My little igloo

I can't wait for this winter to end. Normally I'm fairly optimistic about surviving winter - I've finally learned to stop wearing flats with bare feet in two feet of snow, purchase the extra large box of Hot Hands at the first sign of 20 degrees and to wear a hat even on my best hair days. But this winter is getting to me and I think it's because of my car. 

First off, let me just say: I love my car. It's a gold 1999 Ford Taurus and it was my first major purchase in life - thankfully I purchased it from my brother for much less than it was worth or I would have never been able to afford it. It has been pretty good to me - until this winter. 

I have no heat. 

I have no heat and I live in Minnesota. On drives that are 15 minutes or less - it's no problem. I try to put my coat on about 15 minutes before I leave - to work up a good sweat - so when I walk out, the -17 degree windchill is a welcome relief. But after 15 minutes, I start to feel like I'm driving an igloo. The frozen toes begin, then the nose, mouth and fingers - bad news if I'm talking to you on the phone, I always start mumbling because my lips are freezing up. Plus, at the 15 minute mark the windows freeze over on the inside of the car and since I have no defrost to clear them, I have to drive in "race car mode" aka, hunkering down over my steering wheel (bonus - helps retain heat) and look out of the tiny circle that's not frozen over. Sure, I try to wipe the ice off with my mitten and I've even been caught scraping the inside of my windshield - but it just comes back again.

The worst is my passenger door. When it's really, really cold - don't ever open the passenger door because the latch will freeze and it won't seal shut. Yes, I drove away one day not realizing it and my car door flew open while I was turning on a two lane road with cars going 40 mph and it continued to bounce on and off my car for half a mile until I could pull over. I had to go back home and blow dry the stupid latch so I could actually go to work. Do you know how terrifying it was to get on the interstate after that? That day I jimmy-rigged a piece of rope around the handle and I held the other end in my hand the entire way - just in case.

I know I could fix my heat, and Mike has encouraged me many times - but I'd rather just buy three months worth of lattes instead. Heck, that'll keep me warm even after 15 minutes in the Taurus. Now if only it fixed the frost problem on the inside of my car too...

I'm ready for spring - who's with me? 

Adult 101: Choosing a Safe

Ever since I got married, I feel like I finally started acting like a responsible adult. I bought a house (fine, Mike did - but still), I pay my own taxes (okay Mike did that too) and I try to put my napkin on my lap when I eat (Mike only taught me that, I'm the one that does it).

Anyway, along with all that important adult "stuff," we've acquired quite a bit of important-adult documents and my adult senses tell me that I need to protect them.

That's why we recently bought a safe. We talked over what we wanted and decided we wanted something that was fireproof, flood-proof and robber-proof. Sounds simple, right? 

Well, not exactly. 

Think this will keep the crooks out? Source

I did a bit of research and here's what I learned:

• Safes come in two varieties: Document storage and data storage. All safes are given a UL (Underwriter's Laboratories) rating for what they protect. If you plan on storing any data, CD's, hard drives, etc. you'll need a safe rating of UL 125 or UL 72. A document storage safe has the UL 350 rating. The UL rating means that the internal temperature of the safe will not go above the number listed next to it, so a UL of 125 means, the safe won't go above  125° F – the temperature at which computer media (CD’s, DVD’s, hard drives, etc) melt.
• Don't be tricked by "UL listed" vs. "UL Rated and Tested." There is a difference. The "UL Rated and Tested" is a sales technique that means they submitted it for UL testing -- it does not mean that the products passed the test. Aka: don't buy "UL Rated and Tested."
• Length of fire protection.I didn't know an option either, but after a bit of research I found that the average fire burns for about 20 minutes. So, you probably only need one hour of protection, but remember, if you live far away from a fire department (Come on, I grew up in rural Iowa, I have to think of my peeps.) you might want to spring for the two hour safe. 
• There's not a lot to a waterproof safe, just make sure it says it on the box. Most safes will float if they're waterproof. Nice feature, don't you think?
• Security. You can choose from key entry, a combination lock, or a digital combination lock. Each one takes the security as well as the price up a notch. You can even get safes that are drilled into your floor. For us, reality says we really don't have anything of major value to put in the safe, only documents and items that are difficult or impossible to replace such as photographs or my vial from Mike. In the end we deemed it too expensive to pay for all the high tech security systems and instead, opted for a lower-priced key safe that we'll hide in our to-be-determined-super-secret spot. 

 So that's it! Do any of you have safe? What kind? Or do you go with a security box at your bank? 

Pear Galette

Recently a few friends and I got together for a potluck dinner and some much needed catch up. My responsibility was dessert and I was in the mood for a pie. 

But. 

I've never been good at making pies -- I don't have the patience (or dexterity) to create a crinkle or lattice crust and well, if you're making me be honest, pies just plain intimidate me - so this galette turned out to be the perfect "pie" compromise. It has a flakey crust much like a pie, but takes literally just a few minutes to whip up - perfect for the impatient baker. If you're looking for a quick dessert, this is your solution. You do have to let the dough sit in the fridge for 45 minutes, but you can make the dough up to two days in advance - so all you have to do is put on the toppings and pop it in the oven. 

Plus, you don't even need a pie pan for this baby, so you have one less dish in the end. Yes, I still don't have a working dishwasher. Why do you ask? 

Need another great feature? Try switching out the pears and apricot spread with anything you have on hand - blueberries and lemon, strawberries and rhubarb -- anything that sounds good to you.

Pear Galette

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup cornmeal
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cold butter, cut into small pieces
1/3 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons apricot preserves
2 large Bartlett pears, thinly sliced
1 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons sugar

1. To make the dough, combine flour, sugar, cornmeal, and salt in a processor; pulse 2-3 times. Add butter and pulse 4-5 times, or until mixture resembles coarse meal. With the processor running, slowing pour the buttermilk through the chute, processing until the dough forms a ball. Remove the dough ball and adhere any remaining pieces of dough to it, then wrap in plastic wrap or parchment paper. Refrigerate for at least 45 minutes before rolling out.

2. Center a rack in the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F.

3. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and place on a sheet of parchment paper. Starting at the center of the dough, roll out, forming a 14-15-inch wide circle. Place the dough with parchment paper on a baking sheet. Brush the bottom of the dough with the apricot preserves. Arrange sliced pears in a spoke pattern on the galette dough, leaving a 2-inch border. Fold the border over the pears, overlapping where necessary and pressing gently to adhere the folds.

4.  Lightly brush the edge of the dough with the egg and sprinkle crust and pears with sugar.

5. Bake the galette for 45-50 minutes, or until the pears are tender and the crust is golden brown. Transfer the baking sheet to a wire rack to cool for at least 20 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.


Source: Josh and Maria, from Two Peas and Their Pod

That couch cost how much!?

Buying furniture for a home is tough. I've written before about how Mike and I started out with only six pieces of furniture. After we bought our house, the first thing we did was buy a couch. The morning we went out to purchase it, I had butterflies in my stomach and I was talking so fast Mike couldn't understand me. I couldn't even understand me! I had never furniture shopped before and I was nervous. 

Looking back, I think the reason why I was so nervous was because I didn't have any idea how to shop for furniture. Unless the couch literally broke when I sat down on it, I wouldn't be able to differentiate between a $100 couch and a $10,000 couch. Both Mike and I were clueless as to what construction qualities to look for, what kind of fabric is best, or even what a decent price was for a couch. 

Though I still can't say to you, "Aha! This couch is far superior to that couch!" when looking at two similar sofas, I think I've come a long way from where I was eight months ago when Mike and I started this homeownership journey. (Actually, we'll have owned it for a year since March, but I didn't move in until after the wedding, hence, eight months for me.)

The other day, I was reading Lauren Liess's blog, Pure Style Home, and she provided a break down of various living room budgets at three different price-points: Low, Medium and Medium-High. The low would be Ikea type shopping, mid is Pottery Barn and medium-high is "a mix of middle to high-range custom and trade-only items." (I actually don't know what "trade-only" means - shhh!) I feel like this list would have been helpful when we were first making some furniture purchases so I would know what a "low-end sofa" costs vs. a "mid-range sofa" and I would know when I was getting a deal. Plus, this list would have been helpful when we were trying to create a furniture budget for ourselves. 

Pink & White Bridal Shower

I'm back with the full details on the pink and white bridal shower my friend Heather and I threw. We had such a fun time planning and preparing, here's what we did. 

Food:

• Strawberries with fruit dip - Okay, so we added in a little red. But nothing pink is healthy! For displaying the strawberries we just cut the stems off  and set them upright on a plate. Easiest thing ever. 

• Powdered sugar doughnut holes - Picked these up from Cub Foods in the morning and ordered the adorable cupcake liners from Bake it Pretty.

Bridal Shower: Sneak Peek

As I mentioned last Friday, over the weekend we had a bridal shower at Oakland Avenue for one of my best friends, and of course, bride-to-be Melissa. Here's a peek at a few of the decorations and treats at the party - I'll try to get more photos posted in the next day or two with a description of just what all went down.

Our First Valentine's Day

It's Valentine's Day! Now that Mike is my husband, I have officially deemed him my Permatine. 

Permanent Valentine - get it? Fine, not that funny. But, since women say so many billions of words more than men a day, I figure it can't hurt to streamline my words a bit -- good idea, right?

Anyway, Valentine's Day has never been a big deal to either of us - well, I take that back.  The first one was. Mike went waaaay over the top. Let me explain: 

Mike got me real diamond earrings. 

I got him sunflower seeds.

 True story. Here's how it all went down:

On Valentine's day, I gave Mike my gift first. I was insanely excited and I was so proud as he opened it - I had worked super hard to find the biggest, best bucket of sunflower seeds in America. I finally landed on a gold mine at Sam's Club - a one gallon bucket of David Original In-Shell Sunflower Seeds. 

That one gallon is so rare, I couldn't even find a photo of it! Source

As Mike opened his present and my motley homemade card, I sat next to him pointing out just how large the bucket was, the way I had chosen brown kraft paper for the card (since he's a guy and I wanted him to feel manly even on Vday), and how the bucket of sunflower seeds even had a handle - it of course, was to help him to carry around the massive quantities of high quality sunflower seeds inside. 

Free (and super sweet) Valentine's Day E-Cards

This Photo: Creature Comforts

Check out these free artist-designed Valentine E-Cards from Kate Spade! There are tons to choose from and I'm totally sending Mike the one on the bottom right. It'll make more sense once you've read this.

Don't worry, it'll still be a surprise to him. I'm not letting him edit this post, which means he'll never see it.

Come on. It's like three lines. How many errors could I make?

Thanks for the tip Creature Comforts!

Red Velvet Cupcakes

This week has been crazy busy - poor Mike, I think he's spent more time in the kitchen this week than he has during our entire marriage combined. But it will all soon be worth it! My brother and sister-in-law are coming tonight to visit, so of course we're inviting a bunch of friends over for a party, and I'm hosting a bridal shower for one of my best friends on Saturday. 


My sister-in-law Becca is pregnant and I'm so excited about it, I freak out and do a happy dance every time I remember I'm going to be an aunt. I don't even know what I'm going to do when I see Becca in person. I've only seen her three times since I found out she was preggo (I think everyone in the room lost a little of their hearing the moment I found out.) and now everyone says she's starting to show and I can't wait to see her belly!! 

I'll be back next week with lots of recipes from the party and all the details on how the shower went down. 

Alrighty folks, back to the kitchen I go. Mike, I know you're editing this, but hurry up - I need you to frost those cupcakes!

Not my photo. 

Close your mouth. 

Come on. 

It's Shawnda's from  Confections of a Food Bride - She's AMAZING and those cupcakes I need Mike to frost are these red velvet cupcakes - here's the recipe. It is incredible! 

So incredible I ate about three cupcakes worth of the batter alone - Bah. 

Dinners, asparagus and 10,000 points

Growing up, my family's dinners were a little crazy. Usually we sat down for just a short time, talking, laughing and screaming around. (Literally. Don't believe me? Check out this post.) We had no rules: you had to fight for what you wanted to eat, find your own napkin if you wanted one, get your own drinks, and knives were only for spreading butter on bread, not for actually cutting anything - it was the most informal, crazy chaos you've ever seen.

And I loved it.

The first weekend I went to Minneapolis to visit Mike, it was Easter weekend. And though I had met Mike's parents before, this was the first time I was going to spend any substantial amount of time with the family.  I knew Mike grew up a little more "formally" than I -- he always knew to put his napkin on his lap (something I never learned, I thought they only did that in Europe or something), which silverware to use and in what order, and he even cut his meat with a knife and fork (a real wake up call for me).

I made it through the first two days of the weekend alright and thankfully, I didn't have to use a knife at all. But when we sat down for the grand "Easter Dinner" on Sunday, I immediately noticed Mike's mom had set the formal dining room table with their fine china and silver - real sliver.

Via

I immediately started sweating like crazy.


But don't worry, I wore black. I figured the first weekend at the boyfriend's house would bring lots of sweating and I prepared appropriately. Black, black and more black.


Back to Easter Dinner.

New Appliances

Remember our dishwasher? Well, turns out there was no hope for the little guy. It was going to cost half as much as a new dishwasher to fix him (Don't ask me why I'm personifying him, I just feel like we've been though a lot together and that's how I need to talk about him.) and since our fridge and oven are more than 50 years old, we decided we might as well upgrade all of our kitchen appliances. 

Jeeze louise that's a hit to the wallet.

I kept having to remind Mike that his dinners will taste much better once we do. You see, our fridge sometimes decides to freeze half our food - and though we admire that it has the ability to act as a second freezer for us - it's quite difficult to pour frozen milk on our cereal. Our beloved oven takes a half hour to heat up - took me four months to figure that out - I kept wondering why in the world I had to keep meat in the oven for 45 minutes longer than the recipe required. Mike and I became experts at fixing up apps on the fly. Aka: Whatever chips we had in the snack cabinet. On top of it all, when I have the oven on broil, I have to rotate the pan four times since three of the broilers are out. Talk about uneven cooking (I'm forgetful).

So, last weekend, we went to the appliance store and picked ourselves out some new appliances. 

Architectural Antiques

Over the weekend my parents came to visit Mike and me.

I'm still recuperating.

Today I'm chugging coffee like a mad woman, but it was totally worth it. Those two are a complete whirlwind and  It. Was. Awesome. On Saturday, we ran to a local bakery and picked up a few lattes and treats, then headed out to do a bit of shopping. Along the way we visited Northeast Minneapolis Arts District - an area of Minneapolis I've really never spent time in. While there, we made a stop at Architectural Antiques - a jaw-dropping store full of amazing architecture. Though most things in the store cost more than Mike and my paychecks combined, it was a blast to look at everything they had.

To give you a peak, I took a few pictures for you, but you'll have to forgive them, they're taken from the cell phone -- I forgot my camera at home. Here's a bit of what we found:

They had billions of old doors, they even had entire front porches! They had tons of colors and I just loved this yellow one!

Chandeliers, chandeliers and more chandeliers. Too bad these babies were running upwards of $3000! Mike found a super spooky Gothic one that he wanted to bring home. It had a tiny red light glowing from the center. So creepy I couldn't even take a photo of it. Good thing it was $2,000 or it would probably be hanging in my dining room right now.

The other thing they had a bunch of was stained glass windows. And guess what? We took these two stained glass windows home! Well, by we, I mean my parents. They bought them for the school they're currently renovating into their home (a story which could be an entire blog in and of itself) and they plan to refinish the frames and hang them near a window in their living room. They're going to install lighting behind the windows to light them up at night as well. Pretty sweet huh? They're HUGE -- I took the photo on the left to show you the scale, sorry about the fireplace in front (I figured they wouldn't want me to make Mike move it for the sake of the photo) and I took the photo on the right for a nice little close up. They are gorgeous windows -- I'm stoked for them to be delivered to Iowa and see them in all their glory after my dad works on them.

Oh, and see the three stones with the solider's heads in them? Yeah, Mike wanted to hang those in our house too. I'm terrified at what Oakland Avenue would look like if I let Mike have free reign to decorate it.

Anyway, if you're ever in the area, you must visit this store!

Automatic toilets

Don't you hate it when you're sitting on one of those automatic toilets and they flush?

Let's be honest, sometimes it's because you've been sitting there too long and the toilet assumes that no human could possibly need to sit there that long, so it flushes - just to make sure it's ready for the next real human that sits on it.

That's obviously never happened to me.

But sometimes it happens cause the toilet's timer is majorly off: You've been there for barely five seconds and all of the sudden it flushes and you jump off as fast as you can, wondering what the heck happened and trying to avoid anything, everything, whatever - and you realize you only have a foot each way to move, which really doesn't give you any room at all to move and so you're paralyzed, half standing, half sitting, freaking out in your mind because you're unable to physically move since the stall is way too small for any expressive movement of any kind, and then you realize it's all over faster than it began so you sit again acting like nothing ever happened.

Yeah, that happened to me today.

TMI?

Sorry. It was just bugging me.

Not just any mall

Three months after Mike and I officially started dating, it turned into a long distance relationship. Mike graduated from college and moved back to his homeland, the Twin Cities, to work as an engineer and I stayed behind to finish my last two years of college. On my second visit up to the cities to see Mike, he wanted to run to the mall to look for a new pair of shoes (I could write miles and miles of posts on Mike's love for shoes. Another day, another day). So we hopped in the car and went to the mall.

THE MALL OF AMERICA.

What? You need a pair of shoes and we go to a tourist destination? This is your normal mall? Who are you? Are you famous and I didn't know it? People don't just "bop" on over to The Mall of America for a pair of shoes! Don't people come visit this shopping shrine from all over the world? I did when I was 10. It was a major trip for my family to drive up three hours from Ames! Best trip ever -- I had never even seen a Gap before. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. And now you just hop in the car and nonchalantly go shopping for a pair of shoes and don't even warn me about where we're going? I don't even have my camera!

Ann's Oven-Baked Carmel Corn

I started making this recipe early last fall for all the football games Mike and I watch together. Well, I usually stare at the screen, wondering what's going on and inquire what every flag was thrown for and why "that guy did that," and "those guys ran there" - you know, really intellectual questions.

Then one day I noticed that some of the football players were wearing pink shoes, gloves and towels - and I got really excited and confused at the same time: What? Pink? Is there a new fashion component to football games now? Yay! Maybe I'll start paying attention! But what kind of football player, let alone entire team, would wear pink? Isn't that against the unwritten "tough guy code?" I mean it's against Mike's code and he's as skinny as a rail.

But of course he's super, super tough.


You're super tough honey!

Who knew it was just for breast cancer awareness?

Anyway, with the Super Bowl right around the corner, I feel like it's time to share Mike and I's new found all time favorite foodball food: Ann's Oven-Baked Carmel Corn.

YOU. WILL. DIE.

Choose dark chocolate for the chocolate drizzle and YOU. WILL. DIE. EVEN. MORE.

No, I'm not being dramatic. Mike always says that, but it's not true.  It's really how I feel.

The point is: It's very, very good.

How's that for not dramatic?



So, I don't have a very "delicate touch" (which is why I never became a surgeon) so the chocolate is absolutely pooled like crazy on top, and not "lightly drizzled" like it's supposed to be - but no matter - it was still rockin' awesome.

Ann’s Oven-Baked Caramel Corn

5 to 6 qts. popped corn, from 1 c. unpopped corn 

1 c. butter
2 c. brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 c. light corn syrup
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda

10 oz. dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 250°.

Spread freshly popped corn in two large, shallow sheet pans.

Combine butter, brown sugar, corn syrup, and salt in a 2-quart heavy saucepan.  Place on medium heat, stirring until sugar dissolves.  Continue to boil to the firm-ball stage* (248°), about 5 minutes.

Remove from heat and stir in baking soda.  Syrup will foam.

Take popped corn from oven and  pour hot caramel mixture over it, in a fine stream.  Stir to mix well.  Return to oven for 45 to 50 minutes, stirring and scraping up caramel from pan bottom every 15 minutes. Let cool, then melt 10 ounces of dark chocolate chips and drizzle over the caramel corn. 

Source: A Farmgirl's Dabbles

* I had absolutely no clue what "the firm-ball stage" when I started this thing and at the time, I didn't have a candy thermometer.  If you don't either, it's actually pretty simple. Just drop a spoonful of the syrup into cold water, and it should firm up into a ball - it will feel firm and pliable but still slightly sticky. It should retain its shape if you remove it from the water. See, simple!

Let's learn to write "dramatically"

You know those "expressive" words that you know how to say, but you don't actually know how to spell? You try to use them in an email, Facebook, Twitter -- whatever, to properly convey your emotions, but spell check can't figure it out, so you Google it and Google can't figure it out, so you just give up and have to use some boring word like, "yes" or "okay." Come on, please tell me you know what I'm talking about. I can't be the only one. 

Right? 

Bah. Well, anyway. I've written here before about how Mike thinks I'm dramatic -- I personally prefer "expressive," "lively" or even "colorful." But regardless of what it's called, when I stumbled across the list, "100 Mostly Small But Expressive Interjections," I thought, "Aha! Finally, more words to better express my "liveliness" (or "drama," whichever you prefer) in writing!" 

Yup, my emails to Mike are about to get a whole lot more  dramatic colorful and yours can too. Since there are 100 different expressions listed, I won't post them all here, but below are a few of my favorites. 

Hamana-hamana, variously spelled, and duplicated as needed, implies speechless embarrassment.

Lah-de-dah denotes nonchalance or dismissal, or derision about pretension

Neener-neener, often uttered in a series of three repetitions, is a taunt.

Olé, with an accent mark over the e, is borrowed from the Spanish language and is a vocal flourish to celebrate a deft or adroit maneuver.

Pshaw denotes disbelief, disapproval, or irritation or, alternatively, communicates facetious self-consciousness.

Tchah communicates annoyance.

For the full list, check it out here.