Updates

On Monday, the 27th, J and I went to the Independence Bowl in Shreveport to watch the Air Force Academy play Georgia Tech. Air Force won. J was impressed with a flyover of one Barksdale AFB's B-52's and they also had Airmen doing free-falling from an airplane in parachutes. Here are a few pictures that I had to take with my phone, because I once again, left the house with a camera that did not have a memory card in it. I believe this now makes 3 times that I have done that. Our seats were pretty good, however, people in front of us could not stay seated and constantly stood up (even though they did not have a distorted view). We also froze our butts off. At the end of the game, the temperature was 31 degrees. Even turning on the heated seats in my car didn't warm us up. I ended up having to sleep in sweats, and using an extra blanket. I guess my blood is just not used to cold weather after living on a tropical island for the past four years.
****

****

****


****
Yesterday morning, while watching the Food Network, I saw a recipe on 5 ingredient fix for an egg type breakfast thing. The recipe is here. I decided to make it but had to improvise because I did not have any grits or polenta in the house, so I ended up using potatoes. I turned out pretty well and K1 must have liked it because he ate two (it worked really well with my 100 yen individual baking dishes)
****
Before:
****

****

After (the yolks were runny, although they don't look it in the picture)

****

****

Then for New Year's because you are supposed to eat black eyed peas and greens, I went with a recipe from John Besh's "My New Orleans" cookbook. Black eyed peas are pretty easy to make, and the only difference I noted in his recipe is that he puts celery and bay leaves in it (and hot sauce). It was good and probably something I will continue to do. I also added dried hatch peppers from New Mexico because I have a 25 lb bag of them that we brought with us when we were moving here. 25lbs of dried chili's is a lot, and I probably still have 24.9 lbs left to use. I also made his recipe for Louisiana Popcorn rice, although I used Japanese sushi rice because we have tons of it here. All that was, is rice cooked in chicken broth, with an onion and bay leaf added. It worked pretty well, too.

****

****

****

****

Because we have so much junk in this house, I'm going to try to keep my weekly grocery budget to $25. We'll see how long I can last with that.

****

Both J and K1 left this morning. K1 dropped J off at the airport on his way back to Texas. K1 was loaded down with tons of junk food like Christmas cookies and Japanese curry. He leaves this week for a month of training in Colorado. In the next few months, he will be bringing his car and all of his worldly possessions to my house while he goes on a year long "vacation" across the world. I told him I was going to charge him a storage fee. His car is a little sporty Mazda RX-8 stick shift, which I don't know how to drive. J said he would put it up on blocks in my garage for the year. I guess my storage room really will be a storage room while his stuff is here.

****

Things should get back to normal around here tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to going to work, but I guess I must. I do have plane tickets to go to El Paso over the long weekend for Martin Luther King jr's birthday. I got cheap tickets, so it probably pays to buy early.