The Cape July 3, 2008

For every Fourth of July, we come up to the cape to spend time with John’s family (well, we didn’t come up last 4th, but that was due to circumstances beyond our control).  And it is great - a little nutty with all the kiddos and just sheer amount of people around, but always a good time.

Whenever I see all the huge, beautiful hydranga bushes, I know we have arrived.  I love them!  The flowers clusters are just so lovely and plump.

And I have been really surprised at how much I am enjoying the nieces (well, technically my niece-in-laws, since they are Boom’s sister’s kids, but whatever…).  I am not around kids that are 9 and 8 very much, and really didn’t know what to expect.  But I really am enjoying them!  They are so much more self-sufficient and talkative (very talkative) and can walk down to the beach and back with me (I was afraid they wouldn’t be able to walk that much, and their mom laughed at me!).

Meg is the oldest (L), Ash is 8 (M) and C is probably around 7 (R).   (Meg and Ash are Boom’s oldest sisters kids; C is his middle sisters kid)  Aren’t they adorable?!

We are taking Meg and Ash to see the Chatham A’s play the Harwich team tonight.  We’ve been to 1 game before, many years ago, and I just remember that it was seriously chilly.

Which is another reason I am really enjoying our visit this year - the contrast in weather to H-town is huge!  And I don’t mind the break from the heavy humid and hot air.  We went for a run today around 9am, and it was still fairly cool!  and post run, there was a great breeze, so we just hung out on the driveway and enjoyed it.

Since Boom’s parent’s house backs up to conservation land, this is the scenery I enjoy from the back porch.  Can you hear the wind whistling through the trees?  Can you feel the cool breeze?  It is awesome.

Boom’s oldest sister that currently lives in Chicago just bought a summer home about 15 minutes away from Boom’s parents.  I am pretty sure Boom’s mom really wants us to do the same some day, but that would be many moons from now.  We’ve got to get our R house sold and then get the new house furnished…  That could be her consolation prize, since we are now in Texas and not moving away anytime soon.  And who wouldn’t love that - to get away from the oppressive heat each summer?  All in good time, I suppose, and it is always nice to have a pipe dream..

The Best Gift Ever July 1, 2008

Yesterday was our (Yarbs - the sister, and I) second installment of Craft Monday - and we made tag books!  They came out great - ’twas a lot of work, but do-able in 1 day - just need to make sure you do a little prep work and at least have all the photos printed out that you want to use.

My tag book is a year and a half late bday gift for a friend in Richmond.  I would love to get this as a gift (am tempted to keep it, but I won’t) so I hope she loves it as much as I do!  I doubt that she even remembers that I told her that I was making her something 1 and a half years ago, but that will make the surprise that much better!  And who doesn’t love getting packages in the mail?!

I really love the faux bois paper (Martha Stewart, of course) that I used for the cover and back.  And all the fun ribbons on the ring!

I would have never gotten this done so quickly and so well without Yarbs.  She also brought a bunch of embellishments that were fun to use!  We are trying to use up the supplies that we have, since we both have way too much stuff!

Yarbs made a tag book of the Austin Marathon / Half Marathon that Boom and Josephine ran.  I loved how it turned out!  I was trying to get her to give it to me, but she did not.  Oh well, I will just have to make my own.

Next Craft Monday (not this coming Monday but the next one) we will be doing some fabric crafts.  We are alternating between scrapping and fabric crafts, as Yarbs is the SME (subject matter expert) on scrapping and I am the SME on fabric crafts.  We’ll be making coasters and napkins.  Fun times!

Productive Day & A Request June 26, 2008

Lots got done today - 4 inches got chopped off my head! So I am a baldy, but in a good way. I needed a cut so badly! And she really thinned it out, so my pony is quite wee - which I love - but in a week… POUF and my thick-a$$ hair is back. At the end of my cut, I looked down and it looked like some very dark haired animals had gotten in a fight and were lying around on the floor. Actually kinda gross, and it is my own hair! Boom has coined the term “tingleweeds” for the tufts of hair that blow around our bathroom.

Made organic spelt - organic white flour chocolate chip cookies. I really wanted to use up my spelt flour - I usually use half whole wheat and half white flour. I also didn’t have any baking soda, so I subbed (double) baking powder and omitted the salt. They are still pretty tasty, despite the many variables I threw at the recipe.

A bit more delicate than the whole wheat version (and I really do enjoy the “heartiness” that whole wheat flour gives ‘em) so likely won’t be rushing out to get more spelt flour any time soon.

Worked on another top secret project for a July birthday gal…

Yarbs was hoping I was making them for her, but I am not (sorry, Yarbs!).

Wrestled with the alarm company to get our system up and running. Dealing with them makes me sweat and want to claw my eyes out. So frustrating. At least they are sending a technician out - it only took 1.5 months, and many, MANY over 1 hour frustrating phone calls. I literally think they are like the Death Eaters in Harry Potter and suck the happiness and your will to live out of you, via the phone…

And, for my pal Al - here is the cruise (first and last one ever!) layout that Yarbs put together during Craft Monday:

(Al - You can click on the photo to make it bigger)

Hehehe - I guess somethings never change (our love of the Charlie’s Angels pose)!!! I guess I forgot to tell Carnival that I am never going on another cruise again, ’cause they keep sending me emails about cruises!  But aren’t we just too cute?!

“Craft Monday… June 25, 2008

… makes us tired!”  but was totally awesome!  As part of the new regime of being down here, Craft Monday finally got fully realized for the first time this past Monday.  It was great - we ran errands in the morning and organized my photos, had lunch, then crafted - hardcore - for the rest of the day!  Yarbs did 3 (!!!!!) scrap layouts for me (yay!) in 4 hours - that is really amazing.

Here she is with one of the layouts.  The theme was before and after or really, old photo and now…  Very cute - she did one of us (Yarbs and I), one of Boom and I and one of my first cruise (back in 2001) and my last cruise (this year!).

I was working hard on a birthday gift for a great friend back in RIC.  Which I finished yesterday and will be sending in the mail today (and who doesn’t love to get snail mail?!) - I won’t post any photos for a few days, just in case she may be popping over to this blog and I don’t want to kill the surprise.

This year, I am really goingto try to only make gifts for people, esp. people that are important to me.  I need to use up all the supplies I have collected through the years - paper crafting, fabric stuff, etc.  I have lots of materials to use, just need to execute!

Here we are at the close of our first ever Craft Monday.  Next Monday we are doing Tag Books!  I love spending time with Yarbs - and being creative at the same time.  ‘Tis a very good thing.

Tingaling Homemaker June 20, 2008

I haven’t been crafting much - with the move and all, I’ve had my hands full. Anyway, whilst unpacking, I came across Marm’s old, ratty yoga mat she gave to me many years ago as I was just started up practicing yoga. I used it for some time, but soon started finding bits and pieces of the blue mat stuck to my hands and feet. I got a new mat, but never threw away the old one - the thought of it in a landfill made me feel too guilty and literally kept me chucking it. I kept thinking I could come up with a new use for the old mat - and volia…

I cut up the mat and added some scallops…

..and created a lovely and durable under garbage can mat! (Our simplehuman butterlyfly trashcan, that I love, really hacked up the floor beneath it in the Richmond house, so I knew I needed to either put felt pads on the bottom of it or come up with another solution.) I love it! I kept opening the door to our pantry (where this all lives) a few days ago after I had made it so I could see it and bask in its cuteness!

Since that only took about 1/4th or less of the mat, I used the rest of the mat to line the under part of the kitchen sink:

Not too shabby, and then I only had an tiny little strip to throw away - so no guilt there. I actually wish I had more old, no-longer-in-use yoga mats so I could line all the under parts of all my sinks. I don’t have anymore, but I do have EE looking to see if they have one hanging around.

As with crafting, my baking has taken a back seat. Now that everything is here, I have all the tools I need. And my hand was forced - for some reason this week Boom and I were not that good about eating up our bananas. So I had 5 old, soft bananas to deal with yesterday. I had one with peanut butter toast for breakfast, and that was when I decided I need to bake up the remaining 4.

I looked around on-line for a recipe, but I mainly like recipes that have a short list of ingredients and not too many steps to finish. All the ones I was finding were too fancy. So I turned to my lovely ART 180 cookbook and found a great recipe for Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins - easy and they were delish!

I did one batch with 1 c wheat flour and the rest white flour, and the other batch with 1/2 c wheat flour, 1/2 c spelt flour and the rest white flour. The cinnamon really added a lot to how yummy they tasted and I used dark chocolate mini chunks.

Get the adorable cookbook and you too can have the delicious recipe! And you’ll be helping to support a wonderful organization.

Yarb can attest to how yummy the muffins are - she had one yesterday after lunch and then I sent her back to work with 5 others. By this morning they were all gone! I hope that Josephine was able to get one, before she gobbled them all up - I know in their house it is very cutthroat for any sweets that might be around.

Good to see that my economics degree from arguably the best public university in the country is getting put to good use

Beating Them Off with a Bat June 10, 2008

The trip to San Diego was great! That Thursday, Cubs and I were the only ones that came in early, so we met at the car rental place (which was off site and really far away! I was convinced it was in a different zip code) and got our brand new Suzuki SUV - kind of a random car, but better than a 15-passenger van, which is what they tried to give us at first.

Here’s our odometer reading only 6 miles!

We went into Little Italy for a snack pre-dinner / going out. Got a yummy cheese plate. Luckily for me Cubby had done some leg work before the trip. She had even gotten a book - and little did we know what we were getting ourselves into with the “Trendy Bars and Hip Single Scene”.

After freshening up, we went into the Gas Lamp district - started out at the rooftop bar at the W hotel that had actual sand. Too bad we increased the population at the bar by a third - it was also very windy and cold! So we only stayed there for a couple drinks.

We headed to where we ate dinner at the bar. Well, my dinner was the same as our snack - a cheese plate. Sometimes it is not so fun being a veggie. But the bar was cool - kinda deserted, but it was a little early for a Thursday night. By the time we finished dinner, there was a little scene developing. There was a DJ spinning, and lots of gals in short dresses or shorts. We started noticing a trend - that most of the folks there were Latin and the DJ was spinning dance music in Spanish!

I wish I had taken some snaps - they would have shown the men that were clamoring to meet Cubby! She needed one of those deli line number hander outers!  If they weren’t trying to talk to her, they were winking at her from a few feet away. It was great - and there was lots of cologne going on. One business card that Cubby got was from a guy who wanted us to come to his hotel pool the next day! HA!

When we decided this was not exactly our scene, we headed off to another bar - The Bitter End - which was the exact opposite of Confidential - much more fratty and mostly all home slice dudes. Still, the guys were all about Cubby - and who could blame them?! She is so cute and looked awesome in her DVF sting ray dress - love it! There were guys at this bar telling me that my friend was very attractive (duh) and begging her to dance! Finally, I convinced her to dance with one of the poor chaps - I am sure he was in hog heaven!

When this was all going down, a little guy was talking to me. Blah blah blah, whatever whatever whatever. But the great fun was that I had him convinced I was a 2006 college grad!!! That was a definite high light of the night - and he didn’t even blink an eyelash! So silly since I don’t even think I look like I am 23 or 24 - hopefully I can still pass for late 20’s but def not early 20’s.

We stayed until last call - around 1:30am west coast time, but that was 430 for Cubs and 330 for me. We were beat.

Here we are at the beginning of the night…

Here we are at the end of the night. Not too much worse for the wear, just really tired…

Fun times!  More SD updates later…

Avoid this combo June 10, 2008

Lots to post updates on and I guess I never posted past the first day of packing.  I meant to, but just didn’t happen.

We are back in H-town… Yesterday we swept, dry mopped and then wet mopped all the floors in the house.  Fun times.  Not that they were really dirty, per se, but more dusty, especially with Geroninmo coming in and building built-ins as well as changing the fireplace mantel.

(Here are the lovely new cleaning tools we bought - I think they are so nicely branded and pretty, in a way.  Hopefully that keeps me willing to use them…)

We had to clean all the floors b/c we want to paper them tonight before the movers come tomorrow.  I am just really afraid that our new floors will get hacked up with all the furniture and boxes coming in.  So we are gonna do what we can to minimize that.

Anyway, we took a break and had some cherries.  Cherries are my favorite fruit in the world.  Basically, the month that they are in season, I will eat and eat and eat them (washed and cold - I am not a big fan of cooked cherries, like in pies) until I am so sick of them that I can’t put another one in my mouth.  Then by the time they are in season next year, I will have missed them so and the cycle starts again.

So I washed a big bowl of them, and Boom maybe had 5.  I probably had around 50 of them.  Yum.  Delicious.  We did some more work and then decided to have some cheese and bread before dinner.  My cheese tooth was in full effect.  and I had gotten us some 10-grain, very hearty bread from Central Market.  I noticed that my tummy was kinda gurgling, but I ignored and just continued on with my cheese and bread snack.

After showering, my tummy was in full revolt.  I had the worst tummy ache I’ve had in recent history!  I literally had to go immediately to bed, only to awaken a couple hours later with an aching tummy.  I guess my intestines / stomach didn’t like the combination of cheese and cherries.  I was a tooting machine last night.  Good thing it didn’t bother Boom or Ruby - they were sound asleep when awoke again.

Now I am rather wary of cheese and cherries - I will really have to show some self-restraint in the future.  But please learn from my mistake and never mix the two!

Packing - Day 1 June 4, 2008

Packing up of the house commenced today.  and it was quite an experience.  At the height of it, there were 7 people in the house - 4 packers, 1 handyman, 1 chandelier crater, and 1 moving company person.  Craziness.  Since I like to be in control, it was hard for me to see other people packing up all my stuff, all over the house, and not being able to watch all of them as they were packing.  But I just had to let it go.

I know that it is great that we are having the house packed up, but at the same time, it was very odd and overwhelming.   Every last thing was packed up in the bathroom before I could pull any of it out!  Note to self - make them tell you when they are moving on to the next room.  or put all your toiletries aside before they come (headed to the drugstore to buy travel sized items of most everything)!  At least I have learned some stuff for the next time we move (hopefully not for a long, long time) - I think the unpacking will be just a chaotic - esp if my mom and dad are there to “help”.  I just need to assign them a room and kinda what I expect them to do.  

AND we have a cracked stacked pipe from the upstairs bathroom.  Which means our handyman will need to open up the wall for the plumber to see where the crack starts and stops.  Then fix it and then handyman will need to patch the wall back up and paint.  Great.  This is when the tears started flowing.  I had kinda felt like crying all morning, and definately after I saw the water leaking on the basement floor, but when that news was delivered, I couldn’t help it.  I did prepare our handyman and plumber, as I knew the waterworks were going to start. 

Oh yea, happy birthday to me.  Fun times.  I need a drink ASAP STAT!

In the RIC June 3, 2008

I am here, my former home, which seems sometimes more like home than my current one.  It is weird to be in the house with nothing really in it.  I mean, all the furniture is there, but all the cupboards are bare of food and there is nada in the fridge.

I am currently in the library (putting my VA taxes to good use) using the internet. I didn’t bring my laptop down as we do not have the router in the VA house.  So I can come here and use the internet for 1 hour a day.  Pretty good rationing, I think.

Tomorrow I am a year older.  Not to sure if I am a year wiser, but a lot has happened personally in the last year.  Not all positive, but I have learned some and grown as a person.  Both Boom and I have been through a lot, so I am hoping that this next year in my life will be a better one!  Luckily for me, I have the best hubby in the world, and a lot of really, REALLY great friends.  I do consider myself very, very lucky and appreciate him and them all very much.

I hope all the packing up and the whatnot goes smoothly tomorrow!

Why I am not Vegan May 23, 2008

I like to cut (and eat) the cheese too much!

Wednesday:

Yesterday:

Lovely hunk of cheddar with stripes of blue cheese. Now whoever came up with the idea of putting cheese inside of cheese was a genius!!