An Evening With Britney Spears

Now, I didn't actually interact with Ms. Spears but I sure did get to watch her up close! I have been a Britney fan ever since she burst onto the scene with "Baby One More Time" in '99. I even remember asking my mom to buy me the CD while she was out, and she did, and I listened to it nonstop while we were painting a room in our old house. Anyway, I loved her then and I still love her now, even through all the craziness.

I spent most of the day doing whatever it is I do all day and listening to the most recent Britney Spears album "Femme Fatale" on repeat. I really do love this album, I think it's her best yet despite what my mom says ;o) When Glenn got home we fed the dog and left shortly after to go eat at the Harmon. The food there was really good, I had crab mac and cheese. YUM. We had paid for an hour of parking, a whopping one dollar bill, and so anything after 6 was free. After dinner we jumped on the streetcar (or whatever you call it) and headed over to the Tacoma Dome.

It wasn't too crowded yet so we were able to get through the merchandise line pretty quick. I got a t-shirt that I thought was pretty cute, and not obnoxious. After that we walked over to the customer service area because the ticket checker told us to. Since the show was not a complete sell out they decided to close off the upper level, where I bought tickets at about $30 each. The cool thing about this was now that our seats were basically non-existent, we were getting upgraded. How upgraded you ask? Well, instead of being on the upper level, far end of the dome, we were moved to practically floor level, 6th row on the left of center section. I kept asking Glenn as we were getting closer and closer to the floor if he was SURE these were where our new tickets said we were. I have NEVER been that close to Britney Spears and it was awesome. I checked to see what comparable tickets in that area would normally cost... about $150-200!!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?!?! We got a serious upgrade and I was in heaven.

The first opening act was a girl duo from Australia called Nervo that basically just did DJ stuff. They were pretty good, and I enjoyed their music.

The second opening act was a girl and a couple guy dancers called Jessie and the Toy Boys. She was pretty much just a Britney Spears/Lady Gaga wannabe, but not the worst thing I ever heard.

The third opening act was the worst thing I ever heard. Nicki Minaj is a pretty popular (right now) female rapper. She was on for 45 minutes and I literally hated every second. Her show was cheesy and gimmicky, her dancers were all over the place, and her music is terrible. I was so glad when it was over.

About 45 minutes after the opening acts, Britney Spears took to the stage and owned it. She is such a fun performer to watch. She had a really varied setlist, taking tracks from every album since the beginning of her career and putting some fun twists on the classics. She even did a Madonna cover at one point and a cover of a popular Rihanna song. The show itself really was spectacular. The set was big, bright and elaborate. She had a bunch of costume changes that allowed us to watch clips of the ongoing storyline. It was like if Britney Spears did an episode of 24. I really enjoyed the lights and the pyrotechnics of this tour, they were way more a part of the show than they have before. Obviously, I really enjoyed the show. I had a blast. What made it even more special was that I had to have Glenn by my side and he actually seemed to be enjoying himself too. Aside from that awful Nicki Minaj crap.

Love to all!!!

CSA Share Week 4

This week is much more my speed. We have such a lovely, colorful grouping of food this week! I hope the rest of the shares start looking like this.

We have Green Leaf Lettuce, Eggs, Strawberries, Spinach, Carrots, Snow Peas, Kohlrabi, and some green that was not labeled. We have a pretty hefty portion of spinach this week, so that means extra salads! Good thing we picked up more salad dressing at WinCo. If you've never been to a WinCo, I am sad for you because I just went for the first time ever this weekend and it was awesome! I had so much fun there. Anyway, the strawberries were really fragrant this week, I smelled them as soon as I opened the bag so they must be good. We're excited to eat everything this week, we've been dying for some peas of some sort. We didn't know what kohlrabi was so I googled it and found out that it is similar in taste to the stalk of broccoli. I guess we'll steam it like broccoli and see how that goes.

I was excited about the carrots because I really like them in my salad so I started shredding a handful of them with my Microplane grater. Stupid thing is so sharp that I cut my finger without even realizing it. Unfortunately I took a chunk out of the middle of my fingernail and even got down to the skin. It's finally stopped bleeding, but now it actually hurts. Ugh.

Last week's share was pretty small, but I'm actually kind of glad it was. We've been a little overwhelmed with how much there is and we don't actually use everything before it goes bad. Bok Choy unfortunately went to waste. We just never got around to using it for a stir fry. It's hard when you're trying to use up everything else in the mean time! All of the greens were put to good use. Thankfully we can manage to use all of those. The chard was pretty good, but I'm not sure what the big deal is about it. I see lots of people rave about it on food blogs, but it just tasted like a slightly bitter spinach to me. The spinach was good as always, and I liked the baby lettuce. It had a very velvety texture almost like butter lettuce. Although last night when I was washing it to eat I found two snails! We didn't eat the parts they were on. The turnips haven't been used yet and neither have the chives. I'm not a chive person so we'll see. What do you do with turnips? I know that Billy Currington says you eat the greens in one of his songs. The eggs got used in waffles this week and then I think I will hard boil the rest. Lastly is the strawberries. Delicious. Apparently strawberries grown here are much softer than the ones grown in California so they don't last as long, but they sure do taste much sweeter than their CA counterparts. They got eaten very quickly, long before they had a chance to spoil.

So that is it for this week's CSA post. Tomorrow Glenn is taking me to the Britney Spears concert and I am super excited (he is not, however.) I won't have any pictures from it because apparently cameras are not allowed. Oh well. I hope everyone is having an enjoyable summer and that the Arizona heat isn't too bad for our Arizona friends and family. Love to all!

A Mini Project

Whenever we go to IKEA we always like to stop in the As-Is section to see if there are any good deals to be had. We usually don't find anything but this time I found three ceramic vases. They were pretty scuffed up and had adhesive gunk all over them, but they were only a dollar apiece so I grabbed them anyway. I thought they would look cute in my room when I was done with them.

Today I finally decided I was going to spray paint them. I used nail polish remover on them and I was able to get all the scuffs and all of the adhesive gunk off of them. Who knew nail polish remover could do so many things?!

I took them out front with my tarp and a cinder block and I sprayed away. I did one black, one white, and one in silver glitter. The previous owners of our house left a bunch of spray paint, a lot of them bottles completely unused so I was able to use the white and the glitter one. Yay!
I think they turned out pretty cute and they look nice on my table. I'd like to find some really cute fake flowers to put in them. Probably just one stem a vase. We'll see!

A Found and Rescued Puppy

In case you weren't aware, I am kind of a sucker for animals - especially dogs. So I am sure that you can imagine that when a stray dog with no collar was standing in front of our gate staring at Rally with a happy tail, I had to do something.

A few weeks ago I was home inside doing who knows what when I heard the dogs across the street going insane. Now, these dogs bark all the time (they're gone now) but this time it sounded different so I went to investigate. Standing in front of our gate with her tail happily wagging was a small Pitbull or maybe an American Staffordshire Terrier. Either way, she looked very thirsty and hungry so I got Rally inside the house and I let her inside our yard. I'm always dutifully wary of stray dogs so I made sure to use all the tactics I knew so that she wouldn't get riled up. Silly me, she just wanted some love and attention. I sat down and she quickly showered me with kisses.
I got her some food and water and watched her eat and drink before I decided it was safe to let Rally out. It was a little tense at first because they were both very confused and this was the first time Rally had ever shared his "territory" but it turns out they get along fantastically! Sheepishly I got on GTalk and shared a quick message with Glenn - ummmm... we have a pitbull in our yard. She has no collar." I'm sure he was thrilled to see that message. I supervised the dogs playing for the rest of the day and then Glenn came home.

It was ridiculously cute watching the dogs get all excited when they saw the car pull up. When he got out of the car they were both jumping at the gate, dying to get his attention. Later we discussed what we were going to do with the dog. We decided it would be best to take her over to the Humane Society. ***Quick detour here - I tried volunteering at the Humane Society in Phoenix, I even went through orientation and everything, but when it came time to actually go into the shelter, I just lost it. I quickly ran to the car and spent the next 20 minutes crying my eyes out before driving home and vowing to never go in there again. I just can't handle all the sadness and the cries from all the animals.*** We brought her there and registered her and as Glenn was talking to the intake person, I lost it and ran out to the car and bawled my eyes out. It was really more just from being in that awful place and thinking about the dismal life we were dooming this poor dog to than it was actually giving her away.
We brought her home and decided we would adopt her out ourselves if no one came forward for her. We posted a few found ads on various places on the internet. We had no one come forward but many many people showed interest in adopting her. We made it very clear that she was not going home with anyone before she got fixed, vaccinated, and microchipped. The world does not need another litter of unwanted puppies. We took care of all of those things out of our own pocket and said that we would adopt her out to the right home for free. I figure it is our way of donating to the shelters.

We set up a few meetings as soon as they were convenient. I did not get a good feeling at all for the first girl who showed up. She seemed disinterested in the dog and paid a lot of attention to Rally. As she left she offered little more than saying she "loved" the dog and couldn't wait to adopt her. Yeah, right. I think she pet her maybe once. I was not giving her up to that lady. Plus she was two hours late and only lived like 15 minutes away! Rude. The second meeting was fantastic. A couple came with their friend from 2 hours away! They drove in rush hour just to come see the dog. As soon as they came in the gate she was all over them, giving them lots of kisses and there was plenty of tail wagging to be seen. They even brought treats for her. It was clear from the second they came in that they were the family we wanted to give her up to. They were kind, loving, and couldn't get enough of her. They were even taking pictures.
We took her in for surgery on our anniversary, which actually worked out great because we actually got to get out of the house and do stuff. She did wonderfully and acted like nothing happened when we brought her home. We tried our best to keep her calm and resting, but it was driving Rally crazy. The next day we couldn't keep them apart and it was very difficult to keep them from playing. We decided to take her to her new family that day. We drove all the way up to Shoreline (I even got to make a few purchases at the Salt Store - Yay!) and went to her new home. They were so excited to have her, it just reaffirmed our decision. I had mentally prepared myself for this, after all I really want to foster dogs in the future so I figured it would be good training. However, Glenn did not and he took it pretty hard. It was actually really sweet.

I was really proud of what we did that day and all that we did for the dog. She was really sweet and deserved to have a loving home. Wherever she was before, I am glad that she is far far away from that now.

CSA Share Week 3

This week's CSA share was a bit on the small side. Glenn picks up our share on his way home from work so he gets to make all the judgement calls as to what comes home or not and I definitely think he made a good call this week. Apparently the majority of the share involved extra portions of the greens we were already getting so he chose not to take more than one portion each. There is no way we would be able to go through that many greens with just the two of us. At least we got double the strawberries this time. Yum.

In the share this week we got spinach, turnips, chives, romaine, bok choy (we've got to stop bringing this one - we already have more than we know what to do with!) strawberries, eggs, and another type of green that I am unsure of (they weren't labeled but I'm guessing chard of some type - I will update if I find out for sure).

We enjoyed last week's share for the most part. The spinach was much better this week. There was no wilting going on and it had a great flavor. The asparagus was really delicious, especially because Glenn grilled it on his new BBQ. The stalks were like three times the size of the week before though, it was weird.
I finally turned all the rhubarb into a compote. It's really yummy and I got it to the consistency of jam so I think I might try it on some toast tomorrow. The eggs were so delicious in the egg salad I made, although one egg did go into making brownies. I'll be making the egg salad again this week because it is just so good for lunch. As I mentioned last week, the strawberries were delicious and I gobbled them all up immediately. The baby lettuce was pretty good and fairly mild tasting but it did have a little bit of a bitter aftertaste on the dark colored leaves. I didn't eat the arugula because I despise it, so Glenn bit the bullet and ate that in his salads. He doesn't mind it. The pea vines did not get used. They dried up before we could figure out what to do with them. Same goes for the radishes. Bummer. The apples were the same as the week before, maybe a bit larger. The bok choy is still sitting in the refrigerator, waiting to go in a stir fry. That's all I can think of to do with it! Finally, the baby garlic is still a favorite in our house. We just love it.

That's all for this week's CSA blog post. If anyone has any ideas about preparations for anything, please feel free to share.

Love to all!

Glenn Got His Hair Cut!!!

Wow, we weren't sure if the day would ever come, but it finally did and Glenn cut his hair! Between being awfully busy and not really liking getting it done anyway, there has been a lot of procrastination involved in taming the mane on Glenn's head. It hadn't been cut since December, and even then it was more of a trim and not a cut.
As you can see, it was getting so long that you could actually gather it into a ponytail (that's my hand holding the hair)! Sometimes you would just look at it and laugh because it was kind of getting ridiculous. I was beginning to wonder if he was going to have longer hair than me! As it turns out, there are parts of my hair that were shorter than his!
As I perused the Michael's next door to pick up some frames, Glenn ran into the Supercuts nearby and put his name in. When I got back he still hadn't gotten in the chair so we waited together for a little bit longer. Finally the gal called him up and got right to work. She actually did a really nice job! I'm always pretty skeptical of Supercuts... especially when you're in a sketchy part of town.
Anyway, I thought his hair looked great, but the beard looked really out of place. It was time for the beard to go. It made me kind of sad especially because I was quite fond of the beard. :o( Oh well.
Now the beard is gone ( well mostly) and we can actually see a face existed under all that manly hair! Now the count begins to see how long he will go without shaving or before getting another haircut!

Nothing Terribly Exciting Here

I don't have anything particularly interesting to share but I figured I would anyway. First off, I bruised my tailbone falling down the stairs pictured above. I was going outside to help Glenn put the cover on his new grill since it was raining and I slid my flip flops on since I was only going down the stairs and onto the back patio. I just didn't want to get my feet dirty. I forgot that wet wood equals slippery wood which also equals slippery flip flop feet. I made it all but 3 steps down before I fell. Fun! That was a couple days ago, and it still hurts. Oh well, I am pretty sure I will survive.
In other exciting news, we bought a grill! Yay! It just so happened to be in time for us to have our very first barbecue with our friends from Tucson, Jake and Bre, as well as their friends from Portland, Dustin and Alyssa. It was fun and Glenn grilled up some killer burgers. Hooray for having a local butcher shop at Tacoma boys with delicious meat. Glenn took some pictures while he was assembling it so hopefully I can put those together soon. It was starting to get dark when he started putting it together so the tail end of the pictures might not be so great, but at least you can see the awesome final product.
We found a small microwave that we liked at Macy's and decided to purchase it. Lucky us it was on crazy sale so we got a fantastic deal. It's really really small, which is what we were looking for since we don't use the microwave very often (mostly me melting butter for stuff) but it looks good and fits perfectly on the counter. There isn't a whole lot else we wanted.