You are currently browsing the monthly archive for July 2008.
you have been great. Many wonderful things have happened during your stay. My title and salary changed at work. A friend confessed her pregnancy and a few weeks later she was engaged. Another couple told me of their plans to adopt so hopefully this time next year there will be plenty of little peanuts in our group. We bought a house and have made it a home. Learned lots about our family and friends during that time. And another couple got married on a sunny Wednesday at the end of our time with you just to let you go out with a bang.
A word of advice to August, we’d be perfectly happy if you were quiet and not so showy. July was fun, but we’re fine with you being here for a while. Ready for a lazy end to summer. Maybe you could help me sit out on my glider overlooking the yard with a juicy book and not feel guilty. A pitcher of iced tea lemonade would be perfect.
This morning at around 11:15am I received a BlackBerry instant message from Ashley. It read: Bill and I got married!! Then I noticed the missed call from hubilicious. I quickly called him back. “Did you hear from Ashley?” “Yes, did you hear from Bill?” Bill texted hubilicious and Ashley messaged me with the news. They just went to the town hall this morning and got married! Yay!
Bill and Ashley helped us paint last Thursday and they told us they too were in the process of purchasing a home similar to ours (and even more of a coincidence, they have a similar color scheme in mind). They decided to get married before they close on the house in September.
There’s a part of me that’s sad we didn’t get to see them get married, but the other part thinks it’s wicked cool what they did. I always thought how special it is to just go get married without all the fuss.
This has seriously been a crazy summer!
A bit overly ambitious, but we bought a house, painting every single room, moved out of an apartment, and cleaned the apartment in less than a week.
I’m about ready to either cry or pass out right now. I’ll never do anything like this again. If we ever decide to move, I’m hiring someone to clean out the house after we move. Seriously.
I’m overwhelmed by the help and generosity of our family and friends. I really don’t know how to repay them, but we will. Somehow.
Just thinking about all the help we’ve received the past week makes me want to bawl. People gave up their time to paint, clean out the old apartment, move our crap to a bigger space to hold our crap, etc.
It’s pretty amazing.
We’ve met one set of neighbors so far. Our first day owning the house actually. They have the cutest kids. And a dog that likes to poop in our yard. But they have a pool so they are good people to know.
Uh, it’s back to work tomorrow. Can hardly believe it. And I have over 400 items in my GoogleReader.
I need a vacation from my “vacation”.
Tonight is the last night we will sleep in our apartment. The apartment we shared for the last almost 4 years. This place never felt like a permanent home but it felt as close to home as my childhood home. It was a very tough transition to go from childhood home to sharing space with a man. I spent a good week or so coming home and crying or being depressed. My relationship with my parents is fabulous and it was tough to go from seeing them everyday to a weekend or two a month. This was my first real time living away from home (I lived on campus for a semester a while ago but that doesn’t really count).
A few years later my mom admitted she felt upset as well. We both realized we spent that first week feeling exactly the same way.
Hubilicious and my relationship changed while we were living here. Went from boyfriend/girlfriend to fiance/fiancee to husband/wife. We had some pretty epic arguments here too. But we had great belly laughs and heart to hearts. As much as I hate the tiny kitchen, I’ll miss bumping into each other as we try to cook with each other. We knew you can’t fit two people comfortably here but we were always in there together.
We got our furbabies while in this apartment too. I’ll never forget the first night we had Sophie and Baxter. They were little puffs of black fur. When I awoke the next morning to check up on them, they were nowhere to be found. I looked under every couch, chair, table, etc. I ran back upstairs and awoke then-boyfriend. “I can’t find the kitties!” He trudged downstairs and peeled back the blankets we hung over the railing separating the dining room with the sunken living room. Two pairs of scared yellow eyes peeked back. Sophie and her brother were huddled under the blanket. It was adorable!
Now we have Oliver and our furbaby family is complete. They love sleeping on the boxes we have piled up. But I think they suspect something is up. I’ve never heard them meow as much as they have been this week. Their new home is much bigger so they have plenty of places to sleep and hide from each other and they will have a massive backyard to look out at and bird watch.
We also hosted some great parties/get togethers here. Gets a little cramped, but fun nonetheless. We are within walking distance to our favorite local pub – there have been plenty of fun drunken walks back. We also are right across the street from a grocery store and package store so it has been easy to just make a quick run (literally) if we run out of food or libations.
This apartment has had its memories, but it is definitely time to move on. I can’t wait to share memories with our new house.
So right now hubilicious and I should be signing the next 30 years away and getting the keys to OUR HOUSE! I want to apologize in advance for not posting in my blog for a little while. We have scheduled priming, painting, lock changing, box moving, and The Dark Knight viewing from today through Friday (I totally have to see the movie during our “vacation”). Saturday is the big move and Sunday and Monday will be unpacking/cleaning the apartment/cleaning the house etc. I do have TwitterBerry on my BlackBerry so I may be Twittering.
It will be nice to have my life back to normal, but I do enjoy the craziness!
Two weeks agoI talked with K on my cell on my way home from work. “I’ll have something to tell you after my birthday” she said. Her birthday is July 19th. “K, you know you can’t do that to me!” I could tell that she really wanted to tell me and we’re not known for keeping secrets between us. I decided to play a little game, “If I guess what it is - you technically didn’t tell me…” “Ok, guess.”
“Are you getting engaged?”
“Well, that could be happening soon.” I could tell this wasn’t the secret.
“Are you pregnant?”
….long silence….
I freaked out. While driving. Tears in my eyes.
K and her boyfriend bought a condo together in January and are great together. K was worried about telling her parents since they are religious and K and the boyfriend aren’t married. I’m a pretty unorthodox person so I told her that in the end, this is their grandchild and I’m sure they will be thrilled. Things have a way of working out.
I’ve been busting with the secret for a while now. Ok, maybe two weeks but still. I’m not one known to keep a secret for long. As a matter of fact once I knew this secret I had to tell people that don’t even know K just to get it out of my system.
Last night I received a phone call from K saying that they had a wonderful time in San Diego (boyfriend surprised her for a quick birthday trip to his hometown) and that they are now engaged…minus the ring but that will be picked out soon. I quickly called her back all excited and she told me I could finally tell my mom all the great news because her parents now know and are beyond thrilled. Boyfriend got on the phone and said, “I had to tell you about my girlfriend’s hairy armpits!” “Correction, you had to tell me about your fiance’s hairy armpits!”
Love them!
(The couple, not hairy armpits)
And in other baby news, my smug married friends A & K who celebrated 5 years of wedded bliss on Saturday announced last weekend that they are pursuing adoption. This is very exciting and can’t wait to see what year 6 has in store for them!
Actually, that should read “Banana-without the Walnuts Muffins” since I omitted the walnuts purely because I didn’t want to spend the money on buying a bag right now. I also chose this recipe because I had most of the ingredients in the cupboards and I’m all for using up while I got since we’re down to three days (THREE!) until our closing and then we commence marathon painting/moving.
Going through our stuff is awesome because I’m able to finally poke through my Rachael Ray magazines and find quick and easy recipes to try. I found the Banana-Walnut Muffin recipe from the April 2008 issue. Actually, I was looking specifically for muffin recipes as they are an unmessy treat. They also transport easily and will come in handy once we close and are splitting time between two residences.
Consensus?
Was the recipe easy to follow?
Most definitely! There aren’t many steps so it was pretty simple. For once I took out all my ingredients (as you can see) and quickly followed along. This recipe is great to throw together if you have unexpected guests who show up around breakfast/brunch time. However; I don’t make muffins often and wasn’t sure if I should fill the cups or do it 3/4 of the way like with cupcakes. I think next time I will fill them. The recipe yeilds a dozen but I was able to squeeze out 15 since I didn’t fill the tins.
Did the dish taste good?
Yes, though I really miss the walnuts! There’s nothing like bananas and walnuts together (aside from chocolate and bananas!). I’ve never baked with yogurt before so it was an unexpected treat. The muffins are light and fluffy.
Would you make it again?
Totally. It’s easy, tasty and doesn’t make a huge mess.
Here’s the full recipe:
Banana-Walnut Muffins
Silvana Nardone
From Every Day with Rachael Ray
April 2008
MAKES 1 DOZEN
Prep Time: 15 min
Bake Time: 20 min
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 1/3 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/3 cup golden raisins
1 cup mashed banana (1 to 2 bananas)
1 cup whole milk yogurt
1 large egg
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, or vegetable oil
1. Preheat the oven to 375°. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with baking liners. In a small bowl, mix 1/4 cup sugar with 1 teaspoon cinnamon.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, remaining 1/2 cup sugar, baking powder, salt, remaining 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, walnuts and raisins.
3. In a small bowl, beat together the banana, yogurt and egg with a fork. Stir in the butter. Stir the wet ingredients into the flour mixture until just combined.
4. Fill the lined muffin cups with the batter. Sprinkle the reserved cinnamon-sugar mixture on top. Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted into the centers comes out dry, about 20 minutes.
Banana Muffins completed
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Each day that ticks by we are one closing to owning our home. Each day I add something to the list of things I won’t miss about living in my apartment:
- The parking here. The apartments are perpedicular to the road and we’re in the second one in. The parking lot doesn’t start until about 5 apartments in and we don’t have marked spots (which they totally should). When we first saw the apartments the landlord said that he asks everyone to be kind and let the first few apartments have the spots closest to their apartment. That was happening for a while – but not so much this past year. And there’s a couple of beat up trucks that people just park in the first few spots and leave them there for months at a time which is so uncourteous. I don’t mind walking to my car – it just sucks in the winter or when I’m carrying things.
- Some of the kids that live here. During the school year they scream at 6:30am – profanities. And the way they mouth off to their moms is just ridiculous.
- Having to hear my neighbor’s surround sound at 10pm. Glad you love Gladiator so much, I really don’t need to hear it. And who gets surround sound when they’re living in attached apartments?
- The busy street we live on. Ok, so it’s nice we can walk across the street to get groceries and alcohol, or walk to our favorite pub, the library, the chinese restaurant….but I can’t wait to have my bedroom window open and hear….nature.
- Being accosted by a German Shepherd. This happened Monday evening as I was walking to my apartment after a long day. Someone in the apartments has a German Shepherd? It came running at me to sniff me but I don’t like them. I was attacked by one when I was 11 and I have scars on both my legs. I love dogs, but I still get a little nervous around German Shepherds. Yeah, can’t wait not to deal with that again!
- Our teeny-tiny kitchen. Seriously, it’s tiny. One person can barely make a meal in there – add another and it’s just so not functional. Can’t wait to cook and bake in our new spacious kitchen!
I will have a post about things I will miss 
In one week from this moment, we will be sitting in our lawyers office signing our life away. I can’t believe our closing is just one week away. We packed a couple of more boxes and it hit me – we have so much stuff. It’s overwhelming. It feels like the more we pack, the more there is to pack.
We’ll just continue packing all week and spend most of this weekend packing as well. I also need to finalize our moving plan and how many are helping. People have been so generous with their time and are willing to help paint and move. We have a great support system.
And I need to come up with two recipes this week so that next week we can focus on painting and driving back and forth between the apartment and the house!
Big Whiskey and the Groo Grux King by Dave Matthews Band
You said what?