22
Nov
09

Stressed, Yet Thankful

 

What a week it’s been.

Woke up in the middle of the night on Wednesday to the sound of one of our cats throwing up. I got up and found what looked like a massacre in our hallway – vomit everywhere, plus spots of bright blood all over.

I won’t go into any more of the gory details but to make a very, very long and traumatic story shorter, she just got home from the hospital today. Our vet here had seen her first & realizing the gravity of the situation, referred us to the University of Madison Veterinary School of Medicine. We took her there on Thursday & the poor little girl has been prodded, poked, shaved, operated on, and a whole lot more.

Not to mention that I have been a crazy, hysterical mess worrying about her.

But today we got the okay to go get her, so, though we sadly missed a family Thanksgiving party we’d been planning on attending, happily we got to go to Madison and pick up our baby.

She is now home, accompanied by an arsenal of meds, and trying to rest peacefully.  We will actually have to give her fluids with a needle and a bag starting tonight, which I have to be honest is a little scary. But Doctor Chon at the University is amazing, so I think we’re as ready as we can be.

She’s an amazing cat, so I have faith in God that he’s watching over her.

16
Nov
09

Another Great Sunday

Grabbed some Dunkin’ Donuts coffee after heading out of the house first thing this morning.

Stopped at a ton of dealerships and checked out some new rides – we agree on most things car related, so no problems there, even though I’ll be paying for it and I’ll be driving it, for the most part. I found a number of possibilities, so now it’s just a narrowing down process. I’ve only done a test drive on one, which was yesterday & I took Jim by this morning to see it. He likes it, but it’s a bit more than I’d like to spend.

Let’s be honest – it’s all more than I’d like to spend since I’ve gone so many years without a car payment. And I absolutely refuse to buy brand new as I think that’s an incredible waste of money. I did it with my Hyundai, but I’d never do it again…why do I want to pay $10,000 for depreciation the minute I drive it off the lot?

Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.

Leasing is another great waste of money, so I decline.

So, I found some great deals yesterday and today…just have to do some test drives and do the banking end of things…it’s the details that drag me down with all their tediousness.

Of course we dropped the Hyundai off this morning – I’ll see what it costs to get her fixed and just do it. (barring any multiple thousand dollar repairs). She was a VERY smart investment – one of the better ones I’ve made – and worth every penny. Let’s hope I do as well with my next vehicle.

Oh, and the Vikings? They won, of course! I’m starting to really dig this Favre guy…tough for me to say, but true.

Jim grilled us up some awesome filet mignon’s last night – we had rosemary potatoes and roasted tomatoes and jalapeno’s too…unbelievable how great he is on the grill! It’s marinated pork chops tonight, I think…they’re ready to go, so what the heck!

Sunday, Sunday.

13
Nov
09

Time for a New One?

So my car decided it was tired of shifting last night.

Stopped at CVS & when I got back in my car to come home the shifter wouldn’t move from the Park position.

Lovely.

Luckily my trusty little Hyundai has a shift lock override feature, so I was able to get home. The minute I parked it, shut it off & restarted it though, it did the same thing.

We’ll see how much THIS costs to get fixed. I’ve been super happy with this little car – not a major problem ever in almost 12 years of ownership…can’t beat that.

But the little girl is looking a little rough around the edges, so it may be finally time to start shopping for a new one.

Hopefully I can get her fixed and she’ll get me through the winter, though.

*sigh*

 

07
Nov
09

Brio Restaurant Review

I’m going to be honest with you here – we love brio. We have had a great experience each and every time we’ve been there and we recommend them to everyone we meet. Paul and his crew are amazing – they’re friendly in their service, innovative in their dishes and make the place a fun, relaxing place to be. To us, they are the best place in Rockford, IL to go for a great meal, a great drink and a fun night downtown.

When the topic of wedding caterers came up brio was my first choice, but I have to have full disclosure here and tell you that we considered some others.

Five Forks was one of the other front runners – until I actually spoke with them. The woman that I spoke with (and I’ll be nice here and not name names) could not have been any less helpful if she tried. After telling her the style of wedding we were planning, the number of guests that we expected and that we’d been to her restaurant and were familiar with her menu, she asked me the date of our wedding. After giving her this info, she informed me that she wasn’t sure they’d be available, as they were in the process of opening a second restaurant.

I told her, well, this is when we’re planning to have it and if it’s something you think you can do, please call me.

So then she asked me our budget.

Are you kidding? First off, if you can’t cater our wedding on the day we need you to, what difference does our budget make, right? So I told her I’d like to meet in person to discuss this and she told me to look at their menu on-line, familiarize myself with their menu and their prices and call her back.

SO, I informed her, ONCE AGAIN, that we’d been to her restaurant and were familiar with their menu – could they meet with us or not?

She told me that she would have to speak with the chef and call me back.

Annnnnnndddd…She never did.

Classy.

As often as we tell people to go to brio, we tell people not to bother with Five Forks. Oh, and we haven’t given them any of our money since.

And our budget? Yeah, that went brio.

We’d been to brio a number of times before actually calling them about catering our wedding, but we’d never actually met Paul, the owner, until he sat down with us. We were impressed immediately by his involvement from day one.

Paul went over the menu that we’d chosen from the ones that they had sent us. He asked a lot of questions and offered some advice, alterations and cocktail suggestions, and we walked away feeling like he truly “got” the style of wedding we were shooting for. When I met at a later time with Karen, she was exactly the same way – helpful, offering great suggestions and incredibly friendly.

Jimmy and I had to do some number crunching, but in the end, we knew, that the food had to be a special part of our big day – we both love great food and we really wanted it to be something that our friends and family loved.

And boy, did they love it.

The biggest hit of the evening was the duck with organic apple and brandy sauce – the plates of this dish disappeared as fast as they could bring it out. (and we were afraid that people would shy away from duck!)

The shrimp with Asian slaw on fried won tons went so quickly, that at one point they had to just bring them out in Chinese spoons instead of on won tons. And the shrimp and scallop ceviche that was supposed to be served in Chinese spoons & was, was a big, big hit.

From mussels with saffron rice, asparagus in phyllo, grilled veggies with herbs and olive oil, imported cheese and olives, rare tenderloin with beet-horseradish mousse and so, so much more, everything was just amazing.

And, if you’ve read our previous posts, you’ll know that the feel of the evening that we were searching for was more of an elegant, cocktail style reception. It was important to us that everyone kept moving around and mingling, as opposed to a more formal, stuffy, sit-down dinner. Paul and Karen walked me through Brigg’s Mansion at one of our meetings and had a lot of great ideas and made a number of fantastic suggestions. Food stations went in almost every room in the mansion and when Jim and I walked in the night of our wedding, the food displays were amazing. I’d love to say that they looked almost too beautiful to eat, but if you’ve ever eaten brio’s food (and if you haven’t you need to get there NOW), you’ll know that not eating anything was not an option!

We have never been to a wedding before where so many guests comment on & compliment the food as they did that night. Everyone was raving and each guest had their own favorite dish that they had to tell us about.

Jim and I were absolutely thrilled.

The service was amazing – every server and bartender was incredibly friendly and helpful. And efficient? Crazy efficient…that food came out so fast it was mind boggling. And our bartender engaged everyone, danced along with the music and made everyone there feel comfortable.

Oh – and if you recall, we decided that we weren’t having a wedding cake – the two of us are not huge cake eaters, so Paul had made some suggestions.

Yeah.

I’m not even sure if brio has a separate pastry chef or if the chefs just know their desserts, but holy cow.

Key lime & lemon tarts with fresh berries, caramel vanilla cream puffs and chocolate pecan praline petit fours…amazing. The dessert table was a huge hit – everything was so incredibly decadent that I can assure you, no one missed having cake that night. I’d recommend having some of these treats even if you are having a cake, because these desserts will blow you away.

From the day we called about helping with our big day to the thank you card we received a few weeks after the wedding, we could not have asked for a more perfect caterer.

Brio rocks.

02
Nov
09

Bud Light Real American Heroes

Vikings Rule…Green Bay showed their true selves today while they booed the man that served them well for 16 years…and guess what? They lost.

To start the day, the Bears handed it to Cleveland…very nice.

Good day for football…loads of fresh mussels, ice cold beer and both our teams winning. Go us.

While watching the games today, Jimmy & I got to remembering the old Bud Light commercials that they used to play on the radio a few years back. We did some searching and found that we obviously aren’t the only ones who thought the Real American Heroes series were hysterical. They were all over You Tube, but then we found that Bud Light had their own site for them.

Mr. Furniture Assembly Manual Writer is one of our favorites, but we’ll let you pick your own…

Bud Light Real American Heroes Commercials

You’re welcome.

31
Oct
09

Mwa Ha Ha

Here’s the amazing display of our pumpkin carving skills:

Halloween 2009And the roasted pumpkin seeds are DEE -licious.

Happy Halloween!

30
Oct
09

Pizza – It’s What’s for Dinner

Guess what? It’s raining again! What a surprise.

Jim and I made homemade pizza on Sunday and it came out AWESOME.

Homemade Pizza Homemade Pizza 2We made our own dough & then loaded it up with a ton of fresh veggies and just a bit of sausage…looks good, huh?

We’re carving pumpkins tonight – I roast the seeds, which is Jim’s favorite part of the ritual.

Aside from taking care of some sick pets this week, it’s been pretty quiet. We did go down to the Irish Rose to see off Jim’s cousin Laura on Monday – that’s always a fun group. We hung out and had dinner and some drinks, then swung by the Lombardi on the way home.

Not much happening this weekend – tomorrow is Jim’s favorite day of the year & I’m not talking about Halloween! He loves “Falling Back” an hour, so he gets an extra hour of sleep. I’ve ordered us some fresh oysters to celebrate the day – can’t WAIT!

And then there’s that whole Green Bay / Vikings game on Sunday – Vikes beat ‘em once, so let’s hope they can do it again! We’re still one of the best teams in the league right now!

23
Oct
09

Go Away

Seriously, if all this rain doesn’t stop I may simply go mad.

It’s depressing, I tell you.

More duplex drama this week – can I just get a tenant that can pay their rent on time? Is that too much to ask for?

Jim and I had to drive down to Rockford last night, to see if we could get one side to cough up some rent. Never a fun evening, but we rectified it by stopping for Mexican food before coming home. Nothing like steak tacos with onion and cilantro and a big margarita to make things a little brighter.

Jim was not as thrilled with his dinner, sadly…lucky for him, I saved him a taco for lunch today.

All I can say is thank God it’s Friday…it’s been a trying week.

Fish dinner with my parents tonight…that will be fun.

I desperately need to clean house this weekend.

And get my camera out and play…I haven’t really had a chance to fool around with my newest digital and I’m dying to!

Will everyone pray for sunshine with me?

Please, right now.

17
Oct
09

Saffron Crocus

Our saffron crocus has started to bloom!

I planted the bulbs just last year and was told by the garden site that I ordered them from that they were not hardy in our particular zone. I wanted to give it a shot anyway so I ordered them in, planting half of the bulbs in a container (which have done nothing) and half on a sunny, sloping hill close to the house. I thought that if I planted them in a well drained spot and in a sunny area close enough to the house to keep them from freezing solid that they might stand a chance.

I guess it worked – for this year, anyway.

crocus, etc 102They smell just absolutely divine and their color is amazing.

There are still some that have yet to bloom, but the time period to harvest them for the saffron threads is short, so I picked the ones I could.

saffron threadsIs that beautiful or what?

Jim and I are pretty excited.

13
Oct
09

Bye, Bye Garden

Jim and I pulled out all the veggies from our garden Friday night…always a sad day. We got a ton of eggplant, sweet peppers, hot peppers, and a few rogue tomatoes. I canned the hot peppers on Sunday – I stuff them at the holidays with prosciutto and provolone. Yummy.

We had a great time at Cru on Friday evening with Sue, Sarah and Laura. It was nice to see Damien again (haven’t seen him since Bacchus days) and it’s a cool place he’s got downtown. We all shared some apps – crab cakes with cilantro pesto and a cheese plate that our server helped us put together. They’ve got an awesome selection of wine, of course, but they also have a great variety of micro-brews. I had a flank steak with hoisen sauce – the sauce was good enough to bathe in – and Jimmy had chicken pancetta meatballs that were really tasty.

Saturday was vet day – Zeus and the girls had to go in for some checkups. Then we ran into Rockford to say goodbye to some friends that are headed back to Florida for the winter. Saturday night we opted to just stay in – I made some butternut squash soup & we relaxed for the evening.

Sunday was project day – Jim tackled some of the lower level and I dug up our canna’s for the season. We made loin lamb chops Sunday night – Jim is the ultimate grill master – and I sauteed up some fried green tomatoes. Along with some rosemary potatoes and grilled zucchini, it was a great dinner to finish the weekend.

Now, it’s back to work. *sigh*