Sunday Suppers : Memorial Day Weekend Feasting (and Yard Work)

We hope everyone had a great long weekend.  Ours was filled with food and lots of yard work.  We decided early last week that we would grill on Sunday despite the weather report.  The forecast called sunny skies, so we were excited.  Skies we’re exactly sunny but it was warm and didn’t rain.

We decided on smoked pork ribs, warm german potato salad and a second salad of arugula, pear and pear with olive oil and white balsamic vinegar.

The warm german potato salad is one of our favorites.  It’s light and packs more of a punch than traditional mayo based potato salad.  The arugula salad was a pleasant surprise.  I didn’t think it would be bad, I just didn’t know it would be so good.  White balsamic vinegar and oil is my new favorite salad dressing.  You have to try the potato salad though.  It’s a hit every time I make it.

Warm German Potato Salad (adapted from Martha Stewart)

Ingredients

• Salt and ground pepper
• 1 1/2 pounds small new potatoes, scrubbed
• 3 slices bacon, thinly sliced crosswise (we used 5 slices of turkey bacon)
• 1 small red onion, halved and thinly sliced (we used 2 medium shallots)
• 4 tablespoons white-wine vinegar
• 3 tablespoons whole-grain Dijon mustard

Directions

1. In a 5-quart saucepan, bring 1 inch salted water to a boil; reduce to a simmer. Add potatoes. Cover; cook until tender when pierced with the tip of a paring knife, 25 to 30 minutes. Drain; cool slightly, and halve.

2. In a small skillet over medium heat, cook bacon until crispy, 3 to 5 minutes. Add onion. Cook, stirring often, until tender, 2 to 4 minutes. Remove from heat; add 3 tablespoons vinegar and mustard.

3. Toss with warm potatoes. If desired, season with salt and pepper, and add up to 1 tablespoon more vinegar. Serve warm.

I couldn’t tell you what Micah did to the ribs but they were SO good!  I was in a meat coma for a 48 hours.

We invited our friends Cliff and Sean over to join us so I decided to break out the new placemats I got on Friday at the Velocity Art and Design Warehouse Sale.  The we’re originally $11 each placemat but I got a set of 6 for less than $10.  I think they add some needed color in our dining room.

I also made a Strawberry Pie but I’ll have to save that for another post.

In the garden we spent another couple days on the slope.  It’s amazing how fast weeds grow.  I was excited to see that few filler plants I planted 2 months ago have started growing. 

I have no idea what this plant is called but it’s the offspring of a plant Momager purchased and planted in 1983.  She planted it on a rocky wall at our first house.  She took cuttings of the plant and has replanted them at every house we’ve lived in.  She gave us this plant when it was about a third of the size you see in the picture.  It’s kind of cute that this plant was planted at the first home my parents purchased together and now it’s living on at our first home.

We we’re the only folks in the yard this weekend.  It seems like the entire neighborhood was out including the cat neighbors.  They actually cleaned their yard!!!  You don’t know how excited we are about it.  They also decided looking over at our house was so offensive that they decided to plant some tall bamboo.  We had started a rose trellis (pictures to come) to block out their yard so maybe they got the hint. 

We have more news about the cats and the cat neighbors.  We need to collect a few more details and then we’ll post about it.

We hope everyone had a great long weekend and suggest everyone try the potato salad.  It’s good, healthy and really easy!

Quilt or Duvet Cover?

Way, WAY back when I was planning our wedding, I knew I wanted make table runners and eventually turn that fabric into a quilt. I wanted something simple that we’d actually use. My original vision was to make this quilt from Purl Bee:

After a few years and a lot of thought, I’ve decided to go with this pattern which Bijou Lovely turned into a couple amazing quilts. She is an AMAZING quilter!  It seems a bit simpler which is good since I don’t quilt and am a novice when it comes to sewing. I wouldn’t attempt to jump straight into this quilt but my goal for this year was to get the circles cut out and get the materials together while practicing on some MUCH smaller quilting projects.

I was looking at our room yesterday (take a look to refresh your memory) and wondered if it would be better to take the pattern and turn it into a duvet cover instead of a quilt. For some reason I just couldn’t see a quilt spread out on our bed. I hadn’t planned on making shams or matching pillow cases. Actually, can even turn this pattern into a duvet cover? What do you think? It looks good in the picture above and in the one below.

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While we’re on the topic, I thought long and hard about just having someone make the quilt so we could have it as a 2^nd Anniversary gift to ourselves (the cotton anniversary) by August 1. I was quoted $250 including tax, labor, batting, thread and shipping. I’d supply the rest of the fabric. Is this a crazy amount? It seems like a lot but I thought about how much time it would take for me to make this and if I paid myself just $5, I’m sure it would cost at least twice the $250. Yes, it would be nice to make it myself but if that indeed is a good price for a custom quilt, I’d trade the homemade for well made.

Here are a few of the fabrics from our wedding

I also picked these up from Fabric.com just to add a more masculine touch

So, what do you think? Duvet or Quilt? Make myself over a the next year or $250 by August?

p.s. The winner of the giveaway is comment #194 by Rachel D!  Congratulations!!

Ugly Library Chair : Before and After

First, welcome to all the new readers who are visiting from Sew Mama Sew.  If you are looking for the giveaway, you can find it here.  You have until 9pm PST to enter.

So, do you remember a when we score some awesome upholstery fabric and had hopes of reviving this awful thing?

After searching for someone to do the complicated sewing and waiting patiently for them to finish, we were presented with this:

We love how it turned out.  The picture isn’t very good since I didn’t turn the foot rest cushion over but you get the idea.

We think it brightens up the living room (even more) and has inspired us to finish up decorating the room.  So, what do you think?  An improvement right?

May Day Giveaway

We’re excited to take part in the May Day Sew Mama Sew Giveaway happening today!  We’re giving away hand dyed fabric brought back from a trip I took to Malawi last year.  The winner gets their pick of one of the fabrics below:

They are are all at least a 2.5 yards long and a yard wide.  The winner of the giveaway will be selected randomly on May 25th.

There are 3 ways to enter:

1. Comment below and let us know which fabric your pick and what you’d do with it.  I think they make a perfect beach sarong.

2. Follow Forty20Four and let us know that you do in the comments

3. Tweet : I just entered the @sewmamasew Malawi Fabric #giveaway @Forty20Four

Good Luck!

p.s.  We will ship internationally!

Izzy Friday

Happy Friday Everyone!  It is an absolutely STUNNING day her in Seattle.  In celebration of the sun, we thought we’d share some pictures of Izzy to get everyone in a happy mood.  OK, she’s not super happy in this picture because she wants me to put down the camera and play.

The lady (my nickname for her) is doing well and growing fast.  She’s learned all sorts of tricks since the last time we really talked about her.  She rolls over, speaks on command and has learned to pray.  The last one is kind of a joke that she learned just for Micah’s Mom.

Izzy’s new trick

Izzy still isn’t a car dog and we’re not sure she ever will be.  She’s still tries to counter surf but it’s usually only when there is something delicious on the counter like meat or cheese. 

She still has a little separation anxiety that we’re working on.  She hates when you’re upstairs or outside and she can’t follow.  Every time I come back from a trip, she insists on extra rubs and snuggles and follows me everywhere for the first few days I’m home.   It’s very cute.

We’ve noticed two new things with her.  Every night, she follows us to our room and does this:

Every morning we find her here:

Every night when we’re asleep, she sneaks onto the bed and buries herself between us.  She’s been caught on occasion and sent back to her bed.  Once we’re asleep again she sneaks back up and snuggles in.  I don’t know where she learned this.  **shakes head**

Izzy is also now a computer hater.  This is a very recent phenomenon.  On days I work from home, I get about 2-3 hours before she does this:

What’s the picture of?  Well, it’s Izzy sitting on my lap BETWEEN the laptop and I.  She does everything she can to keep you from your computer.  I get it if we’ve been neglecting her or she wants to play but she’ll do this after a long walk or hours of playing.  Sometimes I get away with an extra hour or two if I work from on the couch but then this happens:

And it’s only computers.  You can watch TV all day and she’ll entertain herself (most of the time) or just snuggle up to you like this:

“Human*, I’m trying to snuggle.  Can you stop with the pictures already?” Caption by Izzy

Oh, I guess there is one more thing.  Izzy I OBSESSED with the cats next door.  In her defense, they do torment her.  The cats don’t seem to play with each other every much unless Izzy is watching.  They have been known to play outside of our front door, where Izzy can see (via window on door) and put their faces up to the window to tease her.  When she starts barking, we block off the window and she moves to the window in the TV room.  No less then 2 minutes later you see the same 2 cats playing in front of the new window directly in her sight.

We have over 20 windows she can see out of so you see a lot of her in this position:

It’s not as though she doesn’t like cats.  There’s a friendly cat a few blocks up that she loves.  She looks for the big black kitty (she knows the word kitty) every time she goes on a walk.

Besides breaking her of of her new bad habits, we want to work on letting her be off leash in the yard.  We’re not sure this is going to happen with all the cats but we’d like to avoid this look though it is very cute:

We’re also hoping not to do this much longer:

She’s in her crate all day and goes in there willingly (if there are treats).  She doesn’t bark once she’s in and can’t see you anymore.  It would just be nice to not to put her in, or to at least give her the option of laying in the sun or on the craftroom couch when she wants.  She has access to a mini deck, she should use it.

Actually, I wouldn’t mind spending sunny days out there. 

Anyone have any tips that will help with out “new” Izzy issues?  Anyone else have a dog that doesn’t like the car unless he/she is sitting in the front seat on someone’s lap?

*Izzy refers to us as her humans.  There is no Mom and Dad in the house though she does have an Uncle Paul and an Uncle Josh.

Sprucing Up the Door–Part 1

Getting our front entrance sorted out has been a big priority and on the TO DO list forever.  The first step was installing the window which we did after Thanksgiving.  The next step was having it reinforced after the break-in.  We finally took the third step and painted the door.  It’s not done but it’s looks better than when it was a dirty white door.

Step 1: Remove door

Step 2: Keep Izzy IN and cats OUT

Step 3: Cover window molding with tape, remove door hardware and hang door on it’s side.  OK, that’s three steps but who’s counting?

Step 4: Mix in mysterious liquid Dadtractor gave us to help oil based paint dry fast.  Apparently he has a hidden stash of this stuff because he can’t find it in stores anymore.  We used oil based paint because our door is metal.

Step 5: First coat on side one

Step 6: Paint the other side

Step 7: Paint door to the garage since we already had the paint mixed

Step 8: Apply several more coats and let paint dry

Step 10: Hang door and hope you don’t leave too many finger prints!

We have SO much more to do.  We need to do a bit of touch up as we noticed some areas we ruined when we were trying to put the door back.  We need to paint the window and door trim.  On the inside, we want to finish the molding, add some kind of transition between the stone floor and wood, add some welcoming accessories and perhaps a runner on the wood floor.  We also need to paint the closet door.  On the outside, we want to get some permanent plants set out.  Little things right? 

The weather is suppose to be fairly good on Saturday, so the painting is at the top of my list.  Micah is focusing on a trellis for our roses.  Actually, I also need to figure out a way to frost the window on the door.  Anyone ever try frosting a window?  Suggestions?

Guatemalan Adventures : Antigua

It’s been over a month since we got back from Guatemala and we still have so many posts to catch up on. 

We’ll restart our visit to Guatemala with Antigua.  Antigua was the colonial capital of Guatemala until a decapitating earthquake hit the city in 1773.  You can still see many churches in other buildings in ruin. 

Antigua doesn’t feel like the rest of Guatemala.  The city looked and felt like somewhere in Spain.  The people even looked more Spanish.  We saw fewer people in traditional clothing and noticed a lot more western shops.  Despite everything, we really LOVED Antigua.  We had no real agenda there, apart from a coffee tour, and it was lovely to just wander around.

Our pictures from Antigua are completely random, just like the time we spent there.

The city is filled with so many beautiful churches.  It’s easy to lose a lot of time staring at them.

This is a daytime shot of the cathedral in the main square.

This is the same cathedral at night.  It lights up beautifully.

We had our best authentic Guatemalan meal in Antigua.  You’ll see later that most meals we had consisted mostly of bananas and plantains.  Good thing I LOVE plantains.

We were hungry and the pupusa (pancake looking item) was SO good.

The city is surrounded by 3 active volcanoes.  I believe this one is Pacaya.  We had plans to hike it but my knee was giving me trouble so we went with the Coffee Plantation tour.  I’d say that was probably a good change to make.

We utilized many local forms of transport in Guatemala but managed to miss out on the tricked out cross-country school buses.  I’m kind of regretting that.  We really enjoyed checking out the different paint jobs the buses had.  This is one of my favorites.

Antigua is filled with lovely architectural and design detail.  It was hard not taking pictures of everything.  Here are some of our street finds.

The tiled stop signs are so classy.

Shh…

I love all the doors in Antigua.  Such detail…

Wait until you see the pictures of our hotel.  The hotel is set in the ruins of an old church.  The stay there was best way to end the trip.

May Brain Dump

Getting My Hands Dirty

Two Saturdays ago I spent a lot of time out on the slope pulling weeds and planting things we hope will survive.  There was something so satisfying about pulling weeds.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anxiously awaiting my next weed pulling session, but seeing piles of the offenders gave me a sense of accomplishment.  I also managed to plant a few trees we’ve had for awhile including a fig tree we inherited from friends and this beauty Dadtractor found abandoned at a jobsite.

England

I’m heading to London today and really happy to be doing so.  Going to England is like going home.  I have very dear family and friends there.  I only wish my cousin Jules wasn’t in Doha while I’m visiting.  I am excited to see my old friend Claire get married.  In less than a week we’ll not only have the same initials but the same last name.  OK, I haven’t changed my last name but I claim Micah’s as well.  I hope I’ll have a little time for sightseeing and shopping.  I haven’t been to the Tate in about 10 years.  I’m also hoping to pick up a couple trashy royal wedding souvenirs for a few friends who were a little more than obsessed with the wedding.   Something like this:

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One Income Family

Micah and I have spent a lot of time in the last week talking about what it would be like for us to be a one income family.  We were unsure about his job for various reasons and believed it was possible he wasn’t going back to it in the fall.  I thought about different positions I could apply for that would increase my salary and different part-time gigs he could take up to make up some of his salary.  He’s already got two private music students for the summer.  We’re pretty sure that surviving on one income won’t be required but we won’t be 100% until the end of the month.  The scare has been a good wake up call.

Anniversary Roadtrip

We’ve already made plans to get out of town for our anniversary and are headed to Whistler.  Yes, we are going to Whistler in the summer.  I’ve never been in the summer but it’s suppose to be beautiful with lots of hiking to be done and fewer people.  We bought a LivingSocial deal a few weeks back and I made reservations last week.  A beautiful 1 bedroom suite in Whistler Village has our name on it.  We’ve also made reservations to spend a night on the way back at the Willow’s Inn on Lummi Island.  I’m really excited about the staying at this B&B and having a meal at their restaurant.  The New York Times said it was “One of the 10 Restaurants [in the world] Worth a Plane Ride.”  We’ll be there for spotted prawns season and already have our reservation for dinner.  I know the trip isn’t until August, but I can’t stop thinking about it.

Next Year’s Trip

I suddenly really want to go to Portugal.  I don’t know why, I just do.  Micah is lobbying for a couple of weeks in Scandinavia.  I’ve been but would do it again.  We both have former students who live in the area; mine in Helsinki and his in northern Sweden. 

The Cat Neighbors

Remember my last post about the cats?  Well I sent our neighbor (not the cat neighbors) an email telling her what was going on and asking for her advice.  Turns out several people in the neighborhood, even those with fences, are having a lot of problems because of the cats.  One lady might have to replace part of her deck because the cats sprayed it and the smell won’t go away.  She’s is so fed up that she was planning (after she got back from vacation) to rally some of the neighbors and write a group email to the Cat Peeps documenting all the damages done and requesting an in person meeting with a 3rd party mediator.  We’re down to be part of the group.  I’m glad I asked for advice.  Also, I want to thanks folks who posted comments and clarify that we have called the DPD and the Humane Society previously.  The Humane Society doesn’t have the authority to take the cats away.  They’ve trapped them but the neighbors have always paid the fine for their release.  We stopped trapping cats because of Izzy.  If a cat is trapped after Humane Society hours, you have to bring them inside your garage or house.  Izzy would go nuts if one of the cats was in the house.  We brought one in once and it meowed really loud for hours.  DPD complaints can only be lodged online, so filing multiple ones haven’t helped.

Dressing up Microwavable Waffles

I was starving last Monday and we had nothing to eat for breakfast but waffles.  I decided to dress them up with a few strawberries and a little lite syrup.  This may be one of my quick go to breakfasts.

Going Back to School

It looks like I’m going to be going back to school this summer – sort of.  I’ve been told I need to learn French so work will be paying for a class or a tutor.  I’m kind of excited about it.  I have been meaning to take a Spanish or Russian refresher class but I guess I’ll be putting that off a little longer.

Izzy’s Cousin

My sister and her family will be moving back to the Seattle area this summer and our family (Micah, Izzy and I) are so excited.  We can’t wait to see more of them and we can’t wait for Izzy to have a regular playmate (and place to go when we’re on vacation).  My sister is a great dog owner and is more likely not to spoil Izzy unlike Dadtractor and Momanger.  Momanger asked me on Saturday if she could buy beef bones for Izzy.  I said yes and she asked me how she could cook them.  Yes, seriously.

House Time

I’m thinking of taking some time off this summer just to work on the house.  Is that weird?  I have quite a bit of vacation time saved up.  I feel like my weekend to do lists are always so long and that I don’t have time to really devote myself to a long projects.  We recently painted the door (post coming) but it’s not quite done because we ran out of time. 

What has been on your mind lately?