Stuff and things and whatnots

Ah, yes… here we are in that familiar blank spot where I had been posting with regularity for a good week or so and now we’re back to near-radio silence.  Par for the course, I blame it on too much work, too much fun, and picking up some new volunteer work.  Travis and I have coordinated our calendars and discovered that we’ve pretty much scheduled our weekends out through October.  We’re not the only ones whose schedules fill up this quickly, are we?

In the interest of time, and lack thereof for combing through photos, I present to you our life in summary, bullet-point format:

• We scheduled an install for a whole house fan (a huge fan that sucks cool air from outside, through your house, and out through the attic) only to have our appointment cancelled the night before due to some injury on their end.  This was right before the hot sticky weather started.  Their next install date would be when we were in Palm Desert or September.  Luckily (for us or them, I don’t know), they had a cancellation and I shot home to meet them and worked in a sticky warm house until they were done. It works, it’s lovely, and I don’t know how we lived without it. Highly recommended.
• I did really well cooking dinner at home for an entire week, trying to save money after facing the result of balancing the checkbook and looking at what we needed to pay off and upcoming bills and such.  Then we went to Palm Desert, where I think we did pretty well considering we ate two meals in a pub for free, split a plate of bbq, and then subsided on date samples and a date shake.  Plus a free muffin here and there from the hotel.
• I followed this week of thriftiness by not cooking much at home, mainly due to a lack of time and being hungry Right Now.  Still, I think we’ll be okay.  It’s long term progress you measure, right?
• My sweet, wonderful, awesome husband put a lot of time and hard work into finishing my chicken enclosure.  Some friends helped, too, for which I am very thankful (and one of them I still owe some of the best bbq in San Diego County).  The enclosure is solid, sturdy, and chicken-wired up the wazoo.  The gates all work and the whole thing is so nice it makes the old one look like a piece o’ crap.  I’ll actually write more about the new chicken home later.
• Speaking of awesome bbq, we went back to Coop’s when my mom came for a brief visit.  It was under the pretense of showing her some good bbq, but I really just wanted their ribs and brisket again.  And buttermilk pie.  And pulled pork.  Everything was spot on, of course, but the pulled pork fell last on my list.
• Then we had catered bbq at work, courtesy of Bekker’s West Coast BBQ, and I may have eaten a rib or 3, some pulled pork, and a chicken drumstick.  I have to tell you, their pulled pork is really, really good.  Better than Coop’s.  But Coop’s definitely wins on the ribs.
• I’ve been reading A Discovery of Witches and it took me a while to get into it, but now I’m 2/3 in and I’m finding it hard to put down.  Supposedly, it’s part of a trilogy, which means now I’m going to be stalking the library for the next one to arrive.  I really should get sucked into trilogies once all the books have been published.  I’m not good at waiting.