A Romance On The Brink Of Reality

Ok..so where oh where have i been??
Lets just say ive been so busy that im having to take my little netbook to work and blog inbetween my calls..craziness!
So flashback to a couple of weeks ago, we had our one year (!!!) wedding (and 6 years together) anniversary, and we celebrated in style at the Park Hotel in b-e-a-utiful Hibbing, MN.

Mind you, it wasnt the most ideal destination, but we made do.
The reason we were in historic Hibbing…

me at Bob Dylans childhood home..

of course, was for an uncles wedding which was fun. Of course, we have pictures.
The night before we enjoyed some family time at the rehearsal dinner..and played with sparklers..

My Uncle was getting married in the church that my parents got married in..so you know that means..photo op!

The sunday we got home we decided to actually have our anniversary dinner, complements of my parents. boy, was that steak DELISH. i have come to appreciate my dad’s wonderful steak grilling skills, as i have repeatedly overcooked my steak. It wasnt too bad, but i like ‘em real juicy and beat red. Alas, practice makes perfect.

We had steak, baked potatoes, salad, corn, and bread. Mmm.
For dessert, charlie surprised me with some oreo cookie ice cream, So GOOD. So we enjoyed it outside.

I am really looking forward to being able to eat on a nice patio someday, instead of a slanted piece of concrete with weeds poking through. Ah well, in due time. This will have to suffice.

So flashforward a couple weeks..and were getting ready to visit the parents at a cabin they rented on lake Mille Lacs. Much fun, but first..oh, but first..ozzy needed a nice little hair cut. I debated bringing him in,paying 60 bucks for him to get fluffed and have crazy anxiety..but in the end i said, per usual, ” why cant i just do it myself?” i mean, i already give oz little hair cuts with scissors when it gets too long..why not a buzzer?
So charlie and oz made a run to the doggie store and picked one out–i think charlie said it was 30 bucks or something, which made it completely worth it. hey, it might even work on future kiddies haircuts! you never know ;]
We made a nice little spa set up in the back bedroom, complete with a doggie trimming table. Here are some before pictures. Clearly oz is confused.

He looks pretty good me thinks! check out all that extra fur!

I thought I might as well get that extra fuzz off charlies toes while we’re at it..

The cabin was great, Oz had so much fun in the water. This may sound pretty lame, but he just amazes me at how smart he is. Sure, i fondly call him the resident retard at times, but overall..he is a very smart boy. Cockapoos are known to be little devious pups with a knack for problem solving, and so far he has lived up to the description.
We have seriously contemplated getting another one. Infact, we are currently contemplating. Our little family unit is perfect the way it is, but Oz is so social and I cant help but believe that he would just thrive with a brother. Time will tell, but there may be a furry addition in the future..if I have anything to do with it
Anyway, back to the cabin..Some pictures for your enjoyment:

And now, some silly pictures to tide you over..

And a little sneak peak at what ive been working on for the past MONTH..

See you very soon with the reveal!

Last weekend, Auntie Vick, Julie, Megan, Grammie, Mom, and I went on a new house tour of our house and cousin Julie’s adorable stucco tudor in Minneapolis.

Needless to say, it was good having some motivation to get things done around here to get things looking halfway presentable.

So, I’ve put together a little house tour of our place, so far, including some before pictures. Some of these are repeats, but thats okay

Here was our house, before:

And after, with the help of family and friends:

Now onto the inside..

This was the dining room, before:

And our after, thus far..

The view from the front door:

Then you walk through the dining room, to the kitchen. I’ve got a little set up, to the right, with all my cookbooks:

The Kitchen:

The kitchen:

Now turning around, looking back into the dining room/entry way.

Notice that in the “before” picture, there was a half wall with a wooden shelving unit on top of it. That’s now gone, thanks to some handy work, and now were just waiting to tile the entry way. I think it will look real sharp once its all said and done.

We also got a nice, white, pendant light for our dining room, but I’m not sure what to do..if we put it where the other light is currently, its too far into the walk way. Maybe we will just save it for when we do our kitchen remodel?

Looking to the right, is the living room.

Walkin around the couch..

Lookin into the living room..

Peeking in bedroom #1, now being used a computer room. Will eventually be part of the kitchen..

And looking back out into the living room, thats to the right of the computer room doorway..

Looking down the hallway, the right of the computer room. Door number one is the bathroom:

Across the hall is bedroom #2..

Down the hall a bit more is bedroom #3..

Nevermind the blue tape..I’m still workin on the trim.

And now, our room, the room that used to be very, very PLUM.

Yay!

We havent even touched the basement yet, so that will come later. We still have some mayjah projects on level one.

OK, food time!

I made Bethenny Frankle’s (from RHW NY) pasta carbonara one night, with a few modifications..I really liked it..charlie wasnt a big fan. More for me!

• 1 pound whole wheat spaghetti
• 3/4 cup soy milk (I used skim)
• 2 whole eggs
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan (I used parmigiano reggiano)
• 1 teaspoon garlic salt, divided
• 1 teaspoon black pepper, divided
• 2 tablespoons butter (I used one)
• 8 slices organic turkey bacon, cooked until crispy (I used regular bacon)
• 1-1/2 teaspoons red pepper flakes

I added:

Juice of one lemon

one tablespoon or so fresh garden oregano

One can diced tomatoes.

1. Cook the spaghetti according to the package directions.
2. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, whisk together the soy milk, eggs and yolks, parmesan cheese, half the garlic salt, and half the pepper.
3. When the pasta is done, drain it and quickly put it directly into the bowl with the egg mixture.  Toss to coat.  The hot pasta will cook the eggs.
4. When the pasta is coated with the egg mixture, mix in the butter, bacon, red pepper flakes, and the remaining garlic salt and pepper.  Serve immediately.

Tasty! I just wished the grated cheese would have melted a bit more, or something. It was kind of grainy, but good because it was something new!

Oh, and. We had a giant Elm tree cut down in our front yard..lets just say it was a pretty penny..

More pictures to come

This weekend was full of birthday fun! Coincidentally, Ozzy and Grammie Jacky share the same birthday!

I can’t believe that my little goober peanut is already 1 years old. Time flies! Charlie and I had fun looking back at the zillions of pictures of Ozzy over the past year..makes me feel a little verklempt!!

Such is life, I guess!

We had a birthday bbq for Ozzy and mom this last Friday, so naturally, the 5 days leading up for the event were filled with scrambling to scrub floors and wash windows and mow and weed and bake and cook..you get the picture. At least now that everything is clean, though, maybe I’ll be more apt to keep it that way?

Dad brought over steaks to grill on the barbie, mom brought salad, charlie was a good boy and made homemade rosemary sage dinner rolls and veggies and dip…I made Ozzy a wonderful doggie birthday cake, OF COURSE, and made mom a cranberry orange trifle for dessert. We had lots of good eats! It was not until after everyone had eaten and gone that I realized I got no artsy food pictures of the homemade rolls or cranberry trifle :’[

So I got this great doggie birthday cake recipe online called “Bow Wow Beef and Bacon” birthday cake. Doesn’t that just sound like something a dog would drool over? I thought so. Recipe as follows, with 2 star ingredients:

Real bacon bits and strained beef and gravy baby food Lets just say Ozzy was salivating the whole time, thus I was obligated to let him like the spoon!

Cutie

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2/3 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 jar of strained beef baby food
• 3 large eggs
• 1/2 cup bacon bits

Directions:

• Stir flour and baking powder together in a mixing bowl.
• Cream together the butter, oil, baby food and eggs.
• Mix the dry ingredients with the wet mix, and then stir in the bacon bits.
• Pour into a greased and floured 8″ x 8″ baking pan.
• If desired, sprinkle a light layer of bacon bits on top as a frosting substitute.
• Bake in a 350 degree F oven for approximately 35-40 minutes or until the center of the cake springs back when lightly poked. Oven times may vary

His sniffer was going wild when it was baking..

So I also made a cranberry orange trifle:

Cranberries:
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup fresh orange juice
1/4 cup Grand Marnier (or other orange liqueur)
1 (12-ounce) package fresh cranberries

Pastry cream:
1/2 cup sugar
5 tablespoons cornstarch
2 1/2 cups 2% reduced-fat milk
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt

Remaining ingredients:
1 (10.75-ounce) loaf pound cake (such as Sara Lee), cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 teaspoon orange rind

To prepare cranberries, combine 3/4 cup sugar, orange juice, and Grand Marnier in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat; cook 3 minutes until sugar dissolves, stirring occasionally. Add cranberries to pan; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer 8 minutes or until cranberries pop. Spoon mixture into a bowl; cover and chill.
To prepare pastry cream, combine 1/2 cup sugar and cornstarch in a medium, heavy saucepan over medium heat. Gradually add milk to pan, stirring with a whisk until blended; bring to a boil. Cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Gradually add half of hot milk mixture to eggs, stirring constantly with a whisk. Return milk mixture to pan; cook over medium heat 1 minute or until thick, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Stir in vanilla and salt. Place pan in a large ice-filled bowl until custard cools to room temperature (about 25 minutes), stirring occasionally.

Arrange half of cake cubes in the bottom of a 2-quart trifle dish. Spoon 1 1/2 cups cranberry mixture over cake; top with 1 1/2 cups pastry cream. Repeat layers. Garnish with rind. Cover loosely with plastic wrap, and chill at least 4 hours.

Like I said, I didn’t get a blog picture, but the one from the Cooking Light website looked very similar, of course:

Charlie’s rolls were made from this recipe:

Potato Rosemary Rolls
Makes 18 small rolls or 12 hamburger sized buns
1 potato, cooked and mashed
1 lb (3 1/2 cups) bread or all-purpose unbleached flour
3/4 – 1 cup water
2 teaspoons instant yeast
2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon dried rosemary or 2 tablespoons fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon ground sage leaves

Cook the potato until soft, either by boiling or baking in the oven or microwave.

Mash the potato. Removing the skin prior to mashing is optional.

Combine the flour, mashed potato, yeast, salt, pepper and herbs in a large bowl. Add 3/4 cups water and knead or mix for 5 to 10 minutes, adding more water or flour until a consistency you are comfortable working with is reached.

Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a moist towel and let the dough rise until it has doubled in size, typically 60 to 90 minutes.

Remove the dough from the bowl, gently degas it, and shape it. For rolls or buns you can weigh them if you like or just eyeball them. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Place them in the center rack and bake them for 10 minutes. Rotate the pan 180 degrees and bake them for another 10 to 20 minutes, depending on size.

Allow the rolls to cool before serving. They keep very well too, so you could bake them a day or two ahead of time and still serve them for Thanksgiving.

Now onto the bbq!

Beautiful picture of mom!

Ozzy’s cake was frosted with cream cheese, then decorated with a peanut butter/honey frosting, and sprinkled with bacon bits..

Congratulations, Oz! You’re 1!

He clearly couldn’t get enough of it.

Neither could nick..

Happy Birthday, Mom!

All tuckered out with his new toy..

I’ve been quite the little busy bee lately! Well, I guess Charlie and I have been busy bee’s. Its nice when the weather is permitting and we have enough energy to actually go out and start cleaning up the yard! We had these awful ferns growing at the base of a tree in our backyard..before they sprouted they looked just super strange..the bulbs were half out of the ground and looked like what I would imagine a cockaroacha egg to look like. Like something not of this Earth..needless to say, they needed to go. Once they “bloomed” they took up the whole bottom half of the tree..Here I am in my workin’ clothes! These bad boys don’t come out too often..;]

I also cleaned up some of the dead branches on these little flowering shrubs we had. I was amazed how much of it was actually dead..it makes quite the difference. It was so nice once we had been done for a couple of hours and walked back into the backyard and saw how much of a difference the cleanin up made. Arent we good little homeowners!

Ozzy was doing so, so well outside. Normally, now that he has all this new found freedom, he bolts out the door and down the street when he even gets a glimpse of the door opening.

We have a little stake and leash thing we stick in the ground and attach him to that when were working outside so at least he gets some fresh air..But yesterday we just felt sorry for the little bugger and let him roam free.

He made a couple of rounds around the backyard, dashing from tree to tree and smelling all those wonderful smells from behind the garage..and stayed in the yard! Imagine my surprise when we didn’t have to go running after the resident retard, calling out to him and pretending like he even cared he wasn’t supposed to run into the street. Ah, we were happy.

Until. The paper towel.

So Ozzy does this funny thing where he will pick up a toy, drop it, and then do this compulsive thing with his nose. He looks like he is touching the toy, then a couple of inches in front of the toy, then back to the toy, etc..back and forth, back and forth. When he first did this, a long long time ago, I thought “Oh, great. We got the crazy one” that’s going to have all these problems..Until yesterday! So I had a roll of paper towel sitting in the drive way, and Ozzy sneakily comes up and grabs the roll and runs around the yard with it. It was quite cute..

I have never seen something so cute! He grabbed the roll and ran and ran and ran in circles, until he stopped and hid in the corner of the yard by the house, where nice cool freshly dug up dirt was..

And I’m like, “Ugh! Whats the goober doing now?!” And I walk over, and there is my little smarty pants digging a GIANT hole and trying to bury the paper towel roll! It was the funniest thing I had ever seen..seriously.

Then he started doing his same back and fourth motion..and I realized that he was doing that to cover the roll with dirt..!

So all those times when my boy was a baby and I was scolding him for being a weirdo, he was just dealing with his puppy dog impulse to dig and bury!

I didn’t have the heart to take away the roll so we just let him express his impulses until he was tired. Of course he needed to be caught red handed

Whatta silly little boy..

Ever tried Quinoa? (keen-wah) I think I had tried it before, but I think it was probably in tabbuleh, so I hadn’t really had anything that showcased the texture and flavor of the Quinoa itself.  I had some ingredients on hand that I thought would make a nummy meal, so I made a curried quinoa with garlic asparagas. mmmm!

Start with the quinoa, and rinse it until the water washes clear.

I used 1.5 cups, which made 3 cups cooked. Plenty for a couple of meals with quinoa.

I used double water vs. quinoa and added a couple lemon slices, brought it to a bowl, then let simmer for about 20 minutes.

While that was cooking, I browned 2 shallots, 1 small green pepper, and garlic in a sauce pan, then added 1 pound of lean ground turkey, salt and pepper.

While that was all workin, I quick stir fryed some fresh asparagas in a little olive oil and minced garlic, garlic salt, and pepper. Mm……

Once the meat was cooked, I fluffed the quinoa with a fork, then added it to the cooked meat and green peppers, etc. I added a couple tablespoons (or so, to taste) of red curry powder, a little more salt to taste, and sprinkled some chopped cilantro on top.

Super good, super tasty, super healthy, too!

Sew good. I had a little man spying on me when I was taking pictures, though..

:]

Hay, did I mention it was my first day at my new job today?! Happy dance!

Good thing I had my personal stylist, Mr. Ozvaldo, to dress me. Thumbs up!

More on my first day, and updates on home improvements, soon!