Rachel & Sam Playing House

I can explain!

2012-01-29T00:19:00.000-05:00

It's been a while. Lo siento. I promise there are good reasons beyond the holidays, traveling to Paris over New Years, and catching a gnarly cold literally a week after we got back. For one thing, it's been difficult to get back into a groove this month, which means house projects have been non-starters/stalled. I had big plans of getting the hole in the dining room patched before our first annual Chili Fest next month and I have serious doubts that will actually happen in the near future. Sad.

In an effort to jumpstart my motivation, Sam and I took a trip to Ikea this morning to pick up a gift for our friends, Ryan and Mari, whom are expecting a wee one come March and to get a for real TV stand for us. That's right, friends! Goodbye to the bookshelves that have been. . .er, gracing our living room since we moved in. No longer will we have a shelf-less bookshelf be the focal point of our living room!

Somewhere, there is a baby looking at this picture and wailing.

What did we pick up to replace it with, pray tell? We got the handy, dandy Expedit bookshelf for $70. We like that it has lots of space for storage for our DVDs and board games and since its so open, we won't have any problems accessing it. Win! I suppose the irony kicks in when you realize that its a bookshelf and that we tipped it on its side to be the tv stand. . . whatevs.

Source: ikea.com via Rachel on Pinterest

I'll post a picture of the new set-up soon, but right now the lighting isn't great in the living room, so it would be a waste of a picture. Also, I have some organizing and de-cluttering to do. We store most of our DVDs in binders, a project we did years ago, and I want to pick up a new binder so we can organize some of our stray DVDs and clear more space on the shelves.

Source: google.com via Rachel on Pinterest

The old bookshelves are on Craigslist right now and will be given to the first person that can get them out of my sight. Since its midnight, I won't be responding to any of the emails that come in until morning, but I do love seeing lots of interested people are ready to take them off our hands. One person even said they would treat the shelves "preciously". I appreciate their buyer tactics, but really? I put them on craigslist for free. I could care less how you treat them. Just take them away!!

Gifts from the Interwebs - 12/19

2011-12-19T22:53:00.000-05:00

Allo, everyone! We're closing in on Christmas and I wanted to send you a little cheer from the interwebs!
This year, Sam and I are spending Christmas at our house since we're leaving for Paris shortly thereafter for New Years. I'm hoping to get a post in before we fly out, but of course we still need to pack, so. . . hopefully, I'll get a post out about spending our first Christmas just us two. Til then, here is our Christmas Tree!

Our first tree!

Christmas links
Christmas was not complete with my family without my mom's vintage disco ball Christmas star (I found one on amazon last year!) or Santa and his "candle". . .

Source: amazon.com via Rachel on Pinterest

Source: google.com via Rachel on Pinterest

Dear Santa, may I have this craft room, please?

Candycane tea infuser - Adorable!
I watch this when Christmas gets a little crazy:

One of the best Christmas movies and an absolute staple in our house

Other interweb inspiration
How to stay creative
DIY Block Printing - Oh it's on!
Brewmaster's Castle - Excited to plan a trip here with our beer loving friends
Sh*t girls say - Part 1 and Part 2- Too funny for words

Snack Attack! Crescent Pizza Rolls

2011-12-11T16:37:00.000-05:00

Has it really been over a month since I've posted?! It has and I'm sorry about that. I don't really have an excuse beyond, "meh." I was feeling a little down and unmotivated at the beginning of November and then we traveled to my brother and sister-in-law's home in Saratoga Springs for Thanksgiving. When we got back to the DC metro area, I had to mentally prepare myself to get back into work for the month of December, Christmas away from our families, and our trip to Paris. Long story short, we've been busy, but I've also lacked all motivation for my normal crafty/project weekend endeavors.

Until today! It's a chilly day in the nation's capital region. Sam and I, in our attempts to live somewhat frugally keep our thermostat set to 68 in the winter. Well, friends, 68 degrees was making me feel the kind of cold where very little makes you warm. You know what I mean? Socks, an extra sweater, and hot tea are nice attempts, but you end up still being cold and rushing to the bathroom every 20 minutes after all the hot tea you drank. I realized, the only remedy to this inside out cold feeling was to make a warm, carb-loaded snack, or, more specifically, crescent pizza rolls!

I came across the crescent pizza roll idea during one of my many pinterest food, household, and holiday inspiration browsing sessions. (If you're not on pinterest yet, you might want to consider joining. It's a great spot to house all your interweb ideas that you come across.) The crescent pizza rolls are very simple to make. You buy a crescent roll tube from the gro-sto (pilsbury or the generic brand are fine) and unroll each of the rolls so that it is ready for whatever filling you want to put in it. In my case, I went for Trader Joe's Arabiatta (sp?) sauce, fresh spinach, cut up mozzarella string cheese, and zucchini. Then you roll it up as you normally would and pop it into your pre-heated oven (375 degrees) and bake for 13 minutes. Once ready, out come 8 delectable pizza rolls. Here are a few pictures of my handywork:

In an effort to keep it real, I must say that while absolutely delicious, these rolls look like a hot mess. Don't let the my lack of hand rolling skill stop you though; these pizza rolls are totally worth it! Also, everything looks better when it's served on white plate. See!

nom nom nom

Servings - I vote four servings. We each had two for a snack and then I packed the other four into containers to bring for lunch tomorrow.

Gettin' crafty on a Sunday - DIY Painted Trunk: Part 2

2011-11-06T19:53:00.000-05:00

One of the trunks that Bridg and I found is finished!!

I spent the the afternoon spray painting El Trunkster in the backyard and covering the interior with contact paper in the living room. It definitely was a fixer upper; the exterior, which was a deep, olive green, was scratched up, the metal fixtures were rusted, and the interior was water damaged and peeling. Here is reminder of what the one I was working with today looked like originally.

Here's the run-down on how El Trunkster from geek to chic:

I took the trunk into the backyard where I could get plenty of ventilation and set it up on a flattened moving box. Before I went spray paint happy, I sanded the interior and exterior. Then I wiped it down with a damp paper towel to remove all the dust and dirt that had accumulated.

To spray paint, I used one can of the Rust-oleum Universal Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint that I picked up earlier today. I gave it one thin coat, spraying from about a foot away from the trunk, and let it dry in the sunshine before doing touch-ups a few hours later.

At that point, I knew I had to walk away from the Trunkster for a bit, so I did the adult thing and raked the leaves in the front and backyard before getting back to my project. (Woo homeowner!!) I brought the trunk inside and with the help of my trusty x-acto knife, cutting mat, and measuring tape, I covered the interior with contact paper, which was a huge pain in the butt because I kept getting air bubbles. The good news about the contact paper was that I used every square inch of it. The bad news is that every square inch of the two rolls I picked up were not enough to cover the entire interior. Thankfully, the Dollar Store had a ton of rolls in the same print, so I'll grab a few more tomorrow to finish this project up completely.

Cost Rundown:
Trunk - Free! I picked it up off the side of the road
1 can of Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint - $7.48 @ Home Depot
3 rolls of contact paper - $3 @ The Dollar Store (Technically, I only bought two today, but I know I need another)
Project time - 2 hrs of actual work; 2 hrs of drying time - Total - 4 hrs

*So take a look at the trunk in this bottom picture. Do you see that? It's locked. 'sdkhg'IOFgh. Sam had to go at it with a hammer, which I am glad to say worked like a charm. He knew it would work because he bashed the lock of the other locked trunk and get that one open, too! Skillz!

Gettin' crafty on a Sunday - DIY Painted Trunk: Part 1

2011-11-06T14:27:00.000-05:00

First backstory - Last month, my sister, Bridget, and her family came to our digs to celebrate Oktoberfest. When Bridg and Randy make it to the DC area, we always make a big coffee run in the morning since Sam and I don't keep it in the house. Bridget and I decided to drive to Starbucks (Ah. Living in the burbs), while Sam and Randy hung the shelving in the dining room. During our drive, Bridg and I spotted a neighbor putting some items on the curb. Three of these items included some vintage military trunks. We both spotted them and, as we drove by, we started talking about how cool it would be to paint those bad boys and use them for storage. For some reason though, it was just sisterly chatter and we didn't make the stop. On our way back from Starbucks, we drove by my neighbors house again and some lady was pulling over to take a look. Without a second thought, Bridget pulled over and told me grab the trunks before the lady got them. I bolted across the street and then tried to look like I was calmly debating whether I would take one of the trunks, when of course it was inevitable that I was going to grab one. Sorry, lady. You didn't have a chance. In fact, I was greedy and grabbed two. (Unfortunately, once Oktoberfest was all said and done, I got some bad news. One of the trunks is locked and there isn't a key. I tried to fiddle with it using the small knife of a wine opener and a bobby pin, but its not giving. Sam's not giving up and has big plans to try a hammer. . . )

I wasn't about to let one trunk remaining locked stop me from completing a DIY project this weekend though. Nope, I planned to spray paint the other trunk, line it with some fun contact paper, and then store some blankets and pillows in it for use in the living room.

Source: etsy.com via Rachel on Pinterest

I debated what color I wanted to spray paint the trunk- fun accent color or a neutral? Ultimately, I decided that since we are still some time away from painting the living room, an accent color decision could wait. Plus, spray paint is pretty inexpensive, so we can definitely make a change to an accent color later.

Source: instapaper.com via Sarah on Pinterest

For my neutral, I decided to go with Young House Love's spray paint obsession, Rust-oleum Universal Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint, or "ORB" as Sherry likes to call it. It's a dark, almost black color with flecks of gold and bronze in it to give it a pretty shimmer.

Source: rustoleum.com via Rachel on Pinterest

I painted the trunk earlier this afternoon and its currently drying in the back yard. Here's a look at what I was working with:

As you can tell, the inside of the trunk needs some help. (It's gross, right?) I'm about to tackle it with some Clorox wipes and then see if the exterior needs a touch up before it gets too dark to keep spray paint it outside. Tonight, I'll put the contact paper inside the trunk and then I'll post all the details on how I made this trunk a sweet addition to our living room.

Blogging from my phone - whaaat?!

2011-11-04T19:04:00.000-04:00

Technology is fancy. Especially when your computer is on another floor of your house and your still able to do wacky things, like update your blog with a non-sensical post while chatting with your husband on speakerphone. That's right. In this episode of "playing house" I'm hangin out with Bonnie and Clyde in bed, fielding calls from Sam-a-lam, reading my Design*Sponge book, and brainstorming Christmas gifts for our families and friends, all while my laptop is hiding downstairs. I lead such a fly and fancy lifestyle. ;)

Must See TV

2011-10-30T23:28:00.000-04:00

As crazy as it sounds, Sam and I aren't always the most productive around the house. You're shocked, I'm sure. . . So when Sam and I aren't painting rooms in the house, traveling, planning DIY projects, or making random meals, we like to unwind with some quality television.

In general, I can't say that we watch tv that regularly, but lately we've found a routine for at least a few nights a week. We don't usually get home from work until around 7 pm each night, but once dinner is ready, we bypass the dining room and go down to the living room to catch up on the "news" via the previous night's Daily Show and Colbert Report. When we have a bit more time, AKA: no current project or upkeep on the house, we catch up on our favorite sitcoms, which include Modern Family, Parks and Recreations, Up All Night, and SNL.

There are definitely times that Sam will get his TV time and I don't feel like watching and vice versa. He really likes Tosh.0, Nova Science Now, Top Gear (the BBC version) and a bunch of random movies that I've never heard of. I, on the other hand, watch Parenthood and Glee armed with dessert and/or a box of tissues. I am also, thanks to my friend, Janet, a huge fan of BBC's Masterpiece Classic: Downton Abbey, which I watched the entire first series (the British version or our "season") in a matter of 24 hours. Sam doesn't know this yet, but he's watching the second series when it starts back up this January.

You might remember that earlier this year, Sam and I dropped our cable in an effort to save some dough, but then how is it that we're catching up on all of this small screen awesomeness, you might ask? We're now using a Roku 2, and subscriptions to Netflix and Hulu + to get our television fix. Cable was crazy expensive ($80+ month!), but we found that using Netflix and Hulu + allowed us to watch exactly what we want to watch on our schedule without spending Bonnie and Clyde's retirement. Netflix Streaming and Hulu+ costs about $15 a month, which, if you do the math, saves us about $780 a year !! Woot!

Happy Fall!

2011-10-21T11:15:00.002-04:00

Happy fall from Rachel & Sam!

Sorry I've been away for a bit. We hosted Oktoberfest a few weekends ago and then my world got turned upside down at work. Thankfully, all is well now. I'll be sure to update you soon on the work that's been done in the dining room and some killer recipes we used at Oktoberfest. Until then, I wanted to share a few pictures of Burke Lake where Sam and I went hiking during Columbus Day weekend.

Achooo!!! Oh great.

2011-10-04T23:28:00.000-04:00

I caught a cold. Woot. I blame the erratic weather that has plagued the DC metropolitan area for the past month. To up the awesome scale, our Oktoberfest is this weekend, which we have been really looking forward for the past few months. That's some excellent timing, cold. Thanks a heap.

Since its a cold and not the flu (silver lining), I am upping the fluid intake and the hours of sleep, while also avoiding other human beings til it passes. Good plan, right? The only thing that is taunting me like the Poe's "Tell Tale Heart" is the mile long to do list for this weekend.

Groceries/Food planning
~~Keg~~ Thankfully, Sam took care of this with the help of our friend, Kyle
Lawn needs to me mowed and edged
Make pretzels What was I thinking!?
Paint the trim in the dining room
Hang the shelves in the dining room
Find and wash all the serving platters that are packed in the basement
Vacuum and dust the Bonnie and Clyde fuzz that circulates through the house

Source: googlieyes.net

It will get done because I am a professional and Sam is an excellent shelf hanger/lawn edger. Wish us luck and if you're joining on this weekend - I promise I'll be better by then!

Monday night math

2011-09-19T22:48:00.000-04:00

Gaga + Martha Stewart's Rainwater + foam rollers = We started the dining room/Dance party with Bonnie and Clyde

Woot for the dining room being the next house project!! We're (I'm) super excited to get this room done. Sam's super excited to make me happy. The dining room has been a bit of a dumping ground since the move in May and I'm ready for a functional space (re: the rubbermaid bins are annoying the crap out of me.)

Moving day in the dining room. EEK!

Our goal is to have the dining room painted, the floating shelves up, and beer glasses displayed by our Oktoberfest party on the 8th. (Note: We haven't decided whether the floating shelves should be a DIY project or an Ikea/Bed, Bath, and Beyond purchase. The DIY route would totally be cheaper (yay!), but we're still working on the whole skill with tools thing. Also, we don't own a lot of power tools, which would likely help with that endeavor.* I think the 8th is a pretty reasonable goal, but then again, it took almost a month to complete the half bath and that wasn't even close to being as big as the dining room. Also, Sam-a-lam will be on a work trip soon... It's going to be tight, but I still think we can do it!

Oh and remember the gaping hole in the dining room ceiling? Yeah, it's still there. We got a quote from a general contractor that made me want to cry into my oatmeal. So Sam and I bought the supplies to patch the hole, which are gathering dust as we try to figure out whether or not we can fix it ourselves or if we need to call in reinforcements. I make no promises that the gaping hole will be gone by the 8th.

Yeah. Still here.

*Dear Bob and Jules (AKA Dad and Mom), I'd like a palm sander for Christmas this year. XO, Rach

Brainstorming our dining room

2011-09-07T22:36:00.000-04:00

I was chatting with my good friend, Carly, earlier this week about our next house project: the dining room! I was telling her my ideas of how I wanted it to reflect our love for craft beer by displaying our our expanding collection of beer glasses on floating shelves and clustering prints on brewing process over our side board. We discussed color choices, shades of green, and our mutual love of aqua. As I've organized my thoughts, I realized I need to edit my decor decisions very, very carefully, so that our dining room doesn't look like a dive bar, which could easily happen if I let myself go wild.

Here is what Sam and I are thinking:

Colors: All paint swatches from Decorati.com

Benjamin Moore Harbor Fog

Benjamin Moore Harbor Haze

Benjamin Moore - Wythe Blue

Benjamin Moore Sweet Dreams

Benjamin Moore Spring Mint

Floating shelves:

Source

Wall Art Set-up and Concept:

Stacey Vaeth Photography

Of course, this is all conceptual right now and we're at least a weekend or two away from getting started. Also, there is still a gaping hole in the ceiling that we still need to deal with. . . details. What do you think? Am I on the right page? Is a craft beer inspired dining room tacky? Inquiring minds need to know!

San Diego: A Ten Year Reunion

2011-09-05T22:28:00.000-04:00

Friends and Fam,

It has been ten years since I graduated from Northern Adirondack Central School in upstate New York. To celebrate the momentous occasion, I travelled to San Deigo to spend some quality time with my dearest friends from high school. Here are a few highlights from my trip:

Reunited and it feels so good!

23 years of friendship

The nephew and I were self actualizing at the Self Realization Garden

Playing at the Pacific

Captain Morgan's School of Surf - Session two for Bridg

Winners.

Stylin' as per usual

Safety first! The message stuck since Mama Moldi's chem class

My girls <3

Happy 10 years, ladies! We've come so far, but no matter the miles between us, you'll always feel like home to me. Can't wait for next year's "sexy-fine 29" reunion!

xo, Rach

Mission Completed: Half Bath Edition

2011-09-05T22:07:00.000-04:00

The half bath is done! Finally. I was waiting for the door to be back on the frame before posting. Now that its up, I can say that the project was finito. This project, our first painting project in the house, kinda dragged on. It took two days to paint the walls, ceiling and trim, a few weeks to spackle and paint the area where the old, faux bronze toilet paper holder was on the wall, and then another two weeks to paint and rehang the door. Without further ado, take a look at the finished project:

Here are the colors we chose:
Walls: Martha Stewart's Sea Glass in a semi-gloss finish (1/2 gallon. That's right, there are leftovers!)
Trim: Martha Stewart's Opal in a semi-gloss finish (1/2 quart. I think we'll use this color on the trim throughout the house.)
Ceiling: Martha Stewart's Spring Melt in a flat finish (1/4 quart. So yeah, we have leftovers on this one, too. It's a subtle and pretty minty green color. I definitely need to find another spot to use it.)

All the finishing touches, with exception to my latest crafty project were picked up from Ikea. Ahhh, I love the smell of Swedish savings in the morning.

Kolja Mirror - $9.99

Limmaren soap dish - $9.99 (with back-ups for other bathrooms, too!)

Grundtal TP holder - $4.99

Frajen hand towels - $3.99 each

What do you think? Overall, I'm pretty excited about how the bathroom turned out. The only thing I am questioning right now is the wall art, which is not scaled well to the rest of the room. I might shift one of the states over, so that Georgia and New York are hanging together and then hang a pretty botanical print or a frame a picture that we have taken in an open space. We'll see. Other than that, I LOVE the color and am trying to refrain from painting the entire house in Martha's sea mist. Variety can be good, Rach. (Aqua is my fave and I can't help wanting to see it everywhere.)

Breaking down the dollars and cents - The paint was about $50 total, but thankfully, we have enough left over to do another small room. Woot! Also, the finishing touches were less than $27. I'm really hoping we can fix up the rest of the rooms in the house for under $100, too!

Next up - The dining room! Think floating shelves, fancy beer glasses, and more DIY art projects!

Gettin' crafty on a Saturday: Love for our home states

2011-08-20T14:47:00.000-04:00

I picked up two 8x10 frames at Ikea a few weeks ago with the plan that I would hang some sweet prints from Etsy in our 1/2 bathroom that we've been working on. While playing on Pinterest, I came across this image of Arizona and Louisiana that was gifted to a couple for their wedding.

The project I found on Pinterest

I immediately fell in love with the print and started searching Etsy for similar state love prints for New York and Georgia, which ran from about $15-$30. I found a few that I liked, but none seemed to pop out at me and none made me want to actually pull the trigger and purchase. So I sat on the idea and waited while occasionally going back to the cute image that I pinned a few weeks ago.

This morning, while staring longingly at the print, I decided to click the link to see where this image came from beyond the world of Pinterest, which took me to the tutorial on how the girls that created the print made it. They made it and they were providing me with instructions on how to make one, too! Mind blown!

I read through the instructions and realized I literally had all of the supplies to make this print. (Thank you, crafty wedding!) A zero cost project!! (With exception to the two frames that were $4.99 a piece, but like I said, I bought them a few weeks ago, so the cost wasn't weighing heavily on me.

Our wedding favor boxes

How I did it: I found outline maps of Georgia and New York on the internets and printed them out on white 4.5x6.25 card stock that I had leftover from the wedding. Using my Exacto knife from my art class in college and my $1 cutting mat that I picked up a year ago, I carefully cut along the inside of the borders. Then, I cut some craft paper-colored card stock in half to use as the background for the image. I centered each state over the card stock and picture matting that came with the frame and glued it down using my glue stick. Then, I inked the small left over hearts from my paper punch heart that was used in our wedding truffle boxes with ruby red ink pad and glued them down where the Albany and Atlanta are supposed to be on the map. Then I just popped them each into a frame. They're ready to be hung in the 1/2 bathroom, which I'll finally reveal later this weekend.

A little Georgia and New York love

Teensy tiny hearts

What do you think? I'm kinda in love with them! It was so simple to do, as well. Both states took me less than 30 minutes from start to finish. Le sigh. They also might become a new go-to wedding or house warming present for our friends and family. Lucky ducks!

Our tomato baby

2011-08-18T21:55:00.000-04:00

I think he looks like Sam.

That's right, folks. We grew a tomato and he's all ours!

Earlier this week, my dad came to stay with us after bringing the little sister back to DC for school. We took him on a tour to show him changes we have made since his last visit.* I brought him back to the garden to show him my tomatoes and herbs and this baby was waiting for us. Isn't he beautiful?! I'm not even a huge fan of tomatoes and I am bursting with pride. Here is Sally Tomato**, the first thing we grew in our garden. He's sitting in our kitchen now. I keep staring at him and turning him over in my hands and telling him I'm so happy he came to be our food.

*Dad stayed the night a few months ago when he came to pick up the little sister from school. However, we hadn't moved in when we gave him the tour, so he saw the blank canvas.

**Name the movie reference. It's been one of my favorites since I was a wee, awkward teenager.

A busy little Sunday

2011-08-07T22:32:00.000-04:00

Usually when you sleep til 10 am, the tone for your day is set and to be clear, we had a very slow start to our morning. We ambled downstairs and took our time making blueberry pancakes. (I learned from my British cookbook that what Americans consider pancakes, the Brits call drop scones. Interesting, huh!) Sam cleaned up the kitchen and I went upstairs to get dressed, realizing we should probably be a little more productive with our day. . . So we changed our tune and the rest of the day went something like this:

Watch episode of Top Gear/Research painting techniques.
Put together the double bed in the guest bedroom in anticipation of the box spring being delivered this week and my sister and nephew coming to visit.
Sam: Workout. Rachel: Drive to Home Depot for painting supplies.
Eat homemade spicy broccoli corn chowder with tortilla chips.
Remove all hardware and door of the half bath on the first floor and then tape off trim.
Paint two coats of Martha Stewart's Sea Mist in the half bath. (Post to come soon)
Rachel: Clean painting supplies. Sam: Start 5 loads of laundry.
Make egg sandwiches for dinner.
Fold laundry and watch Anthony Bourdain in New Zealand.
Sam: Research flights to New Zealand. (Expensive!) Rachel: Clean kitchen.
Write thank you notes.

We both kind of realized that this may have been one of our most productive days in a very long time. I'm glad we got motivated. I hate going into work on Mondays and realizing that most of our weekend was spent doing nothing. Not tomorrow though! Tomorrow, I will be sore and happy from everything we got accomplished.

Very happy news!

2011-08-06T09:10:00.000-04:00

So we have news! Before you get your hopes up, the news is not wee ones. Bonnie and Clyde are about all we can handle for the time being.

Actually, we're taking a second honeymoon to Paris!!

Do you remember when we were honeymoon planning? Sam was planning a honeymoon in Paris, but our ducks were not in a row last fall and we decided to postpone our trip. . . until now!* Sam and I were commuting home from DC about a month ago when he blurted out that he wanted to take me to Paris and he felt bad that we didn't go on our honeymoon. He said he wanted to see the look in my eyes when I see Sacre Coeur, the Mona Lisa, and the Tour d' Eiffel. He couldn't wait to sit in cafe's with me and eat magnificent food and people watch for hours. After looking at him like he was crazy (Hello, we did just buy a house! How are we supposed to afford a trip to Paris?!), I relented that if we could find the "right" trip for us (re: budget friendly/this is our Christmas present and birthday presents to each other for the next EVER.), I'd be all in. It's not every day that a girl's husband plans a trip to Paris, right?

Sam started searching travel sites with a vengeance looking for deals. He'd call me at lunch and tell me about a trip to London and Paris for 6 nights and then there was a trip to Paris and Rome for 5 nights. We could stay in Montmartre near the famed Moulin Rouge and trace the steps of Amelie. We could do walking tours and pick up a baguette, some fruit, and cheese along the way. He found all the big brasseries that serve the Belgian-style beers we like. He started looking for trips in November and December and said "Imagine Christmas in Europe, Rach!" (Do you see why I married this kid?!)

Sam found a trip to Paris over New Years! Using Go-Today.com, he booked six nights and seven days in the City of Lights for $2300, which includes our roundtrip flights from Dulles to Charles De Gaulle and hotel. We're staying in Montmartre and plan on taking a day trip to Versailles. We'll visit la Louvre and les Invalides. We'll likely butcher the French language and try and pull from our high school and college French classes to order meals. If you couldn't tell, we're very excited about our second honeymoon.

Moving forward, we're going to plan to see as much as we can and since we have 7 days, we're hoping to take our time and enjoy the sights slowly, like a good Parisian holiday should. Also, we refuse to look the part of tourists, so I am starting our shoe shopping now. It will likely be pretty cold while we're there, so we need walking shoes/boots and socks that will keep our feet warm, yet stylish, so as not to give our American-ness away. We'll let our French language skills do that for us!

*Note: I loved our honeymoon. We had a fabulous 10 days touring American craft breweries in the northeast. We got to see the leaves peak on one of the most gorgeous drives you can imagine, stay in charming B&Bs, catch up with wonderful friends, and taste some of the best craft brews available. It was a very us trip.

We have tomatoes!

2011-07-24T10:11:00.000-04:00

Tomatoes - Day 1

Remember a few weeks ago, I told you about our tomato plants that were housewarming gifts from our friends, Kyle and Beth. Well despite the suffocating heatwave, our tomatoes have made an appearance! (There is nothing like temps being consistently over 100 with a heat index around 121 to make you want to never leave your air conditioned house EVER.)

The plants are doing everything they can to escape the wire cages

Our first tomato!

And another one!

There are about three tomatoes on the plants right now that are no where near ripe, but Sam and I are excited that we actually grew something. Apparently, we have green thumbs! Who knew?!

A gaping hole that makes me happy. . . weird

2011-07-23T10:02:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago, Sam asked me to come downstairs around 11 pm with a sound of concern, "Rach, can you come look at this?" As a new homeowner, I will tell you, that is not a question you want to hear. I walked into our dining room to see Sam standing on a chair inspecting the ceiling, which looked soft and bloated. "Well that's not good." Sam carefully reached up to test the dry wall and his finger poked right through. Crap. Our first house emergency. We figured leaky pipes were the problem, but we weren't sure who to call or what to do. So we did what any reasonable new homeowners would do, we emailed all of our home owning friends and our realtor, Ann, whom we both decided knows everything there is to know about problems found around the house.

The next morning, I checked my inbox and Ann responded to our email at 2 am. Did I mention that she's awesome. She told us she'd call us in the morning, but to call our warrantee company because plumbing issues should be covered. When she called, she discussed how we could diagnose the problem by opening up our master bath and guest bath plumbing panels, put some paper towels under the pipes, and run water over the different hardware in our fixtures in the tub. If there is damage to the pipe, the paper towel would get wet. Smart thinking.

We took out the plumbing panels next to the the tub fixtures in the master and guest bathrooms and were baffled. Nothing was wet. Nothing looked like it had been wet recently. Also, the ceiling was still soft but it didn't look as bad as it had the night before. WTF house. What exactly were you trying to tell us?

Thankfully, the warrantee company sent a plumber that week and he cut a hole into our ceiling. What did he find? Nothing. Woot!

Actually, he found that there had been a crack in one of the master bathroom pipes, but it was repaired before. The drywall, however, hadn't been replaced, which was what led to our predicament. The warrantee company is supposed to come back soon to fix the hole, which means we'll be back to 100 percent soon.

So long story short, we paid $100 to the warrantee company to put a hole in our ceiling and tell us nothing is wrong, which we think is awesome.

Hey front yard, I dig you

2011-07-17T13:48:00.000-04:00

No literally. I've been digging you all morning and my back and hands, oddly, are killing me.

Sam and I debated taking another long walk around the lake this morning, but I had my eyes on another prize--our ivy infested front yard. We bought some topsoil and grass seed yesterday, because we have big plans of leveling out the front yard and growing some grass.

The sad front yard

You can't really tell from this photo the realtor posted, but the lawn on the right side of our walkway was dipping towards our foundation when we bought the house, which is a big no-no in the case of a lot of rain. It was also kinda covered in ferns and weeds that made it look sad and pitiful. I am my mother's daughter and I refuse to have a pitiful garden/lawn. So we bought topsoil at $1.98 a bag from Home Depot. At first, we had no idea how many bags we would need. Four? Ten? 42.9? I think we started off with five when this project started, then we bought seven more a few weeks later, and yesterday, we bought eight more. (Quick note, five of the last eight are for the other side of the walkway). Yup, 20 bags of dirt for our teensy, front yard! We came to realize, our little front yard had a big dip to fill and it took a lot more dirt then we originally thought.

Sammy breaking up the topsoil

A much more level front yard

We're also having issues with the other side of our walkway. Ivy. Lots of ivy.

I had already started digging this mess up before
I realized I hadn't taken a before picture

This was a blood, sweat, and tears-type of dig. Ivy is one of those "plants" that folks who don't want to deal with their lawns plant, resulting in a deep-rooted infestation. I was up to the challenge though. I wanted a grassy front lawn and I was going to do my best to get it. So I grabbed my bug spray, gardening gloves, hand tools, and shovel and went to town digging and cutting.

Once it was all said and done (about an hour later), I surveyed my hard work and thought long and hard before I decided not to put the five additional bags of topsoil down. . . .yet. I don't want the ivy to come back, which means we're headed back to Home Depot for a solution that will destroy what roots remain. Believe me. I got most of it, but how much would it hurt to get the topsoil and grass seed down and get some grass growing, and then have it destroyed by the evil ivy. Arrgh!

So, more to come. We're going to spread the grass seed on the larger side of the walkway and get the ivy root solution down ASAP.

Post-dig. The shovel is beat.

Another view of the carnage.

The perpetrators

Nothing says Happy Fourth like zucchini and eggplant pizzas, right?!

2011-07-04T21:43:00.000-04:00

Happy birthday, America! I love the Fourth of July. It's my favorite holiday. I love fireworks, parades, bbqs, sparklers, watermelon. . . mmmmm

As a child, my extended family used to get together at my grandparents' house on Lake Champlain to celebrate with food and games. My mom always brought the best sparklers that we would wave around trying to spell our names/not poke each other. When darkness fell, we'd pile onto the dock and watch the fireworks on both the Plattsburgh and Burlington-sides of Lake Champlain. It was awesome!

Sam and I usually take to the Iwo Jima Memorial to watch the DC fireworks, which in the past five years, have never failed to make me "oooooh" like a tourist. It's something quite special to watch the fireworks in our nation's capital. If you ever get the chance, check out the DC festivities.

This year, Sam and I are laying low. Despite my love for fireworks, its the end of my vacation and our day starts early tomorrow. So instead, we're watching documentaries on US history and eating zucchini and eggplant pizzas and our homemade sorbet.

I would never have thought to make pizzas using eggplant and zucchinis, but I saw this bad boy on Pinterest and was salivating hard for some melty cheese pizza that's healthy because its made with veggies. The zucchini and eggplant pizzas were super easy to make. I used one eggplant and one medium-sized zucchini. I cut each into 1/2 inch slices, brushed a thin layer of olive oil on each side and then baked them on cookie sheets for 12 minutes at 350 degrees. Once baked, I layered each piece of eggplant with pesto and mozzarella cheese and the zucchini with tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese. Then each sheet went under the broiler until the cheese was bubbling.

Survey says?

12 minutes wasn't enough time in the oven. They were cooked, but only just so. I think I'll push for 15 next time. I was also kinda hoping it would be a melt in your mouth sort of meal that doesn't make me miss pizza with a crust. This felt like health food, which isn't bad, but don't call something pizza and pretend that its a substitute for the real deal.

Needs more cheese :)

Berry Mint Sorbet: Shut the front door! It's that good

2011-07-04T09:14:00.000-04:00

Hey friends! It's been a busy week in our fam. I headed home to the North Country to celebrate my grandparents' 65th wedding anniversary and catch up with family and friends for a few days. (That's right, folks! I took some vacation! I took my camera, too, and then left it in my bag for my entire trip. Nice, Rach.) Sam-a-lam held down the fort making sure Bonnie and Clyde and our tomatoes were fed.

On my way home from my adventure in the North, I had a layover in Philly with my sister, brother-in-law, and precious nephew. I took advantage of this layover to raid their garden for mint. I had lofty plans of making a mint simple syrup for mojitos or mint sorbet, which quickly evolved into raspberry mint sorbet and then later into a berry sorbet.

I chose the berry sorbet because I was looking for a healthy, summery dessert and a reason to use our KitchenAid ice cream attachment. I did some shmoogling for a recipe and checked out my internet standards (Epicurious, FoodNetwork.com, Smitten Kitchen). My searches were close, but no cigar. The closest I found to a berry mint sorbet was Giada De Laurentis's pomegranate and mint sorbet. I needed to improvise, so I worked some recipe magic and did some adjustments to make the best darn berry mint sorbet known to man. (I swear its that good.)

Ingredients and Instructions

Mint simple syrup

sugar - 2 cups
mint - 2 cups
water - 2 cups

Mix water, sugar, and mint in a pot and bring to a boil over medium heat. Once the sugar boils, cut the heat and let the simple syrup cool. Once the simple syrup is cooled, use a sieve or a slotted spoon to strain the mint out of the syrup and toss it

Berry mixture

raspberries (fresh or frozen) - 2 cups (For some reason, the gro sto near us ran out of berries, so we used frozen. No biggie)
blackberries (fresh or frozen) - 1 cup
apple juice - 2-4 cups - enough to help puree your berries into a thick liquid. This will vary based on whether you're using fresh of frozen berries

Put the berries and the apple juice into a blender and puree until you get a thick liquid. If you're using frozen berries, this will take a little longer. Have a spoon handy to stir it up as you go

Stir the cooled mint simple syrup into your berry mixture. (This was when I took my first taste. It was awesome. Just enough mint and sweetness to not overpower the berries)

Set up your ice cream maker. Again, we have the KitchenAid attachment, but I know a lot of folks use the CuisineArt one. To each his own. Just read the instructions. In a lot of cases, you may have to put ice cream maker in the freezer overnight to use it. We just keep ours in the freezer for when I am inspired to make homemade ice cream or sorbet, like this weekend

I poured our berry mint mixture into the ice cream maker, which was set on stir, and then let it go for about 15 minutes. It was thicker, but still a little liquidy when the 15 minutes were up, so I put the softened sorbet into an air tight container (1 quart) and dropped it in the freezer for a few hours. I then scraped the sides of the ice cream maker, where the sorbet was a bit thicker, and dropped it in a bowl for taste testing. Amazing! About five hours later, the berry mint sorbet the freezer was hardened and ready to go; just in time for dessert!

So I am feeling pretty good about this recipe. The berry mint sorbet came out oh-so refreshing and totally worth the wait. I honestly don't think I would change a thing. If you give it a shot, let me know what you think! :)

Don't you think the mint garnish distracts you from noticing my scooping skills are crappy?
Of course, I just mentioned it. . .

Happy Father's Day!

2011-06-19T08:38:00.000-04:00

To our dads, we hope you have a great day!

Love, Sam and Rachel

Hydrangea update

2011-06-18T21:52:00.000-04:00

Our hydrangeas are growing fast! Feast your eyes on our purple and pink lovelies!

(Warning: Gratuitous hydrangea images below.)

Happy eight month birthday to our nephew!

2011-06-18T10:22:00.000-04:00

We went to Philly last weekend to spend some time with my sister, brother in law, and nephew. We haven't been up to Philly since February, when our nephew was only four months old. Fast forward to now and today is his eight month birthday! (Happy birthday, buddy!!)

Exploring?

Chillin with Uncle Sam

He loves his mommy

I call this one his George Costanza pose...

poopy diaper - score!

I love when he scrinches up his face

"You look like my mommy. I like you."

It took four attempts to get this picture. My nephew is a mover and a shaker

We're also very excited because we have more family in the Philly area! Sam's sister and her boyfriend moved just 15 miles from my sister and her family, which means we get extra family time when we travel to the area!

Ikea: My neck and shoulders thank you

2011-06-18T09:53:00.000-04:00

After five days of sleeping on the floor and still mourning the loss of our box spring, my neck and shoulders decided we needed a solution (e.g. a new bed.) We woke up bright and early last Sunday and drove to Ikea in search of relief in the form on Swedish furniture. I was probably more excited than Sam to go, but it was his first trip to the land of allen wrenches, pine, and meatballs, so I wanted to make the most of it. In order to fuel ourselves for the excursion, I brought Sam up to the cafe, where he indulged in the Belgian waffles with coffee and I sat down with the "Big Breakfast" of eggs, hash browns, french toast sticks, and bacon.* Breakfast cost us a whopping of $6.47 and was subsequently free because we spent over $100. Woot-a-loop!

Once we finished breakfast, I introduced Sam to the showroom floor. We looked at a few couches and TV stands before we made it to the land of bedroom furniture. We checked a few beds out and then debated whether we should just buy a split box spring. In the end, we weren't interested in searching out a mattress store to find a new box spring and we weren't ready to break the bank on a fancy pants bed, so we chose Engen, a platform bed for $150:

It had everything we needed and wanted in a bed, clean and modern lines, back and neck support, and it didn't cost us a fortune. Ikea beds, like Engen, require bed slats, which set us back $40, but in the end, we were ok with that because I could barely turn my head without pain and what's $40 when relief is in sight.

We also picked up some other odds and ends during our trip, including a recycling bin, a mirror for the half bathroom, toilet brushes, shower squeegees, a tray, and a kitchen cart. The kitchen cart was not on our shopping list and was a kind of a hasty purchase, but I don't regret it. Our food processor weighs just short of a ton and taking it out of a lower cabinet every time we wanted to shred, chop, or puree some food, which is often, was not ideal. Enter Bekvam, the $60 kitchen cart:

It's a great size and just the kitchen solution we needed.

For the record, Sam is not a power shopper. So, I knew we had to shop with purpose and we did! We made it in and out of Ikea in less than an hour, which included breakfast. Queen's We are the Champions was playing on the radio when we started the car. It was one of those perfect moments.

Fast forward to an hour later and Sam and I broke out our philips head screwdrivers and went to town on the new additions to our household.

We also may have broken out Ommegang's Belgian-style Pale Ale BPA to help us through the weary task of reading IKEA instructions.

Look at that Belgian lace. Delicious!

Feast your eyes on our handy work:

Ready to be sanded and stained. . . later

The food processor's new home

I know you can't really see it, but at least its not on the ground

Both projects took us each about an hour, which made for an uber-productive Sunday.

*I cheated on the veggie rules. I don't feel bad. Bacon is delicious.

Hangin out in the back yard

2011-06-05T17:19:00.000-04:00

The heat wave that brought 95 degree plus weather finally broke in DC, which means we spent Saturday morning in the backyard.

For brunch, I made sandwiches with a whole wheat baguette, homemade pesto, vine-ripened tomatoes, and some delicious fresh mozzarella. I also brewed some Moroccan Mint iced tea to serve with our meal that we took outside on my new tray from Ikea (Last week was a failed adventure in eating outside/carrying multiple objects across the house to the backyard, which would have easily been solved with a tray. Enter the $10 Ikea tray to solve all of my multitasking problems. Woot!)

Our backyard is definitely a work in progress. There are cement pavers that are difficult to mow around, a hydrangea bush that is too big for the backyard, and no real flat space to put a table and chairs or grill (not that we have any of those things yet.)

We have been working to put our own personal touches in the yard. Our friends, Kyle and Beth, brought me some tomato plants and some herbs to start gardening in the backyard. It required a fair amount of sweat and digging, but the tomato plants are in the ground! I have to do some more digging to get the herbs in a happy place, but for now they are keeping the tomatoes company.

Our hydrangeas next to the shed are starting to bloom, which I am really looking forward to watching. Unfortunately, the larger of the two is out of scale with the rest of the backyard, so this fall I am going to trim it back and hope for the best next year. Hopefully by then my Mom and her green thumb will be able to offer us some sage advice on how to make our garden grow/not take over our mini yard)

Note to self - Don't go overboard with the drill

2011-05-31T10:19:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the jungle. . .

2011-05-30T21:24:00.000-04:00

Or the house. Same thing. I wanted to give you a quick look into the chaos that has been moving into our first house. This isn't HGTV. Please excuse the mess. . .

When you first enter the house, the kitchen is to your right. This is the room I tackled first. I didn't want to spend the week eating out, because our money tree didn't make the move, so I knew I had to get the kitchen set up if we were going to be eating homemade lunches and dinners. Thankfully, less than a week later, the boxes are out of the kitchen, but that's the another post.

Bonnie loves unpacking.

The view from our kitchen windows usually involves squirrels. We later set up some chairs next to the windows so Bonnie and Clyde could check out their new ~~prey~~ friends.

Once you get through the kitchen, you arrive in the dining room. Yeah, that's our boxspring acting as wall art. It didn't fit up the stairs on moving day. Hello, Craiglist!

The dining room looks out on the Sea of Boxes/living room. Half of the boxes are books, which simultaneously makes me feel smart for being well-read, yet stupid for lugging them around. I'm looking forward to taking advantage of our public library very soon.

Check out those B-E-A-U-tiful "bookshelves" the seller gifted/left us. They are a lovely shade of faux wood veneer. They are going to Craiglist as an OBO. . . maybe even free. Seriously, they can just go. We were also bummed, yet kinda not surprised, that the leather sleeper sofa didn't make it down to the finished basement. (Too big.) We wanted to make the basement into an entertainment area/guest bedroom because there is a full bathroom in the basement, which would give our guests a lot of privacy.

This is the half bath on the main level. The seller took the mirror. We apologize to our guests, you won't be able to check if there is something in your teeth without venturing to another floor.

Once you travel upstairs, you see the office/third bedroom on the left. For now, its a dumping ground.

Another view of the office and Sam's grandfather's desk and dresser. A week later, I think the smoke detector is still there. We might need a ladder to actually install the smoke detectors throughout the house. Ah, the beauty of high ceilings.

At the end of the hall is the second/guest bathroom upstairs. I'm very proud of myself because I went to World Market with two $10 coupons and purchased the shower curtain, some hand towels, and the bath mat to insert some punches of color.

Next to the bathrooom is the guest/second bedroom. Its another dumping ground right now, but I look forward to sprucing this space up once we get the bed set up. Although, we need to order a full-sized box spring first.

Welcome to our master bedroom, which was and still is in a sad state. Our mattress remained on the floor for five days until we made it to Ikea to pick up a platform bed this past weekend. We have been very slow at setting up this space. With exception to the new bed, it still looks like a hot mess.

Welcome to the master vanity/countertop - Sam was very happy to let me use this space to get ready in the morning. He wants to get me a chair to make it fancy. I told him I can stand up, but he's sweet, huh?

This is the master bath. Every day around 5:45 am, I walk in and my bathroom says, "Good morning, sunshine!" Yes, that is the brightest yellow tile known to man. Also, I like to refer to that showerhead as the cannon.

This is the master bedroom nook, AKA the place where boxes go to die, luggage, and clothing.

I thought I took more pictures to document the chaos, but perhaps they are just seared into my brain and not my memory card. I'm happy to report that things have improved, but we have a lot of settling to do before this place transitions from chaos to homey. I'll keep you posted. Pictures of the new bed and other projects to come.

Home Owners - Day 1

2011-05-24T20:44:00.000-04:00

Today was the big move. Like all big things in life, we had a few minor hiccups:

We lost Clyde. Seriously. As soon as the movers left, Clyde disappeared. Do you know how difficult it is to scan a house filled with boxes for a tiny black and white kitty? We turned rooms and boxes upside down searching for him. I was so worried that he got scared and ran outside (indoor cat = worst possible scenario.) After scouring inside and outside of the house for 30 minutes, I found him hiding under/between small box and the wall in our office. I was and am so so relieved that he is all right.
The box spring for our bed doesn't fit upstairs. We had no intentions of buying a new bed any time soon, but it appears we'll be making a trip to Ikea this weekend to find a platform bed for our queen mattress. We're sleeping on the floor til then. *This was the part of the day that I started seeing the revolving $$$ adding up in front of me.
We spent $50 to not fill the gas tank. Sam and I bought a car the day we closed on the house. I know, we're crazy, but we couldn't get to the house without it. With all of the driving in between the apartment and the house, we used up almost all of the 1/2 a tank the car had when we bought it. Sam came home and told me that it cost $50 to fill .9 of the tank. More $$$.
The couch didn't fit in the basement. Huge womp womp moment. We had lofty plans of making the leather sleeper sofa the main piece of furniture in the finished basement. We imagined our families visiting and having them sleep in the basement, where there is also a finished bathroom, so they could have some privacy. Not today, unfortunately. The movers took light fixtures out and doors, but there was no way the couch was budging through the hallway.
We still don't have access to our mail. We're hoping to get this resolved this week.
There is a snake that likes to take naps in front of our basement window. It's large and in charge. Ugh!

On a more positive note:

I'd say the kitchen is almost entirely unpacked! Woot! It took me the better part of the afternoon, but I'm happy to say the cabinets and drawers are full and the counter space is sprawling.
Bonnie and Clyde are very content to sit in front of the sliding glass window and stare out into the backyard. They seem way more peaceful tonight than the cry babies we drove over to the house this morning.
It's 8:30 pm and I am going to go to bed. I'm completely exhausted from last weeks activities, traveling this past weekend, and then moving once we got back into town. I'm a poor sleeper when under stress, but I've got my fingers crossed that tonight is the night I get a full night of sleep.

Pictures soon!

Signing your savings away tomorrow? Have a cold one on me.

2011-05-15T21:52:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow, we celebrate two momentous occasions; first, Sam and I close on our house (EEK!) and second, it is the first day of American Craft Beer Week! Serendipitous, non?!

I'll probably pick up some delicious IPAs tomorrow to celebrate the momentous occasions and since I don't think Sam will have read this post yet, it'll be a nice surprise for him :)

I hope you and yours will be able to get out and share a great American beer this week. If you need suggestions, let us know! Also, whatever your drinking, feel free to toast Sam's and my leap into the home-ownership/the poor house. . . kidding. . . kinda.

Our wedding beer glasses

Munnkins Ale - Nuptial Bliss

I feel like we just did this. . .

2011-05-13T21:46:00.000-04:00

Packing. Ugh.

We started packing last weekend. The rubbermaid bins are filled with random whatnots, the linen closet is packed, DVDs are in a box. . .somewhere, and probably most interesting and hard to believe, the beer glasses are bubble wrapped and ready to be transported to the new house. Weird, right?! I definitely thought those would be the last to go until I realized Sam kept his Dogfish Head glass in the cabinet, so he's covered for the next week and a half. The area behind our sofa is piled high with boxes and we've barely made a dent. Note to self, unmarried couples, when you get married, you get stuff. A lot of it. Write that down.

We have more packing/cleaning/preparing for Closing/kissing our savings account goodbye planned for this weekend, which will be pretty time consuming and slightly stressful. However, we do have some fun planned; my sister's boyfriend, Brendan, is graduating from GWU this weekend. He is getting ready to do Teach for America in LA teaching math to high school students. We couldn't be more happy and excited for him, unless of course he wasn't moving across the country... :(

Getting our nom nom nom on before the move

2011-05-13T21:37:00.000-04:00

Status update - T minus 11 days til the move. T minus 6 days til we head to Georgia for our friends' wedding. That's right, friends. We have only 6 days to eat through our pantry and fridge. As a result, I've done some crazy meal planning to get us through a lot of the food in our pantry and fridge before the move on the 24th.

~~Chana masala (garbanzo beans in a tikka masala sauce) and grits~~ Amazingly, I made this at 6:30 am and got our lunches packed for the day. There was enough for leftovers, too! (I know what your thinking and yes, this is what mornings look like in our household. . . )
Eggplant, ricotta, and basil and whole wheat lasagna roll-ups - I think this one is particularly brilliant and I thank the Olive Garden and Rosemary Thyme Bistro for the inspiration
~~Paprika-seasoned egg salad with celery~~ Delicious
Roasted red pepper hummus - I'm calling this packing food and its going to power us through packing up the kitchen and bedroom this weekend (Thanks, Lauren B!)
~~Lemon, green peppper, and cucumber pasta salad with whole wheat elbow macaroni~~ 4 servings down and 3 more to go
Mahi Mahi tacos - this might be ambitious given our time constraints. . .
Strawberry-mango smoothies for breakfasts (Emphasis on the strawberries, which are 3 for $5 at Harris Teeter right now.)

Foods I am struggling with

Cream Cheese - Why did I buy two bricks of cream cheese within a month of our move?! Stupid 10 for $10 sales. I feel like an extreme couponer. . . ok, maybe not. Running to get bagels in the morning.
Spinach - I have about 3/4 of a bag of spinach that I am determined to eat

Ideas I just came up with (literally seconds ago)

Spinach artichoke dip - Cream cheese, spinach, can of artichokes in the pantry, ton of mozzarella cheese in the cheese drawer. . . I think wonderful things under pressure. Sorry bagels!

So I recognize that a lot of our food will likely make the move with us, but the less I have to deal with on moving day, the absolute better. Plus, this is the most cooking I've done in weeks and the results have been quite positive. Sam sent me a very nice text yesterday telling me how excited he was about the grits and chana masala. What can I say? I know what my honey likes.

Did we forget to mention

2011-04-16T00:47:00.000-04:00

I guess we never officially announced that the house appraised, did we? It appraised and we're set to close on May 16th! The movers have been booked for May 24th. Big news, right? There has yet to be a day that goes by that we don't have a "Holy sh*t! We bought a house!" moment.

The lawn needs work, huh? DAD!!! jk

My sister commented the other day on how "adult" Sam and I are now because we are buying a house. I don't feel very "adult", just more in debt. My sister, on the other hand, is a new mom, which I think is the epitome of "adult". She explained that there is a big difference, though:

"Anyone can get pregnant and have a kid. Banks only give houses to adults."

I guess that means we are crossing over to uncharted territory. . .

Take it easy. . .

2011-04-16T00:32:00.000-04:00

Thanks for the advice, The Eagles. I'm working on it.

I went to the doctor about two weeks ago for my annual check-up. Things were going fine until we got to my blood pressure reading. Normally, I am a 110 over 60 type of girl, which is a good place to be. However, during this visit, I came in at 156 over 86. (Pre-hypertension levels. Yikes!) This gave the nurse and I reason to scratch our heads. She asked me if my blood pressure was normally that high and if I had been stressed lately. Stressed? Well there was the wedding, holidays, a crazy awful six months at work, oh and buying a house. . . So yeah, stressed might be an understatement.

How did I let it get to this? I didn't realize I was that stressed out. I strongly believe that your body finds ways to cope with stress and it will manage what you throw at it and give you signals when it's time to take a break. My high blood pressure reading was my body's way of telling me to take a vacay from the stress. So I talked to some family and friends and did a little research to come up with ways to lower my stress-levels.

Escaping "the Cube" - One of the perks of working for the government is a flex schedule. I've been working 9 hour days to reach my 80 hours per pay period in nine days as opposed to ten. This allowed me to have a three day weekend every other week, which was awesome. Shocking as it may be to some of you, but working for the government doesn't always mean leaving early/on time. For the past six months my 9 hours per day quickly turned into late nights and weekends. I refer to it as my epic battle with "the Cube" and unfortunately, "The Cube" has been winning. So I'm changing up my schedule. I'm hoping the 80 hours over ten days as opposed to nine will result in higher productivity and less late nights. Fingers crossed.
No mas caffeine - Sorry 2 pm slump; I've given up d. coke. Studies go either way regarding the impact of caffeine on blood pressure, but I'm not taking any chances. I'll have to head bob my way through the afternoon, or take a walk away from "the Cube".
Long walks and classes at the gym - I have started walking home from work a few days a week. The six miles gives me the opportunity to clear my thoughts and take a break from home and work. On days that I don't walk home, I can take classes at the gym at work.
Share, Baby - Sam knows I have a lot on my plate and its been taking its toll on me, so he has offered to help me out in different ways, like scheduling our movers, cleaning up around the apartment, and making dinner a few times a week.
Stop planning stressful things - Actually, I don't have as much control over this, but advanced planning helps. Knowing is half the battle.

So that's what I'm working with. Some are small changes. Some are big-ish. All seem pretty manageable. Looking forward, things should be much calmer, especially now that the risk of a government shutdown is over. (Phew!) I'm curious to know how other people manage their stress. Any ideas on some easy changes I can make to keep the BP down?

Holy delicious dinner, Batman! Linguine with Spring Vegetables

2011-04-04T20:18:00.000-04:00

Martha, you are too good to me. Today, my google reader pulled up a meal that I knew we were eating for dinner before I even looked at the recipe - Linguine and Spring Vegetables!

This dinner was as easy to make as it was delicious. You only need one pot, which makes clean-up a breeze and its done in less than 30 minutes, so its great for a weeknight meal.

Ingredients (My revisions to the recipe are in italics.)

Coarse salt and ground pepper

3/4 pound linguine (We used whole wheat linguine.)

1 pound asparagus (tough ends removed), cut into 1-inch lengths

1 medium zucchini, halved lengthwise (quartered if large) and thinly sliced

4 ounces sugar snap peas (stem ends trimmed), halved

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 tablespoon butter, cut into pieces (I added 2 tablespoons. It's all about taste though.)

2 tablespoons fresh tarragon leaves

Parmesan cheese to taste.

Directions

In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook pasta 4 minutes short of al dente; add asparagus, zucchini, and snap peas. Cook until vegetables are crisp-tender, about 3 minutes. Reserve 1/2 cup pasta water; drain pasta mixture, and set aside.

In the same pot, bring cream and butter to a simmer. Toss in pasta mixture and enough pasta water to create a thin sauce (it will thicken as it stands). Season with salt and pepper, and top with tarragon and parmesan cheese.

Sam declared his love to me after dinner :)

Oh, honey. You baked. . . from scratch!! Peanut Butter Chocolate Cupcakes

2011-04-03T20:48:00.000-04:00

I am a not a baking from scratch type of girl. The risk of screwing up is sooo high! (This fear originates with my failed pie crust in home-ec in 7th grade. Mrs. Ross let me come in during lunch to try again, but due to the screw up, I only got a B on my apple pie. So what, you say? It's been 15 years since that day and it still resonates with me. Baking from scratch is scary stuff.) So, with Sam's birthday fast approaching I decided to face my fears and make a cake. . . well, mini cupcakes, to ring in his 29th year. Nothing says love like a terrifying baking challenge, right?

I love cupcakes! LOVE them. My friend, Betsy, understanding my hesitation in scratch baking gave me a link to a "no-fail", Martha-recipe to give a try. Here it goes:

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

3/4 cup buttermilk

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

3/4 cup warm water

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line mini muffin tin with paper liners. Whisk together flour, cocoa, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. With mixer on low speed, add eggs, buttermilk, oil, extract, and the water; beat until smooth and combined. Spoon the batter into liners about two-thirds full. (I used a melon baller. It worked perfectly.) Bake approximately 14 minutes, or until tester comes out clean. Transfer cupcakes to wire racks and allow to cool completely before frosting.

I made the cupcakes on Thursday evening, but Sam's birthday party wasn't until Saturday. I was concerned the cupcakes would dry out, so I brushed a simple syrup over the tops after they cooled. A simple syrup is super easy to make, even for me. Heat equal parts sugar and water on the stove. Stir until all of the sugar is dissolved. Let it cool and put it in a container. I used a recycled Bon Maman jam jar. (You'll have some leftover. Go ahead and make some mojitos with it. mmmm.)

Betsy had recommended that I frost the cupcakes using first, a layer of ganache and then top it with peanut butter frosting. She's fancy. PB and chocolate are a great combination; however, this did not happen. On Satuday, we celebrated Sam's birthday watching the Braves play the Nats, while enjoying a few delicious Dogfish Head Brews during the game. I had every intention of making the frosting right after the game. However, two rain delays, two Raison d'Etres and one 60 Minute IPA for me and four for Sammy resulted in an epic nap after the game. I managed to drag myself out of bed to make the chocolate peanut butter ganache, but the PB frosting was not happening. Nobody's perfect and the hangover from the games was killer.

Right, back to baking. . .

The chocolate peanut butter ganache is from Smitten Kitchen and is another spot-on recommendation from Betsy.

Ingredients

8 ounces semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped - I used chocolate chips (on sale - woot!)

3 tablespoons smooth peanut butter (Don't use natural. It separates.)

2 tablespoons light corn syrup

1/2 cup half-and-half

Smitten's Directions

In the top of a double boiler or in a bowl set over simmering water, combine the chocolate, peanut butter, and corn syrup. Cook, whisking often, until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth. Remove from the heat and whisk in the half-and-half, beating until smooth. Use while still warm. Note - Double boilers are Smitten's go-to for chocolate melting and also likely every good chocolatier. I am not a good chocolatier despite my endeavors into chocolate truffles on more than one occasion. I haven't had luck with the double boiler. Perhaps I'm too lazy. Instead, I put my stovetop on very, very low heat, toss my ingredients into a small saucepan and stir until smooth. Chocolate burns easily, so be careful. I usually add a little more half and half to combat a chocolate death by stovetop situation.

Once ready, I used the backside of the spoon to frost the cupcakes. I wasn't very heavy-handed with the frosting. These babies are very rich and don't need a lot of frosting to get the job done. A large glass of milk, on the other hand, was a must! Nom nom nom!

Happy birthday, Sammy! I love you!

One couple's clutter could be another person's treasure

2011-03-27T10:35:00.000-04:00

Happy Sunday, friends!

Sam and I are having a lovely weekend not searching for houses. Today, I woke up and made breakfast and tea, and I sat down to go through my google reader and the weekend WSJ. Le sigh.

One of the blogs I read this morning linked to a list of 20 ways people can declutter in the midst of spring cleaning. Decluttering the apartment has been on my mind with the impending move. The last thing I want to do in waste energy and time on things that we won't use in our new place. In order to inspire me to let go of items, I have been reading The Joy of Less, A Minimaist Living Guide: How to Declutter, Organize, and Simplify your Life on my Kindle and preparing a list of items Sam and I can let go of in an Apartment Sale prior to the move. Here are the items I believe can go:

Books - I have a box all ready!
DVDs
Picture Frames
Jewelry
Workout equipment
Vases
Shoes
Unused electronics
Clothes
Unneeded Christmas decorations
Sheets
Coasters
Hats
Utensils
Cooler
Glassware
Old luggage
Space heater
Tools
Coats
Backpacks
Big red duffel bag
TV Stand
Purses
Ties
Tart pan
Green bakers

I think that when I start organizing, more things will join the list, too. What doesn't sell during the apartment sale will go on craigslist or will be donated to Goodwill.

This afternoon, I am going to seek out those little stickers to start pricing items and planning a date and the logistics to having our apartment sale. Wish us luck!

Closing in on the deal

2011-03-24T22:54:00.000-04:00

Ok, so remember when Sam and I were on the rollercoaster last week and we were sure we weren't going to get the house we put our first offer on? That's why a rollercoaster is the appropriate metaphor. On Saturday of this past weekend, Sam and I were debating walking away from our offer and moving on to find another first home (UGH), despite thinking this townhouse was "the one". We ended up deciding to submit a counter to the seller on Saturday, but before we could, the seller's realtor contacted us to tell us they were withdrawing their counter-offer because the seller wanted to take the gamble on another open house that weekend. Uncool, seller. Uncool. So that was that. We were really bummed and we weren't excited at the prospect of continuing to search for a home. Also, none of the homes coming up in our searches were in the neighborhood we liked for the price point we could afford. We were sitting ducks.

Despite our lack of desire to continue the house hunt, we borrowed our friends' car and checked out a foreclosure in the same neighborhood as the "lost" townhouse, hoping for some little miracle. It was priced about $30K less than the "lost" townhouse, but after our walk-through with Ann, our realtor, we estimated it needed about $25-30K in work, which meant it probably wouldn't qualify for an FHA loan. Womp womp.

Feeling defeated we started discussing "the one" and how bummed we were that we didn't have the chance to submit a counter offer. Ann decided to give the seller's realtor a call to try and gauge his thoughts on the situation. When she mentioned that we were planning on submitting another offer and giving up on some closing costs, his voice raised in a very hopeful tone. He seemed to think that we might still have a chance based on the verbal offers he had received during the open house. That was all we needed to hear. Just a glimmer of hope of getting into the townhouse we really wanted. We submitted another offer on Monday morning, giving up on most of the closing costs*(fml) and by that evening our offer was accepted!

I can tell you that on Monday night when Sam and I heard the good news, we were pretty quiet for about an hour, then we made a few phone calls. I remember reading and then re-reading the email from Ann saying "Congratulations" but I didn't quite believe it was true. We spoke to Ann for a little bit and scheduled an inspection and a zipcar to get to the inspection for the next afternoon. Then we went to bed, excited, but still quiet. We talked for a few hours about what we thought might come up in the inspection and when we'll have to give our building notice. We talked about how some rooms will remain empty because we were tripling our square footage and we don't have enough furniture to fill the space. We talked about how much Bonnie and Clyde were going to love their new home and how we were going to need to cat proof certain areas in the house. At some point, I can't remember when, we fell asleep.

Bonnie and Clyde all ready packed. They can't wait to move.

*We were willing to give up on a lot (but not all) of our closing costs because we believe that this townhouse is "the one". The location, albeit not metro accessible, is very conveniently located near an express bus into the city and the VRE regional rail. Also, the community is great. Our townhouse is one block from the community pool, one block from an elementary school for potential bambinos, and adjacent to a recreational trail and a small lake. The neighbors we have met are all very friendly and one mentioned Friday block parties with margaritas. Nice! My mother will also be excited to know that there is a mini putt place only a few miles away. . . *slowly shaking my head.* Based on all of these factors, Sam and I decided to put most of our cards on the table in hopes that the house would be ours. Right now, it almost is!

Sunburn. Initiate panic.

2011-03-20T09:01:00.000-04:00

Hello spring! Hello sunshine! It's been soooo long. Damn it. I burned.

I'm very pale. (It's an Irish thing.) Therefore, I sunburn easily. My first sunburn of the year happened yesterday after walking around the National Mall in some seriously awesome weather. Now, I love the sun and vitamin d as much as the next girl, but any time I sunburn, which is generally inevitable, I turn into a frenzy of sun damage control and panicked thoughts. "Get the aloe without alcohol in it! I'll get skin cancer! Premature wrinkles! I'm going to be 50. . . in over 20 years!" You would never think that I spent every summer for the first 22 years of my life out on Chazy Lake soaking in the sunshine.

Seriously, in the last few years, I've gone off the deep end in sun protection and that's OK with me. My dear friend, Kristen, has a mantra that we should all follow. . . Safety First! Ok, that motto originated from our high school chemistry class, but it has staying power. Also, skin cancer is preventable and being as pale as I am, I am at a greater risk. Therefore, I'm being proactive. I wear sunscreen everyday. Usually in the winter I don't worry about whether I am toting an all-over 45 SPF, but I do at least wear a 15 SPF facial moisturizer and a 15 SPF mineral foundation. As the Earth's temperature rises, so do my sun protection efforts. Sam and I keep an 45 SPF by the door and in the bathroom. I prefer the aerosol kinds because they are less sticky and have more even coverage. I always carry sunscreen in my purse, too, for quick and easy re-application.

My sun care arsenal:

I've been using Oil of Olay Complete 15 SPF for Sensitive Skin since I was 18. First thing I put on after I shower.

I never leave home on a sunny day without a 45 SPF

Bare Escentuals Matte Foundation in Fair has an 15 SPF

I also try to make sure I'm always covered up. On a walk, I try and keep my shoulders and chest covered with at least a short sleeve top or a lightweight scarf. At the pool or the lake, I wear hats and cover-ups. FYI - It's still way too early to be wearing a pool cover-up (Hi, March in DC!), but its nice to think about being at the pool after the Winter months, isn't it? Le sigh.

J. Crew Fedora - Stylish sun blocking

J. Crew Poolwear - A slightly sheer cover-up.

After that, I grab an inexpensive pair of shades and I'm good to go.

Too much thought into sun care? It was totally worth it last year, when I met the mother of my 19 year old sister's boyfriend and she thought I was my sister's age. Thank you, sunscreen!

Revisiting the Chocolate Salty Oat Cookie

2011-03-19T23:48:00.000-04:00

It's been a day. So, I'm baking. I was so enamored with the chocolate salty oat cookies the last time I made them, that I decided to make them again. However, given the quality of my day, I needed to kick it up a notch. I decided they needed to be more chocolate-y. So, my original recipe has evolved after talking with my baker-friend, Betsy, about how to adjust the recipe to account for the increase in cocoa powder (more butter).

This is the new recipe:

1 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 teaspoon table salt

2 sticks unsalted butter, slightly softened

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup packed light brown sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats

6 ounces semi sweet chocolate chips

Sea salt or Fleur de Sel, if you have it

Whisk together the dry ingredients - flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa powder, and table salt. Mix together wet ingredients - sugars and butter - in your mixer. Once combined, add egg and vanilla extract to the wet ingredients and mix. Then add about a cup at a time of the dry ingredients, putting your mixer at a slow setting. Once all the dry ingredients have been integrated, add the oats and the chocolate chips. Roll a ping pong ball amount of cookie dough in your hands and slightly flatten on a cookie sheet. There should be about two inches between each cookie. Before popping into the oven, sprinkle the fleur de sel over the top. Bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees. Once done, let the cookies sit for two minutes before transferring over to a cooling rack.

Survey says: Why don't I have any milk?!?!?!

They are good, but I don't LOVE them, which I cannot decide is due to my mood or my recipe. It's still a nice balance of salty and sweet and they are very chocolate-y, but I may adjust the dry ingredients again. . . less flour? I'll consult further with Betsy and adjust/update as necessary.

It's our first hunt! I mean, house hunt. . .

2011-03-19T14:00:00.000-04:00

This is kind of a duh moment, but of course life gets extremely hectic the month we start actively looking at houses, as opposed to searching the interwebs. Buying a house, you say?! Yes, indeedy. Sam and I have been hitting the pavement this month to check out neighborhoods and houses that we think will become our first home. We’ve been stalking Redfin and our daily listing alerts from our realtor, as well as checking out school ratings, crime statistics, and commuting options from different neighborhoods. It's a lot of work, which isn't helped by the ridiculousness that is my job right now.

Everyone knows that jobs get nutty sometimes and you go with it because its just "sometimes". (Unless, of course, you're a surgeon. Props to our brother-in-law!) So this is my "sometimes", which has made the home buying process difficult for me. While I was on work travel a few weeks ago, I definitely felt more like an observer in our home buying process, as opposed to a participant, and that was not OK. In order to make it work for us, we've been staying up late, researching and crunching numbers during lunch, and finding ways to work with our realtor at not very normal times. As a result, I'm tired, but I'm involved.

To break it down for you, on the weekends, we hit the ‘burbs with a vengeance, toting our Starbucks so we look the part*, and learning the home buying process along the way from our realtor, Ann. (She is super awesome and has been very patient and flexible with us newbie homebuyers.) We narrowed our search to single, family homes or townhouses in Northern Virginia, and although we were approved for a large mortgage, we're not looking to break the bank on our monthly payments. Also, neither of us are huge fans of ramen, so we need enough money to eat afterwards.

During our weekend outings, we’ve checked out fee simple sales, foreclosures, and short sales, too. We’ve seen the good, the bad, and the really bad and super ugly. As it relates the latter, the price is perfect, but the amount of work to correct for the rot, mold, and water damage, it totally beyond our scope, despite being pretty crafty problem solvers and avid learners.

After looking at about 10 places, we took the plunge and put our first offer on a townhouse in the Western Springfield-area--three bedrooms, three and a half bathrooms, finished basement, huge storage area/work space, and a back yard with a lot of potential. Also, its also steps to an Express Bus and about a mile to the VRE, which would make commuting into the city a breeze and would allow us to spend some time together during the day. We weren't sure how it would work out, but we knew that putting in an offer was the only way to actually get a house, so if we found a place we liked and it met our expectations and our budget, then we ought to go for it. So we did.

Unfortunately, we're dealing with a seller who wants to sell the property "as-is", but she refuses to cover the closing costs that we will likely need in order to address what may come up during a home inspection. What stinks is that the difference between our offers and her counters is just a few thousand dollars, which is pocket change in a 30-year mortgage. Last night, we were thinking of walking away. We were insulted by the sellers counter and were exhausted at the prospect of dealing with her further. Today, we feel a little differently and remembering the lessons of HGTV's House Hunters and Property Virgins, we can't let our prides get in the way of buying our first home. So, Sam and I have been talking to Ann about waiting it out over the weekend to think our decisions through. We've also been talking to our lender, Greg, about what our different options mean for our monthly payment. We like this place and we see ourselves making a home there, but we don't want to get played either. I don't know what we'll decide, or what will happen right now. We don't want to act without thinking things through thoroughly. So, we'll wait for right now and see what happens on Monday. . .

*When we dropped cable a few months ago, we streamed a lot of Weeds on Netflix. The family at the center of the show lives in the “Ticky Tacky” ‘burbs and the mama is rarely seen without an iced coffee in her hands. . . of course, she is seldom seen without a purse stuffed with cannibus either, but that is neither here nor there.

Homemade Hummus

2011-02-26T16:15:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to make hummus for a while. It's cheaper to do myself and we have a food processor. It seems like an easy decision. Even though I know hummus is super easy to make, I have been pretty stubborn on taking the plunge into making our own. Until now. (It's all part of my challenge to use the appliances we were given for our wedding. The food processor from Sam's Aunt Jenny and Uncle Mike has been super handy.) I used Ina Garten's recipe because I love her and I want to go to her house and eat everything she makes. Except salmon. I won't give in to salmon. (ew.)

Ina's recipe:

4 garlic cloves
2 cups canned chickpeas, drained, liquid reserved
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/3 cup tahini (sesame paste)
6 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice (2 lemons)
2 tablespoons water or liquid from the chickpeas
8 dashes hot sauce

Round one of hummus made last week did not go well. I didn't have any lemons (oops) and I found the use of four garlic cloves to be overwhelmingly awful. Seriously, I teared up and then I added another can of chickpeas to try and balance it out. In the end, we ate it because we don't waste food, but I won't repeat this mistake again.

Round dos of hummus faired much better. I halved the garlic and halved the lemon per a suggestion in the comment section of Ina's recipe. I also used the zest from one lemon because it seemed like a smart idea and I like zesting things. Survey says, it's pretty lemony despite only using the juice and zest from one lemon, but its light and refreshing. Also, there is just enough kick from the garlic and the hot sauce to balance out the lemon-flavor. I'd give it a B+/A- and maybe only zest half the lemon next time.

Saving Moolah

2011-02-22T22:34:00.000-05:00

We've got big goals for the coming year, including buying our first home, saving for a trip to Paris, and maybe, just maybe, starting a family. This takes moolah, which means Sam and I are in the business of saving.

We're doing a lot to try and cut our spending. Our efforts include:

Packing lunches - Sam and I used to be very bad about going out to lunch. I mean, BAD! I think I ate out at least 3-4 times a week and Sam ate lunch out at 5 times a week. Talk about undisciplined. I did the math; 52 weeks of 8 lunches per week at $8 per lunch (I wish it was always this much, but I won't kid you, there were some $15-$20 lunches at times) and I realized we were spending close to $4000 a year in lunches. We have seen the err in our ways. Now that we're saving for a house, we're packing lunches. I bought Sam a $5 lunch box from Marshalls and I have my lunchbox that I bought when I started my job a few years ago and that was that. I make homemade peanut butter and hummus, chop veggies and fruits, and make enough dinner to have a few days of leftovers.
Go for 2! - We're making a concerted effort to spend $0 two days a week (with exception to metro costs, which can't be helped.) Goodbye, 3 pm tea for me and 10 am latte for Sam. Goodbye afternoon cookie. That's what snacks in our lunch boxes are for and my stash of loose-leaf tea in my cube.
Sell stuff - With home-buying in the future, we've decided we're going to have our first apartment sale. I've started making a list of items we don't use. I don't think that this endeavor will bring in a lot of dinero, but I'm a big fan of decluttering as a way of simplifying what goes on around us and therefore making a more stress-free home.
Cut the crap. . . I mean cable - We pulled the plug on our cable. It was costing us around $160 a month for our internet and HD, DVR-able cable with the ESPN Gameplan. Since we've cut our cable, our bill has dropped by $110 a month! Extreme? Yes. Worth it? Definitely! With the spring weather around the corner, we don't want to be cooped up with expensive cable anyways. We want to be out, taking in the sunshine. We still get get Netflix at $8 per month through our Wii, so all is not lost. Also, Glee and Parenthood stream through the interwebs, so I don't miss a beat.

Things I'd like to do to continue cutting costs:

Cut coupons - One Sunday Post paper has a lot of potential for savings. We will need to be careful to only cut the coupons we need. Saving a $1 on the huge bag of potato chips that we wouldn't have purchased otherwise does not make a good deal. I haven't started clipping coupons yet, but if we do it smart, it can generate a lot of green in our pockets.
Stop impulse buying/Don't buy clothing items full price - I haven't shopped a lot in a while. Thank you holiday season for making the end of winter my season to reign it in. I need to continually remind myself what is necessary and what is wanted. Yes, those $100 boots would be lovely, but so would a week's worth of groceries. Some new clothes and shoes will need to be purchased, of course, but we can wait for a trip to the outlets or a sale to fill that need.

Having read through these items again, I feel like our efforts to save are pretty smart. Does it seem like we have sucked the joy out of living though? No worries. We haven't gone off the saving deep end, friends. Baseball season is upon us, which means plenty of games with the Braves playing the Nats. We're still planning trips to see friends and family throughout the year, too. Also, we are treating ourselves to tickets to the Savor Craft Beer event here in DC as birthday presents to each other. We still live the life we love, we just prioritize better.

Won't you be our neighbor?

2011-02-21T11:53:00.000-05:00

Sam and I rented a car this weekend for a quick trip to Philly for our brother-in-law's surprise 30th birthday party. We decided we would keep the car a day longer to stake out some neighborhoods that our realtor wants us to consider in Northern Virginia. Since we both work in D.C. and don't want a hellish commute, we've narrowed our search to looking at Arlington County, the city of Alexandria, and Fairfax County. (Check out the map.) Today's adventure will take us to the neighborhoods of homes we "favorited" through Falls Church, Vienna, and Fairfax. We plan to check out the amenities in each area (availability and proximity to parks and trails, as well as grocery stores, restaurants, and entertainment). We're also very interested in finding a home that is close to public transit, which is a must for D.C. employment.

Not that I am letting this bias our decision-making process, but once we've checked out the neighborhoods to our hearts' content, we plan on going to Wegmans out in Fairfax to stock up on groceries for the week. Woot!! For those unfamiliar with Wegmans, it is the most magical grocery store in all the land. I'm serious. It was such a disappointment to move to D.C. and be stuck with a Safeway or a Giant after having four wonderful years in Ithaca with Wegmans (or "Weggie Weggie" as my Baboo likes to call it.) Safeway and Giant are okay in their own right, but they are not even close in comparison to Wegmans. So, like I said, I am not letting Wegmans bias our decision of where to buy, but I am super excited to go!

Dream home vs. first home

2011-02-13T23:00:00.000-05:00

We had a big weekend. Sam and I spoke with a lender to get pre-approval for a mortgage and start the home-buying process. Exciting, right?! Actually, I had been dreading this day, not because I didn't want to buy a house. We have been over apartment living for going on two years. However, even though Sam and I have been putting all of our discretionary income into a house account, I never felt like we had enough to break into the market. Thankfully, we compiled all of the information on our assets (income for the past two years) and liabilities (credit cards and student loan debt) and discussed our options with our lender and we're actually in a pretty good place to get started. Phew. I must say that after we spoke with our lender, I feel better about our chances of being in our first home this year. I don't think we'll find our dream house (detached single family home inside the beltway) given our budget, but we may find our first home (three-level townhouse near the beltway) that will at least make it easier to get into our dream home 5-10 years from now. Hopefully, our realtor will get us as close to our dream home as possible.

We reached our to our realtor, Ann, and she set us up with a daily email with listings that fit our budget and our needs and so the home-buying process starts. There are a lot of townhouses and single family homes centered around Burke and Springfield, VA, which is further outside of DC than we wanted, but maybe that is what we can afford. Only time will tell. We just need to remind ourselves that playing house like adults means constantly re-evaluating our expectations and hoping for the best

Family visit and salty chocolate oat cookies - nom nom nom

2011-02-10T22:11:00.000-05:00

Me and Austin @ Tonic

We have visitors! My sister, Bridget, and nephew, Austin, are in town for a few days while my brother-in-law is night floating at the hospital. We had a fun-filled day today. Breakfast at Johnny Rockets. Woot! Jeans shopping. . . .eh. We ate a lunch of wraps and tater tots with our sister, Elise, at Tonic in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood. Then, we traveled all the way to Chinatown to go visit my cuberhood. Once Austin finished flirting with the ladies of the fifth floor, we took him over to the National Building Museum, where Austin got to stare at a fountain for a little while and then take a tour of the playhouse in the "Building Zone" play area. Bridg and I lured him into a nap and grabbed some jasmine green tea and a salty oat cookie at Teaism.

Sam snuck one.

Have you ever had a salted cookie? If you haven't, please do yourself a favor and go find one immediately. It is the perfect marriage of salty and sweet. If there isn't a Teaism near you, then follow this recipe and make them. Yes, we ate the cookie this afternoon and decided we needed to make them this evening. We changed the recipe slightly by adding a 2 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa and substituted semisweet chocolate chips for white chocolate (yuck). Survey says: We are baking goddesses. Feast your eyes on our handiwork!

Here's our adapted recipe:

1 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

2 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 teaspoon table salt

14 tablespoons (1 3/4 sticks) unsalted butter, slightly softened

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup packed light brown sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats

6 ounces semi sweet chocolate chips

Sea salt or Fleur de Sel, if you have it

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.Whisk all of the dry ingredients together. Mix all the wet ingredients together. Combine the dry and the wet ingredients in your mixer. Add the oats and the chocolate until thoroughly mixed. Ball cookie dough into ping pong sized balls and flatten to 1/2 inch thickness on your lined cookie sheet. Sprinkle sea salt or Fleur de Sel over cookies and bake for 15 minutes. Let them cool on the cookie sheet for two minutes before transferring over to a cooling rack or they will break.

Enjoy!

*Note to reader - I realize that a lot of my posts seem to be about food lately. You're welcome. This will likely be a trend until we can finally get a house of our own and my focus will become budget decorating. Playing house is a multi-faceted endeavor and I hope to cover the spectrum of food, home-buying, saving dinero, decorating, all while navigating being a new family.

Super Football Foods

2011-02-06T23:04:00.000-05:00

Happy Superbowl Sunday. I'm hoping the Giants win. Wait. . . they aren't playing? Well, at least their are commercials and football food to be enjoyed!

We're headed over to our friends, Andrew and Marisa's to watch the game. This year, I am bringing my vegetarian chili dip and football oreo truffles.

I kinda cheat when I make vegetarian chili. . . I don't make it from scratch. Eh. When we became veggies a few years ago, we found the Bear Creek chili mix at the grocery store when searching for a quick dinner solution. The packaging said it was "Darn Good" so there really wasn't any question about buying it. You add the mix to seven cups of water and a small can of tomato paste. 30 minutes later, you have dinner. Easy peasy except that we learned pretty quickly (after one shot) that the chili was called darned good, but it lacked a certain je ne sais quoi that would make it damned good. This is where Sam and I started to play with seasonings and vegetables. Three years later, below is what we add to make the chili our own:

Vegetarian Chili Additions:

1 package of soy crumbles (Morningstar or Boca, we don't really have a preference)
1 can of black beans
1 cup of frozen corn
1/2 an onion
1 green bell pepper
1/2 of a small zucchini
1/2 of a small summer squash
2 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa
1 tablespoon of chili powder
2 teaspoons of cumin
2 teaspoons of red pepper flakes
1 bay leaf (make sure you remove this before serving)
salt and pepper to taste

We top our vegetarian chili with some shredded NY sharp cheddar cheese and serve it with warm corn bread (Jiffy mix). The way we make it usually yields about 10 servings of chili, so Sam and I like to get creative as we work our way through the leftovers. Sometimes we mix it with some mac n' cheese or make sloppy joes with it, but it really shines as an appetizer.

Vegetarian Chili Dip

Spread softened cream cheese around in a baking dish so that there is an even layer of it on the bottom. Top the cream cheese with a layer of cooled vegetarian chili. Sprinkle with NY sharp cheddar cheese and then pop into an oven that has been preheated to 300 degrees for 20 minutes or when the cheese has started to bubble on the top. Serve with your favorite tortilla chip.

I know a lot of people make a chili dip similar to ours. One of my girlfriends from work has her own variation and Matthew Morrison (Mr. Schuester from Glee) makes it, too!

Football Oreo Truffles

I've been making truffles for a few years now, but this has to be one of the easiest recipes I have ever found. Also, it's super cute. The recipe I used was tossed around my cuberhood last year around superbowl time and I knew I had to give it a try this year.

You will need:
1 package of oreos (double stuf are my faves)
1 package of cream cheese
1 package of chocolate chips
white icing with a piping tip. I just bought a small thing of Wilton's icing. You can find it in your baking aisle.

Crush the package of oreos in a food processor or put the cookies in a baggie and smash them with a rolling pin. It should look like coffee grounds when its done. Using a potato masher, mix a package of softened cream cheese into the cookie mixture. Shape the cookie cream cheese mixture into bite size footballs, put them onto a baking sheet, and pop them into the fridge to chill for an hour. Once the footballs are cold, melt some chocolate chips in the microwave (stir in between 30 second intervals) until they are all melted and shiny. Dip the chilled footballs into the chocolate to coat and then toss them back into the fridge to chill. After about an hour, take them out again and pipe the icing to look like football laces. (Laces out!)

These turned out to be, not surprisingly, incredibly rich. One was definitely enough and since the recipe makes about 40-45 truffles, I ended up freezing a bunch and I plan on bringing a few to the office tomorrow to pawn them off on the willing. Maybe a glucose replenishment meeting is in order.

Cupcakes for breakfast?!

2011-02-06T00:32:00.000-05:00

We hosted brunch today for my sister, her boyfriend, and a good friend of mine today. I will say that my intentions for hosting were not all together altruistic though. This week while perusing some food blogs (I have a weakness for pretty food, so this happens a lot), I came across a link to Red Velvet Pancakes here. Red velvet pancakes immediately made me think of red velvet cupcakes. For those of you that know me well, you know that I LOVE cupcakes. We had cupcakes at our wedding, but that was just a highlight in my love affair for all things cupcake. Anyways, back to breakfast, when I saw name "red velvet pancakes" I was done for. I had to have them and what better excuse than for a Valentines Day Breakfast with Sam. The only problem I was having with this idea was that Valentines Day was over a week away and I had to have them sooner/make sure the recipe good. . . at least that is what I told myself. So I invited my friend, Betsy, and my sis and her boyfriend over in order to test the pancakes out this weekend.

Here is the recipe from Cafe Zupa's, which was adapted from I am mommy. I doubled everything when I made it because I knew I was feeding a crowd.

Red Velvet Pancakes

1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 large egg
¾ cup buttermilk
¼ cup sour cream
1 teaspoon red food coloring (or more if you want them more red!)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

*This makes about 2.5 servings.

Making the pancakes was very easy. I don't normally use buttermilk, or sour cream for that matter, when making pancakes, but the point of this weekend was to test the recipe, so I went with it. The batter was very thick, much thicker than I was used to, but it was a beautiful deep pink color and they cooked up very thick and fluffy. The doubled recipe made about 15-16 dvd-sized pancakes.

So what's the verdict?! It was like eating red velvet cupcakes with real maple syrup. It was amazing. Light, fluffy, and chocolatey. Amazing. I might get a heart shaped cookie cutter or a pancake mold for next week, because these will definitely be on the menu. Did I mention that the pancakes were amazing?

Today's brunch was also very exciting because it was the first we have hosted in a while. Normally, we host dinners or breakfasts fairly often, but the holidays really zapped me of all my energy, so entertaining was out of the question. But I was motivated today and I went to town in a big way; fancy pants pancakes call for fancy pants table settings. I set the table with the embroidered linen table runner, which was a wedding gift from Sam's Aunt Lori and Uncle Rick and the coordinating napkins from my cousin, Michaela, and her hubby, Craig. I love setting a beautiful table. It's an appreciation I developed while catering when I was in college. This picture doesn't have the champagne flutes, so you will have to use your imagination. I also wish I had taken a picture of the pancakes when they were finished, but they went fast, so I'll try and remember after our Valentine's Day breakfast and I'll post an update.

What's on your nightstand?

2011-02-02T23:46:00.000-05:00

The other day, I was reading my good friend, Carly's blog about the growing list of books on her nightstand. This got me thinking about my nightstand, or more specifically, the dining room chair stacked with books and random electronics. A few months ago, I sat down and tried to make it look pretty, but Bonnie and Clyde like to ensure that whatever is small (e.g. pens, jewelry, phones, etc.) gets chucked on the floor.

The nightstand. Can you read the time? In reality it's 11:30.

The Domino Decorating Book for inspiration

Gone with the Wind - A copy purchased after a tour Sam and I took of the Margaret Mitchell house. This was a failed attempt at me trying to figure out the mystery that is the South. I made it 50-60 percent of the way through the book before I had to move on. I'd like to give it another shot, though.

The Art of the Handwritten Note is a book I purchased to motivate me through the thank you notes that I still haven't finished. (I promise they're coming!)

My kindle where I am in the middle of Cleopatra, which is a slow read, but I'm really enjoying it.

My memory book where I jot down tid bits from the day. I've kept up with this for a little under a year and I hope to one day give this to our potential kiddos down the road so they can see how awesome/lame their mama is.

Then my lamp, clock radio with the chewed off antenna (bad Bonnie and Clyde!) that has been three hours off for about two months, a humidifier, and my iPhone, which is what I actually use as my alarm clock. . .

Sam's nightstand is a touch lamp and a nightstand that I picked up in college from Target. I'd be impressed if both items cost more than $30. Around the nightstand are two political history books, a craft brewing book, and a craft brewing magazine. We like beer and politics in our house.

And we're back. . .

2011-02-02T22:51:00.000-05:00

Hello again! Sorry it's been a while. I took a few months off from blogging after the wedding because Sammy and I had a lot going on in our new family. . .

Here's the abridged version of the end of September through the beginning of January. First we took a few weeks off to travel across the North East visiting breweries along the way. Then just a short time later, we went to Philadelphia to welcome our nephew, Austin, to the world. Of course right after was Thanksgiving in Atlanta with Sam's family, and then Christmas with my family in the North Country. Somewhere in that jumble, I transitioned to a new team at work, we both traveled across the country for work at different times, and we planned a holiday party for 25 of our nearest and dearest friends. So long story short, priorities shifted and I needed a break from the blogging world.

But, like I said, we're back! I've missed writing and our new family has a lot of projects in the works that we are very excited about sharing with you. Hope you'll follow us!