Category Archives: Daily

 

This was the Calamari we had at Bruntwood Tavern in Cuyahoga Falls. We went there on Sunday for the happy hour drink and appetizers. They were all great. The snow was coming down outside, a very wintery day. I imagine the scenery would be great in the summer time, the cuyhahoga river was right next to the bar side.

 

We went to Eddy’s today for brunch. I had a cobb salad. It was full of all kinds of vegetables, olives, feta, grilled chicken but no bacon which is a plus for me. I am one of the odd ones that don’t like bacon. The salad was huge and I managed to eat half of it and brought the leftover home.

Tido did his early morning routine at 4:30am, woke up and tried to wake Leo up. We are still not sure if he wanted food or just out of habit, but he won’t quit until Leo gets up. So I got up and brought him to his food, he then ate and stopped bugging us. I however had another night of interrupted sleep. Didn’t go to bed till 1am. So after staying up with Tido and a cup of coffee after Leo walked Benny, I drifted back for a short nap and woke up at 10:45. I need to get myself into a better sleeping pattern. I know I need a lot of sleep, uninterrupted preferred, but I haven’t been able to get a good long sleep at night most of the time. This makes a day interesting. I usually lose my steam in the afternoon and need another nap. Then I won’t be tired till late night again. Vicious cycle.

 

This was a dinner on Super Bowl Sunday at Tim and Connie’s. Early afternoon, Connie called to catch up. And she asked if we were doing anything for the Super Bowl. I said Leo was going to watch it but we had nothing special planned for the night. She invited us over for a pot roast dinner. And we gladly accepted the invitation. Brought a bottle of red and a cheese cake and we went. The weather has been bad for a while and we’ve been cooped up inside and were glad to get out of the house actually. The dinner was delicious and we had a good visit with each other.

Since I was last there, Connie had a granite counter put in and redid her drapery in the living room and totally changed her sun room setup. She always has some project going on, if not painting then something else for certain. She also painted the kitchen area. Her house is immaculately clean and showroom ready any day. I wish I am half as talented as she is in interior deco and as hard working as she is in cleaning.

She also has two new cats I’ve not met. They are adorable. Forgot to take some pictures though. One of them is a black and white long haired cat. She likes to sit on her scratching stand with her front legs crossed and watch us in the kitchen. She would wag her tail if she sees you talking to her, just like a dog. She’s very friendly.

We stayed pass the half time and it wasn’t very interesting a bowl game and we went home. It was a good visit with Tim and Connie, and it has been a while.

Had a lesson with Daniel today and it was very good. His enthusiasm for dancing really comes through in his lesson. He is giving me motivations for dancing again. But boy do I feel the muscles in my back afterwards. I’ve been lazy since Christmas and it shows. I am definitely out of shape now.

Plus, I was starved when I got home. so we went to El campesino for a Mexican meal. I had my usual seafood chimichanga and again I forgot to take a picture when the food arrived. Only afterwards when I was putting the leftovers in the box.

 

We went to Lih-Wah for a delicious dim sum lunch. Of course, I forgot to take a picture of everything we ate, which is a good thing cause we ate a lot! It has been a while since we last visited them. And I’ve been craving for dim sum since before Chinese New Year. But we know better now to avoid that place at Chinese New Year. One year we went, the line was all the way out the door to the entrance of the building. Plus there was the Line and Dragon show also. We quickly left and went down the street to a less crowded restaurant. This year, we chose to go a lot later. Still, the parking situation is horrendous. I circled twice before we decided to park on the street. According to L, it’s a nightmare trying to find a parking spot near Lih-Wah now.

After lunch, we went to Coco Bakery down the street. This is where we bought a nice cake for Thanksgiving last year. That was the last time we went up there actually. We had some pastry and a hot bubble tea. It was yummy and L posed for me. I was very tempted to go up and ask the owner if he can give me a lesson on baking bread. But I didn’t have the courage to do that this time. Maybe next time.

We are on our way to Bravo at Summit Mall. First stop however is at the Apple Store to get an adapter for the ipad to get photos off of the camera’s SD card. I asked if it will work with the iPhone, and the girl said yes. Actually, it doesn’t. It only works for the iPad. Fortunately, it is what I want it for anyways. I can get the pictures on my Sony NEX 7 to the iPad, uploads it from a script in Editorial, and start my blogging work flow that way. Leo’s picture was uploaded this way here.

 

Merlot, bread and dip, a fantastic way to start our lunch as L tried to open the thunderbolt adapter we just got from the Apple Store.

 

It was a good lunch. However, I forgot to take a picture of it as usual. When food arrives, the only thing in my mind is to attack it and the documentation went out the door. 🙂

A nap in the afternoon, and now after a simple dinner of vegetables, cheese and bread, I am ready for the night. This is when I am truly awake and can work on my projects usually.

Earlier today, I called our GI office. Both L and I tested positive for the fecal test. So our family doctor wants us to see our GI. That was Monday. And we haven’t heard from our GI still today, Thursday. So I called. The receptionist was not that helpful. Basically, she was telling me that it usually takes a month to schedule an appointment with the doctor and the only other way is a phone interview to get the colonoscopy going. I explained our planned trip at the end of March. That didn’t seem to matter at all to her. She just repeated the same things over again as my options. I feel that the doctor’s office seem to have the same mentality. It was like this when I had the stent put in. The doctor and his nurse promised that we’ll get it done before our planned vacation and I will be able to go. Ya, right. They just simply said that I wasn’t allowed to travel for at least 1 month after. Not sure why they had that confidence in the consulting stage. So hopefully, we can still make our trip to CA and ATL in April.

Started a new knitting project. Found a lace pattern called ‘Tiger’ I like in Barbar G. Walker’s “A second Treasury of Knitting Patterns”.

 

And with the self spun white lace yarn, I set out to knit a scarf. I really like knitting lace. And color knitting. I’m glad there is something to knit again. My sock knitting for gifts ended at Christmas and I’ve been in hiatus since then. Really been itching to get back to knitting lately.

 

 

Right after we ordered the new dishwasher, our old one died, which was a good thing when the new dishwasher arrived a week earlier.  The two men took no time to install it and carried the new freezer down the stairs to the basement.  We are all set.  New dishwasher is a Bosch 800 series.  Our old one that came with the condo was not a very good one.  Dishes often came out with food stuck on them and eventually I threw out the set of correlle dishes that all have red stain at the edges and bought new china plates.  Now supposedly, we don’t even need to rinse the dishes.  We still give them a quick rinse, but not so worried any more about staining them in the dish washer.

So here they are. The baguette is ok but the recipe for the Chinese bread produced a superb bread. Even though it was baked in a slightly higher temperature than it should, the texture and the taste is good. I think both bread were a bit over baked. So the next time I will try to take them out sooner.

Boy, bread can fill you fast. We had the baguette with a mixture of basil, tomatoes and mozzarella with olive oil and Parmesan. Also some raw vegetables of cauliflower and seedless cucumber and prosciutto with garlic hummus as a dip. It was a great dinner.

Now belly is full and L fast asleep, I’m watching something he had on, “the legend of Mick Dodge”. its about a man living in the Forrest in
Washington state. It’s kind of ironic that such a man would allow the national geographic camera follow him around. Nevertheless, it’s pretty interesting to see how he lives in the forrest navigating though the wilderness. not something I can ever try. But I admire people like him that could.

Got a phone call from an old friend from Lubbck. Lih-er has such a good memory, she remembers people I barely can bring to my mind. She told me some stories about these old friends. And then at the end of the call, she told me she has got a great recipe to make a loaf of Chinese sandwich bread. And she had great success with it. I’ve been trying to make our own bread and haven’t been very successful. So when Lih-er sent the recipe today, I went to the grocery with L and bought the ingredients. Spent the whole afternoon making bread. I also found a baguette recipe from watching Laura in the kitchen youtube channel. Ordered the baguette rackfrom Amazon as she suggested and it arrived today. So there are two bread rising right now.

Can’t wait to bake them up and taste them to see how they turn out. So impatiently…..

Later:  The baguette is very good.  They didn’t rise as much as I thought they should.  I used all purpose flour as opposed to the 00 italian flour.  I wonder if I should try the bread flour next time.  Maybe I will.

 

Lunch at Aladin’s Eatery in Hudson today. Trying to eat healthy and went for vegetables. The foule was always too sour for me, L liked it though. The Loubie is a beans, tomatoes and garlic dish. It’s OK for me.

I’ve been taking pictures for blogs for a few days using my Sony NEX 7. But I never made it to the computer to import the images and upload to the web server. Finally I had to admit that blog with iphone photos is the way to go. It’s for documentation not for artistic master piece so stick to the workflow I have worked out on iPad is the smarter move. And therefore, this blog.

 

Got errands to run, Petsmart, sam’s.  In between we stopped at O’Charly’s and had a $10 bottle of wine and some delicious food.  Salmon for me and Pot Roast for Leo.