It smells so good

A few days ago blogeois posted a tomato sauce recipe on her blog. It's extremely easy to make. It just takes a while in the oven, but once it's there, you basically don't have to worry about it until time is up. I had a chance to make them this afternoon. An hour into the oven, the aroma is filled in the house. It smelled so good. In fact it's still smelling really good, which make me very very hungry. Here is a recipe if you are interested.

* 4 quarts (roughly 3 dozen) plum tomatoes, halved and seeded (I used 2 dozen instead)
* 1/3 cup olive oil
* 1 teaspoon kosher salt
* 2 teaspoons fresh ground black pepper
* 2 cups onions, finely chopped
* 4-5 cloves garlic, finely chopped
* 2 tablespoons fresh oregano, chopped
* 2 tablespoons fresh basil, chopped
* 1 cup red wine

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Lay out tomatoes cut-side up on a half-sheet pan and sprinkle generously with pepper, garlic, onions, and herbs. Drizzle olive oil over the tomatoes and place in oven. Bake for two hours checking occasionally to make sure the tomatoes are not burning (if they are browning up too quickly, reduce heat to 300 degrees). After two hours, increase the oven temperature to 400 degrees and bake for another 30 minutes.

Remove the tomatoes from the oven and process them through a food mill to remove the skins and any remaining seeds. Pour the pureed tomatoes into a saucepan, add wine, bring to a boil and cook for an additional five minutes.

Note: I don't have a food mill, so I basically used a spoon to scoop out the tomatoes.

Man I am hungry.

On a different topic, I signed up for an aerobic class in our city's community center. It's once a week for an hour each time. It's a lot cheaper than joining a gym, at the same time I feel motivated because I'm exercising with other people. I have not done any form of exercises for God knows how long. I was pretty proud of myself to last for a whole hour and my body isn't as sore as I excepted.

11-month

Amber has turned 11-months a few days ago. She can now take small steps with us holding onto her hands. New photos of both JE and A are up too.

I want, I want...

This afternoon, four of us packed into the car and drove to Corona to see a friend of mine. She is pregnant, the baby is due in Jan next year. I'm very excited about it, since her daughter will be close to age to Amber.

Corona is a newly developed city. It used to be farm and cow city, now new houses are being built and bought everyday. I so want to buy one of them. Not only we will have a new house and lots of extra spaces, we also get to live 45 minutes away from my parents. Well, I can dream.

Things I noticed

while out running errands and shopping today:

- Subway now has Coke instead of yucky Pepsi and its sub-drinks. Yay.
- Also they have a few new sandwhiches are really yummy, chicken and bacon ranch being one of them.
- Between 3-4pm is a really good time to shop at Walmart. No crazy people, no slow people, mostly no lines.
- Kohl's has some pretty good deals. I repicate an designer outfit from head to toe with really low price. Kinda like what they do on "Look for Less".
- Walmart has some cheap shit, but I still perfer Target.
- I love Starbuck's Lite Mocha Frappuccino.
- Why is there still traffic on the freeway at 10:45 am?? Are those people supposed to be at work already?
- I got really excited that the gas price dropped 2 cents. How pathetic. Now it's $2.89/gallon around where I live.

hmm, thanks. :)

As I wrote yesterday that we went to the fair on Saturday, if you read either Xinh's or hubby's blog about the fun day, you will know that Xinh, JE and I rode the tram and trolley back to the gate at the end of the day. While we were on the tram, Xinh started playing with JE (this is a woman who claimed that she doesn't like kids). One of the things she did with JE was holding onto his hand and gentely touching his face, and saying "Why are you hitting yourself?" over and over again at the same time. JE totally loved it, of course. Then today every chance he had, he was trying to do this to me. Well, thanks a lot Xinh. Now my face is bruised. ;)

County Fair

We went to the fair yesterday with Xinh. Had a really good time. The weather was perfect, not hot at all. It wasn't crowded. We parked really close to the entrance. Had to pay extra for it, but it was totally worth the money. With two kids in two, who wants to walk miles to parking spot after walking miles for four hours?

Photos are on flickr on the right side bar, hubby wrote the details of the fair.

Friday Five

1. Who is your mobile phone provider, and how many minutes are in your plan?
Cingular. 500 minutes, mobile to mobile is free. We have four phones under the plans, we still have minutes left each month, which get rolled over to the next month.

2. What program do you primarily use for instant messaging?
Mostly MSN. Sometimes I will use Yahoo for game playing.

3. Who do you send and receive text messages from most?
John mostly. It was really handy when I had my wisdom tooth fulled and I couldn't talk.

4. What area code do you live in?
626

5. What year did you first get an e-mail address and do you still use it?
Can't remember the exact year, at least 10 years ago I think. It was a yahoo acct and I still use it. Primiary for shopping on-line and newletter subscriptions.

PTA

We have officially joined parenthood, well parenthood for school kid. We attended our first PTA meeting, but probably the last one for John. HAH. It was quite boring, but educational. I also signed up for my first voulerteer job at the school during Schoclist Book Fair week, I'm sure it won't the last. I want to get involved with JE's school as much as possible. Though I can't be class helper, because I have A. with me, I can do other jobs like copying, taking projects home. I can do more next year, as I will be putting A. in day care for two days a week with my mom's school.

We also got home in time for Supernatural. Wow. It was so freaky. Not super scary, yet. It has caught my attention, I will be coming back for more.

Netflix fuck up

Yesterday I put a movie that has been with us since early Aug into one of the netflix envelopes to return. When I got to the post office drive-thru drop off, I noticed the address on the return envelope was in Hawaii. HAWAII! Are you kidding me here? It's going to take a week for the movie to get there. Obviously I didn't drop the movie in the letter box.

New TV show

I do not watch a lot of TV, and I do not get into shows like "Desparate Housewife" or "The OC". I am just not interested in them. Once a while I will catch 4400 or Lost. Very rarely a show can catch my attention, so I will watch it religiously, such as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" from before, and "House" right now. But there is one new show I am pretty excited about: Supernatural on the WB, which premieres tonight at 9pm PST. I know I will be really scared, but I also know I can't help watching it. Except it shows at the same time as House.

Talking about "House", Hugh Laurie, who plays Dr G House is nominated with a Emmy. I first saw him on Black Adder serious. If you have Netflix, I highly recommend you rent them, so hilarious. You will laugh from beginning to end.

Are you prepared?

After reading blogeois's suggestion regarding preparing for a disaster for your home, I got on RedCross and got ourselves two first aid kits. I could have prepared the kid myself, but if I were to get all the items I had to run around in a few different stores. With the current gas price, it's actually a pretty good deal. Besides it's redcross. In my own way, I'm helping out a little bit. Then I'm going to load our garage shelve with unparishable food and water, and other necessities the Redcross suggested. Am I parinoid? You bet you! Besides isn't it better to be prepared then sorry?

PS: Go read blogeois' book Cabin 4. I started reading it last night, it's really good.

Kindergarten has officially started

Yesterday was JE's first day of school. When I picked him up at 2:25pm, he came out with a hugh smile on his face. He obviously had a great time.

Me: So did you have fun today? Did you learn anything? Played with anyone?
My son: We drew, played on the slide.
Me: Who did you play with? Did you make any new friends?
My son: I played with two boys.
Me: No girls?
My son: No, girls are gross.

Where has the time gone?

OMG, I saw the lilypie, Amber is going to be one, ONE in 2 months. How did that happen? And where was I? Unbelieveable! We are mainly inviting relatives for her birthday. It will be an early pizza dinner. I usually do birthday around lunch time, but it's her nap time. I don't think she will be a happy baby. I'm going to do a banana invite for her party. I think it's apporiate considering she was born in the year of monkey.

Anyway, just a quick note before heading to bed. Maybe. Xinh just left. Had a lovely evening with her, a night full of food, ghosts and ailens.

I got a really cool gadget while school supply shopping a while back. I got a DYMO Label Maker. And no, I didn't pay that ridiculous amount. I got it in my favorite store Target, but I couldn't find it on their website. I have already made several labels for JE's school items. It's very handy and easy to use, especailly with kids around. I love it.

Friday Five

1. What sport do you most enjoy watching on television (or tolerate most)?
Basketball and diving.

2. If you could be really, really good at one sport (we're talking world elite here), what would it be?
Figure skating. I think it's totally cool that those people can jump, fly, twist, and do all kind of moves on ice.

3. Have you ever been active in some form of sports?
Yes, I played volleyball and softball in middle school and high school.

4. Would you rather be a computer geek or a sports geek?
Computer geek.

5. What teams do you cheer for?
I used to watch a lot of Lakers and Angels.

Glad it was over

I should really have gone to bed, since I had about three hours of sleep last night plus 45 minutes of nap. Why? Because I could not sleep. I was really anxious over JE's kinder orientation. Really silly right? I didn't even care about my own college orientation, but I was worried about my son's, kindengarten neitherless.

JE was really bored when they were yacking away in the cafeteria, but once we went to check out his classroom and meet his teacher, he was all fine and got all excited. The classroom looked really cool, a lot of fun things to do. He even tested out the bathroom. He liked it so much that he did not want to leave. Not about the bathroom, but the overall setting. Well, kid, one more week, you will have all the fun you can have.

This afternoon I had to go back to pick up a package, then next Monday I have to buy lunch tickets for him. Already got warned about the horrible traffic while dropping off and picking up. Better get there early then. Another thing really sucks is that we can not just drive up to the curb to pick up, rather have to park the car and get out to wait for the kids near the office. That means I have to park, take A. out, hold her, walk however long to the school office (another reason to get there early, don't want to park far), get JE, return to the car, put A. back into her carseat, make sure everyone is buckled up, and drive away. They just like to make it more difficult for me, don't they? I wish we have a school bus system like the rest of the country does.