Picture Sunday

And a jam-packed Picture Sunday it is, let me tell you.

Weather in Betland was wonderful this week. Spent Saturday and some of today in B'burg, where today saw the arrival of - Herschel!

Herschel is a woodchuck who has a small apartment on the grounds of Chez M, aka Poderosa East. He's Sherman's friend. Their friendship started quite adversarially when Herschel attacked Sherman's gardening hoe. But they soon became fast friends, and he's been waiting all winter for H to make his return appearance.

It's funny, because we've discovered that Herschel likes clarinet music. Must be, anyway, because every time we played, there he'd be, up on Mr M's deck. He was up there a good four times during the duets today.

Speaking of my little boy, let's get to Picture Number One of which shall be many.

Wednesday night was band practice, of course, and since we'd just completed our successful Spring Concert, there were some Band Awards given out. Some were for attendance, some were for people who went above and beyond the call of duty for the band. But at one point they called me to the front of the room.

I knew I hadn't done anything special for the band, and due to my April 2005 absences I didn't have stellar attendance, so I was a bit surprised. Imagine my complete bliss when I was given an award for - the smallest instrument. Sherman's clarinet. I accepted gratefully on his behalf, and The Boy was chuffed he was mentioned.

Now, to the big news. I'm tired.

But why am I tired, you ask. It's because I've been cleaning up my kitchen.

Cabinet Hell is complete! Yes folks, it's been, what, four weeks? But it's done, it looks good, and I couldn't be happier. You waited patiently for these (much more patiently than I did, that's for damn sure), and now you shall see the results.

First of all, pics of the old cabinets.

Now, and without further ado, may I proudly present, and believe me folks, I know you're going to like them, and maybe they were worth all the heartache, my new cabinets!

But wait! Don't pee your pants, but there's more. Now, I know this picture isn't going to mean a lot to you, but mere words cannot express what it means to me.

Along with finishing up the sanding on the cabinets, Mr M, aka Captain Asshole, aka my personal superhero, replaced my faucet.

Now, I don't think I've told you about my faucet. It was bad. It was very bad. It was so bad that, well, OK. Spit. No, go ahead, spit. There. What you just spit? It was about four times bigger than the stream of water that came out of my faucet. It took approximately 10 minutes to fill up my coffee pot, and it's only a four-cupper. Filling a regular sized pot? Well, days. In fact, the only way I could wash dishes was with the hose attachment.

So imagine my utter bliss when the new faucet was up and going. And also imagine my undying grattitude when I got out of bed Saturday morning and coming upon Mr M, once again flat on his back in the kitchen floor, fixing the tiny leak the pipes had the night before.



Now, how's that for perseverance?

And finally, I can't let you go without the recipe du jour. And it's funny, even though this one's been in my "to go" pile for some time, I kept passing it over because it's so bad I was sure I must have published it already. But I checked, and no go. So here it is for your retching enjoyment, the superb Creamed Beef.



Maybe it's so familiar to me because it has that stalwart of recipe card ingredients, the ever-popular dog's vomit. Right there over the beef. On the biscuit. And looky, there's a big pepper on the asparagus. When I first saw it I thought, "Holy shit, they've left the rubber band on the bunch of asparagus!" But it's all decoration.

The card says it's the chipped beef, biscuits, asparagus, and some ambrosia, which is evidently hiding in the oh-so-fashionable coffee pot. Tell you what, just skip the beef and dog's vomit, give me a large coffee.

Happy week.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Face update: Still bad. Saturday morning was so bad I cried when I got up and looked in the mirror. I nursed it all day and most of today, but during movie time this evening I lapsed. It's bad again. I guess I'm going to have to cut my hands off.
* Well, this is certainly odd. Look at how little all my pictures are! I made them all the same size I normally do. Blogger must be doing something weird. Oh well, hope they're still big enough to enjoy.
* Bleh. They're blurry, too. And that creamed beef was so exquisite.