table hunting.

now that the dining room is all painted, i've restarted my search for the perfect dining room table. i've come close to finding 'the one' in the past, but after a while i always end up falling out of love with whichever one i pick. i'd like it to be wood. but it has to compliment our wood floors without being all matchy-match, but it also can't clash with the chocolate brown on the walls. AND i'd like to have a rug to go under it, which adds a whole new thing to search for at the same time. honestly, it's kind of stressful.

so while i was trolling around the interwebs the other day, i decided to check out a place that is right up the road from our house called Belle Patri. i have literally driven right past this place several times a day for the past year, and i cannot believe i have never gone in before this week. they are a consignment store of sorts that has all sorts of wonderful furniture and accessories - some new, some second hand, and all awesome. they carry a lot of shabby-chic-type of stuff, and everything i saw in the store looked really nice, even if it didn't match the style of our house. they keep their inventory pretty up to date on their website, which is nice if you are looking for something specific, like i was.

i didn't find a dining room table there, but what i did find was a matched set of end tables and a coffee table that caught my eye. they had good lines and were a nice clean white, which i liked since i don't want all my furniture to be as eye-catching as the not-a-credenza. as a bonus, i could get all 3 pieces for half what i would have paid for something similar from IKEA.

so i was understandably bummed when i got there after work and discovered that the end tables had already sold. but the hubs met me there on his way home and assured me that he thinks he can make me some similar end tables if i really really like them. so with a generous 10% discount that the nice lady working there gave us because of some scratches on the top, we bought ourselves a coffee table!

if i had photoshop i might have thought about editing out all that crap on the loveseat. but thats what it looks like. just keepin' it real.

the plan for now is to give it a coat of paint with the same shade of white that we have been using on all the trim throughout the house, since we aren't quite ready to do a full-on makeover of the front room. but Mark has already commented about how much more lived-in the house feels with the new table sitting in the middle of the front room. and it really does help to visualize what that space might eventually look like with the addition of a rug, and a couple chairs, and a fabulous built-in bench/bookcase. it's gonna be awesome! but first we have a pretty long list of other projects to tackle...

how does your garden grow?

yes, I know it's January. Seems like it should be a weird time to be talking about gardening, right? And yet, we have not had any snow yet this season, and it was 55 degrees and rainy today, which makes it seem like spring, which would make it the perfect time to be talking about our garden.

back in November, Mark spent an afternoon clearing out some of the plants around the back deck that we managed to kill this year while we kept busy with all our inside projects.

and now, thanks to this insane warm spell also known as the winter without snow, possibly known as the year without winter, Mark has been able to build himself a raised bed along the back of the house. It is 3'x18' 12' and fits perfectly between the basement door and the dryer vent. He planned it that way because he's just that good.

on top of all that (literally) he also built a support system for the mesh/cage/trellis that will keep the birds and critters away and give the climbing plants something to climb on. He made it a little shorter than the full length of the bed so that it would not overlap in front of our bedroom window, and just the right height to sit just under the bathroom window.

last weekend he finished gathering all the ingredients for the special dirt he needed to mix up and put in the bed. I don't pay a whole lot of attention to the details of the garden, because this is really Mark's project. I know there is vermiculite involved, that he got from the garden supply store. And the peat moss came from Walmart. And then he borrowed his dad's truck and picked up some compost for free from the landfill. (we're working on our own compost, but it's not ready yet) I wish I could tell you all the deets about how much of each thing goes into the special dirt, but the best thing I can do would be to direct you to the square foot gardening book.

we still need to fine tune the mesh, and get some sort of trellis for the side that is up against the house, and make our square foot delineations, but those are all things that can be done in the spring. apparently the important thing was to get the dirt ready so it could sit over the winter. if winter ever comes that is. i mean we appreciate the extra nice weather that allowed us to get the garden all ready, but it might be nice to get just a little bit of winter before its time to put seeds in the ground.

rain, rain, go away. 

come on back in spring someday. 

we'd like some snow in which to play. 

rain, rain, go away.

PS. today is SOPA strike day. i'm not blacking out my blog because i get a whopping 12 page views a day and it wouldn't really make that much of a statement. but i did sign Google's petition. (i think) i'm still learning what i can about this censorship proposition and what it would mean for the internet, but censorship of any kind doesn't sit quite right in my head so that's where i stand on this one.  

a plan.(ish)

last week's meal plan went surprisingly well. we only had to switch meals around once, and just skipped one meal. (we ate at the in-laws) we had plenty of leftovers for lunches, and the food was all delicious.

recipe for this found here on Pinterest

the only problem is that now i am having trouble coming up with a plan for this week. it's like i tapped out all my ideas last week. and as good as the food was, i don't know that i want to eat the same meals over and over every week. but every time i try to pick meals for the week, they wind up looking almost identical to what we ate last week. soup, pasta, chicken, fish, beef...

is that a bad thing? am i overthinking this? eh. so what if i am. we need to eat something and i need to come up with a grocery list. so here's what's on the menu for this week.

To Eat
Monday: soup from a can (because i'm a procrastinator. also: lazy)
Tuesday: frozen raviolis, salad
Wednesday: chicken, pasta, corn (maybe this recipe?)
Thursday: fish, rice, broccoli
Friday: taco night

**edit: swap Monday and Thursday. even though i'm lazy today, i have more time tonight to make dinner than i will on Thursday.

To Paint
- closet and basement doors.
- kitchen?

To Do
- replace hardware and re-hang doors.
- organize kitchen.
- clean out the fireplace.

on the plus side, at least we've stayed away from the frozen pizza so far! but seriously, if you have any suggestions for what we should eat next week, please send them my way!

friggatriskaidekaphobia.

my car needed an oil change, so i took her to the garage.

an oil change turned into new wiper blades, a new air filter, and a patch for a leaky tire.

a patch for a leaky tire turned into a corroded tire pressure monitor so come back tomorrow.

a corroded tire pressure monitor turned into needing to reset all four monitors turned into a trip to the dealership.

the trip to the dealership turned into having three recalls on my vehicle. one was for the screws that hold my rearview mirror onto my car. the other two sounded much more involved and i would tell you what they were for except i didn't understand a word that nice woman said to me.

it started as an oil change, and ended 5.5 hrs and $300 later.

all because a little bug went KA-CHOO!

perhaps i should think about developing a healthy fear of Friday the 13th.

why not? bears do it.

hibernation seemed like a viable option this morning.

i realized after i got out of bed at 6:10am and into the shower that today was actually one of the few workdays that i could have legitimately slept in without any negative repurcussions, as i had scheduled Sophie an oil change at 8. since the garage is only 2 minutes from my house, i was officially awake way too early. so i did what any self-respecting, responsible adult-type person would do in this situation, and i finished my shower and i crawled back into bed.

i stayed in that nice warm bed through several more alarms. when the hubs woke up and got out of bed, i stayed put. i tried to coax myself out from under the covers, but the world outside of my protective layer of sheets and blankets was just so cold.

finally i reasoned with myself that if i was not out of bed before the hubs left the house, then i would no longer have any motivation to wake up, and it was all too likely that i would just stay in bed all day. looking back, i don't know why i thought that would be a bad thing.

about an hour after i began my hibernation, i slowly made my way out of bed. i got dressed. i brushed my teeth. i pulled my hair back into a pony tail and put on a  little bit of makeup. i packed myself a lunch and was at the garage 4 whole minutes early.

i read a book while Ronnie changed Sophie's oil, replaced her wiper blades, discovered that her air filter was clogged, and found out that she had a leaky tire. he's ordering some parts, so i get to go back again tomorrow morning.

and thanks to a moment of complete randomosity, i am now the owner of a 1943 steel penny.

i get to hibernate again tomorrow. i guess today's not so bad after all.

an idea for food network's newest show.

i have discovered something. a revelation of sorts. a realization that there is a sizeable hole in the repertoire of cooking shows. or at least i think there's a hole, whatever size it may be. and i guess the filler for such a hole could exist somewhere out there and i just don't watch enough Food Network to know about it, but it's a novel idea to me and so i'm going to just throw it out there because i heard it here first, even if you didn't.

Cooking with Men Who Don't Know How to Cook.

i'm thinking it would be a big hit, and i'm going to go ahead and tell you why.

1. you've already got plenty of cooking shows hosted by women because a woman's place is obviously in the kitchen and thats why we dont wear watches because there's a clock on the stove and i feel like the whole 'woman in the kitchen' thing is already way overdone.

2. while men cooking on tv is nothing new, all those men have some sort of a background in the culinary arts. whether they're a chef or a baker or a foodie, they are masters of their craft and they know their way around their kitchen stuffs way better than i ever will.

3. it would be exciting. there would be knives and fire and the never-ending suspense of whether or not all of the sweat and tears and hard work would ever yield anything edible. and really, the tears enough should be all it takes to get people to tune in.

4. it would be hilarious. i know that sometimes when i read a recipe i just have to laugh because i don't understand a word of what they're trying to tell me to do. so it only follows that it would be even funnier to watch someone else try to figure it out from the comfort of my own couch.

5. it would be educational. men and women alike would learn new things about food, cooking, kitchen gadgets, and recipes, and maybe even get a glimpse into how very different the inner workings of men and womens' brains are.

6. men have a certain tendency to be creative in their problem-solving methods and the tools they choose to use. anything goes. don't know what an immersion blender is? use your drill and grout stirrer instead. bring on the power tools, boys. the bigger the better.

so where did i get this fabulous idea? the hubs decided to help out with tonight's dinner. in fact, he did most of the work for our rice-beef-vegetable-soup concoction. and then when i told him that we should probably leave a little more room in the crock pot because we didn't know how much water would cook out of the meat and the veggies, he got a little concerned. and then he came up with a plan.

so one cutting board, one sink, and one 50 ft extension cord later, our soup setup was prepared for any overflow-type-mishaps that may or may not happen while we are at work today.

perhaps 'reasonably sized extension cord' should move up to the top of our shopping list.

hey Food Network! call me!

do you have a plan?

so. about this time last year, i decided that i needed to find a meal plan to use. something that would allow me to make new things, eat real food, and feel grown up. i found one that came with recipes AND a shopping list. it seemed perfect. it also required me to make at least three brand new recipes every day. most stuff was delicious. a few things were complete disasters.

i lasted about a week. and then i got overwhelmed at the thought of having to go through all that again the next week and i gave up and ran whimpering back to my frozen pizza every Tuesday night.

and yet, here i am again, with the first of my non-proritized un-resolutions for 2012 being to come up with a reasonable meal plan. so here's what i have for this week:

Monday: quesadillas.
Tuesday: homemade beef-rice-vegetable soup.
Wednesday: grilled chicken penne pesto pasta with roasted asparagus.
Thursday: fish, rice, and broccoli.
Friday: broccoli mac n cheese.
Saturday: leftover soup?
Sunday: chicken and potatoes.

the asparagus was one of our favorite things that i learned how to make during last year's meal planning extravaganza. other than that, none of these things have an actual recipe per-se. but they all sound good to me. they all seem simple enough to pull off on a weeknight without having to spend the whole evening in the kitchen. and best of all, none of them require me to wander my grocery store searching for the ever-elusive barley, gouda cheese, or green chiles. (i never managed to find any of them last year. i'm not entirely sure they actually exist. kind of like The Princess Bride.)

maybe in the weeks to come i'll get more adventurous with my meals. i might even blog about the new stuff that i try. or maybe i'll continue to stick with what i know. but either way, hopefully our Tuesday frozen pizza nights will no longer be a weekly ritual.

and if you let me know when to expect you for dinner, i'll have something special planned just for you!

(that last line sounded creepy and evil and stabby. that's not how i meant it. honest.)