Sore calves, three drinks and the Leaning Tower of Pisa

What a weekend!

Amy, my wonderful friend from the outskirts of Chicago, flew over to gallivant and chat and play. And, boy, did we ever!

We attempted a hike up to Starvation Falls in the Columbia River Gorge. Key word being "attempted". Half a mile of 50 degree switchbacks and we were dying for a more moderate path. After rock hopping across a stream,

balancing on some way too narrow paths and hiking up some non-quite-as-bad switchbacks, we rounded a curve and...

The super-steep trails started all over again. Ames and I looked at each other and said, "Uh uh. No way. Not happening." Waterfalls be damned.

This was the view from the trailhead. There were three other falls we'd planned on seeing. Joke's on us!

But while the waterfalls were nixed, adventures were not! We headed into Portland to visit Voodoo Donuts -- a Northwest icon. While the donuts were amazing and unique (maple bar topped with bacon strips) enough to warrant the visit, the place itself? Ummm.... think Haight-Ashbury in the sixties.

Not exactly my scene. But definitely hooting and hollering laugh worthy!

Saturday followed with lunch at Beaches, a visit to Ice Cream Renaissance for a Leaning Tower of Pisa (two cookies balancing on two scoops) and an enjoyable stroll through the northern section of downtown Vancouver. The only way the day could have been any better would be to finish it up with two glasses of wine, a super yummy dinner (Rachel Ray steak) and a Scrabble tourny.

Good thing we did that! We even tied at Scrabble. How coolio is that?

One of the things I'd most been looking forward to sharing with Amy was my church. The service, the pastors, the congregants... It's definitely another home to me and since Amy feels as strongly about her religion as I do mine, I couldn't wait to share it with her.

By Sunday afternoon, Ames and I were both so sore from our unfinished hike that we were moving slowly. It was the perfect time to throw together some chicken chili for dinner and sit down with some Ginger Snappish tea for another game of Scrabble.

The tea had turned into drinks by 4:15, though. I'd organized a get-together with a few of my local peeps and let's just say, fun was had!!!! That's all I can say. This is a family-oriented site, remember?
This is Amanda (of www.mandajuice.com), me and the Amesters!

And now Miss Amy is back at home, loving up her family. And I'm back to work (blah) and real life (good stuff). I miss her already.

My kids officially think I'm old! But maybe they're just too young!

I made them watch Fraggle Rock the other day. Remember Fraggle Rock? Cute little Muppet characters living beneath an old guy's workshop? They sang and had adventures and had the coolest, wisest sage ever portrayed on tv -- The Trash Heap.

Red had a pickle car which I thought was so dang cool when I was 9! I had a little plastic pickle car that Red was driving -- I'm guessing it was from a Happy Meal. I zoomed it all over the house.

The Fraggles had this awesome ability to share their sleepy dreams. All they had to do was touch heads before they fell asleep at night. What a fun thing to share! (Or, if you're talking about my random and often terrifying dreams, comforting.)

Fraggle Rock could not possibly be complete without the Doozers. They're these little 6 inch, bridge building dudes. The Fraggles, though, subsist on vegetables and these bridges. Losing all their handy work never seems to bother them -- job security, I guess. Gotta love the underlying message of optimism!

(Sorry this YouTube video isn't so hot. The higher quality video they had couldn't be embedded.)

Picture the mood in my living room as I turned on Fraggle Rock (available on Netflix for instant download, btw) for my family to watch during one of our very, very rare dinners in front of the tv.

I'm sitting in my glider, boogy-ing away, singing, hooting, lovin' every second of this show!

Scott watches intently. (He's seven years older than I am, so sadly missed out on the Fraggles. Poor him!) He's willing to give just about any tv show a chance, so he watched the entire thing before looking at me like I was slightly off my rocker (or glider as the case may be).

Hayley gets up and leaves half way through.

Emma watches, somewhat mystified. "This is kind of weird, Mom. You really liked this when you were a kid?"

Uh, yeah!!!! What's wrong with these people?

Fraggle's Rock!!! (Ahahahahahaha! I crack myself up!)

Dinner: Delicious and Damned

On different days, of course.

Monday's pot roast was a surprising success. I don't even like pot roast, but I was inspired by Ree Drummond's (aka The Pioneer Woman) appearance on Good Morning, America last week. I looked up the recipe and decided to try it. What the heck. It was Scott safe, so even if I didn't like it, he most likely would.


Hayley declared, somewhere between her third and fourth helping, that she wanted this pot roast on her birthday. Emma (after scraping the rosemary sticks off her carrots) claimed they were the best she'd ever had in her entire life.

Yummy yum yum. Mmmm mmmm mmmm.

(For the recipe, go to http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/recipe?id=9929955 or www.thepioneerwoman.com.)

And tonight's dinner, pork tenderloin and pan fried potatoes, well... I'm not exactly sure what to say.

I found a Rachel Ray recipe for pork tenderloin and I wondered at the cooking method -- 500 degrees for 18 min. Found a couple other recipes, though, with the same time frame so I decided to try it.

Let's just say it didn't work. 20 minutes. Still raw. 40 min. Not much progress. The photo below? An hour plus, just before I pulled it out of the oven.


Rubbed with garlic, salt, sage and olive oil, it smelled like heaven. And no, it's not your imagination. And no, I did not lose focus. Half of each little roast really is naked. Scott's stomach doesn't like anything clothed in garlic. (Dumb thing.)

Meanwhile... I lay paper thin slices of potato in my cast iron skillet and watched them turn crispy, crunchy deliciously brown before sliding them onto a plate. Scott was so excited to taste them... he just couldn't wait... Verdict? Good, but aftertaste is a little weird. True enough. It was. I think it was the vegetable oil I used.


They found a new home in the rubbish bin. *sigh*

So dinner, instead of a beautiful, flavorful pork roast, potatoes pan-fried to perfection and a vegetable I hadn't yet chosen, was...

pizza.

Angry. Angry. Angry.

I think I have a right to be angry. I think I have a right to be absolutely livid.

I finished our taxes last night. It's not good. It's bad, berry, berry bad.

And it's all because of our stupid, stupid company. I'm grateful to have had employment in this horrible economy. Don't get me wrong. But why did everything have to get screwed up?

For five months in 2008, we did not get paid. FIVE MONTHS. TWENTY PAYCHECKS (between Scott and I). It took more than a year to get that money, but we did indeed receive it. And believe you me, that was a happy, happy day in Delicious Land.

But here's the pisser, now that I've done the taxes. That money became income for 2009, even though it was earned in 2008. Now take a wild guess. What did that large sum of money do?

Yup. Put us right up into the next tax bracket.

And we get screwed again.

Not only did we have to pay a higher rate of tax, but we also did not get the full child credit. Normally it's $1000 per child. But because of our "higher income", we were only able to deduct a total of $320 for both kids together.

I should probably figure out exactly what our taxes would have been had we not received the large 2008 sum (and please understand there was no interest paid on that money). In an ideal world, I would expense the difference to the company. What's the point, though? That company, which sold all its assets and employees to the new company, has no money, so I wouldn't get paid back anyway.

Deep breathing. Deep breathing. Deep breathing. Deep breathing.

Make a Difference Monday!

Disclaimer: I'm borrowing this concept from KLOVE, the coolest Christian radio station out there. (www.klove.com) It's such a great idea that I wanted to extend the possibilities by sharing it with my Delicious Readers.

And sooo....

It's Make a Difference Monday! Every Monday, I'm going to encourage you to do something unexpected for someone else, for anyone else. You don't have to know the person. Or it could be the person you depend on most in the world. It doesn't matter. As long as you make the effort to make someone smile unexpectedly today.

I'm not talking a complicated or expensive random act of kindness here, but simply one that comes from your heart. Simply one that shares the joy of life with others.

Now I personally believe in God with my whole heart and I like to think that when I make a difference to someone, I'm extending God's love.

But even if your beliefs differ from mine, there's no reason why you can't spread a smile.

Not sure what to do or where to start? Here are some ideas just off the top of my head...

• Mow your neighbor's front lawn while they're at work.
• Leave a small potted plant on your co-workers' desks.
• Pick up lunch for a homeless person you drive by every day.
• Take an elderly friend out of the house for a couple hours.
• Take dinner to a busy friend.
• Compliment a stranger's hair or eyes or outfit.
• Have warm cookies and cold milk ready for a snack when your grade-schooler gets home from school.
• Surprise your teen by downloading a couple news songs to their mp3 player.
• Ask someone for advice (even if you don't really need it).
• Buy a box of Girl Scout cookies, then give it back to the girls to munch on while they're selling.
  

I'd love to hear other ideas you come up with and even more, I'd love to hear about the smiles you receive when you make someone's day.

Wanna know what I'm thinking about doing? I've got the carpet cleaners coming any second to revive my disgustingly filthy carpets. I'm going to make them lunch -- roast beef sandwiches, chips, a Coke and some Girl Scout cookies. How cool will that be? Maybe I'll even take a photo. That might be a little weird, though, so I don't know.

Now go forth, Delicious Readers!