Almost the last week of July

I went to NIA and James and Jack walked around the park, Jack was concerned that I was the building for so long.

Then it was errand time, drop Hannah at work, drop our wedding video at the Media to Digital place (we only have the one VHS copy of an event that was almost 30 years ago, been meaning to get it on DVD and digital for a while.) Jack said, boring.

We had lunch outside at the new Indian place that finally opened up, good food.

Then it was hot so we got some shave ice. As usual, Jack did not touch his snow ball (because it’s just ice.)

A flowery walk to Englewood Grand.

Jack and I checked out Berkeley lake for kayaking, it has better views when there isn’t haze from the smoke, lots of cattails and frogs too.

For lunch we went to Ohana Grille to check it out and I found out they have Hawaiian brunch on the weekends.

Grace made these at work.

We made a late night cookie run.

NIA again, then lunch at Cafe 180 with my furry date.

Did a little art.

Did some Shipt’ing and cooled off with ice cream and creeks.

Went to the park and watched Mudra dance.

You know Englewood Grand has really good drinks.

Saturday breakfast in Golden before a dog fest at the park.

Sunday, from church –

What is your purpose? Our purpose is not striving for the temporary. Everything we do in this life is temporary, ephemeral, a breath, everythings is meaningless – but then Jesus! Our purpose in life is to seek God first.

1. Say yes to Jesus.
2. Turn to Him for help.
3. Follow Him even when you can’t see the outcome.

The everyday things give joy in this life because of the promise of eternity – Jesus gives life purpose.

(I’ll paraphrase Ecclesiastes -) I meal plan, grocery shop, cook, clean up the dishes and then I have to do it all over again. I wash and dry the laundry, put it up, but then everything gets dirty again and I do it all over – it’s all meaningless! Meaningless! Just temporary things that last a moment (like a clean house), no one will remember a clean house or food I cooked when I’m gone, there must be more to life! Every day the sun rises, sets, then goes back again, what is the purpose?!

Acts 17:24-28 “The God who made the world and everything in it, this Master of sky and land, doesn’t live in custom-made shrines or need the human race to run errands for him, as if he couldn’t take care of himself. He makes the creatures; the creatures don’t make him. Starting from scratch, he made the entire human race and made the earth hospitable, with plenty of time and space for living so we could seek after God, and not just grope around in the dark but actually find him. He doesn’t play hide-and-seek with us. He’s not remote; he’s near. We live and move in him, can’t get away from him!

Matthew 6:19-21 “Don’t hoard treasure down here where it gets eaten by moths and corroded by rust or—worse!—stolen by burglars. Stockpile treasure in heaven, where it’s safe from moth and rust and burglars. It’s obvious, isn’t it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being….33 Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.

We dropped Hannah at work and went to the Dairy block for a date, dinner and music.

We went to EG for a nice drink on the front patio, Jack likes the front because of the rug.

Grace is in NM with Connections church doing a VBS at an Indian reservation, so I’m Peanut and Gingerbread sitting. Peanut was wondering what was up.

Dinners this week – tonight date night, sausage and shrimp gumbo with rice, cheese and onion enchiladas with salad, honey garlic chicken with mashed potatoes and broccoli, soup and sandwiches, food truck nite, leftovers.

Honey garlic chicken

6 chicken thighs, bone in or out, with or without skin*
Salt and pepper, to season
2 teaspoons garlic powder, to season
6 cloves garlic, crushed
1/3 cup honey
1/4 cup water (or chicken broth)
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar (or apple cider vinegar, or any white vinegar)
1 tablespoon soy sauce

Season chicken with salt, pepper and garlic powder; set aside. Heat a pan or skillet over medium high heat; sear chicken thigh fillets or breast fillets on both sides until golden and cooked through.
FOR BONE IN THIGHS:
Reduce heat after searing on both sides, cover skillet with a lid and continue cooking until the chicken is cooked through, while turning every 5 minutes until done. Drain most of the excess oil from the pan, leaving about 2 tablespoons of pan juiced for added flavour.
FOR SAUCE:
When chicken is done and cooked through, arrange chicken skin-side up in the pan (if cooking with skin); add the garlic between the chicken and fry until fragrant (about 30 seconds). Add the honey, water, vinegar and soy sauce. Increase heat to medium-high and continue to cook until the sauce reduces down and thicken slightly (about 3-4 minutes). Garnish with parsley and serve over vegetables, rice, pasta or with a salad.

Jazzy weekend

Lunch at Pure Kitchen in Frisco because…..good food, drinks and views.

Jack loves the little flower esplanade, we do too.

Then we went to Keystone for the jazz fest, we heard LAPOMPE and Dotsero.

Yes, it was a wine fest and I had no wine.

After wandering around for a while we headed out and ended up at Cochino where Jack found a friend.

Sunday, church, grocery shopping, I got some new flowers, City park jazz and food trucks.

From church – Why does God allow suffering

The world is a messed up and broken place, but God responds with His comfort and peace. Suffering does not have to be a competition – pain, distress and hardship no matter how big or small is suffering. We may ask – does God know and care about my suffering? Yes! The promise is not that we will NOT have suffering in this world, the promise is that God will meet us in the pain and distress and walk through it with us. The promise is not always a quick answer to pain, but a traveling through the pain with God by your side. Let’s not be in the mode of ‘sin causes suffering and therefore people who choose sin need to get their punishment’, there is suffering in the world because the world is not the perfect place it once was, but God desires to comfort, we just need to ask.

Habakkuk 1:1-4 God, how long do I have to cry out for help before you listen? How many times do I have to yell, “Help! Murder! Police!” before you come to the rescue? Why do you force me to look at evil, stare trouble in the face day after day? Anarchy and violence break out, quarrels and fights all over the place. Law and order fall to pieces. Justice is a joke. The wicked have the righteous hamstrung and stand justice on its head.

John 16:33 “I’ve told you all this so that trusting me, you will be unshakable and assured, deeply at peace. In this godless world you will continue to experience difficulties. But take heart! I’ve conquered the world.”

I Peter 1:5 God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you’ll have it all—life healed and whole. 6-7 I know how great this makes you feel, even though you have to put up with every kind of aggravation in the meantime. Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine. When Jesus wraps this all up, it’s your faith, not your gold, that God will have on display as evidence of his victory.

Porch time afterward.

Dinners this week -jazz and food trucks, lemon dill salmon with spaghetti squash and salad, teriyaki broccoli with chow mein noodles, Italian sausage with cheesy grits and salad, food truck nite, southwest chicken salad, leftovers.

Life moves fast

You’d think I do nothing, but then if I did nothing it would be easier to blog. So let’s see: the birds all flew out of the nest on the same day, but one didn’t quite make it to the trees. I plopped him back in the nest and 2 days later he flew into the house (he was back in the nest), so I put him back again and 2 days after that he must have been finally ready to fly.

I got a pedicure.

Rainbow flowers.

For the Fourth we went to Monument and watched their town parade and had brunch at the cafe.

We stopped at Castlewood canyon on the way home

The next day we had a picnic lunch in Ft. Collins, then went to the Exchange for drinks and ice cream.

I got to babysit my friend’s new baby, he’s pretty cute.

James and I tried out a new bar, once for just drinks and once for brunch, it was really good.

Jack liked the fake grass.

Jack and I went on a hike at Flying J and saw lots of wildflowers.

Jack usually goes on Shipt deliveries with me, but he hates Party city balloon orders and jumps up in the front seat.

I went on a food hunt and got Twinkies from the BBQ food truck, finally.

Drinks at Phil’s, one good thing about the pandemic, small businesses got money to make outdoor seating areas.

Jack and I found a new coffee shop, don’t know what they’ll do when it gets cold, most of their seating is outdoors.

Park day with Ann and Quinn.

Took Jack to a Muttfest, he got a free Kong and he went crazy for it and it’s his new favortie toy.

Went back to Rare by Grist to try some more fancy cocktails and have brunch.

Hope you got your free Slurpee on 7/11.

Picnic at the river.

Went to NIA and met a crazy dog at the park.

Made some art and realized the oil painting might never get finished because I have no patience.

Went to hear LAPOMPE, got interviewed by channel 4, told them to just use video of my dog – they pretty much did just that.

Had a date night dinner at the Lake House.

More NIA, chalk art and a Circus show.

A stroll by Clear creek.

Lunch with a view at Buffalo Bill’s grave.

Another dog fest, more toys and treats.

A Last Word at Phil’s.

While I was Shipt’ing around today I grabbed some tamales from a great tamale shack and got a mangonada, yum!

All caught up!

Hudson gardens, new coffee shops, mural walk, Dazzle, park day

James is off on Mondays so he came with me and Jack to Hudson for a flower walk.

We went to Mango Tree Coffee, which just opened, and it was great. It’s always nice to have non-Starbucks options for a gathering place and coffee.

I keep checking on the birds and guess what? There are 4 in there, the other 3 were just sitting on him.

I took Jack on a mural walk in Five points, coolness.

Tuesday was date night, I snagged free tix to Dazzle for the Denver Jazz Orchestra band, it was cool on many levels. We’d never been to Dazzle (at the original location or this one.) Our tix were free and there was a free buffet (that I hadn’t know about.) AND when we signed in we were given another set of free tix to any show coming up – cool! The music was awesome and the building was historic. Originally it was Baur’s confectionary and Dazzle kept an original chandelier from the store (it was a very posh store.) Baur had a customer come in and ask for seltzer and cream, he was out of cream so he added ice cream and boom, in 1871 the ice cream soda was born.

I had missed NIA on Monday so I made up for it on Wed.

Grace and I went to another new (to us anyway) coffee shop with good chai and awesome views.

Jack and I went to a park day the next day and he got filthy in the creek. He spent about 10 minutes digging a hole that filled up with water, I just let him dig, he was having so much fun.

I gave him a bath at Pet Supplies Plus and now he’s all fluffy. I’m just chilling today, though James and I did go to the BBQ food truck for lunch and my van went into the shop for a brake job. Jack and I might get out for a hike tomorrow if the rain holds off.

Weekend

We had perfect timing in Pueblo, it had rained and it stopped right when we parked. Because it was raining no one was outside, but we were able to get an outdoor table at 1129 and then the sun came out and the outdoor tables got popular. We had a long and leisurely lunch and drinks and then walked around the Riverwalk.

The boats were open so we took a ride, it was James and Jacks first time on the boat. The boats came from the San Antonio Riverwalk and our guide pointed out different things on the short tour. We got to see the water line from the 1921 flood, 20 feet of water is a lot! Jack thought it was fun.

We headed home and went through more rain, but at least we don’t have to water the lawn.

On Sunday I didn’t feel great, so I went to urgent care to get some pain relief, not that it helped that day, but a few days later I was somewhat better. We skipped City Park jazz and went to Phil’s.

Dinners this week – grilled chicken, beef stroganoff with salad, chicken tikka with sweet potatoes and salad, Sterling ranch food truck nite, penne pasta shrimp with creole sauce and salad, Cuban picadillo with sweet plantains and salad, leftovers.

Cuban picadillo

2 potatoes salt to taste

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, minced

1 green bell pepper, minced

2 teaspoons crushed garlic

1 ½ pounds lean ground beef

2 cups dry red wine

1 (15 ounce) can tomato sauce

⅔ cup pimiento-stuffed green olives, drained and chopped

½ cup capers, drained

¼ cup golden raisins

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 pinch dried oregano

¼ teaspoon black pepper

¼ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon olive oil

Place the potatoes into a large pot with enough water to cover; season with salt. Bring the water to a boil; reduce heat to medium-low, place a cover on the pot, and cook the potatoes at a simmer until tender, about 20 minutes. Drain and set aside to cool. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium heat; cook and stir the onion, green bell pepper, and garlic in the hot oil until the vegetables soften, about 5 minutes.Crumble the ground beef into the onion mixture, breaking the meat into smaller pieces as you mix; cook and stir until the beef is completely browned, 7 to 10 minutes. Drain as much fat from the mixture as possible. Stir the red wine, tomato sauce, olives, capers, golden raisins, cumin, oregano, black pepper, and 1/4 teaspoon salt into the ground beef mixture. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low, and cook at a simmer until the wine had reduced significantly, 25 to 30 minutes.Peel the cooled potatoes and cut into chunks. Heat 1 teaspoon olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Cook the potatoes in the hot oil until browned, about 5 minutes. Gently fold the cooked potatoes into the simmering ground beef mixture; cook together 5 minutes.

The week

I’m so tired, look I get up and go to NIA, but you can see that I’m tired.

Nothing really in all of my labs that would point to an exact reason as to fatigue, maybe my heart monitor will show something. The finches are a few days old now, very quiet too.

Jack is back to his porch sitting with us, he patrols the porch and barks at the flag next door.

Looking a little less tired after Wed NIA, but I was dragging all afternoon.

Wed was also date night at the park, wine, pizza and tunes.

I’m naming this bird Groucho, the others are (of course) Harpo and Chico.

Now they are a week old!

The weather is turning cooler for a bit, nice walking weather for Pueblo tomorrow – Bingo burger is calling. Hopefully we get to see some hot air balloons too if the weather holds out.

Doc stuff, gotcha day, park day, water sampling, weekend

I was told my 2 week heart monitor would be waterproof and small – nope. It’s a 3 lead version attached to a beeper sized pendant and a cell phone. During the first day the sticky pad the lead is attached to came off twice, day two I pulled off 2 leads at different times and dropped the cell phone, it got better as the week went on, but annoying to carry a cell phone in one pocket and the pendant in the other.

It’s time to porch sit in the evening.

I took Grace to take bday pics (on her bday post) and it was Jack’s gotcha day, so he had some food from the Greek food truck with us.

This ice cream hippie van was cute.

Jack got to play ball.

Can you believe it’s been 3 years since we got Jack? This is the pic that sealed the deal.

First puppuccino.

First LM ice cream.

First 4th of July.

Thursday Jack and I went to the park, then to the river, then he had a bath.

It was food truck night and they almost ran out of food before it was our turn to order- note to self, get there earlier.

Friday I got my oil changed, which meant that Jack got a treat.

It was perfect weather for a drink on the back patio at EG.

Saturday we woke up to……

Babies!

James and I went to brunch at Hashtag, my chicken and waffles were so good.

We walked around Stanley, went to Petsmart and then back home for leftovers.

Sunday was Father’s day, the girls took us to brunch at Star Kitchen for Dim Sum, here is some of the wreckage when we were done. We had so much food, it’s the first time we took leftovers home!

Back at home I took a carb induced nap and later James, Jack and I went to City Park Jazz. I had food from the Hecho food truck and a watermelon-mangonada.

Dinners this week – crockpot root veggie stew, cheese and onion enchiladas with salad, grilled sandwiches with soup and salad, chicken tibs with kik and injera, food truck nite, leftovers.

Tibs

1 large red onion, about 2 cups, sliced thin
1/4 cup niter kebbeh or ghee spiced butter
2 pounds venison, lamb or beef or chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces
2 tablespoons berbere
1 teaspoon ground fenugreek
1/2 teaspoon cardamom (optional)
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground clove
1 teaspoon black pepper
3 to 4 garlic cloves, sliced thinly
2 cups whole peeled tomatoes, broken into bits
1 to 5 green chiles, such as jalapenos or serranos
1/2 cup red wine

Get the saute pan or wok very hot. Stir-fry the onions without the butter for a few minutes, until they char just a little on the outside. Add the spiced butter and the meat. Stir-fry hot and fast until the outside of the meat is brown but the inside of the meat is still rare. You need to do this on as hot a burner as you have. Do it in two batches unless you have a very large wok or pan.

The moment the meat has browned, add it all back into the pan along with the spices, garlic and chiles. Stir-fry another 30 seconds or so, then add the tomatoes and the wine. Toss to combine and let this cook for a minute or two. Serve at once with bread or injera. Cook times will vary depending on the type of meat you use.

Kik alicha

½ lb yellow split peas
1 white onion , finely grated
2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
3 cloves garlic
3 tablespoons niter kibbeh (Ethiopian spicy clarified butter)
2 jalapeño peppers (to taste), halved lengthwise
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 tablespoon fine salt

Soak the yellow split peas in plenty of cold water for 1 hour. Drain them. Boil three times the volume of split peas in water. As soon as the water comes to a boil, add the drained split peas. Add the onion and cook, covered, for 45 minutes, or until the split peas are tender, stirring occasionally.

Season with salt, mix, and cook for 1 minute. Add the garlic, ginger and turmeric and cook for another 10 minutes. Add the niter kibbeh and the peppers. Mix well so that the aromas diffuse in the split peas. Serve piping hot with injera.

Weekend

James and I went for a wildflower walk, I have to remember to take my Mom here next time she comes, it’s got nice views.

We went by the MOA Marjorie park re-grand opening. I think they could’ve kept Weidenblume for some shade, but overall it looks pretty good.

In the evening we went to Englewood Grand and sat on the shady front patio.

Four eggs in the nest.

Sunday we went to the first City Park jazz in 2 years! Food trucks!

Busy week coming up!

Dinners this week – City Park Jazz and food trucks, panini sandwiches and soup, chicken mole with rice and avocado salad, make your own stuffed potato bar, BBQ food truck night, chicken broccoli rice casserole, leftovers!

Grace is 19

Which means that Travel bunny is also 19…

Bunny has been everywhere, even Paris.

Now he stays safe at home, but he had a good life.

Grace had to work, so she came home to the balloons and decorations. Her boyfriend made her a Monokuma cake, Grace made her own lemon chiffon cake with lemon curd and macaroons.

Grace picked Tupelo Honey for dinner and the weather was perfect for sitting outside. I had the spicy chicken and waffles and man, it was spicy.

We went by LM’s after dinner, really we were there to check out a plant shop that ended up being closed, so we got ice cream anyway.

It was almost a week later when we were able to take bday pics. She was wearing an Alice in Wonderland dress, so we wanted to take pics at the Drunken Bakery which is Alice themed, but they were out of pastries and decided to close the shop for the day….so we ended up at the garden atrium across the street.

At home we had cake and she opened cool presents like a Monomi hoodie, new book, sketch book, ice cream purse, watermelon and lemon and cactus earrings, a new tea dress, a pastel rainbow shirt, money, I think that’s it, but I may have forgotten a few things. I think 19 will be a good year.

June

Went on a walk by Clear creek with my Schnooke and boop, saw some pretty flowers and ate lunch at D’Deli.

My niece got married and we watched via FB live where I grabbed some screen shots.

We went to Boondocks and played putt-putt and bowled.

Did some good NIA where we had fun reversing the playlist.

Played ball with Jack, went to the doc to get knee shots and a CT scan, Hannah had a doc appointment to check her heart (all good.)

Had a hike at Little park by the creek when it was hot.

Cafe 180 opened again, Jack and I did another hike at Maxwell creek.

Something happened to one of the eggs in the finch nest – don’t know what, but now there are 4.

It was hot again so Jack and I went tubing.

Jack lost his ball and we had to get a new one, we also went by EG for a nightcap.