Friday Photos

A look as well as commentary about photos I took during the week, through Friday.

I finally had enough tomatoes to do something with them besides cut them for sandwiches or salads (for which we used the first two tomatoes that ripened) and was excited to try a recipe for marinara sauce. I found a recipe that has great reviews on allrecipes. (I use a lot of recipes from this site- it's generally one of the first places I search for recipes.) The recipe called for red wine and balsamic vinegar- two ingredients I never would have thought would be in a marinara sauce had I thought about such things prior to reading the recipe. I didn't deviate much from the recipe- omitted marjoram due to not having any and deciding whatever marjoram added, it wouldn't make much of a difference with all of the other flavors/ spices going on and I used cooking red wine as opposed to drinking red wine. 

It turned out SO GOOD! I had to stop myself from eating spoonfuls of it right there as I stood at the stove. I can't wait to combine it with pasta, meat and cheese for some delicious dish (I'm thinking baked ziti?). I had to put the sauce in the freezer as I already had meals planned for the week and didn't know when I'd get around to making baked ziti as a meal. 

The sauce was super chunky after I had completed all of the steps in the recipe. A quick run through the Ninja and the consistency ended up much better...

My brother who lives out in Illinois called me to see if I would be around this week. His work days shifted and he found himself with three days off in a row. He checked the St. Louis Cardinals schedule and saw they were playing in Cincinnati so he decided to come out here for a quick visit and to catch a game with me. My brother is a STL Cardinals super fan. He follows the team closely and knows all about how the players are doing, how many games the team is out from first place or who's behind them if they're in first, who's on the disabled list, etc. He listens to or watches on TV all of the games that he can. He lives about 2 1/2 hours from STL and watches some games in person but mostly he listens or watches the games on TV. Two Cardinal greats- Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina are retiring after this year so this year is the last one to see them.

The game wasn't until 6:40 pm and my brother arrived a little after noon. The day was a nice one so we went on a little drive- about 45 minutes, to go to Clifton Gorge nature preserve to hike there. I think this is the prettiest hike within an hour of our house and I wanted my brother to see it. I hadn't been there since the spring of last year and thankfully, it was just as pretty in the summer as it was in the spring. We didn't have too long to hike as we had the drive home and the drive down to Cincinnati to make.

Jacob said he was available to go to the Reds game so we picked him up on the way to the game. He proved himself to be useful as well as ornamental as he knew the best place to park near the stadium (he's been to a few games this year). He also proved to be an expensive addition to the evening. He ordered one of just about everything off the menu- burger, fries, hot dog, peanuts, a large adult beverage, and a sports drink. I am mercifully unaware at this time of the damage his food and drink purchases wrought as he took my credit card to get himself food and libation. But since I know that my large diet Pepsi cost over $8, I know that damage was done 😆  

We got to see Pujols play! My brother told me before the game that whether he would play or not depended on who the Reds pitcher was- something about if the pitcher was left handed then Pujols would play or maybe vice versa. Well, whatever it was, Pujols played. 

He didn't hit a home run (he's currently the fifth all time home run leader and just one home run away from tying Alex Rodriguez in that department) but he did get an RBI. Every time that he went to bat, the crowd cheered, "Let's go Albert!" It also cheered every time that Yadier Molina went to bat, "Let's go Yadi!" The crowd was easily comprised of 1/3 Cardinals fans. Our trio was 2/3's Cards fan and 1/3 Reds ;).

The game ended up being THE LONGEST CARDINALS GAME OF THE SEASON at 13 innings and almost five hours BUT, the CARDINALS WON so it was all worth it!! I didn't know that extra innings rules changed within the past two years but they did. When games go into extra innings, a runner is placed on second base automatically. This obviously increases the chance that a run will be scored which has resulted in fewer extra innings needed to win a game. Going to 13 innings is not that common since the rule has been implemented. We were the *lucky* ones, lol.

It was a nice night for a game and all is well that ends well. I'll tell you that I was tired. I had gotten up early to sub a half day that morning, then drove to Clifton Gorge, hiked, drove home and then drove to Cincinnati, and then watched a long game that ended just before midnight!

I didn't have any Cardinals gear so I borrowed my friend's son's Molina jersey to wear to the game (it was a youth XL and it was huge- perfect for me!)

The last picture of the week is this one of fruit. I snapped it to send to Abby to let her know we had plenty of fruit at the house- she was coming home for Labor Day weekend. I helped to host a meal for the girls cross country team on Thursday evening and I contributed a fruit salad. The fruit in the round bowl is what is left over from what I brought. Almost forty girls were at the dinner so I brought a lot but still had some left over. I'm glad that my fruit loving girl was coming home! I took a picture at the dinner- my friend's house who hosted the meal has the perfect backyard setting for hosting a group. But Alyssa was giving me severe side eye so... that one will remain on my camera roll!