The Pumpkin Seed Chronicles

Mike and I carved our pumpkins this morning.  I had purchased a pumpkin carving kit from the grocery store.  Both the cutters bent and broke right away.  What we really needed was the Pumpkin Carver tool that they sold back in the 80s.  Now that was good quality.  Not this flimsy crap they sell now.  We both opted for the classic triangle look, partly because using a kitchen knife made more intricate designs difficult.

My family always baked the seeds with a little salt on them for eating later.  Mike had never done this before, so I was excited to introduce him to this tasty snack.  I had heard from friends yesterday that they boil the seeds for 10 minutes prior to baking.  I decided to do an experiment.  I took half the seeds and just salted and baked at 400F for 10 minutes.  The other half of the seeds I boiled for 10 minutes, followed by salting and baking at 400F for 10 minutes.

The Verdict:  Tastes the same.  Save yourself the extra step and just put the seeds straight in the oven.

Much to my disappointment, Mike didn’t care for either pumpkin seed.  To me, they taste like fall and memories of being a little kid all amped up to hit the neighborhood for some trick-or-treating.

Boo-Rific Desserts, etc.

It’s been a long time since I’ve made a blog entry.  Facebook and the slow and agonizing death of my laptop are partly to blame for that.  Mike and I have been working on getting the office remodeled.  We have the bamboo floors installed, the desk built and I finished up painting the walls last weekend.  Pictures of the final project will be posted soon.  We still have some trim painting and install of the window treatments left to do.

We had a Halloween potluck at work today.  I made these scary cupcakes for the party.  I don’t know if it’s the economy or what, but the usual fervor surrounding Halloween seems to be gone.  It’s on Saturday night this year and it seems no one is dressing up or doing anything.  Mike and I plan to hand out candy to the neighborhood kids, then go hang out with some friends that live nearby.

We had our friends Sanam and Shantelle over for dinner last night (here’s your shout-out on the blog ladies) and we had quite a lovely time.  I served them our usual first time dinner guest menu, which is the Pampered Chef Chicken Ring and chocolate fondue.  We got a fondue pot for the wedding and I just figure, why not?  If we don’t bust it out for company, we’ll never use it.  It seems too elaborate for just Mike and I to eat.  Needless to say, we’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of all our wedding registry serving and entertaining pieces.

We’ll try to be more attentive to our blogging public.  The irony is that the busier you get and the more stuff you have to write about, the less time you actually have to blog.

My Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday, and despite still being sick, it was a really nice one.  I got a really great cordless drill with lots of useful bits for all of my building projects around the house.  This thing has so many cool features, including a magnetic tray for keeping screws while you use it.  I also got a small digital safe like the one we had in our hotel room in Jamaica, which is something I didn’t even realize I wanted, but now that I have it, I’m really excited about.  It will be nice having a secure place to keep our valuables now that I’m actually at a stage in my life that I have valuable things.  I’ll have to use my new drill to secure the safe to the wall.

After opening presents, we went to Maggiano’s for dinner.  They were having a weird special that let you take an additional meal home for some reason, so we have leftovers for tonight too.  When we got home, we each had a giant slice of cake before going to bed.

Thanks to everyone for their birthday wishes.

New Desk

Last weekend while Lisa was in Michigan visiting her new nephew, I finally got around to building my desk. The desk was built into the closet using plywood, poplar 1×4 boards, and a laminate kitchen countertop from Home Depot to give the desktop a more professional look.

Using a jigsaw, I cut plywood pieces to the desired size and shape, cutting slots for the poplar boards.

Then, I cut the poplar boards to the correct length and placed them across the plywood.

Next, I secured the boards to the plywood using metal braces.

Once the base was completed, I cut the kitchen countertop to the shape of the closet and placed it on top. I also secured the desktop to the base using metal braces.

Finally, I cut a few more plywood pieces to create shelves and drilled holes for dowels to support the shelves.

The project took about 5 hours to complete by myself, and I learned a lot along the way. Overall, I’m pretty happy with everything except the shelves, which I kind of rushed as I started to lose daylight. I will probably go back an redo them when I get some time, but for now it’s getting the job done.

Garage Door Opener from the Gods

My sister and brother-in-law just had a new garage door opener installed that I absolutely fell in love with during my visit there last weekend.  It’s the Chamberlain Whisper Drive Plus (model HD900D).  I emailed the stats to Mike while I was still in MI and he went out an bought it right away.  This afternoon we had the guy come and install it and I tell you there is no looking back after this!  Our old garage door opener was sort of half-broken.  Mike was constantly adjusting the tension on it because it would stop working about every other day.  It was also very loud and with the master bedroom above the garage it shook the whole room every time the door opened or closed.

The Whisper Drive Plus is, as you can guess, whisper quiet.  It also has external keypad entry, so when we take the bikes out we don’t need to bring the remote anymore.  That’s also good if you get locked out of the house.  The unit mounted inside the garage tells you the temperature and has a motion sensor so the garage light turns on when you walk in.  This is nice since our laundry is in the garage.  It also comes with a device that you can set to turn on an interior light when the garage opens so that you don’t walk into a dark house.  This is kind of useless since we leave the light on for the pup anyway, but a good energy saving tool for the pup-less household.

Greyson at 3.5 weeks

I made a quick trip back to MI to meet my nephew.  He is SOOOO adorable, I can’t even stand it.  If you want your head to explode with cuteness then click here to see more pics.

Recovery Time

Max looked so pitiful when I picked him up after his surgery yesterday.  He was all groggy and confused and had that ridiculous cone around his neck.  While he was sedated, I had the vet do a routine dental cleaning.  They found three loose teeth and pulled them out.  So in addition to his ear wart being cut off, now he has to recuperate from three molar extractions.

He was really whiny all evening and this morning.  Mike and I think he’s just milking it for attention.  I took the cone off right away and just watched to make sure he didn’t scratch at it.  He can’t have hard foods right now until his mouth heals.  I didn’t sleep much last night because I was worried about him, but he didn’t seem to have any problems.  I even worked from home today to make sure everything was alright.  He just plopped out on the couch all day, which is the same thing he does every day, so I guess I can go back to work tomorrow.

Another Medical Intervention for the Pup

Max is getting up there in years and as a result is starting to grow a lot of lumps and bumps, which are typical for senior dogs.  He started to get a little wart-like thing growing on his ear a while back.  The vet said this wasn’t anything to worry about and we should just monitor it.  At some point, this wart started to grow exponentially and the wart grew its own wart.  It is quite unsightly and has its own vascular system.  Aside from being gross to look at, it wasn’t causing any problems and I didn’t want to put the pup through unnecessary procedures just for something cosmetic.  This past week though, it started to bleed.  We’re not sure if Max scratched it, or it started to bleed on its own.  Anyway, Mike and I both agreed that if it starts bleeding, then we’d do something about it.

The vet concurred that it needed to be removed.  Max is scheduled for minor surgery this morning.  He’s already started his course of antibiotics and no food for 12 hours before surgery.  This has already caused a real situation as he demanded breakfast this morning and I couldn’t give it to him.

I’m dropping him off before work and will pick him up the same day once he’s fixed up.  He’ll get a teeth cleaning while he’s sedated too.  Unfortunately for him, Max will need to wear the cone for a while.  Poor pup.

An SUV convert?

My car is now in the collision shop and I got a Ford Edge SUV as my rental car.  I specifically asked for a pick-up, minivan or SUV since we had some large objects to haul around and I thought I’d use my time with a rental car to do this.  I have to say, I was always a hater of SUVs.  They are so big and gas guzzling and seemed entirely unnecessary unless you had a family or lots of gear to haul around.  Well I was wrong and can say that I love the Ford Edge. 

I love the commanding view of the road.  I also like the surprisingly roomy interior.  The vehicle looks rather small from the outside but magically transforms into a surprising amount of interior room.  The seats are super comfortable. I really never thought I’d find a seat more comfortable than the one in my Saab, but I’ve been proven wrong.  Also, the turning radius on this thing is amazing!  Granted, the fuel economy is not the best (the 2010 models boast 18/24 city/hwy) and it’s so large compared to my Saab.  I haven’t had any tricky parking situations come up since I’ve been driving it, but not sure I’d want to be driving this around LA where parking is at a premium.  I was worried it wouldn’t fit into our garage, but like I said, the car is actually rather compact.

With all our home improvement projects, the need for a car that can haul larger loads is becoming more pressing.  I was trying to convince Mike that we should trade in one of our cars for a pick-up truck, but now I think I might opt for a compact SUV.  It’s the best of both worlds, large cargo capacity but the comfort you want for longer road trips.  Neither of us are in the market for a new car just yet, but I may have become a convert.

Crash

It’s amazing that it’s taken 10 years in Southern California before this happened, but yesterday evening on my way home from work I was rear-ended on the freeway.  It was one of those situations where everyone is moving down the freeway at a typical clip and then unexpectedly the traffic slows down to a stop.  The guy behind me didn’t stop fast enough and crashed into me.  It was a big GMC truck, so he had just a minor scratch on the front bumper, while my poor car was in much worse shape. 

I’ve called the insurance company and hopefully this will all get taken care of smoothly and quickly.  The good thing was that no one was hurt and no other cars were involved.  The impact jarred me slightly so that I had a headache last night and my lower back and neck feel a little stiff this morning.  But the funniest part is that the impact seemed to have knocked off the heel to my shoe.  Ancillary damage I suppose.