Angela Law

animal lover, gardener, knitter, and gourmet cook
 
holidays

fourth of july

We started off the holiday weekend with a party at our friend Lish’s house on Sunday. Jacob had a blast because there were a bunch of kids for him to play with there. That night, we came home and took the pups for a walk. Once it got dark, we had a fire in the chiminea and watched everyone’s fireworks while Jake played with his sparklers.

On the 4th, we didn’t do much. Jake went to my parent’s in the morning and came home around supper. While he was gone, Brian and I got caught up on our work around the house. Then, the three of us had a little cookout for supper. Last night, we were hoping to catch the fireworks that were going on downtown, but they couldn’t be seen from our place. And there weren’t as many fireworks going off yesterday as Sunday so we didn’t catch too many (much to Jacob’s chagrin).

food & drink, out and about, tech

fruitful day

Today started off with a picnic at Shawnee State Park. We had some lunch and then Brian and Jake hit the water. I’m not much of a swimmer to begin with (let alone when water that fish are actively pooping in is involved) so I sat under a tree and relaxed while they swam. Somehow, I still got slightly sunburned. Apparently dappled light from the shade of a tree is not equivalent to SPF 45. Who knew?

On the way home, we stopped at Giant Eagle and bought 16 pounds of strawberries. What are we doing with 16 pounds of strawberries you might ask? Well, the girl at the checkout counter wanted to know, so I’ll tell you, too–we were making strawberry wine. I’ve been waiting for a good sale on strawberries, but have not seen one. Giant Eagle had them on sale this week and I didn’t want to miss the summer “strawberry window” so I bit the bullet and bought them today (though they were certainly not at the best price I’ve ever seen by any stretch of the imagination). So, if you see strawberries on sale from this point forward, I don’t want to know about it. Making strawberry wine sure is a lot more work than the grape wine kits I usually make (particularly when your helper is out riding his motorcycle for the first 90 minutes of the process). But, the deed is done and 5 gallons of strawberry wine are currently fermenting in the kitchen.

Now for the computer problem of the week: our cable modem was not working again today. For the average person, the lack of internet access might not be a big deal. But, we have Vonage for our phone company, so it is more than a mere inconvenience for us. Luckily, they have a feature that when the internet (our our network) is down, our cell phone will ring at the same time as our house phone so we don’t have to miss any calls. But, this is certainly not as nice as when everything is working properly. Given this, we went to Circuit City to buy a new cable modem this evening. Before we left, I checked to make sure our cable modem was still broken. It was. When we returned home with the new cable modem, I checked ours again. This time, it worked (of course). So, I left it plugged in for now. I didn’t have a whole lot of confidence that Atlantic Broadband could activate a new cable modem at 9:00 on a Saturday night. What do I hate more than computer problems? Well, a couple of things, but I can’t list them here so we’ll just go with that for now.

celebrations

nine years and counting

Today, Brian and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary. We (all three of us) went to dinner at Rizzo’s Restaurant in Windber to celebrate this evening. As luck would have it, Brian had a meeting in Richland at 4:00 today, so he was able to get home early enough so that we could go out for dinner.

Brian and I had some delicious home-made ravioli along with some equally delicious valpolicella wine. Jake had spaghetti and meatballs. It was a good meal. It’s been a few years since we’ve eaten at Rizzo’s. Of course, we don’t eat out that often. When we do, it’s usually for a special occasion.

Next year, we’ll hit the big “10” year anniversary. I already know what I’m getting Brian. I like to plan ahead in case you haven’t noticed. I’m not sure what we’re doing to celebrate, but I’d like to do something special like go on a little trip or something (without the kid). I want to go here. All I need to do is convince Brian. Good thing I have a year to do so.

celebrations, motorcycles

party all day long

Yesterday, Jacob went to a birthday party for one of his friends from daycare. After this, we went to a Thunder in the Valley party at Jacob’s babysitter’s house. It was cool–there were real bikers there and everything (as opposed to the fake kind). Also, another one of Jacob’s friends from daycare was there, so he had someone to play with. Unfortunately, we couldn’t stay there long (though we would’ve liked to) because we had a wedding to go to last night.

My dad picked Jacob up and Brian and I went to the wedding. We didn’t stay very long because we wanted to head down to Thunder in the Valley for some additional partying. We got down there around 9pm and it was still hot. What’s with this weather, anyway? (It’s so hot in our office that our cable modem wasn’t working today because it overheated. I’m starting to think I should have a backup on hand for when the inevitable happens.)

After Thunder, Brian and I came home and enjoyed a Margarita while sitting by the chiminea and basking in the glow of my new solar lights.

It was a good day.

gardening & landscaping

let there be light

I’ve been wanting to put some solar lighting outside for quite a while now. I finally got around to buying some lights this week. I put some low accent lights in the myrtle patch and put some staked lanterns in my butterfly garden. I have to say, it looks pretty nice and I got them installed just before our cookout last night (my brother came over for dinner).

This is not the end of our solar lighting journey, though. We still need to put some around the driveway area out front, but that will probably have to wait until we replace the driveway (and who knows when that will be). We could also really use a light at the end of our sidewalk. I’m still waiting to find a solar light that will work well out there. And, once the shed area gets landscaped (this will occur over the next few years), I’ll probably put some lights around it as well.