Goings on
Hmm, once again I shall comment that I need to update this more often. I have had some things to talk about that probably aren't too interesting but they would at least constitute entries to this thing. Let's see if I can remember some of them.
One thing I intended to comment about is my pierogies. Some of you may know that balaam42, my brother, is quite proficient at cooking. I however, deem it a success if it isn't horribly burnt. For example, my attempt at biscuits one time. While they tasted pretty good, they were very dense and would have made admirable bricks. One thing I've always thought was quite good and very easy was a pierogie recipe that I found online. Very tasty fried in lots of butter with sour cream. I made a double batch last week with the intent of sharing with some neighbors or friends. Karin and I ate about a third of them and then put them in the fridge. Was quite annoyed when I got them out this weekend and Karin pointed out that it appeared the dough was molding. That was just very frustrating.
Okay, jumping subjects. Our gerbil Connor has been both very amusing and very concerning recently. He is getting huge variations in energy level. We were quite worried about him a couple days ago because he was walking around with a pronounced limp and was shaking and overall did not appear to be in good shape. Then, the next day, he's full of energy and seems quite animated so we get him out and play with him for a long time because he just seems to desire the activity very much. Then, once more he gets in bad shape and we actually see him spit up this big phlegmy glob of yellow stuff. We think it may be related to some new food that we got him, so we've just switched back to his old variety. More than likely, it's just old age, because he's an exceptionally old gerbil. Down to a single front tooth. It's fun when the vet gives you a discount on tooth trimming because he's only got one that needs to be trimmed. :-)
Memorial Day activities: I had big plans for this last weekend. I was going to go through and do the thorough spring cleaning thing. That did not happen. I managed to get a lot done in the yard yesterday and in general clean that up, but the inside of the house is about as bad as always. I just don't get motivated for that type of thing too often. I am taking a fair amount of pride in how nice the yard is looking this spring though. Less dead spots and weeds than other years in the house. The front yard is worse than the back though and I think that's silly because that's the side presented to the world. The back yard is lush and green and the creeping charlie appears to be losing the war this year after a couple years of growth.
Last week and somewhat this weekend was also some fun trips down memory lane. Kind of fitting around memorial day. My only concession to cleaning the house was going through some old items that my Mom had given me from their storage which consisted of all sorts of art, awards, report cards, etc from growing up. Some really fun things in there. For example, although Karin has never expressed doubt that I watched and enjoyed Doctor Who before she ever knew of it, I found a bio that Troy had written up and drawn quite a fat little portrait of me in, where my favorite television show is listed as Doctor Who. I liked showing that one to thatkaringirl. I also found my Sr Yearbook and that inspired me to make sure my info on classmates.com was up to date. While I would never pay them anything, I don't really have too much of a problem letting them have a bit of personal info if it would help someone else to contact me if they wanted. While doing that I noticed that an old classmate and former girlfriend of Troy was getting married soon. So in a fit of complete randomness, I gave her a call even though we hadn't had any communication in nine years. It was only slightly weird and it was fun to get to share some well wishes with them. The general goal of catching up with high school people makes me hope that Minnetonka has a 10-year reunion for my class next year.
Further on the topic of memories, my parents just converted all of their old videos to DVD, so I spent much of Sunday afternoon watching those. We tend to have mainly recorded several Christmases as well as sporting events and choir/band performances. It was really fun going through them and once again spotting old friends and amusing incidents.
Well, just wanted to log an update, perhaps I'll get better at updating reliably at some point.
One thing I intended to comment about is my pierogies. Some of you may know that balaam42, my brother, is quite proficient at cooking. I however, deem it a success if it isn't horribly burnt. For example, my attempt at biscuits one time. While they tasted pretty good, they were very dense and would have made admirable bricks. One thing I've always thought was quite good and very easy was a pierogie recipe that I found online. Very tasty fried in lots of butter with sour cream. I made a double batch last week with the intent of sharing with some neighbors or friends. Karin and I ate about a third of them and then put them in the fridge. Was quite annoyed when I got them out this weekend and Karin pointed out that it appeared the dough was molding. That was just very frustrating.
Okay, jumping subjects. Our gerbil Connor has been both very amusing and very concerning recently. He is getting huge variations in energy level. We were quite worried about him a couple days ago because he was walking around with a pronounced limp and was shaking and overall did not appear to be in good shape. Then, the next day, he's full of energy and seems quite animated so we get him out and play with him for a long time because he just seems to desire the activity very much. Then, once more he gets in bad shape and we actually see him spit up this big phlegmy glob of yellow stuff. We think it may be related to some new food that we got him, so we've just switched back to his old variety. More than likely, it's just old age, because he's an exceptionally old gerbil. Down to a single front tooth. It's fun when the vet gives you a discount on tooth trimming because he's only got one that needs to be trimmed. :-)
Memorial Day activities: I had big plans for this last weekend. I was going to go through and do the thorough spring cleaning thing. That did not happen. I managed to get a lot done in the yard yesterday and in general clean that up, but the inside of the house is about as bad as always. I just don't get motivated for that type of thing too often. I am taking a fair amount of pride in how nice the yard is looking this spring though. Less dead spots and weeds than other years in the house. The front yard is worse than the back though and I think that's silly because that's the side presented to the world. The back yard is lush and green and the creeping charlie appears to be losing the war this year after a couple years of growth.
Last week and somewhat this weekend was also some fun trips down memory lane. Kind of fitting around memorial day. My only concession to cleaning the house was going through some old items that my Mom had given me from their storage which consisted of all sorts of art, awards, report cards, etc from growing up. Some really fun things in there. For example, although Karin has never expressed doubt that I watched and enjoyed Doctor Who before she ever knew of it, I found a bio that Troy had written up and drawn quite a fat little portrait of me in, where my favorite television show is listed as Doctor Who. I liked showing that one to thatkaringirl. I also found my Sr Yearbook and that inspired me to make sure my info on classmates.com was up to date. While I would never pay them anything, I don't really have too much of a problem letting them have a bit of personal info if it would help someone else to contact me if they wanted. While doing that I noticed that an old classmate and former girlfriend of Troy was getting married soon. So in a fit of complete randomness, I gave her a call even though we hadn't had any communication in nine years. It was only slightly weird and it was fun to get to share some well wishes with them. The general goal of catching up with high school people makes me hope that Minnetonka has a 10-year reunion for my class next year.
Further on the topic of memories, my parents just converted all of their old videos to DVD, so I spent much of Sunday afternoon watching those. We tend to have mainly recorded several Christmases as well as sporting events and choir/band performances. It was really fun going through them and once again spotting old friends and amusing incidents.
Well, just wanted to log an update, perhaps I'll get better at updating reliably at some point.