Monthly Archives: August 2008

Argh! Latley I have been having the worst luck breaking things. I’m a bit klutzy anyway, but in the last couple of weeks I have broken quite a few glasses. Today I broke yet another one! Drew’s mom and aunt came over and after lunch I went to wash the dishes. We have double kitchen sinks and one has the dish strainer and the other the dishes to be washed. Both were pretty full and there was an empty wine glass on the counter and I have no idea how I bumped it, but I did. And *smash* — a sink full of glass shards. Lovely. I did end up getting everything, and amazingly did not get cut, either. But still.

Maybe I should just drink my wine out of plastic tumblers from now on

Well, after several months of research and procrastination, we finally traded in our Jeep Liberty for a new car! We decided on a 2009 Subaru Forester. The boys were at my parents’ for the weekend, so the night before our appointment, we decided to check out what the dealer had on the lot since we were having dinner nearby anyway. (Sidenote: we noticed how much commercial real estate there is over in Kingston — so much retail space being built or redone and leased out. It seems like there is everything over there, so I can’t imagine what else they can put in.) They only had a few, so our choices were pretty limited, but we fell in love with this black one.

The next morning we drove over. We took both cars because I had been out running a few errands and instead of driving all the way home when I was halfway there… Long story short, the dealership manager took the Jeep for a drive before giving us a final trade-in value and it started to make weird noises. We had barely driven it at all in the past couple months. I did notice an odd noise the last time I was in it, but nothing terribly scary. Well they took it in the shop and asked us to take a listen. It was awful! It did not sound good at all. We went back to the sales office and when our rep came back he let us know that it ended up stalling out and they couldn’t restart it. They had to push it to the back of the lot! OMG… I could not believe this was happening. Our poor little Liberty had decided it was time to go. So needless to say, we did not get our original quote on the trade-in, but I was still quite happy with what we ended up with (all things considered).

So yeah, we ended up with a new Forester and picked it up yesterday morning. I love, love, love it! It drives *so* smooth and is so nice. And I know it won’t be kicking the bucket anytime soon, LOL!

If you are interested in wine (especially Italian wine!) or if you just want to learn more about it, I am giving away a copy of Passion on the Vine by Sergio Esposito on my wine blog. There are no strings attached — just leave a comment and I’ll pick a winner after Labor Day!

I have a fun giveaway planned for this blog next week, too, so be sure to check back!

Awesome share this week, though I wish we had some green peppers instead of the red ones. I know, most people like the red ones best, but I prefer green bell peppers. Alas… I won’t complain. I plan to roast these babies. We also got lettuce, arugula, leeks, carrots, green beans, eggplant (after a little break I can deal with them again), garlic, yellow squash, zucchini, cucumbers, onions, tomatoes, potatoes, scallions, and the usual herbs and flowers. I did not take advantage of the PYO cherry tomatoes or extra beans. I was kind of rushing to get home tonight.

I’ll be bringing some of this stuff up to my parents. I also think I’ll pickle the green beans and carrots. I’ll make stewed tomatoes since I never did get around to that last week. I am super excited about the arugula. I thought it was over in the spring, so I am thrilled to have it back! It’s one of my favorite salad greens. I’ll be making chicken milanese for sure. Yum!

What day is it? Tuesday? Sheesh, I can’t keep the days straight this week for some reason. I hope you all had great weekends! Ours was good. On Saturday, Drew stained the deck so that is one more project completely out of the way. Needless to say, he is really happy about that. We decided to go out for dinner on Saturday and tried the burger shop in Red Hook that I wrote about for the paper. It’s called Uncle Chippie’s Old Fashioned Burger Shop and it’s really good! If you’re in the area, give them a try. The owners are super nice and they have really creative burgers. I ordered the chili burger and Drew ordered the bruschetta burger. Of course, we split our meals so we could try both! The chili burger was SO good! I think I want to eat my way through all 14 specialty burgers, LOL! Next time: the stroganoff burger.

After dinner we ran to the supermarket to pick up beer and ice cream, and then headed home. Sunday morning I went grocery shopping by myself (!!!). I hit three stores and would have gone to Stop & Shop as well, but the traffic for the fair made it impossible. I had a hard enough time going straight through the intersection on 9/9G to head home, forget about turning right toward the fairgrounds.

I spent yesterday catching up on cleaning and laundry. The boys are going for a “vacation” at my parents for the next few days and I want to actually relax instead of spend the time cleaning like I usually do, LOL! In fact, I need to finish packing up their bags. I also need to prep dinner, since tonight I have to pick up our farm share. I hate when I am not organized and we end up eating late. I think I’m just going to make tacos tonight because that way I can just have everything ready.

Well, off to slice and dice!

At least to me That is, I’m talking about all the Vice President talk. Granted, I have only watched maybe 5 minutes of the summer Olympics and do not care to watch any more. But I am WAY more interested in who Obama’s pick is going to be. I’m going to guess Joe Biden. But probably because that is who I’m hoping it is (back in the early days of the race, I took a political compatibility quiz and I matched up closely to him). I’m hoping that since I can’t have my first pick (Hillary, obviously), hopefully Obama will choose a VP that I can get behind since I am not a huge Obama fan. Of cours I’m even less a McCain fan, but I’m interested to see who he is going to pick too, as I haven’t completely decided who I am going to vote for in the fall. (Though I’m pretty sure.) I’m just sad that yet again I feel like I have to vote for the lesser of two evils and not someone I can really support. Sure I could vote for a third party, but look what happened in the Gore-Bush-Nader race. What about you? Do you have a gut feeling about who either candidate will choose? Anyone in particular you are hoping for? Will a VP pick help swing your vote one way or another?