deep thoughts

Posted on November 16, 2011 by burpobanter

I turned 40 today. I don’t know that I’d go so far to say I’m depressed about it, but it definitely feels weird. I guess I just don’t feel like it’s possible for me to be a 40-year-old. Yet, here I am at the start of a new decade.

It was a birthday of little fanfare, to say the least. Last month, I had scheduled to take the day off. The plan was to use a Groupon I bought a while back for a spa outing – which is about my speed for birthdays these days. Then, Jeff so nicely scheduled a partial weekend away for the weekend prior at the Allison Inn & Spa, which is a pretty amazing place in the wine country, not too far from here. Even more perfect!

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no escape

Posted on September 14, 2011 by burpobanter

Tonight we did something very unusual for us (uh huh…) and went out to dinner because we were too lazy to make something at home. Well, okay, I actually have a little better excuse than that.

You see a couple of months ago we started replicating this dish at home that we sometimes get out for lunch on the weekends at a place called Cafe Yumm. They make these, well, um, “yummy” (gee, do you think that’s where they go the name from?) rice bowls that are disguised as healthy with brown rice, avocado, tomato, olives, cilantro, a dollop (love that word) of sour cream, some salsa…. That is, until they add about a cup of the main ingredient, which is their special “Yumm” sauce. And oh, it’s yummy alright. Yummy, and chock full of fat. I’ve been afraid to look at the fat content, but it’s safe to say that it’s scarier than Zach when he’s missed a dose of his Prozac.

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i’m busy being busy

Posted on August 27, 2011 by burpobanter

We all say it constantly, myself included: Where have you been? What have you been up to? Oh, you know I’ve been sooooooo busy. You know how it is…. Or, it’s really great when you didn’t do something you were supposed to do or someone asked you to do: Why didn’t you get that done? I was too busy! It’s like the catch-all excuse. And truth be told, it’s kind of long been a bit of a pet peeve of mine – even though I can still often be heard using it myself. Because honestly, it’s often what we’ve really led ourselves to believe…that we really wanted to get that phone call made or get that report written, but darn it, we were just too busy to get it done!

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when good kitties turn bad

Posted on July 31, 2011 by burpobanter

I know that anyone reading this who knows our beloved cat, Zach, is already questioning how I could refer to this cat as “good” but I swear, he is. I mean, he does have that little problem of hissing at people, but he’s just very finicky. And, he only likes very certain people. Like, people named Jeff, Melinda, Elena and Ian. With the last name Burpo. And even then, yes, he can sometimes be a little finicky with us. Like, when he’s coming down from a half of a pill a night of his Prozac to a quarter of a pill a night. (Which we recently decided to do in an attempt to bring him out of his zombie-like state, as convenient as it was to have him spending 24/7 under the bed upstairs.)

The key is that when you are as close to Zach as we are, you learn to recognize when he’s in “one of those” moods. And, you just back off. He’s happy. We’re happy. No one gets hurt. So, why is it that I forgot this simple rule of the Burpo household last night? Was it the extra-large plate of delicious Southern food at Screen Door, followed by the banana whipped cream pie? Or, was it the mint julep and wine? Or, was it the exhaustion that overcame me after we concluded watching True Grit at home after dinner? It’s hard to say which affected me most, but for whatever reason, I forgot the rules of Life with Zach.

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weekend goodness

Posted on July 24, 2011 by burpobanter

This was a good weekend. First of all, as stated on Friday, the weather was amazing. Finally. Second, as also stated on Friday, we had a lovely evening out Friday night. Third of all, as not yet stated, our Saturday was quite nice, too.

Maria came to watch Elena and Ian in the afternoon so that Jeff and I could do a bit more camera research and actually have a chance to focus on talking to someone. Jeff bit the bullet last week and upgraded to a new Canon DSLR model from his six-year-old one that has been having flash and other issues for quite some time now. It was delivered a few days ago and it’s a bit like a third child just arrived. Except, thankfully it’s much lower maintenance than a third child. Now he has his eye on a new type of lens, which I will make no attempt to try to discuss here. I just know it has something to do with zoom.

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