I'm a big kid now!

This is going to sound so pathetic. I changed my head light bulb all by myself today. I know, I know... I am 28 so this sounds like I was spoiled as a kid. But, there has never been a time where I needed to do such a chore. My parents raised me properly. I can do most of my own repairs and maintenance; I can change my own oil and tires, I can do some of my own home repairs (I got some gutter stuff at HD last week). I have a lot to learn, but I can get by. I just thought it was odd that I have never had to deal with a burnt out head light before.
I must say that Honda put the access to the head light bulb in a very inconvenient location and the directions in the manual do not do the job justice. I think they should show the picture as the way you see it as you look down at the parts, not as they way you see it as you are assembling the vehicle with no other parts in the way. Just a suggestion, Honda!

Experimenting with tofu and curry...

I was craving some curry tonight. Actually I was craving Indian food, but Thai was going to have to do. I am having a hard time finding Indian ingredients at Hannaford's in Manchester. I think I will have to explore the A Market to see what I can find. On tonight's menu... red curry with vegetables. This is the first time that I cook with tofu, well, minus the exception of the "moo-less chocolate pie" by Alton Brown.

Here you can see the tofu . I was shocked to find out that when cut into inch cubes that it bounces! Also, when the recipe calls for a nonstick pan... use a nonstick pan.

After all the ingredients ended up in the pan. Tofu, sweet potato, and green beans. Red curry paste (whole jar instead of 2 tablespoons), lite coconut milk, salt, fresh lime juice.

Finished product ! All that yummy goodness on top of Jasmine rice.

I will be honest. I was not satisfied with the outcome of this dish. I was really hoping for something on the spicy side, but this wasn't spicy. In fact, it was kind of bland. I will have to go with the full fat coconut milk next time. Maybe the leftovers will be better tomorrow when the flavors meld.

Fresh new outlook...

I don't know if something has changed in me over the past few weeks, but I am happier with just about every aspect of my life right now. A few months ago I was pretty blah about life and was stressing over what I needed to do to make some changes. I was not satisfied with the way my life was playing out. I am not sure exactly what changes I made caused me to have a new attitude, but something is working. I am going to school so I feel smart again and I am meeting new people. Perhaps I just needed to get out more? The weather was spectacular this week too and I was able to sit out in the sun, do some hiking, . Perhaps the winter blues are over? I am losing weight and eating better so perhaps I am just more confident in my appearance. Of course the comments from my coworkers are helping too!

I am happy with life right now and am excited to see what the future holds! I am not worrying about stuff that I have no control over. I always was a believer that everything happens for a reason. I guess I am just starting to live life a bit more according to that belief.

They're back...

I came home from work today and saw this beautiful male golden finch on my bird feeder. I was able to get my camera set up for some pics without scaring him. Surprisingly enough he stayed at the feeder for quite some time. Last year the finches fed fairly quickly, only a few minutes per finch and they would rotate turns feeding from the flock. The feeder can hold 6 birds and last year the feeder was normally always full of finches! Hopefully this year will be the same as they are colorful and love to sing!

In the wild...

In case any of you are unaware that my back yard abuts woods/conservation land... it does. I have been blessed with lots of different wild life wandering into my back yard. Deer, turkeys, snakes, and lots of different birds. The newest addition to my outdoor zoo is a little male red squirrel. He is super skittish and freaks out at the littlest sound or movement. He is the only red squirrel that I have seen this year. He is about half of the size of the extremely large gray squirrel. I think I shall call him Tim... for Tiny Tim.
I was able to take a better picture of the male cardinal. The pair has been fun to watch. The male calls the female to where he is (normally around food). They then exchange minor chirps and the female is always first to approach the food. The male tends to hold back and only comes to the food stash once the female leaves.There was also an odd looking rainbow on Tuesday. There wasn't exactly a lot of cloud cover so I have to wonder if it was pollen in the air, a super thin cloud or just smog that created this rainbow. It was a ring around the sun. I attempted to get a good shot of it but the sun was super bright. Pretty neat right?
All these pictures were taken on Tuesday. Just imagine what I will be able to capture with my camera once spring is fully under way!

Just call me Lance...

Today was the day! Beautiful weather combined with a day off made for an easy test run for my bike commute. It was much easier than expected! It only took me 24 minutes to get there and 19 to get home. It was the first time I did this ride so it will only get faster as I get used to it. I also thought it would be appropriate to do a weigh in before I went for my ride. I will give updates as to my progress!

I went for a hike around Tower Hill Pond today with Dutch, Nick, and Mike. We were on the hunt for geocaches! I found my #100 cache and still couldn't find the other one that I tried finding in February.

I thought that the ferns looked cool hanging off of this rock.
The boys.
This looked better in person. Still nice though.
Dutch and I after #100!
Random place for a rock.
I have hiked Tower Hill quite a few times and never saw this until today. I am going to try to find out who Leigh Barry is.
I was finally able to snap a pic of the other half of the cardinal pair.

Artiste?

This has been a bad week for illegal art work. First, Sunday morning I got an email from the store saying that the building was covered in graffiti. I didn't believe that it was that bad since my co-manager tends to blow things out of proportion. I was proven wrong. These pictures are just from the front of the building. The entire store looked like this!
I don't understand what possesses someone to want to do this to someone else's property. According to the cop they think they know who did this. It is a minor and apparently the parents buy the spray paint for the kid and tell him where he can and can not paint. HELLO!! Your kid needs some discipline not a can of paint!

Today I was out doing some yard work and testing my bike until about 7:30. My roommate came home at about 9:15 and told me that there was graffiti on the drive way. I had to go out side to snap a picture. Apparently some punk doesn't like the color of my house. Once again, where are the parents??? And, my house is tan with brown trim... not brown. If they are going to complain they should at least know their colors.
The remodel is going well. They are now sanding the joint compound on the new drywall and the new lighting is almost done. We will be taking down some registers over the next few days to make room for more construction. The once colorful front of the building is now plain concrete blocks. The crew is working on adding the finishing touches on the frame work for the new and improved front of the building.

Finally some color...

Last fall I planted lots of bulbs. I was questioning the viability of the bulbs due to the fact that they had been sitting in my garage for a year. I looked out my front bay window this morning and saw these beautiful flowers growing! If the rest of the bulbs are viable my front yard garden will be spectacular!

It has been a long week...

The days were long and the nights were super short this week. At work the VP came for a visit so we had to deal with the prep work and each other. My boss was in Vegas this week so the pressure really was on us. The visit was short and painless.

On the home front school is going well. I enjoy being in class with other human beings instead of being online. I like the interaction and feel that you have to be on your toes more so than online. We are going to get into the "good stuff" this week.

The cats were full of silly antics this week. They are stir crazy and want to play, go outside, fight, tease the dog... just being silly. Fritz learned from Zee that if you really want to tease me you need to end up on top of the cabinets.
One of them also learned that if you really want to play a trick on me you use the bluetooth phone adapter as a toy and leave it in the kitty room. I blame Fritz for this. He has some sort of weird obsession with silicone and hard plastics. He likes to eat the silicone wrist bands you get for supporting a cause and he goes crazy when you give him the safety ring off the milk jug.The cardinals have returned! I have heard a blue jay but only got a short peek at him in the woods. The cardinals have visited the bird feeder a few times over the last week and I finally was able to snap a shot, thought it is not very good. This morning I saw my first golden finch on the finch feeder. Finally, spring is here!
And on the remodel front... we have new walls, new light fixtures, and a new decorative roof. They have also gutted the bathrooms... completely gutted them. We are now on full trailer bathroom duty.

So this is how it goes...

It was a fairly uneventful week. I just finished cleaning the house. Not 10 minutes after the kitchen was clean my roommate made a mess on the counter and has yet to pick it up! This is typical in my house. I am not saying that I am the cleanest person, but if someone else cleans the house (and I do it every weekend as no one else will) you could at least attempt to keep it clean for a day. Some ask "why don't you say something?" to him. Well, if I get going on that I am just going to bring up more than I want to get into and it will result in WWIII. OK, enough on that.

Construction is well under way at my store. If you have a chance to stop by the store please do and I will give you a personal tour. We have a random wall up at the end of the register lanes. It looks out of place and is rather inconvenient right now, but it will turn into a pretty vestibule when it is all said and done. My DM has permission to put her new office into my store. I think the dimensions on hers is 9'x22'. Mine is like 7'x 15'. So, not that bad. I was also told that I can't paint my office any color but tan. Corporate wants the offices to look a certain way. So, I guess if I can't paint it I probably won't be able to put my 20 gallon fish tank in it either. Maybe I will be able to sneak it in. Here is a shot after my office was framed and half way drywalled. The first picture was taken from the inside corner, the second from the doorway looking in.
On Monday we gut the bathrooms. We are now the proud renters of a bathroom on wheels. It is a trailer that has bathrooms in it. Kind of like a fancy porta-potty. Tim wanted to be the first to use it.
I found a great deal on a dog toy set at work. Yes, we carry some pet stuff now. It was on clearance for like $4.98. We are running an additional 20% off clearance sale right now so after the sale and my discount I ended up paying $2.26 for two stuffed toys, a rope toy, and two bags of rawhide treats. Not too bad huh? I won't give him the rawhide probably as it is not the correct size bone for him, but he already loves his hedgehog and sheep. The poor sheep looks like it is in pain in this picture. Dutch is trying to sheer off the ear to get to the stuffing. Ouch!So, other than that my weekend has been pretty boring. I have homework to do, a paper to start, and laundry to work on. I need to start planning vacation time so if anyone has any suggestions or wants to come visit me in NH please let me know!

April Fool's!

It is a sure sign of spring when you encounter one of these beasts! Yes, I was quite shocked to see this stinging machine on my garage door when I got home from a meeting at work. Trust me, it is alive! I guess that spring is really on its way... unless this is God's way of playing an April Fool's Day joke. Hmmm... sneaky guy that God is. Speaking of April Fool's Day jokes check out these! I was responsible for only one of them. Can you guess which one? You got it! My comanager thinks his truck is super awesome and takes up a minimum of 4 parking spots per day to avoid any bumps, knicks, scratches, dents, dust... way over protective of his vehicle. Anyway, I thought it would be super funny to surround his car with carts. Tee hee... it didn't take much to convince Tim to help me. He was getting back at said comanager for attaching a giant cut out of Barbie to his car. We did a good job and he probably won't realize it until it is time to go home at 9:30 tonight! The other picture is from a house down the street. Some one must have sneaky neighbors as there was another house with plastic wrap on their front steps as well. Not only did they do the driveway and stairs on this house, the culprit also wrapped the mailbox! I think I will have to keep this in mind for next year when Megan and Jason least expect it. Plus you can't do that in the middle of the day when neighbors are watching. This is more of a middle of the night operation. Kudos to the person who had enough guts to do this today. It made for a good laugh on my walk with Dutch.

On a more serious note, our remodel is under way now. Gondolas are so out of place that the store is starting to be "confusing" if you don't walk it every day. We have seasonal in a few different spots, Rzone is all tore up, and the construction of the mothers' room and BRU manager's office is being completed. I took a few pictures to show the before and after. Unfortunately the before pictures are taken after things were moved so it is more of a during and after. Plus I took a few pictures for old time's sake.

This is where the breakroom used to be. Now it will be the mothers' room and the new BRU manager's office. I wonder if I can put a fish tank in the "new manager's" office...After moving a gondola away from the wall in Rzone, the old spot for the time clock was revealed. I remember punching in and out here. Ahh, the good old days.

I thought I would be cute and pose with the sign. Notice the random gondola behind me. Such a mess but it will be so worth it!

Oh, and for anyone wondering... I lost 3 pounds last week. Probably due to the fact that it hurt my throat to eat. I will see if the trend continues this week. Just a warning... I doubt I will have the same results. I found a new yummy ice cream. :)