INOKWACA: February 2014

No, today's entry is not about playing with food, although it kinda sounds and looks that way.

Every so often, I sift through a bunch of random, unrelated pictures on my Photo Stream and choose a few pics (Okay, it's more like a dozen, or two.) to show you what we've been up to. Most, if not all, of these images have been taken with my phone.

Ready? Set. Go!

We have had a much colder than normal winter, but we have had a 60 or 70 degree day thrown in for good measure. On one warmish afternoon, all five of us went for a bike ride. I simply had to take this shadow shot. Can you tell who's who?

On the cold, blustery days, which have been far too plentiful, I have been sorting though old family photos and boxes of stuff that we had cleaned out of my mother-in-law's house. Recently, I discovered a 1948 book of house plans entitled Small Homes Keyed to the Times. This 32-paged book had belonged to Mr. Smith's father. I am sure that Earnest had used it for inspiration to design a house that he built in the late 1950s. There are calculations written on several of the pages.

This book contains 82 home plans with rather curious names. All of the names of the designs begin with the letter A. Abalo, Abest, Adcar, Aford, Agils, Allis, Ambit, and Angol are all in there. Those aren't even real words! Soooo, given the list of these peculiar, made-up names, I'm not sure how I feel about the name of the design that is pictured above...

Really?

And, it's a pretty homely design, to boot. :-(

Let's move on, shall we?

My two favorite mechanics got their hands a little bit dirty as they replaced brakes and rotors on the Audi.

Drilled and slotted rotors add a little style to the Q. The clean wheels/tires also help to spiff things up. Best of all, there is no more brake squeak! :-)

Liesey's "Beaker" got a little love, too.

January 30

Does this picture qualify as a "selfie" since there are two people in the picture? Selvesie? Dual selfie? Selfie plus one? Twosie? Twofer?

I took the picture of the two of us at the DFW airport as we were waiting on our flight to here:

Portland!

A long weekend getaway to Portland/Vancouver, to visit my sister, was just the ticket. No Smithlings were invited.

February 6

There was not enough snow to cancel school on Thursday, which greatly disappointed a certain high school freshman. However, on Friday, school was delayed two hours.

Although we received under two inches of snow, the roads and overpasses were slippery. No, I did not make our student driver put her novice skills to the test.

The radar looked like this.

The traffic map looked like this.

There were so many accidents all over the Dallas/Ft. Worth area.

The snow lasted a little more than 24 hours, but the cold temperatures have lingered a little too long for my liking. I am now ready for spring. Thankfully, 70s are back in the forecast by the end of this week. :-)

Wait! Why is she holding a bottle of vino? She's not 21.

Did you know that underage drinking is allowed in twenty-nine states? It's okay as long as said minor is on private, non-alcohol selling premises (private home or private office or other private property) and has parental consent. Texas is one of those states.

There are ten states that allow underage drinking on alcohol-selling premises (bars and restaurants) with parental consent. Texas is one of the ten.

To satisfy your curiosity, the other nine states are Connecticut, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nevada, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

I did not know about the TX laws until we went out to eat at an Italian restaurant, and the owner of the establishment offered to serve all three of the Smithlings a glass of wine with their dinner. One Smithling is already of legal age, and the other two really didn't care one way or the other.

We have always allowed our kids to taste whatever wine we have with a special dinner, so it's no big deal to them. They can take it or leave it. Ninety-nine percent of the time, they leave it. Or they choose to have Martinelli's Sparkling Cider instead. :-)

On a recent shopping trip to one of our favorite "foodie" grocery stores, our resident history nerd picked out a wine that looked interesting to her. The Federalist Dueling Pistols is a blend of Zinfandel and Syrah. Should that be dubbed a Syrfandel or Zinrah?!

None of us have ever tasted this blend before, so who knows if it's any good. This wine sells for $35 a bottle, so we certainly hope it's tasty. Mr. Smith and I usually keep the bulk of our wine purchases in the $20-$25/bottle range. When we purchase wine at the $40-$50/bottle price point, we do so only after tasting it.

This wine gets good reviews, it has an awesome label, and it's from Sonoma County, which is Liesey's birthplace. All of these factors played some part in the selection process; however, it's likely that the tie to a historical event ultimately influenced her choice. Our girlie plans on being a history professor, so she loves the fact that the name on this wine comes from the duel on July 11, 1804, between the original Federalist Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. Hamilton was shot, and eventually died from his injuries. Two-hundred and ten years later, there's a wine with a name that references the fateful face-off that claimed Mr. Hamilton's life. :-) A tasty consolation prize?

The winemaker notes that since dueling is no longer socially acceptable, solving differences over a glass of this "dual" of two kinds of grapes is perhaps a better solution.

We'll be uncorking this bottle when our middle child selects her transfer college. We should have a decision in March? April? (I am sure there will be a blog entry in there somewhere about all of that collegiate stuff.)

We will be celebrating indeed. No dueling. If there's a "duel," it'll be between any two of the eight universities (TCU, SMU, Washington University, Rice, Stanford, Pepperdine, University of Pennsylvania, and Butler) as they fight to get our daughter to attend their school. :-)

Cats are unimpressed by the college application/selection process. And discussing the merits of a nice bottle of wine is completely lost on them. Our cats are only concerned with catching enough Zzzzzz! Catnip and cream rate pretty high on that list, too.

Of course, I have pictures of Bartholomew and Jemima on my phone. I am not always sure how they get there, but they're there.

Seeing Bartholomew all balled up like this is a very common sight, especially since he sleeps the better part of the day, every day. I am not sure how he avoids suffocation.

This shows what Jemima does to paperback books or anything that is printed on card stock. Do you suppose that my cat can read? It appears that she took the "MORE, MORE, MORE" part quite literally.