Storms

After the storm clears...

Our Yard

The land on which our new home sits is not a typical yard - it is very wild. In fact, we don't do much at all to it other than kill prickly sticker-weeds. It's been interesting to watch the plants around our house mature. Mr X and I talked about buying packets of wildflower seeds to sprinkle with abandon on our property. We bought the seeds but never got around to the sprinkling. As it turns out we didn't really need the seeds anyway. Here are some photos of the wildflowers around our home:

I don't know the names of most of them - though I've looked them up before. I'm terrible at remembering names. At our old place we had beautiful all-yellow Columbines outside our front door and I was sad to leave them. I even considered trying to dig some up in order to transplant them here at our new place. I decided against it since I was pretty sure I would kill them in the process. So I was delighted to discover that we  have a couple of pink and yellow Columbines at our new place. 

But later as I was working in my office, I looked out the window just in time to admire this deer - and then I watched it gobble up my precious Columbines! :-(

Home.

It's the place where I have now spent 10 nights. Supposedly it's my home now. Since I got my internet all squared away, I'll admit that it feels a bit more like a home. *blush* However, it still feels not real - it's not really my place. It's not quite comfortable yet. That's because Mr x is missing. I know it's sappy but my house needs mr x in it before it becomes our home. Can't wait for him to come home.

Just For My Own Amusement

I saw this online and found it amusing. As I read through list of procrastination methods I found myself thinking, "Oh yeah, that's definitely me."

I would venture a guess that most everybody procrastinates to some degree - except maybe Mr Nye - so which ones from the field guide below sum you up?

I've got four of them covered: The Cleaner, The List Maker, The Sidetracker and The Perpetuator

Comic illustration by Angela Liao, 20px. Published with permission; all rights reserved.

What a Jerk!

Mr X made Jerky. (I helped by tending to it while it was on the smoker.) But Mr X did all the hard work: research, chopping, trimming fat, marinading, etc. I knew we were going to try to make our own jerky with some of our beef and I was excited about it so I was antsy to try it. I told Mr X that I prefer my jerky to be thicker and chewier rather than super dry and pull-your-teeth-out-tough like some of the kinds they sell in the stores. He agreed. 

The meat was in marinade for about two days and then we smoked it using hickory chips for about 4-5 hours.

On the smoker.

The finished product.

This is how a torn up chunk looks inside.

I'm happy to say that it turned out chewy and scrumptious! Yay! I a bit of a jerky fan so I'm really happy to have a big ole' pile of homemade jerky on hand at home. Mr X is the greatest!

Mr X's Valentine's Day Dinner: Sweet & Simple

I loathe going out to dinner on Valentine's Day. Mr X feels similarly. So each year that we are lucky enough to spend Valentine's Day together I make him dinner. This year we spent Valentine's Day skiing so I didn't have time to do anything complicated when we got home. So this was what we had:

Seafood Cakes with Mustard Crema

These cakes (recipe from Cooking Light) are a somewhat regular dinner item at our house because they are so delicious and easy to make. By regular, I mean we probably have them a couple of times each year.

A green salad with maple-glazed walnuts, gorgonzola cheese and apples

Topped with a homemade oil & vinegar salad dressing.

For dessert it was a youthful indulgence - early in our marriage we used to go buy those lofthouse soft frosted sugar cookies from the grocery store and eat the whole pack. (*blush*) They were most definitely a terrible indulgence on our part. It's been years since we've bought them, but occasionally when I pass them in the store I think.....hmmmm....those would probably be kind of good. So I decided to make them at home. They turned out beautifully and tasted spot on - particularly those we ate a day or two later.

I didn't have these particular sprinkles on hand, but rather sanding sugars in white, red and silver as well as silver dragees so that's what I put on top. Recipe courtesy of Annie's Eats.

 [Photos courtesy of the interweb because, once again, I neglected to take photos. I swear one of these days I'll get my act together and start taking photos again.]

A New Mountain

There are 27 ski resorts in Colorado (I could be wrong on that, but I think I'm close). I told Mr X when we moved here that I want to eventually have skied or snowboarded at all of them. Then I found out that Silverton is for experts only and you have to have a guide and you use ski cats to get around and people die there every year. I'm not that brave. So I amended my original request and told Mr X and I'd like to eventually go to 26 of the 27 resorts in Colorado.


Here they are:

Ski Granby Ranch, Howelsen Hill, Durango, Sunlight, Beaver Creek, Keystone, Vail, Telluride, Eldora, Snowmass, Powderhorn, Loveland, Winter Park, Crested Butte, Copper, Aspen Highlands, Aspen, Buttermilk, Snowmass, Ski Cooper, Breckenridge, Steamboat, Wolf Creek, Monarch, Silverton, A-Basin,
and Purgatory

So far I've been to 9:

A-Basin, Monarch, Steamboat, Copper, Crested Butte, Winter Park, Breckenridge, Vail, and Keystone

I have a long way to go. Each year we try to go to one new resort. The first year it was a bunch since it was our first year here. The second year it was Crested Butte. The third year it was Steamboat. This year it was Monarch.

We spent two days there and the snow was incredible! The first day we had almost a foot of fresh powder. The second day we had 14 inches of fresh powder. That much snow was exhausting - and I mean that in the most exciting and fun way possible. My only two complaints about this place was that the crowd on Saturday was a little much (the mountain is rather small so it doesn't hold a crowd well) and that the runs are pretty short. Most are only about a mile and I think there's a couple that are 2 miles. Of course load of fresh champagne powder trumped both of those issues.

I didn't take photos (again, I know, I've been bad about that lately) so these are courtesy of the interweb:

This resort is 3 hours away from our house so we decided to stay overnight since we wanted to go for two days in a row. We like to try out hot springs here and there and we've sampled many here in Colorado. Pagosa Springs was our favorite to-date. But this place, Mt Princeton Hot Springs, took over the top spot for us. Great facilities, lots of soaking options, great water temperatures, very low on the sulphur-smell factor, beautiful scenery. Mr X especially enjoyed the natural pools nestled in the rocks next to the river. You can hardly make them out in the first photo but just look at the river and the rocks on the left-hand side of the photo contain some scalding hot pools of water. You can arrange the rocks so that more river water comes in to cool down the water temp.