Wednesday, February 24, 2010

BeefyGeek's Financial Goals

BeefyGeek and I were talking about financial goals and such the other day, and I brought up saving for retirement. And he, in all seriousness said, "I don't think I want that to be one of our goals. I mean, I don' t think I'm ever going to want to retire."

!!!!

Man, this guy loves his job. Its so much fun to see him try to get into work "a little earlier" to get a jump start on such and such a project. This, from the same dear husband, who DROVE ME INSANE with his constant procrastination about school work. I guess I was figuring it would carry over into his work and I would live my life "not nagging".

I'm happy to say I was wrong. Write it down. It doesn't happen very much.

P.S. don't worry we're still going to save for retirement. Just in case. ;-)

Monday, February 22, 2010

A little black dress


This Etsy seller is inspired by Audrey Hepburn. And I'm in love...

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Beefygeek has a blog!

Well... sorta. Its more of a demo-reel thing... but still. :-)

http://jkrintz.tumblr.com/

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Sweet Potato Fries

Ohmygoodness.

Beefygeek and I are both professed sweet potato haters. BUT. I've read about how crazy healthy they are for you and so I tried making baked sweet potato fries today and. OHMYGOODNESS.

Here's the recipe I based mine on. (I really like this blog by the way... my blog roll is getting way too long.) I didn't use coriander and I added cayenne pepper, paprika, and garlic powder. Ohmygoodness. Kosher salt. Just discovered it. ohmygoodness.

I think sweet potatoes just made it onto my weekly produce grocery list.

So first cabbage, now sweet potatoes... I'm thinking about exploring leeks or turnips next. I really wanna try artichokes... but that would defeat the tightwad-y element of my cooking experiments. Maybe for a birthday.

Speaking of special occasions, its Valentine's Day, so I'm gonna go be with my Beefygeek. I just had to share my latest food love.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

In an attempt to find "my style"...

I looked through the like 200 living rooms on Ideal Home's website. Here are the ones that caught my eye. I especially like the one on the bottom. It's called "eclectic"... so this didn't really help with the whole nailing-down-my-style-thing. Also repeated a lot were the words: neurtal, modern country, woodsy, and "Scandinavian." Which i guess is why a big chunk of my blog roll is in languages I can't even name let alone understand.






I also loved this house. Minus the branch decals over the mantel. Not really into that whole fashion. I think you'd get sick of it in a week.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Snowed in

We got 2 1/2 feet of snow. For Maryland, that's pretty much the most ever. I think its technically 3rd most ever, but I'm a Humanities kinda gal where we're blissfully unaware of technicalities. (I can't believe I spelled that right on the first try...)

It should be an ideal weekend for blogging. But unfortunately, I'm super uninspired.

I plan on writing about the Doppleganger Phenomenon on Facebook and how some people think its "soooo conceited" to think that you look like a movie star. My take on it is this: it's not.

I guess I'll just go ahead and write it...

Why do I think it's not conceited, you may ask? Because, quite simply I don't idolize the beauty of movie stars. They really are just people. Pretty people. But not so beautiful that comparing yourself to them is ridiculous. I have friends that are every bit as lovely as those A-list folks. More lovely, to me because I can see them from what they really are, without gobs of paint and tape and silicone.

See now, that sounds cynical and sour-grape-ish. Which is the opposite of what I feel about the matter. I loved seeing all the celeb look-alikes because so many of them are TRUE.

People are people. One of the things that cemented this truth to me is the wedding pictures of my many recently wed friends. The first time I had seen them professionally photographed. And you know what? They are all GORGEOUS.

Even mine turned out beautifully, which shocked me because I am not a photogenic person. I think I'm pretty... but I take terrible pictures. Really. I've just reconciled myself to the fact, and don't even ask to see the picture when someone's passing the camera around. Because if every bad picture of me got deleted, my life would be completely undocumented.

Anyhow, the point of mentioning the wedding pictures: it is pretty amazing what good lighting/a nice camera can do. Celebs have that advantage a lot of the time. And when they don't we tend to discount it as "just a tabloid picture."

But let's put plastic surgery, make-up, great clothes, personal trainers, and great lighting aside for a moment, because I think there is a deeper issue here.

The deeper issue is something that C.S. Lewis touches on in one of my favorites The Weight of Glory:
"If you asked twenty good men to-day what they thought the
highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfish-
ness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old
he would have replied, Love- You see what has happened? A
negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is
of more than philological importance. The negative ideal of
Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of
securing good things for others, but of going without them our-
selves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the
important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of
Love."

To me, the important thing should be kindness, not un-conceitedness. Humility is more than just thinking little of yourself. Its thinking highly of others. Thinking you are a plain person does no one any good. In fact, the very people who complainthe most about their looks are, in my experience, the most vain. I'll fall back on another C.S. Lewis quote: "Humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less." If you're always talking about how ugly/fat you are, it means you're always thinking about yourself. STOP IT. (Not that I am never guilty of this.) And arguing when someone gives you a compliment... STOP IT. Say "thanks" and move on. God made you the way you are. And chances are, there is someone out there who thinks you're an ideal beauty. Even if you aren't everything you wish you were.

I don't think everyone needs to do celebrity doppelganger week, by any means. Its just fun. But the articles calling it "Narcissism Revealed" were seriously bothering me.'' (perhaps partly because I had a whole collage of the celeb's I've been told I resemble. lol)

I hope this wasn't all just a veiled attempt to justify my conceit...

No. As usual, I'm right. (As you can see, vanity isn't my problem. Arrogance is.)

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Home Again...Jiggety Jig

Another sick day. This is a record. I went a whole year without a sick day. But now I'm making up for it. BeefyGeek is working hard and now I feel like I can take a day or two without breaking the bank. And I LOVE it. :-)

Speaking of home... My latest inspirations for ours: (mostly from this book.)

-Distressed medium tone wood: (I wanna make it from cheap wood, not buy a pre-beat up table for hundreds of dollars.)

-Dark hard wood floors paired with light walls:

-floor to ceiling white linen curtains: (just noticed the above picture has them too.)


-decorating with branches

-Dormer windows


-Blue/grey, blue/green, grey/green

-wire. this kinda hard to describe/find a picture of. I like the idea of dull gray wire combined with the rest of my bright, feminine taste. Here's the closest I could find:


Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Cabbage

My latest culinary adventure. Learning to do something with this super-duper cheap healthy winter veggie. Never having bought or cooked or tasted one, I was a little nervous. The only time I remember someone eating cabbage was the Bucket family on Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. They ate cabbage soup. Every day. Because its cheap.

But it's delicious! Sweet and crunchy. It reminds me of raw corn, except less juicy.

So far I added it to soup and made coleslaw. Both successes. The changes I made to the coleslaw recipe: using half apple-cider vinegar, red onions, adding carrots, and cutting back on the sugar, (I picked this recipe because it was healthier than the creamy kind...a full cup of sugar kinda undoes that.)

That coleslaw is awesome.