Deck the Halls

This winter has been a bit abnormal.  We are 16" below average on snow fall for the winter and we can still see grass on most of our yard.  So while the snow has been mostly absent, the cold temps have not.  We have settled in to all the comforts of winter: soups, grilled cheese, chicken pot pie casserole, barley wine, down jackets, and fuzzy boots.  We are thinking this will probably be our last Christmas in this house (fingers crossed that our house sells this spring) and so I pulled out most of our decor for one last shebang. 
Our dining room window is the perfect height for keeping the curious kitty out of the stockings:

 We debated getting a real tree this year but decided it wouldn't be worth the hassle for 3 measly weeks.  So, we set up the 2 artificial trees that normally flank our front door on the porch inside this year.  It turned out that I have 4 boxes of perfect sized ornaments for this size of tree. 
Tree #1 in the living room:

 Tree #2 on the other side of the living room (both trees have white lights):

 We also hung the lights that normally go outside inside this year.  We spend a lot of winter evenings hanging out in our living room and so we concentrated all the lights in that room:

So festive! 

Now if only I could get the lights to stay hung up!  Droopy strings of lights make for hours of kitty entertainment. 
We'll be visiting both of our families for Christmas this year.  It's time to bake some cookies!

Spooktacular Dinner Club

October Dinner Club was a spooktacular event.  We had the privilege of hosting and picked the Sunday before Halloween to host.  You know I love a themed party so it was Halloween central. 

The night before the party we got a little crafty.  Mikey did his usual intricate pumpkin carving while I free-handed it.  I love his bubbling cauldron and the overall theme we had going: Food and Ghosts.

I have fond memories of lighting luminaries all along the sidewalks, steps and driveway as a kid.  It gives me the warm fuzzies.  So, this year I cut out some ghosts to keep our theme going:

On the day of the party, we did some last minute costume shopping, cleaning and cooking. 
I tried getting our children dressed up for the festivities.  Unfortunately, one of them didn't budge.  No bat costume for Kramer this year :(

Annabelle, on the other hand, is always a willing participant.  We've noticed she has "filled out" a bit as her costume barely fix around her ribs this year (she's a ladybug if you can't tell):

It got dark right around 6pm which was perfect for lighting everything up before the party started:

I had to use the flash to show you what the arrangement looked like:

Dinner started off with curried chick peas and curry bread (thanks to Lyndon & Katie):

as well as chocolate made from Trinidadian cocoa beans:

Dinner (a la Mikey) was Goulash:

It took a lot of convincing on my part to have Mikey make a themed entree.  He came through with homemade spaetzle (after my asking him to make something that looked like brains) and fancy pork gooooulash.  Get it? 
The picture above looks less-than-appetizing but I promise you it tasted delicious.  When will I ever learn to take a picture of my plate before eating?  I also neglected to get a picture of my table setting.  I had a black tablecloth and then did orange confetti circles as a runner with white mini pumpkins and tea lights in mason jars.  Simple and cheap but cute!

We finished the party off with one of the most creative desserts I've ever seen:

Candied apples complete with red-hot bark, cherry gummies and boston baked beans.  Nellie forwarned us all that if we had any loose teeth or fillings to pass on dessert.  I can't get over how stinkin cute that dessert is.  Everybody dug in and I'm happy to report that there were no missing teeth or fillings at the end.

As you can tell from Nellie's adorable outfit, costumes were strongly encouraged.  Thankfully, the whole crew jumped on board. 
Lyndon, Katie & Ravi:

Us:

Nellie & Bruce (Halloween is Nellie's favorite holiday and she makes her own costume every year!):

Erin & Frank:

Love these 2 costumes.  Erin is quite crafty and made her entire costume out of a robe, white boa feathers and felt.  She also made Frank's swedish chef head out of felt.  That girl can sew!
I love it when people get in to themed dinners.  So fun!

Bountiful Harvest

Alrighty peeps, I'm getting back in my groove of updating the blog more regularly.  After all, we still have lots of good eats and good times to share.  Most of you know that Mike switched back to working at Chester Creek Cafe in September.  He was asked to come back as their bookkeeper which has turned out to be a great fit for him.  He now has flexible hours to work around his school schedule, normal working hours and best of all... weekends off!  Cue the trumpets.
Did you also catch that he's back in school?  Yep, he's almost done with semester 1 of the accounting program at LSC.  So far, everything is going great. 

So, with mutual days off of work, we've been busy catching up with friends and family and doing activities that were on hold.  In short, we've been having a ton more fun! 

Nellie introduced me to a wonderful berry farm in Bayfield, WI.  On my first trip, she and I each picked a 10 pound box of blueberries.  I had such a wonderful time and knew that Mikey would also love it so the two of us went back the second weekend in September to pick another 10 pound box:

We spent a few hours in the rolling hills outside of Bayfield.  It reminded me so much of California wine country.  So much so that we packed a bottle of zinfandel to share while picking the berries:)
I am now set for blueberry oatmeal all winter long!

We also bought a half vegetable share again this summer from Northern Harvest Farm.  We got all of the usual fare: broccoli, lettuce, onions, potatoes, leeks, tomatoes, squash, beets, turnips, spinach, garlic, basil, cilantro, etc.  Additionally, we signed up for a tomato share.  Thankfully the tomato harvest was bountiful enough to fill all the tomato shares this year.  So, in mid-September, we got 40 pounds of tomatoes:

Our plan is to have "in-season" tomatoes throughout the winter.  So, we cored all of them and then bagged them up for storage in our deep freezer.  We portioned the tomatoes into bags that would allow for appropriate amounts of tomatoes that could be cooked down for pasta or pizza sauce over the winter. 
We also made a couple batches of salsa.  Mikey taught me how to make my very own roasted tomato & pineapple salsa.  I was quite proud of my accomplishment so I took some pics to share.
First I cut up a bunch of tomatoes, onion, garlic, peppers & a whole pineapple:

Then they were roasted in the oven:

I chopped up some cilantro & squeezed a couple limes:

Then it all went in the food processor:

Next, I learned the critical step of seasoning it.  We tasted the mixture multiple times until the salt, sugar and acidity levels were balanced.  The final product was delicious:

With a big batch of salsa in the fridge, we were inspired to make some Mexican breakfasts. 
His:

Hers:

Sunday morning brunch tradition continued throughout the fall.  Our most decadent meal was this pesto eggs benedict with homemade hollandaise sauce:

Are you hungry yet? 

September also marked Mikey's birthday.  On his actual birthday he got these beautiful sunflowers and a bag of Reese's peanut butter cups (his favorite):

You've heard me mention in the past that we like to do things (create memories) rather than give gifts for birthdays.  So, we hosted a big birthday bash complete with a keg of Bell's Two Hearted beer and about 25 of his closest friends.  We both had an absolute blast and felt pretty grateful to have such a great circle of friends in Duluth.

His birthday meal (which he made) was this Asian noodle bowl with scallops and shrimp:

Birthday cake (which I made) was this double layered carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and toasted pecans:

We've since put ourselves on a diet:)

Enger Park Dinner Club

We took dinner club "on the road" in August.  Nellie and Bruce hosted up at Enger Park.  A major restoration effort took place over the summer to get Enger Tower back in tip-top shape so we had to check it out.  The best views of the city are from the top of the tower and there are beautiful gardens and picnic areas in the park. 
We started things off with homemade sushi from Frank & Erin and played a few games of ladder golf.  Nellie got really excited when it was her turn and launched one of the strings in the tree.  Mike, being the tallest, stood on a picnic table with a stick in his hand while on his tippy toes to un-wind the string.  Lots of giggles ensued until he was finally able to pull it down.  I can always count on Nellie for a good laugh. 

Soon enough, Bruce declared it was time for dinner.  We were served:
Potato Salad (Loved the feta & olive oil. And would you look at those giant olives!):

Corn Salad (loved the sweetness of the corn with the pungent red onion and other veggies):

Ribs... to.die.for. :

This was my first time ever eating ribs (you all know about my fear of eating meat on the bone) and they knocked my socks off!  Bruce is an amazing chef and a kick ass grill master!! 
Bruce spilled the beans on how he prepped, seasoned & cooked the ribs but since it is now November, I remember very few details.  I do remember him mentioning something about a sweet (brown sugar perhaps) glaze that he brushed on because it created a nice crust on the pork and the meat was so tender (with no gristle or fat).  I have always associated ribs with gristle, fat & people gnawing on the bones to get the meat off.  The meat on these ribs fell off the bone and so I didn't even have to have the bone on my plate.  

This was one of the best meals of the summer.  There is nothing better than a gourmet picnic in the park and broadening my food horizons.  Thank you Bruce & Nellie.

We were in charge of dessert and so I made a no-bake strawberry cheesecake from scratch:

I was a bit worried that it would be bland but it was the perfect light and fluffy dessert we were all craving after a hefty meal.

Cheers!

Getting Ready to Sell

Oy vey, this update is a long time coming.  We've had an eventful but wonderful summer.  An update on our summer happenings is going to have to wait because I need to provide proof to you that we were indeed up to our eyeballs getting our house ready to sell earlier this summer.

We put our house on the market the third week of June.  Spring always comes late in Duluth- people don't normally plant things in their garden until Memorial Day weekend.  So, with cooler temps and snow still melting in May, we pretty much had from mid-May to mid-June to get the exterior of our house and yard in selling shape. 
  
We started improving our curb appeal by planting a ton of flowers on the front porch and steps.  I love planting annuals- it's my favorite spring time activity. 

Next I tackled the overgrown bushes that provide some privacy from the street.  Here they are looking all pretty and safe (you could actually walk on the sidewalk again) on the street side:

And the yard side- safety first!  We were able to mow without poking our eyes out:

Here's the pile of brush that I then had to load up and pay to get rid of:

Sometimes I long for living in the woods and being able to just throw it in the forest and let mother nature do her thing.  For now, we have to be happy that it'll be turned in to mulch and then used throughout our city's parks. 

On to the front yard...
Grass Edging Before:

During (we also attempted to grow grass in that big bald spot on the right... with minimal luck):

The shoddy patch work on the concrete stairs was done by the previous owners.  It sure would be nice to repair those.

After:

All cleaned up:

Now on to the back yard...

I decided to make our garden smaller this year.  Our garden used to span both our back yard and part of the neighbor's back yard.  We have new neighbors who are not gardeners and we wanted to un-blur the property lines for potential buyers.  So, I pulled out the fencing & wood border from the neighbor's yard.  See the empty square of dirt in the upper right side of the picture?  We then re-installed the wood border & fence:

We, of course, needed to weed the garden next.  Before:

Ahhh, much better... clean and tidy after:

After the yard work was done, I focused on sprucing up the exterior parts of the house that we've neglected.  Remember, we just painted the exterior of the house two summers ago but we didn't do any of the porches and landings.  So, here we go.
I recruited Hannah for a weekend to help me scrape and paint the front porch floor and all of the railings (worst job EVER!):

Mid way through scraping I thought about how nice it would be to replace the rotting pieces of the porch.  After a phone call with my dad, he assured me that I could indeed install new trim all by myself.  My dad is great for a little push of confidence some times!  Thankfully he's patient with my non-technical explanations of my predicaments over the phone. 

And here it is:

I wish I had taken a close up "after" shot but this is as good I have.  Truth be told, I had a heck of a time with the trim so it was up only temporarily for this photo.  Our official photo for the MLS posting was taken this day and so it worked.  My parents came up later in June and my dad and I re-hung the trim permanently.  I'm learning a lot about how to "square" things up in a century old house where things have settled and nothing is really square or level it seems!!  I love it though:)

On to the back entrance.  I scrape and paint this floor every year due to the paint coming off every winter from shoveling.  This year I also did the railing:
Before #1:

Before #2:

After:

While I had the can of white exterior paint out, I also touched up the foundation:

More foundation touch ups:

Lastly, the side entrance got scraped and painted. 
Looking good:

I was ready to hang up my paint brush for a while but the interior walls were calling my name.
Our entryway is this beautiful shade of yellow.  Fortunately, the previous owner had good taste in color and I never had the itch to change it over the past 5 years but unfortunately it was painted with a flat finish.  Every scuff mark showed and was impossible to get clean.  So, I thought the sensible thing to do was to paint it the same color but in eggshell finish.  What seemed so minor turned in to a BIG deal.   Every inch of our entryway, stairwell & upstairs hallway had to be meticulously painted.   After the first 2 gallons went on, I thought we were done but it became quite apparent where we had cut corners.  First of all, we didn't own an extender arm for the paint roller and so the really tall areas over the stairs weren't painted with the eggshell finish.  I really didn't think it would be a big deal, but it looked so bad!  Additionally, we could see multiple areas where the paint didn't cover thick enough and you could see waves of flat & eggshell finishes.  So, after another trip to Home Depot, we came home with an extension arm for the roller, 2 more gallons of paint and Diet Cokes to fuel us.  I must say, it was totally worth it.  I'm real happy with how it turned out:

I also painted the dining room.  Twice.  2 different colors.

It sounds like we should be close to being ready to sell, right? 
Wrong.  We still had to clean out all of our closets to make them look more spacious.  We completely emptied our walk up attic and boxed things up for permanent storage in our basement to entice someone to use the attic as a bonus room.  We took down all of our personal items and pared down our books and decor.  The house also got a thorough cleaning, like more thorough than your typical spring cleaning.

With a day to spare before our first open house, I went to Pier 1 to get a few things for staging the place.  I got some new pillows for the couch & chair in the living room and a new runner and napkins for the dining room.  With absolutely nothing on the walls in this room, the table setting made a big impact:

So, here we are now and it's the middle of September.  We haven't sold the house yet but we're both feeling pretty grateful to not be in a situation where selling our house is dire.  We can be patient and wait for the right buyer.  I really want someone to love our house as much as we have loved it!