Meet Freyja

A long time ago Glenn made a promise to me. That promise was that when we get a house with a yard, I can get another dog. I definitely married an honest man, because he made good on that promise.

A couple weeks ago we went to an event called Woofstock that was held on Todd Field at Glenn's alma mater, UPS. It was a big fundraising/adoption event and was meant to help raise awareness for the homeless pet population. There were lots of vendors (my employers included) as well as a number of local, and not so local, rescues. We brought Rally with us that day and wandered around and checked things out. There were even kiddie pools there that Rally had fun in, but he was pretty confused as to why he couldn't actually swim in them. We found a couple pups there that looked promising and we even did a meet and greet with one of them. The puppy we met was really sweet and playful but Rally wasn't terribly interested and the environment was really distracting. We asked the foster mom if we could set up another meeting in a calmer environment and at that point she chose to tell us they were in Yakima. That's almost 3 hours away for those of you who don't know. We left irritated and still with one dog.

After that we began looking at the Humane Society. My last experience there was not so pleasant. Long story short I broke down in tears in the lobby and ran out to the car crying, meanwhile Glenn had no idea what was happening. I had convinced myself that I could go in there and look. After repeated questioning about whether or not I was sure I could do it, Glenn drove us there. Before we got out of the car he gave me a little talk that was exactly the type of reassurance I needed to go in. We went in, but no one stole our hearts that day.

We started frequenting the shelter, going a couple times a week just to see if there was anyone new. The majority of the dogs in the shelter are either very large breed, old, or very small. Unfortunately none of that was what we were looking for. A couple times we visited with some dogs but no one seemed to really fit with us. Just a short while ago we actually visited a shelter in Kent (I think it was Kent). We saw a really sweet pitbull mix there who was about 6 months old. She was cute as can be but I just have my reservations and didn't really feel like that was a good idea.

This last weekend we visited the Humane Society in Tacoma again (it's only a few minutes from the house) and we saw a beautiful Husky mix who was about a year old. We visited with her and thought she was incredibly sweet but she was SUPER shy. We really liked her though. Since it was Saturday and they would be closing soon we wouldn't have time to bring Rally by to meet her. They put her on hold until Monday at 10:30. I took Rally by myself on Monday morning right when the shelter opened. They met each other outside and were very mellow about it. Once they got in the fenced in area nothing really happened. The poor girl was just so shy! She did seem interested in whatever Rally was doing, she just didn't want to get too close. I decided we would wait until Glenn got home to do another meeting and then go from there.

At around 3:00, and after a good discussion, we decided that we would go and adopt this dog. We felt like we would be able to bring her out of her shell and that the dogs would get along well with no aggression or dominance issues. I hurried over to the shelter only to find out she was adopted earlier in the day. I'm not gonna lie. I was really bummed out. I got all worked up and excited when I was heading over there only to be let down. I wasn't prepared to be disappointed like that.

Meanwhile, I have been scouring Petfinder.com and Craigslist as well. Every single day I check each site to see what is new. Petfinder returned pretty much the same results the shelter was - big dogs, small dogs, and old dogs. Ideally I wanted to find a female slightly smaller than Rally and I REALLY wanted a puppy. It's been so long since I've had a puppy. I wanted to be the one to raise it and teach it. Plus, Rally is such a good dog I want him to be able to teach his good behavior to his new sibling. In any event, I was having no luck. All the dogs I seemed to like were all pretty far away. Finally, on the day that I was let down by the Humane Society I saw a posting on Craigslist for a puppy. She was only 7 weeks old, still too young to be away from her mama. As it turns out, the girl we got her from had picked her up from a bunch of scumbags selling barely a few week old puppies for a quick buck on a corner. She has taken care of the pup since then, and she has done a pretty good job. I immediately contacted her and we set up a time to pick up the puppy that night. I was so EXCITED!

That brings me to the newest addition to our family. She is a Blue Heeler (or Australian Cattle Dog) mixed with a black lab. She is adorable and sweet and I already love her to death. Last night was her first night here and I was up pretty much every hour taking her out to go potty and cleaning up her messes. Hopefully tonight is a little better since I will have a better set up for her to sleep in. We named her Freyja (pronounced Fray-ya). If you aren't familiar with Norse mythology Freyja (which is actually the old Norse spelling, more modern versions have since dropped the j) is the goddess of love, beauty, fertility, gold, war, and death. She also rules over the heavenly afterlife where she receives half of those who die in battle (thus explaining the war and death part). I'm particularly fascinated by mythology and have been very intrigued by the lesser known Norse stories. The stories with Freyja have been my favorite. The name pretty much just came out of nowhere when I was having an internal discussion about what I would name a girl dog if I got one. I asked Glenn and he liked it, so it stuck!

Rally is being such a good boy about all of this too! He was mostly confused last night and was being very pushy about getting extra attention but it seems to have sunk in with him that everything will be ok and that he won't be ignored. Now he's just acting really goofy about the way he asserts his "alpha" dominance. I bought a toy just for her today that is identical to one Rally already has but just much smaller. I figured that since it was the same toy, it wouldn't make a difference to Rally. He's been very intent on playing with her toy instead of his own. Oh well. What are you going to do? We're having fun seeing how this new adventure/addition to our lives is playing out.

When Disaster Strikes

Earlier in the week I had a very bad day. And I mean it was a VERY BAD day. I usually don't ever have bad days and I can let things slide pretty easily, but this was pretty rough. The worst part of it all was how absolutely trivial it was.

Glenn and I have been busily working away on many different projects in the house. Of course Glenn, being the logical one, would prefer to just tackle one project at a time. I have a really hard time doing that, especially when that project won't really yield any concrete results until a much later time. I decided that painting would be a good project for me to tackle since I do it all the time, I enjoy it, and I am pretty good at it. After wrestling with what seemed like a million different paint samples in the dining room, one stood out in particular. An extremely vibrant, deep fuchsia color was just begging to be used. I loved it, but not for the dining room. I was sure that Glenn would hate it, but surprisingly enough, he didn't! He actually suggested we use it in the dining room, but I just didn't like the way it was playing off of our dining room table. Besides, I was leaning more towards a dark blue/teal color.

Then I got this crazy idea that the fuchsia color would look A-M-A-Z-I-N-G in our downstairs bathroom when paired with lots of black and white. Since the bathroom is so small and the amount of exposed color would be at a relative minimum, I thought it would look awesome. Glenn pretty much agreed with me but just asked that we keep the rest of the elements less girly and frilly. I was A-OK with that. Our previous walls were a disgusting brown. I don't understand why someone would think it is okay to paint their bathroom brown or yellow. It just seems wrong. Since the walls were so dark and my new color choice was so vibrant, I knew I needed some primer. We had purchased a Groupon to local company Parker Paint so we went over there and grabbed some primer along with an impulse color choice for the dining room.

The next day I began working on the bathroom. I edged everything first which went pretty quickly, but things just didn't really seem right. Something seemed off. After I edged the room I went in with a roller and filled in the walls. It was really splotchy so I gave it another coat after it dried to even things up. Everything looked okay so I was ready to move on to painting once that was dry. I opened up my can of paint and freaked myself out a little because it was alarmingly vivid. I had never really seen a color with so much... life? I don't know, it was just weird and so beautiful at the same time. I was excited to start painting. I began the routine of edging and by the time I was finished, the part where I started was beginning to dry. Dark spots were starting to show up underneath it and I was not liking it. I started rolling my paint on and more dark spots started bleeding through. I was not happy with that but I figured that it was just my first coat so things would improve. I left it at that and the room looked like a murder scene pretty much. It was gruesome looking.

The next day I was excited to start again, certain that I would finish that day and that it was going to be beautiful. I noticed that my paint was starting to look funny. It seemed like it had thickened and then dripped downward creating interesting but frustrating chevron patterns on the wall. I tried not to let it discourage me and just told myself that I still had a couple coats to go, after all, this color truly is intense. The usual two coat was just not going to do it. As I painted on the paint started doing strange things. It started getting a weird "gummy" texture on the walls. After I would roll one section and then roll back and do some overlapping the roller would pick up the paint and not put it back down. It was like I was blotting at it with paper towels. It was so weird, I really don't know how else to describe it. That really began my bad day.

Writing this all out is very cathartic and embarrassing at the same time. As I gather my thoughts and detail out how things happened I can see how trivial and inconsequential this event really was. I'm not sure how I let it upset me so much, but the matter of the fact is that it did. I've concluded that not knowing the cause of the problems is what bothers me the most, but that still doesn't act as a reason for me literally throwing a tantrum in the house and breaking down into tears. I was such a mess.

I decided that a new coat of primer was going to fix everything and that I could just start over fresh from there. I was SO wrong. I thought maybe I just didn't use the first primer correctly, it wasn't a brand I have ever used before, so using a brand I have used on multiple occasions would surely solve all of my problems. I couldn't have been more wrong. The primer would barely stick to the walls. It almost instantly thickened up and began dripping down the walls despite me painting it on in a very thin, even layer. I was devastated at this point and absolutely convinced that I had ruined our walls. I only managed to get one wall done before throwing another fit and giving up. I should mention that the picture up at the top is actually the middle stage. It was the third coat of paint, right before I decided to cover it up with new primer. It's very hard to see in the picture but there are tons of dark streaks and splotches that weren't getting any better with each successive coat of paint.

I just could not understand how such a tiny room with such a limited amount of painting could be my undoing! I painted my craft room with general success (aside from a couple dogs creating a mini disaster for me to handle), I painted our living room with absolutely no problems, and I painted Glenn's office with ease. I couldn't figure it out. I still haven't really. My only conclusion is that due to the size of the bathroom and the fact that it gets used regularly might mean that the humidity is too high in there. I don't have any other explanation. We've been leaving the window open and the fan on to hopefully eliminate the moisture issue so I can attempt to fix the walls. Thankfully it has been pretty warm lately and dry as well.

Everyone keep your fingers crossed that the third time really is the charm.

CSA Share Week 11

Hmmm... It looks to me like I better start writing about some things other than the CSA each week! The blog isn't just about what we eat (or don't) every week. Oh well. We've been keeping pretty busy with lots of projects.

Week 11 brought us quite a colorful share! This week we received eggs (3 extra!) plums, tomatoes, zucchini, yellow cauliflower, the tiniest head of lettuce I have ever seen, summer squash, green beans, and potatoes (we ate them before I took their picture). I think that we will be able to use up everything in this week's share, it looks pretty good!

As I mentioned in the post about last week's share, it was pretty pitiful. Since it was so small there wasn't much to be done with it. We have been snacking on the berries, which are always yummy and the eggs have all been hardboiled. I still can't get over how good these eggs taste when made into egg salad. The zucchini and squash haven't been touched by me, and they won't, but we might be giving our squash to the neighbors. Apparently their chickens destroy their squash plants. It seems to be their favorites. The tomatoes have gone unused as well because we just haven't had any dinners with red sauce this week. Oh well. Who knows though, Glenn may be eating them plain (gross!) for all I know.

There you have it. I hope that everyone finds themselves doing well and enjoying life just like we are. Summer seems to finally have come around here. We've been seeing a handful of days around 70-80 degrees and I honestly cannot remember the last time it rained.

CSA Share Week 10

Well I really don't feel like writing today, but I should anyway. I have been having a very bad day. I will explain in another post, but I'm still a bit too upset about it to explain. I will however explain that it is nothing big or important or cause for anyone to worry. I'm just neurotic and really stupid things have the power to ruin my day sometimes.

Back to the CSA. Week 10 didn't really bring us much, but there is a reason for that. The Sunday before Glenn picked up the share the newsletter came in our emails. We were not really pleased with the contents of the share for this week so we decided it would be best to just pick up what we would eat and leave the rest for other people to have. That way we wouldn't be wasting. So that leaves us with this kind of pitiful looking share.

This week we have raspberries, blueberries, eggs, squash, zucchini, and tomatoes. All the other stuff that was offered was stuff we didn't like so we just went without. We'll probably just snack on berries, the eggs will get hardboiled, and Glenn will eat the squash and zucchini. I don't know about the tomatoes. We might try and put them in a sauce or something.

Last week's share was really great. The green beans and broccoli were wonderful. I wish we could get those every single week. Those are two of my favorite veggies. The lettuce was great and the berries were delicious. I didn't have any of the carrots, but surprisingly enough, Glenn did and he loved them. In case you weren't aware, Glenn doesn't really like carrots. I'm not sure what happened to the fennel though, I don't see it in the fridge anymore. Oh well.

That's all for this week, but you can expect another post probably later tonight about the share we are picking up today. After I get that posted I have a handful of other things to update everyone on.

An Art Project All His Own

Any idea what that is?

Slowly but surely we have started to fill the rooms in our house and make it look like people actually live here. One room in particular that has had a lot of life breathed in to it lately is Glenn's office. He chose a paint color for it quite a while ago; the same time I bought paint for my craft room actually. Problem is he chose two colors and wasn't quite sure what to do with them. I always told him that he could just tell me what he wanted and I would paint it for him while he was at work and he wouldn't have to do a thing. He just never told me, until recently.
He decided to just go with all over solid color and then if he felt like a stripe later on, well then we would do a stripe later. The color he picked is a stunning deep velvety gray by Valspar called Hematite. It is the darkest color on the same color swatch as my craft room color, Elephant Gray. I've been nervous about it for a while but as soon as I started edging the room I knew we were in business. It is the perfect color for this space.
As you can see in this picture, I am getting quite good at edging. I pretty much refuse to use tape anymore. No matter how bad I might be at edging, there is no way it could possibly get worse than what happened in my craft room. It's really very therapeutic actually. I just put on some music and start painting away, just me and the paint brush. As soon as I finished edging the room I messaged Glenn online and told him he picked an amazing color. It was going to look fantastic.
After we had moved everything back in the office and set it back up it looked like the walls needed a little something. "No worries," I said, "You have tons of scarves and a flag to hang up." We left it at that, satisfied that those items would fill the void. On one of our many trips to Lowe's (seriously it is so awesome living so close to one) we were in the electrical aisle buying outlets and switch plates and we spotted some crazy colored extension cords. One was bright green and the other was hot pink. We didn't really have the need for 75+ foot extension cords, but they were so cool! We grabbed them both and then I quickly put the pink one down. I didn't need it that much, and by that much I mean $50 much. Oh well. Right there in Lowe's we came up with a plan.
Glenn was going to make a wall art installation out of his extension cord. It would not only be beautiful but awesomely functional as well. We grabbed some wall fastener things for cable and left the store. He started by taping a random squiggly pattern on the wall. He asked me how it looked and of course I loved it. It was so fun! I was also super impressed that his crazy analytical mind was able to make something so completely asymmetrical and random. The tape had a tough time holding on though so the project was not going to wait overnight.
Using a level to roughly space the fasteners, Glenn began hammering away, making his wall installation permanent. It took a lot longer than you would think it would so I started helping, but not by much.
In the end, I think it really turned out great! It is so fun, unique, and so very Glenn. It looks awesome and it serves a purpose. I haven't really asked if he had fun doing it, but I am going to go out on a limb and say that he did have fun. Who knew extension cords could be so cool!?

Just A Peek!

Since our dining room is at the very beginning stages of design and is ever so slowly taking shape, I thought I would share with you one photo. This photo is a bit of a sneak peek into what will be going on in the dining room. Enjoy!

Ding Dong - Your Furniture Is Here!

Friday was quite the exciting day for us! A couple weekends ago when we went to Olympia and found a really great furniture store there called Furniture Works. They carry a really interesting mix of used, consignment, and new furniture pieces. We really just popped in to see what kind of stuff they had, and while at first we weren't super impressed, I later heard Glenn calling my name asking me if I liked something. Now, when I hear Glenn ask if I like something, it means he really likes it and he RARELY ever mentions liking anything so I come running. Sure enough, he found this absolutely stunning MCM buffet table/credenza. It had beautiful, simple lines along with amazing wicker front doors, leather door pulls, shelves and drawers inside, and a black laminate countertop - so indicative of that era. I was in love instantly, and obviously so was Glenn. We asked if they delivered and upon confirmation that they did we pulled that price tag right off. It was ours. Plus, it was a great price.
We also picked up another piece. I have been looking for a desk to refurbish for my craft room for quite some time. Nothing has really been eye catching enough for me. My biggest problem is that all the desks I truly like are MCM pieces with beautiful wood like Teak or Walnut. There is no way I can cover that kind of wood up with paint. I don't want any wood tones in my craft room so if I was going to get an MCM desk, the wood had to either be really ugly or in such bad shape that it couldn't be refinished. Lucky for me, this desk that we found had hideous wood! Who knew I could get so excited about a particularly ugly wood on an otherwise beautiful piece?! Since it fit my criteria, the desk was going along for the delivery ride as well. It was also a great price, and what made the price even better was that we got the awesome matching chair thrown in for free.
Not only did we get those two (technically three) pieces delivered on Friday but we also got our new couch!!!! We have been absolutely DYING for more seating for the longest time! Unfortunately we are extremely picky when it comes to couches. For starters, it absolutely positively MUST be modular. After having a modular couch, there is no way you can go back to something static. There couldn't be any heavy tufting, although if it were just me it would be all over the place. It also needed to be very heavy. We didn't want the pieces to slide apart from each other. Another huge rule for us is no leather. Yuck. We prefer microfiber for a number of reasons. We wanted a great color, and I was particularly looking at dark gray, Glenn didn't really seem to care. Finally we just wanted it to be modern and contemporary without looking overtly so, timeless if you will. We found the perfect sofa at Macy's. I'm pretty sure I was in love with it well before we got the house, but I knew it had to be ours. It's crazy comfortable and was pretty much exactly what we wanted. We let the idea of it stew and simmer for quite a while before we were certain it was the couch for us. We even measured!!!! We never measure anything. We tend to be impulsive and just make things work anyway. Obviously it was the perfect fit for us and we had it delivered Friday.

YAY! So many new things, it was like Christmas morning! If I get some more time I will do a more detailed post of all our new furniture. It was absolutely amazing how our house went from minimally bare to warm and cozy in a matter of hours. Now the whole family can sit down on the couch and relax together in front of the TV once again.

A Month On the Job: A Review

It's been about a month since I first started my job at Next To Nature. You might be wondering how I like it and how it has been working out for us. Well, let me tell you!

The People: I work with some really great people. I feel totally comfortable around them and feel like I can be myself. The two managers have been with the company for a long time and are so knowledgeable about EVERYTHING that has to do with pet nutrition. They amaze me. Everyone I work with is kind, friendly, and fun to be around. Plus, we all seem to have a pretty good time together.

The Environment: Working at NtN is pretty low key. No one expects me to know everything about everything right away. It's also pretty low stress so learning things that seem complicated to me aren't overwhelming. I don't ever feel stressed on the job and I never have to worry about taking my work home with me, like I often have at other jobs.

The Schedule: I'll admit, scheduling hasn't been ideal. When I was given my initial schedule, I was less than thrilled. I was only working three days a week and I was working from either 11 or 12 until closing, which is 7. It kind of sucks to be home when Glenn is not and for him to be home when I am not. It was just a training schedule, so I was okay with that. Then I got what is considered our semi-permanent schedule. I was pretty much working the exact opposite of Glenn. I was really upset the day I got that and didn't really know what to do! They gave me a lot of hours, nearly full time, but that meant I would get to see Glenn for maybe 2-3 hours a day! Finally I just decided to be assertive and let my manager know that the schedule was not going to work for me and could we work anything out to make it better. Through the kindness of my coworkers, shifts were moved around and we came to a compromise that, I think, made everyone happy. Phew!

The Discount: Yeah, I get an employee discount and it is pretty awesome. Just another excuse to spoil the puppy!

Overall, you can tell I really like my job. I may not be full time, but that is okay. It gives me lots of time to work on the house and do errands/chores/etc. It is really nice to be doing something productive again and getting out of the house. I feel like I have it pretty nice. I'm a lucky girl!

Some More Curb Appeal

According to HGTV, it's all about the curb appeal. It's been a little over two months since we have lived in our wonderful home and we want it to look like people actually live here, you know?
Our first step was buying these adorable green Adirondack chairs from Lowe's. They're plastic and not wood because people ask like $100+ for wood ones! Crazy! Anyway, that wasn't going to fly and the chairs at Lowe's were not only very comfy but they are recyclable and cheap. If I remember correctly they are $17. After enjoying a couple lazy afternoons soaking up the sun in them we (well I) decided that there needed to be a cute little table in between them. You know, for setting drinks on and having potted plants on!
On one of our three trips to IKEA for our pantry we picked up a cute metal and wood table that fits perfectly in between them. I think that is also when I picked up all the pink pots that sit on top of it. It looked like we were pretty set.

Obviously we still have a long way to go because the entire other side of our deck/patio/porch/whatever you want to call it is barren. However I have really enjoyed container gardening lately and have had pretty decent success since moving in. The plant that I have faithfully carried with me that I received as a gift from the Sunnyslope Parent Club is absolutely flourishing in the house. It sits in the kitchen and doesn't really seem to get a lot of light, but I am pretty sure it has grown at least a few inches and sprouted a ton of new leaves. I get really excited when a new leaf pops out. Anyway, I wanted some more greenery out front, as if everything outside isn't green already.
When we went to the Olympia Farmer's Market a couple weekends ago I picked up a lovely hanging basket packed full of fuschia. I think there are like 3 or 4 different kinds of it on there. It really is a pretty little thing. We're still getting used to each other and I am still learning its wants and needs but it seems to be doing well in its happy little spot on the porch. Now I want more!

Love to all!

A Dining Table of Our Very Own

In our entire married life, Glenn and I have never owned a true blue dining table. At the condo in Phoenix we had the big giant island that functioned as one, but it was never a proper table. In the Seattle apartment, well that apartment was 450 square feet so our coffee table was our dining table. Now we have this big house in Tacoma that needs some furniture! There is actually a room dedicated to dining, also something we have never had before.

Almost immediately after we put the offer in on our house back in February I began nesting. Yeah, that's right, I was nesting without actually having a house to nest in. I started planning out room designs and decor in my head and bookmarking things online that I thought would be great for our house (that we didn't have yet). The dining room threw me for a bit of a loop though and I didn't quite know what to do.
Over time, Glenn and I have developed a bit of a fondness for antiquing, particularly in the midcentury modern category. Here in Tacoma we have an amazing group of antique shops, two of which specialize in MCM. On our first trip to Midcenturyville we saw a stunning table with 4 chairs and a leaf by Broyhill from the Brasilia collection. Let me share with you a brief history of that collection, because it is part of what endears me so much to the table:

The Brasilia line by Broyhill was created in 1962.

The signature lines and waves of Brasilia furniture were inspired by the distinct architecture of the city of Brasilia, the capital of Brazil.

The city of Brasilia was planned and developed between 1956 and 1960. When viewed from above, the city’s shape resembles a plane or bird, which is mimicked on much of Broyhill’s original fabric and tiles. Most of the city’s architecture was the vision of a man named Oscar Niemeyer. Some of his most notable works are the Palacio de Alvorada and the Cathedral of Brasilia (Pictured). These both feature clean lines and simple, modern design. What stands out most about the architecture is the use of hyperboloid structures, as in the cathedral and it’s parabolic columns, which are said to represent two hands moving upwards towards heaven. This particular building is one of Brasilia’s most recognizable attractions, due to it’s unique design and grand scale.

When viewing the architecture of Brasilia, it is clear to see the inspiration in the design of the Broyhill Brasilia line of furniture. This line was first featured at the Seattle World’s Fair in 1962 representing the city of Brasilia. These unique pieces were created throughout the 1960’s in various forms.

As you can see, that table has some great history. However, we weren't sure that the table was the right one for us, and at the time that we saw it, we still didn't have our house. Since we were still living in Seattle at the time we were also exploring some other vintage shops in the neighborhood. Nothing really stood out to me, but then we found an awesome store called The House in the Magnolia neighborhood. They too were dedicated to MCM furniture. They had some stunning pieces and I fell in love with a table they had there too! It was very similar to the table at Midcenturyville, but it was only the table. We were cool with that because it meant we got to play around with style and be creative with chairs. We weren't quite ready to make the purchase, but a couple weeks later when we were and we went back, the table was gone. I was actually pretty upset about it, and I will admit that I pouted. Embarrassing, I know, but I tend to do that.
Anyway, time went by, I got over it, we got the house, and we still didn't have a table. I search Craigslist every day to see what they have, but I have never really been smitten with anything. However, I did notice that every now and then that table from Midcenturyville would pop up. It was also getting cheaper too. Now, we weren't holding out for a cheaper price or anything, I think we just had a fear of commitment. Also, we were waiting until our living room was finished before purchasing a table since our living room furniture was currently residing in the dining room.

Finally this past weekend Glenn and I came to a consensus that this table was clearly meant to be for us. Somehow an amazing table had not sold in all this time. It was like it was patiently waiting for us to finish our construction so it could have a room of it's own in our house. Glenn emailed the owner of the store and asked her if we could pick it up Monday night and she agreed to meet us at the shop. We grabbed a UHaul van and picked up our table.
I think it looks so beautiful in our home and I cannot wait to decorate around it. It's such a stunning piece and it feels perfect. Now I just have to figure out a paint color that we both love. As you can see, we have a lot to choose from and it isn't easy. It's all good though, we're just excited to have seating indoors for now!

A Good Old Fashioned Milk Delivery

A short while ago Glenn noticed that our neighbors had an interesting little box sitting on their front porch. After a short investigation he discovered that the box was actually a cooler delivery box for Smith Brothers Dairy. I thought that it was just adorable and I had to have one of my own.

Since I stopped drinking soymilk (I just get tired of it after a while) I've been drinking regular milk again. I've tried a few different brands like Lucerne and Darigold but Smith Brothers is my absolute favorite. Call me crazy, but I can definitely taste flavor differences in 2% milk and I have my favorites. Anyway, Glenn set up an account for us so now every Tuesday we get a 1/2 Gallon of 2% milk and a Quart of chocolate milk delivered every Tuesday morning.

My only disappointment is that our milk does not come in glass bottles. How charming and adorable would that be? Oh well.

Rally wasn't quite sure what was going on with this and he could not figure out why this box was now sitting on our porch.

CSA Share Week 9

Ok, well I am a little more ahead of it this week than I was last week, so that is good I suppose. Glenn was kind and thoughtful enough to take the picture of all of our produce while I was gone at work. I love all the thoughtful things he does, even if he thinks they don't mean anything.

This week's haul looks pretty awesome to me. We have the usual unidentified "lettuce" and "greens", along with carrots, summer squash, green beans, broccoli, fennel, raspberries, blueberries, and eggs. Everything looks pretty yummy this week. I'm not really keen on the squash, but I will give it another try. After all, it is a slightly different color than the last squash I tried. The carrots are about 3 times the size of the first batch of carrots we got a few weeks ago. I am really excited for green beans and broccoli. Those are two veggies that I will never get tired of, especially when they are super fresh.

Because last week's share was a little on the small side and we have been super busy over the past week/weekend we haven't really been able to eat much of it. The delicious raspberries have served us well as a quick snack. The eggs have not had their usual hard boiled treatment yet. We had some salad the other night and the lettuce was very delicious and had a great texture but the "greens" I did not like. They tasted too bitter and dirty. I don't understand the fascination some people have with "greens" because I find that most of them just taste downright nasty. The fava beans, shelling peas, squash, and cauliflower have all remained untouched. I really like cauliflower but we are hesitant to cook it because of how gross it smells when you do! Maybe we can try roasting it in the oven and see if that works. I guess we will find out!

That's it for this week's CSA share post. I hope that everyone is doing well and enjoying their summer. We finally seem to be having one here. We've had practically a whole week of 70's to 80's temperature now! Love to all!

CSA Share Week 8

Well this is going to be short post because I don't feel like writing it. Also, I don't really have much to say.

This week's share contains lettuce, greens, eggs (even though I forgot to put them in the picture), raspberries, cauliflower, squash, fava beans, and shelling peas. The lettuce and greens look a little sad in the picture because I didn't get a chance to take a photo until tonight. We have been pretty busy.

Last week our share was pretty good. I actually ate a little bit of everything! Since I don't typically like squash, Glenn decided to try a different way of preparing it and he threw it on the grill. It tasted pretty good, but I really don't seem to like the texture of squash so I ate a few bites and gave the rest to Glenn. We haven't done anything yet with the cauliflower so maybe we will combine it with this week's and do something with them. The fava beans were interesting. Neither of us have had them before so I had no idea how to cook them. I did a quick Google search and decided to saute them with some olive oil and salt and pepper (after we removed the beans from the pods of course). They were very large beans similar in appearance to lima beans but they taste much better. I actually liked them very much so I am looking forward to cooking them again this week. The cherries and raspberries were very good. I ate a carton of raspberries and put the second two cartons in a batch of muffins. The eggs all got hard boiled as usual and were either eaten whole or in egg salad. The lettuce and chard were both good but the chard got a little wilty and bland.

Obviously I am very late on this post, as well as last week's so hopefully I can get on track again soon. We have had a lot going on around here and this Friday we will have even more going on! I will report back soon. Stay tuned for a few posts on some interesting changes around the house. Love to all!