Normal Working Hours

So I realize that I don't work "normal" hours. I get to work at 6:00 and leave at 3:30. I am here for a good part of what would be considered "regular" hours, but I just shift it forward by a couple of hours. I like having my afternoons free and getting ahead of the traffic.

And I am consistent. I am here between 6:00 - 3:30 every day that I am supposed to. I get here on time, I work, then I go home and forget about ICON for the day.

I've never owned my own business, but I'm sure it's not easy. One thing I don't understand, though, is owning a business and managing people who work for you while you're at home in the wee hours of the night. Really, why bother showing up at 11:30 and closing yourself in your office until your employees leave, doing who-knows-what, until 10:00 p.m. when you finally decide to respond to the email questions that you received throughout the day. What good does that do me, or our clients? All these requests that came in yesterday will now have to wait.

You wouldn't think it would be that hard to work (at least) most of the same hours as your employees. That just makes good business sense, doesn't it?

Blerg. Vacation in 3 more days.

...and the living is easy!

I would like to start this blog post the same way that I started my last post, but that seems quite redundant. Even though they are separated by three month's time, they are only centimeters apart on your monitor, which makes it too close for me. Regardless, Hello! I've missed you, whomever you are!

Clint and I just returned from a wonderful vacation in Kellogg, ID where we biked all over! We were one of four couples staying at a family friends' house. Other couples included my parents, my cousin-once-removed John and his wife Ginny, and family friends Mark and Anne. We had a great time!

We arrived on Friday evening and set the plan to ride the Trail of the Hiawatha Route on Saturday. This is a 15-mile historical train track that has been converted into a bicycle trail down the pass. The neat thing about this trail is that it takes riders through 10 tunnels and 7 high tressels, just as a train would have in decades past. The first, and most impressive tunnel, starts about 20 meters into the ride, and continues in complete blackness for 1.66 miles! The temperature inside the tunnel is a chilling 36 degrees year-round. The tunnel begins in Montana, and part way through crosses the state line into Idaho. From there, riders continue along an educational and breathtakingly beautiful ride through the Bitterroot Mountainside.

On Sunday, Clint and I went downhill mountain biking on Silver Mountain. Let me tell you, this is not for the faint of heart, or soft of rear! The gondola, the world's longest, takes you 3.4 miles up the mountain, with your bikes following you in the next car. When you reach the top, an extensive 8 mile downhill adventure awaits. Being a beginner, I opted for the easy route down for our first run. Well, after about 15 minutes, the easiest route (green) dumps you off into a blue run, the next level of difficulty. Having no other options, we (cautiously) proceed.

Skip to the chase: Our first run down the mountain took us about two hours to make the 8 mile descent. Our second; an hour and twenty minutes. Our third and final run; forty minutes. Let's just say that this whole downhill mountain biking thing kind of grew on me as the day went on. It was amazing!

By Monday morning, Clint and I were the only folks left in the house. Feeling utterly wrecked from the previous day's battle, we took it easy and headed to Wallace, ID for the Sierra Silver Mine tour. What a neat thing to do! We had a tour of an underground silver mine, our guide demonstrated some of the equipment used in silver mining, and we got to hear all about the mines! It really was a neat tour.

We then went to the Old Bordello Museum and learned about the working girls in employ until 1988. What an eye-opening and shocking experience that was!

By Tuesday we were feeling OK and we headed to Harrison, about an hour away and at the South end of Lake Coeur d'Alene, to bike the 15 miles to Plummer. This was beautiful! The paved trail crossed over a part of the lake, and the view from the bridge was spectacular. Then the trail climbed up for 6 miles along the hillside. We saw a fawn and about 3 million grasshoppers. Plummer was a nothing destination, so we turned right around and headed back to Harrison for milkshakes.

Long time, no blog!

Wow, I can't believe it's been over 6 months since the last time I posted a blog! As I have always known, and rarely admit, I am a great starter...

So, what's been going on? Well, the house is coming together! Over New Year's weekend we took the wallpaper out of the kitchen and painted the walls blue. Yes, almost the same color blue as thr outside of our house. We have a very blue house, with a blue door, a blue kitchen, and blue cars. Maybe we like blue for everything because the sky around here is always cloudy...

The weather was fabulous in February, so Clint and I started on our yard work items! We pulled out the Maple Tree that was planted at the corner of our driveway, out of control, and blocking the view of our house. I now have a nice flower garden there that is starting to fill in nicely, along with the dozens of other plants and bulbs that I planted in out flower bed between the street & our retaining wall.

I found my raised bed! We have a raised veggie garden bed outside that was completely (COMPLETELY) overgrown with dandelions, blackberry, and other randoms. While Clint was in Baltimore, I found and completely cleared it out! I have planted 2 hops for Clint, and the veggie starts & seeds should go in this coming weekend!

I have reorganized my craft room to make room for my new sewing machine! I randomly bumped into Mom at the fabric stor a few weeks ago and followed her next door to the sewing maching store where they had a great used machine. I thought this would be pretty great to have, so as I went to purchase it the next day, I thought I'd call Mom just to make sure it was a good buy. Dad said he'd save me the trip, as he had just returned home with it for me! Happy early birthday, Shannon!

Here are some cards that I've made recently.

KITTENS! KITTENS KITTENS KITTENS! At the end of January, we brought home Hops and Barley, our rascally, obnoxiously affectionate purr boxes of love! They are the sweetest kittens, and they have certainly changed the mood in our house. They are siblings, and they snuggle together in a way that just about akes you cry it's so cute. They have terrorized the house a little, but we love them, so we've been dealing with it. They are wonderful! They are just over 6 months old, and weigh 7 lbs!

Clint and I are embarking on our next weight loss adventure. It seems as though it's always one thing or another, and yesterday we began yet again. We are adhering to the Dr. Atkins eating philosophy of lowering our carbohydrate intake to encourace our body's to turn to our ouw fat sources for fuel. Day 2, and I'm starving! I have become so addicted to the SAD (Standard American Diet) of pasta, bread, potatoes, and PIZZA that this change is really tough. I don't feel hungry as in, hunger pangs, but I'm starving and craving the sensation of eating and of feeling full. I love that feeling. That's why I have punds to lose! My goal is to lose 62 lbs. Wish me luck!

Work work work. Since about Thanksgiving, I have not had a chance to breath. Most companies right now are struggling to keep pace, whereas we are almost to the point where we need to turn away prospective clients. We have so much work that both my boss and I are in a constant state of anxiety and hurry. It's great for business, but until we hire a new intern, we'll continue to sink, little by little until we realize that we're under water!

Enough on that for now. More later!

It really tied the room together...

Clint and I have been brainstorming ways that we can make our cavernous rooms and bare walls look more homey. Well, a good place to start would be to get some color and warmth into the room, right?

Today's project; the media room. We have a 8' sliding door (actually, every window in our house is 8', well, 94" actually) that is a like a huge glaring hole into our TV room, and quite frankly, it's creepy at night. So our first project was to get some curtains. We decided on solid curtains, and them maybe some day we would get a patterned area rug to tie the room together and make it look more finished.

So off to Bed, Bath, and Beyond we go. (To Jenni's, AND BEYOND!! per Alissa.) We found some great waffle-like textured, dark brown curtains that we loved. So we threw them into the cart and were off. But wait! They were having a special on a 7'9" x 9'6" area rug that matched our colors perfectly! (We must have chosen some trendy colors; brown and green.) For the low, low price of only $99, you get an amazing rug, plus two bonus rugs! You also receive a FREE 2' x 6' runner, and a 20" x 30" area rug!

So, we bought the rugs, too. And fortunately for us, we had a 20% off of one item coupon that we applied toward the rug.

We get home, iron and hang the curtains, unroll the rug, then step back to take a look. Oh my gosh, the room looks awesome! What was a cavernous, sparse, open room now has a feeling of warmth and is quite inviting. It is amazing what a difference the colors and textures of a few accents make upon a room.

And, now nothing creepy can look in on us at night time. We LOVE it!

Lentil sausage soup, and the dsicovery of my new favorite appliance!

I made lentil sausage soup tonight, and it was yummy! I asked my mom for the recipe that she has used in the past, and she laughed. "Recipe? You don't need a recipe for that!" And to be perfectly honest, I don't usually follow recipes for non-baked goods anyway, so I'm not sure why I wanted it. but I copied it down nonetheless, and then mostly ignored it while cooking my soup last night.

Ingredients that I had on hand:

• 1 lb. breakfast sausage links
• onions, bell peppers, carrotts; chopped
• garlic; minced
• 1 cup dry lentils
• 1 can tomatoes (stewed or diced) with juice
• liquid to 5 cups
• seasonings

Here's what I did:

• Brown 1 lb. breakfast sausage links, set aside. Keep about 3 T fat in the pot.
• Add chopped onion to pot and sweat until almost translucent. Add whatever other veggies you want (I added carrotts, red and yellow bell pepper, green onions, and roasted garlic.) Mom's recipe calls for parsnips, but potatoes would be good, too!
• Simmer until softened, about 5 min. Add chicken broth, water, or whatever liquid you want, about 4-5 cups. Clint likes his food salty, so I added homemade chicken stock and 2 bouillon cubes.
• Add 1 cup dry lentils.
• While that's simmering, I sliced my sausages into little pieces and added them back into the pot.
• Add 1 can tomatoes (mine were stewed, but diced works, too) with juices.
• Season to taste and let simmer 20-30 minutes, or until everything is sifficiently hot and lentils are soft. I added: Bay leaf, sage, thyme, oregano, Frank's Red hot, salt, garlic powder.

I served the soup with fresh, hot biscuits. which leads me to the other part of this post; I discovered a new favorite appliance! My toaster-oven! Yes, I made my biscuits in my toaster oven! Clint, who was te driving force behind registering for a toaster oven in the first place, sent me this great article yesterday about 10 great uses for a toaster oven, which inspired me! I figured, eh, what do I have to lose besides about 10c worth of flour and butter and 0 minutes of sticky, gooey mess?

So, I popped my biscuit dough under the element for about 10 minutes, and my buscuits came out great (not to mention the cost and energy savings by using the toaster-oven instead of the conventional oven)! I can't wait to try more things in there!

Click here for the article referenced above:

http://lifehacker.com/5380566/save-energy-and-get-more-mileage-from-your-toaster-oven

On my mind...

For some reason I want to start a blag about what I make in my kitchen. It's probably because I now have a kitchen and am starting to cook and bake once again, and I am LOVING it! But seriously, why do I need another blog just for the things that I make? Maybe I'll just have a section of this blag that's all about food. Why shouldn't I? I love food, and eating! And it's best when I'm eating food that I've made! Wowee!

Visitors, the practice round.

Well, we had our first round of visitors at the house this past weekend! It was hugely motivating to get the little things around the house finished up, like actually removing the empty boxes from the living room floor and vacuuming the stairs!

Misty and Pat, who so very graciously helped us move three weeks ago, asked to be thanked by coming over and having us cook them dinner (instead of my suggestion of taking them out to dinner). The request; Spaghetti alla Carbonnara. Now, Misty has been around long enough to know that when you go to the Smith house, you request Carbonnara. Anything that is good enough to be reserved exclusively for birthdays and special occasions HAS to be what you request, right?

Clint and I planned out the whole evening; Double Tomato Bruschetta and Luambrusco for appetizers, Bomb Salad and Carbonnara for dinner, and finishing off the night with homemade Tiramisu Ice Cream. Delicious!

Misty and Pat arrived and things got started just as we had hoped. The Bruschetta was amazing; the addition of the sun-dried tomatoes to this traditional Italian finger food really kicked it up a notch! We layered that on top of French Baguette with a thick slice of fresh Mozzarella that had been slightly bubbled under the broiler. Yum!

Then, it was time to make dinner! For those of you who have experienced Carbonnara, you know that this is the fun part of the evening! The pasta must be hand made and fresh, or it's just not really worth having! Clint whips out the KitchenAid stand mixer, forms the dough, and connects the pasta maker attachment. This is SO COOL! It has the flat squisher rollers and two sizes of pasta cutters! Clint and Pat and Misty all take their turns working the pasta while I(and Misty, at times) work on the sauce. Sauce? I mean bacon, cream, butter, egg and cheese gooey goodness! This is why it is nicknamed the Heart Attack Special!

The pasta is cut and goes into the boiling water for a whole three minutes! Fresh pasta takes a fraction of the time to cook, as it hasn't been dried out and on a store shelf for months. The pasta comes out of the water and into the special warmed ceramic bowl with melted butter. Then goes the cream sauce, topped with the eggs and cheese. Stir together, and prepare: your arteries have no idea what's coming!

Dinner is AWESOME! Holy cow, I have eaten this a fair amount during my life, but I strongly feel that food tastes better when you make it yourself! Wow, it was good! Misty, you choose well!

After dinner we play some Crokinole, a Canadian board game that requires flicking little wooden disks at your opponent's discs, while still trying to get your disc to land in the highest ranking circle of the board possible. As you can imagine, combine this silly game with full bellies and full wine glasses, and much laughter ensued! Ice cream!

Now this is the part of the story that isn't quite as awesome. We received an ice cream maker for our wedding that we were really excited to use! Only problem is that we didn't remember to put the freezer bowl in the freezer until mid-afternoon on Saturday, which didn't give it enough time to freeze completely. Now combine that with my accidentally (I swear it wasn't on purpose) adding twice the amount of rum that the recipe called for, and well, we had milk shakes instead of ice cream. Not to mention the mocha ripple that should have been made in advance to let it chill in the refrigerator for at least several hours. It was a sticky, rum-y, runny mess. Oh well, 3 out of 4 recipes turning out awesome isn't so bad!

So, we learned several things:

1. We love to entertain!

2. We should carefully read all recipes well in advance of attempting them to make sure all items are sufficiently prepared.

3. Misty and Pat are awesome company (well, we already knew that)

4. The house is ready for people!

Thank you, Misty and Pat, for your awesomeness and for being the reason that we had such a fun night!