T. G. I. F.

Last night I made sushi rolls with cooked trout and avocado for dinner. Even though it was a Fish Friday during lent, still we felt like celebrating TGIF. When we added a light cheese platter, we knew it called for some sake. I didn't even think about Girl's Day in Japan, March 3rd, a celebrating spring's arrival. We also toasted to our newly painted kitchen cabinets.

Ta-Da!

Before (above) & After (below).

I finished my painting project. We are happy with how our kitchen cabinets turned out. The same old cabinets just in new colors. What a difference. 

Work Hard, Play Hard

Here's the "Before" picture. I just painted our old upstairs bathroom cabinets that we had just kept. All these years living in this ol' house, we really hadn't put much work asides from the initial painting craze when we moved in. Well, the right inspiration has to come. Santa in Ironwood gave us a fiesta color woven rug for our kitchen, which made me want to paint the cabinets, finally. After I decided on colors, I realized the dark grey I picked would also look good on the neglected cabinets in the bathroom. 
The kitchen cabinets are half-way done. I painted the same dark grey on the bottom cabinets and drawers so far, and am going to paint the upper cabinets in warm white. I still need to scrub and clean before painting. 

I had an unexpected 2-day weekend, so my painting project really progressed more than planned. But we also played hard and enjoyed a beautiful Saturday. We treated ourselves to a decadent brunch at Lagniappe, just like being back in New Orleans.

Afterwards we needed to go for a walk and cherished the bright sun. The air did have a touch of spring, though not quite around the corner yet. Then we stopped to have our mid-afternoon beer at Vierling. I usually work on Saturdays and off Sundays, and both Lagniappe and Vierling are closed on Sundays. So in a way it was like our Saturday stay-cation... before getting back to the painting project.

Our Pizza Story

Hard to believe February is half gone! We both are just shaking off this wonderful cold... missed our feast on Fat Tuesday. Not many pictures or adventures to share here, but our pizza story was worth blogging about.
Last Friday was a national pizza day, in case you didn't know. I planned on making homemade pizza, using my bread starter as an experiment. I might tweak my dough recipe a bit next time, but still our first small pizza came out the oven perfect. As we devoured our pizza, Joe started working on the second one. Just then, a bright spark burst inside the hot oven. One spot of the heating coil burnt and melted. So that was the end of our pizza making. Ran to Ralph's for a takeout pizza to finish celebrate the day properly.
Yesterday, on Valentine's Day, our replacement oven part showed up. It was a perfect Valentine gift, which sort of shaped like a heart. Oh yeah, happy belated Valentine's Day to all!

Mississippi Mud Pie

Did you know today was a National Pie Day? A few days ago I asked Joe what kind of pie he wanted, and he mentioned a mud pie. I must say it turned out very good. But then, what could have gone wrong with chocolate and enough cream?! Yummy. 
Also, today was a snow day... not that it mattered for us. Got about 10 inches of snow. At least it didn't get super cold. The below picture was from this Sunday, before the storm, when we strolled in the neighborhood. It was 40 degrees, and Joe got a bit warm. See how he is wishing to be in Hawaii?

Sunday Rituals

It got warm, above the freezing point, and then got COLD again. Yesterday's high was around 5, and it dipped down to -10 last night. So when the bright sun was shining and the temperature got above 10 this afternoon, it was time to put on layers of clothes and go for a little walk. As we hoped, we were greeted by deer. A quite a few of them in the sun.

The snow covered trail was pretty, though the wind was piercing on the face once out in the open areas. 

Of course, we had our alternative motive afterwards.... Good beer at Blackrocks on early Sunday afternoon. This could be addictive (a walk included). 

On another subject, the day after tonkatsu (breaded pork cutlet) dinner, Joe got to take a bento lunch to work. It is definitely more exciting than our normal PBJ sandwiches. Hopefully I can make more bento lunch in this new year.

New Year

Happy New Year, everyone! It's been frigid with temperatures mostly in single digits and blowing snow. And we both got a bit of Christmas gift of colds from Joe's family, so we stayed home and relaxed for New Year's. We finished our 2017 with a sukiyaki dinner-- to carry Kayo's family tradition in Japan.
We started the year 2018 with sushi rolls made with the trout we'd caught and cooked. 

We really hope we could go outside and play in the snow soon.