that time Jakers and I played horse shoes

I purchased a horse shoe and ring toss set to take camping. Upon arriving home, Jakers and I decided to test it out.

It was cray, I was perpetually down by 6 points or more but I managed to bust out the only ringers and glide past Jake at the last second for the win.

date night at the ballpark

Train drinking on the way to the game

Us at the park

Coors Light with a view

Chris taking in the sights

hmmmm, Chris and beer are in 3/4 shots, just to clarify Chris was my date, not my beer!

The Giants won 8-0!

The tickets were free, the beers were flowing and Chris got his hands on "the" $16 crab sandwich!

quote of the day

photo taken in Monterey

80 degree days followed with warm summer like evenings have left me having no interest in blogging. I'm enjoying drinking beers and prosecco mimosas too much to chain my self to a computer. A few thoughts as of late:

• I am looking forward to a 3 day work week and a 4 day camping weekend.
• I am also looking forward to free tickets to the Giants game tomorrow (I hope they win, finally).
• Chris and I went to lunch today and I threw my sandwich on the floor like a 3 year old (I think I need a mental health reset)
• Then we saw Star Wars (Liked the first one better, Chris Pine has REALLY pink lips and I found them distracting, probably because the movie had no plot).
• I recently discovered Once Upon A Time and I am bummed that there are no more episodes this season.

around the house & Sam's balcony

 I like to dress up my boyfriend for the seasons, (I would prefer to use him as a purse holder but I fear his hands would fall off) he is currently ready for summer.

 Sam and I spend our evenings with the balcony doors open. I enjoy the cool breeze, he enjoys waiting for a dog to walk by so he can bark at it.

 How does this sweet little angel turn into the devil in disguise on a moments notice?

 Waiting...

Even though the screen doors are open, he doesn't dare take a step out onto the cement, wuss!

Hope you had a happy mothers day.

My parents went on a 20 mile hike in Yosemite on Saturday and didn't make it to their house until much later in the day than we expected. As such, I spent the early afternoon with the neighbors, day drinking and enjoying the gorgeous weather. 

 I bought my mom 15 orange and pink roses, she loved them.

My sister made a cake from scratch (SKILLS), which I decorated with garden flowers. 

I managed to stay composed long enough despite the day drinking to cook my moms favorite dinner, then I promptly passed out on their couch.

an open letter to MLB

To Whomever is in charge of replays for MLB:

What prey tell is the point of having instant replay if the umpires watch the replays yet regularly get the calls wrong? Clearly you need to either implement a centralized review system similar to the NHL or do away with replays altogether.  Game changing bad calls happen far too often under your current system. If they (the umpires) are going to take the time to stop the game yet still make the wrong call, what is the point of wasting everyones time and stopping the game?

I am writing specifically to address the A’s vs Indians game on 5/8/13. Top of the 9^th Adam Rosales CLEARLY hit a home run but upon review it was called a double. Every person in the park, the Indians announcers, the A’s announcers, the after game in studio personnel and every single person watching the review live, ALL clearly saw that it was in fact a home run.  I did not watch Mondays game against the Indians (5/6/13) but the announcers stated that the same umpire got an equally game changing call wrong in Monday’s game as well.

I remember back in 2010 having this debate with a sports bar full of people watching a Giants vs Padres playoff game. The ball hit the chalk in left field, chalk flew EVERYWHERE, it was apparent to EVERY PERSON WATCHING that the ball was fair but the moron umpire determined it to be a foul ball. How does chalk dust fly for a foul ball? Why is this still going on 3 years later?

In closing, I loved that Bob Melvin gave his post-game interview in front of a toilet with the stall door wide open, as that call was total shit. My best guess is that it had started to rain and the umpires didn’t want to chance extra innings.

Respectfully,

A pissed of fan

Image of the blown homerun call via you can also see the video by clicking on the link.

Tequila lime chicken salad

I added the leftover chicken, black beans, corn, avocado, and pepper jack to a bed of romaine lettuce. I also added heirloom tomatoes and red bell pepper strips. I topped it with a homemade cilantro (leftover from Sunday) lime dressing. I wasn't 100 percent on board with the dressing, something was off but recipe is as follows:

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 apple cider vinegar

1 Serrano pepper

large hand full of cilantro

juice from 1/2 a lime

salt and pepper to taste

Blend all ingredients until desired consistency

GO SHARKS!!!

meal planning for dummies (me being the dummy)

I suck at meal planning! I used to meal plan for Monday - Thursday but one of, or a combination of 3 things would happen, either:

a. Thursday would arrive and a few main items were not as fresh as I would like and would end up in the garbage (this happened regularly with steak and pork even though it was well before the sell by date and veggies).
b. Something would come up such as a late night at work or ridiculous commute lengths, last minute invites to events or activities or commitments that weren't scheduled on Monday .
c. I just plain wouldn't want to cook /eat what I had planned on making for that day.

I had originally rectified this situation by grocery shopping daily, only buying for that day. At first I thought it was helping to cut down waste but after awhile I realized that I was over spending due to lack of fluidity in the meals that I was preparing and tortillas, fruit, cereal, and milk were still getting chucked regularly due to lack of use before they went bad. Also this approach was wasting a lot of my precious after work time!

I had an epiphany today and decided to meal plan x 3. Easy peasy, buy ingredients that would sustain 3 different consecutive meals and take it from there. Building on yesterdays leftovers (avocado, salsa, cilantro, tequila, lime, and tortillas) I made tequila lime chicken tacos with corn and black beans.

To make the chicken:

Mix 1/3 cup of tequila and 1/4 cup of olive oil with the zest of 1 lime plus the juice of the zested lime, a tsp. of cayenne and garlic powder, salt & pepper to taste. Add 3 chicken breasts and marinate for 3 hours or more, turning every hour.  Cook on medium high skillet for about 2 minutes on each side then bake for 25 minutes at 350*. Cool and shred chicken.

Make sure to cook tortillas to a state of "well done" and top with chicken, corn, black beans, avocado, salsa, cilantro, and pepper jack.

Tomorrow check in for how to reuse the chicken, beans, corn, avocado and pepper jack!

My idea for this meal was taken from here

Monday's bouquet [courteousy of Christopher]

Not really my thing but so sweet of him to bring me home flowers for no reason.

weekend wrap up

It was an amazing weekend for sports in the bay. The Giants swept the Dodgers, the Sharks are up 3-0 vs the Canucks (looking for the sweep tomorrow) and the A's took 2-3 against the Yankees. The weather was more than amazing, a little too amazing as it registered around 95* for 4 days straight. Sunday was the first comfortable day as the high was about 88*.

Sam turned 6 while I was in North Carolina. We celebrated on Saturday with a little Sprinkles love.

At first he wasn't sure about his "cupcake".

 He eventually decided that he liked it and dug in!

 Sunday we had shrimp tacos and a few margaritas for dinner! I had originally planned on making fancy pomegranate margaritas but the recipe I choose was sickenly sweet so I decided to go with a typical blended, restaurant style, frozen margarita.

To make the perfect frozen margarita combine:

3- 12 oz cup fulls of ice (I used ice from the dispenser, if using bagged ice, I'm not sure of the amount).

1 cup premium margarita mix

9 oz silver tequila (I prefer Cazadores tequila)

2 oz triple sec.

Juice from 1/2 of a lime

Makes 3 servings.

The tacos were light, perfect for the day, and super easy to make.

To cook the shrimp, add peeled and deveined shrimp to a bowl with a teaspoon of olive oil and chili powder, cayenne, salt & pepper to taste. Cook in skillet over medium high heat until cooked through.

Spread guacamole on a well toasted white corn tortilla and top with cooked shrimp. Voila! 

Today I have a mountain of laundry to get through, a Starbucks run to make and a 4 mile hike to accomplish. Back to the daily grind!