What's new pussycat?

In a word, lots is new. J and I have been terribly busy between work and hobbies, and haven't had time to post about any of them. I'll try to hit the high points:

I had a birthday, which J recognized with a great new toy--a Silhouette, or personal digital cutting machine that makes incredibly cool stuff, like this:

and this:

We're mid-way through having the gutters fixed from the ice storm, and last week, I had someone out to gie us an estimate on taking out the tree that fell on our deck during the same storm. His estimate was so good that we asked him to take out another tree, as well as the honeysuckle trees that lined two sides of our property. In just a few hours Saturday, our yard went from this:

to this!

Now, we just need to get the property surveyed and we'll be on our way to a fenced in backyard. We're pretty sure Zeppelin will be thrilled!

The cabinets are still unfinished, though we've continued to take baby steps on that process. I have a big DAR conference this weekend, but am optimistic that we'll get back on the cabinet finishing wagon next week! We've continued to clean out the library so we've got just the place to install the cabinets when we eventually finish them!

Title: "What's New Pussycat?" by Tom Jones

Hungry Like the Wolf

J and I belong to a group of couples who get together once a month for food, drink, and games (usually board games, but cards and video game make a periodic appearance, as well). Last night we hosted the group, for the first time, at our house.

Ever the Martha Stewart wannabe, I promised heavy appetizers for all in an email last week, and then promptly came down with the virus that plagued J last week. On Friday night, I remembered my promise and assured J that I would come up with something. Lucky for me, he stepped in and hit the Food Network website for some recipes and offered to do the grocery shopping as well!

So we spent a few hours in the kitchen and put together a pretty nice spread (clockwise from top: cheese and crackers, brought by Tom & Shannon; a veggie tray; roast pork loin on toast; tomato & bacon cups; veggie pizza; salmon & dill cream cheese on toast; and sushi, brought by Keri & Doug). Recipes for all are available on request; Chef J not included!

In addition to the appetizers, we were celebrating two birthdays: Shannon's was on Saturday and I'll be adding another year on Tuesday. To celebrate, I bought cupcakes from Magee's Bakery downtown and made my own embellishments by melting down some white chocolate morsels and piping out a few cute (and even holiday appropriate) shapes.

It wasn't all food; we also played the new edition of Trivial Pursuit (meh.) and several rounds of Rock Band. J was quite the Band Leader and in the end, we weren't too bad at it.

Hoping to get back to those cabinets later this week, and I have some great pictures of the ice damage in Western Kentucky to post, as well. Stay tuned dear readers!

Title: Hungry Like the Wolf, by Duran Duran

Shake, Rattle & Roll

Well, I had hoped to have the "after" pictures for you, but we're just not there yet. And for that matter, "in progress" pictures look a lot like what you've already seen, so I'm not going to post more. We've still got to do a coat of poly and install, but we cleared out the library so installation *should* be a pretty easy process. Hopefully we'll have pictures for you by the end of the week!

And what else did we do this weekend? Well, I finally put out our St. Patrick's Day decorations (see pics below) and shipped my neice's birthday present. E's four this year and has a nasty bruise on her noise from a spill she took a little over a week ago (clearly, she takes after her auntie when it comes to being graceful!). I'm hoping the pretty packaging brings a smile to her face (or at least the the presents inside do!).
Have a great week, and check back for an update (and hopefully those "after" pics) later this week!

Title: Shake, Rattle and Roll, witten by Charles Calhoun (most famously recorded by Elvis Presley)

Can we build it? Yes, we can!

Over the last few weeks, I've been slowly bringing order to J's office/our library downstairs. Unfortunately, the more I cleaned, the more I realized that we desperately need built-ins along one wall to corral our games, books, and J's electronics. I drew up the plans for the built-ins a couple of years ago, but we've not had the time or confidence to tackle that project.

So, as I've been cleaning and organizing this time, I realized that we could compromise on the built-ins and start with pre-made cabinetry. I made a quick trip to Home Depot on my lunch break last week, priced it all out, and proceeded to convince J this was a good idea. (That took another trip to HD, as well as calls to both dads and a grandfather, but he eventually got on board!)

Our unfinished oak cabinets were delivered Saturday morning, and since then we've been tackling the project of finishing them a day at a time. I've attached a couple of pictures below. Stay tuned--I have us on a two week time-line to get this complete, so as the look changes I'll add new pictures!

Saturday night, after we added the end pieces to the cabinet ends that will be visible and sealed all surfaces that will be in contact with the floor or drywall--the library is finished, but we didn't want to take a risk that water won't work its way in somehow.

Monday night. I spent all afternoon/evening Sunday sanding everything down so that we could get a first coat of stain down after work on Monday. By the way, you may wonder why the interior of the cabinet is a different color--it's because Home Depot's unfinished cabinets are lined with a laminate material that won't stain. A little frustrating, but we'll live with it.

The next steps are another coat of stain and poly, so I probably will not post pictures again until this weekend when we start to install everything.

Title: Bob the Builder theme song

Guess What? I Like Pancakes!

J. here (I know, hide your disappointment, but JE is DARing with her Mom, who is visiting us this weekend.). I just had to post pictures of the latest Melton breakfast. If you don't get the reference, watch this. If not for our theme of naming posts by song lyrics, I would have entitled this post "Nanerpus's Adventures in Appleland" (We have a bit of an apple theme in our kitchen.). I also considered "This shit is bananas, B A N A N A S" from "Hollaback Girl," but in the end, it has to be the original.

The pancakes are banana pancakes, with cinnamon and vanilla, which we had with vanilla maple syrup.

Two other things I note, before turning from the Nanerpus. First, I find it particularly amusing that in the third picture we can see the Nanerpus's lesser brethren, kind of like an adoring banana audience, or maybe like a couple of sidekicks in the Fruit Justice League (or even better, like red-shirted Ensigns to our Nanerpus Captin Kirk's away team to Appleland). Second, I wanted to take a picture of the "deposed Nanerpus," i.e. the Nanerpus on top of the pancake stack that remained after our repast. JE would not allow it, feeling that it was beneath the Nanerpus's dignity. Yes, you read that correctly, "Nanerpus's dignity." Creative credit goes to JE for the Nanerpus and the whip cream; I just cooked the pancakes.

Now, nothing can follow the Nanerpus, but I think the Rasperry Chipotle Roast Pork Loin (yes, it deserves capitalization) from last night wouldn't get booed offstage. I am normally pretty critical of my own cooking (for example, the banana pancakes had poor shape, and I got the butter too hot, robbing me of the nice brown hue that one normally associates with pancakes.). Nonetheless, I must say, the pork loin last night was sublime.


I paired the loin with some toasted sourdough rolls (that I found on Manager's special, aw yeah) and some asparagus that I needed to use soon, and all the flavors really came together. It really sang when you put some of the leftover rasberry chipolte sauce (i.e. not used in the glaze) on the pork loin on top of the roll. Divine.

We also had some homemade salsa with chips for an appetizer (you can see it in the third picture; JE made the salsa), which, while inconsistent with the main course from a flavor perspective, was delicious. The two things I'm most happy with are: (1) we have leftover pork loin and sourdough rolls, so I'm thinking sandwiches; and (2) I didn't realize it when I bought it, but the pork loin that I bough had two pork loins in it and I have leftover rasberry chipotle sauce . . . so I can make it again soon.

Finally, I leave you with some pictures that I took of the trees in our backyard last night during the snow. I wanted to capture the great things that can come from things that we don't normally consider great. Walking the dog in the cold is not the most fun thing in the world. Nonetheless, because I walked the dog in the snow, I got to see how beautiful the snow was on the trees. And the falling snow with the flash had a nice effect, I think. Your milage may vary.


Title: Nanerpus Song, Denny's Commercial.

My funny Valentine

Ack! How on earth did I let two weeks go by without a post? Of course, more than half of that time was spent in mad-dash preparations for Children's Advocacy Day, a day where GSKWRC (well, two other staff members and I) took 24 middle- and high-school girls to Frankfort for a day. Time, the weather, and a million other elements conspired against me, but we perservered and had a great day on Thursday. On Friday, I managed to put together a decent mailbox for our office Valentine's party (thank goodness I made those valentines a couple of weeks ago!), then came home and crashed!

Today, my sweet valentine treated me to a heart themed breakfast, a trip to the Athens Schoolhouse Antique Show and a fabulous dinner. Pictures of breaskfast and dinner (and a shot of how I spent my pre-dinner hour--yes, I was drinking wine and reading blogs while he slaved over salad, homemade dressing, steak, and my favorite mashed potatoes) are below.

I've not taken a picture yet of my Valentine's present, a cast iron fireplace insert, which fits almost perfecty inside our mantel. A little more work and I'll have that part of our living room complete!

Title: My Funny Valentine, by Frank Sinatra

Love is all you need

A few pictures of the crafting projects that kept me busy this weekend--

A scrapbook based on the word "LOVE" using pictures from the ice storm. This is actually J's Valentine's Day present, but it was so darn cute I had to give it to him early.

I finished my Valentines for my colleagues at work. I might still add a piece of candy of some sort. We'll see if something comes to me.

Decorations for the mantel. I got the idea for the candy cane letters from Marie at http://www.makeandtakes.com/ and used a skewer to make holes while they were still warm. A little red ribbon and they look great!

Title: All You Need is Love, by John Lennon/The Beatles