What I did on my summer (mostly non-)vacation

• The apartment complex decided to close the gym for renovations with no indication of when they would re-open. I took this as a sign to mean that the universe wanted me to spend the summer eating ice-cream and relaxing. This, it turns out, was a poor decision.
• I joined ravelry, the online knitting community and promptly got addicted to all of the forums (Knitting AND Buffy? WHA?) but never actually knitted all summer.
• I joined Burda Style and received favorable feedback from my few summer projects which spurred me to believe I was invincible - until the summer shirt disaster of late July. Patterns, it turns out, are useful.
• One of those sewing projects was a gift for my friend's B-day (July 2) and it's still sitting on my dining room chair with the mailing envelope On Top Of It as if it will magically package and mail itself. Oh Gosh, how cool would that be?
  
• I fell completely over the edge into becoming a total political junkie, recent events of the democratic convention and the Labor Day weekend had me glued to the Internet and the TV. Don't interrupt me.
  
• I took a break from blogging. Don't interrupt me.
  
• I baked A LOT of zucchini bread.
• I cooked closed to 9 pounds of green beans in soups and sautees for every meal.
• My Dad retired!
• My parents moved!
  
• I didn't actually have anything to do with those last two things unless you count the advice on moving a cat. Oh, and collecting all of my childhood memories in boxes in my dining room. I could open my own museum. FYI, my diary from 1989 is really not that interesting.
  
• Successfully avoided the grant writing project I promised to do for the farm. Wanted to kill Mark every Saturday when he said "So, how's the grant writing going?" But, all good things come to an end and the grant is due this month.
  
• Stupid Maryland has a stupid front license plate rule and the F---ing thing fell off! $120 and one police report later, we have new plates. One week after that, the original plate was turned into campus police and then returned to us. So now we have 4 Maryland plates. Too bad we can't sell 2 of them for, oh, I don't know, maybe $120!!!!!!
  
• Went to Florida with the in-laws. This deserves a post on its own. Soon.
• Seethed with anger every week as the parking lot at the train station slowly filled up. People, when you only have 1 minute to walk from your car to the platform, it's harder to do from the back of the lot. Make room. I refuse to get up earlier or spend less time watching the Today Show. Geesh, you'd think gas prices were high or something.
  
• Seethed with anger as said light rail newbies ask stupid questions and nervously press the stop bell. People, it stops AT EVERY STATION. Relax.
• My cat started to refer to us as "peeps." I wish she would stop.
  

Anniversary in DC

We planned a trip to DC to celebrate our anniversary. Unfortunately, it was quite stormy on Saturday so we had to go on Sunday. Last year to celebrate our 10th we went to DC for a weekend and stayed overnight at the Hotel Rouge, which was totally awesome, but this year we decided to just do a day trip.

We had both seen articles on exhibits we wanted to check out so we planned our day based on that. We made sure to end up at Zayntinya for dinner.

Mark's choice was up first, the Jim Henson exhibit at the Smithsonian International Gallery. I was not able to take pictures but wish I did. It was so cool. We saw Kermit and Bert and Ernie, the real deal! We also saw some Fraggle Rock characters. This being a show on cable, I was not familiar with it since my parents didn't get cable until I went to college. Mark was really into it. The exhibit overall was very interesting and charted his career from the 1960's to his death. The sketches and early puppets were fun to see but the highlight was definitely the stuff we recognized. They had a good play area for kids and I asked Mark if he wanted to put faces on the monsters or play in the puppet theater but he didn't. It was a very small exhibit and we finished much earlier than planned. In fact, in that crazy underground gallery it took longer to find an exit than to see the exhibit. We ended up wandering in the Freer Gallery before seeing light and exit doors! Mark said he would hate to see what happened in an emergency.

Next we headed up to Dupont Circle to visit the Phillips Collection because I wanted to see the Jacob Lawrence exhibit. I am very interested in the Harlem Renaissance and had first read about him through that. Then I did see the traveling exhibit of the incomplete migration series at the Frist Center in Nashville and loved the connection between art and history to tell a story. I read this article about the exhibit and saw that the series would be shown complete which seemed like something I couldn't miss. It was awesome. The paintings are small but each have a caption that tell the story of the Great Migration in 60 parts. I had to keep going back to some to look at details and listen to the cell phone tour to hear the artist speak. So, I loved it but it also didn't take as long as we thought.

After checking out the rest of the Phillips we decided to wonder over to the neighborhood of the restaurant and see if there was a book store or something since we had almost 3 hours to kill. What we discovered was the Regal Gallery Place-Chinatown. 2 hours in the air conditioning with a bottle of water was perfect. We saw The Mummy, Dragon Emperor, it wasn't as bad as everyone says. I liked it better than Indiana Jones, Crystal Skulls (aliens, really? ugh.) And it had Brendan Fraser, he's on my list.

Dinner at Zayntinya was very good. Not quite as awesome as I remembered but very very tasty. Especially the eggplant and the stuffed grape leaves.

Then we drove home and got in at exactly 10:00 p.m., as we walked through the door Mark exclaimed - "Quick, turn it on, we're just in time for the Two Coreys!" I was glad to be home.

11th Anniversary

This Saturday is our 11th anniversary. I cannot believe it has been 11 freakin' years that I have been married. I am certainly
NOT THAT OLD! I got my hair cut last week and Mark called while I was there. The very sweet, young lady cutting my hair asked if that was my boyfriend. I was actually confused, like I haven't heard "boyfriend" in awhile, y'all. No, I said, my husband. She asked how long we have been married and was shocked when I said 11 years. I think really she was looking for a good tip but I was flattered that she thought (or pretended to think) I was much younger.

I can't say they have been 11 straight blissful years, but I can say that once we stopped trying to change each other, things have been a whole lot of fun. We were laughing recently about some of our old hang-ups. We had huge fights about stupid things like curtains. I wanted him to be the kind of guy that cared about curtains and he wanted me to be the kind of girl that didn't care. Can you imagine? This from a man who's dream of life as an adult included a loft apartment with a b ale of wire as a coffee table. Well, now I just choose the damn curtains and put them up myself. Live with it. Also live with the fact that we will NEVER have a baled wire coffee table.

I used to pretend to like more things but that didn't last. I tried really hard to love comics since he collects them and draws them but I could never do it. Mark always makes me give the thumbs up or down on on the comics he buys every month. I choose randomly based on the cover art and rarely give more than a half thumbs up. The only artist I really like is James Kochalka, and even then its just his American Elf stuff. But I do love that because it is autobiographical and he and his wife remind me of us. Like in this one.

We have completely different taste in movies, books and TV. He likes to say "if there's crap on TV you will find it" but he seems to find every episode of Murder She Wrote or Matlock on, every time. He has the same taste in TV (and movies,comics,video games) as an 80-year old man or a 12-year old boy so I think my slight addiction to reality TV and E! is better or at least equally lame. And sometimes he pretends to hate what I watch but secretly loves it. The latest example of this is the awesome new show, The Two Coreys (don't pretend you don't love it too).

What we have in common is politics, values, being introverts, humor and food. We love to find new restaurants, try new beer and wine, email each other political stories, crack jokes and make up stories about our cat(s). In fact, I was recently watching High School Musical: Get in the Picture! and was slightly embarrassed when Mark came in the room (it really was a new low, even for me) so I said I wouldn't be watching but Miss Gimp insisted; she has a crush on Nick Lachey. Mark took offense at this and exclaimed that she does not, she loves Sexy Shemar Moore
(we can't say Shemar Moore in our house without the Sexy in front, its a rule). I said that yes, definitely, he is in her top 10. Miss Gimp has not disclosed her other top 8 choices.

So, as we head on into middle age and I still think in the summer of 1997 I made a very good decision and I can't imagine any other life. But I can imagine more money, not working, traveling the world or many, many other fabulous additions to my quite adequate existence.

Happy Anniversary, sweety.

Farm update

People have been asking about our farm share and how its working out. We love getting all the produce and we have tested many new recipes to use it all up. For a while we were getting peas, and by peas I mean like TONS of peas. I put them in omelets, stir fry, salads and mixed with any veggie we happened to eat that night. Now we seem to be well into greens. Salad greens, swiss chard, and kale. By kale I mean TONS of kale.

The salad greens are great because I take salad to work and we eat a lot of salad with dinner or for dinner. In the picture above we tossed the farm greens with NJ tomatoes from Mom and Dad and organic carrots, radishes and onions from Wegman's. So far we are keeping up with the supply. The swiss chard was enough for one meal and I found a great recipe from the Cafe Flora cookbook my brother gave me. The yummy lemon dressing also called for garlic, which we have from the farm too! I love garlic, maybe too much and refuse to use garlic powder so getting fresh garlic bulbs is awesome. The chard was so good I would definitely make it again.

Kale is another story, It's not my favorite. Mark loves it so there's something I guess. We are getting kale in large quantities, 3 bunches last trip! I had to look up recipes that I would want to eat, it took some time. I found two great options, made one last week and one this week. Last week it was Colcannon from the Vegan Yum Yum blog (which I have on my rss feed and LOVE). I used Boca meatless sausage instead of the seitan because it was easier. Didn't taste the kale really at all so it was a hit.

This week it was Kale and Sun Dried Tomato Hummus also from Vegan Yum Yum. OMG y'all! It was delicious! We ate it with the salad above and the leftovers we ate with crackers the next day. I could eat that every day.

Well, we have one bunch of kale left and its almost time to go back to the farm so I guess I need to get back to recipe hunting.

Sewtastic!

I make things. It's kinda amazing. As you know
I now own a sewing machine. After staring at it and sometimes circling it in an attempt to determine whether it would bite, I actually got it up and running. The first thing I did was hem a skirt, then I made a really ugly, misshapen toy snake for baby Haywood and then I made this purse, another purse, a skirt and altered a blazer. How's that for crafting?

My past sewing experience was sketchy at best. Mom had an ancient machine that I used in Junior High. I took a class at the local fabric store and made a pair of palm tree print boxers. I tried to use my new skills on Mom's machine to make a dress but I gave up and Mom had to finish it. In high school my friend designed his own prom outfit but couldn't sew. I volunteered. Mom remembers coming home to see this massive mistake in progress and biting her tongue. I remember fighting with my friend as he screams "I thought you said you knew how to sew!!!" When I told Mark the story he said it reminded him of "that episode of the Cosby Show" I think you know the one.

Hence the trepidation. But, I discovered that I remember the basics and can actually finish projects. It's fun. The purse above was made using a free online pattern from Ric Rac and fabric I bought online at ReproDepot for my birthday. It took me more than an hour but I am a novice. I modified the instructions as I went along and lengthened the strap to be able to wear it hands-free. I liked it so much I made a second one the very next weekend.

This skirt is something I made for weekends in the summer and especially for my Disney World Vacation in August. Its comfy with an elastic waistband. Many of my blogs have been buzzing about using old bed sheets from thrift stores as fabric for sewing. I had wanted to try that. Then I saw this on the CRAFT blog and it was perfect. I went to Goodwill and purchased a twin bed sheet. It's green and white cotton with an eyelet trim. I loved the detail for the hem. I also loved the fact that it was the last Saturday of the month and that meant everything was 50% off! So this sheet was $.60, for reals.

In between sewing projects I joined BurdaStyle and posted the pictures. I think I want to make the Charlie Bag from Burda next.

I Ruled the School

.....In my mind.

I have been thinking about high school often lately (Rochester Adams High, class of 1992), things keep reminding me of it. The graduation announcements I received in the mail started it, I think. Then my friend Kristin emailed me about a song we loved in school

for the record: Maryn Cadell



To top it off my other friend Kristen's birthday is July 2 so I have been thinking about her and weaving some craft magic for her amusement, which will be late, as always, because that's who I am and I can't change. Happy Birthday Kristen!!!

So, these two girls were and are the best friends a gal could have and we had fun in high school. I was new to Michigan and came from a truly awful junior high experience so it was nice to find people that really got me and supported me and I hope I did that for them, too. Trips to Royal Oak, scouting costumes for plays from area flea markets, camping, and everything else we did while trying to be as grown up as possible.

I was thinking today about other music I loved in high school and came up with this list:

Violent Femmes
Jane's Addiction
The Cure
The Smiths
Morrissey
Primus (jerry was a race car driver)
REM
They Might Be Giants
Pixies
Senior Year: James Taylor and Carol King over and over again

I googled top hits of 1990 and 1991 and got a list of crap I never even considered listening to.

New Art

In honor of Steve's visit we finally got some art framed (it only took 21 months!). Mark was laughing at me because I spent a whole week obsessively cleaning for our guest and decided the blank wall above the couch would not do for his visit. So I took it to Michael's 60% off framing sale. This print is from our friend Bryce in Nashville. His studio is Isle of Printing you may have seen his website on this blog. We have 3 of his prints but are waiting to frame the other two.

We are very particular about art, since Mark is an artists and we both have strong opinions. We have some of Mark's art on the walls of course and a piece from our friend Jeff Coleman. We also have a print from Michael McBride, a Nashville artist. In Nashville, We spent much of our time researching local history and understanding southern culture and for us, this is a powerful series we just fell in love with.

Money may be tight but art is important. Finding local artists and meaningful pieces helps us to create a home. Speaking of, I missed the Pile O' Craft last Saturday which made me very sad but luckily the vendors are available on Etsy so I can shop anytime. Someday soon we should get some Baltimore art for our collection.