Little things

Its the little things that can make a day better.  This funny little detail sincerely brightened my day!

King Cake

While we didn't celebrate Mardi Gras this year, we did receive our annual festive treat, an always delicious king cake sent to us by the very generous Mrs. Carolyn Hupp.  This cake accentuates my weak will power but delights my taste buds, an evil temptress indeed.  One of the traditions of the Gulf Coast King Cake, starting back in the 1950's is to include a small plastic baby trinket in the cake.  In some traditions the person who finds the trinket is declared king or queen for the day, which would be my personal favorite, or they will have a baby soon, lets just move past that one, or in some situations, they're responsible for bringing the cake the following year. 

I patiently waited for Jonathan to get home before I cut into the confection but soon grew frustrated when my knife wouldn't cut through my first slice. I cut the other side of my piece and started to tug and quickly found out what was hindering my knife. Oh my, with a little more force I would have chopped the baby!!  I found the little legs sticking out quite humorous but admittedly a little creepy.  Something about flesh colored plastic babies just gives me the heebie jeebies. 

I will not discuss how long it took Jonathan and I to finish the cake!

Staying warm

When temperatures drop in AZ we sometimes resort to desperate measures.  Who says sharing body heat is a bad thing?

Little shop of horrors

After a week of a rude cold taking its affect on both Jonathan and myself we decided to re-energize with a 20 mile ride to start our weekend.  The ride was refreshing and as always I do so enjoy starting my day with some exercise.  After breakfast Jonathan decided he could take on the challenge of installing the hall bath shower fan.  I'll say very little in the text to come.

Jackson of course got a visit to the dog park for some ball chasing and doggy mingling before we drove to the home improvement store.  He didn't make any buddies this trip but had several fantastic chases with some of the speediest little dog's I've ever seen.  Not sure what they were, but those little rocket dogs were pure muscle and looked like compact greyhounds, and no, they were neither Italian Greyhounds nor Whippet.

Back at home I decided it was time to wrestle the bougainvillea in the back yard into shape. I was the one who wanted to weave the thorned beast along the wall and it was long overdue for a little taming.  I was as delicate as possible, fully respecting the inch long  thorns and was pleasantly surprised at how few pokes and scratches I walked away with.  All three bushes are doing quite well this year considering that just one year ago they were down to stump thanks to a nasty frost.  This was around the time that Jonathan realized the fan project was going to be a little more than he expected.  (Pictures to follow)

Frank's need for a new heat bulb provided one last opportunity for Jonathan to chat it up with a Home Depo dude despite are agreement that we would no longer take on projects by ourselves that involve cutting into drywall, be it ceiling or walls.  Men... The highlight of my Home Depot experience had to be the awesome plant art they had displayed in front of the store. I would totally rock one of those in my backyard if it would hold up to the intense sun and heat.

Later that evening we headed to dinner at Rice Paper to enjoy some insanely hot spring rolls, calamari and a salmon entree.  The roll was far too hot for me but the rest of dinner was pretty tasty.  Around 8:30 we headed to Let it Roll for a few rounds of  bowling with neighbors. On our way in, we were treated to a rad painted panel van belonging to the long bearded, middle age white guy metal band that was thankfully finishing up their set with some pretty awful covers of Bon Jovi, Metallica and tragically, CCR.  We rolled 3 rounds, some of us enjoyed some adult beverages and of course some obligatory flesh tone mustaches.  When we were leaving the bowling alley we came across a Homies toy dispenser that included the surely coveted, Homi Bama.  I must have this toy.  Our mode of transportation home wasn't too happy to see our return and protested our intended departure with the tell tale tick tick tick of a dead battery.  Ugh.  Thankfully Jonathan found someone in the bowling alley willing to give us a jump and we made our way home with just only a minor delay.  Pretty action packed Satruday looking back at it.

Oh the joy of the flesh-tone stach.
Endless entertainment.



No it was't that kind of night, but I found
these wrist bands entertainingly extream.



Just another week

As of late we haven't been up to too many adventures. We recently added some white rock to the circle around the palm tree as well as in the front bed where we have some natal plums planted.  The white rock is a sassy contrast providing added visual interest to the simple front landscaping and recognizes a little Atomic Ranch/Arizona rock landscaping tradition.  In that regard, white rock is as far as I go.  The painted rock seen in parts of Sun City, the nation's first development intentionally designed for retirees, sports some of the most, shall I say "entertaining" painted rock landscaping designs I've ever seen.

With an upcoming athletic challenge right around the corner I've been making pretty solid strides in my training on the weekends but due to dark mornings have not been able to train well during the week.  In order to combat this I recently joined a gym and was quickly reminded why I prefer to train outside.  The first day was a comedy of errors.  Surveying the treadmill scene I opted for a machine one away from typhoid Jim who was boasting a minor, yet obnoxiously consistent throat clearing cough, only to find out it wasn't working.  After darn near punching the reset button I opted to step on the machine next to Sir Coughsalot just to get running. Right as I got the machine up to speed another treadmill freed up further down the line.  Not concerned with niceties I hopped off my current treadmill and started my run a comfortable distance away. Pit, pat, pit, pat hack hack hack, pit pat pit pat hack hack pit pat hack.  UGH!  I couldn't take it! Back off the treadmill and over to the movie room where treadmills faced a horrible horrible movie.  Not even sure what it was about but the actresses appeared to be in there teens, and were supposed to be acting out some sort of mid to late 20s love-lost mellow drama that was so horrible I had to again depart my treadmill.

Despite my gym blunders I managed to get in a little workout and noticed during the day that my mood and overall attitude was much improved from a non-workout day. I've been back to the gym several times since and have learned to better manage my gym expectations. Besides an occasional sweaty co-worker I'm managing my exercising in anonymity pretty well.

From exercise to Americana, we kept our Super Bowl Sunday pretty low key. After hitting up my dearest Costco I ran a few more errands and cleaned our casa while Jonathan headed to the office for a few hours of work. Even though it was just us the game provided a good excuse for pigs in blankets, bacon wrapped roasted dates, mini pizzas, tempura battered veggie stacks and a splash of Kettle. Jackson joined us in our gluttony with a beef rib bone thanks to our BBQ master buddies Scott and Bekke.  Although blurry you can tell Jackson wasn't going to have anyone take away his precious.

Below are a few more J-Bone pictures. Check out his death grip, chewing dedication and the occasional pause/progress check.