Archive: June 2009

A progress report on my three resolutions for 2009:

Every day, I will clean for 15 minutes.
At the midpoint of the year, I submit my first back-sliding report. I did not succeed at this resolution this month. We are still figuring out how summer will go with JG at home for most of the day, but as much as I love that he is around the house, it kind of cramps my style of guerrilla cleaning. I’m not sure why, but I feel better doing it when JG’s not around. Granted, the house is still clean, but I have not been very conscientious about my 15 minutes. To combat my slacking, I have moved my chore check-off list to a place of prominence on my dresser, instead of underneath stacks of books on my night stand.

For what it’s worth, my newest favorite cleaning tip (courtesy of How to Clean Stuff) is to clean tubs with a Magic Eraser. I already loved these mysterious white sponges of awesomeness, but it never occurred to me to bring them in to the bathrooms. Getting rid of the scum is almost enjoyable now, if only because I know it’s really gone.

Every week, I will write and send my grandmother a note.
Success! The combination of my stockpile of blank cards at work and my PDA reminder is working like a charm. I have started to send other people notes for the heck of it (although not weekly), and I like how this resolution is starting to make me more aware of when I haven’t talked with someone in a while.

Every month, I will take at least a few hours just for myself.
Hm. Once again, I am puzzled at this last one. Why is it not even on my radar during the month? JG plays volleyball with a local league every Tuesday, and that has become my de facto night to edit pictures, read on the couch, or play with Ted, so does that count? I think it might because I’m spending time on my own, but I am also not a huge fan of it because it’s not intentional of me. Whatever the case, it’s clear that I need to keep this resolution at the fore.

In other news …
We are managing with our CSA pretty well, I think. So far, we haven’t thrown out anything, but it has been a challenge to get through the veritable deluge of lettuce. We’ve been forced to try a handful of new recipes (like fish-vegetable packets and chicken-lettuce wraps), and our pasta intake is very much decreased. The weekly grocery bill has gone down overall, even taking into account our produce share.

July will be a tough month in this respect because of various trips we have planned, but I’m trying to set up a few friends to take our produce in our place. Even though our meal-planning regimen is a little more panicked each week, the CSA has been a success for us. I’m trying not to be nervous about the bigger vegetable-laden harvests to come.

Eat a ridiculous amount of food during our fancy anniversary dinner. No dessert for us this time.

Be so stressed out on my day off. I opened the refrigerator and it was oddly, uh, not on.

Ask various home improvement stores if they could deliver a new refrigerator if we bought one like, right now. They couldn’t; their deliveries had already gone out for the day, which we should have known.

Realize that the fridge was fine (thank goodness!), but that somewhere in our kitchen renovation, an electrical problem emerged.

Call for an electrician to come in as soon as possible to assess the problem and pay him $450 to make sure our house didn’t burn down.

Put aside other plans of meandering around the used book store and getting ice cream in favor of making sure our house didn’t burn down.

Borrow six books from the library in one day between the two of us.

Have a terrible night of sleep at JG’s parents’ lake house because Ted was so excited about the other dog in the house that he would not stop moving around our foldout couch mattress, no, not even for a minute at 3am, so help us.

Go kayaking on the lake before the sky turned on us.

Persevere on the beach through the wind and scary clouds until the rain finally came and chased us away.

Walk back down to the lake after dinner to see a quiet, mellow sunset.

Have gorgeous beach weather the next day such that JG to swim across the lake for fun.

Finish a book apiece.

Become so brown (me) and red (him) from the sun.

Be relieved that the fridge was still running when we got home.

Unpack right away — a shocker, at least for me — and do two loads of laundry.

Remember the good times about the weekend much more immediately than the bumpy surprises.

Four years ago today, JG and I got married! It doesn’t really feel like an anniversary because I didn’t take today off from work (a random Thursday off makes no sense to me), but I am out of the office tomorrow, so we will have a nice long weekend together. Tonight, we’re dressing up and going out to eat at our favorite restaurant, and then tomorrow — who knows? Maybe we’ll take a trip downtown for ice cream or stroll around Longwood Gardens. Or maybe we’ll drift around at home and watch episodes of How I Met Your Mother on DVD. Those are all good options, I think.

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This year, we decided to go with a joint anniversary gift to ourselves instead of navigating those traditional year themes, and we splurged on a beautiful new skillet! The one we’ve used since I graduated from college is a hand-me-down from my mom, and it has served us well. Unfortunately, the bottom has bowed over time, and the pan isn’t ovenproof. When JG put in the order for the new one, I pointed out that we’d need to pick a special dish for the skillet’s maiden voyage.

“Good idea,” he said, pausing to think.

“We need to deglaze something!” I burst out. Because what better way to initiate the pan than to make a delicious sauce out of those tasty brown meat bits?

“Yes!”

It was settled. JG christened the skillet with steak au poivre, courtesy of America’s Test Kitchen, and we declared that it was very good, indeed.

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Yesterday, we received a surprise anniversary gift from my mother-in-law: a hammock! JG set it up in the back yard while I ran around with Ted, and then we took it for a test ride. I don’t think it’s intended to be a two-person hammock, but we squeezed in for a comfortable, although snug, fit. JG read his magazine, I started a new book, and we both nestled into our camping pillows, heads at opposite ends.

It was a team effort whenever one of us wanted to adjust our positioning. We had to counterbalance the movement, make room for a bent knee or a straight leg, and then settle down anew. At one point, JG got up to correct Ted, and my eyes opened wide as the hammock quivered and swung with his motion. “I won’t let you fall,” he said, laughing. “I’ve got my feet on the ground.”

Perhaps, for the whole time we’ve been married, JG and I have simply been learning to share a hammock. We steady each other and adjust for changes, but when everything falls into place, it can be relaxing and cozy. Once I grew accustomed to the sway of the hammock, I watched Ted snuffle contentedly around the yard as the sky blushed from the incoming dusk. Yes, I could handle this.

Happy anniversary, JG! I love you.

After the bluster of installing the kitchen cabinets last month, JG has made incremental steps toward our finished kitchen. He spackled, sanded, cleaned up caulk, and installed toe kicks, but the biggest obstacle in the way was paint. I knew which color I wanted, but practically every weekend in the summer is booked already, and I didn’t know when we’d do it. Sure, JG could take care of it during a few weekdays, but I wanted to help because our kitchen’s lack of wall space means mostly cutting in, and no one wants to do that for hours on end.

In any case, JG made a point of stopping by the Home Depot near his school for paint and supplies before the end of the school year, so we had everything ready to go, even if we had no idea when paint would actually touch the walls.

On Sunday morning, JG woke me up for church and said, “I started to tape off the kitchen and lay plastic on the counters. I figure we can get the primer and at least one coat of paint done after church, and then I can do the last coat tomorrow while you’re at work.”

I was not quite coherent enough. “What?”

“I just think that if we don’t do it today, we won’t do it any time soon.”

“Oh. Yeah, I agree. Okay.”

After church and lunch, we both changed into painting clothes and got to work. Two coats of primer, two coats of paint, and eight hours later, the kitchen walls were finished and lovely. I was really nervous picking out this paint because beige and tan tones always look eerily skinlike to me, but this color was exactly what I wanted: a cooler neutral color that made the cabinets look sharp. Plus, it’s a food-named paint (Behr’s Pecan Sandie) for the kitchen! I love it.

The next evening, JG installed a towel bar and a paper-towel holder, so we are making progress. The list of to-dos is still substantial, but crossing off each little item brings us that much closer to being done.