It’s Tuesday morning after a long Labor Day weekend and I’m almost as tired as I was on Friday. Almost, but not quite. Well, at the moment I’m totally wired on caffeine so I guess I’m really not as tired as I was on Friday afternoon… we’re splitting hairs here, the truth is, I don’t feel like I got much of a long weekend. We made the same mistake we’ve made many times before. Too many errands, too many projects, not enough sleep-in or lazy time.

Actually, Sunday morning was great. I was way too tired to make breakfast on Saturday but Sunday… SUNDAY was a great morning. I got up and made some healthy pancakes with flax meal and oat bran (shut up! They were quite tasty!) with a home made butter, caramel, maple syrup (okay, not crazy healthy, but Oh-so-good) and Maggie’s favorite – BACON. It was a gorgeous morning and we all sat out on the patio enjoying the pond we recently added to our wine barrel fountain. Pics coming soon… maybe. I’ve been a tad lazy in the pic department lately. Fall is rapidly approaching and the summer plants are all looking a little tired so it was nice to get a chance to enjoy the last of summer with pancakes on the patio. Certainly, pancakes are far more interesting than discussing auto insurance, right?

I’m not going to pretend to be some insurance expert but if you are out there shopping around it’s probably more convenient to hit a one-stop-shop sort of place for cheap auto insurance. A place that offers quotes from several different insurance companies at one stroke. My only disappointment with some of these places are that basically they are a list of links to specific insurance companies and then you have to visit each place and enter your information over and over again keeping windows open to compare/contrast insurance policies.

I wish these sites were more like how many cell phone companies have a “compare” option for different phones. Check the phones you want to compare and then all one one screen you can look at the options for each phone in neat check boxes to compare them all at once. Yeah, it’s too bad more sites aren’t like that.

So how was your weekend?

You know Date Night: an excuse parents use to escape their children for a couple of hours.

A new restaurant, Bobby Jack’s Bayou and Still, had opened up and that made for a new and interesting destination for date night. Bobby Jack’s is locally owned and serves up a combo of Cajun favorites as well as traditional comfort food.

Their beers on draft are a happy mix of whatever suits your fancy, from Pyramid Hefeweizen to New Castle, Guinness and does include your “traditional” Coors and Michelob. Of course, I’m never in the market for “traditional” draft beer so I really couldn’t care less on that front.

Here is where I’m a little irritated… we were greeted with a bait and switch right off the bat. The hostess was apparently going off-duty, sat us in the bar and told us the bartender would take care of us. Then she told us it was Happy Hour and asked if would like to try their Hurricanes, she described what was in them and we agreed to try them.

Now what does that imply to you? That it was Happy Hour and those Hurricanes were included in Happy Hour specials, right?

Nope, we were charged $8 a piece (reg. price) for the Hurricanes and they were pretty heavy on the juice to boot. That wasn’t an error, it was confirmed through another server (that I think may have been an owner as well) that Hurricanes aren’t on special for Happy Hour.

The prices seem to range from what I would consider “fair” to “borderline ridiculous” which would be $14.95 for a fried chicken dinner. Since I didn’t have the chicken dinner I won’t elaborate further on that because maybe it’s a really good fried chicken dinner. It better be for roughly fifteen bucks and the fact that KFC is within walking distance of the restaurant.

I was really disappointed to find that while they had a crawfish boil on the menu as a dinner, they didn’t have any sort of crawfish appetizer nor did they have any oysters and I sort of think of crawfish and oysters when I think Cajun.

We ordered the Bayou Combo Platter – Frog legs, Gator Bites, hush puppies, and breaded popcorn shrimp, served with cocktail sauce and buttermilk dressing – $13.95 and a couple of side Caesar salads.

I switched to a draft Hefeweizen and Mike tried a Happy Hour margarita. The margarita was really good, so props there, definitely.

The salads were decent. Not the best Caesar dressing I’ve ever had and certainly not what some reviewer described as “peppery” in the slightest and I’m a huge fan of “peppery.”

The appetizer platter arrived with 4 frog legs, 2 gator bites, and small pile of shrimp and slightly larger pile of hush puppies. While the menu says “cool buttermilk dressing” we received cocktail sauce and tartar sauce. The Gator Bite appetizer comes with a Cajun Remoulade sauce but that sauce isn’t included in the combo platter. Seems like it should be since it’s the typical accompaniment in a regular order of Gator Bite appetizers. Still, the appetizer didn’t show up with the sauces listed on the menu anyway so it’s sort of a moot point.

I am sort of a stickler about menus. If you claim you have hot fudge on your sundaes it better be hot fudge and not chocolate syrup. I notice those details and discrepancies always irritate me. Which is why I don’t go to Black Angus anymore.

I’ve never actually had frog legs before but I’m usually willing to try anything. Mike hadn’t either because, as he puts it, “I can’t stand the thought of all those leg-less frogs dragging themselves around on those tiny front legs.”

The frog legs were really good. Not greasy, great flavor and yes, they taste just like chicken. Seriously. I know, it’s not everyone’s bag, but I figured I had to try them, why not? The gator was very good as well, light breading, not greasy and again, tasting very much like chicken.

Which begs the question, if it tastes so much like chicken, why eat it anyway? I guess for the odd stares (and ewww! Gross! comments I’ll undoubtedly get on this post) and bragging rights? It’s hardly Andrew Zimmern though. I would probably order the gator bites again but probably not the frog legs because now I can’t get the (totally unrealistic, I know!) picture of frogs dragging their leg-less butts around out of my head.

The original review I read (I’d link to it but I can’t find it now) said something to the effect of, while the food is good, you don’t get your money’s worth. I would agree. Better to load us up with good food or provide out of this world, freaking amazing food that is worth the price. Both would be welcome but I’m afraid neither was the case here. But, I’ll reason that we did only order an appetizer platter and salads. The salads even though they were side salads – were certainly a generous portion and were really tasty.

All that said, the atmosphere is great, the service was good (minus the Happy Hour hiccup), the air conditioning was cranked up and the music was awesome and at the perfect volume. We’ll definitely be back to Bobby Jack’s as I do want to give their crawfish boil a try. We usually give a place at least a couple of tries unless it’s just beyond horrible on the first shot.

What seems to be the case around Bakersfield is that new places spring up and then gradually decline in either service, quality, or atmosphere. Only those that can maintain all three seem to flourish. I actually wonder how some are even still in business, honestly. Hopefully that won’t be the case with Bobby Jack’s but only time will tell, right?

Katie is our resident genius, although her brother is certainly no slouch and Maggie, while eccentric, certainly doesn’t seem to be trailing far behind either of them. That being said, the shift of routines from lazy summer days to early starts, long days, and homework are rapidly wearing on our heroine. This morning, while still in a hurry to get to school as soon as possible, the spring in Kate’s step was noticeably less than it was on the first day of school.

Still Katie is the last one to show the wear and tear of the first week. Yesterday morning I pulled Maggie out of bed, stood her on her feet, made sure she could stand and left her to get dressed only to hear later from her sister that she promptly walked straight into a wall while trying to exit the bedroom. Maggie is not a morning person she never has been. She’s short on enthusiasm for anything that requires her being awake before 8am.

A Sophomore in high school, Katie had her classes memorized, efficient stops to and from her locker carefully mapped out, and had neatly filed away each syllabus from each class by the evening of the first day. She’s also created a list of any school supplies she’s missing and God knows she’s probably color coded them as well. I should have named her Katie “Enthusiastic” Doran. She’s happy to be back around her friends and even though she has some tough classes she loves it all.

Katie took PE over the summer which means she doesn’t have to take it over the course of the school year and it leaves room for her to get ahead academically instead. It also means I don’t have to worry about buying new PE clothes, shoes, socks, etc. and she doesn’t have to manage the combination locks to two different lockers. That gym locker routine gets pretty old after a while.

For Ethan the days of school lockers are far behind him and I think that’s the least of what he’s happy about. I have to admit that while his enthusiasm doesn’t quite match Kate’s he nonetheless is approaching the new school year with more enthusiasm than I have seen in a long time. But, given how his last two years have gone I can’t blame him, I’m just thrilled to see him excited again.

Miss Maggie, our resident first grader, has established her list of likes and dislikes early on:

Math –
Language Arts –
Phonics –
History –
Science –
PE –
Spanish –
Art –

So far so good. We’ve got back to school over with, now we can look forward to fall and some cooler temps finally!

The hard wood floors were awesome because they were easy to keep clean and easy to change the entire look of a room just by adding or taking away different area rugs.

Over the past few years I’ve switched most of my rugs, now mainly on the tile, to these great indoor/outdoor rugs from Ballard Designs. I love that they look great and I can just take them out on the patio, hose them off, let them dry and bring them back in. When you catch them on sale you end up with cheap rugs that don’t look cheap and can take loads of wear.

We’re actually on the verge of removing all the carpeting downstairs. I hate this carpet with a passion and it’s just time for something new and I’m hoping to make it something really different as well that is easy to keep clean, looks great and wears really well. I’m not too keen on tile throughout so I’m exploring all sorts of options right now. I just know the final result won’t be carpet.

My husband is slightly annoyed that Jim has a thing for Cassie, (the female lead played by Kiele Sanchez) she’s a single mom because her husband is in prison. It irritates Mike’s sense of honor or whatever because married is married whether or not your spouse is in prison. I can get past sketchy morality (and it’s not like they have a relationship going right now anyway, it’s all pretty platonic) if the show is great. And, this show is awesome.

Cassie is written in a fairly engaging way, I like that she’s tough without being ridiculous and hard-assed. She’s sweet and appreciative (instead of the stereotypical suspicious because something nice was done for her) while still being really intelligent. The character is a nurse putting herself through medical school.

The characters are all interesting and the dialogue is really snappy. Of course, I’m someone who prefers the dialogue of the West Wing (early seasons) and Gilmore Girls (when Amy Sherman-Palladino era), fast, smart, and riddled with references you only grasp if you are paying attention. While nothing has really come close to those two shows, in my opinion, the shows I currently like have a lot of those characteristics.

It’s just nice to see that there are finally some fun, murder/mystery shows back on television again.

But something shifted over the last several months. I finally gave “Bones” more than just a passing glance (admittedly, I wrote off Boreanaz as not being able to pull of anything other than moody vampire named Angel) and quickly found myself absolutely addicted to it. If it weren’t for my addiction and TNT running reruns almost every night I might not have been clued into my latest viewing addiction, Memphis Beat. I have yet to miss an episode.

I just have to say, again, that if you haven’t caught “Memphis Beat” on TNT (Tuesdays!!!) you are seriously missing out. I think it’s probably one of the best new shows out there. I love the dry humor and I think Jason Lee is definitely at his best here.

I have a love-hate relationship going with Lieutenant Tanya Rice played by Alfre Woodard. I find the character hypocritical and a tad annoying. Mike thinks it’s funny that I’m that annoyed by a character. Mike and I both couldn’t figure out what else we had seen Alfre Woodard in… so I checked IMDB.Com (although, for the record I had a sneaking suspicion and I was RIGHT!) and found that she played Grace, Bill Murray’s secretary in “Scrooged” which is a huge family favorite!

But, Memphis Beat seems to be riddled with faces you have seen in other places. Abraham Benrubi is easily recognizable from ER, Twister, and Open Range; one of Mike’s favorite westerns, I have to admit, I love it too. Those of us *cough* *cough* old enough to remember “Hardcastle and McCormick” will instantly recognize Daniel Hugh Kelly playing the questionable boyfriend of Dwight Hendricks’ (Jason Lee) mother.

Mike was with me from the start of this one, but I’ve even managed to rope Katie and Ethan into it as well. Between the great characters and the really awesome soundtrack, Memphis Beat was just a really easy show for me to totally fall for.

Still not sure? Have a peek at my favorite beginning to an episode so far…
It’s here at YouTube from the Episode “Run On” for some idiot reason the person who posted the video has it as “I Thank You” by Bonnie Raitt. It’s not, they use the original version by Sam?? and Dave – I Thank You. Although, ZZ Top did a remake of the song that is pretty kick ass as well.

Promotion codes are huge now. The other day I was shopping for some new rugs for the kids’ bathroom and found myself doing a quick search to see if there were any coupon codes online for the store I was shopping at and I was fortunate enough to find one that gave me $10 off and free shipping!

Savoo vouchers offer discount codes, coupons, etc. for stores all over the internet including Ebay and Adobe UK. There are easily a dozen or so Adobe promotion codes alone!

Just a tip here, before you click that final “Place Order” button do a quick search to see if you can score yourself an extra discount!

I’ve been monkeying around with SwagBucks lately. Basically you earn points for doing searches, answering simple polls (a recent one asked about auto insurance), or taking surveys on things like video games or life insurance. There are a lot of ways to earn Swagbucks and most of them are pretty effortless.

It seems like there are a lot of people who devote a great deal of time to searching for SwagCodes which are codes found on websites, blog posts, etc. And, they could be on just about any kind of website from a health insurance site to a jewelry site. Usually you are tipped off through the Swagbucks blog. But, a friend introduced me to SwagCodez, a group page on Facebook that sends out alerts on new swag codes posted. They also announce on Twitter as well.

Basically you find a code then copy and paste it (before it expires) into the Swagbucks website and you earn Swagbucksl. I keep an eye out for those when I can but, I’m not obsessively chasing Swagcodes all day. Even without chasing swag codes I’ve already amassed a respectable amount of swagbucks in just a couple of weeks.

Swagbucks are then exchanged for everything from credits for games on Facebook to Amazon (and other stores) gift cards. It’s free and the points rack up quickly so I’m thinking this might help put a dent in Christmas!

I know everyone groans at the first mention of Christmas when the temps are still so freakin’ hot outside still you can’t deny it’s right around the corner!

That being said, I am both baffled and annoyed at the responses to her decision that basically act as if by no longer claiming a religion (let us all remember that RELIGION is a MAN-MADE concept) that she is somehow no longer a spiritual being engaged in a very real relationship with something greater than herself.

I suppose I’m a little offended as well because even though I have never come right out and said it – I walked away from mainstream Christianity a long time ago. By “mainstream” I mean the version of Christianity that feels the need to engage in political endeavors and send out the memos “this is who we judge and dislike this week” and “this is what we are voting for next week.”

Sadly, I’ve been accused (by very small-minded and ignorant people) of “hating God” and being an Atheist to just about everything and anything in between. Neither are true. I take aspects of all sorts of spiritual beliefs and own them as my own personal spiritual truths. I lay no claim to any label and I certainly don’t condemn or judge you if you elect to label yourself in any way or profess yourself to be a member of any religion or other organization. I respect your right to choose what is best for you, it would be nice if everyone felt that way and gave that same respect to others. Your beliefs should decide your actions and behavior they should not decide the actions and behaviors of others.

Believe it or not, I have friends who are Christian, friends who are Catholic, friends who are Mormon, and friends who are Buddhist and I have friends who fall into every other sort of religious category you can think of. They are all still wonderful people and I enjoy their friendship even if we don’t show up at the same place on Sunday, hold hands and sing Kumbaya. I don’t really entertain political discussions with them but I like to believe that my friends, regardless of religious affiliation, do not vote in ways that would bring about laws forcing people to abide by the religious beliefs of someone else.

After all, we all have our own paths and we are all going to meet our maker someday, it’s not up to any one human being to decide what the outcome of that meeting will be. But, by all means, please conduct your own personal behavior based on whatever version of events you believe will happen once you hit the pearly gates – that is certainly your right and I will respect it as long as you don’t attempt to rob others of their own free will by forcing your beliefs on them.

My personal truth, is that I am communing with God and feel closer to Him (or Her, if you will) when I am sitting in the middle of a forest filled with the nature He created. I feel closer to Him when I am listening to music that pleases my soul and touches me on a level that nothing else can. And, I even feel closer to Him weeding my yard and listening to the hum of bees and watching the birds and butterflies than I ever have in a man-made church.

And, regardless of your thoughts or opinions or the thoughts of opinions of any pastor, priest, or rabbi… I can have that relationship with God or the Universe or whatever else anyone wants to call Him/Her regardless of whether or not I am a member of a church or any specific religion. My spirituality is not up for your discernment… and neither is the spirituality of anyone else.

You know what most of this comes down to? If we all just tended to the weeds in our own yard instead of worrying about the weeds in someone else’s yard – at the end of the day – you are really only held responsible for your own yard not your neighbor’s.

After all… “Code Enforcement” (or God, if you will) isn’t going to fine you because your neighbor has a yard full of crabgrass and stinging nettle. The problem is that when we worry so much about other people’s “weeds” we overlook the weed creeping up in the crack of our driveway or in the sidewalk right in front of our house. It’s funny how it works out that way 100% of the time.

So, while I apologize for this lengthy diatribe, I won’t and can’t apologize for having a relationship with God outside any label, church, or man-made organization.

http://brianmclaren.net/archives/blog/my-take-why-i-support-anne-rice.html
http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2010/08/08/im_staying_a_christian/index.html

I swear, if I could I’d snap it up, buy a bunch of moving supplies and be packing right now… even as ridiculous as that sounds and even as much as I absolutely hate moving and packing. It might be worth it just because this house is so adorable.

It’s really the sort of thing I love. The hard wood floors, lots of built-in details that you don’t find in contemporary homes. It’s been updated and remodeled, but it still stays true to the time period when it was built. You just can’t ask for more unless you find something and remodel it yourself. Which, has always been a secret dream of mine, to buy some rundown Victorian or Carpenter style home and restore it.

Sometimes the perks to having a husband who is a real estate appraiser, and there aren’t many, is getting cool links to real estate listings all over the place. It’s fun to see how people in different parts of the country live.