We had a couple of pretty good dinners last week.

On Wednesday, I felt like steak so bought a couple of tbone steaks at the Loblaws. It was a pretty windy day, and I had trouble lighting the barbecue (the push-button ignitor broke, which didn't help). We had sides of whipped spinach and butter-cooked mushrooms. Everything turned out really really well. I grill my steaks on really high, about 500F, and I've started using the pressure test to tell when they're done (I'm getting better at it). We also had the bottle of wine that Scott gave us for Christmas.

That put pressure on the Friday dinner, because I couldn't have it outdone by a weekday meal. Looked at the LCBO site, and picked a couple of their new east-meets-west recipes. The wasabi crusted shrimp with ginger dip sounded much better than it tasted. The crust fell off half the shrimp while frying; so it also looked much better in the recipe. One of the few misses on the LCBO site so far. Fortunately, the miso black cod turned out amazing. I didn't fully follow the recipe (it suggests basting for 48 hours, and I only had 48 minutes). I also reserved the basting sauce and reduced it to a syrupy consistency, and drizzling it on the side of the plate along with sesame seeds and green onions. Next time I'll skip the basting altogether. Heather julienned the cucumber for the salad, which worked well as a side.

Work's been pretty busy over the last couple weeks. The big project is reducing the web width, of which word is now out. My group is heavily involved with the project.

We've got a lot of wedding stuff done recently. We've met with Myrtle and picked out our wedding invitations; talked with the Manorfield Quartet about the song selection for the wedding; looked into hair salons for September 22nd; and looked at sites for a mini-honeymoon (a couple days on the Island). So far things are going well with the planning.

My rotator cuff is slowly getting better, mostly because I've taken time off from sports. The Star has a physiotherapist on-site, so I've been going there twice a week. It should be better by the time we go on vacation.

I'm hoping it will warm up before we leave. I stripped the paint on the front deck posts just in time for winter, and I've been waiting for the spring so that I can repaint. Hopefully that will also happen before we head out.