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Date Your Mate #5: Sewing and Swearing

I will not bore you with a “work date” this week. We worked so much together aside from our date that we didn't bother. But we did have a very nice “fun” date. I had two suggestions for our date, one of which I'll save for later and the other of which, Matt husband picked.

The date idea I proposed, half jokingly, was for Matt to help me with my sewing machine. I purchased some cloth napkins a few weeks ago and I really like them and wouldn't mind duplicating them out of some fabric scraps I have around. But the thing is, they have a rolled hem and my sewing skills are umm… practically non-existent. I can sort of sew a straight seam on the machine, but just enough to accomplish the most simple tasks. Matt's sewing knowledge is even more limited than mine, but he has a keen engineer's mind and has taught himself how to use countless power tools and many methods of woodworking and he enjoys figuring this kind of thing out.

So we set off on our mission. Our first task was to find the correct foot for my sewing machine. After much hemming (ha) and hawing and looking at online tutorials and tutorials in my manual and scratching our heads, we realized that my sewing machine manual had swapped the labels on two of the feet! With the correct supplies in hand, we set to work …

We worked for over an hour and I would not say we had one real success!! We managed to sew about 1″ of a rolled hem before it just became a raw edge with stitching going through it. Even with both of our technical minds, this one seems to be a bit beyond us. We have concluded that I need to be shipped off to a class (or our neighbor's house) for remedial lessons.

Still, it was a lot of fun to work on something like this together. We used to do this much more often. All too frequently these days, we are forced to tackle these things on our own since someone must always watch the kids or perform another vital household task. I even told Matt I'd come down to the woodshop with him sometime.

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Summer Slipping Away

It was a nice weekend. We:

• picked raspberries from our own garden (again!)
• took a long walk
• made lasagna cupcakes (no frosting involved, just lasagna in muffin tins)
• went for a 10 mile (!) run in really hot weather
• played Bunco (well just me)
• had yummy brunch out
• said goodbye to our friends at the gym, and the gym itself (boohoo!)
• spent great time with some good friends
• and made a new friend
• cleaned the house (again)
• did about 10 loads of laundry (do our clothes mate while we sleep?)
• went shopping for deals for next summer and new clothes for the fall
• did NOT run a race
• won a $20 gift card
• made peach sangria
• had a wonderful time

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Bummed

About this time last year, we joined a new gym. The gym had been open for a few months (6, 8?) and it had received rave reviews from lots of our friends. We visited and not only was the facility amazing, but we LOVED the childcare facility. LOVED.

So we joined. And we were all happy. Matt and I were happy because we had awesome facilities to workout in. We had tons of cardio machines with their own TVs. We had great classes and instructors. We had immaculate locker rooms and steam rooms that didn't skeeze us out to use. And the kids were happy because they loved the giant kids facility with its tons of toys, jumpy castle and AMAZING staff.

In the winter I went at least 4x/week and usually more like 6x/week. And this summer we still made it there at least 2x/week even though we were outside much much more. The kids practically begged to go.

And then this past week, disaster struck. I found out on Friday that they are closing down our beloved gym on Tuesday (yes, the one that is a mere 2 days away). We are shocked and really really upset about it.

Turns out they've had problems with their landlord all along. The landlord defaulted on his contractor and our gym had to pay some subcontractors out of their own pocket to get the place open. It has only gotten worse from there. The landlord hasn't paid taxes since 2008. I don't know all the ins and outs, but they are concerned that the county might close the buildings up any day now and all of us are left out in the (soon to be) cold. Overall, I feel like the corporation could have handled the situation much better. This has been looming big for some time and we had little warning. We also all feel like they could have been more proactive about finding some sort of solution to the problem (such as moving a mile down the road to the empty supermarket front, something they apparently considered and dismissed since they didn't want to have to explain the reasons to their members or something like that).

Of course I feel terrible for us. We are going to have to make a whole new routine. This gym has been a central part of our family life. And now we have to figure out a new place to go. But I'm really bummed for the great people who worked there who didn't ask for this and who are getting the worst end of the deal. Lots of them are in school and trying to just make ends meet. There are lots of single moms. It is terrible. Today we went to say goodbye, in particular to some of our favorite people at the childcare center. We're all really bummed. There's a very small chance they may be able to open again somewhere nearby, but it is months away at best.

So for now we'll be running outside and enjoying the fall. We'll be Shredding with Jillian and maybe trying out some p90x. And I'm sure, eventually, we'll find a new gym. But we are BUMMED.

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What’s Cooking: Volume 16 – Food Routines

When I took history classes, I was always frustrated by the lack of detail. I dislike the “big picture” of dates and generals and battles. My interest in all things, history alike, is more detailed. I want to know how people spent their time, what they ate, how they relaxed, what they wore, what was important to them. What they could expect from a “typical” day. I’m curious about all of you too. How and what do you eat on a typical day? Leave a comment, or write an entire blog post about it. Here’s my routine:

Breakfast
I almost always eat breakfast at the office, so my breakfast starts the night before when I pack it to have ready to grab on my way out the door. I go through cycles of breakfasts. For a while, I had a green monster smoothie and a piece of toast. For a while it was toast with peanut butter and banana on it. In the winter, I’m partial to oatmeal (Kashi heart to heart apple or homemade, using steel cut oats, done in a big batch over the weekend). Right now I’m really into toast and yogurt. I have a sandwich thin with some brummel & brown on it and plain yogurt with something to stir in, most typically fresh fruit or in a pinch, all-fruit style jam. I also love a good cup of tea (or two) in the morning. Green tea with mint is the choice right now. The weekends are a bit more scattered for breakfast. We tend to be racing around and frequently feed the kids an organic all natural POP TART on the way out the door or a bagel or something like that. Occasionally we’ll have more leisure and we make eggs or oatmeal.

Lunch
Lunch is also made the night before. I will most frequently take leftovers from whatever dinner we’ve recently had. When there are no leftovers to be had, I make a sandwich on Sandwich Thins, with Laughing Cow and lunch meat. No matter what I eat, I almost always have a green salad with my meal. I mix around dressings and toppings (strawberries with blue cheese and poppyseed dressing, craisins and almonds with shittake vinaigrette, tomatoes and mozz with Italian, kalamata olives and cucumbers, no dressing needed). I have a special plastic container for my salads with a dressing dispenser. I try not to go out to lunch very often.

Snacks
I’m not a big believer in snacks. I don’t really get or follow the 6 small meals thing because I’m sure for me they’d turn into 6 big meals. I do occasionally have a Fiber One bar, hummus and carrots or pickles for a snack, but I definitely try to avoid snacks!

DSC_0051Dinner
We make it a priority to have a home-cooked dinner most weeknights. Of course, being human if we have a particularly hectic night or a lot of errands to run or something, we may pickup or go out. Sometimes I get all ambitious and double a recipe to freeze with the theory that we can heat it up on a hectic night, but in practice, we are not great about actually using these up and so I don’t do this a whole lot.

During the week, I tend to stick to mostly easy family favorites. I am happy to try a new (easy) recipe on a week night, but mostly, it’s the ones we know well. I save most new and/or complicated cooking for the weekend, Fridays and Saturdays when we have friends and family over (and I don’t care, I will experiment on my dinner guests – we have the pizza place on speed dial if it all goes terribly wrong!) or Sundays which are our (comparatively) slow day. I strive for at least one new meal and one meatless meal per week. I try not to make myself crazy with my own expectations, but it is a struggle on some days … I am a bit too type A for my own good.

A few links:
• My favorite cookbooks on GoodReads
• Annie’s Eats
• The Kitchn
• Everyday Food
• Cooking Light
• Dinner a Love Story

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Snip Snip!

 

Yesterday, an awful thing happened.
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This charming little guy,
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with these absolutely cherubic curls,
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got a haircut!!!
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Overall, he did pretty well, especially with the help of some lovely distracting bubbles.
But mama DID NOT!

Now the curls are all gone and he looks sooo grownup. *SOB!!!*
Where did my little boy go?
Didn’t we just get him like yesterday? 

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Date Your Mate #4: 8th Anniversary

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Did I mention that last week was the crazy week to end all crazy weeks? Because it was. 1 night at home from Sunday to Saturday. That’s it. As a result, date nights were a bit goofy. See the rest of the dating fun at Simply Modern Mom’s 52 Dates project!

Fun Date: Tuesday was our OFFICIAL anniversary (as previously mentioned). 8 years, guys. Really? Crazy!! Anyhow, we had a special date night to celebrate. Matt dropped off the kids with my mom and we went to a reception for incoming Vanderbilt (where we met!) students from the Denver area. It was a fun schmoozy (though not boozy) event. It was interesting to hear how things had changed in the 12 years since we first started at Vandy and we met lots of nice people.

Then we went to dinner at House of Marrakesh, a nice little Moroccan restaurant (our rehearsal dinner was at a Moroccan restaurant many years ago!). It is one of about 28397 restaurants around here we have been wanting to try and for some reason I landed on that one as our choice. Since we had never been there before so we had their 5 course dinner to try out lots of stuff.

Appetizers were lentil soup, bread with honey oregano butter and a really great tomato cucumber salad. We also had the chicken bastella pastry which phyllo dough with meat and spices (cinnnamon, etc.) and has powdered sugar on top. It is strange, but wonderful. Then we had three main courses to choose from: lamb tagine, chicken tagine (my fave) and couscous with seven vegetables. Dessert was mint tea and baklava (flavored with rose water, I think). It was a nice little restaurant and I would happily go there again and I think Tabby would especially love it.

Everything clicked along well. We enjoyed talking with each other and taking some trips down memory lane. It was fun to actually have a date ON our anniversary for a change.

I did do better with photos this week and actually took a handful. But they all umm… sucked. Continue reading “Date Your Mate #4: 8th Anniversary”

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More Fun with the Silhouette!!

whiteboard

I have been having too much fun making these custom white boards

The one on the left is our brand new menu board (which fell off the kitchen counter and smashed after I finished transferring all those teeny tiny letters!!!) and on the right is the one I made for a new college student for her dorm room.

Totally simple … just frame, scrapbook paper and vinyl letters, cut by the Silhouette, of course.

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Race Recap: Heart and Soul 10K

IMAG0367We decided, sort of on a whim, to sign up for the Heart and Sole 10K. Initially, I was hoping to get a decent qualifying time for Disney, but I'm pretty sure I didn't do that (Matt might have, but not me). It's a smallish race (10K and half marathon) put on by Boulder Running Company. It benefits AIDS orphans in South Africa. The cost of entry was remarkably low: $30 for 10K and $50 for half marathon.

Besides a great race in a beautiful spot, we got a Brooks Tech Tee, cool Brooks “Run Happy” water bottles and since we signed up pretty early, Brooks hats. Come to think of it, Brooks might have been a sponsor. Just a hunch. Oh! And some new running socks too!!

The race started at 7:30 … no waves, no fanfare, no starting gun, even, just 450 people heading out for a jog. Matt and I had agreed to run separately and I cued up my audio book (Naked in Death) and plodded along. Holy CATS was it HOT, even at 7:30 AM. By the time I was in a mile, I was sweating bullets and felt like my skin was burning … I had not worn sunblock thinking it would still be early (dumb). I ran about 95% of it, and finished smack on my (pathetic) 12:00 pace. It was a 5K out and back, which was an interesting way to do it, but it worked. No timing chip reader at the turn-around, oddly enough.

At the end there was a small but nice crowd and probably the BEST post race food we've ever had. They had the standard bagels and bananas, but they actually had stuff to put on the bagels (shock!) as well as chocolate milk (swoon!), beer (not my thing) and brats (yes please, but no bun, thanks!). Also, immediately next to the finish line with the water were fruit pops. Woohoo! I had two. mmmmmm

It was really a well-run race. Matt and I both enjoyed it and marveled at its comparatively low cost. The Rock 'n' Roll events have been fun, but I am all for these smaller races. Much easier and cheaper and overall BETTER.

Way to go, Boulder Running Company!!

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The Fruits of Summer

I’m not big on ornamental shrubbery. Especially evergreen bushes … they just catch tons of JUNK. So last summer, we ripped out the evergreen bushes that were in our alley. In their place we planned to put raspberry bushes but we never got around to it. So we finally put them in this summer.

Neither of us really thought we’d get much off of the bushes this summer, but four of our five bushes are heavy (as in BENDING OVER) with gorgeous ripe raspberries. They taste every bit as good as they look.

Tabby is hugely enthused about having a raspberry patch behind our house and is dying to pick ALL the berries (even the not-so-ripe ones). Unfortunately, the wasps like them as much as we do and we have to pick them at strategic times in order to avoid them.

I also bordered our front flower beds with strawberry plants. They are yielding some pretty tasty strawberries as well, though the bunnies seem to get most of them before we can get our hands on them.

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Tooting My Own Horn

Last night Matt and I went to a Vanderbilt Alumni Event. Despite being alums for 8 years, we've never been to one and it was fun. One thing we noticed was that pretty much everyone who attended was a “self promoter.” But, Matt pointed out, self-promotion isn't necessarily a bad thing. I mentioned that I'd read a post that very day (yesterday) that Jayesel had written about how adults are very much loathe to say they're good at something lest they be found out as impostors. Except she says it much better than I am saying it right now, so go read what she wrote (related: she is a good writer!). At any rate, she challenged people to come up with 7 things they're good at.

Seven for me:

1. I am a good mom. I am working hard at molding my kiddos into nice polite members of society that can think for themselves, stand up for themselves, and know right from wrong. And overall, it's going quite well.

2. I have a good eye for layout, design and art in general. I create beautiful holiday cards, websites, and other print material. I may not know every single technical aspect of photography, but my eye frames shots well and knows what looks good.

3. I am a good programmer. Programming makes intuitive sense to me and I can almost always find a way to achieve the outcome I desire. I can also pick up a new language pretty quickly.

4. I am a good cook. I don't need a recipe to pull a few ingredients together and come up with something pretty tasty. I know what ingredients will work well together and I can adapt recipes to use what I have on hand or to be more to my taste.

5. I am a super-fast reader. I am able to blaze through just about any book or article very quickly and still be able to tell you all of the highlights and most of the details.

6. I am miss organization. I love to organize and this extends from work to home to finances to packing for trips to getting food on the table. I love lists and calendars and they love me.

7. I am a good friend. I am loyal to those I love and try to do right by them and think how I can help and actually carry it through. If you need a meal, a hug, a help-it, I am there. I don't make friends super easily, but I don't let them go easily either.

Try it yourself… it's harder than I thought!! The whole time I wrote I kept wanting to qualify each statement. “… most of the time, anyhow” “… so far, that is!”