Pinterest Fail!

Having made quite a few of my own domestic blunders (many of which are accounted on this blog) I was quite pleased to discover PinterestFail.com

I highly recommend it for anyone frustrated with their own pinterest results. You are not alone!

Also, I think a lot of these disasters are learning opportunities. I *still* cannot bake a layered cake to save my life, but not everything I do ends up in the trash these days, or with me in tears.

Chalk failures up to learning, and keep trying!

The New Domesticity

I heard a fascinating interview on WUNC's The State of Things today at lunch about the new Domesticity with Emily Matchar, the author of "Homeward Bound".

Why do you care?

1. Emily is going to be at FlyLeaf books tonight, if you're interested.
2. You should listen to/read the interview.  There's great insight about why Middle Class Gen Y'ers are embracing crafts and diy lifestyle.  We are growing our own veggies, canning, and forming our own internet knitting circles (like on ravelry.com)
3. You might want to buy the book too! She was very interesting to listen to.

My new very favorite lunch

Some of you know, I have a lunch problem.  Well, more specifically I have a microwave problem that leads to a lunch problem.  And now, being pregnant, and supposed to avoid deli meat, my lunches got downright hopeless.

But the other day I was at Panera, craving a sandwich like you wouldn't believe, and I ordered their Mediterranean Sandwich.

After devouring it, I thought... I could make this!  And so I did. Over and over again.

Step One: The Bread!
Tomato Bread from Panera is pretty much my very favorite part. I order all sandwiches on this bread, even if they're not supposed to come with that bread.  So, you can buy some tomato bread from Panera. OR, my CSA (PapaSpuds) offers a Sun-dried Tomato Loaf most weeks from The Bread Shop.  Bread acquired? Let's move on to:

Step Two: The Vegetarian Proteins!
Feta Cheese. (1/2 square inch, or a half a serving, crumbled)
Hummus. (1 tbsp)
Guacamole. (1 tbsp)
If you don't eat these things, leave now, as you will probably hate this sandwich.

I use Athenos feta cheese (it's pasteurized so I'm allowed!)  And Sabra or Tribe Garlic Hummus and Wholly Guacamole.  Sometimes I make hummus (fave recipe) and guacamole (fave recipe), but buying is easier.

Step Three: The Veggies!
You need a cucumber. (3 slices)
An onion. (a few strips)
A tomato. (one slice, halved)

Step Four: The Assembly!
Since this is usually a lunch thing (and I have been eating 5-6 smaller meals to help deal with the heartburn), I usually only eat a half sandwich for lunch.

• First cut one delicious piece of tomato bread in half.
• Then spread 1 tbsp of hummus on one half and 1 tbsp of guacamole on the other half.
• On the hummus bread, carefully crumble a 1/2 serving of feta cheese onto the bread.
• Now, on top of the feta, add 3 cucumber slices, a couple slices of onion, and 2 half tomato slices.
• Now put the guacamole bread on top to close the sandwich.

The Nutrition!

If you are curious, I've calculated this delicious half sandwich to be:

250 calories; 33 carbs; 9g fat; 9g protein; 3g sugar

Blight in the Garden

This blog started as a post about our first garden, so as we start prepping garden number 4, I thought it was time for an update.

For the last 2 years, we have struggled with blight in the garden.  As in, it has ruined everything. 

I have read a few methods of dealing with this.... Fire is one, but the garden is a weeeeeee bit too close to the house for me to light it on fire.  Another is to use a chemical that kills everything for a period of 1 year. We didn't want to miss out on a whole gardening year if we could help it though.  The last was to basically hot compost the garden til it reached a hot enough temperature to kill the blight, so we are trying that.

We bought some "construction grade plastic wrap" on amazon and covered the garden, leaving a little extra wrap to hang over the edges.  Yesterday, I soaked the garden down and rolled the plastic out. Then Jake came and helped me line the edges with wood to hold it down and hold the heat in.

The interwebs said that this process would take 1 week in summer, but 4-6 weeks in spring...

So in about a month, we will pull it up and plant. I think we're going to purchase plants instead of seed starting this year, and I hope this will take care of the blight!!

Pantry Project

Oh the glorious pantry project.

Some background. Jacob is a very handy man.  Pretty much, when stuff breaks, Jake fixes it.  Or sometimes, he calls his dad or my dad and then he fixes it.  And when we moved into this house, our initial hope was actually to find a fixer-upper.  Unfortunately, we either had enough money to buy a small move-in-ready house, or a large fixer-upper... and no money to do the fixing-upping.  So we bought our move-in-ready house. (which we love!)

But it doesn't have a pantry. (or a fireplace.) Those were pretty much my only two compromises.  So sometime, over 2 years ago, Jake decided to turn our shallow under the stairs coat closet into a large pantry/closet.  And he took a sledgehammar to the wall.  (I helped!)

Some of you remember, that a little while after that, our house got hit by a tornado.  And more importantly, with help from friends and family, Jacob repaired the house.  Understandably, pantry renovation comes lower on the priority list than "My shingles are missing and there is a tarp keeping water out".

And then school and work happened.  And then I found out I was pregnant.  And since the pantry is currently living in the room that is going to be the nursery, The Nesting Diva got.... impatient.

So, Jacob, being totally drowned in school, had to call in some professionals to help finish up the pantry.

He and my dad wired the pantry for electricity and installed outlets and switches and lights.
Then he drywalled and mudded it himself. (I wish I had a picture of when it was just a coat closet. See that carpet? That's where the closet used to end.)

Then the pros came. They smoothed some mudding, installed the floor, painted, and installed shelving.
After Day 1:

After (a rainy) Day 2:

Finished after Day 3! (and I ADORE it!)

So you know what this means!!  Next: Nursery pics! ;)  (Don't hold your breath though... it's going to take me awhile!)

Jasmine's Spay

 Found this blog post as a draft from last March.  I had actually forgotten a lot of these details, so I thought I'd go ahead and publish it. :)

It was the day I had be dreading since last September. The day our darling Jack Russell Terrier gets spayed.

The night before I hadn't slept at all. I had been up between the thunder and a especially nagging defect I couldn't solve at work, plus worrying about all the things that could go wrong with Jasmine the next day...

On Wednesday morning, I got up to take Jazz to the vet. But before I could get there, I dropped my cell phone (again) and destroyed it. No longer little cracks in the glass, but full out hardware failure.

We went to a different vet - the one through the dog adoption agency, since the cost spay was included in our adoption costs. She had a nervous breakdown. She barked, she flailed. They finally came and took her away just so I could finish filling out the paperwork. Which of course made me more upset. And, I had to give them Jake's number since I wasn't going to be able to be contacted.
I was pretty stressed all day. At one point, I was giving Jacob a "at the top of my lungs" lecture about 4g networks (and that it's a marketing term not a technology term.). Let's just say, I probably wasn't very pleasant, being so stressed and sleep deprived.

But Jazz came home and she was incredibly groggy and sore, but fine. And sneaky. I ended up having to gate her away from all furniture, because if i turned my back for 1 minute (to write an email, to get a glass of water, to do my job) she had jumped on the couch or the bed. Sneaky little thing.

She also attempted to jump several feet in the air to eat a bumble bee. Yeah.

But she and I had a great time hanging out for 4 days. And since I wouldn't let her play with her big brother, she has learned a new trick. She jumps up into my lap and tries to put her toy in my mouth. Delightful. (Ok, it's hilarious... but it makes it extremely hard to read a book...)

And she's healing up quickly.  Should be 100% and allowed to fight brother pretty soon here.

Making Frozen Pizza Yummy

In my house, we call this process "loaded pizza".

Lemme explain. :)

When I was in college, my mom got me a few cookbooks for starting out.  "The College Cookbook" and "The Little Black Apron".  The College Cookbook is recipes submitted from college kids and one of the recipes is this loaded pizza.  You take a boring ole cardboard-y CHEAP frozen pizza, and you just put stuff all over it.

Extra cheese is a MUST, as well as herbs (italian spices, usually).  We also put basically whatever leftover veggies we have that could possibly taste good on a pizza. 

It's quick, easy, and turns a boring ole pizza, and your left over half a tomato into something delicious!  It's a Diva household favorite!