Swearing off the Box

Lindsay, Sean, and Heather were over this weekend.

They have all gone back to their homes. The white manx cat Georgie is happy to see them go.. we are not

Lindsay made the most wonderful mac and cheese from scratch. Its enough to swear off ever opening the big blue and orange Kraft box.

She made a delightful white sauce where she slowly added the gated cheese (coastal white English cheddar) that was breaded with panko.. ala Cooks illustrated. Seasoning was fresh nutmeg and laural. Yummie Yummie. We had several goes at it and there was enough for her to take home. She especially enjoyed my 3 quart magnalite sauce pan which now has a new home north in Sacto.

We took the required trip to Target. She bought a wefit. It is an exercise game on the Wii. She was very happy about that. They have been in short supply. I am still twenty pounds over its weight liimit.. so I have a goal.

We had a great walk this morning without rain. This evening the rain has returned. Heather was able to come down the three hours on Amtrak because her boys (two very large black Maine coon cats) are no longer in need of twice daily shots of insulin. Before a trip to Merced neccessitated a drive over to pick her and the boys up at the Bart station in Dublin (about 2 hours a way) then drive home. Then another two hour drive back to Merced repeated later in the weekend with the same 4 hour round trip. I am pretty happy that she could just get on the Amtrack and do this without the Dublin freeway driving. I must admit that I would be happy to do this every day if she could come to see us. We love our girls so much. We are especially happy that they get along with each other so well.

We are all looking forward to some family time together when we depart for the Mexican Rivera on the NCL Star on February 14th. We will all go down together on the Friday the 13th (we are not superstitious) and stay overnight in Long Beach. We will board the ship and head to Cabo, Mazatalan, and Puerto Valarta.. muy cool. We all need the vacation,

Sean (Linzi's husband) helped me get some light back into the garage. Light is provided by cheap hanging florescent light. Slowly those plugs that the lights plug into are wearing out. We temporary solved the problem with an extension cord to an outlet that actually had some power and the florescent lights came on again.. wonderful.

I helped dad get rid of the excess email entries. Go Daddy has a wonderful "purge" command on their email client. Just hit the button and everything that is check marked is instantly gone. Most email clients require a 2nd or a 3rd step. We got down to 38 percent and he wanted more gone.. I finally found that there was a copy of everything that he had sent including email going back to 2002 in the sent folder. Since he didn't send photos, there really wasn't much there.. except 38 percent of his capacity. I upped the amount he can have in his e-mail with a a twenty spot for two years so that should reduce the anxiety somewhat and allow us to send him photos and he will be able to send us photos.