Just Another Reason

It was Brecksville Home Days this past weekend. All the fun and food are just a five minute walk down the street from Chez Knit.

We might have had a funnel cake. Just assume that we are in training for the Geauga County Fair Foodapalooza that we participate in every year.

We could hear the Eagles tribute band playing as we sat in our living room.

And Sunday night I walked out of my front door, took a right, walked 50 feet up the street and stood there watching the fireworks show. Who wouldn’t love that! We were able to watch the “mini show” on Saturday night from our upstairs windows.

By the way…. the above photo was taken with my iPhone. I am more than a bit pleased. I was going to take the time to set up Big Bertha on the tripod and take photos that way but at the last minute I just decided to play with iPhone fireworks photos.

The question now is, do I take Big Bertha to the concert at Blossom on Friday night? It will all depend on the rain.

And by the way…..we have had 3.5+ inches of rain in the past week. I am starting on the ark tomorrow.

B3: Once A Week Is All I Can Manage

The title says it all. Although things SHOULD get a bit less hectic now that I don’t have to get on a plane for awhile. May and June I am so DONE with you! Now on to Summer.

1.
HHBL and I took a quick trip to the Big Apple this week. He had a conference to go to and I tagged along because I could then hang with Cartoon Girl for a couple of days. We had dinner with TNG and Cartoon Girl. CG and I walked the streets of NYC.

And we got to stay in the in-laws condo……

It was a struggle to have to deal with these views but we managed.

2.
And speaking of the in-laws condo. Our nieces have two pet Guinea Pigs. For some reason I became obsessed with taking pictures of them and then Instagramming the pictures with movie line hashtags.

Don’t judge.

If I hide my head in here then she can’t see me. #LiesGuineaPigsTellThemselves

Release.Me. #IndependencePig #movielines

Don’t move. She can’t see us if we don’t move. #JurrasicPig #movielines

I had way too much fun with it. A girl has to find the joy in life somehow doesn’t she?

3.
And speaking of travel, as we were. Can I just tell you that I am adding LaGuardia to my list of airports that I hate and despise. Dirty, needs an update. Yuck. Our plane arrived early into LaGuardia on Monday afternoon, which meant that there was no gate for us. Which meant that all of us who REALLY needed to get off the plane to “use the facilities” weren’t happy. Much seat squirming commenced. And the minute that the pilot announced that we were going to have to hold on the taxi way for a bit people started hitting that call button and asking to get up to quickly go to the bathroom, which I can understand EXCEPT that if they are up and out of their seats then the plane cannot taxi, which the pilot reminded everyone of. And then when we finally did land and I got off the plane, walking carefully so as not to “drop my contents” I stagger into the first available bathroom only to find that it has only one stall…..and I am not the first in line.

Oh lordy! It always seems as if the time slows to a crawl when you really have to go to the bathroom and it is so near and yet so far.

Whine whine whine.

Fast forward to Wednesday night when our plane is late leaving LaGuardia. The plane was coming from Atlanta and in the end was three hours late. Which meant that we had to sit at the gate for a bit, waiting for that big wide bird to fly us right out of there. Time again slows to a crawl. However, it was VERY good people watching. So there is that.

But it doesn’t make me like LaGuardia any more.

4.
Be careful what you brag about. Last weekend I was telling Shoe Queen and Slim Jim about how few problems I have had with Coco the Perfect Subaru since she came to live with us.

And then this morning, when I pulled out of the garage.

KerTHUNKaRattle.

What the HECK?

I stopped the car and got out and looked all around and underneath and didn’t see anything hanging down or waving in the air so I got back in a drove on. And when I hit the first bump in the road I heard the rattle. The rather loud and ominous rattle. The scary rattle that makes my heart go pitter patter and my armpits sweat profusely.

She goes to the Subaru Service Doc on Monday and until that time she will sit in comfort in the garage.

5.

I might have had Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and a Chocolate Glazed donut TWICE this week.

Chocolate Glazed are my Kryptonite. They are the Borg of the donut world.

Resistance is futile.

6.
I might have ordered some yarn this week.

I am weak.

But it was Knit Picks Felici, which never stays around all that long. You have to grab it while it’s there.

Picture courtesy of Knit Picks

It is such happy yarn. I could not resist. Of course I needed it. What would make you think otherwise??

7.
Instagram. Because there are never enough pictures of Guinea Pig butts.

B3: The Kids Are Visiting Edition

Shoe Queen and Slim Jim are here at Chez Knit for a visit. Of course we had to do some fun things.
1.
We went to the West Side Market yesterday. We all know how much I love and adore this place. The old budget takes a hit when we shop there. The produce always looks fabulous and we often find something that we have never seen before.

Rambutan! They look like some strange sea creature. The flesh has the consistency of a grape and the taste is faintly citrus and grapefruit. Deeeeeelicious.

There is always the one stall that has a suckling pig for sale. I have no place or way to cook this…..and yet I want to buy it so that I can attempt it.

Shopping is very tiring work indeed.

2.
After making the rounds of the market, and maybe buying about 18 loaves of bread at Mediterra (my FAV place for artisan bread), we put our stuff in the car and walked back out to find lunch. Walked past Market Garden Brewery and on down to Nano Brew, just down the street.

Can I just say that if you love beer from a microbrewery or small region brewery, Cleveland is the place for you. Great Lakes, Market Garden, Nano Brew, Brewkettle, Thirsty Dog, Brick and Barrel, Platform Brewing, just to name a few.

For lunch I indulged in a Fathead Brewing Head Hunter IPA. Deeeeeeeeeelicious. And it fell within our guidelines of drinking local microbrew. Fathead is located in North Olmstead. Dang I love Cleveland and the surrounding Frozen Northeast Ohio and their microbrew beer culture

Did I digress? Did I reveal that HHBL and I are beer snobs (hangs head in shame and reaches for a snobby, locally brewed IPA)? Get me talking about good beer and all other things go out of my brain.

Where was I?

When you can have tater tots with your Falafel sandwich, it is a really good day.

TOTS! Who doesn’t love tater tots? Crispy nuggets of potato, deep fried. Oh be still my beating heart. I might have taken half of the portion home because there were so many. And because I am a VERY NICE MOMMY I let Shoe Queen consume them as a late night snack.

3.
After shopping and lunch we staggered home and rested for an hour before going back out to go to a movie. Don’t want any down time!

We saw……….

Three of the four of us liked it. I thought it was good, HHBL was not as enthused. Of course not as good as Jurassic Park but then it is hard to come up to that standard. There were a couple of memorable lines that I am sure will fall into family movie line quoting.  It didn’t take itself all that seriously. There were funny moments. There was excitement. There were cute kids. There was family tension. There was a surprise villian (sort of). There was the clueless park owner who just wants people to have “fun” but doesn’t think about the cost. I hoped throughout the entire movie that Vincent D’Onofrio would be eaten by some dinosaur……..

Spoiler Alert

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He is. I know it is wrong to rejoice at death and dismemberment at the tiny hands (but large teeth) of a Velociraptor….but he had it coming.

Overall, it was a good summer movie. CERTAINLY better than San Andreas. All I can say about THAT movie is that it is two hours of time that I will never get back.

4.
Friday evening saw us going to the Cleveland Indians – Tampa Bay Rays game. They were celebrating the 1995 Cleveland Indians, a fabulous season. We had season tickets at that time in our life and 1995 was so much fun.

Plus……

It might have been “Dollar Dog Night” at Progressive Field. Ahhhhhh, there is nothing like a lukewarm hot dog in a soft, wrinkled bun to make your heart go pitter patter. I might have had two of them, smothered in ketchup, mustard and pickle relish. Yes, I KNOW that isn’t the way that I grew up having a hot dog. But if I asked for a dill pickle and sour kraut on my dog and hold the ketchup then I can tell you I would have gotten strange looks indeed. Cleveland doesn’t understand the Chicago Dog.

Other than that, and the fact that despite several chances the Indians did not win the game, we had a good time. And at the end of the game…….

There were fireworks!

5.

The sunset might also have been fabulous. We were in section 546, which is where we had our first season tickets in 1994. You have a great view of the field except for the 1st base line. From 1995 onwards we were in section 548, just a bit to the left, which gave you most of the 1st base line as well. Oh how I loved those seats. We have had season ticket seats in other sections of the park in other years but the seats in section 548 were my favorites. Everyone around us were also season ticket holders so we saw the same people for all 20 games that we attended as well as all of the post-season games. It was a wonderful year for baseball.

6.
I also might have figured out that the iPhone camera has a “photo burst” mode.

Who knew!

I didn’t bring Big Bertha to the game and I really wanted to experiment with taking fireworks photos with the iPhone. But no matter how quick you are with your finger on the button your reaction time would be too slow. However, as I sat there in the top of the 7th I decided to let Google give me some information. Low and behold if, instead of just touching the “take the picture” button, you keep your finger on the button it takes a boat load of pictures. It keeps them in a “stack” on your phone and you can then decide which ones that you like.

Genius.

And a very easy way to take WAY TOO MANY PICTURES.

7.
Instagram. Just because I love pictures.

B3 Redux: Or How Live Writer Ate the Last One

Grrrrrrrr. Live Writer ate the last post just about the time I got to #6. Let's try this again shall we.

I have decided to just call these posts "B3" because I am too lazy to write out the whole thing.
 
1.
Let's talk dehumidifiers shall we. If you live in a very dry climate you might not even know what these are, let alone possess one. But here in the Frozen Northeast Ohio, where we are not known for our dry weather, if you have a basement a dehumidifier is a must.

It finally occurred to me several weeks ago that our dehumidifier might not be working. Oh it was running, all the time, but it still felt rather damp and tropical rain forest down in the woman cave. And then there was that slightly damp smell, you know the one, like you have entered the tomb of some long dead king and it is just a bit on the damp side.

Yeah, that.

SO last week I ventured over to Home Depot, a place where I can spend WAY TOO MUCH money at the drop of a hat (all those tools!!), and I purchased a new dehumidifier. So much fun wrestling that thing into the cart and then into the car, but I did it. I hate to ask for help.

Brought it home, set it up (it isn't rocket science), plugged it in and let it go to work. After several hours HHBL and I could tell that there was a marked difference in the dampness quality of the air in the basement. And it occurs to me that the old dehumidifier might not have been working for, oh say, the last year or so. 

Nothing gets by me.

2.
This is the second time that I have written this blog post today.

The first time Windows Live Writer ate it. Well, actually I have to confess that I don't think I had hit the "save" button and I just plain forgot that WLW doesn't automatically save things as you go along. I was trying, without success, to embed a YouTube video and working on a work around and things just got a bit on the up confused and "oh my gosh what happened" side of life so I figured I would just exit out and go back.....

Only when I went back there was no blog post to go back to. Sigh.

That brings up the other issue. Windows Live Writer. I have been using WLW since very soon after I started blogging. It is a desk top blogging platform, and it has been my faithful friend for many years. But several years ago Microsoft decided that WLW would no longer have a place in their life....sort of like Pluto....and so there are no more updates. So when YouTube does things like go to the iFrame format for embed, WLW just doesn't know what to do with it. You try to embed the video and it is all, "Danger! Danger Will Robinson!" So, for the moment, I am back to using Blogger itself. I am looking for a new desk top blogging platform to replace my beloved WLW but I am not having much luck.

I hate change.

3.
These late night Cavs/Warriors NBA Finals games are killing me. My bed time is 10pm, without fail. I am asleep by 10:30pm. But these games are STARTING at 9pm which means that they aren't done until at least 11:30pm and if there is overtime.......Plus after the game we have to wind down a bit from all the heightened emotions and yelling loudly speaking to the TV. Thursday night's game just about killed us.

Plus the fact that due to the ABC camera man who was right up close and personal when LeBron decided to adjust and tuck in his shirt into his sorts and we got a glimpse of the "whole package" if you know what I mean.

We need LeBron and Delly and JR and Shhhhhhhhhhhhumpert! and all the rest to be well rested and ready to play come tomorrow night. The series is tied. The tension is high. And I have to work on Monday so I would REALLY like them to win on Sunday.

4.
HHBL and I had dinner last night with some friends that we hadn't seen in 20 years. 20 YEARS, and we don't really live all that far from each other. Back when we were all newlyweds we went to the same small church.

  The Little Church in the Vale. No really, that is the name of the church. Bill and Alice, HHBL and I were all members back in the day. But along around 1994 HHBL and I decided to attend another church. We lost touch with Bill and Alice, which is sad because we really enjoyed them. About a month ago HHBL went to have coffee with some missionaries that we have supported for many years and Bill was at the same meeting. They said, "Let's have dinner!". Alice and I thought it was a spectacular idea and so last night we did.

It was so much fun. It felt like there hadn't been 20 years in between when we last saw each other. Well all except for the 5 kids that they have had since the last time we saw them.

We are SO doing the dinner thing again soon.

5.
Have you ever heard of the Christian Humorist Jeanne Robertson? Well if you haven't just go down and click on the video and watch and laugh so hard that you cry. Maybe it is because she actively looks for the humor in life. Maybe it is because she reminds me of women that I met when I went to school in the south. Dang she is funny. 

 
Blogger won't let me change the size of this thing and I am just so done messing with it. Enjoy.
 
6.
We finally broke out the new grill last weekend. We have been "grilless" for the past year or more. When we moved from OCK we brought the massive grill with us. It was WAY too big for the small patio that we have now but we didn't want to just leave it. So there it sat on the back patio, not being used. Then last summer HHBL transported the big grill to the office, where we routinely have "Grill Monday" or "Grill Friday". But that meant that we didn't have a grill at Chez Knit. That is until two weeks ago when HHBL went and bought a small one which fits perfectly in the space.

I brined some chicken and HHBL grilled it to perfection and.....oh my stars and garters it was good.

Next I think I am going to have to try salmon on the grill. 

7.
Instagram. Because it's all about the social media baby.