Can Ford afford a redesign?
My favorite first of April undertaking at Brand New.
04/01/2008 | hugh | Comment [1]
Arm
“Oh I found an arm, I’ve been looking for that.”
— Michele
04/01/2008 | michele | Comment
Confession of a Fitness Slacker
I’m guilty, I haven’t been running for three weeks.
I had allergies/cold and then basically just got lazy and lost the confidence to run 10 minutes, walk 1, four times.
This afternoon I “made” Michele “make” me go running. She thought I should go back a couple weeks (possibly the run 5 walk 1 eight times). I decided to try to keep on schedule (most because 10-1-4 was four minutes shorter).
The temperature was perfect and my legs weren’t nearly as tight as normal. I ended up making it the whole way. YEAH! When I walked in the door Michele looked at me and asked if I just walked the whole way. I must have looked pretty good (good as in not sweaty or red-faced).
Tonight I’m super happy and looking forward to running on Wednesday. I’m also looking forward General Conference and having new audio to listen to.
03/31/2008 | hugh | Comment [3]
Roper's Summer Serenade Special
Being broke, conveniently around the time of my ‘rents birthday, they offered us (Jen and I) a great gift idea: we could make dinner for Mom and Dad. I agreed, and Jen and I planned a simple, but hopefully yummy dinner. We went to Fresh&Easy and bought all the ingredients, and even dug up some bargains (a bag of carrots for 52 cents and mini French bread sticks for 50 cents) and most importantly, we left the parents guessing. When we got home, Quinan cleverly led the parents outside as we prepared their meal. I had Jensen find the old whiteboard and wrote the special in green and purple marker: J&K Cafe’s Special: The Summer Serenade, and the Drink of the Day was the Holiday American Pie Drink. Jensen and I scrambled around to try to make everything perfect. Half an hour later, the parents came in to order. Of course, they ordered the Summer Serenade with a glass of the Holiday American Pie drink. We first brought out the appetizer: Crackers a’la Dill. Here’s the recipe:
10 large, whole-wheat crackers (preferably circular)
plain, whipped cream cheese spread
10 sprigs of dill
1. Take the crackers and spread the cream cheese on them.
2. Top with dill and serve.
Dad commented on the dill as he guzzled down a large glass of the Holiday American Pie Drink:
1 container of concentrated, frozen apple juice
1 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1. Follow the directions on the container and make the apple juice.
2. Add the cinnamon and stir well.
3. Serve cold.
Then we served the salad. No special ingredients or dressing. After everyone had a good heaping plateful of salad, I brought out the soup while Jen topped it with fresh ground pepper. Here’s the recipe for thr Roper’s Garden Soup:
2 cans chicken broth
3/4 cups of small, alphabet noodles
1 zucchini, sliced
1 15 oz can of diced tomatoes, drained
1 cup of heavy whipping cream
1/2 carrot, sliced,
12 snow peas, diced
1/2 cup of frozen corn (in kernals)
1 6 oz can of diced jalapeno, drained
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1. Heat the chicken broth until it boils. Add the noodles and salt. Stir occasionally for five minutes, then leave at medium heat.
2. Add the zucchini, carrots, peas, corn, jalapeno, and tomatoes, one at a time, waiting three minutes until adding the next ingredient.
3. Add the heavy whipping cream and stir. Let it simmer for seven minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the pepper and serve immediately.
Jen and I waited nervously for our parents output on the soup. To our happiness, they loved it! Even though I made it up as I went, I decided to recall as much of the recipe as I could and decided to blog it for million’s (okay, maybe only ten’) of blog readers to make this creation, and maybe become inspired to make up their own recipes.
03/30/2008 | ken | What do you think this soup needs? [1]
Garden Flagpoles
In our Square Foot Garden, we’re using bent PVC pipe with nylon netting for vertical plant support (see picture). This will be our first year with the netting, but I think it’s going to work really well. My only concern is that it’s only four foot high. Last year our tomatoes easily could have grown five foot high and our watermelons six foot or more. Our solution last year was to route the watermelon across to the other side, which shaded the plants.
So how do I grow higher. with this configuration? This morning I had an idea… how about putting a flagpole in the center? This morning, while checking on the garden with the kids, an idea popped into my head. How about putting a flagpole in the center of the box? Okay, not an actual flagpole, but a piece of PCV pipe about six to eight feet tall.
I could push the bottom into the soil, slide it in between the nylon netting and zip tie it to the top of the existing support pipe. The top could be tied with four (or eight) pieces of twine, each one anchored to the four lower pipes. The climbing plants (watermelon, squash, beans, etc.) could grow up could the twine really high. The lower structure with the netting could hold all of the heavier fruit. The best part is that the kids could make flags to fly on the pole.
What do you think, crazy, genius, error-prone, not enough shade?
03/30/2008 | hugh | Comment [3]
We have a winner!
Last week we posted (what I think is) our first Roper5 contest… the Garden Quiz.
Drum roll please… our winner is… Kim S. (Michele’s sister) from Provo, UT. Kim, look for a your Rubios Gift Card in the mail.
The above photo shows, Dave, Kim (light blue shirt), Dan and Michele working on their pumpkins in their childhood garden. Has Kim always had a green thumb? Anyone want to date this photo?
03/30/2008 | hugh | Comment [3]
J&K Cafe
Tonight we had a wonderful dinner at the J&K Cafe.
Highly recommended!
Booger
“There’s a booger on my shoe.”
— Quinan (while grocery shopping)
Street View
From the you didn’t know you didn’t know department…
The reason we didn’t see the google maps street view car drive through our neighborhood back in January is because we were at church.
How much of a gardener are you?
I took a test and my gardening self-score is 68%.
This is a pretty serious passion for you, isn’t it? You’re out there, digging, amending, turning the compost, killing the bugs or even encouraging the beneficial insects. When you can’t be outside because of weather, you’re inside studying, diagramming, building, planning. You get everything out of your garden that you put into it, and probably soon you’ll be scoring even higher on this quiz.
How much of a gardener are you?
via joeysplanting.livejournal.com
03/26/2008 | hugh | What's your score? [5]