Long As I Can See the Light

Okay it's been a busy two weeks. I might have to split this up into two posts. Last weekend, Lisa E and I went to El Mexicano Jr on Wilson Street in Manchester. This excursion is part of Lisa's plan to seek out new and different places, as some times off the beaten track is a hidden jewel. There isn't much ambiance to the place and there are only three tables, but the food was wonderful. Lisa tried a selection of tacos and I got the chile relleno plate and we each got guacamole. Lisa was disappointed as she really wanted to try the tongue taco, but they didn't have it available that night. It was also nicely inexpensive. If you don't mind the hole in the wall atmosphere (which I don't), this is a must try.

On Saturday, I foolishly made my car inspection appointment for 8:00 am, so I trooped up to Grappone, and then visited the Corner View Restaurant for blueberry pancakes while I reread and made notes on my writing group's submissions for the meeting that afternoon. Writing group was hosted by Mary Kate and her 19 and 22 pound cats. Writing group was very helpful, despite the fact that I had not submitted what I wanted to. Mary Kate hosted and served some wonderful homemade bread and some chocolate with chili in it that was just amazing. I arrived home that day to find that Shawn had bought me a box of chocolates and some champagne, but no sculpture. Champagne is good though. And I think it'll probably take me at least 5 years to get Shawn to do a sculpture....at least.

We had decided to really do Valentine's Day on Monday, as we both had it off. What we ended up doing is a cooking marathon. We grocery shopped for the first time since god knows when, so on Monday we got the crock pots running, and made Potato Cheese soup, Green Chile Stew, and Caribbean Black bean soup. We package these up in individual gladware containers and freeze them for lunches. For our romantic dinner, we got two filet mignon, got out the rotisserie and roasted garlic, made a roasted garlic sauce with red wine vinegar, shallots and chicken broth reduced and then blended with 2 bulbs of the roasted garlic. Then we crushed peppercorns and cooked the filet in the rotisserie. The sauce was wonderful.

On Wednesday I made an appearance at the Manchvegas knitting group so I could snag my Thin Mint girl scout cookies from Sarah C. It was nice to see everyone and I needed the laughs. On Thursday, I had made an appointment to get my hair cut at a real salon, 26th on Hanover in Manchester. Brittany talked me into a cut with layers, this is my best attempt at taking a picture of myself. It actually looks better than that. After the haircut, I headed on over to Alison's to meet Edgar. Edgar is Alison's new child, a shih tzu - chihuahua mix. He's only six months old and only six pounds.

During this week, I also worked on the novel a lot. Unfortunately, I did not use the Wii Fit very much. After writing group and seeing Lisa, I've been hellbent on getting the rewrites done so that I can send it out to certain people who want the next installment, but it's been taking longer than I thought it would.

On Saturday, I went to see Gina H's trunk show at the Elegant Ewe, at which she had her new book and lots of the items from the book on display. If you're interested in Gina's book, go here. She's done a really nice job of putting it together and printing it. It's very professionally done and there's some neat patterns in it.

Stay tuned for part II...