At my house now: 67°F, Light rain, Wind S at 13 mph, Humidity 68%

Really wanted to get some pix taken outside today while there are still a few leaves on the trees and the ones on the ground aren't all dried out and brown....

If this rain lets up a bit, maybe I can snap a few....was hoping for a sunny day, as that "lights up" the colors of the leaves and makes for much prettier pictures...

Oh, well...maybe on Sunday.

Goal #46: Book 1/50 The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. I finished this book in August, and I still often think about it. Its hard not to think of it in these times of dwindling natural resources, global warming, international tensions and the stock-piling of nuclear weapons by developing nations.

Without getting really political here, the global climate begs the question "What would it really be like?" What would I do if I survived a global apocalypse? And the global event that triggers is may not even be political in origin. Perhaps a "super-volcano" might plunge the earth into a massive climate change. There are 3 known super volcanoes in the US alone, and 4 others identified across the globe.

The Road is a story about a father and son who've survived the event, only to live in a wasteland that is covered in ash and devoid of food. They are left to scavenge any abandoned house they find, while constantly working to hide from the few ravaged bandits that roam the region looking for hapless survivors who may become the next meal.

The father's actions are solely motivated by the childish optimisism of the son, and though he is beyond hope of them surviving, he cannot bring himself to use their last 2 bullets to end the misery. Starvation is their biggest enemy, and winter is looming, so they set out on the road to try and make it to the sea, all the while working to avoid the cannibalistic bandits they encounter along the way.

Their torn and meager possessions - tools for survival - are worn and failing, and as they travel, they leave a trail of broken and useless articles behind them, painting an ever-bleaker picture of the future.

The story caused me to think about faith, hope, human nature, and ethics. It caused me to think about how insignificant things can take on disproportionate meaning, if we allow our perspective to become very narrow and short-sighted. It made me recall that the most important things in the world are not inanimate objects, they are our family and friends, our feelings, our relationships.

And it made me think that we all need these kind of reminders from time to time....

Progress!! I took out the vanity, tore up the last of the old flooring and stripped the adhesive, and put down the new floor. I am WIPED! Got good compliments from the family, though. Thats always a good thing.

Tonight the new vanity/sink go in, and its off to Lowes again for the medicine cabinet/s.

When I put in the vanity, I am converting the wall heat duct to a toe-kick duct in the cabinet, so I've got some ductwork cutting and fitting to do. That should accomplish two things: keep our toes warm in the winter and help circulate the air around the bathroom more efficiently. The current set-up is that the duct comes out of the wall right by the side of the cabinet will only 3-4 inches of space. That means we always have a warm sink, but a cold floor. Not fun...

Since I blew my bathroom-makeover deadline of October 25th, and revised it to November 1st, it's time to get back on the bandwagon. Had a couple days off for "family night" (Monday) and school (Tuesday), so tonight its back to business.

I need to install the new light fixture and medicine cabinet. Have the light, need to go get the cabinet. I have one picked out at Lowes. It's espresso in color, and there's also a mirror to match. Its not completely what I wanted, but it seems that I am limited in options when it comes to the color and size I need. Yay. Dont'cha just hate that?!

Let's see what they end up having in stock. Off to the store tonight. I'm still holding out for a tall mirrored medicine cabinet like this one, only in espresso.




and this is the wall mounted storage cabinet w/ mirrored doors.


We need all the storage we can get in our tiny bathroom. I may have to settle for a plain mirror and the cabinet only. We'll see.....

So the chicken Parmesan turned out well. I improvised a bit by using bottled sauce and dried herbs instead of fresh. I did put in the onions, tomatoes, basil and bay leaves, but not the olives, and I added this to the bottled sauce.

I pounded the chicken flat, breaded & browned it in a skillet, and then put it under the broiler for a couple minutes to melt the mozzarella on top. No baking.

Everyone scooped up a serving of spaghetti, put sauce on top, and added chicken on top of that. Served it with a freshly baked loaf of Pillsbury french bread, and yum!!

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So, how much do we love to hate Sylar? Just when we think he can't get any more evil, he kicks it up yet another notch, invading the relationship of Matt and Janice, and then kicking Matt to the consciousness curb. Can we all see where this is going? Looks like Matt, acts like Sylar. Poor Janice.

And Jeremy?? Wow!! Never saw that coming! Gruesome! I expected him to heal himself though, didn't you? If only out of anger...hmmm. What will Tracey do now?

Stay tuned.....

So, tonight is family night at our house. We all have dinner together (not that we don't have dinner together on other days), and watch "Heroes".

http://www.nbc.com/heroes/video/episodes/#vid=1167941

I have long since given up trying to figure out where this show is going. Its just good family time and we enjoy it.

So, for dinner.....was thinking about chicken parmesan. Sound good? Here is Tyler Florence's recipe for it from the Food Network:

Ingredients
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus 3 tablespoons
1 medium onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 bay leaves
1/2 cup kalamata olives, pitted
1/2 bunch fresh basil leaves
2 (28-ounce) cans whole peeled tomatoes, drained and hand-crushed
Pinch sugar
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 skinless, boneless, chicken breasts (about 11/2 pounds)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon water
1 cup dried bread crumbs
1 (8-ounce) ball fresh buffalo mozzarella, water drained
Freshly grated Parmesan
1 pound spaghetti, cooked al dente

Directions
Coat a saute pan with olive oil and place over medium heat. When the oil gets hazy, add the onions, garlic, and bay leaves; cook and stir for 5 minutes until fragrant and soft. Add the olives and some hand-torn basil. Carefully add the tomatoes (nothing splashes like tomatoes), cook and stir until the liquid is cooked down and the sauce is thick, about 15 minutes; season with sugar, salt and pepper. Lower the heat, cover, and keep warm.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Get the ingredients together for the chicken so you have a little assembly line. Put the chicken breasts side by side on a cutting board and lay a piece of plastic wrap over them. Pound the chicken breasts with a flat meat mallet, until they are about 1/2-inch thick. Put the flour in a shallow platter and season with a fair amount of salt and pepper; mix with a fork to distribute evenly. In a wide bowl, combine the eggs and water, beat until frothy. Put the bread crumbs on a plate, season with salt and pepper.

Heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil over medium-high flame in a large oven-proof skillet. Lightly dredge both sides of the chicken cutlets in the seasoned flour, and then dip them in the egg wash to coat completely, letting the excess drip off, then dredge in the bread crumbs. When the oil is nice and hot, add the cutlets and fry for 4 minutes on each side until golden and crusty, turning once.

Ladle the tomato-olive sauce over the chicken and sprinkle with mozzarella, Parmesan, and basil. Bake the Chicken Parmesan for 15 minutes or until the cheese is bubbly. Serve hot with spaghetti.

Sounds awesome! I'm hungry already...

Sunday night, bleh! Didn't get as much done as I'd hoped. The paint is on....for what its worth. See, we have this sorta grey-ish tile on the bathroom walls...all inside the tub area up to about 6 feet, and in the rest of the bathroom to about 4.5 feet. So I go to Home Depot to pick out paint that will match the shower curtain I'd just bought at Bed, Bath & Beyond, and I'm trying to make sure that whatever color I pick will also go with the tile. So I pick up a paint swatch that is grey, thinking that it looked to be about the same as the tile. I then proceed to pick out another color that I think is about 2 shades lighter than the tile, and very slightly on the greenish side, matching the curtain.

I have the paint mixed up, bring it home and paint a test patch on the wall.

It's EXACTLY the same as the tile. Not lighter. Not greener. The same. EXACTLY THE FRIKKIN SAME!!!!

So now I have two choices. Live with it, or waste $25, and go get another gallon of paint.

I hate wasting, so on it goes. Which now makes the whole bathroom quite a bit darker than I'd hoped or expected.

And the only other thing I got done this weekend was to strip half the vinyl off the floor and remove the adhesive.

The vanity is still in the box in the back of my van.

Crap, I blew the deadline. Sooooo.......Next deadline is one week from today. November 1st.

Wish me luck......I think I'm gonna need all the help I can get.