It has been a busy, but good weekend. 🙂 It started out with a trip to Ace’s hardware. Mike wanted a bevy of things including, but not limited to, adhesive remover and screws. I spent my time at the hardware store in the cooking utensils aisle. Hardware stores are difficult for me. Difficult as in: I can’t find anything interesting to look at there. I have a list of stores that are the least interesting stores in the world to me. Lowe’s is at the top of the list, edging out Home Depot by a hair for the dubious distinction of being first in the list of stores I never want to go to. Ace’s hardware is better than both Lowe’s and Home Depot because it has a saving grace of a kitchen utensils section. I can usually browse the gadgets there until Mike has located whatever items he’s in search of. This time I found something truly exciting. It’s called a Brown Sugar Bear, and it’s a ceramic-looking bear-shaped plate. You can soak this brown sugar bear in water and then put it in a bag of brown sugar and it will keep the brown sugar from drying out and becoming brick-hard. You can also put the bear in the oven to dry it out and then put it in a bag with rice or other items you want to stay dry and it will absorb the moisture in the bag, keeping the rice or whatever else perfectly dry. The fact that I found this truly exciting says something about my level of expectation for excitement potential in hardware stores. In case you’re wondering, yes, I bought the bear. He was only $1.49 and I spend a lot more than that on brown sugar that gets thrown away because it’s rock hard. We’ll see how well it works!
Saturday night Mike and I planned to go to Paddy Coynes to relax after Mike finished building his computer, but Paddy Coynes was so crowded at 10pm that it was standing room only in there. So instead we went to Lunchbox Laboratory, a restaurant/bar right next to our apartment building. It worked out well. 🙂 We had a fun, relaxing time and lingered in the restaurant just to enjoy all the people there and each other’s company.
Today Mike cleaned most of his apartment. It looks MUCH better now! It got incredibly cluttered with boxes, packing materials, and computer parts while he was putting his computer together.
I wanted to do some work today, but I did some work yesterday and I just didn’t feel in the mood today. It was raining, and I walked through the rain to Whole Foods and back for groceries, so since I was all stocked up I decided to cook! Spicy pumpkin chili for me, and cilantro lime chicken tacos for Mike. Both recipes turned out fantastic. I actually modify the pumpkin chili one a lot (even to the extent of not adding any ground beef), so if anyone is actually curious to make it contact me and I can give you all the best modifications. Having made it about eight times now, I consider myself a spicy pumpkin chili expert. Rule #1, there’s no such thing as too much cumin. 🙂 The chicken recipe was incredibly easy, but very tasty, especially with the fresh lime juice! Mike really liked it. (Which is good, because I’ve still got a slow cooker full of it left… I think I’m going to turn it into a rice dish sometime around Wednesday, because he’ll be bored of tacos by then.)
I hope everyone else had a great weekend and feels recharged and ready to start the week!
rainydayrunner 