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Adventures of a Domestic Goddess

All your foods are belong to me

Nov 14th, 2011
by gazelle.
7 comments

I had a great weekend – but it was so busy! (And also, there was lots of food. Delicious, delicious food.)

Friday, I spent the morning with my friend Emily. We were supposed to make lefse, but didn’t quite get around to it. Instead, we went on a long walk through the wilds of Vancouver and then had cocoa and scones (as well as a bit of antique storing, where I picked up a book on how to be a proper young lady – I’ll let you know how well I’m doing).

Also, in the antique store, I saw this which made me giggle:

IMAG0656I’ve always had my suspicions that architecture belonged in the science fiction section. 

After our epic walk, and the cocoa, and the chatting, I drove  home (stopping to get some chicken strips! OBSESSION ALERT!), fully intending to just hang out a bit and then leave the house again for yoga. Yeah – not so much. Instead, I passed out on the sofa until the architect got home about 6. Oops!

Saturday, I got up and got on the bike trainer for 30 minutes + did some upper body weights, and then the architect & I bottled beer – a winter brew that I’m excited to taste in 2-3 weeks. After that, I took a nap (what? bottling is hard!).

Best napping partners EVER!

That evening, the architect & I headed out for separate but equal nights of fun. I dropped him off for a poker game with the guys while I headed out with the girls to Ready, Paint, Fire to do some christmas ornament painting. After finishing our creative masterpieces, we went to dinner (my personal favorite part of the evening) and then back to the Ambitious One’s for a movie before breaking up the poker night. It was midnight before I was in bed. That is the latest I’ve been up in AGES!  CRAZY!

Sunday was a bit of a lazier day. I slept late (Like 8 AM!) and then lounged on the sofa for most of the day. I did manage to thoroughly clean the living room – I moved furniture! And washed floors! And dusted behind the TV! And then I had to lay down again….so much effort. But at least one room is clean. Next weekend – the kitchen/dining room! And there will be a great throwing away of stuff I don’t need!

Sunday evening, I headed out to Anna Bannana’s for hot cocoa with a neighbor. And lo! It was beautiful:

IMAG0660

Yum.

All in all, a great weekend! A nice balance of relaxation and accomplishment and socializing.

 

Happy Monday, y’all!

Gratitude Journal

November 14, 2011: I am grateful that I work in a place with lots of little food nooks. It’s always an easy walk to grab more food. Which I do more often than ever, lately.

November 13, 2011: I am grateful for streaming Netflix (and Hulu Plus!). Also, I am grateful for John Barrowman. And my new found love of Torchwood. I watched the entire first season this weekend. And up next? In season 2? One of my boyfriends! Yay for James Marsters!

November 12, 2011: I am grateful for my awesome friends! I got so much good quality friend-time this weekend! Walks & cocoa & thrifting with her! Ornament painting and dinner and movies with Alisa, Jen, Lisa & Sarah! Cocoa and a chat with her! (I should maybe also mention that I’m grateful for hot cocoa.)

November 11, 2011: I am grateful for laid back evenings at home with the architect.

November 10, 2011: I am grateful to live in Portland, Oregon. It is so beautiful here. I love that we have four seasons, and I especially love autumn.

November 9, 2011: I am grateful for modern medical conveniences that help eliminate unnecessary surprises from my life. Yay for ultrasounds!

November 8, 2011: I am grateful for my brand-new employee who started today, who I am hoping will help take some of the financial reporting burden off my plate & allow me to do a better job on the more big-picture things.

November 7, 2011: I am grateful for weekends and the opportunity to relax and recharge.

November 6, 2011: I am grateful for running – and grateful that I am still able to run. I am also grateful for my proximity to the most awesome running park in the history of the world: Forest Park.

November 5, 2011: I am grateful that I was able to discover enough courage to join Toastmasters. I know this sounds super cheesy, but it’s really made a HUGE difference in my life.

November 4, 2011: I am grateful for the internet, which gives me the ability to work from home, in my pajamas, this morning.

November 3, 2011: I am grateful that I have a good job that is challenging & interesting, if not necessarily catering to my life interests.

November 2, 2011: I am grateful for the architect, who is simply wonderful. He picks up the household slack when I’m busy with schoolwork, brings me chicken fingers on his way home from work, and is simply the most wonderful husband I could ask for…

November 1, 2011:  I am grateful for my (so far, knock on wood) easy and wonderful pregnancy

Three (3!) Things Thursday

Nov 3rd, 2011
by gazelle.
3 comments

1. The other day, I went down to the freezer to get a pizza for dinner (I am all about lazy cooking now that I’ve started my final project for my Master’s). I opened it up and something wasn’t right. I picked up a package of ground beef to move it, and my fingers squished right in. And blood spurted right out. The freezer was not on! We have no idea HOW it became unplugged, and how long it was in that state. Neither of us had accessed the freezer for a few days. All the stuff on top was thawed out and drippy (including my planned pizza). So much meat that had to be tossed. BUT – everything in the bottom half of the freezer was still frozen solid, including a couple chickens, a bunch of Colin, and all my raw milk. I was really sad, though.

 

2. For my final project, I had to turn in a work schedule. And, because I am insane, I already mostly had one. The next 7 weeks of my life are fully scheduled. I do have “leisure time” built in, but it is pretty ridiculous. My first real assignment is due tonight, and involves “picking a topic.” A few months ago, I knew exactly what my topic was – and that topic is still pretty interesting to me. However, with all the recent job changes, that topic is no longer relevant to my current career, and I am wondering if I should change the topic. Unfortunately, that’s where my wondering stops – it does not go on to wonder if I should change my topic to “very specific topic on which I could find several excellent references in just an hour of searching, but not something that’s been done to death.” Unfortunate, right?

 

3. As you may remember, I totally agonized over what I was going to be for Halloween. I’m pregnant enough that none my original costume choices fit, but not so pregnant that I could be a “pregnant” anything & get away with it. The architect had a monk constume left over from years ago (actually, that’s what he was wearing the first Halloween we were dating, 9 years ago – we didn’t spend the holiday together, but I did stop by to see him on my way home from work before heading out to Scary-oke at the Whaler in Venice with my at-the-time roomie Dr. M.). So – I headed to a costume shop and picked up a nun costume. I did have to stuff my costume to make it funnier – but I think it worked:

(Photo credit: Sarah!)

 

Happy Thursday!

 

Gratitude Journal

November 3, 2011: I am grateful that I have a good job that is challenging & interesting, if not necessarily catering to my life interests. I have the opportunity for professional development (weekly leadership seminar today!), have a decent salary, good health insurance, and a bunch of people who are excited for my pregnancy and not at all worried about my maternity leave (in fact, they’ve told me to not even THINK about being available in May – i.e. budget season – and that they’d get through it without me, as long as I do all the prep work before I leave…)

November 2, 2011: I am grateful for the architect, who is simply wonderful. He picks up the household slack when I’m busy with schoolwork, brings me chicken fingers on his way home from work, and is simply the most wonderful husband I could ask for…

November 1, 2011:  I am grateful for my (so far, knock on wood) easy and wonderful pregnancy

 

Photo Essay Monday

Oct 24th, 2011
by gazelle.
2 comments

Not too much of a photo essay for this last weekend. Nothing I did was particularly photo-worthy.

Friday, I ended up at work for waaaaaaaaay too long (especially since it was my day off). The rest of the day was spent finalizing my final paper for my very last regular course for graduate school. All done! (And, I got an A in that class! Go, me!)

Saturday was kind of a lazy day. The kind of day I thought I deserved after finishing 19 courses in just over 2 years and getting to within 17 weeks of qualifying for my Master’s Degree. I mean, I took a cat to the vet (at 8 AM!) and had a movement therapy appointment (my SI area is killing me), and then I lazed the rest of the day.

The architect, however, did not have a lazy day. Instead, he finished tiling the shower area & grouted 80% of the same area (the other 20% needs to wait for a week, since that was the part he’d finished tiling that same day):

IMAG0634

This photo makes it look really orange, which is weird. BUT – it’s not. The tiles are white with black grout.

Sunday was a bit busier….eventually. I did some last minute Halloween shopping. Apparently the week before Halloween is not an ideal time to do that, as most of the stores had mostly switched over to Christmas decorations. I did get some good stuff, though. I am, however, still sans costume. The pregnancy costumes are all for people who are really pregnant. Painting my belly at this point would look stupid, and I’m not pregnant enough to pull of pregnant nun. I tried on some plus-sized stuff, but that was all too big, and the regular sized costumes don’t fit in the boobs and are super tight across the mid-section.  I think I’m pretty much decided to go as this:

three gold stars if you get the reference

I am super excited to get all my decorations up and have an awesomely spooktacular party this weekend, though!

Lazy Bones!

 

After getting through all that stuff (and picking up another pair of sweet maternity jeans), I decided I needed some healthy snacks. I have been loving bran muffins lately, and spending $2/muffin (they are humungous) from the hospital coffee shops at least once/week. I thought I could probably make my own for much less than that. And so I did. And, because the architect hates bran muffins, I made him some blueberry muffins.

IMAG0636

(There were a dozen of each – this photo was after I put most in the freezer for safe keeping.)

And now – back at work. I was looking forward to a week off school, but our syllabus for the Capstone project was released today, and I think that although school doesn’t technically start until next Monday, it would be in my best interest to only be on half-vacation this week. In addition, Thursday I start my weekly Leadership Foundation course (it runs through 12/15) that I was nominated to attend through work, so I’ll be in the office one less day, which means more work on the days that I am in……oh well – the price of success or something, right?

Happy week!

Grad School, Beer & Gardening

Oct 17th, 2011
by gazelle.
3 comments

That was my weekend….

On Saturday, after a brief trip to the farmer’s market and a stop at the Home Brew Exchange, I spent the rest of the day paper writing. It was my second to last paper for my last official class of my Master’s program. The class is over this Friday. And then, a week long break (which I intend to use to make my house spooktacular), followed by 16 weeks of Capstone project. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Yay!

Sunday was a busy day….I got up and started brewing. My goal was to make a winter beer – in the style of the winter warmers that are so popular. They’re malty and a little sweet, with some nice spice overtones. I used a little chocolate malt, some vanilla and then added cloves and nutmeg (in addition to several other ingredients). It was my first time making beer all by myself (the architect was on a bike ride), and I’m pretty excited to see how it will turn out!  I’m also hoping it keeps well, since my guess is I won’t be drinking tons of it once it’s ready (we’re bottling the first weekend in November, and it should be ready to drink about 4-6 weeks after that).

Brewmaster

I had someone comment on facebook that they could see a bump, but I think that’s just because my shirt is sticking out due to the weird angle of my stance. I’m not that bumpy yet.

After getting the beer into the fermenter, I went outside to attend to some serious business. A couple of weeks ago, I cleared out garden bed #1 in preparation for its long winter’s nap. Yesterday, I went out to do the same to the largest bed – the 8×24 bed. The bed that was full of tomato plants that I’d been studiously ignoring for 3 weeks.

Guess that happens when you ignore tomatoes for 3 weeks? They rot on the vine. Such a waste. Remind me to never be in my first trimester of pregnancy during harvest season again. Because damn! I had no energy to do anything in September, and the first canning session was so exhausting that imagining the second one was daunting. So daunting in fact, that instead of canning the 5 million tomatoes that I’d planted on purpose so that I could have 5 million jars of tomato products in the basement, I let them rot. That just pisses me off. (At me, obviously.)

ANYWAYS – yesterday I went out to see if there were any at all salvageable. And there were a few. A very, very few. Not even enough to bother canning, though. I cleaned out the garden, removing all the pepper and tomato plants, cutting down some of the dying wildflower stalks, and basically leaving the garden bare (except for a tiny growing broccoli that I found and a really good-looking basil plant that had somehow thrived through neglect).

The architect took the last, tiny tomato bounty, sliced and seasoned them, and then dried them. Delicious.

Pre-drying, obviously.

Now I just need to plant some over-winter stuff (garlic, onions, whatever else strikes me), finish cover cropping, and lay down my straw. It’s unfortunate that my trees that drop leaves happen to be walnut trees, so I need to be careful in using those for compost (since tomatoes, eggplants, asparagus, lilacs, and tons of fruit trees are super sensitive to the juglone found in walnut leaves, hulls, and bark).  Composting for a few months removes the toxicity, but it’s not a good idea to directly apply to the garden. Bummer.

Anyways – hopefully by the end of the month the garden will be ready for winter. I am less confident about getting my rain garden in this year. In theory, it should only be one weekend of work. However, digging a 10×7 (ish) rain garden, putting in the intake & overflow paths, and planting it might not be a one weekend project for me anymore. For some reason, I find myself needing to scale back a bit and take more naps.

Happy week, everyone!

Three (3!) Things Thursday!

Oct 6th, 2011
by gazelle.
8 comments

1. Have I told you how much I love fall? Because I do. I love the cool overnights, and the changing leaves, and the peeks of sunlight, and the fog. I need to get a picture of the view I have every morning on my drive to work, but unfortunately, it’s hard to take good photos while I’m driving.  However, I stole this photo from the internet, and it’s pretty damn close (except that I am typically driving OVER the bridge and not floating around underneath it).

 

2. I also love soup. All soups. And this time of year, when it’s time to curl up under blankets and sip cocoa and cider, I want to have soup every day. However, I hate soup from a can, and am too lazy to make soup from scratch every day. I need to find some excellent recipes that can be canned so that I can make pints and pints of soup. Doesn’t this look amazing?

3. Yesterday was the one year anniversary of my Damian-ectomy. To celebrate, I wore a pair of high heeled boots for the first time in way over a year. For an entire day. And there was walking! And I didn’t want to amputate at the end of the day.

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