potted herbs!

my friend liz showed me this blog, which i've actually come across before...

i've scrolled through the most recent 9 pages of their archives this week and today, found a post all about planting herbs!

i've been wanting to have my own basil and cilantro growing, so i may try it. even if they just last a couple months, that should be ok.

cinnamon biscuits?!

gosh, i always forget about apartment therapy's food blog. my friend becca just posted this recipe and i may try it some morning next week. not today, since (unfortunately) i don't have cinnamon chips. plus i already made pasta salad and a chocolate chip pie is in the works for this evening. so that about maxes out my cooking for the day, haha.

(image from thekitchn.com)

"i would climb the tallest trees...

... just to feel you breathe". lyrics from my new fav song. listen to it here. see a darling video with it as the soundtrack here.
on sunday night around 11pm we got home from a quick jaunt to cape cod. the two days and three nights were full of adventures, relaxing, and good food.

summer 2011: cape cod style

first of all, i wish i'd remembered how to tie a scarf on my head like this blog shows. i would have worn it at the beach last weekend. oh, well.

we had a great time with my parents & brother in eastham, MA. the drive there & back were both tests of our happy marriage, involving LOTS of traffic, multiple CD changes, and a fair number of chats about the past, present, and future.

while on the cape, we swam in a lake & the cape cod bay. we ate some fabulous grilled meals & had YUMMY ice cream at a local shop. we also taught my parents a new card game and had a great time playing with them. hooray for july's vacation!

food again: brown-eyed baker

those brownies i made last week were from this website. little did i know that there are actually recipes for more than dessert....

like, you know, pesto. using walnuts (which i have! as opposed to the usual pine nuts, which i don't have). and white sicilian pizza (which i attempted recently but wasn't completely happy with when i created a white sauce on my own!).

ready? set. GO. try 'em.

[all images from brown eyed baker]

a major confession

alright, i'm about to get pretty vulnerable. deep breath. here goes.


i obsessively read blogs about fashion and children.

wait, i don't have children. and i'm not very fashionable. and i don't really spend money on clothes. ok, so regardless of those facts, i'm a blog- reading- fiend. as in, i check about 10 blogs every.single.day.

and 3 of the blogs i regularly read have been participating in this sakura bloom styleathon. the styleathon has captivated me. it's been incredibly beautiful, thought-provoking, and fun. i love reading about women's lives and seeing photos of them with their kids. plus, if i had a trillion dollars, i'd buy one of the gorgeous slings (for carrying babies!) for every single pregnant person i know. they're just amazing.
now, i'm not 100% sure of the readership of my blog, but i'm guessing it's limited to mostly close friends and family members. BUT, if anyone out there in blogland wants to make a good investment, you should consider one of these lovely slings. and you should probably watch the videos and read the posts from each of the contestants. (just make sure you don't have any real work to be doing, because it'll get hard to concentrate!)

cool! (and shady!)

this would be a great item to put on a wedding registry: http://sport-brella.com/sport-brella

not that i'm in the market for that, but i came across it today. how fun!

quite a domestic morning

i haven't stepped foot outside my door yet today (it's SO hot!) but it's definitely been a productive morning. my sewing machine took up most of the kitchen table while i fixed these shorts:

they're my absolute favorite, i've had them for over 5 years, and they surely aren't in stores anymore. however, i think it embarrasses joel when i wear them out of the house. so i patched 'em up!

these brownies were made yesterday, but i ate them today, so that counts as domestic. i also made pizza for lunch, instead of heating up cheddar brats in the microwave, like i've been doing.

87.8; feels like 91

i really wish it didn't have to be so dang hot around here. because on my run (which i'm obviously putting still off....) i'd like to wear these:
which i received in the mail today because my studly husband got a "friends and family discount" from brooks and i'm his family :)

however, my dry-wick tank top should do just fine, considering it has a mini pocket perfectly sized to fit my new ipod nano, on which i'll listen to the radio.while i run, these will be cooling because they're about to come out of my oven. yum and yum.

some new things

on Friday we painted our kitchen. Joel put a new handle on our basement door and we decorated a little. i'm still on the hunt for a few more wall hangings...

we also got a rocking chair at the thrift store. now i'm sitting at the dining room table looking through the mini-window into our gorgeous kitchen. ohhhhhhhhh summer~

day-to-day vacation schedule

the other night before we fell asleep, Joel asked me if i'm getting bored yet. this is second week of summer after returning from our vacation and so far i'm not. there are a lot of productive things i do each day, though my schedule definitely includes mindless blog stalking.

i'm running most mornings, though on saturday i rode my bike to our local farmers market for lettuce (which, strangely, wasn't in our farm share delivery last week!). i take a cold shower immediately upon arrival home (it's dang hot here!) i read a lot of books in this series. i do laundry and fold it in one of the rooms with a window ac unit. i make lunch & dinner. i brainstorm about my classroom next year.

some other highlights of my leisurely summer schedule are:
1. going out to lunch with friends. today i tried a new local restaurant. yum.
2. visiting the library weekly to get new dvds (they're free. why not?!)
3. cleaning the basement closet (and by cleaning, i mean simply re-organizing. that's far more exciting than actually cleaning)
4. continuing my experiment by shopping at genuardi's
5. painting my toenails
6. snuggling with Joel way more than during the school year
7. eating out in the backyard
8. hanging out with my friends and their kids (and swimming at the pool with them!)
9. closing my old bank account so all "my" money is now in our joint account (!!)/ switching all my automatic payments to our joint account.

2 things i like

eeeek!!! i stumbled across a blog written by a woman living in TOYAMA, Japan. holy cow. nobody lives there. except her, obviously. and me. 3 years ago. anyway, that's so so exciting and fun.

perhaps i blogged about this before, but sometime while i'm on vacation, i'll be making this delicious-ness. probably not today, since i'm feeling the urge to make something chocolate. but i will make it soon...

quickest dinner ever

last night we ran with the cross country team at 6pm. i personally would not choose that time as it totally interrupts family dinner hour, but i'm not in charge. ha.

we got home around 8pm and i was utterly starving (of course). fortunately, i'd planned ahead and had a speedy meal to prepare. here's what i used:

stir fry sauce. from a bottle. poured on top.

veggies. a month or so ago i bought 3 packages of "steam fresh" veggies. you just put the entire bag in the microwave for about 5 minutes and then dump it into a bowl, ready to serve.

rice. i used 1 1/2 cups and 3 cups of water. let it boil, then turned it down to low while i took a super fast shower.

chicken. (one piece, cut into small pieces) i cooked it on the stove the night before while i was using the stove to cook something else. chicken is always the most time-consuming part of dinner so i often make it ahead of time if i'm going to be in a rush (read: famished!).

we even had enough left over for my lunch today. the total prep for this meal was 20 minutes. imagine: sitting down to eat 20 minutes (including a shower!) after a run. amazing.

summer 2011: baseball style

i finally got to see J's beloved tigers play last week. we went with his mom to detroit and it was a great game. J's man ("what a stud") justin verlander pitched for most of the game & we cheered loud and hard.
see my cute irish detroit tigers hat? 1/2 price leftover from st. patrick's day. SCORE!

fortunately, we had the chance to move up in the stands to sit in the shade. otherwise, i'd have been a complete tomato by the day's end. UNfortunately, we ended up in the classy-crowd section: shirtless, hairy men & women with obvious plastic-surgery bodies...

summer 2011: U2 style

J's brother gave us tickets to last summer's U2 360 tour. then Bono had back surgery and our show got postponed till june 26th.
so we went and it was amazing. i personally am not big into U2, but the concert was a show-stopper. they had crazy technology and the show went on for hours.
although, i was actually more excited to look at this guy than U2...

summer 2011: north carolina style

we got back on saturday night from a whirlwind 2 week vacation. we saw almost every member of my mom's side of the family and visited a LOT of J's family/friends in Michigan. our first night home involved a full night's sleep on our own king sized bed, in the comfort of our air conditioned room. vacation is awesome. so is coming home.

ohhhhhhhhhh handsome husband....

we stayed at a HUGE house across from the beach with our own pool/hot tub. a lot of time was spent relaxing, reading, hanging out, playing pool, and eating yummy food.





fun fun times @ our beach house in Duck, NC.

photos from michigan soon to come!

talking to little girls

now this is a novel idea.

and i'm trying it sometime very soon.