Monday, November 30, 2015

handy hubby edition - media shelf

Our incline hiker is almost finally ready to go. (word to the wise: never buy nordic track!!) This saga began when we ordered it in June, it came, brand new with both lift kits needing to be replaced and in need of a new roller. The guy fixed the lift kits, but NT sent the part for the front roller and it needed the back one, doh!, so still we wait for the part and for the guy to come out one last time. Pretty sad their brand new product needed 3 things replaced. The hiker came with a touchscreen monitor and it can go online, but I seem to have problems with it dying mid- whatever I'm doing. So Doug built me a shelf to go on the wall and then I can set the laptop up there or the portable DVD player. Awesome! No more craning my neck over to the desk to watch something.
He went to get the brackets and a shelf from Lowes but all their 'new' shelves were scratched. Pallet wood to the rescue!
Ready to go!
Other pics from this weekend:
It's been too long since chocolate chip cookies!
Reindeer kitty did NOT like her new hat. Um... return policy on like-new cat hats??

Saturday, November 28, 2015

Thanksgiving & something that's been bugging me

I took not a single picture over our two Thanksgivings. But they were nice. Real thanksgiving we went down and spent the afternoon/evening with my vegetarian aunt and uncle and their kids, my parents came too, and we had a super delicious Veggie-giving. Spinach/currant/walnut phyllo triangles, a baked yam and apple dish, mashed potatoes, cabbage salad, brussel sprouts, lentil and wild rice salad, cranberry salad, and for dessert homemmade pumpkin pies and a chocolate sourdough bread pudding made by my chef cousin. Yum. We walked around the neighborhood and then the cousins played games at night. Very fun.
Last night we went up to my parents for a more traditional dinner, Doug's parents and brother came too. We had a turkey, sweet potatoes, kale salad, corn muffins, mashed potatoes, and cheesy vegetables. More pumpkin pie and apple pie too. Then we played a fun game that Doug's mom could not seem to get the hang of, but it was fun.
We have so much to be thankful for. Praise God.
I have a nice stretch off work and am working on lots of little painting projects that stand in the way of a couple big projects being completed. So pretty soon now!
One thing that's been bugging me pretty much since I got this at our shower last year:
notice anything?
how about now?
a couple pen marks later and:
aaaahhh, much better.
And one pic from this morning:
Doug's breakfast :) I like the eyebrows.
alright, back to painting!

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Monday, November 16, 2015

handy husband edition - garage shelves

While I was busy working this weekend Doug was busy busting out 3 new storage shelves for our garage.
He built them from free pallets so they were free minus nails and time building them.
It will be nice to be able to organize the garage better.
On Sunday he dropped me off at work and when he picked me up he brought me this
So sweet! Then he took me out for Indian food (yum!! Samosas, garlic naan, and butter chicken!) and we rented Inside Out, what a cute little movie. Nice date night with my handy husband.

Thursday, November 12, 2015

Good friends

Last night was bookclub. We were sitting around the table talking and I noticed something in the corner of my eye fly down from the lamp. Turns out it was a huge moth that landed on my chair, and then decided to go for a walk across my back and start to go down into my pants. My friend Kelly was sitting next to me and luckily noticed the situation, and what a good friend, she practically reached into my butt crack and picked this moth out so I wouldn't freak out. I did freak out anyway though, stood up and whipped my pants off. But she had got it out and then Liz killed it. Hooray! Thank God for good friends :-)

Monday, November 9, 2015

the great shower curtain debate

I cannot for the life of me find a shower curtain I like. I started out with the one I registered for, but the grey didn't match the walls. Then got one at B, B & B but it was too white and made my white cabinets look yellow.
too white
too flowery according to Doug
this is actually ombre, but it has too many little lines in it
too blah
Josh (our current roommate) got us that rug, but I just don't know about it either.
This weekend was low key, raked leaves together, saw the Martian, went to a church doing a series on marriage, grocery shopped. As I was looking at potatoes with Doug my body was encircled in a hug by leather jacket arms. I just stood there waiting for Doug to tell me who it was, but he never did! Finally the hug stopped and I see it is my friend Jill! Haha. He said Jill's face was too short and buried in my back for him to see who it was. Anyway, had a nice grocery store chat with her and her bf. Always nice to see her, even if for 15 minutes. Came home, worked on homework, and Liz and Mark came over for dinner. I was imagining a delicious cheesy gooey beefy macaroni dish, but it was just kinda ok. So I won't even share the recipe.
Probably shouldn't even share these lame pics, but already uploaded.. so here ya go.
Meat, milk/cream, and tomatoes
sauteed onions and peppers with spices and tomato paste
unappetizing blob of noodles
ta-da, wah waaaah. Part of the problem was I didn't have a big enough pan (who has a 6 qt dutch oven?!) Nor do I have room to store such a monstrosity. So I'm not sure if my noodles to fluid ratio got mixed up when I was dividing into 2 pans. Seemed like it could have been creamier.
Alas, we ate it, and played this fun game Codewords. Nice weekend.

Friday, November 6, 2015

latest eats

I was a bit more on top of my game last week and I prepped a couple meals for when I was going to be working this week. I made these tasty lentil sloppy joes
And I also made this spicy bean bowl. It was pretty good.
Also I finally worked up the nerve to go ask my neighbor if I could pick some of her apples.
Success! Thank you!
I peeled them all, found no worms I'm happy to report and made a very tasty applesauce.
Yesterday at work I actually had a 'good' day. Wow, it only took 7 months! I must be getting a little better at task management, I still need to study up on some stuff I forgot, but it was a good day. Then came home and Doug had got pizza and that DVD Spy from redbox. Yay! The movie was runny (altho waaaaay too many F bombs). But it was a nice relaxing evening.
Today, sadly, one of my cousin's got divorced. I've kind of been trying to help her through this for over a year now and her court date happened to be on a day I (and Doug) were off. So we went down and sat there with her for support. I feel so sad for her. I can see how faithful God has been to her so far, and I continue to pray for complete healing for her heart. I know He can.
It feels like it was a pretty heavy day and I'd like to stay home and relax, but we already had plans with Doug's parents to take us out to dinner for our anniversary. So, I guess sometimes you just roll with it. The rest of the weekend is pretty low key for us, and we are looking forward to it.

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

celebrating ONE year

(updated with a couple things I forgot)
Doug and I have been married one year! That is worth celebrating :)
The Jeep engine dying took a hit on our budget, but we still celebrated by going up to Charlevoix (I'd never been there) and then went over to Beaver Island (largest island in Lk Michigan).
The traditional one year anniversary gift is paper. I made these things for Doug, which I mostly saw on Etsy and copied :)
keychain
And for the paper, our framed vows.
At our wedding we had the table numbers double as anniversary cards.
It was really cool to open year one and read words written to us a year ago by our friends. Seems like just yesterday everyone was wearing winter coats inside to celebrate our wedding with us! I'm excited for the rest of the cards, but have to wait...
The morning we left was absolutely gorgeous. Doug and I had carved our pumpkin the night before
our lovely jack-o-lantern model
blue skies and pretty trees!
fresh pumpkin seeds for the road.
We finally re-hung our mirror in the bathroom and started our trip. Went out for lunch and did a little shopping along the way. We stopped by Traverse City to go out for dinner with Doug's friends then slept at our hotel in Charlevoix.
The next day was drizzly. We boarded the ferry for Beaver Island.
the boat was rocking so I took one Dramamine and it pretty much knocked me out
we arrived
our nice little B & B, cozy, and really nice owners
We rented their car and drove around the island. It's 54 square miles and lots of state land. Pretty trees.
Tried fried green beans at the local tavern when we got lunch. Ok, pretty blah without ranch which makes them even worse for you than they already are! This trip's food can pretty much be summed up in one word: junk. Unless you count the one lunch we ate in Petosky, that was fresh, healthy, delicious. Anyway, back to Beaver Island..
Most of the touristy places were closed for the season already, so we ate and went to the one gift shop attached to the hardware store, and then drove down to the bottom of the island. This is the biggest birch tree in all of Michigan.
At this point I was still pretty drowsy from the Dramamine so sad to say I kinda slept off and on while Doug drove, we eventually reached the bottom. It was super windy and still rainy.
First bad wife fail of year #2 Doug asked me to walk on the beach but I didn't want to be cold and wet. So he went out by himself.
For his paper gift to me he gave me a nice card, a paper heart necklace (he made!!) and some Chinese paper lanterns. It was still raining when he gave them to me so we couldn't do it. We did laugh at the English translations though.
The other thing sweet Doug did for me was in the card there was a note and he said the real copy of the note he had framed in a waterproof frame and nailed it to a tree on the island where he proposed to me. So it will always be there :)
Their community center was playing Jurassic World on a big projector screen so we went and played fooseball, watched the movie, and headed back to the B & B. I forgot, while Doug went to get us some popcorn (free, thank you community center!) he said the ticket lady who we had chatted with earlier was introducing him to this other islander as 'a young man on an anniversary trip with his enchanting wife' and he said the other lady looked him up and down and said "some people really should reproduce". Um... lay off!!! Maybe it's ok to say creepy things to visitors on small islands??
The next morning we took the ferry back to Charlevoix, and of course it was a beautiful day.
(heart necklace)
These were the 'befores' we left the island. The first 1/2 hour wasn't so bad, I was knitting and reading. Then the boat started rocking. It was so much worse than the way over. I spent the next 1.5 hours head in knees over my throw up bag and eventually puked in the bathroom.
The nausea cure all back in the car.
By now it was Sunday so a couple things we had wanted to see (castle farms) were closed. So we headed over to Petosky. Browsed in a couple shops, ate the yummy aforementioned lunch, and then on the way back to Charlevoix we hit a deer.
Oh deer!
(Doug wanted me to say that) Doug hopped out to check out the Jeep (cracked front frame, large chunk of fur (ouch!)) and I hopped out to check out the deer. Poor gal was limping away. But I was very glad she was alive. I walked down the road awhile after her and she eventually ran into the woods. I hope she makes it.
We got back to our hotel and stayed in with pizza and cable tv. Very relaxing. The next morning, also gorgeous, we headed back and stopped at my aunt and uncle's for lunch and to visit my grandma and grandpa. There was another aunt and uncle visiting from out East so it was nice to catch up for a couple hours. We headed back in the afternoon and got home safely. Although when we got back we noticed a bump on September's tail. On closer inspection, much to her disliking, we saw a quarter sized spot of fur missing and a little wound! Awww, my poor baby! She didn't seem to be in pain, and her tail appeared to bend alright, but I wanted to wash it off with antibacterial soap. We did that with her wrapped in a towel to avoid being scratched to death. But as soon as it was done she just started licking it. Hmmm... cat cone? Anyway, I'm keeping her inside a couple days until it scabs over and watching for signs/symptoms of infection. Other than that not really sure what to do. I wonder what happened to her :(
So yeah, I'm not sure if I would go back to Charlevoix/Petosky, altho I'm sure in the summer the trails and beaches would make for a quite different experience. We did think though that next year we might celebrate a week early (usually better weather) or go somewhere warm!