remembering our accomplishments, one step at a time

As promised this weekend, I've begun posting write-ups and picture galleries of the work we did a couple of years ago on the library and guest (& creative) room. It's been interesting looking back through pictures and remembering all the work that went into those rooms. And a challenge to remember the particulars, the hang-ups and obstacles and delays. Which is why I've been documenting our home improvement projects here, so we'd have a record of all the work that went into it. Note to self: that record is much more complete when you don't wait three years to write it down.

Anyway...part 1 of each of the projects (basically the "before" pictures) is now up for your reading pleasure and entertainment:

guest & creative room, part 1: getting started

library, part 1: getting started

When I wasn't busy skimming through old photos on my computer and trying to remember exactly what we did three years ago, Sal and I managed to fit in an excursion to the Portland Opera for a matinee performance of Hansel and Gretel. One of his co-workers helped cater a function for the opera and received two tickets as a thank you. She wasn't able to go so she offered us the tickets.

After the show, we went for dinner at Pizza Fino in Kenton, and what started as dinner after the show before heading home became a three course meal lasting a few hours. We haven't been out to dinner like that for a couple of months so it was lovely to converse over a wonderful meal in a nice but relaxed atmosphere.

Lunch today consists of Saturday's leftovers, namely chili. Saturday was a series of downpours, some of them downright biblical, so it was the perfect day to break out the crockpot to make that chili I'd been thinking about last week. It's probably the best chili I've ever made so I'm glad that we made a huge batch.

lunch, Ms. Bento:

• chili: chili and kidney beans, several red and green peppers of various degrees of hotness and sweetness, onions, garlic, tomatoes, beef, seasonings of spicy deliciousness, with a garnish of (melted) cheese cubes
• small mixed green salad, with radishes and rainbow carrots and a small container of dressing tucked in
• Honeycrisp apple
• orange cheesecake made by Chef Salvatore

Unrelated to anything, other than being cool news on an otherwise ho-hum Monday, I see that scientists have successfully created a "mini big bang" at the LHC.  How indescribably cool is that? (It'll take weeks (months? years?) to analyze the data, but one of the things they hope to find is evidence of the Higgs boson particle, otherwise known as "the God particle" (despite scientists' preference otherwise).) They generated temperatures of ten trillion degrees and created sub-atomic fireballs. Sub-atomic fireballs, you guys! You don't even have to be an astrophysics geek to get excited about that.