More babies

In July 2006, I made a list of the people I know who have had babies since April 2005.
Kai (Cathy and Carl)
Elise (Kari and Nathan)
Darren (Janet and Orvin)
Olive (Lou and Ryan)
Madison (Lynn and Don)
Adrian (Darren and Amy)
Matias (Mel and Nick)
Keaton (Veronica and Jeremy)

Since July 2006, there have been even more babies:
Joshua (Yvette and Brian)
Owen (Susan and Mike)
Elijah (Erin and Gary)
Senna (Leah and John)
Keira (Sharon and Norm)
Isabella (Mark and Linda)
Layla (Mubina)
Justine (Andrew and Monica)
Kelly (Elaine and Elton)
Lucas (Marty and Christine)
Luke (Shelley and Mark)
Selena (Shirley and Len)
Madelin (Monica and Josh)

And three guys at work are expecting babies early next year, too. Must be something in the water....

A lesson in budgeting - or not

I’ve never owned a TV. Ed inherited his family’s TV, which they bought in the early 90’s. It’s served us well until last year when the top part of the screen started to show lines. And then the bottom part joined in too. If you bang the TV repeatedly, the lines went away. But sometimes, it would ignore the banging and keep showing the lines. Since we can still see 90% of the picture, we just let it be.

Then a few months ago, instead of the lines showing up, the picture disappeared, the screen turned black and a white horizontal line appeared in the middle of the TV. We banged on it; nothing happened. We figured out that we had to turn off the TV for 5 to 10 minutes and try again. Sometimes doing that once did the trick. Sometimes we had to do that several times.

We started shopping for a new TV. A friend of ours bought a 37“ LCD TV for $1,200. So that set our budget. I thought a 32” would be fine (and we can spend less than $1,000) but Ed said that in order to have a picture that’s the same height as our dying TV, we needed to get at least 37“. Fine. Then Ed said we shouldn’t get anything below 1080p because blah, blah, blah. Whatever. Fine. Budget is now $1700. As we compared different brands, Samsung and Sony became the top two choices. I said I prefer Sony. Budget is now $1900. Aiya! Where is this going to end?

Last Friday, I saw a flyer that advertized a 40” Sony TV for $1688 at The Brick. The same TV at Future Shop was selling for $1,900. Wow, it’s a great deal! So off we went to The Brick. Get there, buy the TV, and get out, right? Nope. There’s this Sony home theatre system that’s HDMI blah blah blah that if you buy it with the TV, the package will cost $1,998. $300 for a $1,000 home theatre? How can we not buy it? So we did.

So much for having a budget! We suck.

House stuff

Ed and I haven't done much home renovations this year. Too busy with paddling, too lazy to do anything when we're not paddling. But now that race season is over, we're catching up on some stuff.

First up, the lovely wallpaper in the kitchen. We actually started stripping the wallpaper last July. The wall sat bare for a couple of months. I sanded it a couple of weeks ago and this week, Ed put primer paint on it. It is now officially ready to be painted!

Do I miss the yellow flowers on the wall? Not really.

The other thing I did was hang framed prints on the dining room wall. Next thing for the dining room is to replace the massive light fixture that dominates the room currently.

For the living room, I purchased pillow forms for the throw pillow covers I bought in Manila a year ago. Yes, it took me a year to buy pillow stuffing. And I found out that they sell pillow forms in even sizes - 14 x 14, 16 x 16, etc. Well, the throw pillow cases I have are 15 x 15. So they do look too big for the 14 x 14 pillow forms I bought. Probably will take me another year to fix that.

Our big ticket item this year will be the new carpet for the upstairs. I really am looking forward to replacing our 70's shag carpet. Although I'm not looking forward to Bob and Neo clawing away at the new carpet. Darn those cats.

Next year, maybe we will renovate the kitchen. Maybe... We have asked for a quote from one company already. We'll see how much they quote. At the rate we're going, probably will take us five years to get that new kitchen.

End of summer

Signs that summer is ending:
- The dock at False Creek is very quiet now; dragon boat season is done.
- I’ve had to turn on the heater in the house.
- Air is crisp and cool, even when the sun is shining.
- New episodes on TV.
- NHL is back on.

Summer just zoomed by. I’m kind of sad it’s coming to an end.

Cooking for friends

Last weekend, I cooked for my friends. Every other month, we have a dinner date with a group of our friends. We call it “dine in/dine out“. I got the idea from my friend, Lizza, who does a similar get-together with her friends in Spokane. There are eight of us (four couples) in our group and we each take turns organizing what the group will do or where the group will eat for that get-together. This is our way of ensuring that we all see each other at least once every two months, since our schedules tend to be pretty busy. Most of the time, we eat out or order food in.

But I was in a cooking mood. Ed and I have not been home a lot the last month or so. I don’t think I cooked a meal at home the entire month of August. So I found myself missing my kitchen and wanting to do homey stuff. Like cooking. I chose dishes from the Wild Rose cookbook that I can prepare for our friends. Simple, healthy yet delicious dishes. I made salsa, rice pilaf (basmati), steamed vegetables, lemon tahini dressing, lentil dahl, and baked herbed red snapper. I quite enjoyed preparing the meal for Ed and our friends, and I was proud of it (I don’t normally cook). I felt quite happy having friends around the table, enjoying the meal I prepared. But it can’t all be healthy stuff - we balanced it out with some cake from Pine House bakery.