|
|||||
|
(mouse over photos for descriptions) My hotel room (minus a couple cards that arrived after I took this shot):
‘Blessed’ is not a word I use often, but I can’t think of any that would be more appropriate. Except perhaps ‘grateful.’ We finally got around to putting our books on the shelves that we had built and installed in February! We had been planning to do it the weekend Julia got sick, and ended up doing it the next weekend to distract ourselves from the stillness of the house after her death. We have a few more things to find/unpack and add to the display area at the top, but I think that’s all of our books. We mixed in some sentimental items, including things I made for Mark and things I commissioned Miss Monster to make. Our living room is a lot more cozy now that it has some personality.
And now that the bedroom isn’t full of boxes of books, we can actually buy some furniture. I told my sister that my upside-down cardboard box nightstand helps me keep touch with the common man, but I think it’s time for the common man to fend for himself. We got home from our visit to the Tidal Basin just when the light is prettiest. My mom started preparing dinner, Mark and my dad sat on the deck and (I presume) talked about manly things, and I took one last stroll around the yard where I spent countless hours as a child:
Doesn’t my mom look like she belongs on a cookbook cover? She made a lasagna from scratch. It smelled amazing and we were all pretty hungry from the two-mile trek around the Tidal Basin. It’s not the mileage that wears you out, but the slow trudge of the clueless at a crowd density of approximately three people per square yard, and double that on the Metro platform where half of the escalators are inexplicably shut down. But anyway, the anticipation of dinner was so great that there may have been some celebratory dancing while the table was being set.
Finally, one last meal in my childhood home:
That house is full of good memories — I hope somebody special buys it. Julia seems to be improving, albeit very slowly, so I am a little preoccupied tonight. I still have the final installment of our DC trip to share, but not tonight. Tonight I just want to share a few shots from our flowerbed. Last year we never got around to planting anything and this year wasn’t looking much more promising, so we decided to go simple. We bought a Texas/Oklahoma wildflower seed mix, and Mark seeded and mulched the flowerbed a month or two ago. They have really taken off, and look better every week. They smell amazing. There’s just something about coming home to flowers at the end of the day that relaxes you. We’re considering getting another bag or two and guerilla-seeding the vacant lot next to us, among other blighted transitional areas of the neighborhood…
On Easter morning, my mom got us hopped up on sugar and bacon, and then we all climbed onto the Metro and joined a couple hundred thousand of our closest friends at the Tidal Basin (I managed to crop the teeming masses out of most of the photos). We saw lots of great outfits and a bride & groom. I’m still kicking myself for not getting a shot of the man with the white newsboy cap, pink Peeps shirt, white knickers, and striped pink kneesocks. You’ll have to settle for these outrageously good-looking people and some flowers instead:
My parents have spent the past year or so remodeling their house so they can sell it and move to Texas. That time is approaching, so Mark and I took one last sojourn to the house where I grew up. We planned to see the Cherry Blossom Festival, of course, but there were a few other things I needed to do. First I needed to fly into the One True Airport. Hadn’t been there in years, but I love the swooping mid-century modernness of the main terminal and the fact that they have kept the same font and color scheme that they have used my entire life. The shiny new terminal is impressive (even if the moving walkway did make obsolete the people movers that have always reminded me of Star Wars walkers), but I really felt like I was home when we reached the pea gravel walls of the main terminal. More than just flying out of Dulles, I associate that terminal with the countless times that I went with my mom to drop off or pick up my dad from business trips. Once we got to VA, I needed to visit my favorite barbecue place (well, favorite before Beaver’s came into my life). I needed to visit the site of many, many late night meals shared with Jes, where we would laugh about either the shift we’d just worked or that night’s takeover of the DC punk-shows-and-driving-around-lost scene:
After we’d gorged ourselves on some nostalgia food and oreo cake, we sampled my parents’ Wii. Mark was not impressed by my fancy bowling technique:
But he perked up when it was time for boxing:
The boxing is hard. It’s a little too much like real exercise. When I realized I was sweating, I decided to box from the couch:
And as long as I was revisiting childhood, I found this outside my bedroom door on Sunday morning:
(P.S. — we visited the Peeps store! It was awesome.) I thought I could never love another kitchen appliance as much as I love my KitchenAid mixer. Until we got a blender. I don’t like fruit, but I like fruit-flavored things, and I like shakes, so we figured this was a good way to add healthy things to our diet. Especially Sunday nights, after we spend the entire afternoon moaning that we’ll never be hungry again and force ourselves to unenthusiastically eat something before bed just so we don’t wake up ravenous. You should see the recipe book that came with this sucker. Apparently you can make ANYTHING. Like bread dough. Or peanut butter. Or soup — blend long enough and it heats up! You can throw anything in there. It’s like a home version of Will It Blend? Today we went a little crazy at the farmer’s market and brought home a ton of produce for the blender’s maiden voyage. We didn’t use a recipe, just put a little of this and that in and blended away: grapes, a tangelo, a carrot, kiwis, spinach, strawberries, a banana, Greek yogurt, raw honey, agave nectar. The result tasted pretty good, looked a little worse, and smelled awful. I’m not writing this recipe down for posterity, but I’m pretty excited to see what else we can make.
Sick day essentials: pajamas, extra-soft blanket, cell phone, magazine, DayQuil, fluids, tissues, and someone to snuggle with.
Optional, but highly recommended: pho ga.
Okay, maybe it’s not a cure, but it beats toughing it out at the office. The end of February in Houston signals the start of rodeo season, which kicks off with a huge barbecue cookoff, a charity 5k/10k to benefit the HLSR Educational Fund, and a parade. This was the second year that I ran the 10k. I was a rower in high school and college, but despite my athleticism I was never much of a runner. I have tried very hard to like it, but I think I’m just not built for it. So I can’t explain why I would voluntarily do a 10k twice, except that my employer is a major sponsor, it’s a good cause, and the memory of the pain prevents me from registering for something that I’ll hate more. And what’s 10k, if even retirees take up marathoning these days? Surely I can run 6.3 miles. Last year I trained a lot. This year I trained less often, but at a much faster pace. On race day, my miles averaged two seconds faster than last year — hardly the payoff I was hoping for. Also, I really, really did not enjoy the last half, not even a little. So if I participate next year, I’m moving to the 5k event. What I do enjoy, however, is strength training. I naturally gravitate toward sloth, so I have to love a sport that involves more rest time than work time. Mark has a long history of powerlifting, so when we moved to Houston we decided that we were going to buy some nice equipment. Our home gym is only about 140 sqft, so of course we bought a power rack that fills a quarter of that space. The rest of the space contains an erg, a cycling trainer, and some kettlebells.
The other thing Mark got me is a weight belt. Once I passed bodyweight on deadlift, it seemed like a good idea. He bought me the same kind that he uses, but since I’m a girl, mine is pretty:
We are the first owners of our home, which came with some nice features, but nowhere to put books. We decided to have some bookcases custom-built in the living room. This is what the living room looked like when we moved in: So who was going to build these bookcases? When we moved to Houston, we immediately registered for Angie’s List. If you haven’t heard of it, you must not watch television; if you haven’t used it, you’re missing out. We’ve found a number of excellent service providers through Angie’s List, and we always contribute reviews of local businesses/providers that we love (one month we were the top contributor for Houston, and we got a gift certificate to a local restaurant!). You have to pay for it, but I figure we have saved the membership cost many times over by finding providers who do good work. Angie’s List has categories for everything, so we started with cabinet makers. We saw a lot of photos and read a lot of reviews, and got an estimate from DJ at Quality Millwork (nothing to see there yet, but if you’re in Houston and need something built, there’s your contact info). He told us how much business has increased since he started getting ratings on Angie’s List, which is good incentive for me as the customer to write a positive review for someone whose work I like. Anyway, he took measurements, did a sketch, wrote an estimate, and we sent the deposit. We went out to his workshop to see the bookcases before they were painted and give him the paint chip, and we were pretty excited. Finally they were painted and the day arrived for installation! Then we hit the first snag. The bottom cabinets were installed, but the workers couldn’t get the shelving sections around the angles in the stairs that go up to the living room. There was nothing to do but cut them apart, hide the seam with decorative molding, and try again another day. This was not what we had expected or wanted, but devoid of other options we agreed, and waved goodbye to the bookcases as they headed back to the shop. There is a famous quote about laws and sausages — that it is best not to see them made. I would amend that to ‘laws, sausages, and anything you’ve hired someone to do to your perfectly good home,’ and after overhearing all sorts of power tool sounds from the safety of my bedroom, I would add that is best not to hear them being made, either. This is what we looked at for the next week:
Fortunately, the story has a happy ending. The size incident was a lucky mistake, because we really like the look of the molding that frames out the bottom of the display area. The electrician that DJ brought did right by us too, by suggesting the right kind of bulbs to suit our needs and positioning them so they wouldn’t shine in our eyes as we sit on the couch. That’s the kind of overlooked detail that thrills me when someone else thinks of it. So, without further ado:
|
|||||
|
Copyright © 2010 Eat, DINK and Be Merry - All Rights Reserved |
|||||
