How many hands of blackjack do you have to win to pay for a kitchen remodel?

We’ll never know, because we didn’t win.

Sorry for the blog hiatus. We went to Vegas to celebrate ME. And frankly, the timing couldn’t have been better. When we left our house on Friday afternoon, there was an inch of dust (from the dry wall mud being sanded) on EVERYTHING. The particles floating around in the air stung your eyes, and we were virtually prisoners in our bedroom.

And then we came home on Monday. And guess what we had? Cabinets!

We were so nervous to come home and see the cabinets, especially after our contractor texted us a picture and they looked like shit. The good news is that we love them and the lesson is to never trust a crappy cell phone picture.

Before we get to the food, here’s the rest of the remodel update: appliances get delivered today. They will sit in the garage and hopefully stay in pristine condition until we need to move them in – probably about two weeks. The granite template dudes come today and then our actual slabs will show up in one week. At some point this week, the tile guy will start laying the tile. While we haven’t been told an “end date”, I would guess August 15^th based on where we’re at.

Now, on to the food.

Did you know restaurants in Vegas are almost always dark (i.e. mood lighting)? This made for difficult picture taking, as I didn’t have a flash on my phone, and probably it would have been annoying to see the flash in the restaurants. But here’s the picture of my favorite meal (it was course 2 of 4 – more on that below):

Friday night: Holstein’s in the Cosmopolitan. An “upscale” burger bar. I had a mini trio of Italian sliders and glass of prosecco to keep the class factor high.

Saturday night: Diego’s at MGM. A somewhat authentic Mexican restaurant. Jason had goat. He does not recommend goat. I had shrimp tacos. They were tasty. We got a pitcher of frida margaritas, and depending on who you asked, there was either a lot of tequila or no tequila at all.

Sunday night (my actual birthday): Sirio at Aria. This was my special birthday pick and I ordered the four course tasting menu. Although, to call it tasting was really misleading. There was so much food.

Course one: veal carpacchio

Course two: tagliolini with prawns and a pink vodka sauce

Course three: rack of lamb

Course four: some special birthday dessert. I don’t think it was very good, but I couldn’t tell you what it was.

Highly, highly recommend Sirio if you’re in Vegas. But bring your winnings…our dinner cost more than the amazing shoes I wore that night. Which is to say, it cost a lot.

Dinners eaten at home since remodel began: 9

Dinners eaten out since remodel began: 27

I like-a the Italian food-a

(You have to imagine reading the post title with an Italian accent)

Oh. My. God. You guys – we ate at home two nights in a row! That almost never happened even when we had a kitchen.

Those are Italian sandwiches. With a side of Fritos, because what goes better with Italian food than Fritos? And what makes these sandwiches Italian you might ask? Well, there’s olive oil, salami, provolone, oregano and red onion. Jason adds tomato to his, but blech, not on mine. The only way to make it more Italian would be to use capocolla and mozzarella, but you know, not my style. Also, we only eat these in the summer, and in our backyard, which is very similar to Italy. Do the math. It’s Italian.

A note to my loyal readers: I won’t be posting again until Tuesday the 31^st. I am not allowed to tell you why. But there are going to be some amazing dinner shots, so it will be worth the wait. Also, the cabinets should be in by then, so I'll post pictures of that too.

Dinners eaten at home since remodel began: 9

Dinners eaten out since remodel began: 22

A few words on lunch

Because I was so bored with what I ate for dinner last night (Eggos – but it was at home!), I didn’t take a picture. Go and look at the “Breakfast for Dinner” post, but swap out French toast for Eggos and there you have it.

However, I do feel bad that I didn’t post a picture yesterday (I probably lost a lot of readers) so to make sure it didn’t happen two days in a row, I took a picture of my lunch.

I’ve eaten this every day for the last 8 days and I am sick of it. Also, hungry.

Dinners eaten at home since remodel began: 8

Dinners eaten out since remodel began: 22

Busy Bee

I'm a busy bee (worky-worky) so no picture of last night's dinner (it was Herfy's).

We finally got our window in. The drywall guy's truck broke down so he didn't come yesterday. We ordered paint.

And that sums up Monday.

Dinners eaten at home since remodel began: 7

Dinners eaten out since remodel began: 22

Mud-a-palooza

Lots of exciting things happened this weekend, starting with me not getting to sleep in on Saturday because the drywall guys showed up to do some mudding. I’ve been told there needs to be three to four more “mudding sessions” (I just made that phrase up) and then we can paint.

Speaking of paint, you can see our top four choices to the left of the fireplace. I think we picked one. We seem to change our mind a lot and the only way we’ll stop changing it is when the paint gets ordered, which is hopefully today.

On the food front, lots of variety (for me). Friday night we ate at Hop Jacks, a little burger joint by our house. I won’t tell you what we really call it because it would probably make my mom embarrassed and reading it isn’t as funny as saying it.

On Saturday, we saw the Dark Knight Rises and ate at iPic. My grilled cheese had bacon crumbled in it and was cheestastic. The movie was great – highly recommend it if you’re into that sort of movie. If you count Dear John as a good movie, then you probably wouldn’t like this one.

Finally, on Sunday, I had lamb kebobs (baaaaahhhhh – don’t eat me, Lisa). I LOVE lamb. I bet that’s surprising, but rack of lamb and lamb chops are two of my favorite things. No mint jelly!

Dinners eaten at home since remodel began: 7

Dinners eaten out since remodel began: 21

Yawn

Is it bad when you get bored with your own blog?

Because that's where I'm at today.

I'm also over having my house torn apart. I'm over walking through plastic barriers. I'm over everything taking 15 minutes longer than necessary because of all of the hoops we have to jump through in our house. And, I'm over workers not changing out the toilet paper roll when it's empty (or for that matter, pooping at my house.)

To break up the monotony of the week, we went with our besties the Gossett's to go see Bob Saget film his TV special. I wish I had a cute picture of us, but someone (*cough*Natalie*cough*) wasn't feeling like she wanted her picture taken (she was a little Sewing with Nancy after her dental procedure) so, I have nothing to show you.

After the show, we had the worst dinner ever.

I ate 1/4 of the sandwhich, none of the fries, and none of the mango salsa. But I did eat a lot of chips and salsa (we were at a Mexican joint).

And, that my friends, is another boring update. zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Dinners eaten at home since remodel began: 6

Dinners eaten out since remodel began: 19

The plan

Because I got so many comments saying either “Lisa, you don’t need to lose weight!” or “Lisa, tell us about your amazing diet plan!”, I guess I need to oblige and fill you in.

For breakfast: 250 calories. Usually an English muffin with peanut butter.

For lunch: 350 calories. The Starbucks protein pack (cheese, roll, hardboiled egg, 10 grapes, 3 apple slices and almond butter). It sounds like a lot. It is not.

Afternoon snack: 300 calories. Usually veggies and dip or cheese and crackers.

Dinner: whatever I want, trying to keep under 1,000 calories. Believe it or not, a Quarter Pounder with cheese and fries is only 900 calories.

Dessert: not allowed!

Total calories per day: 1,900

But then! Then I go workout, and try to burn at least 500 calories. The goal would be to have my total calorie intake, minus what I burn, be under 1500 calories a day. According to my “plan” that would allow me to lose 1 to 3 pounds a week. We shall see.  I only weighed myself for the first time last night. It was a sad night. And then I ate this:



Game of Thrones is on the TV, but you can't see that. 
A perfect show to watch while eating dinner.



But don’t worry, I didn’t eat it all. I was too full from my breakfast, lunch and snack. Yeah right. But I really was full. Maybe my stomach is shrinking already?

Oh, and here’s a progress picture to keep the hard-core remodel readers happy. That’s our contractor, who I am sure would love to know that I took this and then put it out for my millions of followers to see. He’s putting the self-leveler over the radiant heating elements. You can also see that insulation has now been put up in the kitchen. Next up: dry wall!



Much self control needed to not put my handprints in the goo.



Dinners eaten at home since remodel began: 6

Dinners eaten out since remodel began: 18

I'm Fiona Apple?

Did you know I’m on a diet? I know, you can barely tell with the things I’ve been eating. But I have to be in a swimsuit for an extended period of time soon, so I’m trying to lose a few pounds. And last night, I became Fiona Apple…not in the so skinny all you see are gleaming clavicles and hip bones (which is the actual goal), but in the bad, bad girl way.

My intention was to come home, go running and then have a sensible dinner. While not technically my fault (it’s a long story but it comes down to blaming Jason), here’s what I had for dinner last night:



Ignore Jason's hand which is messing up my picture.



You can just hear me getting fatter, can’t you? (movie reference #5 Corey!)

Dinners eaten at home since remodel began: 6

Dinners eaten out since remodel began: 17

Corn? I don't remember eating corn

The grill got put to work last night, not only grilling our steak, but also our corn on the cob. As previously mentioned, I don’t like many vegetables (unless they are raw – like raw carrots or cauliflower) but corn on the cob is one of my favorites.

We keep it classy by using real steak knives. Plastic everything else.

Boring update, 'cause like I said, nothing happened at the house yesterday. And even if it did, I probably wouldn’t have made the update about it anyway.

Dinners eaten at home since remodel began: 6

Dinners eaten out since remodel began: 16

Closed on Sundays

I have a long list of pet peeves in my life, but one that’s pretty high up on the list is when restaurants are closed on Sundays.

This isn’t the 1950s. The days of Sunday family dinner are long gone. I mean, they probably still happen, but not as religiously as they used to. At least not in my family and that’s the only one that I’m polling.

I really wanted katsu for dinner. I’m not sure why. I called to place my order and no one answered. It was 6:15, so I convinced myself the line was really long and they were too busy to answer. So I drove up there. And guess what? CLOSED! Now mind you, this particular teriyaki restaurant had been open last Sunday and the Sunday prior to that, and so on and so forth, but for some reason, decided that they are now closed on Sundays.

So, I had to have McDonalds. Because I was ready to eat my arm. And I happened to be dressed in such a way that I couldn’t actually spend very long getting my food without drawing looks (read: I had just gotten out of the shower, and was wearing my pajamas and no bra). Drive thru it is!

Also, for anyone wanting to know about the remodel:

·    No one is coming to work on Monday. I’m not sure why. I’m told this is okay.

·    The electrician should finish up installing the 934 can lights on Tuesday.

·    Our new kitchen window should be installed on Wednesday. I will then sleep better as there won’t be a hole in the front of our house that criminals can easily crawl through.

·    The radiant heating elements and self-leveler (ooh, I sound fancy) are going in on Wednesday.

·    Drywall starts installing on Thursday and should finish early the following week.

·    Cabinets show up on Friday, the 27^th and that’s when the magic (i.e. what I deem noticeable progress) should really kick into gear.

Dinners eaten at home since remodel began: 5

Dinners eaten out since remodel began: 16

Weenies!

We spent Saturday with our friends doing a ropes course that left me tired, hot and a little motion sick. Given that adventure was the theme for the day, we were super adventurous for dinner, and decided to cook hot dogs over the fire pit in our backyard.

I was skeptical, but I also didn’t really want to shower and go out to dinner, so instead, I walked around the grocery store stinking the place up and got hot dog and smore fixings and we enjoyed our fifth dinner cooked at home since we started this remodel.



Appetizing, right?



Dinners eaten at home since remodel began: 5

Dinners eaten out since remodel began: 15

Sitting down at an actual restaurant

While it may be hard to believe, until Friday night, Jason and I had not gone out to a restaurant to eat (unless you count dinner at iPic, but I’m not because I make the rules). Normally, we eat out three to four times a week, with one time being take-out and the others where we actually sit down in a restaurant. Being DINKs means we have this freedom and we love it.

I really wanted dumplings (watch for them to make an appearance on the blog – hopefully soon) but as predicted, Jason vetoed in favor of Sunset Alehouse, his favorite restaurant. Which we surprisingly haven’t eaten at in the last 20+ days.

Betcha can’t guess who ate what…

El Diablo                                               Prawns Diavola

I had the pasta, believe it or not. You’d be forgiven for picking the El Diablo burger, however, I would NEVER order chips instead of fries, so that should have tipped you off. Also, I LOVE garlic bread, so if it comes with garlic bread, I’m probably going to order it.

Dinners eaten at home since remodel began: 4

Dinners eaten out since remodel began: 15

A bright idea (hardy har har)

We had electricians at our house for around 10 hours yesterday. Our original lighting plan called for 10 can lights. Now we have 23. So, just a few more. And that meant it took a little longer than expected (i.e. they are coming back for a 3^rd day, as opposed to the 1 day they were originally were going to need). And it’s probably going to cost just a smidge more.

So while Jason babysat the electricians at the house, I took Moorea to Pine Lake for the Concerts at the Park series.

The magical, floating cheeseburger!

And I had a salad. Just kidding. It’s clearly a cheeseburger. Without any lettuce or tomatoes. So I bet you didn’t fall for the salad thing for even one second. If you recall, I told you there would be a lot of red meat over the course of this blog. And I’ve certainly lived up to that.

Dinners eaten at home since remodel began: 4

Dinners eaten out since remodel began: 14

Oops

I neglected to take a picture of my dinner last night. I could blame the heat, but really, I just didn’t want to drag my phone to the farmers market. And, because it was the famers market, I had Mexican. But not the normal torta…I changed it up and got tacos instead. Me gusta!

As promised yesterday, here are some progress pictures. Had I been about 20 seconds quicker, there would have been one of Jason walking around on the roof, but with his supersonic hearing and cat-like reflexes he got off of the roof before I got the picture taken.



The new fireplace is 26% complete. (Statistics may not be accurate)



The skylight, marked for your convenience, is 100% complete. On the outside at least.

Surprise! I am getting a new kitchen window. This decision was made without me.
I am told I will be happy.

Dinners eaten at home since remodel began: 4

Dinners eaten out since remodel began: 13

Let the repeats begin

Hey! Look what showed up for dinner again! But, it’s only once a week, and so long as I don’t have it again this week, I’m in the clear. Also, I’d like to point out that I went for a 4-mile run before I ate this. So while the calorie intake still exceeds the expenditures, it’s not as grossly unbalanced as you would think.



Maybe I should cut out the tartar sauce to save some calories?



In remodel news, I might have some pictures to post tomorrow. The skylight went in. Backer board went down on the floor. The electrician and plumber have come and gone. These are all signs of progress, but they aren’t very exciting. I’ll be excited when the cabinets go in. Which isn’t for 16 more days.

Dinners eaten at home since remodel began: 4

Dinners eaten out since remodel began: 12

Dinner for one

Last night, I was home alone (insert Macaulay Culkin hands-on-face scream). No Jason. No Moorea. Just me, a house filled with tools, dry wall, screws, and plastic barriers blowing in the wind (as the windows were open). It felt a little bit like I was in a deserted mental hospital. Probably because I watched an episode of True Blood where they were actually in a deserted mental hospital.

So back to being home alone. It’s nothing new for me, and I’ve become proficient at making the laziest dinners possible when there’s only one person to “cook” for. Usually, it’s grilled cheese and tomato soup. But since I don’t have a stove top, I can’t make grilled cheese (quiet you naysayers who suggest that I use the toaster oven!). Also, it was too hot to cook (read: I can find almost any excuse not to cook).

And that brings us to dinner:

I like how I made the rice krispies ginormous. In reality, it was a small bowl.

I tried to cover all major food groups, although fruits and veggies are noticeably absent. Maybe tomorrow.

Dinners eaten at home since remodel began: 4

Dinners eaten out since remodel began: 11

Weekend roundup

Summer finally arrived in Sammamish so we started our weekend off by barbecuing steaks at home. Yes, that’s right. At home!

Grillers - making another appearance.

Clearly, I eat carbs. I don’t think there’s any point in trying to hide that. And I generally stay away from vegetables, unless it’s corn. Although, my coworker and I once had a very lively discussion about how corn doesn’t count as a vegetable. It got pretty heated when you consider that we were talking about corn and who cares?! (Jason would like you to know – well, he didn’t really tell me to tell you this – that he grilled squash, but that I wouldn’t touch it).

On Saturday, we were invited to our friends’ house – Dizzy and Andrew. Dizzy isn’t her real name. I’m sure you find that shocking, as a lot of people are named Dizzy. Anywho, they cooked us up a great feast, and I took some amazing pictures that really do it justice. And yes, that is salad on my plate (well, mostly salami with a few pieces of salad). Oh, and the view. It’s not too shabby either. I think I need a flash on my camera phone. And that would mean getting a new iPhone. And then I could get the new Kate Spade iPhone wristlet. My birthday is soon – I hope Jason is reading this!

Yummy homemade pizza, good friends, and a great view. Which you can't really see from my awesome picture.

On Sunday, we had grand intentions of making dinner at home – Italian sandwiches. But then I didn’t want to go to the store. So I convinced Jason that we should save that for later this week and get Taco Time takeout instead. Because they use healthy ingredients at Taco Time. My total bill was $21.41. Who spends that much at Taco Time?! Evidently, I ordered way too many things, but my kids meal was super tasty.

I chose Crustos instead of a toy. A wise decision.

Dinners eaten at home since remodel began: 3

Dinners eaten out since remodel began: 11

Not herpes…Herfy’s!

I am shocked – SHOCKED – that it took 11 days to get to a dinner of Herfy’s. That’s pretty much a world record for me. But before we get into that, some avid readers of the blog have been asking for more construction updates and photos:

These pictures, if it wasn’t obvious, are of our new skylight and our new fireplace. I’ve added some helpful clip art so you can better visualize what the space is going to look like when it’s complete. Although, I’m told we don’t have a bird, and that even if we did, it couldn’t sit on the framing, as that will be sheet-rocked in.

Now, back to Herfy’s. The rule at our house is that I can only get it once a week. Heather, the owner of Herfy’s, knows me. When I call in my order, I don’t even have to say my name. She sees it on caller ID and answers with “I’ll have it ready for you in 10 minutes”. Then I pick it up, and tip her $1 to ensure my excellent customer service continues.

Red cup = milk. Gotta eat healthy!

What you see above, including the bottle of water, and my $1 tip, costs only $7.48. A screaming deal. And it tastes way better than McDonald’s. Jason thinks it tastes like cat meat (how would he know?), so what you can’t see in the picture is him eating Thai food off to the side.

Dinners eaten at home since remodel began: 2

Dinners eaten out since remodel began: 9

4th of July Tot-tacular (it’s like spectacular, but with tots)

We normally host a 4^th of July BBQ every year, but this year, what with 40% of our house in some form of demolition, we opted out. And lucky for us, the Moran’s, our old friends, but new neighbors, took charge.

It was great weather – sort of unusual for us – and I enjoyed harassing little children by repeatedly asking them to give me five and stuffing my face.



What is wrong with my fingers?!



Yes, there were many, many things to eat (tacos, salads, chips, veggies, and desserts galore) but the majority of my time was spent hogging these tater tots. Just normal tots with some seasoning on them, but I loved them as if they were an amazing culinary creation. It made me miss my oven. Just kidding.

Dinners eaten at home since remodel began: 2

Dinners eaten out since remodel began: 8

Dinner and a movie

On Tuesday night, we finally went and saw Ted. Jason had been wanting to see the movie about a grown man and his teddy bear forever, and to ensure we were going to love this movie, we did two things:

1)    Went to iPic to see it. At iPic, you pre-reserve a recliner (so there’s no rushing to get the best seats, oh, and did I mention it’s a RECLINER!) and then they serve you food and drinks at your seat. It’s the epitome of what’s wrong with America and I love it. There is simply no better way to see a movie.

2)    We got our friends Alex and Jen to go with us. The key here was Alex because he has an infectious (obnoxious?) laugh that when you hear it, it makes you laugh. So if he found Ted funny, chances are we were going to as well.

Yes, I just posted a picture of the movie. And it's blurry. But it proves we were there.

Seeing as we were in a theater eating dinner, I couldn’t really take a picture of what I was eating. But it was chicken strips and then chocolate cake for dessert. And a few (many) beers. On Tuesdays, they were only $2 ($2 for Mac n Jacks!) so you have to get your money’s worth.

In other news, did you know that it is considered by some appropriate to get a foot rub in public? I realize this isn’t the greatest picture (which is par for the course) but I was trying to have some decorum by not standing up and taking one on full display. Even though these two probably wouldn’t have cared.

Get a room.

Also, I’m restructuring our dinner count. If we eat at someone else’s house, it’s going to count as “eating out”. Even if it is a home cooked meal. I realize no cares about this nuance but me.

Dinners eaten at home since remodel began: 2

Dinners eaten out since remodel began: 7

Breakfast for dinner

Another meal cooked at home and another load of dishes done in the bathtub. Yes, we are slowly killing mother earth with our use of plastic utensils, paper plates, and keg cups, but there are still things to be washed…like a griddle!



Mmmmmmm.....bacon.



Jason makes really good French toast. Really good. The secret is using challah bread. And while this picture may look entirely unappetizing, I assure you that is the photographers fault (me). I probably should have left the slices intact, put a pat of butter on top, drizzled syrup all over and then taken the picture. But food styling is not my thing.

In other remodeling news: we decided we are going to have a skylight in the kitchen now. Mostly this came about from the giant hole we have where the chimney used to be (currently covered in plastic) and we liked how much light it was letting in. So voila! A skylight has now been added to the list. Fun fact: it would be too easy to turn the current hole into a skylight, so we’re going to patch it and put the new skylight in about three inches to the left. Because those three inches matter.

Dinners eaten at home since remodel began: 3

Dinners eaten out since remodel began: 5

Finally a home cooked meal!

So many things to update you on – and all meal related.

Oh, I guess I can include a progress picture from last week. I don’t want to lose the hard-core readers who are reading this blog for the design aspects, and not my amazing culinary skills.

Bye-bye fireplace and wall, hello open concept floor plan.

Now, on to what you’ve all been waiting for…we finally cooked a dinner at home! No, it wasn’t a culinary masterpiece, but you know what? It was tasty. Because how can a hamburger, Cheetos and some grilled potatoes not be tasty?

Only a few cheetos. I have excellent portion control.

We also were invited out to dinner with my parents (Chinese food – super healthy General Tso’s for me!). I asked my mom if she would grill me lamb chops at home, but she was hankering for Chinese, so out to dinner we went!



There are not nearly enough deep-fried options on this plate.



In other exciting news, Jason’s parents had us over for dinner. Jason chose to have one meal, and I had a special order. Which ended up being really similar to what I made at home on Friday. Variety is the spice of life, as they say.

The captions I embedded aren't large enough, are they?

Dinners eaten at home since remodel began: 2

Dinners eaten out since remodel began: 5