Negotiations

When I moved to my apartment I was forced to sign up for comcast cable (TV) and internet in order to get any kind of good speed internet. I got some kind of new person 6 month deal. So I started getting very nervous when the 6 months was nearing completion.

Steeling myself one morning I logged into their online customer service chat thing and inquired as to what kind of deal they would give me now. I didn't bring it up but I was prepared to ditch the TV. I only had it originally because I needed it to get the internet rate. But I've actually taken to using it a bit and it's good for a lazy evening. Although as of late I've been barely using it. And I find the disuse to be a good thing as watching TV always feels like a waste of life (even though I just about always use it as crafting time as well).

The online chat people were slow, but pleasant. And I was offered everything that I currently have for just a $5 per month increase.

Happily I agreed. All in all surprisingly painless. :-)

Back in the saddle.

So far April has been a pretty good biking month. We were blessed with some ridiculously awesome weather early on. Here's what I was up to:

4/2: My ballet teacher has always wanted to ride the full path round our city so I offered to take her. It was quite pleasant to chat with someone the whole time and made the miles pass quite quickly. 18.1 miles, rather slow.

4/6: Finally I got myself up and out for a full solo loop around the city. It is significantly helpful that I finally have enough daylight for such things. I felt quite strong the whole time but my average speed says I wasn't very fast.

4/10: Bran bought a bike and out we went! At times it was another slow ride. But at this one nice flat paved part he put on the gas and honestly it would have been a problem for me to maintain that for very long. Uh-oh. (Actually this could be really good, I need someone to push me to improve.) 11.1 miles.

4/11: I was determined to get out for my first ride of decent length this year. The goal was 30 miles. Out by the river it turned windy and on a bike a head or cross wind is pretty much death. I kept going anyway. Having gone out a bit before a normal dinner time I determined that gel chews are a totally awesome bike food. Much better tasting than cliff bars and still filling. In the end though I think the challenge of the longer ride plus the wind helped me push myself harder because when I ended at 29.7 miles my average speed was the best yet! And for next time I think I know where I can easily add a mile.

And as an added bonus none of those rides really killed me. A few of the times I was tired that evening. But I particularly noticed that on the 30 I didn't even feel it the next day.

Rock on.

Bon appetit!

I may have discovered the perfect easy but good, real home made meal.

It's based off of this recepie: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Tomato-Chicken-Parmesan/Detail.aspx

However I am a lazy chef so I've made some changes of my own:

As a small person I don't ever eat a whole chicken breast. So I use chicken tenders or I cut up a breast into smaller pieces. I did also make this using a full chicken breast once for Bran, so it does work. Dip the chicken pieces in egg and then in the breadcrumb/Parmesan cheese mix. To make the mix I just throw some of each in a bowl. No measuring needed. There's probably a trick to making it work better but I just really press down into the crumbs to have them stick and I'll add more on top once I've placed the chicken in the baking pan. But before I put the chicken in the pan I do lay down a small layer of tomato sauce. After all of the chickens are arranged in the pan I add more sauce plus putting a bit on top of the chicken. Then I stick the whole thing in the oven (or toaster oven depending upon scale) for a while. Cheese can be added towards the end if desired, but it's not needed. The resulting chicken is moist and tasty. Yumm.

 To complete the meal noodles can be easily cooked up. And green beans are a perfect compliment. Last time I made this meal I steamed some frozen green beans then used some garlic butter I had stored in the fridge from the last time we ordered Pappa Johns (it was an unopened container). That made tasty and ridiculously easy green beans (allbeit not so healthy). Plus the extra garlic butter then went on some old french bread from the freezer for a quick and easy garlic bread.

It's (less) electric.

My utility bills this past winter were absolutely brutal. I had lots of strikes against me: a particularly cold winter, an apartment that's an old 1915 stand alone carriage house, and the first time I've ever been paying utilities all on my own (previously = roommates).

The oil bill was the worst so I worked to keep that down. The thermostat was set at 60. At first I would indulge in a weekend at 65 or once even 70, but by January/February I had steeled up (and or had enough sticker shock). And I relied on a space heater to keep me going.

Then the electric bill went through the roof. This also had strikes against it as PA went through some kind of crazy deregulation that had been holding rates down.

All in all it was sad.

So when I opened my March bill and discovered an amount nearly half of the previous months it was absolutely glorious.

I love the warmer months. Not only am I no longer running the space heater all the time, but I'm out and about doing so much more instead of collapsing in front of the TV.

Here's to plenty more sunshine to come!

Dandelion

I finally took a picture of my wall Dandelion. Each of those little seed pods is drawn and cut by hand so obviously it will take half of forever if I cover the whole stem. But even with just a few I think it looks pretty neat. And its one of those projects that it's easy to add on and it will keep looking cool all in the mean time.

It's just a bit big

Just about every time Bran leaves my house I find something that he left behind. Really it's pretty cute and rather endearing.

Most recently he left a zip up fleece jacket thing. It happened to co-incide with a fall back into some cool weather I have taken to wearing it. And as it is quite warm and comfy I'm enjoying it.

Last evening in talking to him I commented that I was making use of the jacket. His response was something to the extent of "well I'll never see that again". I responded back that it was his so I would certainly give it back next time he was over. But then he said that he wouldn't be wearing it now that it's spring anyways. And so I plan on keeping it.

It's kinda cliche but I seem to have a mild obsession with wearing his stuff. Although there is a distinct point in the fact that mens-wear seems to be significantly more designed with comfort in mind.

I will admit that it is a bit big however:

Weekend.

This past weekend was quite rather spectacular. And really what made it so good was that every bit of my glorious free time from 7PM Friday til 1PM Sunday was spent with my man, whom I do believe I shall now take to calling Bran. I love being with him and we did awesome stuffs.

On Friday we started by doing a bit of bike window shopping. Then we went to a hip restaurant. There we had a decadent feast that for me included an appetizer (yay free coupon) of Nachos, French Onion Soup, and a delicious Chicken Fajita entree. Plus I even got me a nice fruity alcoholic beverage (Mango Rum Drop). Holy moly! Bran got a steak because he is a man and eats manly things like steaks. And then he drove home because I was acting really giddy (completely convinced it was more placebo effect than the actual alcohol).

On Saturday we went bike shopping for real and Bran bought himself this new beautiful shiny bike. I think I'm in love. Of course we immediately went home and went for a bike ride. It made me happy.

Then that evening we got together with a bunch of his friends to eat pizza (always a yum), watch the end of A Knights Tale, and play trivial pursuit. There are many funny parts to this because these boys were in the middle of watching a chick flick that they tried to say was not a chick flick but it obviously is. And really I gotta love me any group of people who has the intellectual capacity and desire to play a game of trivial pursuit. Plus given that here it was/is considered a fun activity. Well now that just means I've found a good group of people methinks.

Sunday we were supposed to have brunch but ended up doing lunch at a local place that's been on the 'go there' list. It's a burger and fries type place (even though I get a chicken sandwitch). I hadn't been in a long time plus I'd never been to this particular location. But it was a rousing success! Bran enjoyed his ginormous plain burger, my chicken sandwitch was good, and they had nacho cheese that I could dip my fries in. Yumm.

Finally before he left Bran started us on a new TV series: Arrested Development. So far it's a good bit out there, but enjoyable. And if the boy is to believe it'll be getting better.

All in all: happiness.