All posts in category Odd & Ends

With peas.

It seems like whenever we have a grey and overcast Monday it’s usually followed by and grey and overcast Tuesday. I don’t know why Tuesday has to copy Monday all the time but here we are…

Good morning from Northside…

And then it was time for day eight of my Lego City Advent Calendar…

And fast forward through a very busy work day that involved completing the same project twice because it was just that awesome. But we got through the day…

For dinner tonight, we had another one of the Kroger Prep+Pared Home Chef Express meals. This meal might have had the longest name of any of the Prep+Pared Home Chef Express meals that we’ve eaten. Are you ready for this… Italian Sausage and Roasted Tomato Cream Cavatappi… with peas…

And cheesy garlic bread. Ohmigosh, I love garlic bread especially cheesy garlic bread…

And it was another delicious dinner. This one was one of my favorites because I love all the boxes it checked… pasta, sausage, sun-dried tomato, cheese and garlic bread. I could eat this meals at least once a week. We like the Kroger Prep+Pared Home Chef Express meal kits a lot.

Later, we watched the Cowboys get thumped by the Ravens on Tuesday Night Football (wait, wut?)…

After every Cowboys game I’ve watched this season, I’ve literally said out loud to myself after EVERY game is over, “Why did I just watch that game? The Cowboys are turrible.” Because the Cowboys are really bad.

I need to ask myself, “Is Andy Dalton still the Cowboys quarterback?” If the answer is yes, I need to go watch something else. Anything else.

But at least the pasta was awesome. Because the Cowboys are not. 😀🌄☁️🥣🏈📺❤️

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by Thadd F. on December 8, 2020 • Permalink

Posted in #FALLinCINCY, Northside, Odd & Ends

Posted by Thadd F. on December 8, 2020

https://tplusg.com/2020/12/08/with-peas/

Come on you Loons!

It was another cloudy, overcast, grey Monday morning…

Good morning from Northside…

Time for day 7 of my Lego City Advent Calendar…

With the exception of the mini figures, each day every little set has had a few random leftover extra pieces…

Today was pretty slow at work. It was a lot of hurry up and wait today. I was just waiting for dinner.

And fast forward through the rest of the workday to this evening. For dinner tonight, we had another one of the Kroger Prep+Pared Home Chef Express meals. This meal was Garlic-Sesame Steak Noodles with snow peas and honey roasted peanuts…

And it was another really good dinner. The noodles and the garlic-seasme sauce was terrific. And I ate all the snow peas first. I just not a big fan of most steaks. It was tasty. But there was just a lot of beef. And I kept ending up with just this ball of meat in my mouth. I could have used a lot more of the noodles and snow peas and less of the steak. But it was still another super tasty meal. We like the Kroger Prep+Pared Home Chef Express meal kits a lot.

The sky was really odd tonight. It was mostly cloudy with just this little sliver that was very bright right at the horizon. Good evening from Northside…

Later this evening was the MLS Cup Playoffs Western Conference Final between my beloved Minnesota United and Seattle Sounders…

Minnesota was a pretty sizeable underdog coming into this match…

But Minnesota really took the game to Seattle and led 1-0 at half courtesy of a golazo freekick wonderstrike by their new star player Argentine Emanuel Reynoso…

COME ON YOU LOONS! United added their second in the 67th minute on a Bakaye Dibassy header from another Reynoso freekick. The Loons were up Dos a Cero and I was on cloud nine. Sounders pulled one back in the 75th minute as they continued to turn up the pressure. 😬 And the Loons couldn’t hold on as Seattle stormed back to score two more goals, both off of corners, one in the 89th and the other at 90+4 to win the match 3-2. Crushing. Absolutely crushing.

But it was one heck of a playoff run and a tremendous season for Minnesota United. No one expected them to reach the conference finals in just their fourth season in MLS. And even though the Loons season is over, it was still a pretty darn good Monday.
😀🌄☁️🍜⚽️🏆🥲❤️

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by Thadd F. on December 7, 2020 • Permalink

Posted in #FALLinCINCY, Northside, Odd & Ends, Sports

Posted by Thadd F. on December 7, 2020

https://tplusg.com/2020/12/07/come-on-you-loons/

We had a great Sunday.

Sunday got off to a cold and frosty start. Good morning from Northside…

We rolled over to the grocery this morning…

We were running desperately low on Shiny Stars. Time to restock to the supply…

Both the panda and the train were on the shelves today…

And there were some adorable Christmas balloons…

After we were done at the grocery, we stopped at Biggby for weekend morning coffee…

Genifer has grown a little tired of Mad Llama so we back on a Biggby kick right now.

Next time we’re at Biggby, we’re going to pick an item off their giving tree…

At some point, I’m going to gift myself a Biggby Coffee trucker cap…

I’ve really been digging Biggby’s maple waffle breakfast sammich…

It’s so tasty. Today was day six of my Lego City Advent Calendar…

Today was also going to be a pretty epic sports day…

While I was listening to the different sporting events and working on projects for work, Genifer was putting the finishing touches on our bedroom walls…

It looks so good. I love the color. Genifer did such an amazing job of painting! And she did it so fast. It’s a big room with weird angles. It just looks amazing.

To celebrate, we ate Kroger sushi for lunch…

I also got Yakisoba noodles with chicken at the grocery. But it was just too much food with all the sushi and we decided to save the noodles to eat for dinner later..

But there was still plenty of room for two-bite Christmas cupcakes…

We took the dogs out on a walk around the block…

Good evening from Northside…

Later, we ate of Yakisoba noodles with chicken and they were delicious…

I wonder if Oscar like the way the bedroom looks now…

I hope he likes the new color…

Because I sure do. I think it’s perfectly splendid. We hung out in our freshly painted bedroom tonight and we watched The Knight before Christmas and A Christmas Prince on Netflix. Because apparently, we are on a Vanessa Hudgens, Prince and Christmas movie kick right now. They were both pretty cute.

Oh, the sports… Leicester won, Arsenal lost the North London Derby, Wolves got thumped, Revs couldn’t knock out Columbus, Shockers lost, Xavier beat UC in the Crosstown Shootout (again), and Michigan rolled over UCF. We had another really good Sunday. I like days with lotsa sports. 😀🌄🌟☕️🖌️📺🍣🍜❤️

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by Thadd F. on December 6, 2020 • Permalink

Posted in Odd & Ends

Posted by Thadd F. on December 6, 2020

https://tplusg.com/2020/12/06/we-had-a-great-sunday/

Another pretty good, low-key Saturday.

Good morning from Northside…

We ran over to Lowe’s this morning…

We got some more Christmas lights but not the lights we wanted because most of the lights were already sold out. And we got paint for our third-floor bedroom.

On the way home, we stopped at Mad Llama for coffee and a Java Whip!

When we got home, I got to open day five of my Lego City Advent Calendar…

Genifer worked on painting our third-floor bedroom. She’s been on a real painting kick lately. She had it looking really good. But she’s really good at painting. I am not good.
At all.

We had a really late lunch. And we just had leftovers. We ate the rest of the delicious chicken marinated in Trader Joe’s Island Soyaki and Genifer made more stuffing. And it made so much stuffing…

I’m guessing we’re going to have stuffing with every meal for a while. And I’m really good with that. Because I love stuffing!

We watched Western Michigan lose their unbeaten football season to Eastern Michigan. Bummer.

And then, we took the dog’s out on a walk around the block…

Good evening from Northside…

We added these lights around the banister on our front porch….

Later, we watched Don’t Listen. It was one of those really weird movies that just left us with a lot of unaswered questions. It was weird. But other that Western loss and the silly movie, it was just another pretty good, low-key Saturday. 😀🌄☕️🐔🏈📺❤️

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by Thadd F. on December 5, 2020 • Permalink

Posted in #FALLinCINCY, Northside, Odd & Ends

Posted by Thadd F. on December 5, 2020

https://tplusg.com/2020/12/05/another-pretty-good-low-key-saturday/

HOORAY! It’s Friday!

HOORAY! It’s Friday! It was a little chilly and a little grey this morning…

Good morning from Northside…

And it was time for day four of my Lego City Advent Calendar…

How fun is Lego stuff? I got all my work done for the day and finished my timesheets for the week.

And then it was good evening from Northside…

It was a very pretty December evening.

For dinner tonight, Genifer made chicken marinated in Trader Joe’s Island Soyaki with baked sweet potatoes and we finished the rest of the Thanksgiving stuffing….

It was such a great meal. The Trader Joe’s Island Soyaki is a teriyaki sauce/marinade that mkes anything taste like the most out of this world, outstandingly good stuff.

None of my teams were playing their sports tonight…

And as a result, we got to watch A Christmas Catch tonight on Netflix. It was pretty cheesy and not very good. It wasn’t as bad as one of the other movies we watched, Hometown Holiday but it was still far from good. Both seemed like they were Hallmark movie rejects. 😀🌄🐔📺❤️

Thank goodness it’s Friday.

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by Thadd F. on December 4, 2020 • Permalink

Posted in #FALLinCINCY, Northside, Odd & Ends

Posted by Thadd F. on December 4, 2020

https://tplusg.com/2020/12/04/hooray-its-friday-2/

NYPD + MNUFC.

Good morning from Northside…

I’ve been having hot chocolate almost every morning. Most of the time, it’s in one of our #TeamFiona mugs…

Once I had my cocoa, it was time for day three of my Lego City Advent Calendar…

The Lego City Advent Calendar has been pretty cool so far.

Good evening from Northside…

And tonight, we had an NYPD Pizza party!

It’s been a minute since we’ve had an NYPD Pizza party…

We ordered cheese garlic bread but they gave us an order of Nightsticks instead and they were really good…

And then we had to get upstairs…

Because tonight was the second round of the MLS Cup Playoffs. My Minnesota United was playing away to Sporting Kansas City, the top-seed in the Western Conference…

United scored three goals in twelve minutes, and knocked Sporting out of the MLS Cup playoffs of the MLS Cup Playoffs…

Minnesota United will play Seattle Sounders on Monday in the Western Conference finals…

What a match! It was an amazing end to a terrific day. But any day that includes an NYPD Pizza party and a MNUFC Loons win is a really good day on our blog. 😀🌄☕️🍕⚽️🏆❤️

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by Thadd F. on December 3, 2020 • Permalink

Posted in #FALLinCINCY, Northside, Odd & Ends

Posted by Thadd F. on December 3, 2020

https://tplusg.com/2020/12/03/nypd-mnufc/

Headlines are hard.

I feel like coming up with the headlines for these blog posts is the hardest part. Especially when we do the same thing pretty much everyday and every day is pretty much the same.

We were out on our morning walk and the sun just started rising above the trees…

Good morning from Northside…

And the moon was still out too…

And it was time for day two of my Lego City Advent Calendar…

While I was working this afternoon, I listened to the Chelsea-Sevilla Champions League match. And one of my favorite ex-Arsenal players, Olivier Giroud scored all four of Chelsea’s goals.

And fast forward through the rest of the work day to this evening. For dinner tonight, we had another one of the Kroger Prep+Pared Home Chef Express meals. This meal was Hot Honey Pork Chops with shaved Brussels sprouts, corn, and poblano preppers…

And it was another delicious dinner. The hot honey butter on the chops was amazing. The vegetables were really tasty too. The poblano pepper added just a little bit of heat to the veggies. It was another really great meal. We like the Kroger Prep+Pared Home Chef Express meal kits a lot.

And good evening from Northside…

Later, we flipped back and forth between Michigan-Ball State and Xavier-Tennessee Tech basketball games. And both teams won. It was another pretty good Wednesday. 😀🌄🍲❤️

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by Thadd F. on December 2, 2020 • Permalink

Posted in #FALLinCINCY, Northside, Odd & Ends

Posted by Thadd F. on December 2, 2020

https://tplusg.com/2020/12/02/headlines-are-hard/

Hello, December.

Today was December 1st. How crazy is that? It must have kept snowing overnight because we woke up to winter wonderland…

And a snowy good morning from Northside…

Brrr. I bought three Lego City Advent Calendars a while back. I bought on one for me and one for our niece and one for our nephew out in Boston. I forgot that they were still sitting on the sofa in our studio, and just mailed them out the day after Thanksgiving. Because December really snuck up on me. Violette and Edgerton… your Lego Advent Calendars are on their way. They’ll be there just as soon as USPS finally decides to deliver them. I paid to have them delivered today. But the tracking number says they are still in Cincinnati somehow.

Anyway, I finally got the start my Lego City Advent Calendar today…

And here is Lego City Advent Calendar day one…

A Lego City Advent Calendar. How cool is that? I think Lego anything is pretty dang awesome.

I started working this morning. I had just finished a hour long meeting and a little after 10am all of a sudden, our power went out….

You don’t really realize how much of your work depends on power until you don’t have it. Obviously, there wasn’t any internet. And my work MacBook is a bit older and the battery life isn’t super. So by 11:30am, I was pretty much staring out the window, waiting for the power to come back on.

The energy company’s website said it wouldn’t be back on before 1:30pm. Eventually, we ventured out to go out to pick up something for lunch and decided on Wendy’s…

We got home and started eating our Wendy’s and the power came back on a little before 2pm…

Thank goodness for electricity!

It looks like people got some good sledding in on the hill at the end of our street…

We should have gone sledding while we were waiting for power to come back on.

Good evening from Northside…

We ate leftover Wendy’s chicken nuggets for dinner. And later, we watched Holidate on Netflix. It was super cute. It’s still hard to believe it’s December 1st.

Today was also my 900th Timehop in a row…

And this guy was in my Timehop today…

Pretty fitting for December 1st. It is the season. It was a pretty good day, even without power. 😀🌄❄️🍔📺❤️

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by Thadd F. on December 1, 2020 • Permalink

Posted in #FALLinCINCY, Northside, Odd & Ends

Posted by Thadd F. on December 1, 2020

https://tplusg.com/2020/12/01/hello-december-3/

The first snow.

It was another Monday. And Mondays usually mean that it’s going to be another grey and rainy morning in Northside…

And it was cold outside too.

You can’t really tell from these photos but this morning it was raining hard enough that the dogs didn’t even want to go outside on their walk. We had to pretty much drag them out of the house and down to the end of the street so they would potty.

Mondays are tough. I feel like they are the busiest days of the week. When I look back at my photos to do a blog post for almost any Monday, there are never any photos from during the day. There are photos from our morning dog walk and then it jumps straight to photos from the evening dog walk.

And today was no different. This afternoon it started snowing. Our very first snow of the season. The snow was starting to accumulate on top of the cars on our street…

It started really snowing on our walk…

Good evening from Northside…

There was more snow on the Jetta when we got back from going around the block…

But the snow wasn’t starting to accumulate on the grass yet…

For dinner tonight, Genifer made turkey meatloaf…

She also made instant mashed potatoes and I finished the last of the Thanksgiving mac&cheese…

And it was delicious. We ate the entire meatloaf. It’s kind of a bummer because I was looking forward to a meatloaf sammich for lunch tomorrow.

When we got upstairs, I was trying to work on our blog but Flickr was having a case of the Mondays as well…

8 Tonight, we watched Xavier squeak out a win against Eastern Kentucky. Then we fell asleep. We always end up falling asleep pretty early on Mondays. 😀🌄🌧️❄️🏀❤️

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by Thadd F. on November 30, 2020 • Permalink

Posted in #FALLinCINCY, Northside, Odd & Ends

Posted by Thadd F. on November 30, 2020

https://tplusg.com/2020/11/30/the-first-snow/

A pretty low-key Sunday.

It was really chilly and frosty this morning…

Good morning from Northside…

We had a big breakfast this morning…

Eggo waffles with scrambled eggs and sausages! And it was terrific. We never have big breakfasts.

Hello, Oscar. He looks so handsome with his new haircut…

And we had Thanksgiving part three for a late lunch after Arsenal lost this afternoon…

And then it was just a lot of hanging out on our new sofa until we took the dogs on their evening walk around the block…

Good evening from Northside…

It was pretty sunny all day. But it started getting more and more overcast the closer we got to Monday…

Tonight, we watched both The Princess Switch and The Princess Switch: Switched Again on Netflix. The first one was pretty cute. The second one was still cute but a bit of a stretch. While we were watching our Netflix movies on the TV, I was also keeping tabs on Michigan as they survived overtime against Oakland. The same Oakland that Xavier destroyed by 52 on Wednesday.

We had a pretty low-key Sunday. But it was a really good one. Low-key Sundays are the best Sundays. 😀🌄🧇🐾🦃☁️❤️

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by Thadd F. on November 29, 2020 • Permalink

Posted in #FALLinCINCY, Northside, Odd & Ends