Owls!

I stepped outside with the dog while she did her business and stayed for a minute to look at a “spoke” pattern in the clouds, when I heard an Eastern Screech Owl nearby.

It took me a few minutes to identify it when I got back inside, but my Google-fu is strong today.  The call is a “tremolo” which mated pairs and families use to keep in touch.  I heard it repeat several times.

More information here

In which I sew on buttons

Alpha loves the Newsies. Alpha had Christmas money, and bought herself suspenders. Alpha asked me to sew buttons on to her pants so they wouldn’t snap off. Since we took her phone away, she’s got the time to pester me, so here we are.

Buttons on a pair of pants.
Buttons buttons who’s got the buttons

Mission accomplished.

Also, reading glasses help with the threading of needles.

Me in glasses.
My glasses match my shirt!

Quick note about the birds and the cars

You know what a cardinal is, right? Little red bird with a big red attitude. I pulled into our drive way last night, and parked next to Quinn’s pretty new car. Quinn’s pretty new car is parked in front of my mother’s car (we’re car sitting while she’s Out Of The Country). I heard a noise behind me and looked in the rear view mirror.

There was a cardinal on her rear-view mirror. And it was really really angry at the cardinal inside her rear view mirror. Lets say that again for the people in the back:

There was a cardinal attacking her rear view mirror because he saw his own reflection and they are insane, territorial little beasts.

Quinn scared him off by accident, so I’m the only one who saw him. I have pictures of the results of his assault (bird poops and some weird smears on the mirror).

This morning I came out and found my rear mirror – covered in a little bit of bird poop and weird smears.

This guy is going to be a problem, I can see already.

Super-Quick Teriyaki Chicken

Ingredients

Sauce

  • 1/3 c. soy sauce
  • 1/4 c. rice wine vinegar
  • 1 tsp. sesame oil
  • 1 1/2 tbsp. honey
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2 tsp. finely minced fresh ginger
  • 2 tsp. cornstarch

Everything Else

  • Extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • Sliced green onions, for garnish

Steps

  1. Mix the sauce
    1. In a medium bowl, combine:
      • soy sauce
      • vinegar
      • sesame oil
      • honey
      • garlic
      • ginger
      • cornstarch
    2. Whisk until smooth.
  2. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat
  3. Add chicken to skillet and season with salt and pepper. Cook until golden and almost cooked through, about 10 minutes.
  4. Pour sauce over chicken and simmer until sauce has thickened slightly and chicken is cooked through.

Goes really well with rice and a veggie.

Originally from https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/recipes/a54003/easy-teriyaki-chicken-recipe/

Third storm of the last two weeks

View down the street. Its really coming down
Our backyard. The plays cape is not doing well….
Artsy-fartsy picture of my mittens. They kept me warm while shoveling.
I didn’t bother with my hat. Whoops.
Drying my mittens.
View before the second shoveling. Probably 8 inches deep in the shoveled sections – over a foot overall.

 

So, Storm # 3 (named Skylar) hit today. As of 9 PM tonight, we had at least 20″ – taller than the dog. We had to dig her a path so she could go out to pee, poor thing. But she had a grand time playing with in the snow. For a dog with no fur, she loves snow.

I went out to shovel twice – once around 9 am, and again at 3. Both times took about an hour, and both times were reminders that we should have waxed the shovel in the fall. Car wax does a great job.

The bottom layer was all slush, and really heavy (apparently there was some rain at the beginning). The top layers were light and fluffy, thankfully. I did most of the driveway the second round, but I just couldn’t deal with the slush by the street. I just cleaned up the rest and left it for Quinn. Because I’m terrible.

The kids spent the day inside, reading and playing Minecraft. We kicked off a huge fire in the fireplace to warm up, and we spent some time cuddled up in front of it.

Around 4, we went to our neighbor’s house for frozen pizza and games. We roused Alpha out of her room, and got her to come along. She had fun, once she got there. We played Upwords (for the first time). Beta did better than I did, which is always fun. Sam-across-the-street kicked our butts, though.

Overall, a pretty good snow day!

The snow is deeper than Butter is tall. We had to dig her a path to her “potty.” At least 20 inches.

The Orient Express

My parents upgraded their house, and that included a new elevator to replace their aging stair-chair.

This is the same stair-chair that earned the name ‘The Orient Express’ while we were in high school and Kennon had a house party (without my parents’ knowledge).

Fortunately the stair-chair was not removed after the elevator was installed. Scientific curiosity demanded that we expand human knowledge and answer the burning question: which way is faster?

Kennon and I agreed on the rules: we start at the same place; we would end at the same point on the second floor; both elevators would start at the ground floor; we would walk, not run. Kennon and I both agreed that the stair-chair would probably win.

Meghan was kind enough to take a video of the race.

Results: The stair-chair won by a full second.  A second race was not conducted due to technical difficulties with the stair chair.

Sactional Review, revisited

It has been close to three years since I wrote my original Lovesac Sactional review, so I figured this would be a good time for an update to the review.

We still have the original pieces, plus we’ve added some more: a couple of more bases and backs to make a pair of armless chairs for the dining room, plus a third base for the original ‘couch’ in the living room to make an ‘L’.

  • Our covers have (mostly) held up well.
    • We’ve run some of the covers through the wash a couple of times in order to clean some stairs and general dirt – try that with a regular sewn-on cover!
    • One cover has a thread that started to come out, but it didn’t keep unthreading – it has been stable for a year.  I try to keep that cover away from the heaviest-used sections.
    • We’ve been considering buying a different style of cover, and a bit darker; the standard cover can be a little rough after a while, and the light color that we got shows off dirt.  But oh, the cost!  We’re keeping an eye on sales, which seem to come up periodically.
  • We definitely tell which cushions are newer, as they’re firmer.
    • The cushions seem to firm up a bit if they’re not used.
    • Cushion rotation is a must, but that’s easy.
  • The bases:
    • do get easier to separate over time.
    • are so low to the ground that they don’t capture much trash, which is awesome
    • are not too heavy to slide, and the felt pads do prevent scratching.