It is a good thing I take food pictures on my phone so often, because then I have something to write about when I have no ideas. Of course, my niece would rather see me write about something exciting, like, um….I don’t know. Cats? Our exciting and adventurous life? Sorry, being an adult is actually long periods of the mundane, sometimes punctuated by the exciting. Quite often the exciting is something you DON’T want to happen.

Last week was a good week, socially and in a friend-seeing manner. Went out with my friend E. for ramen on Weds night, that was good. She says it is not the best ramen she has had locally, but it was far more interesting that most of the ramen I have had, so that was good. This was at Hana Japanese Bistro, in Louisville.

It was good. This is the pork ramen. The Hawaiian Sushi roll, with avocado, eel, and macadamia nuts, was also pretty awesome.

I was having a craving Thursday night, so in the midst of cleaning the house for company, I made Chocolate Chip Muffins. They are lovely. However, this makes too many for two people to eat. Should have sent a bunch to work with Ken.

Saturday there was a watch party at a bar in downtown Denver to watch the SDSU/USD rivalry football game. The two teams used to play every year when we were in school and they were both Division II. Now they are both Division I, but this is the first time they have played each other. So both USD and SDSU (South Dakota State University, NOT San Diego) fans were invited.

We got there a little late, but that didn’t really matter, because they hadn’t been able to get the satellite feed set up at Tavern Downtown. So we missed the first quarter, which was when SDSU did most of their scoring, but oh well. Even if we had been there, we wouldn’t have seen it. And it was a pretty lo-res feed and there was no sound, but it was still fun.

And of course we had food. And I had a mixed drink, that was kind of spendy, and not too strong. So then I had a $3 Bud Light in a plastic cup. “Tastes like college.” I did not finish it.
I had to try the pretzel rolls, since I try everything that is a pretzel, especially if it comes with cheese dip.

They were meh. Too much roll and not enough pretzel. The cheese sauce was not very tasty. The mustard, on the other hand, was EXTREMELY spicy. Lots of horseradish, I think. I can’t imagine a normal person like this. On the other hand, I thought it was quite delicious.

Ken said the sliders were fine, not very exciting. He could barely taste the onions and cheese.

The buffalo chicken egg rolls were the best thing, but I don’t know if they were almost-$9-good.

And here we are, all dolled up for the game in our SDSU garb!

Once upon a time, when it was still warm and the grass was green and not covered with snow, we had two large mushrooms in our yard. I wonder how many of the neighbors wondered just what I was up to, laying on the grass, taking pictures of mushrooms.

The mushrooms survived until a marauding pack of squirrels shredded them and scattered them in little bits all over the yard. It was a mushroom massacre.

Miss South Dakota came to our house to visit (and to go to her friend’s wedding) and we shopped like crazy women for 3 days, looking for things for her wardrobe for the Miss America pageant. We were worn out. Shopping like that is not nearly as fun as just shopping for entertainment. We had a MISSION. By the third day we were making sure to wear comfortable shoes!

And we fit everything in her ONE pretty small suitcase. Cute pink blazer from H & M, lots of good stuff from Macy’s, lots of shoes from Nordstrom Rack, we had hoot at Charming Charlies. Love the leopard shoes!

I did get some sewing done for my Mom’s community club bazaar. I have been able to attend and help a bit with the bazaar the last several years, but this year a friend of mine was getting married the same weekend, so we were in Sioux Falls. I made my traditional three southern belle Barbie dresses, complete with hats and petticoats, wrist warmers and a baby hat from Fancy Image Yarn, and denim pot holders that I found the pattern for on http://nebraskaviews.blogspot.com/2011/07/denim-pot-holder-tutorial.html. I am making some more of the wrist warmers for Christmas presents. I will be making more of the pot holders too, they turned out well. I am not sure why this is such a terrible picture, or why I didn’t take more, I think I was extremely pressed for time to get these in the mail and to my Mom on time.

Here is a picture from the wedding, featuring two very cool people getting married and a delicious and amazing cake. AND cream cheese mints. Cream cheese mints are very important at midwest weddings. I had a dear family friend make them for our wedding (ahem) years ago. I made them for my grandmother’s 90th birthday party. Planning on making some for Mom and Dad’s 50th wedding anniversary next year.

I got to see a niece and nephew. They were having fun jumping in the leaf pile.

We also took some pictures of us as a couple before the wedding. Of course, the one that turned out is the only low-res one. Probably will be unsuitable for printing up copies, darn it. This is seriously, the only one where I don’t look totally nutso.

I don’t know quite how that happened but I am blaming Instagram.

The visit to Sioux Falls was a good time. Got to see a bunch of people I hadn’t seen in a while. Had dinner with a college friend that I don’t get to see often enough. Went up to Brookings and saw my good friend/pageant producer and scanned in a bunch of Miss SD historical pictures, which I haven’t had time to edit yet. Had lunch with him, Miss SD, and Miss SD’s mom. Drove around the SDSU campus and were the typical alumni: “Wow, it has sure changed since we were here!”

I haven’t posted about the great living room “remodel” yet. Ken has been itching for a flat screen TV for years, and I have been putting him off, because the 19-year old TV we bought before we got married still worked just fine. Granted, it weighed a ton and only got about 60 channels, so we had to run the cable through a VCR so we could get the rest of the channels, but hey, it worked. In my family we don’t believe in getting rid of things if they still work. Or even if they don’t work, you might want to save that for parts for a while. This policy has worked out pretty well for my Dad and his machinery.

I think when Mom and I cleaned out the garage attic (how many years ago now?) we tossed about 6 ancient vacuum cleaners. Vacuum cleaners are not a “keeper.”

Anyway, Ken was director of photography for a local film and got paid for it, so we discussed that maybe a good use for that money would be a new couch for the downstairs living room and a flatscreen TV. He started watching the newspaper for sales.

We were out for breakfast one Saturday morning in September, after we had dropped his car off to be worked on, and he was lamenting that there were no sale ads in the Saturday paper, so I handed him the ad that popped up right in front of me. And there was a TV, on sale, that was just what he wanted. He did some research on the internet to make sure it was an acceptable brand and model and went off with my car to buy it. Well, even with my hatchback, it couldn’t fit in the back of Mimi the Matrix, because it is a plasma TV and can’t be laid flat for transportation, it has to be kept upright. So we got set to have that delivered the next day.

I said that as long as we were doing that, we might as well go ahead and get the new couch then. We only had a love seat in the downstairs living room, as you have to go down stairs to get down there, and a big couch did not fit around the corner of the stairs into the hallway.  So we were limited on our options there. But the loveseat and chair really only gave us space for three people to sit. Then IKEA arrived and saved the day! All of their furniture comes in pieces, so I knew that was idea for our situation. We could get a larger sectional couch, and still get it down the stairs.
So off we went to IKEA and purchased the couch, by buying it on a Saturday, you get to specify that it is delivered on a Sunday, and that means you can choose your delivery time by the hour, rather than just knowing it will get there between 8 and 5 o’clock.
The couch arrived on schedule, the TV arrived on schedule, Ken called our handy teenage neighbor and asked him to help haul the old couch outside, and we were ready to go!

We also had a sewer issue that Sunday morning and THAT repair person did not arrive on time, but that is another story.

The old, huge entertainment center has been moved to a different wall, and a space cleared for the new couch. MaryAnne has to be in the middle of everything, as usual.

Just a few homeless books, waiting to be relocated.

The old loveseat was put outside with a “free” sign on it and was soon gone.

The couch arrived in three rather large boxes. It doesn’t help that I was working on some sewing project that required the back up sewing machine be set up in the upstairs living room at the same time.

Ken was downstairs assembling the couch while I was upstairs stuffing the couch cushions into the slip covers. Not as easy as you might think. There were several different variations, and you had to match them up by shape. This is not something I am very good at.

We were trying to get this all put together so we could go meet our friends from Hot Springs, we often go out for lunch together before they go to the Broncos game. Well, we could have left the couch and TV as they were, except that we were waiting for the drain-rooter man. So we kept on working.

By the time the Broncos game was on that night, it was ready for action. Both of the cats had discovered they could hide UNDER this couch, which made it quite popular. Leo, especially, is always looking for more hiding places.

MaryAnne and her glowing eyes.

More or less cleaned up:

Yeah, I probably need to get something put up on those walls…..

So now we need to get rid of the old entertainment center, which is huge. Ken thinks the smaller bookcases are fine. I think we should get rid of the whole shooting match and get more modern shelves, again, perhaps IKEA. I may take the old taller units for storage space in my studio. But those decisions are many months and many saved dollars down the road….

I should write about Octoberfest at Red Robin before October is over! I am planning a return trip so I can have the pretzels again, need to make sure we do that before the end of October.

When I saw pretzel bites on the Red Robin Octoberfest menu, I knew we would have to try it. So on a Friday night in September, we were there. As a matter of fact, looking at them again has made me so hungry for them I do believe we might go there tonight.
Now, we didn’t go crazy and order the Sam Adams milkshake (I did have the Screaming Red Zombie, which was excellent) or the Pretzel burger, which does look good. I knew I wouldn’t have room for that if I got my fair share (or more) of pretzel bites.

Ken had a beer, I am sure.

Oh, the delicious pretzel bites.

Oh, the delicious cheesy dipping sauce. It had a lovely bite to it, from the beer. The mustard sauce was also delicious, but apparently not photo-worthy in my mind.

I had the chicken tortilla soup. It was fine, not my favorite but not my least favorite. I wanted something small, so I would have room for dessert.

Now, this is not a tall, fluffy cake, and it is not supposed to be. I have checked out the recipes on line, and it is a flat cake. The caramel and ice cream were amazing. The apples, not so much, they appeared to have been dried out and re-hydrated, or they had been out of the cooking liquid too long, or something. They were edible, but not as juicy/syrupy as they should have been.

All in all, a delicious, filling meal. And now we are going to go there tonight so I can have the pretzel bites again……