A Birthday, 4.5 Gallons of Sauce and the Waiting Game

Ken's 33rd birthday was on Friday. He wanted to celebrate it by going to dodgeball pickup, which we did. In true 3rd grade fashion, I brought 100 mini cupcakes for the group. Sad, since only 24 people showed up that day due to people saving their arms for the large tournament on Saturday. Ken took the rest of the cupcakes to the tournament the next day. They were eaten and his team came in 2nd place.

Meanwhile, I decided to get all the materials necessary for finishing the drywall in the basement. Have I ever done this before? No. Do I know what I'm doing? No. But the "How to" book said it was easy. A girl's got to learn sometime, right? I called my folks to tell them this and they laughed at me but were not surprised. I put the materials in the basement and, since it was a nice day, decided it was a good time to clean up the garden before winter when it would be too cold. I pulled up the tomato plants and put them in compost. But not before pulling off the remaining green tomatoes. Kinley ate all he could get his paws on and I was left with four giant buckets worth. Since green tomatoes kind of taste like tomatillos, I decided to make green enchilada sauce. I love enchiladas but the green sauce costs $3/can. Too expensive, in my opinion. So I roasted down the tomatoes, added onions and garlic, and ended up with 4.5 gallons of enchilada sauce. I canned the sauce while Kinley puked up his share of the tomatoes.

Sunday was Ken's Flag Football game. The "Sunday Touch Downs" were 1-4-1 for the season but ended up winning the whole damn thing to become superbowl champs. Way to go STDs!

So now it's Tuesday and I just received word that my grant has been reviewed and the score is posted. I went to the website to prepare myself for the bad news (very few grants are getting funded right now), but for some reason the number won't come up meaning I'm now waiting for someone from the university to help me so I can login to find out. Waiting, waiting.

Excited for Halloween tonight. I love seeing the kids coming to the door. Tomorrow is Wednesday Widow night -- while Ken and Eric play basketball, I am going over to Alyson's to drink martinis while we let the dogs play in the fenced-in backyard. Ken drops me off and picks me up. So by the end of the night, dogs are tired, Ken is tired and I am happy.

Hello, my name is Lisa

and I am an addict. Or a squirrel in a former life.

I don't know if was being gone for a week or the cold weather that has set in, but I can't stop cooking and canning food. I went full force all weekend and actually depleted my stash of empty mason jars in the process. I also roasted two chickens and 4 heads of garlic. Eating a roasting chicken on Sunday nights is a tradition for Ken and me in the fall/winter... nothing starts off a week like a good home-cooked meal. (Plus, that leaves lots of leftovers for easy weeknight meals). Ken made the gravy last night using the roux method, which turned out awesome, silkysmooth and lump-free -- easily his best gravy to date. He now wants to make the Thanksgiving gravy, which I'm quite excited about. When the cooking dust had settled, here's what we put away this weekend

Weekend Canning Insanity Totals:

5 cups roasted butternut squash soup

63 cups tomato sauce from the garden

16 cups potato leek soup

16 cups chicken stock (tonight)

Thanksgiving is tomorrow, right?

Weeks in Review

Just got back from a week-long SfN meeting in Atlanta. Good meeting but a week is a long time to be gone from loved ones. Here's an update of two weeks' past events and happenings.

In the past two weeks:

Ran irrigation lines to the parking strip -- We had to redo the sidewalk per city regulations. While we redid the concrete, we got to run conduit for my irrigation tubing (meaning I no longer have to hand-water any flowers in the front or back beds. Everything is on a timer connected to individually adjustable drip irrigation). Ken dug the trench and laid the conduit for me. Once the concrete was dry, I dug the irrigation trench, ran the lines and replanted all the plants (kept the ones that did great, moved the ones that sucked or were over-crowded). A long day. Meanwhile....

Ken learned to make applesauce -- While I was digging, Ken asked how he could help. Since they're tearing out the apple trees in the lot next door next month to build a duplex, I had him pick two stockpots of apples. "Now what?", he asked. "Core and quarter them." "Ok, then what?" "Cover them with water and a little lemon juice and put them on the stove on low". Congratulations, Ken, you just made your first batch of applesauce. I canned it with my pressure canner and we now have enough for a small army (or for a family of 35).

My paper was published

I lost my favorite jacket -- the black mountain hardware fleece I bought for our backpacking trip a couple years ago and have since worn practically every day since. I have even slept in it on multiple occasions, including the Hood to Coast race where a guy told me "it looks like you slept with your dawg". The mountain hardware website informed me that a replacement may exist at a local store and I am going to check it out after work today. Man, I loved that thing.

Ken joined a basketball league -- I know what you're thinking... we don't have enough going on especially now that softball is over for the season. Exactly why Ken is playing in a men's league on Wednesday nights.

I got MVP! -- Last week in dodgeball, we beat our 2nd undefeated team in two weeks. My dodgeball class must be paying off because I was voted MVP of our game. Caught more last week than all previous weeks combined. One guy's jaw dropped when I caught his ball. Even had a big bruise to prove it!

I am a mom (of sorts) -- Made my first stable cell line at work. I have 8 clones ready to be tested. Aww.

Kinley is back to health -- The medications worked and he's all healed and happy. I love that dog. Especially after reading Marley and Me. Cute book. Highly recommended.

Went to SfN in Atlanta -- presented my work, got to talk to colleagues and see old friends (including Julie, Taryn, Chuck, Dan, my undergraduate lab, my graduate mentor Gary and his new lab, and some folks I just met who also work up on the hill). I also got sick while I was there and have been sniffling ever since. I promptly crashed for 4 hours upon getting home but woke up for our game which was even more fun because...

Dodgy Slappers won again! -- We won our game last night, making it the 3rd undefeated team we beat in three straight weeks. The victory put us in the top 10. I even threw a guy out to win one of the games. I was excited. Final score 10-2. (Note: my teammates play much better than me, but I get excited about my small personal victories)

Events coming up in the next week:

Murdery Mystery Dinner -- On Saturday the 21st, a friend is hosting a murder mystery event. Everyone is assigned a character, including Ken and I. I tried to question him last night to see if he's the murderer, but he was evasive and looked the other way "pretending" to see if there were any cars coming. Hmmmm...

Home Depot Workshop for Ladies -- On Monday the 23rd from 7-8, I am joining a friend for "this free Home Depot Workshop for ladies only where they teach you how to patch a wall, install a GCIF (or something that starts with G) pluggy in thing, and fix a toilet leak". If you've seen my past wall patching, you'll know exactly why I am attending. I'm pretty sure patches aren't supposed to make the wall squishy.

Pumpkin Carving Contest -- Wednesday the 25th is a carving contest while Ken is playing basketball. I am quite capable of carving ridiculous things into pumpkins. But will it be enough to win the contest?

Ken's 33rd Birthday -- Friday the 27th. Yet to be planned, but I'm excited for it. Celebrating birthdays are fun.

Dodgeball Halloween Party -- In a league of 40 teams x 12 players, having a league-wide dodgeball party on Saturday the 28th sounds very fun. And messy.

Halloween Trick or Treating-- I love it when little kids tromp up the stairs in costumes on Halloween night. I'm pretty sure Kinley will like it, too. He loves kids. They taste like jam.

Sleeping in Chicago

Ken apparently reads the blog since he decided not to come home last night. Who knew that he didn't like cleaning the dog's ears that much?

Sadly, lots of rain and hail shut down Chicago's O'Hare airport leaving Ken stranded in the airport last night. He slept on a cot and hopped on the first flight out this morning. I haven't seen him since Thursday.

I also can't wait for him to see the paint bucketed dog. That should give him a chuckle.

Making a Dog Cone

Kinley only puked that once, happily for me. Ever since I've fed him 30 minutes prior to giving him his antibiotics, which he hates. However, a spoonful of yogurt is worth its weight in gold. One spoonful and I can get him to SIT in order to take his medication. Why? Because he knows he gets another spoonful after.

Bribery, yes.
Effective, definitely.

So Friday night was a bust. I spent most of the night looking after the dog. He seemed fined Saturday morning, so I put him in his crate to go to my class. Upon my return, I saw that he ripped open all of his tail wounds. sigh.

The vet was closed, meaning no "cone" for kinley. So I called Ken's mom who deals with dogs all the time. "Usually, I'd tell folks to go to the vet, but not my crafty daughter-in-law. Here's what you do." She told me to get a plastic paint bucket big enough to fit over the dog's head. Then, cut off the bottom of the bucket. Cut 6 holes or so around the small base of the bucket so his collar can be weaved in. Attach makeshift bucket-cone to said dog.

And then I started laughing. Oh, he looked so sad. Wouldn't move a muscle. Tail tucked with these giant expressive eyes that were so confused. It was so funny, I tried to take a picture but the camera was missing the CF card. But he's doing better now. I make him wear it at night and when I'm at work. He hates it, but it's effective. He's been sleeping most of the weekend. We went on a long walk yesterday. I think he passed me this weekend in terms of total number of hours slept. I am jealous. But I also don't have two raging infections wreaking havoc in my body, so I know I'm also pretty lucky.

Excited to let the dog out of his cone after work. He gets so happy when I take it off. Like I saved him from the horrible person who put it on him. Little does he know it's the same person. I try to explain to him why he has to wear it in the first place, but then I realize I'm talking to the dog again.

Ken gets back tonight. Just in time for Kinley's daily ear cleaning to rid the ear infection. Hooray!