my 15 milliseconds of fame

Hey, guess what? My idiosyncratic sense of humor and sparkling personality will be leaping off the screen over at Kind of a Mess today. Go have a look-see, and then poke around and read some more. Alyssa's good peeps.

Blustery

We were fortunate to deal with only the last vestiges of Irene on her way across the eastern seaboard. The worst of the damage at our house was a lot of leaves strewn across the street.

We didn't lose power or anything, but it was dreary and soggy, so we turned it into a (much needed) stay-in-your-pajamas, TV-marathon kind of day. We all left the house for Mr. Cecil's morning walk, but that was about it. In the evening, The Awesome Husband was kind enough to wrangle the puppy (yes, he's three. I'll be calling him a puppy when he's 13, too...) by himself while I foraged in the cabinets for some dinner ideas.

About 15 minutes after they left, my phone made a little noise, and I found an email from The Awesome Husband. It contained this picture of Cecil, ears inverted, with the caption "You guys, it's really windy!"

¡Olé!

I had the great pleasure of co-hosting a shower today to honor one of my dearest friends who'll be getting married soon. She and her soon-to-be husband will be honeymooning on a cruise to Mexico, so we went with a fiesta theme. She also happens to really like margaritas, so it worked out well.

Hey, speaking of: if you want to make really excellent margaritas without using a mix, here's whatcha do, as I learned this weekend:
- Juice a bunch of limes. Like, 8 limes to get a cup of lime juice. For this event, I needed 3 cups. Yeah. A lotta limes.
- Make a little bit of simple syrup. .25c water + .25c sugar + low heat, until dissolved.
- Mix those two together with 3c of tequila and 2c of triple sec.
- Pour into glasses that have been rimmed with salt (use a lime wedge to make the rims wet, then dip in a plate of salt).


I also made a cake with the happy couple's wedding "logo" on it -- their initials, morphed into an infinity symbol (awwww!). It got a little smushed in transit, but it was still tasty.

We didn't play shower games, but we did make a hat/bouquet out of wrapping paper and ribbons. This might be the only instance where one object can double as both a hat and a bouquet, both of which are a bit of a stretch.

A lovely afternoon was had by all. Us bridesmaids were so happy to shower the bride with love.

And see, I told you it was fiesta themed!

The Sincerest Form of Flattery: Part Eight

You can find the "official" (yeah, those are air quotes) explanation of the Copycat Project by clicking on the tag at the end of the post, but the long and short of it is this: I haven't updated my blogroll in forever and a day, and rather than update it now I find it much more fun to tell you incrementally about blogs I read (that, uh, you might want to read too, if that wasn't already obvious). Each blog gets its own post, written in the style of, or about the topic of, the recommended blog. Hence the fun little "Copycat Project" name.

This Copycat post kind of snuck up on me. And by that I mean that I was catching up on my woefully neglected Google Reader account and happened upon a post by ddayporter over at Bananas, Continued that made me remember that I have this Copycat Project at all. Specifically, it was this post. She went to Mount Blue State Park recently. I went to Mount Blue State Park recently. She hiked the Brook Trail on Tumbledown Mountain. I hiked the Brook Trail on Tumbledown Mountain.

Clearly this is the universe's way of telling me I should link to her blog, right? Right. So go read. Maybe right-click so you don't lose your place here, ok? It's just not fun until you have 15 tabs of stuff you want to read, that's what I always say.

Anyway.

We went camping this weekend! The Awesome Husband and I trekked a couple hours north with his dad, my parents, and my brother. We left Mr. Cecil at home with a team of dog sitters (no, really), which very likely was a wise decision. Lower cute quotient on the photos, but higher sanity quotient for everyone involved.

Hiking Tumbledown turned out to be the main event, for sure. The leaflet provided by the park that outlined the hiking trails indicated that the Brook Trail should take 2-3 hours round-trip, and that it's a moderate hike. That sounded good, so my father, my brother, The Awesome Husband and I packed some fruit and granola bars and set out to hike it.

I'm not sure who wrote that leaflet or decided that the Brook Trail is a 3 hour "moderate" hike, but wherever they are, I'm pretty sure their pants are on fire. The first hour or so was lovely, and then it started to get progressively more challenging. My dad turned back to the car a little more than halfway up the mountain, and we later assured him that it was a good decision. It was sort of like walking up an uneven staircase, two steps at a time. For an hour.

We took a lot of water breaks.

At least it was pretty.

The increasingly noticeable ache in my knee was totally worth it when we got to the summit, where there's a nice view and a pond. And a feeling of accomplishment (or something).

So, so, so happy not to be climbing anymore.

Triumphant!

By the time we headed back down to the car, we were so focused on a) not getting injured, and b) just being done with the hiking already, we didn't really take any photos. But I'll tell you what, the turkey and manchego sandwich I ate at 3:30 that afternoon was the best food ever in the history of the universe.

And there are no pictures of that either.

In bloom: anemones

... or as The Awesome Husband says, "ah... an enenemy... ah men ah... the pink ones."

We planted these in the fall of 2009, because they had a lot going for them:
- perennial! plant once and you're good for years to come.
- tolerant of partial shade
- blooms at the end of the summer (a key consideration when we were planting wedding flowers)
- oh so pretty

Last year they did ok. We got enough blooms to use them in the centerpieces for our wedding reception. I was a teensy bit concerned when they didn't all bloom the week before the wedding, but as it turns out, a mix of blooms and buds looked fantastic.

This year, they're apparently more comfortable in the garden, because they've really stepped it up. More flowers, and blooming earlier. So cheerful to see when I get home at the end of the day.

fermentation, minus the hops

Ok, so I figure about half of you just thought to yourselves "no hops? what's the point?" But hear me out.

We made pickles last weekend, with nary a drop of vinegar in sight. Just cucumber slices, garlic, dill, enough brine (3 tablespoons of pickling salt per quart of water) to cover it all, a plate to weigh down the solids and keep them below the surface, and time (about three days).

Lemme tell ya, they're good. The cucumbers are from the garden, and we'll definitely be making this again to use up the ones that are jumping off the vines right now (this morning's count: 10). I'm looking forward to next year, when we'll have garlic and dill from the garden to use, too.

Good for the soul, if not for the arteries.

I had three days off from work at the end of last week and I worked from home yesterday, so it was nearly a full week that I was out of the office. I may have gotten a little bit spoiled. Hmm. I might also have gotten a little bit spoiled by all the yummy food and beverage consumption during my wee vacation, or perhaps by the guests visiting from far away that I rarely get to see and who filled my house with energy and excitement over the weekend. The house is so quiet today. It's good and bad at the same time.

The pendulum has swung far enough that I'm yearning for a salad, a four mile run, and some fresh raw vegetables. I would, however, love to stay on vacation so I can keep enjoying sites like this. Although I suppose that's the best part: this beauty is near where I live, so I don't have to travel far to be rejuvenated.

The peas are dead. Long live the string beans!

Yes, I think we've finally kicked the peas. Cue melancholy music, lots of plaintive violins and so forth. There are only a few pods still on the vines, and they're staying put for a while so they can dry out and fulfill their higher purpose of becoming seeds for next year.

Fear not, though, we're still awash with fresh-picked vegetable goodness.

And that's not all of them. The bowl there is 2 quarts, I believe. Some have been refrigerator-pickled, and many are destined for the freezer.

The tomatoes have got a lot to live up to this year.