Hanging in Columbia, SC

Hello, hello, from sunny South Carolina,

It has been a bit over a week since our last post, and a few fun events have happened. We're currently in Columbia, hanging out with some friends. Brandie has class today for her MBA program, so I joined her for the trip.

Last Friday, I had poker night with a few co-workers, and to date, I have walked away a winner from every Raleigh game. I think I might not get invited to the next one. This game didn't last until the early morning hours like the last one, so I managed to stay out of trouble this time. :) The rest of the weekend was spent cleaning, watching shows on the DVR, eating at our new favorite restaurant (Milton's Pizza and Pasta), and doing a bit of work. The weekends just seem to fly by. On Sunday, I got an oil change in the afternoon, and when we went to grab some dinner, Brandie noticed that my car was leaking oil. I will admit that I have one old car, but it has never leaked oil. So, I was extremely annoyed about that. We start to pull off, and I noticed that the car was driving weird. So, I jumped out and realized that my right, front tire was completely flat, which leads me to the tire changing story.

I pulled the car back into the garage and proceed to jack it up. After having had two flats and a stolen tire recently (will save that story for another day), I've gotten surprisingly good at putting on the spare. As quickly as I got the car lifted and the lug nuts ripped off, you would think that I had pit crew experience. It was at that point that I hit a snag in the tire replacement project - the tire was stuck. Now, I'm not talking that it was slightly stuck on there. I almost toppled the jack three or four times in trying to rip that sucker off with sheer force. Being covered in black dust and dirt and a bit perplexed about my situation, I contemplated my next move. I came to it - what else but Google.

I washed up and began the research. After many sites, the consensus remained that there were two solid options - kick it or beat it. Knowing that putting a foot to it would almost guaranteed that my small jack would go flying, I went with the "beat the crap out of it" approach. It was a very scientific process and consisted of my lying on the garage floor and proceeding to beat the everliving crap out of the back of my tire, spinning it frequently to focus the force evenly. And, sure enough, it worked like a charm. Walmart confidently told me the next morning that they could not find a leak in the tire. Now, I'm no mechanic, but I'm confused as to how an air-filled tire can lose air to the point of going completely flat without a leak. But, they slapped it on and sent me on my way. I knew it would be flat by the time I left the parking lot, but it remains fully inflated almost a week later. The flat tire incident remains a mystery to this day. Jiffy Lube resolved my oil leak quickly when they tightened the oil filter, so my car is back to new...well, as new as a 1992 Honda Accord with 179,500 miles can be.

Now, as for the spider incident that Brandie mentioned in the last post, she did not truly express the sheer size and extreme intelligence of this spider. She did not adequately set the scene. It was probably close to 10 or 11pm one night when I went to put some Christmas boxes in the attic. I'm walking up the stairwell into the attic, when I look up to see that the light looks really weird. I stared for a second and realized that there was a large spider web between me and that light. It went from the one of the top stairs to very near the ceiling, so I immediately look for the spider who calls this truly impressive web home. Yep, there he was...sitting there in all his glory near the bottom middle of the web. I swear to you that this spider was looking at me, and he was one of the largest spiders that I have even seen. I quickly decided that I was not adequately equipped to tackle such a creature; I needed some serious gear, which would need to wait until the morning. Brandie mentioned hitting him with a shoe. Ok, since she never even saw the spider, she does not realize that this thing would have grabbed the shoe from me and hit me with it.

I headed up in the morning to check on my friend, and I swear to you that he had torn down his web. I had to look very closely to see that a small section remained near the bottom step, and he had created a new section in a slightly hidden area. Plus, he had vanished without a trace. This thing was developing into quite a formidable foe. I gave it about two hours or so and headed back upstairs. This time, I'm prepared with a flashlight to get a closer look at things. After much discovery, I found him hiding in a split between the stairs and the wall. If I can find him hiding in a split, it only further adds to the evidence of his sheer size. So, we headed off to Ace Hardware (great store!), where I purchased the largest bottle of spider killing spray that I could find. We returned to the house, where I headed upstairs once again. However, this time I was fully armed with the spray and a flashlight. I popped open the attic door and peered upstairs. There he was. He was sitting near his hiding spot, and I almost got the impression that he was awaiting my arrival. I crept toward him and nailed him with a blast of the spray. He instantly darted into his hiding spot, where I chased him with more and more spray. However, my adversary was never seen from again. In some ways, I feel he now resides in a nice grave under the stairs. In others, I feel he lives to fight another day, and when that day comes, I'll be prepared. It will probably be the same day that my tire mysteriously goes flat again.

Well, to wrap this up, I will let Brandie tell you about our first snow in Raleigh.

Happy weekend to all,
Tim

P.S. Yes, I was bored when I started this post this morning. Brandie was in class, and my buddy was asleep.

Still no Chef and other Happenings

Since our last post, we've been very busy. We unpacked many more boxes this past weekend and what did we find but more wedding presents. So, that means many more trips back to the store for returns and repurchases. We still have the mysterious random presents that none of the stores will claim as their product. Oh well. Here's a pic of Tim opening one of the many new cookware boxes.

Tim has gotten on a kick about everything needing to match. This means I must get rid of all silverware, old dishes, pots/pans, and glasses. Now that we have all of the new stuff, it must all match, or else! So, when you find 2 random knife sets as wedding presents that now match nothing, it causes a problem :). The worst part is that these aren't complete knife sets, they are just 4 steak knives in one and the other box was a single. Here's a pic of some of our new fun stuff!!


So, we will be hauling about 3-4 boxes this weekend to GoodWill full of my old stuff. Kinda sad to see it go, I must admit, but the new stuff is so much fun!!! Speaking of new stuff, we found this in our hostess silverware set - anyone know what it is?
Our best guess is a gravy spoon??



What else?? Oh, Tim's scared of spiders :). He was taking boxes up to the attic from Christmas and said he saw the biggest spider imaginable. It was then a battle between him and the spider, which the spider was winning because Tim wasn't going back up there. Of course, we had to wait until Tim's new favorite store (Ace Hardware) was open so he could buy some spray. I wish he had just wacked it with a shoe, but no, we had to get spray. Oh well, hopefully now the thing is dead. We have no proof that he died, but we know we haven't seen him in a few days, so we assume so.

Okay, so I've tried to cook a few meals since Tim's last post stating that I couldn't cook and fed him old food. I must say, I'm about to give up. I'm about 1-4 at this point on meals. The only thing that I've made that Tim liked was grilled chicken, and this because he covered it in BBQ sauce. Last night was REALLY bad!! I tried to make beef fajitas. WOW - not good. I went overboard on the seasoning and marinating and they were just awful. So, maybe I should just stick to grilled chicken - you really can't mess that up. I guess there is always take out or the old standby of Lean Cuisine, which right now both look like good options.

I guess that's about it. Just unpacking, buying new stuff, killing varmits, and trying to cook. That sums up the past few days. Talk to you later!

My Wife, The Chef

Hello again. I have a fun story from tonight that I must share. On arriving home from an overnight trip, I spend some time breaking down more boxes and throwing them away. Note: The pile of boxes is still quite large. Soon, my loving wife arrives home from the grocery store and proclaims that she is going to cook us a nice dinner. Sweet! Being a couple of days into a diet, I'm excited for some good food.


If you look closely at the picture, you will see Chef G's George Forman grill, which is where all of the magic happens.

I help her unload the car and proceed upstairs to change clothes. I come back downstairs to find tacos in progress. Having had tacos for lunch, my excitement wanes for a minute; however, as my wife is cooking, I'm still as happy as a kid on Christmas morning. I watch over the meat while Brandie takes care of the rest. We get everything ready and start to eat. I find it quite odd that my tortilla keeps ripping apart. No matter what I do, that sucker isn't staying together. Also, in tasting the tortilla, it is really stale. After being a bit confused, since I saw Brandie come in with a fresh thing of tortillas, I asked to find out that I'm eating the old ones, from "a month or so ago." Since Chef G's taco speciality is rarely produced, I already looking forward to the next round of stale tortillas. :)

Speaking of quick dinners, you will find a current shot of our freezer to the right. We have lean cuisine pizza, chicken, lean cuisine chicken panini, and again, lean cuisine pizza. This is not an exaggeration at all. After having consumed two month old tortillas and three week old milk recently, I'm slowly learning that my options in the freezer are not that bad at all.

If we ever have kids, we both agree that they are going to starve. :)

Fat Weekend and Back to Work

Well, we're back at work. It was very difficult to get up at 5:30am this morning. UGH!! I got so used to sleeping late that this is quite painful and no fun! But, I guess all good things must come to an end. Speaking of.....

Today also marks the end of "Fat Weekend". Fat Weekend is something that Tim and I like to call the weekend prior to a diet. During this time period, there are no rules. You eat whatever you want and as much as you want. Which for me, consisted of LOTS of chocolate, gummie worms, and pasta! Needless to say, fat weekend didn't help the already increased weight from the holidays.

So, today is "transition day". Basically, the diet starts tomorrow, so today is the ease into the diet day. Snacks are allowed, in limited quantities, since the first day back to work is just too difficult to go cold-turkey into a diet. All of this fat weekend will officially end and the diet will begin tomorrow. We plan to eat at the Cheesecake Factory tonight - one last indulgence before the diet.

So, I plan to do the South Beach diet. It has worked for me in the past, and I hope that it works again. Tim - I think he's going to do his own thing. Basically, try to not eat McAlisters everyday :).

Hope you all have a great day, getting back into the routine. And for all of those beginning a diet - GOOD LUCK!!

Day of Returns

Well, we've finally made it to the bottom of some of our moving boxes - YEAH!! Inside, I found many wedding presents that I had forgotten about - so that was fun!! We also made the executive decision to return some of our dishes in need of other necessities such as towels, kitchen gadgets, bakeware, and cookware. Needless to say, it was the day of Analon. Tim got overexcited about finding all matching kitchen gadgets, cookware, etc., so we ended up buying every last Analon kitchen utensil you can think of. Now, we just have to finish purchasing our cookware, and the kitchen should be complete.

Tim is just happy to have some of the boxes unpacked and all of the bags of goodies to be returned off the kitchen and living room floors. I got on a kick for a few weeks of searching for the perfect bath rug. I must have bought 10 or more rugs from about 3 different stores before I made a decision. Now, you might know that the one place I decided to buy rugs from only has the 1 size in store. But, thankfully, they have other sizes online, so I'm set!

On my list next is the rug for the downstairs bathroom - now that will be a challenge due to matching the shower curtain with the rug. I'll let you know how that turns out. But, hopefully it won't be as difficult as for our bathroom. At least this time I know which stores have the best rugs :).

I'm still on the lookout for our Cusinart toaster. I think it may have gotten lost in the move to Raleigh, who knows. I know we received it for a wedding present, but I don't know where it is. I'll be so excited though when we finally unpack/find that box!!

Well, that's all for now. Just a day full of shopping and returning. We got some good things though, so we're happy about that. Still lots more to go.....but it is a process.