Katie Boo

I took Katie to get groomed today. She desperately needed it-- she looked like a big fat sheep. I wish I had a before picture to post. Oh well. Anyway, here she is, after her primping. They washed her with gingerbread shampoo and she smells so good.

Cookie Party

Last night Steph made mexican wedding cookies. So delicious. She made them to take in to work, but I managed to snag a few before she boxed them up.

(post for Thursday November 29, 2007)

Fun ways to waste time

Go to Free Rice at once! It will change your life!

Craftastic!

I spent an obscene amount of time on my laptop today. However, I did manage to take a quick break to go up to the craft room and fool around with some old coke bottles.

And speaking of crafts, if you are going to be in the Nashville area this weekend, you should check out this event hosted by the Nashville Craft Mafia.

Our neighbor's cat

Our neighbor's cat, Mittens, is so sweet. They never feed her and leave her outside all the time, so she comes over to our place a lot to beg for food. I probably feed her about 3-4 times a week. I'm actually concerned that she may be pregnant because she's been eating so much lately and seems even hungrier than usual. Our neighbor says she "keeps meaning to get her spayed, but doesn't have time". Statements like that piss me off. It's going to take a lot more of your time when she has her babies all over your front doorstep and you need to find something to do about it. S and I have considered just taking her to the vet and getting her spayed ourselves and then placing a bill in our neighbor's mailbox, but we don't want to cause an uproar. *sigh*, I don't know what to do about it.

At any rate, Beignet loves all cats and one of her favorite things to do is hang out with Mittens on the deck.

(post for Tuesday November 27, 2007)

Haus of Yarn

Today we went on over to the Haus of Yarn to pick up some yarn to make holiday gifts. The purple yarn you see is for a scarf I'm making my Mom (my ability limits me to scarves for the moment); the gray yarn is for a scarf I'm making my brother; the pink in brown is so Steph can FINALLY finish the scarf to match the hat she made Nicole last year; and the ecru yarn is for this incredible cable knit afghan Steph is going to knit.

Better Bulbs

Today I replaced the last of our incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs. I think the picture I took came out kind of cool looking.

It was rainy and cold today, which is why it was the perfect day to cut down the spent perennials in the flower beds! I'm so silly sometimes-- I know it was a foolish time to do it, but when I get the urge to do something, it's pretty much a given that I'm going to go out and do it right away.

Bad Kitty, that's my potpie!

Winston is a naughty kitty! Two days ago, I woke up and found an avocado on our bedroom floor. I thought that somehow it had rolled off the counter in the kitchen and the cats had kicked it into the bedroom. So I put the avocados on the windowsill in the kitchen and thought the issue was over. But then, last night, I was watching TV and I got up to get a drink and I saw Winston walking around with an avocado in his mouth. I yelled at him to drop it, but he just looked at me and ran under the kitchen table, still holding it in his mouth. I had to chase him around and pry that sucker off of him. He's so bad, but really the whole thing was kind of cute too. Little goober.

New Blog

You should all hop on over to my new blog-- Objects of my Desire. Each day (hopefully) I will post five different things I've found on the web that I think are interesting and worth buying. I won't be buying all these things myself, only wishing I could! But maybe you will buy some of them, or at least learn about new things and web sites.

As the New Year approaches, I think everyone should consider resolving to start or continue a blog (or blogs!) of their own. Blogging is such a fun medium and I've had a great time with my photo blog. It's an easy way to keep in touch with people and meet new people as well. Plus, it really isn't that much of a time commitment-- it certainly takes less time than calling everyone you know every day or writing pages and pages in a journal. Happy blogging!

Melty Candles

I got these 100% beeswax candles from the closing sale at Wild Oats. They smell really good and burn very clean, but they melt all over the place. See what I mean? For this reason, I don't think I would buy them again. Plus, they were really expensive and I only bought them because they were 40% off at the time.

Gobble Gobble

Our Thanksgiving was quiet and blissfully uneventful. We spent the day watching The Joy Luck Club (and crying over it...it's such a good movie), cooking ourselves a small Thanksgiving dinner, eating said dinner, and drinking a lot of wine. I ended the evening with a slice of pumpkin bread that my Mom had FedExed to us on Wednesday. It was so sweet of her to think of us and to send us something she had baked, knowing we wouldn't be there to celebrate the holiday with her.

(Thursday November 22, 2007)

IKEA

While in Atlanta, we made a pilgrimage to IKEA. Atlanta has the only IKEA in the Southeast. The Atlanta IKEA is also the only IKEA that serves grits in its restaurant. They seem very proud of that fact and advertise is quite a bit. At any rate, we went so we could get some inexpensive furniture for our craft room. The trip was very tiring and very successful. Even more exhausting was putting together all the furniture today. I wish they would put some WORDS on their instruction sheets and not just pictures. I don't learn well from visual images, apparently. I wrestled with a handing light pendant for about an hour, but I came out victorious.

Here are some pictures from the newly furnished room (minus the light fixture on the ceiling, which we haven't had time to hang yet). Be sure to note my inventive use of dead river birch branches as curtain rods.

Huge Potato

Before we left Atlanta on Tuesday, we stopped at Jason's Deli to have lunch. It was voted Best Deli in Atlanta and I love a good deli. Steph ordered this monster of a potato. It was enormous. She didn't even manage to eat half of it.

More pictures from our trip to Atlanta are posted on my Flickr page.

(Tuesday November 20, 2007)

Dim Sum!

One of the culinary delights I miss from the Northeast is Dim Sum. There were some great Dim Sum places in Baltimore and there are absolutely none in Nashville. So when I planned this trip to Atlanta, I immediately looked into whether or not they had Dim Sum. Well, they do! In fact, they have a lot of them (Atlanta has every restaurant and store imaginable; it's insane). It was so delicious. It's more fun when you have a bunch of people, but still, it hit the spot.

(Monday November 19, 2007)

Skyline

I took this picture of the Atlanta skyline, as seen from our window at the hotel. Atlanta is a HUGE city. It also has more parks than any other city I've ever visited. Also, they have a ton of trees. Really, it's gorgeous. There are lots of adorable neighborhoods with great bungalows and huge victorian homes. However, you are struck by the newness of it all. Nothing really dates back further than the early 1900s because the whole city burned down during the Civil War and was never really recovered until after the Olympics. But since the late 90s, there has been a TON of building and it shows. I like how they try to build historic reproductions though, to fit in with the existing buildings and the general architecture of the South.

(Sunday November 18, 2007)

ICE Craft Fair, Atlanta

On Saturday we drove to Atlanta. First we checked into our hotel, the Westin, and it was very nice, but it was in Buckhead, which is basically all about these two fancy malls. Next time I'd opt to stay in a different neighborhood. Anyway, it didn't really matter because we didn't spend much time at the hotel and also the location was convenient in that it never really took very long to get anywhere we wanted to go. After we settled in, we went to the craft show. It was really nice-- a few people I knew were there, and lots of new crafters as well. We picked up some holiday gifts, as well as some gifts for ourselves. This one woman, "the paper lady", had these really nifty lamp shades. She dips the paper in beeswax, and so when you turn the lamp on the wax warms up a bit and releases a pleasant scent into the air. I was really impressed with her. This is a picture of some of the lamp shades.

After the craft show, we went to Decatur and did some window shopping and had a late lunch. Decatur should be renamed "Degaytur". It was the gayest town I have ever seen. I don't think I saw one straight person; seriously, it was like Provincetown, only in the South. It was kind of weird, but amusing. We wanted to see Emory, but the GPS system on the car told vicious lies and kept leading us astray. Oh well, next time.

For dinner we went to Fogo de Chao. It was CRAZY-- so much meat! It was a fun experience, but I wouldn't go on a regular basis.


(Saturday November 17, 2007)

Stormy weather

I think there is going to be a really big storm tonight. All day long the sky has looked ominous and there have been rumblings of thunder. I hope it doesn't rain tomorrow on the drive to Atlanta. Actually, I hope it doesn't rain the entire weekend we're away, because I hate walking around in the rain. But Georgia is in the midst of a pretty serious drought, so it's kind of wrong for me to hope it doesn't rain while we're there.

Vandy

Behold the Vanderbilt School of Nursing! On Thursday we went to Vandy for an appointment in the morning. It really is such a beautiful campus. It was so cold and windy that day though.

(Thursday November 15, 2007)

DIY

Today I pumped up the volume on a boring old composition notebook. You know a skill I would like to learn? Bookbinding. Whenever I am at PLAZA, I always check out the binding materials, but it seems so daunting to me. I may give it a try one day though.

Five Dollar Bills for Ron Paul

As far as campaign advertising costs go, five bucks is pretty cheap. Today I got change for a 10-dollar bill and this five caught my eye.

I've noticed that a lot of people in Tenessee are into Ron Paul. Whenever I get currency with writings on them, I always wonder about the people who did the writing. I think the same thing about graffiti in bathrooms.

Landscaping

The backyard is no longer foul! Yay! Yesterday Cecil mulched for us, tilled the entire backyard, seeded the yard, and planted a dozen trees. Here is one of my favorites-- a colorado blue spruce tree. I hope lots of birds nest there. When it gets bigger, we'll be able to see it from our bedroom. I love trees. At first we had this whole big landscaping agenda for the back, but it's just too big and too much to care for, so we're going to have our main flower beds in the front and on the side, and make the back sorts of woodsy. That's fine with me, because I heart trees! I am going to plant some bulbs around the trees though.

(Monday November 12, 2007)

Martha Madness

I admit it-- I have a crush on Martha Stewart. I know she's over 60, but seriously, she's hot. While I think she's attractive, I'm mostly mad about her skills and her taste in pretty much everything. She also introduced me to faux bois, for which I am eternally grateful. I aspire to be like her on many levels, though I know I shall never reach such great heights. She is now peddling her craft wares at Michael's, and even the packaging is tasteful. Most of the time I believe in putting things away in drawers, but I would not be ashamed to leave a container of her glue on my desk-- that's how nice her stuff looks.

I wish they carried the entire line in Michael's though-- a lot of the stuff I've only been able to find on her website.

(Sunday November 11, 2007)

Icky Tape

I love going to stores and finding ugly tacky things and taking pictures of them. I spotted this "fur tape" at Tuesday Morning's. Gorgeous, isn't it? I can only imagine what a gift would look like were it packaged with this tape. Haha.

(Saturday November 10, 2007)

cookie monster

Steph has recently gotten into baking. She isn't a great cook (although she makes killer potato latkes), but she is an excellent baker. I think she could be a good cook too, she just needs practice and patience. She makes the best brownies and chocolate chip cookies in the world! Those are our standby favorites, but lately she has been branching out to test new recipes for holiday gifts.

(Friday November 9, 2007)

Cabbages!

Oh how I adore decorative kale. We have two potted out on the deck and I can see them from our bedroom window and they bring me such joy.

I also like the cut ones on stalks that you can sometimes find at florists. They can such pretty and different Fall flower arrangements and centerpieces.

I just think the combination of colors and textures is so neat. Foliage is often overlooked in plants in favor of the showier flowers. It makes me sad because there are so many interesting leaves, barks, and berries to be had.

(Thursday November 8, 2007)

New Tonic Water

We went to Whole Foods this evening to pick up some essentials like milk and such. Of course, we got distracted and ended up getting just a *few* other items...like this tonic water! It's so funny because just last night I was talking about craft tonic water and now I find it. This one is called Stillings and it is a small-batch tonic water made in Nantucket. What makes this tonic so great is that it is made with cane sugar and not corn syrup. It really makes a difference in the gin & tonic. Right now I am drinking hendricks with this tonic water and it is very smooth. The gin really comes out to the front of your palate and all the harsh notes are gone. It's pretty neat.

I got the vegan cookies! I'm going to try one later tonight. I'll let the readership know my thoughts on them tomorrow. Haha. I'm sure you're all holding your breath.

I also took more pictures at Whole Foods, this time with my actual camera instead of my phone. Pictures will be posted on my Flickr page.

A-ha!

Tonight we went to Rotier's for dinner and I saw this sign. I thought it was strange that suddenly Yeungling is available at Whole Foods and now they are serving it at Rotier's. You NEVER used to be able to find Yeungling anywhere in Nashville. So I asked the waitress what was up with that and she told me that Yeungling had recently been bought out by Budweiser, so now they can sell it in Nashville. AHHH! If lame-o Budweiser messes with my Yeungling I will not be happy. So before I was excited to be able to get Yeungling here, but now I am a bit concerned. Hmm...

After dinner, we stopped at Midtown Wines to look for the wines Erin posted about on her blog. Of course, they didn't have them. I'm going to try to order them online or maybe I'll just get Andrew and Chad to buy some for me and then pick it up from them when I next see them. However, my disappointment was brief, because the sales guy who was helping us was so nice and excited about wine and his enthusiasm just rubbed off on me and made me happy. Also, the way he looked and his mannerisms reminded me of my uncle Richard. It was a good time and we waxed poetic together about the NYtimes recipe for the perfect gin martini. He even told me he would order some Junipero Anchor Steam gin for me-- which I have heard so many good things about and have tried to find high and low. We also had deep, philosophical conversations about the sublties between the Zenato Ripasso and Amarone. I feel like he (his name is Victor, by the way) is my soul mate and we should become the best of friends...or at least drink together, since we seem to have the same tastes in wine and spirits. Oooh, and he said he would try to get the owner to order craft tonic waters for me. *swoon*

Identity Crisis

You see this DOG bone? The cats keep playing with it! The dogs show no interest in it, but the cats won't leave it alone. I tried to get a picture of them playing with it, but they ran off when I went to get the camera. It's like they didn't want evidence of their dog-like qualities. We buy them cat toys, but all they want to do is play in boxes and bags. This is the only animal toy they play with. Weirdos.

(Monday November 5, 2007)

Why the waste?

Why, Microsoft, why? I decided to buy MS Office for my iMac because I greatly prefer Word and Excel to Pages. But look at all the ridiculous packaging I had to tear through to get to the CD! All that plastic for a little CD. I would have been happy with a recycled paper sleeve covering the CD. It's just so wasteful and it makes me upset. But what can I, as the consumer, do? There has to be some way to make these companies see that all this packaging is superfluous and wasteful. And, it would probably be much cheaper for them to just package stuff in paper sleeves. So what's the deal?

(Sunday November 4, 2007)

Bread of the Dead

I read that Aurora Bakery was selling Pan de Muerto this week in honor of the Day of the Dead. So we took a little trip out there today to sample some. It's pretty good-- the best part about it is that it comes in cool colors like pink and green! Fun.

This evening I downloaded Leopard on to my iMac and I am totally loving it so far. Definitely worth the $9.95 for shippping. Haha.

I also figured out how to transfer photos over from my phone to the computer using Bluetooth. I am impressed that I figured it out on my own without calling Steph for help...not that it was particularly difficult, but I get easily frustrated when it comes to technology.

Whole Foods

So, on Friday we went to the new Whole Foods to see what all the fuss was about (we missed the preview tour earlier in the week). I was excited the store was opening in Nashville, but I wasn't expecting it to be any different than the Whole Foods stores of my past. But oh my god, this Whole Foods is so much cooler than any other Whole Foods I've ever seen! It's more like Wegman's, to compare. They have a bazillion food bars, a pizza area, a gelato stand, a huge bakery, an oil tasting bar, a grill with its own menu where you can sit and be served lunch or dinner, and a separate store across the street called Whole Body that is sort of like the Body Shop, only bigger and they also sell organic cotton clothing. It was amazing!

I forgot my camera, but I took a few pictures with my phone. I was particularly impressed with the fact that they have their own cranberry bog in the store. More pictures are on my Flickr page.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that they have Yuengling! That may not seem exciting to you, but it is to us, as no other store in Nashville sells it. Others were obviously thrilled as well-- we got the last box they had. We had to fight some frat boys for it.

(Friday November 2, 2007)

Wall hanging

On Thursday, Cecil came and hung our fern/moss botanical chart in the foyer. It was then that I learned his secret to reaching the high areas of the foyer-- a paint can. He simply puts his ladder on the stairs, and steadies the leg that is not on a stair by placing a paint can on the stair. Apparently it's exactly the right height. It scared me to watch him do this, but he says it's worked for him for the past 15 years, so I guess he knows what he's doing.

At any rate, the foyer doesn't look so immense now, and I think the chart is super cool in that nerdy sort of way.

(Thursday November 1, 2007)

Alien Invader

On Wednesday, I was outside on the deck refilling the bird feeder, when I came across this alien looking think latched onto the deck door molding. It was so creepy! Steph and I decided that it was some sort of larva. She said it was a slug, but I said no way, and then upon looking at googled images of slugs, she agreed that it was, indeed, not a slug. Or, it could have been some sort of alien. I'd say it's about 50/50 between a larva and an alien. Plus, we saw it on Halloween night, making the whole experience even creepier.

(Wednesday October 31, 2007)

'Tis the season