Do I know myself well or what?

Well, let's see how I did, shall we?

- help a dear friend move furniture Check!
- work on a surprise for person 1 Check!
- work on a surprise for person 2
- get new phones
- polyurethane the coffee table (because I don't think the paint will hold up on its own) The Awesome Husband agreed to take this on next week, hooray!
- go running Check!
- cook yummy dinners
- get lots of sleep to catch up from this week. oy.
- figure out a plan for the perennial garden Half a check -- we put in a few hand-me-down perennials and now have a plan for the backyard flower garden. Or, I should say, we have a plan for *a* backyard flower garden, as we haven't had one thus far. Did I forget to put "think of new projects to tackle" on the list?
- vacuum, laundry, assorted other exciting projects Check, with the exception of the vacuuming, and where "other exciting projects" means "planting a late-season batch of lettuce and spinach."
- watch Meet the Press while sipping iced coffee CHECK! Did anyone else see it this week? Please tell me you did, and that you loved Jennifer Granholm's responses as much as I did...

What's that? More than three items done? Why yes, yes it is. I'm so smug I'm buffing my fingernails on the shoulder of my shirt. And smirking. Or something.

So who else accomplished about half of what they set out to do this weekend?

I should get to at least three of these.

It's been ages since I've done an Ambitious To Do List before starting a weekend.  In fact, it's been ages since I've had time to tackle an ATDL at all.  This week might not be an exception, but here's hoping!

- help a dear friend move furniture
- work on a surprise for person 1
- work on a surprise for person 2
- get new phones
- polyurethane the coffee table (because I don't think the paint will hold up on its own)
- go running
- cook yummy dinners
- get lots of sleep to catch up from this week. oy.
- figure out a plan for the perennial garden
- vacuum, laundry, assorted other exciting projects
- watch Meet the Press while sipping iced coffee

Monday, you can take your time.

You know you're old when...

... someone asks your age, and you misquote it.

Not because you're trying to deceive anyone into thinking you're younger than you really are, but because you just plain forgot  about a birthday.  And then had to do the math to figure out the right answer. 

Yes, really.

In related news, I *might* be working too hard these days.  Maybe.

In bloom: sweetpeas

The first time I grew sweetpeas was completely by accident. I thought I was buying pea plants at the farmer's market (have we gone over how much I love fresh peas? I think we have...), and I was really bummed when I realized I'd only bought flowers. (Yeah, they were pretty. Whatever.)

I planted sweetpea seeds intentionally early last spring, even though they're technically supposed to be planted in the fall so they bloom in early spring. My intent was to trick mother nature into having them bloom in time for our wedding. Take a guess how that went. They grew leaves and more leaves and then -- wait! -- more leaves, but of course no flowers last year. This year they bypassed "early spring" and decided to break out the flowers in July. Alright then.

Refinishing that which I'd already refinished.

Two posts in two days! Will wonders never cease?

This is a project I've been sitting on for a few weeks, actually. "Sitting on" as in "I uploaded pictures from my camera to the computer, but I haven't had time to write up a post because July has been cuh-RAZY," and not as in actually sitting in a literal sense. Although, it is furniture, so I suppose I could.

We've had a nice enough couch and area rug in our living room for a while, up until recently accompanied by what I can only diplomatically refer to as an ottoman. Oh, the cube of faded blue cotton served The Awesome Husband well for years before I met him but it was beginning to look, shall we say... "out of place." (It does fit in much better now in the semi-finished basement, with the dart board and Pearl, the drum set we're foster-parenting.* It's a long story.)

So, clearly the ottoman has been put out to pasture. We replaced it with -- what else -- a coffee table that had been collecting dust in the basement, waiting for us to be sufficiently nudged into refinishing it. Doesn't everyone have random pieces of furniture collecting dust in the basement? No? Here's what it looked like before. Colorful, whimsical, great back in 2007; each of those little squares is a piece of a magazine page, chosen for color and visual interest. It's not the best photo, but you can get a better sense of it here:

It did look pretty interesting, but it's definitely not the right fit for today. (Also, wow, there is noooo reason for you to poke around and read other 2007 posts. Or at least, if you do, please don't laugh too hard at me. k, thanks.)

The Awesome Husband was kind enough to sand down the layers of polyurethane and paper and paint for me, so I could do a couple coats of primer:

I also got lots of splotches of primer on the driveway. Go me!

When I did the actual painting, splotches of paint on the driveway weren't a big deal because I astutely chose black paint. It's the look we decided we wanted, PLUS we had black paint leftover from this project.

And really, doesn't it look great (which is to say, not what you'd find in a college dorm room) all dolled up and at home in the living room?

Of course, this time of year it typically has some pet hair on it.

*I ordinarily hate the use of "parent" terminology when one is not actually talking about human children, but in this case I'm being sarcastic and somewhat at a loss for how else to say it: we don't own the drum set, but we're letting it live with us. Hmm. Perhaps could have just gone with that phrasing. Next time!

From the garden: raspberries!

So apparently self-imposed blog rules (must post about something other than ice cream, peas, or Cecil), only serve to keep me from posting for a week.

I don't think we're going to have quite the avalanche of raspberries that we saw with the peas (are seeing... wait, no, can't blog about the peas today!), but they're certainly doing respectably. I was worried last week that they were sputtering out before they'd really done much of anything, but that apparently was only my impatient nature talking. A few days after I'd written them off, I took another look, and KAPOW, tons of raspberries. And by "tons," I mean about 50. Numerically, that sounds like a lot, but it translates to about a half a cup. Ok, I suppose it is quite a lot considering it's from plants that take up only 2 square feet of the yard.

They're impressive! ... but not really! ... ok, maybe they are! Anyway, they're tasty.

We probably won't have enough berries to make any recipes. I for one am not going to put in a whole lot of effort for a few tablespoons of jam. But I betcha my cereal will be pretty darn tasty tomorrow with these in the bowl.

pleasantly surprised: spiced banana ice cream

I'm not a huge fan of banana flavored confections. I do love me a peanut butter banana smoothie, but otherwise, given an alternative, I'll usually choose the other thing. Unless the other thing involves black licorice. Then it would be banana all the way.

The Awesome Husband is a huge fan of both actually: banana-flavored everything and black licorice. I've not yet seen a recipe for black licorice ice cream (and no, you don't need to send me a link if you know of one, thanks!) but I did find this banana-centric ice cream recipe, and we took it out for a spin today. And modified it. Of course.

Spiced Banana Ice Cream
Adapted from this recipe.

2 c whole milk
1 c 2% milk
1/4 c brown sugar
1/2 c cinnamon-infused simple syrup (which we had an excess of because we keep it on hand for iced coffee, yummmm)
1 (3-inch) cinnamon stick
Several shakes of ground nutmeg
10 cardamom seed pods
5 whole cloves
1 medium banana, pureed
6 large egg yolks
generous splash of vanilla extract

Combine everything from the milk through the banana in a saucepan and bring to just barely a boil. Remove from heat and let stand, uncovered, for 30 minutes, to allow the cloves and cardamom to steep.

Bring back to a low boil. In a separate heat-proof bowl, whisk the egg yolks. Pour the milk mixture slowly into the eggs, whisking constantly. When it's all combined, return it all to the saucepan and continue cooking on low heat (no really, it's important) until the mixture coats the back of a spoon. Remove from heat entirely and stir in the vanilla, then chill it. Once it's cooled completely, put it in your ice cream machine and away you go!


This was much better than I expected it to be. The banana flavor is actually quite subtle and the spices are prominent. The batch may or may not be polished off within 24 hours. Or 12. Let's go with 24; it's good to have goals, right?

How's this for another goal: before the end of the week, I'll blog about something other than ice cream, peas, or Cecil. Promise.

countdown to a new phone: three weeks

I suppose I could get a new phone sooner, but in three more weeks I'll have a substantial credit toward a new one.  So, I wait.  And take foggy pictures because the lens apparently isn't what it used to be.  Thank you, planned obsolescence.

In other news, homemade lemon ice cream is really good.  Tart, refreshing, and delicious.

Who needs a balanced diet when you have vast quanities of awesome?

Ok, so even though I used all caps last week, I still think I may have understated the status of our garden peas. "Ready for eating" doesn't do them justice. Try "12 linear feet of pea plants in excess of 6 feet tall are overflowing with pea pods such that my approach just now was to only pick the ones that might not make it another day before turning starchy, and even then I had more than I could carry in three minutes."

I am in heaven.

Sugar snap peas are my favorite thing we grow, hands down. I suspect it's partially because they're available for such a short period of time each year. Raw peas from the grocery storey just aren't the same because they've invariably lost a lot of flavor in transit. I'll eat the frozen ones in a recipe if I have to; I find canned peas horrific. I really only eat them straight from the garden. If they were readily available year round, I'd probably get sick of them. For a few weeks a year, though, a quart a day is fine by me.

The pictures don't do them justice either, but here you go.

highlight of my summer

Sure, we've been grilling and making batches of homemade ice cream.  We've been going for walks at 8:00 in the evening without bringing a flashlight.  Last weekend, we went kayaking.

That's all great, but here's what I'm really excited about:

THE PEAS IN THE GARDEN ARE READY FOR EATING!

Some of them, anyway.  The rest will be ready soon enough.  It is now summer.