Smart Doggies

I keep saying how impressed I am with how smart doggies are. They are smart and of course they will always do anything to please their mommies and daddies. Okay, maybe not all the time but most of the time :o)

Rocky takes the dogs out potty at 7am, 6pm and 9pm and during the day the pottin in a litter box in the house. I never knew these existed until we got Patch and I have to say they work great especically since we lived in a condo before. When we lived in the condo we had very light carpet so after every walk Rocky would wipe their paws off. We are continuing to do that now even though it's hardwood floors because it's muddy out and because it's just nice to have them have clean paws. Rocky's been telling me how he tells Daisy to lift her paw up to get it wiped and she does it. I didn't believe him. When I would look she wouldn't do it. I think she knew I was looking at her. The other day I pretened to turn around and not look but I was from the corner of my eye. He told her "Daisy paw up" and she did it. She lifted her little paw so he could clean it. Then he said "other paw" and she did it again. It was pretty funny.

Such smart little guys.

Home Sweet Home

Our home is looking more and more like a home now and not a storage facility :o) Rocky and I have been able to come home in the evenings, cook dinner and relax. Last weekend we put up some of our pictures on the walls and set up a book case in the living room so we could unpack all the knitting and cooking books :o) That got rid of quite a few boxes. We weren't really home this past weekend so not much was done but this weekend we've got a few little projects to take care. I think we are going to move some stuff around in the extra bedroom so we can fit our computer desk and bookshelf. We've been using the kitchen table for the laptops and that's just not going to work. Rocky also needs his little guitar area :o)

We've had a friend over painting this week and that should be done by Friday so we are excited. The previous people did a horrible job with painting the walls. You can see that at some point the walls were red. It's also a bummer because they painted over the wood, that's one thing that we were kind of bummed about with the house. The house has some very pretty wood molding around the doors, windows and baseboards but the previous people painted over some of it. We have a mixture of the original wood in the front part of the house and then most of the back of the house is white. It would have been really pretty if it had been left alone. We are going to leave what wood is left the way it is but we'll repaint the white parts so that they look nicer and you can't see the icky old paint.

We are concentrating on getting the upstairs of the house all squared away before we move to the downstairs or the outside. I'm going to have to start reading up on gardens because I do not have a green thumb.

This past weekend Rocky and I headed to Half Moon Bay to do ride support for my cycle team. The team rode 65 miles and everyone did a great job. We had a great time supporting and cheering them on.

Sunday we headed to Sonoma for the day with Ms. Olivia. It was pouring rain which was a bummer but we had t pick up our wine and it was the last weekend we could do it before they shipped it to us. We had a nice lunch at Red Grape Pizza, picked up our wine, did a little tasting at a few wineries and then headed home. We got home pretty early so the rest of the evening we just relaxed and watched the Oscars.

We are trying to enjoy the house and the down time we have before training starts again. We are both looking forward to training and running another marathon.

Oxtail Stew Part II

It turned out delicious. We are on dinner #2 of eating it. The meat was so tender it just fell off the bone. We decided to pour it over some rice and it was the perfect rainy day meal. I will add it to my recipe book :o)

Oxtail Stew Part 1

My friend Cynthia sent me a link to a cooking website the other day so I could read up on my cry for help with the Pizza Dough situation. BTW...thanks for all the tips. I will have to try the pizza dough again. Maybe this time I'll just make it from scratch instead of buying it at Trader Joe's. Anyway, I decided to check some of the other recipes on there and I found one for Oxtail Stew. I love that the recipe has step by step pictures on it. I do better with pictures. I don't always like recipes in cook books with no pictures.

What is oxtail?
Oxtail (occasionally spelled ox tail or ox-tail) is the culinary for the tail of a beef animal. Formerly, it referred only to the tail of an ox, a castrated bull. The oxtail of a steer typically weighs 2 to 4 lbs. (1-1.8 kg) and is skinned and cut into short lengths for sale.
Oxtail is usually slow-cooked, often stewed or braised. It is a good stock base for a soup.

I decided to try it out. So I headed out to Crate and Barrel yesterday and purchased a dutch ove. Not just for this recipe but also for a few others I'd like to try. I've always wanted one and now I have one :o) I have a Mario Batali pizza pan which I really like so I decided to purchase the Mario Batali Dutch oven.

Then it was off to the store to buy all the ingredients. I headed to the Mexican Supermarket down the street from our home to get everything. You don't always find oxtail in Safeway although I have seen it at Draeger's. I knew though for sure I'd find it at the Mexican Mart.

I got all the ingredients ready and now our stew is on the stove cooking :o)



I just took a little taste of the meet and YUMMERS!!! Can't wait to actaully eat it! If it turns out good then I'll have to make it for my parents the next time they come visit. Or maybe I can even try Osso Bucco, there is a recipe in the little book that came with the dutch oven.

I also bought this little guy, a timer, that way I can stop using the one on the microwave :o)

We will probably follow the recipe as it's written and we won't eat the stew until tomorrow. It's not going to be ready until 3:00 and Rocky and I are heading to San Francisco about 3:30 for our Valentine's Day date :o)

oxtail stew to be continued........

Snow, Rain, Hail....brrrrr!!!

Well looks like winter finally decided to arrive. It's FREEZING and there is snow on Mt. Diablo again. There is snow in the Sierra's and the road have had to get closed. It's suppose to pour rain here and the other day I got caught in a hail storm. YIKES!! I hate this weather but I do realize we need the rain. I'd like to keep taking two showers a day :o)

We just received and email from our Coach that the ride is also cancelled for tomorrow. She doesn't feel it's safe for the riders to be out there plus it's going to be so cold and wet it's not worth it for people to get sick. I was looking forward to being SAG support but I am happy that I can sleep in tomorrow :o) and that I'll be able to get more stuff done around the house.

Rocky and I don't have plans for tomorrow but I understand he's got something planned for Sunday. I am not sure what it is I just know we need to be in SF by 5pm, hmmm wonder what he's got up his sleeve :o) Sunday morning Olivia and I will be heading to Sonoma for wine pick up and some lunch and then we'll head back home so I can go out with my hubby. For the most part it's going to be a mellow weekend.

Pizza Dough Disaster

Okay, I have no idea what I'm doing wrong, maybe you cooks out there can help me out. I've bought pizza dough at Trader Joe's a total of 4 times. Twice I've managed to make really yummy pizza and twice it's turned out to be a disaster and I end up almost in tears. Last night was a disaster.

I followed the rules....let dough raise for 20 mintues on a lightly floured surface. Did that. Then I go to roll out the dough and I end up with the stickiest mess ever :o( It's so darn sticky that it sticks to the board, sticks to me and sticks to the rolling pin. Urggghhh!!! what am I doing wrong? of course I only bought one bag of dough and since I had no idea how to fix the mess or even if it was fixable I had to throw it out :o( I ended up using all my toppings and throwing them in some pasta for dinner instead.

HELP!!!

Adjusting

Well it's been a week and a few days since we moved in and we are adjusting nicely to our new home. It's still a little weird to say OUR HOME :o) but it's a good weird feeling. I might cry when we have to make our first payment next month..haa, haa...but we are happy and proud of ourselves for being able to accomplish this.

I was able to take about a week off to move. I took a few days before the move and a few days off after which helped quite a bit. I unpacked, made a lot of different trips to Target, Bed/Bath Beyond and of course Home Depot and we also had quite a few people coming by the house to give us estimates on the various things that need to be fixed. Oh the life of a homeowner :o)

We had a new garage door installed because the poor old one was ready to fall off. Of course our little one car garage door cost more than a two car garage door because it was a "special" size and it needed to be built on site from scratch we couldn't just pick one out of the catalog and have it installed. It's a pretty door and once it stops raining and it dries we can paint it.

Rocky has been hard at work doing handy man stuff and things are really coming together. We are almost completely unpacked. I think the majority of the boxes still left are the kitchen things. I'm hoping to get those done by this weekend. I figure I can unpack 1 box a day. I just can't continue to go home though and do stuff til 11pm, we are exhausted and barely making it awake through the day. So we are trying to just go home and relax and leave doing major things for the weekends.

Last night I actually made us a home cooked meal. I think it's been about 2 weeks since we've been able to cook :o( First because of the move and second because the fridge in the new house (which was an old fridge) didn't work :o( so we had to buy a new one and wait for it to be delivered. I wasn't able to grocery shop til the new one arrived.

The doggies are LOVING their new backyard. Patch sits at the door and barks to go out. He loves being out there and they love chasing each other. When we have the shades up on the big front window they like to stand and look outside. Daisy figured out how to climb down the steep stairs to the laundry room which is good because she had been standing at the top when we were downstairs just crying...LOL!! She wanted to come down with us but couldn't figure out how. She's a funny doggie.

So things are good.

Team is doing great with their training and the Solvang Century is right around the corner. I miss training but I'm glad I can still help out with the website and with ride support on Saturday's. This weekend Jeanette and I are heading to Half Moon Bay for the team's 65 mile ride. We will be driving around to make sure everyone is okay.

Hubby is finally done with schoool and passed all his microsoft certification classes :o) YAY HUBBY!!!

I guess the other big thing going on is that we are making plans for our next race, the Chicago Marathon. YEP, we are going back. I feel like I can't finish my marathon career with a bad race like New York so I'm trying for another good one and I had told Olivia that if she ever wanted to do Chicago I'd do it with her :o) Now there are about 10 of us going so it's going to be a fun filled weekend and race. We don't have to start training til June so at least I don't have to worry about that quite yet.

Hopefully the blogging will get better now :o)

Thanks for checking on us and for all the good wishes you've sent us.

IT'S OFFICIAL.....

WE ARE HOMEOWNERS!!!!!!!!

and now you know why my poor blog has been abandoned for weeks now and why I decided to stop training for Solvang. Rocky and I have been super busy with getting ready to move, work, school, the team....blah, blah, blah. Lots has been happening.

We started this process around August with getting our loan and then finally finding something that we liked. And it's been a long process but we finally did it and we got our keys last Tuesday and moved in yesterday :o) and we were able to spend the night there. Our house is a disaster right and it'll take a while to get it nice and clean and put together but that's how it goes right? I've taken a week of vacation so that should help :o)

We did hire movers but.......THANK YOU so much to Jeanette, Olivia and Debbie for helping us out yesterday. We really appreciate it and it made the move pretty quick.

We won't have internet at home til Thursday :o( and won't be at work so I probably won't post again til next week.