2014 – Page 2

September 14, 2014September 14, 2014

Promises to Keep

Today marks the one year anniversary of the worst day of my life, the day my mom, the embodiment of all that was good, kind, special and amazing passed from this world and into the next.

Just a few days later, my sister and I spoke at her funeral, words that I still believe and am committed to honoring today.

We spoke of the honor and blessing that it was to be her daughter and the wonderful lessons she taught us: to work hard, to enjoy the hell out of life, to laugh much (at ourselves as well) and to not take life too seriously.

We spoke of all the things we’d miss about her … her presence, so lively and fun … her foibles like over packing for everything and indecisiveness … the wonderful times we had together … the great conversations, great meals and great fun we shared … her amazing spirit and how she cared for everyone in her life.

We said that we could spend a long time being very angry at the injustice of it all, or we could choose to be grateful for all the wonderful time we had together.

So we made the commitment to be grateful and resolved to do some things that honor and preserve her memory: read my kids bedtime stories and raise them well, work hard for the company she loved, buy myself some nice clothes now and then, continue to travel, explore and experience, ignore our housework and have fun … and perhaps most importantly, take care of each other and love our family and friends fiercely!

And so, 365 days later, I think I can say I’m a better person than I was this day last year.

I can’t ever see mom’s death as anything but a bone deep, cutting loss. I still think of her every day and it still hurts. I still hate to go anywhere near her office. And I still have terrible moments when I re-realize that she is gone and it’s almost overwhelming to bear.

But I can see that I have allowed some positive things to come from it. I’m a better, more patient mom than I was a year ago. I am a bit less concerned about the long term “good” of the kids and more interested in making sure they feel my unconditional love right now. I have gained perspective in my life. While I work damn hard for the company we both love, I will not allow it to interfere with what’s really important – the relationships in my life. I have been able to loosen up on some of my control freak ways and live in the moment a bit more. Our family, including my dad and sister, are closer than ever and we take great care of each other and really really appreciate each other … And MAN have we read the bedtime stories!

I will always wish I had more time with her. But I take huge comfort in the fact that not much of the time we had was wasted. We did, we saw, we lived it up … we loved. If not quantity, we got QUALITY, and I know how incredibly blessed that makes us.

September 12, 2014September 15, 2014

Mexican Sweet Potatoes

I had to post this recipe, because this is another one of those that has reached the vaunted “family favorite” status. I know, from the photo, it kind of looks like a hot mess, and even when I reveal the ingredients, you’ll probably think we’re nuts, but seriously, TRY IT. It hits all the right notes and when I serve this, EVERYONE licks their plate clean.

The original idea for this came from Iowa Girl’s Smothered Sweet Potato Fries and that recipe is AWESOME in its own right (it’s even got a great trick about stretching ground beef with mushrooms). But we like the health of the plain ol’ sweet potatoes and we so often have regular ol’ taco meat left over, I just usually use that.

Ingredients

1 lb lean ground beef (soy crumbles? you decide)
4 sweet potatoes
1/2 C shredded cheddar
2 avocados
taco seasoning (we use garlic salt, cumin and chili powder)
guacamole seasoning (garlic salt + cayenne pepper for us!)

Directions

Bake the sweet potatoes however you do … partial time in the microwave? Use your crockpot? Whatever works. We usually just shove them in a 350 oven on a cookie sheet lined with foil (they leak sweet potato juice, yo) for about an hour. They need to be tender.

Towards the end of sweet potato baking, brown the ground beef and season with the taco seasoning. Then halve the avocados, pull out their flesh and mash it in a bowl. We actually have a mini-sized masher just for this job. It works swell. Season it as you do any old guacamole. We are very basic with the garlic salt and cayenne but I know lots of folks who do lime juice, onions, tomatoes, salsa, siracha, and on and on.

Once the potatoes are baked, halve them and mash on a plate to form a nice bed of sweet potato. Top with taco meat, cheddar cheese and let it melt a bit (you can nuke it if you don’t have enough residual heat from meat/potato). Then serve with the guacamole.

It’s filling, satisfying and pretty darn good for ya!

September 11, 2014September 9, 2014

Camping at Dillon

We headed out last weekend for what we think is probably our last camping trip of the year (maybe one more? we’ll see!).

Right up until that morning, we didn’t know if we were going because the weather looked grim. We had a family back out and others were talking about it. Plus two families needed to come up late and another needed to leave early leaving us kind of iffy, but we decided to press on and go for it.

Between moving and school and work, it wasn’t one of our more organized efforts. I also went waaay bare bones on everything from clothes to food. We ate dinner in Dillon on Friday night, leaving me needing three meals + cereal and milk on Sunday morning. I just did a bunch of chili, some sandwiches and easy eggs. We didn’t even take a cooler – just filled the little fridge in the pop up. The simple was nice and I want to do more of it.

Friday night we arrived and got a fire going. Just one other family showed up before bedtime but we had a great little fire going and all sat around reading Little House on the Prairie (our current read-aloud book). It was so apropos to the setting and everyone really enjoyed it. The kids went to bed right about the time another family showed up so we had 6 adults for our late night campfire and wine drinking.

The next day, we randomly chose a hike off a google search and unlike the weekend before, this one was gorgeous! Perfect distance, perfect difficulty, and gorgeous views everywhere!

The destination (1.6 miles in) was Lily Pad Lake which as you can see, lived up to its name.

But along the way, we found beautiful meadows, scenic vistas and this totally random field of rocks. We were all pretty sure the trolls were going to pop up any moment and start singing “He’s a bit of a fixer upper!”

We even had lovely tree cover and sweet little bridges meaning no one ever got too hot or had to jump streams.

Best of all, the kids were AWESOME hikers. There was little complaining and they sang songs and did math problems and were super fun the whole time. We all feel like our hard work is paying off. They’re FUN!

After the hike, we went back, had lunch and spent the rest of the day chilling at the campsite. The two remaining families showed up and their kids joined our kids, running in their pack. Dinner, more reading around the campfire, some marshmallows and late night adult fun and it was over. We had to pack up early the next morning to get ready for our week and our Sunday night guests.

It all went too quickly … not just this camping trip, but the whole summer. Maybe we will try to sneak one more trip in ….

September 10, 2014September 9, 2014

Weekend in Vail

We went to Vail for Labor Day Weekend. Owing to moving and camping and LIFE, we had not been there since ski season, and since I actually like it better in the summer, I was happy when my sister proposed we go.

After a long fight with traffic, we got there and crashed.

The next morning, we tried to go to Hanging Lake to hike, but there weren’t any parking spots!!! At 9 am!! yeesh.

So we found another hiking spot in nearby Glenwood. It really wasn’t our favorite and didn’t have much to recommend it besides some pretty wildflowers ….

And a nice view of Glenwood. Not much tree cover, near a water treatment plant, pretty meh. But that’s OK.

We had a nice lunch at The Pullman, a charmingly casual but very nice restaurant in Glenwood Springs. Dad and I split a peach bourbon BBQ pork sandwich. Yum.

Afterward, we drove on to Paonia (just 1.5 hours away!) and went peach picking at this cool little farm.

The peaches were GORGEOUS! We bought 35 lbs of them.

The kids had a wonderful time running around outside …

And playing on the cart …

And hanging with Daddy

And checking out the grapes.

They make wine there too and the grapes were looking good!

They also grow flowers, more fruit, a ton of veggies and apples! Wish it were just around the corner instead of 4 hours away (from Denver).

They definitely had the “cute farm” thing down, complete with vintage truck for Ben to drive.

We saw this beautiful little water fall on the side of the road on the way back to Vail and had to stop and check it out. It was a very cool hidden gem. We got back to Vail late after having dinner at Moe’s Original BBQ in Eagle and played games and chilled.

The next day, we had a leisurely morning and picked up Matt’s brother who was in a nearby town for a wedding. Then we had the birthday lunch at Mountain Standard in Vail. This is a sister restaurant to one of our other local favorites, Sweet Basil. We had super super yummy food an exchanged gifts and had dessert. We all agreed we didn’t have to eat for a long time to come.

After lunch, we took a walk to Betty Ford Garden which is crazy beautiful no matter the season.

We got some family shots of the four of us, none of which turned out, despite the fact that my sister snapped 20!! Seriously, they’re all either out of focus or I someone is looking off to the side or something. Grr.

But I snapped this one of everyone else and it’s pretty nice, despite Ben’s goofiness.

A little more chilling and it was time to head home and back to our regularly scheduled lives. Ah well.

September 9, 2014

Buffalo Shrimp Po’ Boys

These po’ boys originally came to me via Mother Thyme. Buffalo?! Shrimp?!? Sandwich?!? Yep, you got me. I had to bite.

I have no idea what the original recipe says. When I went to find the link, I didn’t even bother to look, because it’s now in my brain the way I make it and that’s what I’m sharing with you.

Ingredients

shrimp! peeled and defrosted – however many your family will eat and/or will provide adequate leftovers
buffalo sauce – maybe a cup or so? you need it for basting on the grill and drizzling on the sandwich – WE USE (and love!) FRANK’S
blue cheese crumbles
baby arugula
bread! You can use what you like, but in my opinion, crusty is good. Ciabatta has been really good for this, but you could use french bread, possibly bollio, or something else you prefer
butter
garlic salt
onion powder

Directions

Heat grill to medium. Prepare shrimp by peeling and defrosting as necessary. Thread on to skewers and brush with buffalo sauce. Prepare bread by splitting in the middle and cutting into sandwich size pieces if necessary. Then spread/brush with butter and sprinkle with garlic salt and onion powder.

Bring prepared shrimp skewers and bread to the grill. Grill shrimp skewers until they have changed color properly, about 2-3 min per side. Depending on the configuration of your grill, you can grill the bread at the same time, or you can do it once the shrimp are done. Go buttered side down and about 5 min if it’s on an upper rack (this is what we use) or only a minute or so if it’s on the main grilling surface.

To assemble, layer arugula and a skewer and a half or so of shrimp on top of the grilled bread. Sprinkle with blue cheese crumbles and drizzle on more buffalo sauce, then add the top bread.

We’ve made these two or three times now and they are almost universally a big hit, at least with adults. The kids are wary of the spicy buffalo, so we leave that off for them and just give the shrimp a little S&P. They come together VERY quickly and I like that you don’t have to heat up the oven or stove to make them. They are a great picnic food and we’ve served them with our apple/cucumber slaw.

September 3, 2014

The Haps … September 2014

Well lots has been going on, but not in the orderly, organized way that lends itself to blogging and photo taking (although I’ve done quite a bit of that). We’ve been settling into the school routine. It is pretty different from when we had one kid in “real” school, I’ll say that. It’s probably not quite double the work, but close! Lots of papers that need reviewed and signed and homework that needs a help-it. And while it would have been smart for us to stick close to home, probably, we went away for the weekend last weekend and we’re doing the same this weekend. I never really regret doing these trips, but they don’t exactly make my weeks easier either. Truly, it’s a good “problem” to have. So in between the school stuff, here’s some of what’s been going on. We’ve been taking lots of walks around our new ‘hood. It’s something we LOVED to do in our old ‘hood and I sort of thought I might be giving up when we moved to the new ‘hood, but not so. It’s like the old hood on steroids! There’s tons of trails already built and there will be more. And where the old ‘hood was mostly neighborhood, this has some excellent wild, open elements to it as well – less landscaped and manicured with fields of cows and amazing vistas. We even found a ton of crawfish in the stream (drainage) that runs through our neighborhood. All this wildness will diminish somewhat as the neighborhood grows, but our northern side is bordered entirely by a wildlife preserve (above) that will always be wild! We even spent a good hour of our date night walking around the ‘hood together. It was very nice. Moving along … We took these two on an outing in Downtown Denver the last weekend in August. I wanted to see the Maya exhibit at the Denver Museum of Science and Nature and we did it on literally the LAST DAY of the exhibit. It was a really great exhibit with plenty to read, but also a ton of cool interactive features like this rubber ball simulating the ones the Maya played their ball games with. Sucker is HEAVY! Afterward, we went to Biker Jim’s for gourmet hotdogs (wild boar, rattlesnake, etc.) – photo above – which is always a huge treat (even if it’s a huge pain to park near there!). School is going along pretty well. The transition for Ben has been a little harder. He has had some trouble listening and keeping his hands to himself, but has already made huge strides correcting these peccadilloes. Most importantly, he LOVES school. Yay! I went to “curriculum night” at their school to hear the spiel about what they’ll be learning and enjoyed his cute poster (above) about himself. As he states, his favorite thing about school is hot lunch in the cafeteria. He also likened his iPad (and beloved Woofie!) to Owen’s yellow blankey, complete with picture showing its green case (and his doggie!!) … in a truly cringe worthy parenting moment. Tabby is LOVING second grade as well. I was able to pick her minion out from across the room (its the patterned glasses that tipped me off) when I went to back to school night. Her teacher is awesome as well and she’s in for a great year. She’s super excited as well to have leveled out of the little kid take-home books and now gets to read chapters from chapter books every night. The honor is not lost on her, that’s for sure. I’ve been doing a lot more cooking at home than I was able to this summer as well. I suppose if you have to take a season off cooking, summer’s a good one. I don’t BBQ much (though I am able) and about all I really like to make are salads. But fall is the best for cooking – I love making soups and stews and that sort of hearty fare. I’ll have to post one of my new favorite recipes, Buffalo Shrimp Po’ Boys here pretty soon. We’ve made them twice now and they’re a huge huge hit. And also the Chicken Gumbo from above. No one can say no to that soup!! So all in all it’s going pretty well. Work’s been a bit crazy, but nothing I can’t handle. I also signed up for a 15k (9.3 miles) which we’ll see if I can handle the first weekend in October. I am feeling like life is coming back together and I’m so immensely grateful for the good people and wonderful blessings all around.

August 26, 2014

Woa Woa, I Gotta Go … Back to School!

It was an exceptionally CRAZY first week of school.

All the things happened, practically at the same time.

The kids started school – but not even on the same day – on two different days, which led to me going to work late two days and then taking off early to pick them up two days.

Matt got sick – like actually take-a-vacation-day sick (and the other reason I was doing drop off and pickup).

I got a completely out-of-the-blue, totally-last-minute project for work that I handled while watching an entire season of Downton Abbey.

The photo shoot I had scheduled went from an estimated 3 hours long to an estimated 7 hours long to an actual 6 hours long.

I had to spend two hours on Wednesday evening at the kids’ music orientation.

Family came in from out of town.

We almost didn’t get a proposal in.

I sat on a panel (which sadly did not involve any sitting). I did not get my pedicure. I had bunco. I avoided Matt’s icky bug and so did the kids.

SO ANYHOW, SCHOOL: The kids are super happy with their new teachers. They are off to a great start for the first year. We haven’t even screwed up too much/many paperwork assignments and they have more or less been on time.

Ben is most excited about the cafeteria, specials (art/music/gym) and recess! Tabby is most excited that her BFF is in her class. Also, they have a field trip soon!

The kids have been crazy tired in the afternoons. I expected Ben to be a bit off, but Tabby has been just as tired if no more so! And me too. Lots of adjustments, lots of fun. The kids start music lessons tomorrow to add to the crazy. And we have more out-of-town guests for the next couple of weeks and a couple of weekend trips.

Life is good.

August 13, 2014August 12, 2014

Our House Right Now: The Great Room

The great room is a big work in progress, for sure. It still has quite a few boxes, mostly of artwork, photos and A/V equipment that we need to deal with. But this house has less wall space, so we’re biding our time, figuring out where the best things go and then we’ll have to make some decisions about the others.

The great room is again where we ended up condensing two rooms from the old house into one room here. Our mostly unused living room merged with our oft-used family room and here’s the result. Couch for TV viewing and socializing, fireplace for coziness, piano for playing, a cozy chair for reading and for good measure, the Mad Men bar cabinet that used to be in Matt’s office.

We got an odd bonus in this room when our builder decided to tile past the mantle straight to the ceiling. We hadn’t spec’d it or paid for it, but we got it anyhow and we do think it looks nice. It did make mounting the TV a huge pain in the arse. Oh well.

Done

Mounted the TV
Installed the window coverings (7 total!!)
Cleared out a ton of stuff

To D0

Hang artwork (sooner)
Clear out other random boxes (sooner)
Program the motors on the shades to work from remote control (sooner)
Fix the wiring to the subwoofer (sooner)
Throw pillows for the couch for color (whenever)
an area rug (whenever)
Paint the piano (later!!)

Yes, you read that last one right. I think I’ve decided to paint my grandma’s piano. I like the dark honey wood better than I expected to in this room, but it’s not my favorite and I do think we could use a big pop of color on that wall. I want to live with it for now and try infusing color in other places first. I might even just start with upholstering the bench.

August 12, 2014August 10, 2014

Our House Right Now: The Office + Foyer

The Office

I’ve mentioned before that we actually ended up condensing some rooms when we moved from our old house to this one. We no longer have a family room and living room, just an (albeit larger) greatroom. And likewise, Matt and I no longer have separate offices, we now share one. Granted, this is not much of a sacrifice. I have a lovely office that is 100% my own at work so my use at home is limited to when I want to do crafty things and when I need to work at home for work.

The office was pretty much a blank space, but we considered carefully and figured out what we wanted to do with the space: comfortable work area for Matt, occasional work area for myself and the kids and storage of all office/crafty stuff for the house. We bought the cabinets a month or more before we moved, on a Discover Card bonus 5% back and stored them. Assembly/installation was easily the biggest task in this room, but it’s done now and the room is otherwise progressing very well.

Done

Assemble all cabinets
Hang/install all cabinets
Unpack/fill/organize all cabinets
Setup two desk areas
Search madly for a bookcase because (wow!) we still have a fair few books and get that in place
Unpack the books
Install window coverings
Hang photo board (from old dining room)

To Do

Finish up the unpacking/organizing the remaining random stuff and clear surfaces!! (sooner)
Construct and install the barn door! (sooner, hopefully)
Find a pair of chairs for either side of the work surface (sooner)
Add floating shelves and maybe a set of drawers above the work surface (sooner)
Hang some more art on the walls (whenever!)
Maybe add some floating shelves above Matt’s desk (??)
Rug??

The Foyer

I debated even putting this “room” on the tour because it’s hardly a room and pretty lackluster at this point. That said, however, I like this little entrance area and it has nice potential. Despite the fact that it spans both floors, it doesn’t feel too grand and it’s not overly big, but has a good feel. In the photo, you can see the front door and the window to its right. To the right of that is a very nice coat closet that is currently being used to store random things like the tools we’re still using to put up this and that. The wall on the left side is the office and it will eventually have the barn door we’re building. Behind me as I’m shooting this, it opens to the great room and kitchen.

Done

Put up window covering
Disperse the tons of junk that collected there while we were moving (the pile was WAY higher!)

To Do

Finish up with the boxes (sooner)
Think this area needs a nice rug … not sure what (whenever)
Place shoe rack for guests (sooner)
Maybe some art?? (whenever)

August 11, 2014August 12, 2014

Our House Right Now: Kitchen + Dining Room

The house tour continues this way, to the kitchen and dining room areas. The kitchen may have been the room I was most excited about before we moved. I truly loved our cozy little kitchen in the old house and was sad to leave it, but I was eager for the very nice upgrade this kitchen gives us. I’ve said it before … people gather in the kitchen, especially when you cook! We love to cook and would frequently have 6+ people in our little kitchen. That plus extra space for one of our favorite hobbies had both of us twitterpated.

Kitchen

The new house has an open floorplan so dining, kitchen and greatroom seamlessly blend together for a big room that somehow nonetheless feels cozy. I love that the dining room is directly adjacent to the kitchen and I really love our dedicated pantry and a ton of extra cabinet space. This room is probably second only to our office in terms of level of organization required since we have LOTS of cooking gear, all of which we USE. We are about as far along in this room as we are in any room, but we still have a little ways to go.

I was very excited to find a great spot for our spice rack. Not only do I love it for looks and function, but it’s one of the first things Matt ever built! On top of that, it ended up being a great place to showcase these cool little tin prints my mom got me (actually I think she got me the veggie ones and these went to my sister, but I ended up with them anyhow).

Done

Unpack. This was a hurculean effort and it’s DONE. YAY US.
Organize the kitchen
Hang spice rack
Hang produce basket from wall
Place attractive decorative plant and

To Do

Organize the pantry (sooner)
Get rid of the random spaghetti junction on the very back counter that is our ad hoc temporary networking center (sooner)
Replace the pendants over the island with the big green ones (sooner)
Think about alternative arrangment for paper towels – under sink? (later)
Replace the bar stools with ones that function properly and compliment our decor ($$$$ later)

The function of the kitchen has been great so far. We have tons of space to work in and even some empty drawers and cabinets (!?!). The kids can eat breakfast at the counter and it will be a great spot for a little homework as well in just a few weeks. The pantry, even disorganized is miles ahead of where we’ve ever been.

Additionally, one of my favorite features in the entire house is in our kitchen – the kicksweep. Kicksweeps in case you don’t know are awesome little vents in your floorboards that you can kick open. They then produce suction and allow you to sweep a pile of yuck into them. They are genius! We love them.

Dining Room

The dining room was an exciting room for me decorating wise because we got to get new furniture. With all the expenses of a new house, we didn’t want to replace most of our furniture, and we didn’t NEED to either. But the dining room was a different story. Our furniture was from ikea and going on 12 years old. It had been through dozens of parties and years of little kids. Its time had come and gone.

So we looked at length and finally found a furniture company out of Canada, Canadel, who makes semi-custom furniture. Pick a size, pick a leg style, pick a finish, etc. And so we did … A table, two benches and two chairs. It wasn’t cheap, but we got exactly what we wanted and we’re super happy with it. Likewise, our “sidebar” from PB teen, is also a perfect fit.

Like the kitchen, this room isn’t 100% done, but it’s 100% livable

Done

New dining set
New “sidebar”
Organize dining accessories
Hang roller shades

To Do

Put some stuff on the walls!! (sooner)
Consider a chandelier (later)