Friday, January 13, 2012

Friday Night Menu Specials








Menu of the Day:

Tonight's Wine by the Glass: This wine is called Hestia. It's a Washington red blend wine from Woodinville and it is fantastic. A waiter referred this to me at Marzano's restaurant the other day and i loved it. I called my favorite wine guy and he ordered three bottles for me. It's $20.99 a bottle. (Worth every penny.)

For your listening pleasure: Gerry Rafferty City to City cd.

Literary pleasure: I am really liking The Leopard by Jo Nesbo. Jo (actually a guy) is from Norway and is being compared to the Dragon Tattoo writer. (If you like the Dragon books, check out Nesbo. This is my second one.)

Weather Forecast (and what i'm looking forward to:) SNOW this Sunday. (Hopefully).

What i'm thinking about doing: running a half marathon. I have a work colleague friend who is doing the Capitol City half marathon in May. I've run it twice before but not for 14 years. It might be just what i need to keep motivated. (Please don't hold me to this, i just like putting it down for the record, in case i do it.)

Things i've been doing differently: i have altered my neighborhood running route. I cut my morning bath routine too. (Now i only stay in there one half hour reading instead one one whole hour. And now i get to wake up each morning about 20 minutes later.) And i've got a plan to quit being a blonde.

What i wish would happen: The Republican candidate would just get picked already. I was wrong now i have to admit. It will not be Rick Perry as i predicted. (I made that prediction based on an interview i saw with Jon Stewart where he was pretty charismatic, before i saw him on the debates.)

The commercial i love to hate: louie will get this because we just talked about it last night. I HATE that Sarah McLachlan animal ad. HATE IT. In fact i can't even listen to her music anymore because of it. I just hate being manipulated in such a fakey way. Alyssa Milano does a similar kind of ad and i hate that one too. Like louie says, 'worse than those Sally Struthers ones".

My newer favorite shows on TV: Parenthood. (SO much like real life. This is a Ron Howard production. Ron Howard is like Tom Hanks. He doesn't do anything that's not good.) I also love Property Brothers on the HG channel.

The coolest person the planet besides the obvious pick, (Jon Stewart): Anderson Cooper (and Matt Damon too.)

Sunset time: (I'm going to try and remember to include this from weather.com each blog post to remind myself it REALLY is getting lighter now. Today it said 4:44 pm.

All time views on this blog (which is set to not tracking my own hits): This is more for me because i love statistics and numbers and want to keep track of how much blogs (including this one) are dying... Today's all time number:  23,701; Page views today = 18.






21 comments:

jojo cucina cucina said...

OK, because i love to research shit on Google i checked out Hestia wine and what the label means. Turns out she is a Greek Goddess, Zeus' sister. AND a virgin Goddess at that. No wonder i like this wine.

jojo cucina cucina said...

I just did HTML editing!!!!..... for some reason blog spot would not enlarge the photo i dropped in here even though i saved bigger. So i had to go in to HTML and edit the height and width myself - doing the math on paper myself increasing the pixels in proportion so it didn't make the photo wacky. I could probably make it larger still but i think you can see the label better than before.

amulbunny's random thoughts said...

I bought some not too expensive wine at Ralph's the other day and was pleasantly surprised. A nice white zin that the husband enjoyed. I've found some good whites at Total Wine and More that aren't an arm and a leg.

But no drinking for a while. The cyclosporine and the other stuff I take make it nasty for me.

Have had a long couple of weeks. Taking my mom to all her doctor's appts, sitting in the ER with her for 8 hours, she's much better now but she's still not tiptop shape.

I've got some bots making hits to the blog. Inflates all my numbers.

da bunny

jojo cucina cucina said...

amulbunny, THERE you are!
What are 'bots'?

OK, i might be sorry that i posted on Facebook that my first day of training i ran 46 minutes (11 minutes more than my usual routine) because there are 12 people who 'liked' it and 8 comments (including mine) and so now if i back out i'll be a chump!

I am going to try and do this - i like the idea of doing a big goal for turning 55 years old (which i will do 5 days before the race.) It would be pretty easy for me to train for a 10K, and i think i need a bigger goal so i'm getting into the mind set.
I just hope my knee and hip will take it. I have problem with one side sometimes so i'll making sure i switch my routes back and forth so i'm not always running on the same cant of the road which can give you those kinds of problems.

I have to say normally i don't run on Saturdays, and instead just hang around in bed watching HG TV or reading or napping. Today i seemed to have more energy. We have company coming for dinner so i've been busy with that. I love having company (Brian's brother Gary and his wife Sherry) for one reason is i can get Brian to clean his bathroom since it also acts as the main bathroom!

Everything's all cozy and i have a fire going because they lifted the burn ban. Candles and Van Morrison music.

Just getting through this gray winter. That's what it's all about.

It's been trying to snow today but it's struggling with the rain. Hopefully tomorrow morning! If it does snow, i'll put another photo. i LOVE the adventure and drama of snow. Our news folks are ridiculous about the breaking news of even a lousy inch of snow in these parts. It's a crack up to watch.

Where are EoDe and Sam? Saw you last post!

Jennifer said...

Surprise! I’m back! Since I’m too much of a TV person these days, your comment about Parenthood caught my attention. LOVE that show (as does EODE). It also comes from the folks that gave us Friday Night Lights, which was also perfect. And I have to agree with you that Ron Howard and Tom Hanks do no wrong. It’s no wonder they are friends and colleagues so often.

jojo cucina cucina said...

JENNIFER...... It's been a long time! I make no apologies for TV. There is a lot of good stuff on there. And i can laugh about my hours of HG channel watching, but i get lots of ideas about my house from that show and it has inspired me to do things like unclutter and feng shui my house to changing bed linens and colors, to designing and ordering custom made furniture. I wish i had a bigger place and more money to do more.

Parenthood is one of those shows that i like to DVR and watch two or three episodes in a row because one is not enough! I love every character, even the ones that are sort of irritating!

louielouie said...

My Sunday

After Church returned two pair of boots I ordered. They were short and the tops rubbed my anklebones. I need some black boots for pants but can’t seem to find any that fit. The only shoes I have to wear with socks are a pair of brown Cole Hahn loafers that are about 15 years old.

Drove north about 50 miles to watch a FIRST Lego League competition. It’s a middle school Lego-robot thing; the team from our middle school is the Ninja Nerds. That sort of says it all.

It was snowing hard once we got out of Tacoma, a ton of snow piled up in the school parking lot, driving was a little hairy so we didn’t stay long.

Shoveled the snow off my sidewalk and driveway. It’s important for me to clear off the snow even tho it might all melt tomorrow or new snow will seem like it wasn’t worth it.

Put the finishing (I hope) touches on a Letter of Direction. I spent all day yesterday putting all my documentation, meeting notes and so on in a notebook. I needed this info to build my letter around. This kind of thing takes me forever.

Confirmed my hotel reservations for the 3-night get away at the Oregon Coast in March for my sister, sisters-in-law and me. We have never gone anywhere as a group before or spent any time with just the 4 of us. Should be fun but I think we are going to need games and movies and other diversions.

Am about to settle down with the Sunday crossword and a Bushmills. I would drink red wine if Ron drank it, but when I open a bottle
I end up wasting the second half.

Plan to watch the Maiden Heist tonight. I don’t think it got good reviews, but with William H Macy, Morgan Freeman and Christopher Walken in it – it can’t be all bad.

Looking forward to tomorrow off. There is nothing I have to do. Editing some curriculum frameworks and getting some ironing done will make Tuesday better. Oh yeah, and I’m going to bake a ham. And some sweet potatoes.

Anonymous said...

It's me---EoDE. For some reason I can read your posts, Jo, but I'm having trouble accessing the comments, so I'll have to post quickly while I can. My favorite Christmas gift from my husband this year is a DVD set of the first season of Parenthood! I started watching in Season 2 but had never seen Season 1, so I am thrilled to finally see it---yesterday I watched three episodes back-to-back.

louielouie said...

Where are the snow photos?

jojo cucina cucina said...

EoDe i too am having trouble with accessing comments on my blog when i check it out on my netbook pc. I have NO trouble on the Mac. I probably need to change blog formats but i don't know how to do that without starting all over and it's not worth it. Blogger kind of sucks.

louie, i did take some photos but we don't have as much snow as you got where you are. But then we rarely do. It's disappointing because when we get snow you can usually still see the grass sticking up. Bummer.

I'm going out for a run in it. I just drove in it and it's not bad except for the arterial streets. Even so i still hope we have a snow day tomorrow!!!!!

louielouie said...

More things I like:
• Walking in my snowy neighborhood.

• Being home alone – Ron went to Seattle to see a movie with Em.

• Cooking shows – I’m watching one Chopped episode after another today. May do some ironing too; maybe not.

• I’m fond of NCIS marathons too.

jojo cucina cucina said...

I'm glad someone watches episode after episode of tv shows.

I put up the snow photos, but Sarah/louie if you have better snow photos email them and i'll them. Sounds like you got lots more. Hope we have a snow day from school/work tomorrow. I love snow days because i get the time off and i don't have to make it up! We've been having fires since the burn ban was lifted. I love having fires in the fireplace. We don't use it often enough.

I like running in it, it's something different at least than the regular rain or clouds. I always like when the weather gets really hot or really cold.

I am reading a great book by Jo Nesbo called The Leopard. I love having a good page turner on a day like today!

jojo cucina cucina said...

Snow Day!!!! Our schools are closed and so i'm home even though it's probably not terrible driving. However, it just really started coming down again. And tonight we're supposed to get up to a foot of snow or more.

I was up at 4 am because my husband gets that call every snow day and has to put the communication bulletin out so it takes me awhile to go back to sleep. So i'm happy school was cancelled. And it will be tomorrow too.

louielouie said...

Snow days are great. Thought I would be working from home today but –

Slept in until 7:00

Shoveled the driveway. Twice.

Went out to coffee with a friend.

Baked cookies.

Did the Sudoku in the paper.

Have a ham in the oven. Ham dinner in a couple of hours.

Although I didn't find my camera, overall a successful day.

jojo cucina cucina said...

Another Snow Day.... Way BIG too. No more grass sticking up either.

This is serious in your face snow. We woke up at 4:00 am with the college call. Only the first call this time it was Tacoma CC calling Brian to see if Pierce College was closing.

Funny that the two colleges don't want to be first to make the call. I think Pierce will be making the call this evening after 5 pm. But still TCC calls an hour ago to see what Pierce is doing. Brian told them he is very very sure that the Chancellor is going to cancel given the conditions. And when he got off the phone i laughed because i knew he was trying to get the TCC guys to call it first.

I've been reading a good part of the day. Then we bundled up and walked to Starbucks and the grocery store for some chili ingredients. We have netflix movies to watch too and our DVR or Parenthood.

Life is good. And so is my jojo chili.

jojo cucina cucina said...

I just added more snow photos which are more snowy than the previous ones. I like keeping a record for myself of what our news calls a 'historical' snowfall in our area.

jojo cucina cucina said...

The bottom photo was taken from our front door at 8:30am this morning as i was getting the newspaper. I tipped our carrier $5 for the month just the day before for delivering in this weather.

jojo cucina cucina said...

Snow Day tomorrow too. YAYAYAY!

Anonymous said...

Love the snow pictures--gorgeous!

EoDE

jojo cucina cucina said...

EoDe, and anyone else....keep posting even if you have to to it as ANONYMOUS. just add your name to the bottom.

It's been super fun, these past few days because it's so rare for us over here in the Pacific Northwest to have so many days. I haven't been to work since Friday and won't go back until Friday. I love it! And finally my husband's college has called school early so we don't have the 4 am phone call tomorrow. I get to sleep in. Yay!

Anonymous said...

Will do--I can't seem to tell when I'm going to be able to get in, so once I get here, I feel like I need to say something just because I can, LOL.

Enjoy your snow days and stay warm inside!

EoDE