Category: mi familia

Birthday fun

Laurie’s birthday was yesterday. I think she had a good day – despite having to work for the first time in many years on her birthday.
I cooked dinner and I think we found a couple winning recipes. They were both new to me and I did my own adaptations but I was pleased and we plan on holding on to them for use in the future.

We started dinner off with a chicken teriyaki stir fry. We laughed that I’m not one who normally follows recipes very well. I like to make my own changes and such but here’s the recipes with my notes added. I eye balled all the measurements so none were exact.

1/3 c. chopped onion
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/3 c. soy sauce
2 tbsp. salad oil (used a low fat cooking oil)
2 tbsp. white cooking wine
1 tbsp. honey
3 chicken breasts split

Combine onion, garlic, soy sauce, oil, wine, and honey; mix well. Arrange chicken in shallow baking dish; pour sauce over. Marinate at room temperature 30 minutes, turning several times. (I cooked the chicken breasts whole in a shallow pan on the stove and then cut them up after they were done cooking. After they were cut up I put them back in the sauce on low for a few minutes to soak up additional flavor).

Broil or grill while brushing with sauce until tender. Cook stir-fry vegetables and place on platter. Arrange chicken breasts over top. Makes 6 servings.

STIR-FRY VEGETABLES
1 tbsp. butter
1 tbsp. salad oil (same low fat cooking oil)
2 c. sliced carrots
1 c. sliced onion
2 c. green beans or broccoli (i used fresh snap green beans)
2 c. cauliflower or cabbage (i used cauliflower)
2 tbsp. lemon juice (i squeezed the juice from a full lemon)
1/2 tsp. salt (optional)
dash pepper
2 tbsp. chopped parsley

In wok or large heavy skillet, heat butter and oil. Add carrot and onion; stir- fry 3-4 minutes. Stir in other vegetables and stir-fry 2 minutes or cook until they way you like them. (i actually added all the vegetables in our wok as I finished cutting them up. then i turned on the stove and cooked them all together with the butter and oil. i also added the parsley to the mix in the beginning which added some fun color to the mix and kicked up the flavor a bit.)

Add other ingredients and stir. Sprinkle chopped parsley over.

For desert I had angel food cake with an orange sauce topping.
I have the recipe at home but I ended up changing it a good deal anyways.
I started with a regular store bought angel food cake.

For the sauce I used 3/4 cup of sugar, 12 oz. frozen orange juice from concentrate and 2-4 tbs. of corn starch.
I mixed the three ingredients together and then heated them in a sauce pan. I added a bit of water in the beginning and then stirred until the corn starch helped thicken the sauce, similar to gravy. I added several dashes of cinnamon to step it up a notch. And then poured the warm sauce over a slice of angel food cake and topped with whip cream.

Very delicious. The original recipe called for a can of mandarin oranges and peaches and only 6 oz. of OJ but Laurie’s not a fan of peaches and I forgot the oranges at the store so I adapted.

I had a glass of Pinot grigio that went great with the chicken and stir fry but became a bit bitter when drinking with the desert.
All in all I thought it was a great birthday dinner – we’ll just have to wait and see if Laurie blogs about it and says the same thing ;-).

We finished the evening off with a 2 mile walk down the Waxahachie Hike and Bike Trail with Presley. It was a great night for a walk and we tried out geocaching for the first time with a borrowed GPS unit. We’re still hoping to get our own for our wedding – hint hint.
We failed at our first two attempts: N 32° 22.344 W 096° 50.198 and N 32° 22.193 W 096° 49.850 but we probably didn’t search as hard as we should have. We were right in the area but quit because of the overgrowth and poison ivy in the area. I was wearing shorts and Laurie gave me strict instructions to not get poison ivy less than two weeks before our wedding.

None the less, it was a great evening and I’m looking forward to spending countless more birthdays and special occasions with the love of my life.

Taxes Taxes Taxes

Well I paid my share of taxes this year – I owed $500+ to the government thanks to a bad W-4 form when I went to work at the paper. Sure wish someone would have caught that a year and a half ago.
Apparently “head of household” doesn’t count unless you have kids. I would assume that as a single man, running my share of my household I would be the head of my household. The IRS didn’t see it that way and now they want me to pay them more money.
Sure hope it goes to a soldier needing armor for his Humvee or feeding a starving kid somewhere rather than useless government bureaucracy.
In other tax news I helped my dad finish some of his taxes with Turbo Tax with the help of Team Viewer. He was having trouble printing his return and I knew there was no way I’d be able to walk him through it over the phone. Especially without seeing it myself. So I walked him through the setup and we went to work and I had him back and running again soon.
Check out Team Viewer anytime you need to do family phone support. It’s free and your family members will thank you – so will your patience ;-).

Getting “taken” by “the man”

So moving is no fun – and we’re not even done yet.
Doh! I think we’ve got Laurie fully moved but we’ll be moving my stuff in over the next 18 days or so.
There are definitely some companies who are now on my “avoid at all possible” list.

  • U-Haul/Self-storage place on Highway 287 in Waxahachie
  • Planet Beach Tan in Waxahachie
  • AT&T

We’ve been “fighting” with AT&T since last Tuesday afternoon to get my phone service and DSL moved two miles down the road. I was tried doing the transfer online but they kept forcing me to accept an address with the wrong zip code. So finally after doing some Google searches (the numbers are not online) I was able to track down the proper number to call them with.
I got a hold of someone who assured me everything was inline for the move. My phone line (and DSL) would be cut off on Tuesday and the phone service would be re-established on Wednesday. The DSL was scheduled for installation on Monday (yesterday).
Wednesday afternoon I received a voice mail saying they couldn’t find my home in Cedar Hill.
I wonder why – we live in Waxahachie?!
I had to wait on the phone for 15-20 minutes so I could finally talk to someone and tell them I don’t live in Cedar Hill but in Waxahachie.
I finally thought everything was in line and they told me service should be connected later that day. Of course that didn’t happen.
I came to Laurie’s and the phone was still not working that evening.
I called again on Thursday and waited on hold again – and was assured someone would come to the apartment on Friday between 8 a.m. and 12 noon.
I waited. And waited. Big props to DirecTV though. They also said they’d be there between 8 and 12 and surprise – they were. The satellite service was up and running by 1 p.m.
By 1 p.m. AT&T still hadn’t shown up and I decided it was time to call them again.
I think I ended up talking with someone in India somehow before they gave me a number to “The former SBC, now the New AT&T.”
I waited on hold again and was then sent to their repair service. The repair service told me a ticket had never been filed.
Wonderful.
They promised they’d send someone out the following morning. Finally Saturday morning – four days after it was promised we had phone service at our new place.
Monday afternoon I showed back up at our new place to check the DSL (which we’ve been without since Tuesday evening) and surprise – nothing!
I was on the phone again for another 30-45 minutes trying to explain the situation and get something done.
Finally a manager guaranteed me the service would start on Wednesday (tomorrow) and we would receive a $25 credit on our phone bill for our troubles.
We’ll see tomorrow what happens.
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As for Planet Beach Tan – This doesn’t really have anything to do with moving but it’s happened in the last week or so, so I feel like venting on it as well. I seriously felt like a woman in a mechanic shop. I got the great idea to get a tan before my wedding day and honeymoon. I don’t want to scare people at the resort when I walk around without a shirt on by the hot tubs.
I only wanted a few sessions but somehow ended up with a month membership and $35 lotion.
$35 for lotion?! They looked at me like I was the most backward, hick, cheap guy in the world because I only used $5 sun tan lotion from Walgreens in the past.
Somehow, if I didn’t buy their lotion I didn’t care about my body, my future wedding, marriage, future kids or grandkids. They would all be labeled by my poor decision.
I have to admit. I should have done some sort of research on tanning before I went or took Laurie with me, but I thought, “Heck, how hard can it be. You buy a few sessions and get tan.” But apparently they took me and somehow I ended up paying for way more than I ever expected or will probably ever use.
—
As for U-Haul – yeah I don’t even want to go there. But let me just say this, “They don’t know what they’re doing when it comes to renting trailers and such.”
We planned to rent a trailer and because we were told it would connect easily to my pickup truck and/or someone would be available to take care of it if it didn’t.
Well the light kit didn’t work and no one was there who knew anything about it.
I was told to go to Wal-Mart to get it hooked up.
Finally, frustrated after several other issues, I gave up and just spent three times what we had planned with a 22′ U-Haul trailer.
Granted that worked out OK but it was the most frustrating experience ever – well other than trying to move my AT&T service.
So there you have it. My venting over moving.
I think I’m going to do everything I can to just stay in the building we’re in for the next 10 years.

Great party fun

My favorite photo website, Photojojo has some great ideas on games and party projects to play with your snappy digital camera.
Jump for Joy
There are some fun ideas here to get everyone involved and maybe make some new friends. Using Flickr afterwards to share the photos can be even more fun. I think I’m going to recommend these ideas for our community 2.0 leaders to use as ice breakers.
Check the link for five great ideas.