How much is that toddler in the chassis rack?

As many of you know, Karl and I are professional geeks by trade. Much to my horror and surprise, a few years back his work was getting rid of some old equipment and Karl brought home this "gem" as he put it. Now, usually I don't care what kind of computer related equipment he brings into the house, but with our limited space these days...this one was hard to take in.

We've managed to incorporate it and Gavin has found another good use for it...his own personal "hiding" place. As you can see from the picture, he isn't getting much hiding done. :)

Most Exciting Trip EVER

I had to fly to NYC to discuss some ongoing litigation with a group of lawyers at the Time Warner building on Friday. To get there at 9am, I woke at 4:45, went to the airport, and waited until my flight was delayed. Then, I was moved to another plane, which sat on the runway until 10:30, because of snow in New York (check it out, it really did snow). At this point, I finished my reading material for the trip, and started contemplating an eReader, maybe a Kindle2, because being stuck on the tarmac with nothing to read really, really sucks.

The landing was okay, but I think we might have blown a tire when the pilot locked the wheels. I guess La Guardia has a short runway.

I was very grateful to see the driver at the baggage area, because we were so late. I had dutifully informed my hosts of the flight change, and I was glad to see they had changed the arrangements to meet my schedule.

I arrived at the building at 12 sharp, and initially couldn't get into the conference room because everyone was out to lunch. We plowed through a day's work in half a day, then back to the airport, after a stop at a bar in the building (yes, at that point I was pretty tempted). No further travel mishaps, and I got back to the house at 10PM. Total things seen on my trip:

2 airports
2 cars
1 building

Oh well, at least I got a key lime eclair.

Funny Things They Say

We were taking pictures the other night at dinner. (Gavin had eaten a big piece of chocolate and it was oozing out of his mouth.) After I would snap his picture he would say, "Nice". The first time he said it I thought it was an accident, then after 5 or 6 pictures I was laughing. I don't know where he picked that up, but it's pretty cute!

He's also started to express his feelings a lot more and with more than one word. We were walking outside last night to go get CJay from scouts and he said, "It scared me". I don't know what exactly scared him, but I thought it was cute anyway.

A dig on me or a dig on him??

Karl stayed home from work today to fix some plumbing on our kitchen sink. He needed to take a trip to Home Depot to get some supplies and we all decided to tag along with him (Conner, Orion, Gavin and me). We'd spent an hour in their getting the one thing we needed and 12 others we didn't. On our way out something caught Karl's eye and I heard him say, "I think I'm in love." I turned around to see what he was talking about, which was tool related, and I said, "You're in love with..." and then I stopped and looked at the brand name on the screw driver set which just happened to be Husky, but what came out of my mouth was "Hussy". He said "Yes, yes I am." We both laughed and wondered if that was a bad reflection on him or me. I only now realized that I'd read it wrong to begin with so know I feel REALLY silly!

On a side note, Karl just finished the sink and it works like a charm...no leaks. :)

My whole family is adopted

My whole family must be adopted. We have nothing in common.

We had to do some grocery shopping, and Conni hadn't decided on dinner, so I suggested that we could have some family fun time while shopping. We would go to the best grocery store in the world (Wegmans), and I told everyone they could spend $5.00 on whatever they wanted for dinner while we shopped. We would then come home and cook it. My meal (some things were already in the fridge):

• Parmesan Peppercorn baguette with a little smoked cheddar, some leftover Swiss and the last inch of a pepperoni

• Plum tomatoes with baby mozzarella, in Italian dressing

• Blood Orange Soda
  

Plus, while shopping, 1 Gorgonzola stuffed olive, and 1 blue-cheese stuffed olive, from the olive bar.

Now for the disappointing part:

Conni-Slice of cheese Pizza
CJay-Chicken Noodle soup
Conner-Salt Bagel
Gavin-Cheese Pizza

Seriously, where is the joy in that?

Per Matt's Request

I found this recipe on our Big Oven program. I couldn't find the author's name...enjoy!!


White Bean Chicken Chili

Very quick and satifying meal for cool weather. One of our family favorites. Re-heats well.

Recipe By:
Serving Size: 4
Cuisine: American
Main Ingredient: Chicken
Categories: Dinner, Chicken, American, Winter, Quick, Spicy, Soup, Main Dish

-= Ingredients =-
2 tablespoon Olive oil
1 large Onion
4 large Garlic cloves
1 tablespoon Ground Cumin
1 teaspoon Dried Oregano
1/2 teaspoon Anise seed
1/2 teaspoon ground Cumin
1/2 teaspoon Dried Red Pepper
1 pound Boneless chicken breasts
3 cans (15oz.) Cannellini Beans
1 cup Chicken broth
1 can (7oz) Diced Green Chilies
1/2 cup Whipping cream
Grated Sharp Cheddar Cheese
Chopped fresh Cilantro

-= Instructions =-
Chop onion and garlic. Cut up chicken in to bite size pieces. Saute onions, garlic. cumin, oregano. anise seed and dried red pepper in olive oil for 5 mins. Push aside and add chicken and saute for another 5 minutes.
Add beans (with liquid), broth, chilies and cream, simmer until chicken is tender about 10 mins.

Top with cheese and cilantro.

Not Very Nice

So...I was just reading my last post and have to admit that it wasn't very Conni like. I think I was really frustrated when I wrote that, but it happens. Now you guys have seen the evil side of me. :0

Pet Peeves

So I've decided to write some of my own...

1. Organizations calling for money over the phone.

I know they can't tell how much we give to the church, but I kind of wished it would pop up with their outbound call center phone list. Then, maybe they wouldn't give me attitude when I politely say I'm not interested. Who knows...maybe we should be giving to every single person who calls for a donation so that WE can go broke and then get government assistance.

2. Let's just go with the whole housing market and all the lingo that goes with it.

We are FINALLY able to break into the housing market in Ashburn and of course we are biding on forclosures and short sale properties. We get excited when we see a house we could live with and after deciding to put in an offer we find out there are "multiple contracts" on it already. I think our first attempt there were like 6 or 7 already on the place. So who is benefiting from the market at this time??? No really, I'd like to know.

More to come...

Conni is a GREAT cook

Tonight was our ward's chili cookoff, which was a judged event. This is one of my favorite ward parties, no hokey stuff, just food and people hanging out. Not that there wasn't pressure, Conni won best mild chili last year, and this year she was hoping to repeat her success with white chicken chili. The competition is friendly, but still fairly intense. No one makes any apologies for trying to win, but everyone is pleasant about it, too.

For the setup...I got home at 5:40, we had to be at the church for CJay's Arrow of Light ceremony at 6pm. Conni was frantically trying to open cans without a can opener, Gavin having thrown away our good one, and our backup was bent and broken. The boys were trying their best to help, grating cheese and pouring the whipping cream. Conni was a whirlwind of culinary ninjitry, Iron Chef right in our kitchen. She literally poured the hot chili from the stove into the crock pot on our way out the door, grabbing cheese and cilantro on the way.

Conni threw the chili into the car, as I helped get the kids strapped in, and we were gone.

Conni and I put the cliantro and cheese in the pot just before the judging, and we were worried that the judges would know whose was whose, but it didn't seem to be a big deal. Then it was time to eat and relax, as well as taste the chili for the first time. Conni didn't even have time to sample the chili before the judging.

The event itself was good, we met some new people, and then the judges had the results. Conni took second place!

I spoke with the judges after the event, and they said that she would have won, but they each took a point or two off for not being a traditional chili! Not too shabby for a 1/2 hour effort, finished at the very last second.

Conni said that the boys were a tremendous help, and they were proud of their mom's success, too. I was disappointed, there was no chili left for me to take to work!

Arguing with the professor

If you are reading this blog, you probably know that I think I am always right, and that I will defend my point until you prove me wrong. All done in a gentle and kind way, of course.

My database management professor was up at the board explaining the procedure for database normalization. It's that good of a class. But he was saying things that didn't exactly jive with the textbook. I quietly questioned him about that during a later portion of the class, and he kind of shrugged off my question. I returned to my seat, and repeated over and over to myself "Why are you here? Just to get a grade, just to get a grade". The mantra calmed me down, until the professor asked me to step to the board and demonstrate to the rest of the class. I said "Sure, but you aren't going to like it". I proceeded to step through the normalization process, but in a different way. And when he questioned my procedure, I quoted from the book, which I had the foresight to bring up with me, and explained that I thought his method was unnecessarily torturous.

I then proceeded to show that I could get the correct answer with half the trouble. Yes, always making friends, that's me.

He demonstrated his process AGAIN. And I finally got it. His method was more difficult, but it was also more reliable. I acknowledged his database mastery quite magnanimously to the rest of the class. And then I helped him fix his car in the parking lot, so I think we are friends again.