Weekend Update about bowls -- not bowels

The Stout Floats that Lo talked about on Friday were, um, interesting. Check out the Burp! blog for details.

Saturday turned out to be a great day out in Madison for the Art Fair on the Square. Lo and I frequent art fairs all summer long, and we happen to have a huge attraction to anything resembling pottery. At this point, we have a superb collection of ceramic coffee mugs. There are a few platters and other serving type dishes in the mix as well; but the latest craze for us are tiny bowls. I'm not quite sure what makes Lo so excited about these little dishes, but when she sees one that she really likes and discovers that it isn't ridiculously expensive, she gets all giddy... and then proceeds to persuade me to buy about 4 of them. If you saw her reaction for yourself, I think you, too, would be sucked into buying copious amounts of tiny bowls. The joy she gets out of these little bowls is priceless. I'm thinking there's a credit card commercial in there somewhere...

Anyway...back to the Art Fair on the Square. This art fair is one of our favorites since A.) it is free to get in B.) it's HUGE and C.) how cool is it to walk around a state capital building looking at all things artistic? It seems a popular trend in art fairs these days are lawn ornaments. People can't seem to get enough of iron sculptures -- pounded into the shape of a bird, or a flower, or some other "outdoorsy" design. Then there are the "new" mini gazing balls -- finials made from glass or polished stone on a stick. Along those lines, we've found it to be a fairly dangerous activity just walking through the crowds at an art fair where they're selling these. Too many people carrying pointed objects... it's a fiasco! The things we sacrifice for the sake of art! So, we managed to escape Madison before buying TOO much pottery (and before getting impaled). But, if you look closely, you're sure to find a few more little bowls taking up space in our already crowded cupboards. (It makes her so happy... )

Saturday was also my Dad's birthday. Happy Birthday, Dad!

On Sunday, Lo's cousin got married (Congrats Jason and Jamie!). So, we spent the latter half of our day enjoying the festivities. We had a pretty fantastic time; and I was pretty stoked that the reception was held at the Palm Garden connected to my favorite local microbrewery. Lakefront Brewery makes some great beer. If you can't find it at your local store, let me know and I will be sure to bring some Riverwest Stein next time we get together!

Back in Business!

We are the proud owners of a newly INSTALLED (this is an important detail) Wishwasher! I am SO excited to wash my first load of wishes, I can hardly stand it.

To be fair, it's not that I didn't enjoy a bit of dishwashing over the past week. I've always found the process of washing dishes to be somewhat meditative. Warm/hot water is involved. It requires repetitive activity. And it can be done while having a nice conversation or listening to music (two things that make just about any activity better).

No, it's not that I can't appreciate the manual labor aspect. But I can appreciate a number of things about having a dishwasher.

1. One big perk about a dishwasher is that, when used correctly, it can actually save on water usage. Our new dishwasher has a lovely food grinder, so we'll save time and water by NOT rinsing our dishes too!
2. I can genuinely appreciate being able to "put away" my dirty dishes in a place where people don't have to look at them.
3. Being a gal with fairly scant counterspace, I value being able to use the space that was previously inhabited by dirty dishes.
4. I can use all that time that I would normally spend washing dishes doing other activities.

So -- that's the big news for today. Now that the dishwasher business is out of the way -- what is on tap for Peef and Lo this weekend?

Well, tonight our friends Rebeccca & Michelle are coming over to our house for dinner. We'll be enjoying some of the fabulous Copper River King Salmon that Paul brought back from his trip to Seattle earlier this summer. I'll probably make mashed potatoes and creamed spinach to go alongside (hey, it's Friday!). R&M are bringing beer and vanilla icecream, as we're planning to try out some beer floats for dessert. Sound gross? Don't be too quick to judge!! I'll plan on posting a review over on the BURP! side of things after we've tested them.

I'm not sure what's on the docket for Saturday, although we'll most certainly be visiting a local farmer's market or two to see what's looking particularly delectable in the veggie department. Our CSA box this week contains some pretty interesting items -- about four ears sweet corn, 3 lb new potatoes, Swiss chard, broccoli, green leaf lettuce, kohlrabi, celery, Walla Walla onion, green bell pepper, cucumber. But we always like to supplement with whatever is new and fresh. I must admit, I'm very excited that corn is back in season. It's one of my favorite things about summer!

Mmm. The thought of all that farm fresh goodness is making me drool. Must be time for lunch!

New Office = New Woman?

I'm wiping the last of the dust from my brow as I settle in from this week's move. At long last, I have finally been granted a "real" office at work. And the feeling couldn't be sweeter.

Yes, I shall miss my old cube. It was very cozy. Some might call it small; but I like to think that it was quaint. It was also conveniently located near the bathroom, which means I always had visitors. With so much traffic around, I also had to share my desk (people frequently "borrowed" my stapler, paperclips, pens, and whatnot). Being located near the departmental mailboxes means that I was always first to get my mail. Being located right next to the copier machine, on the other hand, turned out to be a two edged sword. No, I didn't have to walk very far to make my copies. But I also got to listen to everyone else making THEIRS.

So, it's different. Having an Office.

• I have a door, which I can close on a whim.
• I have windows (two), from which I can glimpse crabapple blossoms in the spring, and snow in the dead of winter (oh yes! And I can OPEN them!! Bonus!).
• I have a Very Nice desk (grey metal/cherry vaneer), which I can clutter up with work.
• Incidently, I also have my very own fax machine. So I never have to walk down the hall to send a fax again... I think that's probably a perk, although these days I don't send many faxes.

I was sitting here today, thinking about how weird it is that I could shut the world OUT of my office for a while, and actually get work done. It's amazing, the difference that a door makes.

I've been tagged.

So, Jess tagged me (first time for everything).
Being a newbie, I ran across some rules to follow when playing tag. So, here goes:

• Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
• People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
• At the end of your blog post, you should choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
• Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Here are Eight Wondrous (and Lesser Known) Things about the Lo:

1. When I was in high school, I had an alter ego named Larry who lived in our basement. We fed him through a hole in the dining room floor.
2. I once snuck out of my dorm with a few of my friends and stole hoards of red tulips from the football field a few blocks from my college dorm. We brought them back in our garbage cans and decorated our rooms with them.
3. Having been labeled a "foodie" by many, I find it difficult to admit that I have a real THING for Doritos... but I do. Even though they make my breath smell.
4. I have ALWAYS wanted a nose ring. And lately, I've been tempted to act upon my impulse to get one.
5. I've developed a pseudo obsession with the show "So You Think You Can Dance." I've always dreamt of being a dancer (despite the very obvious roadblocks); so I think this vicariously fills some deep, dark desire.
6. I would love to write a novel, but I don't seem to have the patience for such a long work (poetry and essays are more my speed).
7. I dream about owning my own restaurant (BURP!)... but I'm not sure I could actually follow through. I think I enjoy the dreaming more than the reality.
8. Sometimes I don't recognize the girl I was in high school. What happened to her??

Tag: Officially Peef ; the rest of you are optionally tagged.
(Sorry! Rule #3 violated. Apparently I need a larger blogging community!)

Better Late Than...

OK. So, we haven't started off being terribly good bloggers.
After all, we let a major holiday fly right past without even passing comment (happy very late 4th of July, everyone!).

Rest assured, we're working on getting better. Eventually, we'll be posting like crazy. And hopefully, someday, we'll even start getting people to COMMENT on what we write (hint, hint).

We hope you'll be content to know that we had a very nice holiday. We celebrated with the prerequisite grilled foods, and even set off a few (legal) fireworks to mark the day. Our meager time off of work was not nearly enough... and, even after the weekend, we were left with a sort of disappointed feeling in the backs of our throats.

HOWEVER, all of that aside, a few notable things have occurred in the past few days that I feel we should share.

1. We purchased a new dishwasher. Some of you might know that our old "wishwasher" has been on the fritz. And so, after long last, we put our pennies together and bought a brand new one. Which was supposed to be installed today.
2. We went to an art fair where I was able to indulge my addiction to ceramic bowls... yes, I have a problem. But, I only spent $26. On THREE bowls. And they're positively fantastic.
3. We had a phenomenal "CSA dinner" with our friends Steph and Nate on Saturday evening. Yes, it's true. Read about that on our BURP! blog.

Now -- back to the topic of the dishwasher, which I think warrants more space. You know how you work yourself UP TO something? And then, when it happens, it never quite lives up to all the hype?

Yeah, that's kind of how it happened with the dishwasher. We were SO excited to find a pretty great dishwasher. ON SALE. And we got even more excited when we found out that they could schedule us for a delivery and installation right away on Monday (yes, that is today). We could hardly contain ourselves. And so we didn't. We did a happy dance, right there in the department store parking lot. We even went home and cooked up a lovely celebration dinner of grilled pizza (fresh mozzarella, homemade pesto, and tomatoes... YUM!).

So, you can imagine what a state we were in by the time Monday arrived. We were excited. We could hardly sleep. We practically LEAPT out of bed at 5am to work out (OK -- so maybe that's a stretch; but you see what we mean).

I spent my entire morning at work dreaming about the loads of filthy dishes I could clean with that NEW, quiet machine (can you imagine? sheer bliss.). Peef went home on his lunch break to facilitate the delivery and installation process. The worker bees arrived (on schedule) with our dishwasher. They removed our old dishwasher. They surveyed our work on the pipes and water supply lines under the kitchen sink and complimented us our extraordinary plumbing skills (yes, they really did). They prepped everything to move the new dishwasher into place! And. And. And we should have known that everything was going too well.

Thanks to our lovely (new-ish) Durastone flooring, the darned tall-tub wouldn't fit under the sink. We will have to cut away about 2 inches of the new flooring in order to finagle the new wishwasher underneath. Big deal? Nah. We can handle that. However, the installation could not happen today.

We're now the proud new owners of a big cavern in the kitchen. And our pretty, shiny wishwasher is sitting out in the dirty, old garage... where it cannot possibly wash our very dirty dishes.

The UP side (and there always IS an up side) of all of this is that we are THIS close to a new dishwasher. And our time WILL come. We just have to exercise a bit of patience.

Bathroom Remodel: Take One

For those of you interested in our progress in fixing up the nasty bathroom (see entry from June 22), I'm pleased to say that we finally met with our mortgage company. The great news is that we have a bit of equity, despite having lived in our home for only a few years. The even better news is that now we can actually move forward with our plans for a bathroom rennovation.

SO, we met with a prospective contractor last night to discuss some of our options. Overall, it looks like we'll be able to do quite a bit with the money we have at our disposal. Beyond the obvious cosmetic changes, we'll definitely be ditching the cheap, leaky, plastic "neo-angle" shower we have going on (and likely replacing it with a custom tiled shower). And we'll probably be adding a bit more storage space. It's actually quite exciting to think that we'll be able to transform the room that's been haunting Lo's dreams for a long time now into something with which we'll both be really happy. I have a feeling it will transform our entire attitude toward the house in general. Not to mention the fact that it will add quite a bit of value.

In other news, we're officially closing in on our plans for the 4th of July and subsequent weekend. Despite our initial plans to hang out and take it easy for a number of days, it looks like we're going to be busy little bees. It's getting to the point where we've actually turned DOWN our third offer for a get-together (which makes us very sad!). Amid the many activities on the roster, we'll be replacing the shocks on our car (whee!) and shopping for a new dishwasher to replace our old, leaky one. Not all that mentionable.

That said, not all of our plans are humdrum. For instance, we have a variety of plans with friends and family. For instance, on Saturday, we actually have a "CSA dinner" planned with our friends Steph & Nate (during which we cook with foods we got in our Community Supported Agriculture box). The joy of such a dinner is that it invokes our spontaneous planning abilities, as we often don't know what will be in our CSA box until the day before it arrives. Such a dinner requires quick wit, collaboration, and a keen sense of adventure. This week, we could see vegetables as exciting as broccoli, kohlrabi, and lettuce... I wonder if anything will make the menu over at BURP! ?

Really Cool Idea -- One Local Summer

So, Pocket Farm has announced One Local Summer. This is an extraordinarily cool idea... so I'm lamenting the fact that I didn't read about it earlier. The concept is to choose one night per week to eat food that is completely local.

Now -- Peef and I have made it one of our goals to eat AS MUCH local food AS POSSIBLE. We are constantly checking packages for information about where a product is made (and therefore how FAR it had to go to get to us). So, this is right up our alley.

Sign up is closed for this year. But I could see this being a really interesting project. We could TOTALLY do this during the summer in Wisconsin (and we've been focusing a great deal lately on buying local and supporting local agriculture) -- so it's something I'll have to keep in mind for future years. On top of all of that, it would give us something to yak about on our BURP! blog (which is always a bonus)!

You can check out what meals look like regionally on the One Local Summer blog.