Weekend

We had a good weekend - I'm actually exhausted! Bought a new gas grill this weekend that Dan put together - he HATES it when the directions say - "no tools required". That means he will always need some type of tool and it's going to take forever to get together. In the end, there were a few spare parts (as there usually are), but it worked great. We had our friend Charie over for dinner and the neighbors stopped by as well. So we had quite a nice barbecue and after dinner, sat around and chatted. I made two desserts for the evening - one was a flop, a chocolate, banana, peanut butter ice cream pie thing. Just trying to find a way to use up those old bananas! The other is something I got from the Penzey's catalog - it's a big cookie with fruit on it. Doesn't look too exciting, but dang, it's good! Basically, it a big sugar cookie with a mixture of cream cheese (reduced fat of course), sugar & vanilla spread on top, then tons of fresh berries sprinkled over that with just a touch of raspberry jelly drizzled over everything. Our neighbors loved it and named it "CookieQueen's Juicy Cookie". They decided I could sell them and market it as such. Hmmm....

Then Dan, Charie and I watched Narnia. Not bad - I wouldn't say it's the best I've seen, but I enjoyed it. Charie also brought the Corpse Bride, but we didn't have time to watch that one.

Conner was very good all day - he entertained Dan and I with his flirting. First with Charie and then our neighbor Liz. He would give them a cute little smile and tilt his head ever so slightly....golly are we going to be in trouble in 13 years or so.....

This morning was breakfast at Louisiana Grill with the Scooter family and Dan ran into his boss there. What a small world.....the Scooters' came back to our place for awhile and we all lazed on the deck with our caffeinated beverage of choice and chatted while the kids played. Then Conner and I both took a nap, although mine was far shorter than his 3 hours.

In general, a very good weekend! I'm working Mon/Tue, then have Wed-Tuesday off. Totally looking forward to it, although I have a million things to do so I don't forsee much relaxation.

This afternoon, Conner and I made gingerbread men cookies from the leftover sugar cookie dough. I know, it's supposed to be MADE out of gingerbread, but that's the only cookie name he knows and I had leftover sugar cookie dough so deal with it!

Cute pictures:



Isn't he getting to look so big???













Here's the finished product - think of it as abstract art....that you can eat!
















Why do cookies take so long to cook? Why can't I open the oven? Why is it hot? Why is the oven white? Why can't I bang on it? Are they done???

When they were finally done, they tasted very good! I think Conner ate at least 3 and maybe 4 of them. Don't worry - we made him eat dinner!

Ah....our son - isn't he lovely....

For awhile, Conner has been obsessed with dresses. We'd pick him up at daycare and often, he's be wearing one of the play dresses and having a wonderful time. The teachers tell us that the toddler boys actually fight over who gets the wear the dresses, so apparently, it's not just our kid. Dan finally broke down and bought Conner a gift at a garage sale - good for him in being so open-minded!

Scooter Clan Pics

Just to see if he's actually reading my blog - some pics of Scooter & his clan....

Picture #1 - Easter at their place & Picture #2 - Scooter partying at our place - what a hoot!

Pics of Conner

One of Conner's favorite games is to be swung around in the laundry basket, up in the air of course. I have trouble doing this, but Dan can get him going. After a few rounds, Conner said it was Dan's turn, but after having some trouble lifting Daddy up, he decided to join him and sing a chorus of row-row-row your boat!

HOT!

It was darn hot this weekend! Of course it looked pretty hot across the ENTIRE country - 90's and 100's everywhere you looked. But hey, global warming isn't real - just something made up by those darn tree-huggers. Dan was telling me about an article he read regarding scientists doing research on vines to see if they can get rid of carbon dioxide and help us keep the planet from burning up. Apparently, when scientists fed straight CO2 to the vines (including poison ivy), they went nuts and grew like crazy. So there's our choice - roast like chickens or live in a world of vines and poison ivy. We could all be like Uma Thurman in that batman movie. Maybe the government would pay us to have a vine farm.....

I actually went to work on Saturday for a few hours - sucks, I know, but I have to say - I go into work on the weekends far, far, far less with this job than when I worked at Regions. Actually, it was nice to be able to work on some things with minimum disruption.

But I have a question for the miniscule number of people who read my blog - if you went to the urgent care for low back pain, would you want the doctor to give you the option of getting up to see your xrays or allowing you to stay seated & have him explain what he saw? I was in my office and heard a patient saying "ow, ow, ow" in the room when someone was checking him and later, the doctor went in the room and I heard him say - let's go look at your xrays. Patient had to get up and go around the corner, stand there and listen to the doctor explain what he saw. Call me a wimp, but if my back hurts enough to go into the urgent care on a Saturday afternoon when it's pushing 100 degrees, I don't want to have to stand around and listen to the doctor explain my xrays. Just tell me what's broken and what I need to do to fix it.

I'm obsessed with providing the best experience for patients, so I'm thinking it would have been better for the doctor to say - the xray viewbox is just around the corner from your room. Would you like to get up and take a look or would you be more comfortable staying here and I'll tell you what I see? Any comments???

Anyway - rest of the weekend was nice. We hung out on Saturday night with the Scooter/Poo-Tee-Weet clan (and Kyle too!) and today we did the usual chores and my folks came to visit for awhile. They went to dinner with my aunt & uncle at Kincaids (LUCKY!), so to make us feel posh as well, I bought some steaks from Kowalski's for dinner. I thought it might be better cuts of meat - Dan said I shouldn't buy steak from Cub anymore - yuck! But while he said I cooked it perfectly, it still didn't have the taste he remembered from childhood. So next time around I'll buy organic beef. We'll see if the "natural" stuff will make him happier.

Plants - Green Thumb?

I haven't really planted anything since we bought this house several years ago....so this year, I decided to try some tomato and pepper plants. I initially put them in pots, but the tomatoes were looking sad, so Dan replanted them in a big planter that he built me. My mom designed a nice combo of flowers/plants to go in it, but I never got that far. Maybe next year.....

The tomato plants are going crazy - although there are only 2 that appear to be ripening at this point. And Kyle - here's a picture of the purple pepper I was telling you about. I'm just not sure when to pick and eat it!

Grizwald

Our dog, Grizwald, has developed some type of skin condition over the past weeks. He is shedding EVEN MORE than usual, which is bad enough, but he also has extraordinarily dry, flaky skin and occasionally, chunks of fur with dead skin attached come off. Very disgusting. We took him to the vet and they said it's just dry skin and give him baths with special shampoo.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't - but we're trying! He doesn't get crabby when bathed, but he tries to get away, so Dan puts on his collar and leash and ties him to the fence. How pitiful is that face??

4th of July

We had quite a nice weekend - 4 days off is quite lovely! We spent part of Saturday cleaning, not so much fun, but Conner and I went to Scooter and Poo-Tee-Weet's place for some slip & sliding in the afternoon. See Scooter's blog at A Nod to Nothing for video. Sunday we went to my parent's cabin in Wisconsin for a few days. Might be the last time we are there, since they sold it. It's not final yet, but looking like it will be. We took many trips down to the "beach" as Conner calls it - definitely got a workout with all those stairs. He loves to throw rocks in the water, but we also went swimming, took a ride in the paddle boat (with me shoo-ing away the Daddy Long Legs spiders that have been living on the boat for several years) and several rides in grandpa's fishing boat.

Dan and I saw some great fireworks on Sunday night - the cabin folk up there really go all out. Dad said one neighbor bought $1,000 worth of shells last year & had so much fun, he bought $2,000 worth this year. Personally, I can think of much better things to do with $2,000 (3 tickets to Hawaii is only $2,400!), but to each his own. And we enjoyed watching the show from our dock & not having to go anywhere. It was like 3 groups were battling it out for top fireworks show honors, so we actually won in getting to see them all. The next day, we let Conner take a 4 hour nap and then stay up for more fireworks, but he was truly uninterested. Oh well, maybe next year.