Not much going on...

I just want to say hi. I'm reading Eve Brown-Waite's "First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria". I've finally paid off my car loan for real. (I thought I paid it off at the end of May but it turns out I miscalculated. Oops! Thankfully the friend who loaned me the money was very understanding about it.) Oh, and the big news is that on Sunday, around 5AM, Susan's daughter gave birth to a healthy, 9 pound, beautiful baby boy. Yay!

Heatwave!

So, somehow I missed the fact, until a few days ago, that a heatwave consists of 3 or more days in a row in which the temperature rises above 90 degrees. I'm weathering the weather quite well and am thankful for air conditioning, breezes, and low humidity. I hope you all had a good holiday weekend. I had some fun playing games again with Mike and Michelle on Saturday. We played "Dungeoneer", "Shadows Over Camelot", and "San Juan".

Two Cool Videos I Just Had to Share

You know that I don't do this often but these two videos not only hit my nostalgia button, they're really good. The first one was sent to me by a local radio station and, late last week, I showed it to the guys I work with. (*Warning, the song will get stuck in your head!*) In response, my boss just showed me the second video. I liked it so much I had to post the link to it here and share it with all of you. Enjoy!



Click here to watch the amazing video my boss recommended! (Sorry, it's not embeddable.---Is that even a word?)

I had Fun in the Kitchen Today!

I really cooked again tonight. I haven't been doing much of that over the last six months to a year but we had a lot of food left over from Jessie(Susan's daughter)'s baby shower last Saturday. We wanted to use up as much as we could so, last Sunday, I made a calzone out of the leftover shrimp and feta cheese. I bought pizza dough, mozzarella cheese, and Kalamata Olives at the grocery store and put them all together at home. I'd never rolled out pizza dough before and I used all 4 cups of cheese. The calzone measured almost 1 1/2 feet and probably weighed more than a pound. It was very yummy!

This afternoon I used up more of the Feta along with some of the red wine. I bought mussels at a local seafood store and fresh basil at the local farmers' market. I took some jar sauce and added chopped baby portabella mushrooms, Feta cheese, fresh Basil, and Kalamata Olives. For myself, I steamed the mussels in the red wine and cooked up some sliced baby bellas and basil in olive oil for Steve and Susan. We each ate our fill over angel hair pasta. It was fabulous!

I had forgotten how much I like cooking and especially when working with fresh ingredients. Anyway, I'm really tired (so I'm not really proofreading this post) so I'll sign off now. :)

It's time for another Vlog post!

Recent Event Photos & Video

So, I'm pretty behind on blogging but I really wanted to share this stuff with you. I've been getting together with friends on the weekends to play games. Here Mike, his wife Michelle, Steve, and I are playing "Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game". It was a lot of fun even though we lost because Admiral Adama turned out to be a Cylon. Darnit!






Next, my sister graduated from college! I'm soooooooooo proud of her and she's going to be a great teacher. My mom, sister, her mother-in-law, and I had our nails done (yes, I can do girly things once in a while!) the day before Becky's commencement ceremony. This picture is of me at the salon after my nails have been painted a pale lavender:






















It was also nice to spend time with my nephews. In this picture my older nephew, Jacob, and I are playing "Risk". He and I played for about 4 hours. Did I mention he's only seven? His dad, Ken, and Ken's mother are also at the table.






Finally, here's some video I accidentally took of the family after the graduation ceremony. I'll try to post the whole photo album soon.

There's a bird in our house!

Susan opened the door to the deck, to dump some recycling, and a bird flew in. It made itself comfortable in the TV room and now is flying between the living room and kitchen. Our house is mostly open plan so we can't trap it anywhere with only one way outside. We have the deck door open and are hoping it will find its way back.

Btw, I am going to take a cue from my job and try to post weekly updates here so that weeks don't turn into months without me posting.

I recently returned from seeing my sister graduate from her teaching program, Magna Cum Laude I might add. I'm really proud of her and I will try to post those pics soon too.

That's about it for now.