10th Anniversary Dinner

Last night Ross and I celebrated 10 years of marriage. We went out to Dinner at Liberatore's in Bel Air. I wanted to try something different, and I didn't want to go very far. We ordered the Rustichella as an appetizer. It was bread topped with goat cheese, kalamata olives, onions, raw garlic, tomatoes, mozzarella, and pesto. It was too many very strong flavors colliding at once. Overall, I didn't like it.

For our main courses I ordered the tortellacchi and Ross ordered the filet of Pisa. My dish was pasta stuffed with veal and beef and folded into a giant tortellini. The sauce was a very strong, red tomato sauce. Ross's filet of Pisa was a meat sandwich. The beef was the bread, and in between was a slice of mozzarella and a chunk of portabello mushroom. The whole thing was set on a bed of cooked spinach and topped with a tomato. Not a slice of tomato. A cut-to-look-a-little-fancy roma tomato. Ross also got sides! The entrée came with veggies and mashed potatoes. It was enough food for at least two people. Ross really liked his steak. I liked my pasta, but I thought the sauce was a little heavy and overwhelmed the flavor of the actual tortellachi.

Ross ordered a cappuccino, and it didn't take forever like it does in some restaurants. I thought it was good. We also ordered tiramisu. I like to try tiramisu wherever I can. When it came out we laughed. It looked like some kind of ghetto oreo cookie cake. The taste was good, but I didn't like the texture. The "cake" was topped with ground chocolate that was so chunky that at first we both thought it was mini chocolate chips. I couldn't actually taste the mascarpone. The dessert (I hesitate to call it tiramisu) was basically lady fingers (the soft kind) covered in some sort of frothy white sauce and then topped with ground chocolate. Of course there was chocolate sauce drizzled on the plate.

Overall it was good dinner, but not great. I prefer The Olive Tree. It might not be as hoity-toity, but the food is never disappointing. Sadly, their tiramisu isn't awesome either.

Ross surprised me with a necklace. I feel bad that I didn't get him anything. I'll post a photo of the necklace soon.

Aerial Yoga

Nancy, my wonderfully awesome yoga teacher, invited me to an aerial yoga class. We began with some regular yoga, and then started to use the strap/sling/hammock to help us with our poses. It takes some getting used to, but it was really, really fun. My two favorite things that we did were hanging upside down in full lotus and shivasana. The gentle swaying in shivasana was great. I curled up into the fetal position and rolled onto my right side and that was even better. I guess I like the cocoon feeling.

The glasses on my forehead cracks me up. I could actually see putting something like this up in my house.

Yoga Against the Wall

Today's yoga class was up against the wall. My favorite part was when we went from backbend to downward dog. I like flipping over. It is fun, like a cartwheel. The challenge was to go back the other way. I tried it a couple of times, but I wasn't successful. I was able to kick up into a handstand up against the wall. I'll keep working at flipping back up to the wall.

My teacher invited me to an aerial yoga class. I'm so excited. Maybe I can get her to take a picture of me so that I can post it.

Happy New Year Everyone!

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Cake is an Essential Food

We bought a pandoro to have for dessert on new years eve. When the checker rang it up she was freaked out because the register wasn't adding tax. The other cashier said that Maryland doesn't tax essential foods. This just goes to prove that cake is an essential food--even cake imported from Italy.

Ross made zabaglione and we had that with cherries and the cake. I started the no C diet today, so I won't be having any for a while.

Managing My Downloads

Kazaa was working wonderfully over Christmas and I downloaded a couple hundred songs. Managing the downloads is business. Not a tricky business, or a hard business, but it's definitely a business. I won't bore you with the details.

We got a terabyte drive over the Thanksgiving weekend and I've backed up all my photos and music. Actually, I've backed up my music twice. It is so much easier to do now that I'll never wait months to back up my stuff again. Today I was importing some CDs into iTunes and screwed something up. It was nice to be able to delete everything and start fresh all over again. I don't think I lost many songs, if any, since I had backed up my music on December 29th.

Among the bounty of songs I downloaded last weekend were a couple of songs I've been looking for for a long time: Water into Wine by Cold Chisel and A Million Miles Away by David Byrne. The David Byrne song was actually ripped from a youTube video. I get my music however I can, as long as it's free! I've put the two songs on the Songs Stuck in My Head list. You can click and download them free.

Goals for 2011

1. Finish The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. I thought I had three books left, but I only have two. Still, they total 1600+ pages in paperback. I just got book VI and it is only 411 pages in hard cover.

2. Read a book in Spanish. Back in college I read Cien Años de Soledad by Gabriel García Márquez and really enjoyed it. I picked up Amor en los Tiempos de Cólera a few years ago, but I haven't been able to get through it. I will give it another go, and if I don't get anywhere I'll try a different book.

3. Finish two knitting projects. I'm about half-way through a project I've been working on for Tejal. I said I'd have it done by Christmas, but I neglected it for a few months. I'd like to get that finished up in the next month, and I'm not sure what I'll make after that. I want a new hat and scarf, so I might work on that.

4. Get back to 140 lb. Over the last year and half I've put on about 15 pounds. This morning I was 153.5. I'm going to start the No C diet and calorie counting tomorrow.

5. Update songs stuck in my head each weekend. I don't know why I don't update it very often, but I'm going to try harder this year.

6. Visit DC. There are still a couple of monuments and museums that I want to see, so I need to do that.

7. Do 90 minutes of Yoga each week. The yoga classes are 90 minutes, so if I go once a week, that takes care of that, but at home I'd have to do a couple of dvds.

8. Go to NYC three times. The year I lived in Baltimore city I went to New York City five times. In the last two years I've only been twice. I needs me some shoes!

9. Go to the drive in three times. We went twice last year, and it was a lot of fun. I'd like to go at least three times in 2011.

10. Try a new recipe each week. I tend to cook the same few things over and over and over again. I need to give some new recipes a try.