Questing

I was trying so hard not to have unfair over the top expectations for Valentines day this year.



It’s always hard to figure out what to do, where to go, what to buy, while maintaining a level of sanity, and trying to imbue all events with romance. This year, I tried to head all those feelings off at the pass and suggested a quiet romantic meal at home. But even last night I was afraid that somehow my expectations might have gotten too large again. I couldn’t tell if my husband really wanted to do the meal, and we hadn’t gone shopping. I was trying very hard not to over dramatize, and have my high hopes of a romantic dinner disappoint me.



I shouldn’t have worried as much, or at all. It all came together. My husband emailed me a couple times at work, discussing how things would go, and he also felt we should pass on the offer of a steak dinner with my parents. (nice offer though it was)



I got home a bit late due to the late launch (yah!) of http://www.rotozip.com last night. We exchanged cards, and candy, and he got me a beautiful flower arrangement (with no baby-breath, he remembered I hate that stuff!!)



We leafed through the cookbook I bought the other day, and decided on the honey-glazed basil salmon, and the strawberry empanadas. Both recipes chosen for their brevity, and imagined taste quotient. A quick jaunt to the grocery store, and back and we were ready for business, or so we thought. Looks like I didn’t write croissants on our shopping list.



As I unpacked and began to prep the salmon, Carlo went out for the croissants we forgot. I took the time to rinse the grapes and strawberries, and thaw the shrimp out for the shrimp cocktail.



He came back with already cooked croissants, which was funny, because we were going to cook the empanadas with the strawberries inside, but not really a loss at all.



It all came out wonderfully. The salmon was delicious with the bit of rice. We finally opened the Marietta Zinfandel wine we had picked up months ago in Marietta Ohio, saved for a special occasion. The strawberries were perfectly sweet and juicy, the grapes were firm not sour at all. The shrimp was fresh as well. It was such a relief to have things go so well.



We sat, and ate, watching bits of the Olympics (we’ve decided that spinning is like Super Monkey ball.), but mostly savored our food, and wine, while watching the arts channel.



We watched some mimes, and ballet, and some clips of sunset blvd. We laughed and giggled our way through the entire bottle of wine. Somewhere in there I put the empanada mix(Strawberries, brown sugar, lite cream cheese) inside the sliced croissants, which we then warmed. Very tasty.



We were really starting to get into arts channel during the last clip titled Tzigane, a beautiful piece on a violin, sounding soulful and gypsy like. Suddenly, beep boop beep, the arts channel turned off for the night, displaying public access stuff about county meetings. Awww.

It was just a wonderful romantic night, the food was just perfect, and new, the company , of course, my favorite. Ranks as high as I can remember for valentine’s celebrations. Only fitting, this is the first one spent with my husband.



Viva L’ amour

Lil weekend, recap.



Had a great Friday out with Ace and Jess. We went to the mall and DDR’d till just about close, it was soo much fun! Got to see a lot of the ‘regulars’ who come and camp out near the machine. Ace is crazy doing the SSR and doubles, Jess and I went up on verses, so she could carry me through the 3 songs. Once she told me I didn’t have to pick up my foot after each step, I was a lot better. Near the end I was carrying her (a little, I was on basic, she was on trick.) Then we had a nice relaxing meal at Perkins, and hung out at my place. I managed to unearth almost all my ‘art stuff’ books and pencils and pens, and we doodled till about 1 or so, listening to dream theatre.



Saturday my husband and I slept till really late, me til 10, him till noon-thirty. I managed to get him up and we hit Perkins before dropping in on Sarah at work to see if we could snag her Xbox for the party (hadn’t know her schedule till then, or we would have picked it up earlier)



By the end of the night we had 8 people, 4 xboxs, but only 3 linked (had to cannibalize our cable modem for straight pass through cables.) Had a good time, with only a few personality clashes. We were up really late again. The last few games were really close when we finally had even teams. Our new switch that Jaz got us for Christams works great.



Sunday was gaming at Platteville, Jon GM’ing. Had a good time. Carlo played a deadly character, people die so easy in shadowrun.

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Ok, now we’re all caught up.



Had such a nice relaxing night last night!
We dropped into WW last night to weigh in, and I lose 1.2 lbs last week! YAAAAH!!! Since we’ve rejoined WW this year, I’ve lost something each week. I think I’m back on track.



Then we headed over to electronics boutique, picked up Golden Sun for GBA, Genma Onimusha for Xbox, and paid for Jet Grind Radio Future. From there we zoomed over to borders where I picked up a sexy cookbook, for Valentines Day. We’re going to have a nice low-key val-day at home, cook an awesome meal and stay away from those 4 hour waits at restaurants.



Then we hit fazoli’s for some food and went home where we had company waiting outside in the cold. Oh no! We usually do a bit of gaming on Monday, but one person couldn’t make it, another had to leave early for a company meeting, and a third got called home, his wife was going crazy with sick kids. So we didn’t get any of the gaming done. We still got to see some of our friends though, it’s always nice to chat, catch up.



Fine with me, though, after the boys played a little Wreakless, I got to play Genma Onimusha, which is just a beautiful game, very fun, very engaging, and I can watch it with original Japanese voices with subtitles! I wish I didn’t have to use the d-pad for all the walking around, but hopefully I’ll get used to it.



I got to play that for a while, and when our last guest left, Carlo picked up the Halo book we also bought at EB, and went to read. I decided this was a great time to finally get to try out my new DDR pad! Yah! Chris brought over his cute little psone. (we might have to get one of those, our playstation is busted, and the psone is soooo adorable and tiny. We got to see the neat addon screen at EB, very cool. Heh, the graphics look nicer when the screen is squished down.)



Anyway, I put it in the Exercise mode and DDR’d for a half hour. Way cool. It only added the time I was exercising, and not the time spent I spent in menus and stuff. I was only on the easy basic mode, but definitely got my heart rate up. I know I can do this several times a week. So excited!

I also did my weight exercises and 120 crunches. If I can keep all this up, I’ll be fit in no time!

I went out to Subway today for lunch. It’s absolutely beautiful outside. Practically 45 degrees, and lots of sunlight. Wind at the bare minimum. Absolutely delicious. I know it’s not officially spring yet, but inside the Subway you might have been fooled as well. Door open to let in the cool fresh air, man behind the counter talking with his female co-workers about his upcoming June wedding, women in the booth in front of me with a quiet baby, talking about children, ‘if this one is female her name will be…’, ‘if the next one is also female, that’s enough babies for now’.

I was sitting in the booth by the front window, with a quarter of the booth covered in sunlight from outside, it was warm, and cozy. I perused the free directory of real estate for sale, while eating my sub and my barbeque baked lay chips. The sun, the warmth, the friendly talk all around me was comfortable and kind. After I finished most of my sub, I opened my new small sketchpad and started inking a drawing I made the other night. The skritchings of my Micron pens on the paper was for a while the only sounds in the place, as patrons left, and the workers conversation lulled. I was sitting, absorbed in the sketch, getting drunk on the sunlight and silence. It’s just so beautiful out there today, the spring like qualities of the day feel like a condensed version of Hope, a preview of happiness down the line.

Things are moving forward, new life, spring coming, early or not, summer days outside, ren faires, weddings, my cousin’s new child was just born. Friends, cook outs, camping, vacations.

Goodness, I never though that buying an Xbox would make us so social, we’ve been having people over on Wednesdays, and sometimes a couple other days a week to play our games, or link up an extra Xbox for a Halo fest. We’ve had all sorts of people over, and taken the Xbox with us places as well. It’s actually quite nice to be socializing with a variety of people. Aside from the Xboxin’ we’ve been role playing a couple times a week as well, more for Carlo than me, as he’s had an established guys gaming night since I’ve known him. Woo, whatta schedule we’ve been keeping. Still, feels the same way, preview of happiness, good times with friends this summer, this year. Having an absolutely wonderful time, wish you were here.


Now, make sure you get outside today or tomorrow, cube life can make everything turn gray. Drink in some color, People