Monday, August 29, 2011

Shoulder Pads and Kale - A day of many firsts

Shoulder pads..... check
Resume.....check
Suit......check
Pearls.....check
Terrified....probably

Today was the first day for me to physically go look for my first real job. Sure, I have been surfing the web for months now, from the safety of my couch, sending my resume out into the lost abyss of the internet, but today was a real search. I dressed up, went to offices, knocked on doors, and in a twenty second intro, tried to make myself unforgettable. Hoping it worked.

Today was also the first day I have ever eaten kale. In an effort to add more greens to our diet, we bought a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share. Basically every week we will get a box of veggies from a local farm for a set price for the entire season (One day I would like to have our own huge garden, but apartment dwelling isn't conducive to much more than an herb garden). It ends up being a great deal at about 10$ a week for a ton of food. Most shares are for a family of 4-5 so we are splitting the box and the price with our neighbors. The only catch is, whatever crops they bring you that week is what you get, so you can't be a picky vegetable eater.... which there are at least a couple of those at our house.

This week after splitting with the neighbors, we got:

1.5 lbs of potatoes - (Hudson wants me to make some cheesy mashed potatoes.... I need to get on that)
1.5 lbs of green bell peppers - (sliced it up and ate it as a snack with some hummus)
1 head of lettuce - (ate some for lunch today in a salad)
2 heads of raddicio - can someone please tell me what to do with this! I tastes pretty bitter
1.5 lbs of broccoli -(roasted it and put in a pasta)
1 garlic bulb -(used it in the pasta)
1 pint of cherry tomatoes -(yet to use slash kind of ruined them when I turned the fridge to cold for Hurricane Irene.... and a coke exploded....)
1 bunch of kale - (Kale chips)

We ate a bunch of the broccoli on Friday night, roasting it in the oven with the pressed garlic, salt, and olive oil. I am not a fan of raw broccoli and this was SOOOoo good. We made a broccoli parmesan lemon pasta and it was pretty darn good if I do say so myself. Hudson even liked it! But tonight was a whole different monster.... KALE..... duh duh duh (said in an increasingly deeper tone). The difficulty with this whole veggie thing is that Hudson and I have completely different palettes. Example A: Tonight while we were in the kitchen working on dinner, I was preparing the kale and I turn around to see Hudson sprinkling left over ground beef on the frozen pepperoni pizza. Case and point. Back to the Kale. On foodgawker, 80% of the kale recipes came back as kale chips. So kale chip it I did. And it was pretty good. I think Hudson found the creepy seaweed color creepy, and he refused to eat it with his eyes closed. So... I don't know if I would call the kale a success.



Help please:
1. What do I do with Radiccio?
2. Any other uses for Kale?

Sunday, August 28, 2011

The Kidos

Whenever having a conversation with a friend or family member on the phone, they usually ask, "how are the dogs?" So I thought to myself, "if people are asking about the pups on the phone, then surely the folks on the interweb would want to know!" (In all sincerity I know this post is really more for me than for you... and I thought the our furry family members deserved a formal introduction).

Bear
Nicknames: Dr. Bear, Mr. Bear, Professor Bear, Bear Bear
2 Years Old
1/2 Bichon Frise 1/2 Toy Poodle: "Poochon" "Bichon Poo"

Bear is a fun loving and photogenic apricot poochon. He loves a good lap to sit on often gets the Zippies or does the Bichon Blitz. The bichon was originally bred to be a companion to Mediterranean sailors in the 14th century. It makes sense that Bear's ancestors made their homes on boats since this pup loves a good boat or even a sea doo ride. Really anything that will put the wind through his fro. Bear is also known to smile, literally he has a smile on his face, another trait of the bichon.

Paisley
Nicknames: Pais, Paizaroni (kind of like pepperoni), Billy Goat, Cow
1 Year Old
1/2 Cocker Spaniel 1/2 Toy Poodle: "Cockapoo" "Spoodle"

Pais is a blue merle cockapoo who is the happiest pup I know. She digs down to her spaniel roots with her inability to let a bird fly by without her checking it out. She doesn't like it when people wear hats but she will love you forever if you give her a belly rub. Paisley sits on top of our couch (like a cat) for hours watching people walk down the street. Paisley is a great swimmer, has huge velvet ears and she is often difficult to photograph due to her strange coloring and different colored eyes.

















Also, if you like dogs, have a dog, want a dog, or know someone who has a dog, National Geographic' "Science of Dogs" (found on Netflix) will blow your mind. (There is another documentary on Netflix called "Dogs Decoded.") It describes the deviation of dogs from wolves (who are 99.8% genetically identical) in how dogs respond to human behavior and wolves won't. For example a dog innately knows to look you in the eyes and a wolf doesn't, or a dog knows to follow your gaze to an object and a wolf can't. Dogs are the most diverse species on the planet (literally), they can be bred to/trained to detect explosives the size of a piece of sand, hunt for truffled mushrooms in Italy, and smell cancer. Craz-ay. Go get yourself one A to the SAP.

Friday, August 26, 2011

A Storm is A Coming

Well nothing makes you feel quite as popular as a hurricane headed your way.... just kidding.
But seriously, before 11 am this morning I had received 3 texts from my mom, 1 phone call from my mom, 1 phone call from my mother-in-law, another call from mom, and then a call from my grandmother - all concerned about Hurricane Irene...whew love these lovely ladies. But no worries here, after seeing what our friends in Tuscaloosa went through with the Tornado earlier this year.... and the floods in Nashville, you better believe this family isn't taking natural disaster lightly.... so prepared I did.



With a list of course

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Rando

Random musing on the here and now:
I am loving the no-humidity factor here in Boston
It has been consistently 70 degrees, in AUGUST - I know the trade off is coming...
Everything here is crazy expensive - got my Massachusetts driver's license yesterday..... 100 dolla!
Last Sunday with tolls and parking it cost us 11$ to go to church
Harvard Square is all about pizza and ice cream..... and I am taking full advantage (ahem, midnight ice cream run)
Cambridge Equals Permits: we have to get a permit to have dogs, a permit to park on the street, a permit to carry pepper spray... must I go on?

This was the view of the Charles River when I walked to Hudson's school yesterday




The Big Reveal.... Photo style

Alright people, here it is! The moment you have all been waiting for..... drum roll please- photos of our place! No worries, I am not ignoring the request for a video tour, our place just isn't quite video ready (I was able to hide a few boxes with some creative camera angles). Now back to that drum roll!

Our den: I am yet to find the art of sofa-cover-ing so just ignore the wrinkles please...





Bear loving on our flokati rug







Some industrial shelving... don't judge





A little bit of Bama




Our "entrance mantel" complete with my grandmothers copper mugs and a piece from Hudson's grandfather's art collection.






This is my reading chair slash corner of the apartment slash happy place.... remember this purchase?





His



Hers



For the southerners: On the right is a radiator



On the left is a window-unit




And I must really like y'all if I am going to show pictures of our tiny cozy bathroom with our old and hard to clean claw foot tub





Towel storage... struggle






That's all for now, I will post some more later!