WHY WAS I NOT INFORMED?

I’ll have to find a creative way to watch this, given that fact that I don’t have HBO but really?! Jason Schwartzman (and you know how I feel about him) playing a writer moonlighting as a private detective? Santa got my letter!

“Official Bored To Death Trailer (HBO)“

 

All she wants for Christmas …

A blogging friend is raising money to build a well in Cambodia through the organizations JustGive and Sustainable Cambodia. She’s asked for friends and family to donate to this fund instead of buying her Christmas gifts this year. I think this is an awesome idea! $10 is the minimum donation and she only needs to reach $1000 to provide a community in rural Cambodia with fresh, clean drinking water! If you want to help, please go here to contribute.

If you want to read more about why this project is near and dear to Holly’s heart, go here.

For love.

You know the day is going to be alright when you throw on your rain coat to brave a dreary, drizzly morning and find a love note/inside joke from a friend in your pocket.

Wardrobe pictures.

As you can see, my new project needs some love.

I began working on this last night, ripping out the gawd-awful shelf paper and giving it a good scrubbing to ensure that it wouldn’t smell like moth balls or previous owners. I also removed one of the wooden hanging rods–the one you can see in pictures 1 & 2–so that I can hang up my dresses.

I’m having a hard time finding handles to fit the already-drilled holes in the drawers. I’ve got some emails out to Etsy sellers, but it’s not looking promising. I might be junk-yard shopping for replacements.

As for the paint job, you can’t tell but there are three layers of paint on this puppy: one lime green (wth?!?), one periwinkle blue and then white paint on top. GAH. If I want to repaint it, it’s looking like I’m going to have to strip it first. However, in it’s current state the paint is chipping off in such away that it looks “weathered.” I haven’t committed to a paint color yet, so I’m going to replace the handles and see how I like it before heading to Porter.

Foodie blog-love.

I think we all know how I feel about food. Another foodie blog that I’ve added to my reader in the last couple of months is Sprouted Kitchen. The recipes emphasize whole ingredients and the photography is stunning. Most recipes are vegetarian (couple for fish) and many are vegan. And they all look incredible. I can wait to try her recipes for Spiced Sweet Potatoes and Chickpeas, Asian Ahi Salad or Rustic Fig and Goat Cheese Pizza.

 

Whey not.

A food-blogging friend is giving away whey-protein samples over at The Healthy Everythingtarian. Ch-ch-ch-check it out!

It’s come to this.

I’ve never been more behind on laundry in my life, ever. Not even in college. I’m not even going to tell you how long it’s been since I washed a load. I will, however, tell you this: today I’m wearing clothes I forgot that I owned.

Yeah.

Am I going to do laundry tonight? you might wonder. Am I going to responsibly stay at home and slug through the mountain of sheets, towels, t-shirts and unmentionables? Am I going to sweep my appallingly dirty floor while I’m in between loads? Of course not. I’m going to pick up my CSA box, drool over it until I can think of something quick to whip up for dinner (probably stir-fry), then walk to Emily and Michael’s house so we can watch Glee on Hulu. Because that’s how I roll.

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In other news, I had a lovely, lazy weekend (hence the lack of laundry-washing). After many busy weeks, I finally found myself with two days free of obligations and gave myself a mini break. I was in desperate need of some me-time, so on Friday night I took myself to see Whip It at our $2 theater. Yes, I was that dork in the third row sitting there all by herself laughing harder than everyone else and shushing the bratty high school girls in row six.

On Saturday Braden and I went out for breakfast and then saw Inglourious Basterds. Quite often our taste in movies doesn’t overlap–and we certainly took away different things from this movie (I was railing on and on about Tarantino’s use of color and he kept quoting lines in imitation of Pitt’s Maynardville accent)–but we both really enjoyed it. Braden worked on Saturday night, so I dropped him off and spent a very pleasant evening browsing the used book store, shoe shopping (but not buying), picking up wine and dinner at Greenlife and then reading at home with two plump kitten snuggled on my lap.

On Sunday after church Braden and I hit up a new pizza joint in town. For $7, you get a salad (spinach, tomatoes, green peas, chick peas, onions, cucumbers and sprouts) and all you can eat from their lunch buffet. They’ll make you anything you want, so I requested a cheese-less veggie pizza with pesto, instead of red sauce. It wasn’t the most fantastic thing ever, but we had fun. Oh, and after having read this I couldn’t resist trying a tiny slice of their bacon and jalapeno pizza, since Julie Powell is always talking about it. (Mixed results, is all I’ll say.)

As we were driving home, I spotted a yard sale a couple of blocks from my house. A white wardrobe caught my eye, so I asked Braden to pull over. When I got out I saw that underneath the chipping white sponge paint, it was a beautiful waterfall-style piece with dovetail joints–and just the perfect size for my bedroom. My home was built in the 20’s (read: microscopic closets) and I need more clothes’ storage. This wardrobe had been horribly mistreated and would need some love including paint, new knobs, drawer pulls and shelf paper–but for $25, it seemed worth the challenge. We’ll see what I can do with it–and I’ll definitely post pics ASAP. I’ve been skimming Before and Afters at Design*Sponge for inspiration.

Yesterday also included small group meeting, cranberry muffins and humus and Skip-Bo with the Monkeys and some good guilty-pleasure TV with Earl. Food, films, good wine, good friends, good bargains, good books and bad TV–it was a perfectly relaxing weekend.

A cure for mid-week depression.

Last night I was in a Mood. Braden and I had plans, but he got called into work, so all of the sudden I found myself with nothing to do for the evening. Ordinarily I relish nights like these and spend my time curled up with a good book, making delicious food, taking a long bath, etc., etc. However, for some reason last night the prospect of a solitary evening made me want to stick my head in an oven.

“Go get yourself some chocolate,” Braden said, looking at me with concern as I dropped him off at work.

“Meh.”

“Really. Or call Earl to watch a movie.”

“Mphmph.”

I drove away and turned left out of the parking lot, instead of taking a right to go back to my house. I needed something to break my funk. I ended up at Greenlife–a fancy all-natural grocery store–and wandered into the cheese section. There I saw it: cheese plates. Each cheese plate came with your choice of three cheeses, three “side items”, condiments, bread, crackers and fruit. I left the store with a plate stacked with fancy cheeses with names like Fleur Vert and Shropshire Blue as well as dried figs, almonds, pine nuts, peppery crackers, Meyer lemon preserves, fruity olive oil and prosciutto. I snagged a bar of dark chocolate with hazelnuts on the way out and called it good. Instead of heading home, I went to Braden’s house to take advantage of his internet. On Hulu I watched three episodes of Glee, and think it’s safe to say I found a Fall TV addiction.

I went to bed last night feeling SO much better. I wish I had known in my teens that prime-time TV and fancy cheese could cure depression.

Bargain hunting last weekend.

The following are deals I scored out shopping with Natalie last weekend. (Forgive the unattractive photos–I realized that the light was perfect for taking photos about five seconds before it went.) I’m just a little bit excited.

1. 2 sets of queen-size, 350 thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets: $4 total.

2. Pair of black, faux-leather flats: $1.

3. 10 terra Cotta flower pots: $4 for all

4. Citrus-cilantro scented candles: $3/each.

5. Glass vase: $1.

And the flowers in the vase were free–my boss and I have a deal: I noticed one day that flowers leftover from weekend events in my building get left to die. I asked if I could rescue them, and she said that I was free to take any and all abandoned flowers. Never hurts to ask! Aren’t they pretty?

Sometimes I also get free flowers from the florist down the street, because they occasionally offer free bouquets in exchange for items they need to do arrangements for events–such as old vases, mason jars, etc., etc. They keep their costs down, I get free flowers and old materials get recycled. Win-win! (Oh, and they also gave me the flowers below for my birthday!)

Speaking of free, some coworkers also brought in stacks of magazines this week to share. They aren’t magazines I normally subscribe to (Real Simple and Southern Living) but they were 100% free and fun to flip through last night. Something I love about my office is that we always bring in items that we don’t want for one another, rather than just dumping them. I’ve gotten a lot of free things this way!

Three wishes.

Having mentioned my search for a new couch and then soon after finding said couch, I’m wondering if blogging is good luck. So, I will let you in on the short list of things that are on my wish list for the near future.

1. Boots. I’m looking for brown leather ones that are tall-ish. I’m thinking I want flats or at least low heels (no wedges, please!), however I don’t want cowboy boots, overly chunky riding boots or boots with a super-fitted shaft. Anthropologie, of course, has plenty of styles that I love, but I can’t drop $300+ for them, so I’ll have to look elsewhere. But this gives you an idea:

2. I also want to find a great pair of headphones. I do a lot of walking and I like to listen to music as I do so. Frankly I find earbuds way obnoxious, so I’d like to find an awesome pair of headphones that are within my budget. So far all the options have been shot down: I’d buy BOSE headphones, but I’m not rich. I’d buy WESC headphones, but I’m not a hipster. I’d buy Skullcandy headphones, but … wait, no I wouldn’t. I’d buy some plain old Sony ones, but I can’t find a model I like. Maybe I’ll buy a moderately priced pair of Audio-Technica’s. But WHICH PAIR? There are many.

As I have been researching headphones, I have discovered that buying headphones is serious business and that I am, apparently, a SHEEP for surviving with my Apple earbuds all this time. Gosh. Who knew?

3. I’d love to get some fancy-schmancy baking equipment, including  a microplane, biscuit cutters, a Madeleine tin, a copper mold and a straight rolling-pin. Why? Probably because I’m reading Julie & Julia and it has made me eager to try my hand at complex dessert recipes. Despite the fact that I love to cook, I don’t often bake, because I get bored with it half-way through and then never know what to do with three dozen cookies other than feed them to my weakly protesting coworkers. Maybe if I was faced with the challenge of whipping up fancy Cannele cakes and Madeleine cookies I’d feel more inspired.

Also, if you can tell me where I can buy a Madeleine tin that isn’t non-stick, I will be eternally grateful. I hate the idea of using a Teflon-coated or silicon pan to cook something so lovely and traditional. I don’t really care for non-stick cookware to begin with, but for some reason, in this case it seems like an abomination.

I suspect that this may become my Christmas wishlist, instead of my “fun things for Catie to get herself when she saves money on her electric bill this month” list. I’m picky about the treats that I buy for myself, but that makes it more fun for me. But here’s hoping that I at least find the kitchen stuff with in a reasonable matter of time. It would make for much more interesting blogging (not to mention delicious Saturday morning brunches).