So web 2.0 it makes babies cry.

Wow I have been busy, and not just normal busy for me, but really busy. That being no excuse, a “month in review” for you. Following the weekend we left off on, was Memorial Day weekend, which as always was at Buehler’s Idlewild. As always, I can’t say enough good things about the weekend, the people, the hosts, the food. Take note of Nana drinking a PBR, and now stop wondering where I get it from.

Nanna drinking a PBR

The Lake at Buehlers Idlewild

Karley and Matty

Chilling with Bacon and Sauasge

The following Saturday was the Mozart Lodge #121 Beef and Beer, which consumed many days of planning, and running around. Which was all worth it, as we managed to have over 80 people come through the door, and after expenses we managed to raise about $500 for the Masonic Charity Foundation, which is how they fund the Masonic HOME in Burlington, NJ. The next day I went to the Camden Rivershark’s game where they did a nice presentation by the Warrior’s Watch , and Sicily sang the National Anthem w/ her class.

The next weekend was pretty quiet as I remember it, I think I worked on my gimlet recipe.  On the 13th I ran all over the state, there was a christening in the AM, then I shot down to Wildwood for the longest DeMolay banquet in history, Congrats Wes!   Followed by a visit to a southern gin joint till the wee hours of the AM. Seriously, it was like 5,  I was tired for all of Flag Day.  Then on the 19th, was the Mozart Lodge trip to the Camden Riversharks. We managed to get 65 people together with very short notice. On account of the iterest of this trip, and the amount of people we had to turn away the day of the game, next time I’m just going to buy out the whole section and fill that.

That is about enough for the broad strokes of social events for the month, I’m sure there were other things I have forgotten or not cared to write about today.

Then there was cooking…. Well lots of cooking, but the only things I have pictures left of or even bothered to take are my crappy donut balls, my awesome french bread, and one of my staple foods, PBR and Pierogies. The donut balls were done on a whim, and I wanted to try something with baking powder instead of yeast. As a result, I was not impressed at all and next time I will be sure to do those with yeast. Now my French Bread was really nice, the best I’ve done yet. Next time, I’m going to add some I-Tai herbs though, cause I’m crazy like that. The last pic is just for me, mmmm.

My Dounut balls kinda sucked

My best French bread yet.

PBR and Pierogies with peppers and onions.

Most recently, there was Father’s Day thrown in the mix there. We had a bbq over at Dave’s and had a good time. I got to spend a few minutes relaxing in the hammock sipping a DFH Midas Touch, which is still one of my favorite beers.

Currently I’m in the midst of planning our annual fishing trip (LMK if you wanna go!) and getting my “term plan” set for my year as WM, pending my election of course.  While I’m thinking of planning, what really gets me is the way no one likes to make a reservation early.  I must admit, it adds a whole new level of complexity to planning large events… Anyhow, that is more than enough for now.

So when I’m left to my own devices, I either get myself into trouble or I do productive things. Tonight, it happens to be productive things. In between the raindrops, I put nearly all of my flowers outside. After that I was in a baking mood, so I made some focaccia. As you can see from below, I was also able to use the big cast iron skillet, which is always a plus.

It was a actually a whole lot easier than I thought it would be. The recipe only called for rosemary and parmesan cheese, but I just had to experiment a bit with some sauce and mushrooms that I had here at the house.
Using things from the house has been a bit of a priory for me, as the pantry is FULL. One of the things I’ve decided that I need to do is limit my food store purchases to to only protein type items for a while. This will not only help me clean out the pantry, but it will also help me save some money. When I goto the food store, I always want to get a luxury item or two, so those are gone too. Although I do have a good supply of TVP and other various soy products in the house.

When I got home on Friday my head was killing me, my eye was really bothering me, and I was pretty close to beat  I think the long work week coupled with being out every night, and the lack of a good night sleep all week just wrote me out.  So to bed was where I headed.

As you may or may not know, one of my little pet projects that I’ve been working on is increasing my bread baking skills.  I woke up Saturday morning and decided to make another attempt into making acceptable loaves of potato bread. Even after my somewhat unacceptable attempt to make a loaf of potato bread,  I’ve already started to become a bit weary of the chemical taste in some of the commercial breads which I never noticed before.    The last time I made the bread, I thought it was too heavy, and did not rise enough.  So this time around, I used bread flour, and a different yeast. Well as you can see below, something worked.

In other news, I plan to increase my overall workout schedule a bit this week. Long term, I will hopefully get my cardiovascular system back up to where it should be. I am also planning on increasing the frequency of my morning yoga sessions, which have been helping a great deal with my overall health and flexibility.

It has been a busy couple of weeks so I’ve not really had the chance to do more frequent updates.  So here is a week in review of the past 8 days or so.  Most importantly, it would seem that my dream of donning a patch and becoming a pirate and sailing the southern shores of the Keys and the Caribbean must be put on hold for a while. As you may or may not know, my left eye has been “troublesome” since Wednesday morning. I went to the eye doctors Friday morning and after being tested and prodded for an hour and a half the doctor thinks I have central serous retinopathy.

The good news is that average Joe’s who comprise the wikipedia community, being much smarter than myself, claim that “The prognosis for CSR is generally excellent. Over 90% of patients regain 20/30 vision or better within 6 months.”.  I get headaches and fuzzy vision kinda sucks, but I am more or less fine. Moving forward,  I have an appointment at Will’s Eye on Monday morning to confirm that this is indeed what is wrong. As you can see, I’m fine:

Flashing back to last Saturday, I found myself at Bam Margera’s bar/club called the Note in West Chester PA for the  Peek A Boo Revue w/ the Billy D Light Trio. This was an awesome time despite the crappy seats.  Well the seats were great for getting my $2.00 PBR’s and Dave’s Victory Brewery Hop Devil, not so much great to see the show. Which was pretty awesome and at times quite tasteful. There were some funny entertaining acts, and of course, very sexy acts.  It’s hard to imagine that back in the day it was considered obscene.  All in all, a pretty great night, which would have only been better if Shambre was driving instead of me.

Sunday was really nice and in order to get out and blow off the stink,  two Geocaches were found.  I would have grabbed a quick third, but the parking area was a giant mud pit and it was starting to get dark.  I’ll get back that way soon anyhow.

Monday brought with it an informal meeting of the local DeMolay Chapter.  The MC has been making great progress with his ritual, and that’s always impressive.  Followed on Tuesday evening I ran my first business meeting for the Lodge.  Let me tell you, I’m not a ritualist I must work hard at it.  I made some mistakes, I learned from them. But I learned much more about running a meeting, and what it is like to be in the hot seat up in the East.  Of course, I didn’t have a friendly topic planned for the night so I was able to anticipate some things.  I have learned that when you are Master of the Lodge, you need to be prepared for anything and everything.

On Wednesday I awoke to about 8 inches of snow on the ground.  Thank goodness I now am the proud owner of a snow blower, that really made the job of clearing the walkway and part of the driveway much easier and faster.  That morning is when I first started to notice the issues with my left eye.  The night I headed south to Pennsgrove Excelsior Lodge for DeMolay Ceremony of Light.  They did an excellent job as always.   Thursday was pretty quiet, and there was a Craftsmen’s club meeting at WJMC then it was to Dom’s for a drink with Casey.  A couple of crappy snow pics from my phone. I’m not quite sure why I have not gotten a new digial cameara I can carry with me more often..

On Friday I went into work late because I was at the eye doctors,  I got a lot done, and some projects finished up a bit.   Then it was off to Joe Canal’s in the WD to get myself a few bottles of wine I’ve been wanting to try.  Now I was unable to get a couple of them, but a few they don’t carry.  I did some shopping, grabbed a few cheeses then came home for a tasting. I’ll be posting the reviews of those wines on one of the other sites.
Saturday morning came and was in a baking mood again.  As a result, I made some fresh Pita bread and then homemade pepperoni bread.  I’m still not happy with my pita bread, it’s not getting a pocket like I want. As of now it is more like a naan flatbread vs a pita.   I think I might have to tweak my existing receipe or look at a few others.  A side note, as of 8:00 AM, I had officially been employed by SIN for 9 years.

Today being Sunday I’m going to get my lazy ass off of the couch here and head down to the HD.  I have some plumbing issues I need to resolve in the basement, evidently my washing machine would rather over flow the sink than actually drain properly.  If I’m feeling really spunky, I might even make it to the attic for some rewiring and insulation.  I love having a house that is nearly 100…..