Done!

It's just about noon on Christmas eve and I'm finally caught up with everything that I need to. All of the gifts have been purchased and wrapped (except for wrapping some small stocking stuffers that I do when I put those together), food purchased and even Cinnabons bought! I did my 3.67 mile run early this morning and the only thing really missing is doing my weight workout at the gym. But, I think I'll do some sit-ups here this afternoon and maybe some legs exercises, so that should be okay. All gifts that I was making I finished yesterday as well. So now I have all of the ingredients out to make a batch of Belgium ale. As it's boiling, I'll try to finish a book that I've been reading for the last few days and just relax!

Catch up!

It seems like Christmas is far enough away that I'll get everything done that I want to, but then when I realize it's less than 2 weeks and I still have a full week of work, plus my anniversary, my daughter's birthday, and of course my exercising (I have to at least keep up the minimum or I'll be really cranky). So I'm not sure how much time I really will have and I hate trying to finish things at the last minute. That said, I did manage to run over 7 miles this morning and make a nice breakfast before sitting here at my computer, catching up on emails and post, and trying hard to knit fast! I also have ingredients for a new Belgium ale I want to make, but I forgot to do the yeaster starter. So I guess I'll do that maybe mid-next week and brew one of days I'm off. We'll see. I also have the peach wheat ale that has been in the carboy for two weeks that I'm going to take a reading on today as well. It might be another week before bottling, but since it's for my daughter's birthday I want to bottle is as soon as possible! That's about it for now. A lot going on, not a lot of free time!

Books and Movies

I've been reading a lot of books, including the "Twilight" series. I'm about 3/4 done with the last book and then last night we all decided to go see the movie. Blah. And yes, I should have known because the books are for young adults, so the movie was going to follow that as well (he's so beautiful, why does he like me, we can't kiss), but it also had really bad special effects. Oh well. I still will finish the series. But I can't wait to read the next Cassie Palmer series book by Karen Chance - but that doesn't come out until next April. In the mean time I've organized all of my books upstairs that I want to read, and put them in piles of series, romances, and books my husband would like me to read. I say I'm going to finish a lot of those before I buy any new ones (especially series), but I've already ordered a few more!!

More beer & knitting!

It's been a bit since I posted. Still brewing beer and really enjoying it. We did our own Hefeweizen recipe and it's almost gone! We have a new hazelnut brown that we did for Jim's birthday that we should be able to bottle next week and the week after we should be able to bottle the chocolate hazelnut porter from B3 (Jamil's recipe). After that, I have all of the ingredients for Dee's birthday peach wheat beer. Then we have the yeast for another Hefeweizen and a belgium beer ( still need to figure out the receipe for that, but it's best to buy the yeast at the store instead of having it shipped). I've also been working on baby sweaters and Christmas gifts. I finished both of the sweaters, but still working on all of the Christmas gifts. I know it seems far away, but when working on knitting gifts it seems really close!

Quick Update

Things are going well. I rode my motorcycle to work four days last week. Stalled on my first u-turn in front of the office, but kept going with my feet and started it back up right away! Did another long ride (okay, just over 10 miles, but long for me!) this weekend to Glendora with Jim. That was fun as well. I'm quite glad I have a full face helmet because a rock flew up and hit the face plate. That would have been my forehead! Also, bottled the Hefeweizen ale last week and the mocktobertest the week before. I have one of each in the refrigerator to try. I know the Hefeweizen is probably not ready, but I have to give it a try! And there is a new pale ale in the carboy fermenting now for four days. Yesterday it was so active there was beer and yeast in the bubbler! I cleaned and sanitized it and put a few drops of the foam control in it. Next week we'll brew Jim's birthday ale. Another hazelnut ale with a few changes of our own :-) And now tomorrow we get to go to the Weinsfest. It's at Weins winery and includes their wine and beer from Stone Brewery - as well as German food and other stuff. We're staying down there and then driving back Monday morning for work. I'm really looking forward to it!

Beer and Motorcycles!

First, a quick update on the beer. The mocktoberfest was moved to our cooler in the closet so we could brew a hefeweisen beer the next week. That is supposed to ferment at 62 degrees, so we wanted that in the new chiller. It's been in there almost two weeks (as of Tuesday) and I think we'll do a hydrometer test at the two week point. The mocktoberfest is at 1.021 and has been there for the last week. We brought the temperature up a couple of degrees and carefully shook the yeast off the bottom. We'll take a testing tomorrow and if it's still 1.021 then we'll bottle. But if it's gone down any we'll wait and take another reading in a couple of days. When we get two in a row the same then we'll bottle. We're trying to be really careful. And I'm not sure why it doesn't want to come down just a bit (the estimated FG is 1.015), but I hope it's not because we fermented this at 64 degrees since everything I've been reading says the beer will taste better at the lower temps. And, the nut brown seems good proof. It's been bottle conditioning for three weeks now and it sure tastes good! I'll be sharing this one next week!

Now to the motorcycles. We took our CHP approved course last week. Five hours of classroom time on Thursday evening and then five hours each day on Saturday and Sunday. I was exhausted from the heat and layers of clothes from those two days. But it was a really good class. They showed you how to ride from the very beginning and how to do it right. I would highly recommend this class to anyone. And the really good part, all three of us passed the test (my husband, older daughter and myself!). Our passing certificates came in the mail on Thursday and we went down to the DMV yesterday and traded them in for a permanent license! Okay, we just got the temporary paper one saying we are licensed and the expiration date on our picture license punched out, but the final one is in the mail and we're legal to ride :-) As a matter of fact, I just got back from my run (it's been two weeks since I've been able to do one - Las Vegas and the motorcycle class) and I'm just waiting for my husband to get ready so we can do our first real ride down to the Village for breakfast!!

And I probably should have posted about Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago. It was fun, but the funniest part is that I left my luggage at home! I had to buy all new clothes when we got there!

New Brew!

Brewed another ale today! This time we brewed a Mocktoberfest. To the regular kit we added just a little bit of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and allspice. It sure smelled good (okay, my youngest thought it stunk up the house - but Jim and I thought it smelled good!). And we put this one in our new fermentor chiller that we just made!! Here is a picture of that:

So far (just seven hours later) the temperature on the fermometer is right between 62 and 64 degrees. I'll be checking it each morning and night for the first few days. Then we head to Vegas for a few days and my youngest will change out the bottles once a day. For her help (with this and the animals), we're going to brew a wheat beer as soon as we come back. Now that we can ferment two ales at once :-) But I'm going to need more bottles! But that might work out since I just tried the earthquake honey ale tonight and it's tasting good. So now I can start sharing those (and getting those bottles back) as well!!

Here's a picture of Jim brewing this morning:

New Batch!

We bottled the earthquake honey ale on Saturday and that seemed to go pretty good. We had an OG of 1.055 and a FG of 1.011. That makes this beer a 5.76% beer. We're going to be better this time and wait the two weeks before opening one. But that's not easy! So, to make it a little easier they say it's good to have a wide variety of homebrews on hand. To learn to do some new styles, have them in the pantry, and to taste them and see what we like and what we can change for the next time. So, we brewed the nut brown ale on Sunday. This is our third brew and a lot of it went a smoother than the other times. But not the breaking of the basket we were going to store it in (you can see the blue basket on a previous post). Jim's handle broke after he picked up his side and the basket went down. I dropped my side and grabbed the carboy! We saved the beer! But we had water all over and had to find another items to put the carboy in to keep it cool. I found an old ice chest that it almost fits it(not quite level on the bottom), but it fits and it's been keeping the water even cooler than the basket did. Plus, using the towels to clean up all the water we have a very clean kitchen floor! It seems to end up cleaner (the whole kitchen) after we brew, which is a nice thing! But, we're going to try and make a fermentor chiller this week so we can brew our Halloween spiced beer next weekend (which will be on Sunday since we are going to the Stone Brewery 12th Anniversary Fund Raiser on Saturday!!). Anyhow, here is a picture of our pale ale after three weeks bottle conditioning:




















I'm still getting the hang of putting pictures in with the posts. So please excuse this entry if the pictures do not make sense next to the text you're reading!

For the other thing we did this weekend - we practiced riding our motorcycles. I don't know if I mentioned it, but we (my husband, older daughter and myself) got our permits last month and then we bought a couple of motorcycles. I really like mine (V-Star 650) and it's the one we are learning on. I've made a lot of progress (starting with walking it while playing with the clutch, going straight and walking it to turn it around, to going around the neighborhood block). This weekend we not only went around the block, but down the street and around a culdesac. And I learned not to go around that corner in second gear! It felt like it wanted to stall so I went faster than I was comfortable and as I do when I panic, I pulled in the clutch! I made it around (with a foot down once) and went back up the street. It didn't occur to me to downshift to first since I turn other corners in second. But, since I've upshifted to second and third, I haven't downshifted. So my next learning lesson will be to go down the street and downshift until I' comfortable. Then I'll try that culdesac again! And we are taking this really slow (Jim did the same route as me, but added a bit more the second time. He's doing really well!). Dee finally rode the bike up and down the street and even did some u-turns! We're just trying to get a little familiar and comfortable with the motorcycle before we take the certified class in September! And here is a picture of me on my new bike:

Earthquake Honey Ale

Okay, this one started off good. We had the cleaning and sterilization down and we knew the procedures better. But, since we knew the procedures better we realized we did a couple of things wrong the first time around. So, we fixed them this time, and that meant that the wort took longer to cool down (no lifting of the lid this time). But, we did everything as best we could and tried a liquid yeast. Okay, looking back and reading more I realize now that even though the packaging says we can pitch one vial for 5 gallons, we really should not have. We should have made a starter. It took over 24 hours for our fermentation to start. That, and we are doing it at cooler temperatures this time as well. We bought a large bucket and have put in water, ice, and a black t-shirt around the carboy. It's a lot cooler than last time :-) But, we've already bought the ingredients for our next beer (a nut brown ale), and again we're using a liquid yeast. So, I read up on making a starter and I ordered the necessary items to do that. It looks like as long as you have good sanitary procedures it should not be too hard. It just requires a little more planning ahead. But we think it's worth it! Also, we tried our pale ale after a week and a half (we put it in the refrigerator for 2 days), and it was pretty good. Still a little green and needs more carbonation, but it's a decent ale! I can't tell you how excited I am about all of this!! And here, for good measure, is a picture of our newest earthquake honey ale fermenting (it's called earthquake honey ale because we had the 5.4 earthquake just two days after it started fermenting!).

Oh, and I'm still running and working out! Okay, the gym is down to two days a week, but I plan on increasing that as possible. But I'm still running. I need to - it not only helps my physical health, it helps my mental health as well!!

Beer bottling day!

Just a couple of pictures from our beer bottling day!

More Beer!

Okay, things are progressing really well with the beer. We've gone through the first and second stages of fermentation; taken our hydrometer readings; and are at the point that we are going to bottle tomorrow morning (my daughter wants to help and she had to work today). The bottle have been sterilized and capped with foil and I'll be sterilizing the bottling bucket and all equipment in the morning. As well as getting the corn sugar ready (boil water, add, cool down) and such. I'm rather excited about the whole thing. For for the last two hydrometer readings we tried the left over beer, and it tasted like a decent beer that was left out too long (warm and no carbonation). So, I think (knock on wood) that it's going to be a decent beer! Hopefully I'll be posting in the next 2-3 weeks after we try our first one :-)

Beer!

Not only have we made cheese (twice) since coming back, but we started our first batch of beer! I think it took us an hour just to clean and sanitize everything; a good 45 minutes to bring the water up to a boil (we started off too slow with our grain, worried it would heat up too fast); cooked the wort for an hour, adding the hops at the proper time; cooled it in the sink until it was cool enough to put in the fermenter (oh yeah, and started the yeast before that time), topped off the wort with fresh water (not tap) and when it was cool enough we added the yeast. Put it in the pantry in the middle of the house and turned the air on so it would be below 75 degrees in that room (which we may need to cool more. We'll figure this all out). Anyhow, a day later it started to foam and work! It was cool to watch the progress. The wort was churning, the foam was coming up on the top, and the airlock was working away! Now it's been three more days and it's been fairly quiet, but I see a pop now and then. We took an original hydrometer reading before adding the yeast (it was a lot lower than we expected) and we're set to take our next one this weekend. I'm quite excited about all of this and hope it will turn out okay. I ordered enough 22 ounce bottles to bottle it, but I've also been saving good 12 ounce bottles. I plan to wash and sterilize those this weekend (and make some more cheese)!! And my husband and I had so much fun doing the first batch, he already ordered the stuff for a second batch! But we agreed not to start that until we've had a chance to try our first beer and see where we need to improve our technique. In the meantime I've also been doing the mozzarella cheese. And I ordered supplies to make a couple of other kinds of cheese. If that works out, and I hope it does, then I'll be buying the pattern to make a cheese press and trying my hand at some hard cheeses as well. But also, I need to make room for some more toys in my garage so I've been going out there and cleaning up a bag of trash every other day. At this rate, my part should be done in a couple of weeks and it's just a matter of my husband cleaning up his tools (I will put them all close to or on his work bench) and him and my daughter cleaning up some of the car parts that I can't move. I'm rather excited about it all.

Oh, and a new Belgium Pub opened up in our town in a little alley by the theater. We've gone there the last three weeks and enjoyed some very good ale and then twice went to the movies afterwards (my husband loves the movies)! I'd have to say that I've been enjoying myself :-)

Now, if the beer turns out any decent, I will also put up a few pictures along with my comments!

Pictures!

Finally, some pictures from my trip. . . and the week after!







Here is Dee in Trinidad looking at the sea lion!









Here is a road we rode bikes on in Myers Flat!





This is the path we took in Fern Canyon. I would have more pictures of this place, but my camera battery died! I think it was my favorite of all places we went!









And when we got back my cheese kit was waiting. . . so we made some fresh mozzarella cheese! We did a few things wrong, but were careful with the cleanliness of it all and the cheese turned out fine. We'll be making more this weekend. And more bread, and beer. . . and I'll be posting later about some of this stuff!!

Back from Vacation!

I just got back from a wonderful vacation! We went up the coast and did some bike riding through the redwoods and a lot of hiking. Then on the way back we did a day of wine tasting in Napa. Just a wonderful time. I even did a bit of reading and knitting (while on the road). I have pictures to post. But, my computer refuses to connect to the internet and it's just being a pain (I'm on my husband's computer today). So, I think it's time I finally spent that money I've been saving for either a bike, kayak or computer and get that computer. So I'll be on his computer a lot tonight doing some good research - but I already have a good idea of what I'm going to get. And as soon as I do, I'll download my pictures and post them! Oh yeah, and last night we made fresh pretzels and mozzarella cheese!! :-) And a beer kit is on the way. . . I have a lot to post about!

Vacation!

I am headed out to a nice vacation. As soon as I get back I'll post about my hikes, bike rides, reading along with pictures (I hope)!!

Weird Weather

The last few weeks the weather has gone from really cold, to really hot (up to over 100 degrees) to really cold and thunder storms. I rode my bike to work on Thursday, and by Thursday afternoon it was raining hard enough that I had to get a ride home. I was worried that I was going to get my long run in this morning. But the rain went away and it was just beautiful outside. I ended up doing just over 8 miles and I feel really good! Now to just get my bike back home from work. Oh, and sign up for that 5k my daughter and I keep talking about!

Mother's Day and Other Stuff

Well, first and quite important is the fact that one of the harder days at work is done and over. It's a day we plan for for a semester and we make sure it goes off smoothly for the faculty, students and visitors we invite. It went well, but of course there were the typical (and maybe not so typical) things that went wrong this year. But, to the people attending it went smoothly and that's what is important. That, and the stress of working on it is over - for another year!

Now on to Mother's Day. A month ago I decided I wanted to go to a good brunch for Mother's Day. Actually, I've been wanting to go to one for a while, but this seemed like a good excuse to make the plans. So, I called and made reservations for my family, as well as my parents and my in-laws. So a group of nine of us are going to a Doubletree Inn Mother's Day brunch. I'm really looking forward to that. Then, my oldest daughter and I are treating ourselves to some time at the new spa in town. We are going to have a massage, a facial and a pedicure! Now, I've never gone to a spa before, so I called to see what the basic procedure is. I understood that they give you a locker. . .and that between the massage and the facial they give you a robe and a warm blanket and that you can stay in the robe for the pedicure or change to your own clothes. You can even take a shower in between if you'd like. But what I'm still processing is the "before the massage you dress down." If that's what I think it is, why didn't they say we get the robe before the massage?!! I am not walking anywhere in my birthday suit!! And yes, I will have a normal (but cute) pair of underwear and not my typical thong for that day as well! We'll just have to figure that out before Sunday!

On another note, I've been keeping up my reading and running. But I really don't feel motivated to do my long run tomorrow. But with what I plan on eating and such on Sunday, I had better get some kind of run in. So, I think I need to go relax with a fun book (I'm trying to finish a non-fiction book right now that maybe I should put aside tonight) and picture a nice, enjoyable long run before I go to bed. Maybe the fact that I ran last week in the heat (okay, it was in the 70s when I ran but to me that was hot) and this week it's overcast and rainy and I'm going to have to pull my long pants back out to run in. Then again, what great weather to run in and won't it feel good to start off my weekend with a nice, long run and then got into the shopping we're supposed to do (pricing out new kitchens) on Saturday and my fun filled day for Sunday?! Yes, I think that does sound better. I'm off to my reading/relaxing/visualizing! :-)

Running

I just got back from my long run. It went well, but it was warmer out. Okay, it was only 75 degrees out, but since last week it was only 60 later in the day, this seemed really hot! But, I'm glad I did it. I'm trying to keep up my running and I'm actually going back to running in the morning some days before work. So that feels really good! And I'm also reading more as well. I'm trying to finish the big pile of books I have by my bed. Especially the older ones and the ones I started oh. . .a year or two ago! Maybe it's my type of a spring cleaning!!

Books & Doctors

I've actually been reading at a decent pace again. I just finished another book from my tbr pile - "Grave Secrets." I liked the book and actually look forward to the next one in the series. I've also been running, which I really enjoy. But I went to the doctor's office last week to see a specialist about my knee. I can run fine with a brace (and every once in a while it gives me trouble midweek), but I wanted to see if I could run without it. Well, that doctor is "not a fan" of running since it's really hard on the body (knees, hips, etc.) and would prefer that I try to do more biking and swimming. But, if I want to continue to run, he's sending me to physical therapy to try and strengthen the muscle around the knee and told me to continue to wear the brace and use advil as necessary. And that some day it will just hurt too much to run. So, I just figured that means I need to continue to wear the brace and that since I don't use any pain medications now, I'm in pretty good shape. He even said my x-ray looked really good. But, others in my family had different ideas and gave me a hard time about wanting to continue and keeping up my long distances. So, for him I said I would cut back from my weekend runs. And when I did a mile less today, he said he never asked me to cut down :-/ I give! Oh well. It was much warmer this morning anyhow, so doing 6.25 instead of 7.1 is not such a bad thing. Especially since I was able to run three times midweek. But we'll see next week. I need to go to an evening function for my work on Thursday (and I just realized last night that all of my dresses are too cocktail-ish for a work function - so I need a new dress!), so I may not be able to run three times mid-week next week. So, maybe I'll do my 7 miles again on the weekend! We'll just have to wait and see.

Reno

It's about time I was able to post a bit on Reno. We had a great trip there. Spent some time with extended family, and then some good time with just my Grandmother. It was wonderful to hear her stories and be able to talk to her without outside interruptions. She had said before that on this specific birthday (and I won't list which one here in public) that she wanted to smoke, drink and gamble! Well, we went to Reno, everyone else drank, and we had candy cigarettes - but we had fun and we took a funny picture!

New Blog

Well, not exactly new! I am changing over my internet carrier and the old one has my blog. So, I had to find a new place to start one. This site was recommended. And funny enough, I found that three years ago I had started one and then let it go because my carrier offered an easy way to do a blog linked to my email. But like I said, that one is going away. So, now I've found this one again. I've made my updates and I'll be testing it out and updating as I go along. Not sure about my running list and my TBR list. I've put them to the side, but I'm wondering if they should have this own mini-blog and link to this? Not sure. But I'll figure it out in time! And to see if I can do this. . . I'm going to put a picture here and see how it comes out!