Mother's Day

Mother's day is another one of those days that reminds me of my mother and makes me miss her even more. But thankfully I have a wonderful family that is full of support and who I think are in the same boat I am in.

So for the last two years my family has celebrated Mother's Day by walking the Susan G. Koman Race for the Cure around the Mall of America. We do this in memory of Mom. It's hard because I wish Mom was with us so we don't have to do something in memory of her but we walk with a ton of other people who have lost their loved ones and we somehow support each other... if that makes any sense.

This year I was able to do the walk with Jon, dad and my brother. Here are some pictures

CSA

Yesterday was the first day of our CSA and we got all sorts of stuff that I don't know what to do with.

Our CSA is through Harmony Valley. So far they seem really organized and have done a great job. Over half of the stuff in this box I had never heard of before, so this summer is going to be interesting in trying to figure out what to make and what we are actually eating.

So my first attempt at cooking our fresh new veggies is:

SUNCHOKE HASH

1 pound sunchokes

1 medium yellow onion

¼ pound ham
¼ pound carrots

¼ pound parsnips

¼ teaspoon cayenne

4 tablespoons oil

salt and pepper to taste

1.Heat the oil on medium heat in a heavy bottomed frying pan such as a cast iron. Add the onions when the oil starts to ribbon in the pan.

2.Stir onions occasionally, so not to burn, till they are soft. When soft, add the sunchokes, meat, carrots and parsnip.

3.Continue cooking and for 15 minutes stirring every three minutes. Cook the hash till the roots are tender then add the cayenne, salt and pepper.

Sunchokes and Parsnips are the root-looking things in the first picture.



I served this with some scrambled eggs. A nice hearty breakfast to start our busy Saturday off.

Leashes

My sister-in-law has a lot of babies, seriously. So because she has so many, she has a ton of toys/bottles to keep track of. (I'm sure you know how much babies love to throw their toys on the floor) She asked me to help make her life a little easier and make some sort of leash she can put around a toy or bottle so that when her kids throw them, they don't go very far.

I found some ribbon and Velcro to make the leashes out of.

I made a few different sizes cause I didn't know exactly what she wanted. And hopefully once they have been tested I can make improvements for the next time I make them.

Here's what I came up with. They all have two loops. One side is big enough for a stuff animal or bottle and the other is slightly smaller to fit around a stroller or highchair.



I also found some small belt loops that create a wider range of loop sizes.

Basement - Part 2 Framing, Wiring and Walls

I haven't had much time lately to blog because Jon and I have been spending most of our time working on finishing our basement. So let me catch you up on our progress in the basement.

Now I will be honest with you I have not worked on the basement as much as Jon has but that's the way I like it.

Thankfully our basement was just unfinished so we didn't have to clean anything up. And we got to decide the layout and where we wanted to put the walls. Our plan for the basement is to have a place to hang out/watch movies/etc. Since we already have 3 bedrooms in our house we felt like we didn't need to add another bedroom. So we put a room round the furnace and water heater - it will be sort of a utility room.

The rest of the basement is open and one big room.

Jon glued the pink foam to the cement walls and then put the wall frames up over them.

Once he had all the walls up he wired and put outlets in.
My dad came over and showed him how to hook it up to the main power and now we have working outlets!

We managed to get Jon's brother's Father-in-law to lend us a sheet rock lifter which saved us a ton of time.

Jon would drill the sheets to the frame and I would measure and cut each one. We make a pretty good team.

Once we started get close to being done I started mudding and taping while Jon hung the sheet rock.

The walls are all up now and all we have to do is finish mudding and taping.

Wuthering Heights

For those of you who know my husband this story you might be a little surprised to hear about the date he took me on last week…

A  little background information: I LOVE to read. And when I’ve finished a book that has been made into a movie, Jon likes to make it a date and watch that movie with me (Even if the movie is Harry Potter/Twilight)
A few weeks ago I finished reading Wuthering Heights. I thought it was a good book and I told Jon that I liked it. Well on Tuesday I get home from work and Jon hands me a beautiful bouquet of flowers and says he has a date planned for that night. But that we needed to eat quickly and dress up because we were going to the Opera! The OPERA! My husband at the Opera—not something I ever imagined.

And guess what was playing at the Opera?

Wuthering Heights

And apparently I am a very lucky girl cause Wuthering Heights was only being shown a few times and most of the nights were sold out or over $300 per ticket but Jon, of course, got a good deal and had to get the tickets.

It was beautiful. The music was great, the acting was great. I loved it all! Jon fell asleep in the first half (he blames in on the good music and the dim lighting). But by the second half he was starting to like it. I think it helped that this Opera was in English so we understood everything they were saying. Plus I had told him all about the book so he kinda knew the characters and what was going to happen.

This Opera was written by Bernard Herrmann and originally suppose to be 6 hours long! Herrmann didn’t want to shorten it so the piece was never performed until recently when it was shorten to just under 3 hours. I’m pretty sure Jon would not have taken me to a 6 hour long Opera performance so I’m glad they shortened it to 3hr.

Here’s the  LINK

Overall I was pleasantly surprised that Jon took me to the Opera.

Double Date Night

About once a month my brother and his wife go out with Jon and I. Our goal for these outings is to try a new restaurant and just hang out. Since we all have very busy lives it is fun to get together and catch up on what’s going on and enjoy good food.

So last night was a double date night. We had a craving for some really good pizza so we headed to downtown St Paul to fulfill our cravings. After parking in Jon’s work parking spot we walked the two blocks in the rain to Black Sheep. Even though the weather was cold and rainy it was totally worth it. We opened up the door and were met with warmth and the smell of garlic goodness.

The place wasn’t packed so we were seated right away. Our waitress was very help and always kept our water glasses full. We ordered a Spinach Bleu Cheese Salad to start which was simple but really good. For pizza we spilt 2 12inch pizzas between us. The first was Meatball, Ricotta and Garlic and the second was Fennel Sausage, Hot Salami, Onion and Cracked Green Olives. Both were AMAZING but you will have to try them for yourself.

I will warn you if you go there be prepared to smell like garlic when you leave. Here’s the website.

Once we got our fill of pizza we decided to go to Cossetta to get some cannoli. Jon’s first experience with connoli didn’t go over so well so our goal was to try and redeem the dessert and get Jon really good cannoli. Which Jon actually liked and ate all of his piece.

Needless to say we had a good time and our bellies were very full by the end of the evening.

One of those cute stories

This story happened 2 weeks ago but I just got around to posting it...

One Tuesday night I had a dream that Jon purposed to me again. It was kinda weird because we were already married and he just decided to do it again and give me a new ring. The ring he gave me in my dream was the most beautiful ring I had ever seen but that's besides the point. In my dream since I already have my engagement ring and wedding band on my left hand I decided to wear my "new" engagement ring on my right hand.

I woke up kinda wanting the ring I dreamt about.

So when I got home, I told Jon about my dream and jokingly told him that I would like the ring from my dream. We both laughed about it and said maybe one day I could get a ring for my right hand.
Fast forward to bed time and I am ready to go to sleep because I get up before Jon. And Jon decided to show me a clip of the song "Friday"

I get annoyed and turn around to go to bed. And Jon says "Hey wait I want to show you something else" So I turn back around and he's holding a bag from Arthur's Jewelers and inside is a RING! He told me that he bought it and was saving it for a special night with dinner and flowers but that this day was just too perfect because I had a dream that he gave me another ring. What a surprise! Totally was not expecting that. It's obviously not the ring from my dreams but it matches a necklace Jon gave me so that's pretty cool too.

PS I have like the most amazing husband ever. How man guys buy rings and stuff to plan to give to their girls on a random night? Like my birthday is not for 3 more months and Valentines day is over. Spoiled Rotten.