-A.)
March 6 - Homemade pizza!
March 7 - After a nice walk around the neighborhood and a wonderful dinner (French's crunchy onion chicken), Michael went to pick up ice cream.  He discovered a flavor we've never had before (a rare occurrence)...Blue Bell Krazy Kookie Dough...even though it looks like it is made for kids with its bright colors (bright yellow cake batter ice cream with brightly colored pink and blue sugar cookie dough pieces), it is delicious!
March 8 - Carpooling with Michael and Top Golf with Foundation Group peeps
March 9 - This morning I picked my truck up from the shop.  It is clean and has four new tires!  It looks good, and drives better than before.
March 10 - Snuffer's cheddar fries!
March 11 - We had a relaxing date night at home and watched The Social  Network.  Great movie!!!
March 12 - Pilates Reformer with Jessica...blegh.  Migas and fruit pancrepes at Café Brazil...AMAZING!!!  The boys joined us for breakfast, and it was fun to hang out with the Hixons.  We also got to see several of Michael's high school friends as we celebrated Micah turning 30.  Happy birthday Micah!
March 13 - Daylight Savings Time...Woo Hoo!!!   As if that wasn't enough, we got our new storm door today.  After not having one, we were very excited to get it installed today.  Also, Michael's Dad came in town today for work tomorrow.  He came over to see the house, and we got to have lunch with him at On the Border.  It was great to see him for a couple of hours.  We just wish that he was going to be here longer. 
March 14 - National Pi Day!  Happy birthday Cathy!
March 15 - We got to have lunch with Mike at Picasso's...two meals with him in three days!  Plus, due to a mistake on the pizza order (nothing big, it came out as pepperoni instead of sausage and pepperoni), we had a lot of pizza left over.  Despite us telling them that it wasn't a big deal, they insisted on leaving the pepperoni pizza and bringing out another one with pepperoni and sausage.  We ended up with two full pizzas to take home.  I love having leftover pizza!  Michael also surprised me tonight by squeezing a dinner date into our busy evening.  I sure do love him!
March 16 - I carpooled with Michael to work this morning.  That meant that I got to really enjoy my Chick-fil-A breakfast because HE was driving.  :o)
March 17 - 1) Happy St. Patrick's Day!  2) A very happy 30th birthday to Tyler!  3) March Madness!!!  4) This afternoon, Michael and I registered for boot camp.  Minutes before registering, I was trying to find some schedule info online.  When I did my Google search, I happened to see a few hits for coupon codes.  We were already getting a spouse discount, and we ended up saving an additional $105 with the coupon that I found!  Woo Hoo!  I love coupons and discounts!  I'm excited about boot camp and scared at the same time!  [I wanted to see how many exclamation points I could squeeze into one day.  :o)]
March 18 - "Drive-by ice creaming" by Tim and Stephanie.  Really, this just means that they randomly stopped by our house tonight and walked in the front door with THREE half gallons of Blue Bell ice cream...Strawberries & Homemade Vanilla, Mint Chocolate Chip, and Butter Crunch!  However, I like this term that Stephanie coined to turn "ice cream" into a verb.  It seems appropriate!  The best part is that we got to choose a flavor for them to leave in our freezer...score!  The drive-by ice creaming turned into some great girl chat time in the hammock with Stephanie.
March 19 - Surprise visit from Mom and Dad and dinner with Jenni and Rod.
March 20 - First day of spring
March 21 - First day of Camp Gladiator kicked our butts, but in a good way.  Hopefully it gets easier!  Our garage door broke last week, and we got it fixed today.  No more parking on the street and walking the trash out through the back yard!
March 22 - Great kick-off for our accountability group.  I'm really starting to look forward to seeing these people each week!
March 23 - Quiet reading/devotional time in the Watermark lounge during lunch.  What a great way to spend the lunch hour!
March 24 - Much more enjoyable/doable boot camp this morning.  I'm starting to feel like we can do this!  Plus, getting up and back home early gave me time to do several chores this morning before getting ready for work.  I love a day that starts out productive!  When I got home from work tonight, Michael surprised me with a chocolate chip cookie pie...delicious!***
March 25 - TGIF!!!
March 26 - Got lots of yard work and house work done today.  It feels good to be productive!
March 27 - It's always a blessing to start out the week with a wonderful worship service.  PaPa is not doing well today, but we got to go see him and visit with MaMa.  Despite being worried about PaPa, she seemed to feel well and looked better than I had seen her in at least three years.
March 28 - PaPa got to meet Jesus tonight!  Even though it is very hard for those of us still here, I know he is in a much better place.  It is happy to think about him rejoicing and dancing with the angels in heaven.  He was anxious to get home, and now he's there!  We love you PaPa, and we can't wait to see you again!
March 29 - Tonight we got to visit with two of my cousins that I haven't seen in a while.  It was great to see them and catch up a little, and I'm glad that Michael got to meet them.
March 30 - We have so many sweet friends who have been doing all kinds of things to take care of us.  We have really felt loved.  It was great to have Aaron home tonight!  We have been very busy, but it was nice for us all to be able to sit down and have dinner together.
March 31 - We had lots of friends and family come visit tonight at PaPa's visitation.  Even though it is a sad occasion for us, it was so wonderful to see everyone.  It was great to see my oldest cousin there.  It's been way too long.  With the age difference in cousins, I think this might have been the first time all ten of us were together (at least when we're all old enough to remember it)!  We all love you PaPa!  We miss you, but we are so happy that you are in a better place now.

                                 ***

Red Bird (Spring cont'd)

If you have been around me for any length of time, you have probably heard me say one of the following:

1. "I hate birds!"
2. "Ugh! [insert shudder] Birds gross me out!"
3. "Birds are disgusting!"
4. "Birds are so nasty!"

For lots of reasons, birds just seem really gross to me.  I think the overabundance of them on the A&M campus really solidified this for me in college.  There is nothing like leaving your car for a few hours and coming back to it covered in bird poop or fearing being nailed by bird poop as you walk across the parking lot.

Despite my strong negative feelings towards birds, I have been enjoying the birds in our back yard lately.  Even though they gross me out, I love hearing them sing!  We have been seeing lots of pretty birds in our yard for the past 6 weeks or so.  However, after I started taking pictures for the "Spring" post below, I was never able to catch one of the birds with my camera.  I was so disappointed!  Then, as we were leaving to head to Bible study on Monday night, I heard the bird and finally spotted it in the neighbor's tree just over the fence.

I couldn't decide if I should go back in and grab my camera or not.  I figured by the time I could get back outside, it would be gone.  We were ahead of schedule, and Michael encouraged me to get my camera.  I'm so glad he did!  Just as I walked back out, the bird flew away.  However, I finally spotted him in another tree in the neighbor's front yard.  He was further away this time, but at least I got a few pictures even if they aren't great.  I love springtime!

Michael has also been telling me about a bird that has a nest on one of our fence posts in the corner of our yard at the side of the house.  I hadn't seen it yet, but as I stalked the red bird, I also saw the pigeon mourning dove***.  I think this may be the same one that was here last year when we looked at the house.  It had a nest on a garden shelf on the back porch.  We had a hard time telling if it was real or not because it was so still.  We were told that it had built a nest there for several years in a row.  Since we no longer have the shelves on the back porch, I think it just had to move a little.  It's fun to know it's there, but I'm not going to lie.  I am so glad that it is not on the porch.  I would have struggled with the desire to chase it off.

Ten minutes later, after I had put my camera away and walked back out to get in the car, I noticed that a pretty blue bird had joined the red one.  I wish I had a picture of that to share!

***Thanks to Joey for educating this city girl!

Awesome-sauce!

Michael checking in...

My lovely wife (your most-of-the-time host for this little corner of the world wide web) has noted a couple of different times about me having dinner prepared or in the process when she works late.  Well, I'd like to take the chance to note something...

We have started a fitness boot camp this week with the Camp Gladiator program.  This particular morning, we finished at 6:30AM (yes, we finished at that time!) at Firewheel, about five minutes from our house.  That left me around 20 minutes to get home, shower, shave, get dressed, and leave for work.  I did all of that just fine...but what helped me was that I didn't have to prepare breakfast or lunch, because SHE DID!!!  That's right, I had a whole bag of goodies, including leftover breakfast taco stuff (tortilla included), some various candy, spinach for a salad, a chicken patty to heat up to top the salad, dressing for the salad, green beans to go along, some cinnamon applesauce, and an instant lemonade pack!  If I had been in charge, I would have likely had no breakfast and a Hot Pocket for lunch.

This, friends, is why Melissa is Awesome-sauce!

Thanks Sweetness!!  I love you!

Good Tunes and Grilled Food - The Fowl Edition (3-19-11)

Michael checking in...

This time, it was one for...no, more like about...the birds.  Three types in particular.  For dinner, it was a whole chicken (1), cooked upright-style, along with some duck (2) meat, wrapped in bacon and with jalapeno slices in the middle.  And setting the background was my personal favorite band, The Black Crowes (3).  That's right, three of my favorite types of fowl, coming together for a nice spring evening with a shade of summer (warm temps) and a call-back to fall (wild duck, complete with a couple of steel BB's for good measure).

As mentioned, the chicken was cooked upright style.  You might know this method as "beer can chicken."  It boils down to this...you sit a whole chicken on top of a can, or in my case a stand that is basically a cup, of liquid.  And make no mistake, by "sit...on top" I mean you are probably offending that chicken a tad bit.  But it's worth it.  By cooking it this way, two things happen.  First, the liquid in the can will boil, releasing steam that will keep the meat of the chicken as juicy as it can be.  Second, you enable the chicken to cook evenly.  The white meat (breast) on a chicken is done at a temperature ten degrees cooler than the dark meat (legs, thighs), so by cooking it upright, you keep the white meat further away from the heat, meaning the entire chicken should reach a safe temperature at the same time.  (That's right people, I just pulled an Alton Brown-like move and taught you the science of cooking.)

First up, the "flavors"...

Filling the cup with the liquid...this time, ginger ale, seasoned with minced onion, garlic powder, and chili powder.

Next up, it's time to offend that chicken!

Not forgetting about the duck, it was time to get going on that...

My favorite part: getting the food on the fire!  (The chicken is rubbed with a mixture of brown sugar, kosher salt, black pepper, and chili powder.)

To go along with the meats, we grilled some red potatoes, squash, and zucchini on the tray of the chicken.  We also had some boxed macaroni and cheese going inside!

The finished platter!  (Yeah, I had already sampled a bit...chef's privileges.)

To finish things off, Melissa had made a delicious banana pudding.  You'll see that we had a large trifle dish full, and yet we even had more than that!!  It was quite tasty, and there is still a lot left!  That is great news!  (Although, the four of us did manage to just about finish off what was in the trifle dish...YIKES!)

Dessert!

I'd call it all a success!  It was a fun night with Jenni and Rod, so thanks to them for coming over.  Thanks to my brother for getting me into duck hunting, and for showing me how to get the meat.  Thanks to somebody for figuring out that a chicken cooks real nice upright and over liquid.  Thanks to the Brothers Robinson, Chris and Rich, for starting a band two decades ago that would set the gold standard in my life for the way rock'n'roll music should be made and performed (and also for having a tremendous influence on the way I play guitar).  Thanks to my wife for letting me get up in the middle of the night to go shoot birds, for listening to me ramble on about a band on a frequent basis, and for getting me an awesome wedding gift!  And most of all on this particular evening, thanks to my grill for holding a nice 375 degrees for a solid ninety minutes, and for flaring up very few times!

BONUS: Five bands that I didn't pay much attention to until I heard the Black Crowes cover their songs (and have since grown to love for their own individual genius)...

• Gram Parsons - The originator of country rock, the genius behind the Byrds greatest album (Sweetheart of the Rodeo), and a victim of his own excess.  He also spent time with the Stones while they recorded Exile on Main Street, and legend has it he is one of the background singers on a couple of tracks.
• The Rolling Stones - Yeah, we all know the hits.  I am talking about the good Stones stuff, like the Exile album, or the deep cuts from Sticky Fingers.  Without the Stones, there is no Crowes.
• The Faces - Possibly the most under-appreciated band of all time.  Rod Stewart was the front man, and was at his finest.  They weren't as talented as the Stones, but they were brilliant in their sloppiness - and similar to the Stones, without these guys, there are no Crowes.
• The Band - If The Faces aren't the most under-appreciated, the Band is.  Pure folky-Americana music.  Insanely talented musicians.  And possibly the greatest lyric ever written, a little song called "The Weight."  "I pulled into Nazareth..."
• Bob Dylan - The great American poet.  He was folk, then he was electric, then he was gospel, and now he's just Dylan.  Everybody should go listen to "Visions of Johanna."  Insanely good.

_______________________________________

Melissa again...

We had so much fun with Rod and Jenni on Saturday night!  I'm glad that it worked out for them to come over.  It had been way to long since we had seen them and hung out.

After enjoying the great meal that Michael prepared, we moved into the living room to visit and eat dessert.  As we were finishing up, Rod asked if the Wii was hooked up.  When we said it was and we could definitely play, he told us that they brought one of their games...Just Dance 2.  Hilarious and SO fun!  You'll have to ignore some of the crazy faces in the pictures.  It took some concentration, and some times that wasn't even enough.  On one game, I beat Michael pretty substantially, and Jenni didn't hesitate to conclude that Michael's remote must not have been transmitting correctly.  Thanks Jenni!  :o)

We took a break from dancing to go for a short walk and enjoy the view of the moon.  It appeared to be really big when we first saw it low in the sky.  It was hard to get a great view between houses and trees, though.  Our best view of the "Supermoon" was after it was higher in the sky.  After Rod and Jenni left, Michael and I spent some time in the back yard, and I got a few pictures.  To me, the biggest difference was how bright it was.  Awesome!

Rod and Jenni, thank you for driving out to spend the evening with us and for bringing your game.  We had so much fun hanging out with you guys!  We need to do it again soon.  Love you guys!

Welcome Spring!

Over the past three weeks, I have noticed many signs that spring was on its way.  Now it's here.  I'm so excited!  Welcome spring.  Please stay a while!!!

First blooms in our backyard (taken 3/3/11)

Pretty blooms noticed on our Sunday afternoon walk (3/6/11)

Weeds...I know, but they're pretty and remind me that spring is coming!

 

Another weed.  :o)  I used to LOVE finding these when I was a kid.

This little guy bloomed all alone at the end of a tiny branch.

The leaves are getting bigger and the flowers more scarce (taken 3/11/11)

Today (3/18/11) I noticed that our other tree is blooming.

Finally buds amongst the dead husks on the crepe myrtle.

The flowers on the vine are looking good! (taken 3/18/11)

Ahh...red toenails and relaxing OUTSIDE on a Friday night!

A full pretty tree (and a nap in the hammock!)

Surprise Visit

Mom and Dad dropped by today to see our new storm door.  They also came bearing gifts!  Michael got some Mesquite wood chips, and I got an Easter hand towel, a cute little Easter dish, and some Easter M&M's to put in the dish!

I have been wanting some various holiday decorations.  Plus, I love M&M's.  These even have little lambs, bunnies, and ducks on them for Easter.  Needless to say, I was very excited!!!

Thank you Mom and Dad!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Did you remember to wear your green today?  I don't have a lot of green that I can wear to work, but I did get to wear my new St. Patrick's Day socks!

Tonight, Michael and I celebrated by having a mostly green dinner...pork tenderloin (thankfully NOT green), spinach salad, green beans, rice (that was colored green), and peas.  We even had a green lemon-lime drink to go with it.  It was all delicious!

We topped it off with some green ice cream...Mint Chocolate Chip, of course!

On my way home from work, just as I got to the store to pick up the last few green items, Stephanie called to chat...and secretly to see what we were having for dinner.  She wanted to see if we were having anything good before she decided on her dinner.  Pretty sneaky, and I love it!  :o)

I didn't know how big of a hurry we would be in since we had Bible study.  However, when I got home, Michael had dinner almost ready.  Since we had a little time, I called Stephanie back to see if she and Tim wanted to come down and eat dinner with us.  I was actually surprised that Stephanie thought our "green" dinner sounded good, but she did.  I'm so glad they came over.  We really enjoyed it!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  I hope you did something fun to celebrate.
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Michael checking in...

You'd think that staying home for dinner on St. Patty's Day would isolate you from chaos and surprises.  You'd also be wrong...

As the story goes, it was a pretty ordinary Thursday. We were sitting there, eating our green food.  As noted above, we were lucky to also be able to feed the Avances (well, really just Stephanie).  Four people, eating dinner...seems pretty mundane.  At the moment the mundane transformed into brief insanity, Tim was telling a story about something...about what, I have no idea.  All I know is I was taking a bite of food, casually glancing out the window, and noticed a dog...and then two dogs...and they started to look familiar.  It happened in literally a second, but in my head, the slow-motion version went like this...

• That dog looks a lot like Oscar.  Oh well.
• I'll glance at the TV, see who is winning the basketball game.
• Wait, that second dog looks a lot like Izzie.
• Holy crap, that's Izzie and Oscar!

That's right...the Avances' dogs were loose.  I interrupted the aforementioned story, shouting "Are those your dogs?!?!" as I sprang from my chair and bolted out the front door.  I shouted for the dogs, with Tim behind me and also shouting at them.  Thankfully, they came right over to us from across the street.  Apparently, the Avances' front door had not latched upon closing.  Who knows where those dogs had been, but you know that "smiling" look that dogs can get...yeah, that was happening.  Those dogs were having the time of their life!  They were so happy!  Hilarious moment for sure!!