Dinner

Tonight, I decided I'd make kabobs. I've never done it before, and I thought I'd just wing it. This turned out better than I could have expected. I've produced some photographs and steps for reproducing my meal in case you want to try it.

I prepared a marinade. I used red cooking wine, red wine vinegar, olive oil, thyme, garlic powder, and feta cheese. I soaked beef tips in the marinade for about eight hours. I skewered the beef tips along with red, yellow, and green bell peppers, onions which I soaked in Caesar salad dressing, and red potato chunks. I grilled them. To go alonside it all, we made couscous and sauteed mushrooms. A Ceasar salad with Greek olives, feta cheese, tomato wedges, diced onions, and all colors of bell peppers. Delicious. I will be making this one again sometime.

Pictures follow this message: I'm having trouble with my offsite webhost. You may have to copy the link locations (Right-click the link - Copy Link Location/Target) and then paste it into the browser window to get these to load. Or just ask and I'll email them to you. They're not particularly amazing. It's just food.

The Couscous
The Kabobs
A Prepared Plate
The Salad
The Shrooms
Table from the side
Table from the top

Served with a very good year of Coca Cola in wine glasses for effect.

It's alive!

Previously, I had emailed a lot of family and friends to make them aware of this blog, and Google thought that I was running an advertising scam from here because of that. I will send out one more email notifying everyone, but the site will have to be encoded somehow, so Google doesn't block the blog again.

For now, at least, consider this blog alive and well.

In My Defense

Okay, I have to admit that Ryan did all the work on the bathrooms this evening. However, in my defense he doesn't have to do ANY of the tiling tomorrow unless he opts to leave work early (which I'm sure he won't...nerd). In my defense as well is the fact that Ryan actually TOLD me he didn't want me to do anything that would mess up my knee because I have so much to do tomorrow. Yes, I laughed at him. But man if you had been standing where I was, I don't see how you could have stopped yourself. Imagine Ryan bent over a piece of carpet near a stand up shower and everytime he yanks at the carpet he kind of goes back towards the shower and each time almost hits his head but doesn't even realize it. Then add some of the most foul language you can imagine being uttered from Ryan's mouth as if he is having a personal conversation with the carpet. It was HILARIOUS!

I'm sure he will get a chance to laugh at me tomorrow when I'm whining about being sore or something. Plus, I fully intend on accidentally gluing myself to the floor so I don't have to stand up when all is said and done. So ha!

Hauling and ripping and tearing...

This evening was spent carrying about six times my body weight in tile, grout, adhesive, and hardibacker into the house so that tomorrow (while I work my cushy IT job), Jenny, Mark (Jenny's Dad), and Lizz can lay all that. Hopefully, when I show up, it will be all pretty and set and I won't have to worry about laying any flooring until it's time to do the common areas.

There is something to be said for manual labor like ripping carpet off of the places where it's stapled to plywood. But there are many things to say against it, especially when your wife laughs at you because you're angry and you're working on a piece of carpet in a really tight corner where you can't grip anything and you can get no leverage and so a giant string of drunken sailor vocabulary finds its happy way through your teeth. But I guess that kind of moral support is what she's there for.

I do pity the fool that must remove toilets all day, if such a fool exists. Years of rust built up inside of gummed-up "pretty" fittings around nuts and bolts gives you a feeling like it's good to have an education.

After all this is said and done, I will throw up some pictures of our prettified home here so you can all know what you're getting yourself into before you come visit.

Welcome to Austin...

Or more appropriately, Welcome to Georgetown

- or -

Even better, Welcome to Liberty Hill

The point is, we're living in between three places. Ten to twelve hours of the day for Jenny and I is spent in Austin where we work, both near the south-ish side of town, and also spent driving between there and Georgetown where we currently live, ten miles north of Austin. When we're not here, where all our belongings are crammed into a single bedroom (at the amazing grace of a couple of friends of ours who let us live here until April 1st, and that's no joke), we're in Liberty Hill, where we will live next month in a larger home twelve miles west of Georgetown.

So things are kinda hectic. That's why this blog is here. If I can get fifteen minutes in my bedroom/living room/kitchen/definitely-not-bathroom to spare, I can post an update. Hopefully, the family we have in San Antonio, Comfort, Canyon Lake, Houston, and wherever else you may be can be a little more in touch with us (and vice versa) using this wonderful tool called The Introwebz.