Month: March 2015

New Glasses -or- At Least I Outlasted My Husband by Eight Years, lol…

So… I know I need bifocals. Gotta go through the whole appointment and frame choosing business. At the appointment, the news wasn’t as bad as I expected: I don’t HAVE to go into glasses full time, but can if I want. Interesting, no?

IMG_1467
…and how lovely does The Boy look in my old glasses? This is what happens when you leave your kid, phone, and personal items in the car while you step out to do something. Surprise photos on your camera when you return.
First pair of distance glasses from way back in September 2011. I really only use them for the theater and night driving...
First pair of distance glasses from way back in September 2011. I really only use them for the theater and night driving…

I decided to go ahead and get the progressive lenses since everyone who has them likes how they work IF these were their first experience with bifocals. I might as well face the inevitable! Off to Costco I went, to pick out a really cheap pair of frames since I am not planning on wearing these all the time. I’m looking for something on the loud or at least fun side of eyewear. I’m going with the “Go big or go home,” philosophy.

I’ll post an update in a week when the glasses come in. I did pick out an interesting frame for the new specks. In about a week I can look forward to tripping up and down curbs and stairs, according to my ophthalmologist, and The Husband can have fun with watching me get used to the new lenses. He’s had eight years of practice, after all!

New Menu Monday- Chicken Vegetable Soup, Beer Cheese Dip and Bread

www.aspicyperspective.com
Photo from, and links to http://www.aspicyperspective.com 3 Ingredient Beer Cheese Dip

It’s a New Menu Monday… I didn’t Change my basic Chicken Vegetable Soup, but instead of serving it with rolls or garlic bread, I tried a new recipe. A Beer Cheese Dip, yum!

The original recipe is from ASpicyPerspective.com, calling for three ingredients- pepper jack cheese, cream cheese and a 12 ounce bottle of beer. Not difficult to prepare, this was really nice as-is. The only change I made was to use regular jack cheese. I can see why pepper jack is called for (besides the tip off of the blog title containing the word “spicy”)… it needed a little something more. I added two teaspoons each of Worcestershire sauce and dry mustard, both standard cheese dip ingredients. The Girl loved it, but The Boyfriend and I agreed: too beer-y and needs cheddar. The Husband Approved, went for seconds and I don’t think that The Boy touched it. Chicken.

Chicken Vegetable Soup with Bread and Beer Cheese Dip
Chicken Vegetable Soup with Bread and Beer Cheese Dip

This really is a super easy dip. Cream cheese and jack are known for their meltiness, and really make this recipe. I’ll make it again, with pepper jack. And it is always fun to invent new words to describe food. Today’s are “meltiness” and “beer-y.” There will be a quiz at the semester’s end, study your vocab, students!

Food Tourism in San Diego- Big Kitchen Café

San Diego’s South Park neighborhood has unique shops, home after home of the quintessential California bungalow, and a boatload of eateries. One of the neighborhood and San Diego’s favorites restaurants includes Big Kitchen Café where you can stop in and enjoy some great grub. While you eat you can try, and fail, to take in all the memorabilia posted everywhere- from the Whoopie Goldberg signed wall (where she used to wash dishes) to the Jerry Garcia and Grateful Dead photos, and hundreds of personal photos. You will never take it all in.

Busker out in front of Big Kitchen
Busker out in front of Big Kitchen
Roasted Garlic, Onion and Potato Frittata. T'was yummy.
My Frittata. T’was yummy, with lots of roasted garlic.

We had a couple of good breakfasts. The Husband had good bacon with his biscuits and gravy and I really liked my roasted garlic, onion and potato frittata. The home fries were cripsy potato chunks with a generous amount of chopped herbs. Dee-lish. And halleluia, the coffee was fab, too.

I’m really glad a friend recommended this spot when we were looking for somewhere to eat breakfast while we waited for The Boy to finish an activity. Thanks a bunch to Deb E. for the suggestion!! We even found a great gift for The Girl at a shop next door…

See? I wasn't kidding!
See? I wasn’t kidding! Click the pic for the Amazon link if your family has as goofy a sense of humor as ours.

When you see a book titled “Farts Around The World,” and it comes with a sound machine, you just DON’T pass this stuff up (I think I will let her brother buy it off of me and give it to her for her birthday- it makes the PERFECT sibling gift, n’est-ce pas?). I can post this here, she never reads this blog, lol.

(I swiped the featured photo- the one at the very top- right off of the Big Kitchen’s Facebook page, don’t know who took it, but I definitely didn’t want to take credit for someone else’s stuff…)

24 bottles of wine on the wall… Sing Along with Me!

When we won the wine raffle after purchasing a single ticket at my son’s school (pretty neat raffle offering for a school, huh?!?), our closest friends also in attendance cheered. They were just as happy knowing we’d be sharing this windfall. Twenty-four bottles of wine in the cupboard, twenty-for bottles of wine… sing along, everyone!

That was the best $25 The Husband and I spent in a long while.

Among the most interesting bottles are Fallbrook Winery 2011 Cabernet, Hilliard Bruce 2009 Moon Pinot Noir, and Gros Ventre 2011 Pinot Noir. Multiple bottles of each, hot dog!

IMG_5701There is a potpourri of other wine varieties and producers in the batch. Represented are the sweet to the dry, the well known to the new to me, at least. I discovered a great website to help me begin to identify everything. WineSearcher.com allows you to type in your wine’s information, then returns more statistics than you will know what to do with- our two dozen range from $12 to $60.

The first I popped open was from one of our local wineries, the Fallbrook cabernet. I love me some cabernet sauvignon. This is a delicious cab, the tannins are already mellowing.

We hit the jackpot! I like wine, can you tell? I already had a good 15-20 bottles, so, we will now need to contemplate which is the lesser of two evils: wastefulness versus drunkenness- some of these whites need to be drunk up right away, after all.

New Run- Makes the Old Run Look Like a Kinderwalk…

I found out how to make a two mile run super easy- replace it with another run, a little longer with REAL hills.

Ouch.

The Running Coach/Husband is now introducing me to the foam roller. I hear that I’ll hate it, and love it at the same time. Sounds kind of like running? However, I understand that this 5K that I signed up for at the end of the month for my March Project has a bunch of hills. Yeesh. Hills.

At one point this summer, this guy was faster than me.
At one point this summer, this guy was faster than me.

The new run kicks my butt bad. How bad? So bad that I feel like I’m back to walking with this guy again:

Torrey Pines State Preserve... a nice place to run. Nice and FLAT.
Torrey Pines State Preserve… a nice place to run. Nice and FLAT.

It makes the recent triumph of running those two miles, straight through, like a stroll on the beach… When I make it to the top of that hill, about a half mile long, I’m running the next day on the beach. Barefoot.

Wish me luck!