Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
If you haven’t noticed, this new year seems to be all about weight loss. Everywhere I turn, it’s all about diets, nutrition, exercise and losing weight in general. We were watching the first “Biggest Loser” last night and a commercial for Jenny Craig came on. I turned around and said, “There is probably no better time ever for this commercial to air…New Years and during the Biggest Loser.
All this weight loss has me feeling a little guilty. If there is one weakness I have, it’s for dessert. I can’t take it. Sometimes I get in the car and drive up to Whole Foods with one thing on my mind. Dessert. It’s like I’m someone else. Strange, because I am so strong in many other areas. Put a piece of cheesecake in front of me and I turn into an idiot.
Oh well. I guess that’s what exercise is for. Like we always say round these here parts, “You can eat whatever you want as long as you burn it off.”
I think I may have mentioned that Whole Foods probably has the best desserts out of any grocery store I have ever been to. I think they make some stuff themselves and have some shipped in. My favorite by far is the tiramisu and second is the banana cream pie.
Just a few nights ago, I found myself in the middle of a plate of banana cream pie. I felt like Gilligan from Gilligan’s Island. I always wanted to know where the heck Whole Foods gets this pie, so I looked at the bottom of the container. I found out that “The Pie Guy” out of Salem, NH makes these little platters of heaven. I think the reason their stuff is so good is because they don’t cheap out when it comes to ingredients. It’s serious business for them.
Before I sat down to write this post, I realized how bad it was going to be without a picture. Trust me, I really wanted to take a picture, but that became impossible as I finished the last piece of pie. I am sorry for that.
Okay, the reason for this post – I just wanted to give a little mad peace big props word to big bird to the Pie Guy.
Related posts
Saturday, January 2nd, 2010
I hope everyone had a nice New Year’s Eve. We did. A funny one, but it was nice.
I kept telling people all day that I can stay up past midnight every other night of my life, but when it matters, I would surely fall asleep. Yup, I was woken up six seconds before midnight by a, “Bob, wake up, we almost missed it.” Bob is my nickname. Bet you didn’t know that.
At least I wasn’t alone in dozing off. Seinfeld put us both out.
So what was on our New Year’s eve agenda? It was simple and fun. The plan was to go out and grab some Chinese food, sit down in the toasty warm basement near the pellet stove and watch some episodes of Lost. When it got close to midnight, we would flip on something “New Yearsy” and watch that. We did that, but during the day, I got this crazy urge for Tiramisu from Whole Foods. Last week, I had the best Tiramisu ever and had to have more. It took me about 15 seconds of contemplation before I bolted out the door on my way to the store. Of course when I got there, they were out of Tiramisu. I got some weird milk cake and banana cream pie instead. I will write about the banana cream pie later.
The really exciting event of the evening was the pink champagne that we purchased a few days ago. There is a certain someone who has always wanted to try this type of champagne. I’m not sure why, but hey, if she wants to try pink champagne, who am I to argue? It’s not like she wanted to ride a pink billy goat down the street.
Since I had never seen pink champagne before, I didn’t know if it was going to be hard to find. I guess it’s more popular than I thought because the liquor store across the street from Whole Foods in Glastonbury had a few different brands of it. They varied in price from $14.99 to $18.99. I think the one we got was $16.99 and is called Vilarnau. The only reason we got the one we did was because we were fairly certain that what was inside the bottle was actually pink. We didn’t know if the other brands just had pink bottles.
Let me tell you, pink champagne tastes just like regular champagne. Two half glasses and we were done. The rest we will use for Mimosas. I have actually only had good tasting champagne once in my life and it was Asti Spumante. I liked that because it was sweet. I don’t get along well with dry drinks.
Happy New Year everyone. I hope you all made good New Year’s resolutions!!!
-
-
Champagne bottle cork
-
-
Vilarnau pink champagne – sparkling wine
-
-
Pink sparkling wine in air bubble glass
Related posts
Sunday, December 28th, 2008
Hey, do you remember that time I told you that we had about a foot of snow? You should, it was just last week. Well guess what…it’s all gone.
Never in my life have I seen snow melt so fast. Let me correct that; I didn’t actually see the snow melting, it was just gone. I went to sleep a few nights ago and we had about 12 inches and when I woke up, we had about an inch. I am not sure what happened overnight. I was told that it was warm. Warm? What, like 80 degrees? Even if it was 40 outside, I would have trouble believing that all that snow could melt so fast. I think something else was at play. Something like magic.
Every so often, in between real blog posts, I like to write some random thoughts. Stuff like what I have been up to and what’s been on my mind. Let’s see how that works today.
Okay, so the end of the year is coming. I think that’s great. I am sick of 2008. I think a lot of great stuff happened, but personally, I don’t like endings, I like beginnings. I would like New Years to be over so people can get motivated and back to work. I always love talking to people at the beginning of each year because they have good ideas of what they want to see happen for the upcoming year. People start projects, start new companies…do all sorts of things. They make new investments, hit the gym, stop spending, start spending, oh the list goes on and on. I like hearing all about it. I like to see the hope in people’s eyes.
For my part, I am tightening up what I have. For the past month, I have been examining all areas of everything. Finances, business, organization, assets, friends…everything. Out with the old and in with the new. I’m like a reptile; I’m shedding off some dead weight. It stinks because I am so full of new ideas and start so many things, but I think being boring and simple for a while won’t hurt. It’ll give me time to get to know myself again.
We went for a walk today. It was about 60 degrees outside, so it felt like spring. All I wore was my salmon shirt and a fleece. Oh yeah, I had pants on too. We did our usual two miles, which takes what seems like 15 minutes now. At times, we don’t even talk, we just walk. We are getting faster and faster. It feels good. I always like to walk during the cooler months because my face feels so fresh and I don’t sweat.
Now that the snow is gone, I took a little “coffee walk” outside to check out the yard this morning. I have all sorts of plans for what I want to do, come spring. I am going to order about 100 more pines from ArborDay.org in a month or so. They will deliver the trees in March. 100 trees might seem like a lot, but really it isn’t, once I start planting. I run out fast. I am going to make pine tree areas out of Blue Spruce, Norway Spruce and White Pine. The mix should look good.
I am also going to have about 30 more yards of mulch delivered in April. I do love mulch and with property of this size, I am going to need every last drop. It’s going to make the pine trees grow so much faster and it’s going to work wonders for the gardens. Man, I can’t wait to get back to it.
There are times when I sit at the computer and want to check out what everyone is up to. I wish you all had blogs and told me about them. I would like to have a list of about 20, but right now, I only have 4. It gets lonely in the blogosphere without you. Hey, maybe you can put that on your list of things to do. I think that’s a great idea. C’mon, think about the benefits…you will know that I will be reading all about your excellent adventures. By the way, this isn’t to say that my list of 4 isn’t the most awesome list ever.
I’m not sure what else I have.
We put all house improvement projects on hold. Nothing is really in dire need of improvement, besides the living room carpet. That needs to be torn up and discarded. We got a price for hardwood, but that’s going to have to wait. I am not falling into the trap of sinking tons of money into a house the first year. Slow and steady wins the race. I wouldn’t mind a pool though…hmmm. It would have to be indoor, so I can swim all year round. Perhaps I could just get one of those little plastic ones and put it in a tent.
Okay, now I am officially out of stuff to say. All the juicy gossip is kept quiet because I have to keep some sort of privacy. I mean, one would have to wonder, if what I write is all the stuff I have going on in life, I would certainly be a little weird.
Over and out. Peace.
Related posts
Friday, December 5th, 2008
I have been meaning to do this for a while, but have been too busy being stuck in my little world.
Ever since our little episode up at the Red Lion Inn over Thanksgiving, my job has been not to only find places to eat, but to also find out what people are saying about those places.
I am happy to report that I have located two very helpful online resources:
1. Zagat
2. Tripadvisor
I am sure there are about a million other resources out there, but these two suit my purposes well.
I use the above websites for two reasons; one, to actually locate the places we want to visit for whatever reason, and two, to see what the rest of the world thinks of them.
I did a lot of reading through these sites a few nights ago. I found that many people’s reviews are quite helpful, but a lot of them need to be taken with a grain of salt.
The first type of review that I learned to be weary of is the “nothing is good enough” review.
A while back, Laura and I ate New Year’s Eve dinner at the Hudson House in Cold Spring, NY. It was the absolute best meal of our lives. If I could catch that chef and persuade him or her to come live with us forever, I would. Really, it was perfect…well, for most of us.
About half way through dinner, two young gentlemen sat down at the table next to us. There was nothing particularly interesting about them, but after they ordered their drinks, the complaints began. “This is too cold, this is too hot, this is just right, but I still don’t like it.” When the actual food arrived, forget about it. I am not even going to discuss that scene. What was strange about the whole thing was that the restaurant menu was fixed that night. We were all eating basically the same thing and stuff was flying out of the kitchen like crazy.
There was an important lesson learned that evening regarding various types of diners. That lesson was; we all go out for different reasons and we all vary greatly with what we think of where we are.
The other type of review I learned to watch out for is the “cheapo” review. It goes something like this, “Hoity-toity…extremely pretentious…must be an outpost for New Yorkers.” That is an actual review I picked up from Zagat. Out of 37 really very normal reviews, there was this one stuck in the middle. I told you about those Bermuda shorts people…
Armed with my new review filter, I have been able to pick up a few seemingly nice inns located up in the Woodstock, CT area. I was hoping to visit one of them for lunch this weekend, but my better half was non-compliant. She may need a bit of a nudge, and by nudge, I mean holding on tight as I throw her over my shoulder.
I am planning a nice Christmas dinner and will be sure to take lots of photos and tell you all about it.
Related posts
Tuesday, March 4th, 2008
Laura and I decided to get in the car and visit Washington, CT yesterday. What was the destination? Well, no less than the Mayflower Inn & Spa in Washington, CT.
As I mentioned in one of my previous blog posts, my mother purchased a gift certificate for us a few years ago for the Mayflower Inn. If memory serves me correctly, we used it for a Valentine’s Day dinner, but I may be wrong. It was either that or New Year’s Eve. Anyway, we drove there at night and (even at night) really liked the area. We decided that it needed to be visited during the day.
Now, please let me explain…I am sure we have all heard of New England. Sure, we have heard of it, but have we ever really seen it? What we learned yesterday was that be merely driving through Connecticut and Massachusetts really doesn’t count for visiting New England. There is a little corner of Connecticut that, if visited, you can easily imagine some English dude sitting on a log with one of those white wigs on. That is what Washington, CT is like. You can also throw in Bridgewater too. They are both like that. There are more white houses that are over 100 years old than you know what to do with. Needless to say, they are really cool towns. Pricey towns, I’m sure. What really struck us both yesterday, was the fact that we weren’t able to locate one messy property or piece of junk. The whole entire area was extremely clean, which made us feel very nice inside.
One of the things that really aggravates me is the lack of pictures and videos on the internet. Even on Google Earth, people would rather post videos of their kid’s first birthday party, instead of videos of main st. in the town the video is attached to. When I visit town websites, I expect to see some sort of photo gallery or even a walking tour. You would be amazed at how few websites actually offer these features.
Since we visited the Inn yesterday and I happen to own a regular digital camera and a video camera, we decided to use them. I took all the photos and Laura took half the video. These are all just of the Inn and not the town. We’ll get to that. Enjoy!!!
It may look cold, but it was actually the first time this year that I actually felt a warm breeze. It was about 50 degrees outside. This is a photo of the path up to the bush maze, going towards the spa.
These are both of one of the places you can stay if you decide to check in.
This is a photo of the main building that we ate lunch in.
Here is a photo of the outdoor pool and the pool house. We decided against going for a dip.
These are all photos of the spa building.
This is my favorite part of the whole place. I just love the Rhododendrons and huge trees.
Ok, time for some video…
Related posts
