Farmer’s Market

This morning Jake and I went to the Hartford Farmer’s Market.  This was our first time there even though we have lived here for 6 years.  We bought a huge onion & cucumber, cauliflower, tomato, baking apples, green beans, a loaf of dill rye bread and three plants to help fill in the garden.  In total this all came to around $20. 

Microorganisms and methods for treating poultry

This past week I received two letters.  One from Patent Awards and one from U.S. Patent Services both congratulating me on being awarded patent number 7,754,469!  The patent is for Microorganisms and methods for treating poultry.  Obviously, this was for work and nothing too exciting except that I am one of the five inventors on the patent. 

Birthdays

So my birthday is coming up in a couple weeks and I have no idea what I want.  Okay, that’s not entirely true, there are plenty of things that I want. 

I want include a new refrigerator, but that’s about $1200 too expensive.  I want a stamped concrete patio in the backyard, but that’s between $6-10K too expensive.  I thought about getting a bike, but I’m afraid I won’t use it much, just like the Wii Jamie bought me last year for my birthday that I’ve used only 3 times.  I would like to go to the Brewer’s game, but it is a day game and I would have to find someone willing to take time off work to go.

And of course there is the obvious that I always want, breakfast in bed, flowers, a nice dinner and a relaxing evening, but with Jamie working on call that week, it’s just not going to happen (maybe the flowers).

However, I do know about one birthday present.  My Mom is taking me to see Wicked which I am super excited about.  Jamie would never take me and I wouldn’t want to be embarrassed by his snoring anyways. 

Birthday’s just aren’t like they used to be.  During grade school it was all about the party with friends, sleepovers and the latest craze (Popples, friendship bracelets, NKOTB, CDs, etc…).  These days I’ll be happy with a phone call or a card.  Where did it all change? 

Out with the old, in with the new

Today I came home from work and my new dishwasher was installed!  It is so pretty!  Here’s the old one:

And here’s the new one:

So much better, and fancy looking.  There is a lot more space with out the center sprayer.  It is also much quieter.  Now I don’t have to turn the volume up on the tv while running it. 

Last weekend Jamie did quite a bit to the bathroom.  The new drywall went up, the walls were painted with texture, then actual paint and he laid the tile.  The tile still needs to be grouted, but it is all ready for him when he finds the time.  It’s getting there.

No pictures of the new hot water heater… it really isn’t very exciting to look at. 

Baking

These past few weeks I have been baking a lot.  It all started with a new cookbook that I bought called “All Cakes Considered” a years worth of weekly recipes tested, tasted and approved by the staff of NPR’s All Things Considered. 

This cookbook goes through how to properly bake a cake.  Now, I’ve baked a lot of cakes and I have never done it quite like this book has you do it.  The first recipe, The Man Catcher – Sour Cream Pound Cake, goes through each step of the making and baking process and the recipe is 12 pages long.  I followed along and I must say that I have never had batter look as good as the one I made with this recipe.  It was worth the effort.  Here is the end result:

I also made two things for Father’s Day.  The first was pancakes, which really isn’t baking, but I was creative, so I just had to show you.

The next were these little cheesecake cups which were so easy to make.  All it took was chocolate chip cookie dough in the bottom, the cheesecake portion and then cherry pie filling on the top.  I do not like cheesecake, but I actually found these quite tasty. 

I also made these cute star sugar cookies with red white and blue frosting.  I made these to sell at a friend’s rummage sale to help cover the cost of shipping care packages to the troops.  The rummage is still going on, but so far I sold about 30 of them.  Whatever is left over I will ship to the troops with my package on July 1st.

 

Happy Father’s Day!

Happy Father’s Day to all the wonderful Dads out there.  Have a great day!

When it rains it pours

On Monday night I decided to bake a cake.  I keep my stand mixer in the basement and when I went to grab it I noticed water in there.  I first assumed that it was from Jamie turning the water on and off while fixing the bathroom, but Jamie quickly realized that it was the hot water heater.  Damn!  I just told Jamie two days prior that the water heater is 15 years old and may go soon. 

So on Tuesday Jamie picked up a new unit and started installing it around 7pm.  He insisted that he would get it done that night, but around 10pm I started heating water up on the stove for a bath.  At 11:30pm I told Jamie to just stop and finish it the next day.  But he was determined to finish that night.  So finally at 12:45am the water heater was ready to go.  I wasn’t so sure that there wasn’t a leak somewhere, so I took the water I boiled on the stove up to my bathtub and took a bath.  I finally crawled into bed at 1:15am.  Jamie waited until morning and took a nice hot shower.

On Friday of this week Jake had to stay home from daycare because of a fever the day before.  Jamie stayed home and when I got home from work he informed me that the dishwasher is broken.  Damn Damn!  That is also 15 years old so I’m not surprised.  Jamie researched dishwashers and is convinced the Samsung is the best for our money, but it won’t be here until the 25th.  So back to washing dishes by hand for a few more days. 

I asked Jamie what might be next to go and he told me not to worry that we have at least 4 months before the furnace goes too!