August 31, 2010

The official end of summer is just around the corner and with September starting tomorrow.  I've been behind in my posting due to sheer laziness and some visitors.  Mom and Dad visited CT, two weeks ago, to enjoy lobster rolls and, given the rainy weather, the casinos.  We had a whirlwind visit trying to pack in as many events as possible.  After some travel difficulties coming into CT we hit Captain Scott's in New London for the first of the tasty lobster rolls.  Saturday dawned crisp and clear, so Jo and I managed to sneak in a long run and then we all played cards until it was time to get ready for dinner.  That evening we were joined by Sheri and Bruno for dinner at Bruna's (note it is with an "a" not an "o" so no Bruno doesn't own the restaurant) for some great Italian cooking.  Then we took in the show at the Granite theater which was done with their usual high energy. 

Sunday we headed to the first of our casino visits to see the Cirque de Soleil (however that is spelled) show that was playing.  Then Mom and Dad needed their slot machine fix so we all headed out with our $20 investment to see if we could break the house.  Unfortunately, except for Mom, everyone else helped Foxwoods pay for their latest expansion.  We were all too tired to want to cook so had the brillant idea of eating out.  First thought was to hit a local diner.  Turns out, Sunday night is not the time to be looking for an open restaurant - it tooks us four different restaurants before we finally found one open and by then we had given up on the diner option - just wanted food.  

The plan for Monday was to head up to Lexington and Concord to get a little American history, but the rain and mist continued so we made a quick change of plans and it was off to Mohegan Sun to see how their slot machines were working.  This time Mom and I were winners - with Jo and Dad continuing to donate our winnings back.  Figured why we were there, might as well pick up some Krispy Kreme donuts to plug the ole' arteries and delight the palate - there are always trade-offs in life.  Tuesday it was back to work but we managed to sneak in one more stop for lobster rolls so we could send Mom and Dad back with plenty of seafood inside.  Also, this helps justify our repeated requests for Mexican dinners when we visit them!

This last weekend was catching up on chores the big one was stripping the front door and then re-staining and sealing.  We certainly do live an exciting life.  As this necessitated having the front door open the whole day we also spent a fair amount of time chasing flies and other winged creatures around the house.  We also managed a 13 mile run which led to some serious napping later that day.  Saturday night we enjoyed "Dinner at the Farm" with Sheri and Bruno.  The idea is to hold a catered dinner at a local farm - White Gate Farm in East Lyme for this event -  with the food prepared at the farm using local produce and seafood.  The food was fantastic, the weather was enjoyable, and except for the noise of 160 people all talking under one tent a really enjoyable evening.  The purpose is to continue to encourage CT farming - which I fully support even if poorly with my little garden.  And as you can see even visitors are enlisted to help deal with our farm produce - they are prepping beans for the freezing process.

That pretty much brings everything up to speed.

August 15, 2010

Everyone loves a parade.  Waterford had its annual town parade today to celebrate Waterford Week - why this week we have never been able to discover, but I'm sure it has historical significance.  After a short bike ride from the house, we got to enjoy watching the Shriners in their miniature cars and Cub Scouts walking with the flag.  That along with the fire trucks makes for a great parade and fortunately the fire trucks decided not to blare their sirens the entire parade route.  We both had flashbacks to parades of our youth in Illinois.

The rest of the weekend was calmer than last week.  We went to the movies on Friday to see Inception - great movie, we would both highly recommend it - but it requires you to pay attention so don't go when you are tired.  Then home to whip up a home made pizza using the tomatoes from the garden.  The garden is now in the heyday of beans, cucumbers, and tomatoes.  We are just staying ahead of the output between eating the produce fresh, canning and freezing - but just barely.  We have now laid in enough frozen beans and bread and butter pickles to easily last through to next year's growing season (or on the pickles part it might be two years worth).  The scary part is that we don't think the garden is done.  Might be time to start handing out vegetables at work or opening a farm stand.

Saturday after a wonderful long run in the morning followed by time at the gym, Jo headed off for a massage while I used the time to catch up on missing sleep - nice way of saying I took a nap to recover from the morning run.  Then is was time to hit some chores which always seem to have a way of building up.  It was time to touch up the paint on the door into the house from the garage which now looks all nice a sparkly white - at least for a month or two.  Nothing particularly noteworthy at work this week, with Jo doing her usual commute to NY one day and here the rest of the week.

August 8, 2010

I seem to writing about the weather a lot.  It could be I just don't like heat and humidity and we have had copious quantities of both this summer, or it could be nothing else exciting is happening in my life.  Let's hope its the former.  After last weekend's great weather, we promptly went back to the humidity during the week which made some of the runs we did this week pretty challenging.  Then come Friday night the humidity plummeted again only - according to the weather reports - to climb again through the coming week.  Weird weather, but I'll take the few days of comfortable temperatures.

After Jo's exciting trip to Argentina she was stuck here all week.  No travel, not even to New York.  While I enjoy having her around for an entire week she does miss the traveling.  I've yet to really understand her love of always being on the road.  But the good result is that we got to work out together this week and as mentioned above, enjoy some really sticky runs - nothing like ending your run completely soaking wet.  As we usually discuss our work day during the run and it was nice to not be talking to myself for once and to have a sounding board on my ideas and frustrations. 

To move rapidly to the fun portion of the week, Friday after getting the grass cut, the garden weeded and harvested (another bumper crop of beans, tomatoes, and cucumbers), we headed to Mystic for Mexican food and ice cream.  This was in partial celebration of my yearly milestone event of another birthday - although technically that isn't until the coming week.  We enjoyed ice cream cones for dessert while we wandered through scenic Mystic and got to enjoy watching the drawbridge go up - very interesting from an engineering standpoint. 

Saturday dawned cool so we hit the road for a 11 mile run then after some light weightlifting we joined our friends, Tiffany and Stuart, for a cruise on their boat.  We motored from Stonington over to Noank to enjoy lobster rolls at Abbot's then saw the sites.  First we headed into Mystic (it's a theme this weekend) and then cruised the Long Island sound seeing the big homes on Fisher Island and one of the Sound lighthouses (this one issues a beeping noise, not sure why, since if you are motoring along or in a big barge, there is no possible way to hear the noise).  It was nice for someone to name their commercial fishing boat after Joann although she didn't get invited to the christening nor do we get any of the freshly caught fish.  Then after docking we enjoyed catching up and solving many of the problems of the world on their new deck.

Since Saturday was mostly play, it meant today was filled with our chores.  After our run and yoga, we canned more jars of bread-and-butter pickles (a great way to use up our cucumbers from Friday's harvest), cleaned the large picture window in the foyer, and then went to work on patching a few small cracks in the plaster.  Nothing too hard or earth shattering but good to get them all out of the way although it did use up most of the day. 

That pretty much sums up the week and we are now getting ourselves psyched up for the another week of work.  At least our stock is moving up after the good announcements on the second quarter results.

August 1, 2010

Bueno Dias and Happy August.  To celebrate Mother Nature finally broke the heat wave hitting CT.  We have had a picture perfect weekend as the humidity and temperatures have both dropped dramatically.  It was also an interesting week for news and events.

Jo started it off by hitting the road for Delaware and Argentina.  As I'm sure most people can picture what Delaware looks like I thought we would include photos of Buenos Aires where Jo spent Thursday through to Saturday.  She had a lovely time, at both work and play, and even found an opportunity to use her favorite Spanish phrase - it involves ordering more butter (ask her for details).  By contrast, I had a more mundane week as I stayed in town enjoying the usual mix of working out and working. 

For the weekend, while Jo toured Buenos Aires, I hit the road for a long run to take advantage of  the cool temperatures followed by finishing up the last of the windows (the ones on the deck for those keeping track of the progress).  In the evening, I headed to Mohegan Sun to see Jeff Dunham perform his ventriloquist act - very funny and very politically incorrect.  Jo and I had planned this with our friends Laura and Mike a while ago, prior to Jo having her trip down south planned.  So I had fun with Laura and Mike to the point of tears since I was laughing so hard.  Amazing number of people at the casino so the economic crisis (or whatever we are calling it today) hasn't hit everyone.  No major plans for today as Jo just got back into town this morning.  Will probably pick some beans from the garden to enjoy for the week's meals and mix in a few household chores to get us ready for another week.  Dinner tonight is barbecued ribs in the crock pot - yum.

The other news that made the week interesting is we heard from our team in Madison that our addition passed another approval hurdle although not completely unscathed.  This time it was the Landmark Commission, whose role it is to preserve the historic character of homes in our neighborhood, who agreed with the addition we wanted to add (Yipee), but didn't like that we wanted to change the roof on the main house.  The current roof is flat and we wanted to add a peak to reduce the chance for water damage.  So it is back to the drawing board to figure out some options there.  Still another 2 or 3 approvals to go - so stay tuned.