Little Things

We've gotten a few little things done around the house. Very little things... but progress nonetheless. We're trying to avoid large projects for now so that we can save up for renovating the half bath downstairs. This hopefully won't be too expensive, but will still cost a good amount and we would like to work up to it a bit in the budget before starting in.

Anyway, one of the things we've gotten done recently was a fun little project I tackled while Leslie was out of town visiting with some friends. I added another towel bar above the one that was already in our bathroom. This is a vast improvement over the previous arrangement of us having a hanging towel thingy on the installed bar. We've been using this setup for our bath towels since we got married and it was nice to finally get it changed. I think our towels will dry out a lot better now too. The new towel bar is pretty high, so it's a good thing I'm tall. But it's not a big deal since this is only a temporary setup anyway - we hope to remodel the master bath in the next few years.

The Old

The New

We've also added a few decorative things to the den this week. We found this little bird thingy at Meijer the other day and thought it would go well with the other bird things we already had in the den. Apparently this will be our bird room. Leslie also found a rug on the Kohl's website. We even managed to get 30% off coupon from Leslie's sister. It looks great in the den and the colours and pattern compliment the surroundings nicely. The cats also seem to like it - I've seen Frank lying on it and soaking up the sun on multiple occasions.

It's fall! Best season out there. And Leslie is helping make it even more wonderful by starting to put out fall decorations. And soon it will be time for my third favorite holiday - Halloween! Our weekends are filling up fast (I think I can count on one hand the number of weekends that are completely free between now and next year), but hopefully we can find some time to invite some of you to our place to enjoy some of the autumn fun. You know... bonfires, hot apple cider, pumpkin everything... you get the picture. We'll see how things go and try to make it happen.

That's all, folks. We'll be back Tuesday with a post about... something.

Pears Please

We made some pretty darn good pasta a few weeks ago and I thought I'd share. I meant to share sooner... but oh well. It was Gorgonzola Pear Pasta.

Pears. Pears in pasta. Weird, right? Maybe a little, but it was very good. I added a bit myself, of course, but still very good. The recipe can be found online here on allrecipes.com.

I really need to start using a real camera...

This turned out very nicely for us. Like I said, I made a few changes. I added a little Parmesan cheese because it's delicious and brings a good earthiness to the dish (umami, for all you other foodies out there). I didn't add walnuts, mostly because I forgot, but I did add green onion, so I guess it all works out. To keep it at least a little more healthy, I didn't use cream and went with milk instead. I kept it pretty light too so that the sauce more just stuck to the pasta instead of the pasta swimming in it. I also made a balsamic reduction to drizzle on top - the complex sweet and acidic flavor went really well with the pear and Gorgonzola.

This tasted really good and I think we'll make it again sometime. Leslie even liked it well enough to eat it twice, which is pretty rare for her when it comes to pasta. Next time I won't forget the walnuts and will consider adding some caramelized onions instead of using green onions. The balsamic reduction was also a good call and we'll have to bring that back for the sequel as well.

Thanks for reading and be sure to come back on Friday for a house update!

Naked No Longer

Well, we did it. We finally got around to fixing up the outside of the house. After we replaced the beam when we first got the house, there was some siding and trim that had been taken down that we've been needingto put back up. I got some lumber from a yard not far from the house, reused the larger front-facing piece of wood from before, and put the siding back in place. The whole thing only took a few hours, so it's pretty bad that we put it off for so long... but it's definitely nice to have it done. Like Leslie said, we don't look like rednecks anymore!

And since this was such a short post, here's a few cat pictures to tide you over until the next update.

Thanks for reading!

First Anniversary

It's hard to believe we've already been married for a year, but at the same time it feels like we've been married for a long time! After dating for so long, the transition to marriage was not too hard; we've had such a fun first year!

Jeremy planned a whole weekend of fun things for us to do. We won't go this big every year, but it was so nice to do some fancy stuff to celebrate! It was so sweet of him to plan everything - he's so good at it and he loves surprising me!

Friday night we got dinner at a local pizzeria, Randelli's. It was so good! We got stuffed breadsticks (stuffed with cheese and pepperoni), with yummy jalapeño cheese sauce. Our choice of pizza was the Santa Fe - grilled chicken and red sauce, with cilantro (our favorite) and banana peppers. It was an interesting combination, but surprisingly tasty! It's definitely a small town place - the owner's wife was our waitress and the owner stopped by to see how our pizza was - but I think it might become a frequent stop. After dinner, we went to our first Avon High School football game! This was a blast to go to. We have never been to a high school game together, and I haven't been to one as a spectator since elementary school, so it was cool to experience that together. It was a perfect crisp fall evening. Sadly, we lost, but it was still a good time. It's interesting to compare high school skills with college and the NFL, which we're more used to watching... it's definitely different.

On Saturday, we packed our overnight bags and headed downtown. After dropping off the car at the hotel, we headed over to Irish Fest. We were able to wander around through the different shops, watch a herding dog demonstration, eat some delicious food (fish and chips, corned beef and cabbage and of course, soda bread) and enjoy some fantastic live music. It wasn't very crowded, which was nice. It was a pretty relaxed festival - we were able to just savor our food and listen to the music.

After Irish Fest, we headed back to our hotel, the JW Marriott downtown. We changed and took a short walk to our dinner destination - The Eagle's Nest. This is a really cool restaurant - it's on the top floor of one of the buildings in downtown Indy and it rotates! Jeremy timed it perfectly with the reservation, so we watched the sunset while eating our dinner. We ordered crab cakes, and Jeremy got a surf and turf dish while I got a Dover sole served over a lobster hash (so. good.). The service was a bit slow with getting our entrees out, so we each got a free drink. This gesture was really nice and put the restaurant back in our good graces. Overall, it was a fantastic dining experience - a great place to go when you're celebrating something!

After dinner, we went on a carriage ride around the city. It was so peaceful and it was fun to see Indy while being pulled in a carriage. I felt like a princess!

We even had a nice treat to come back to at the hotel. The package that Jeremy booked came with champagne and chocolate covered strawberries! Yummy!

Sunday morning we went to a breakfast buffet at Osteria Pronto, one of the restaurants at the JW. They had bacon, so all was good. After breakfast, Jeremy and I took a walk along the canal. I have never been down to the canal (weird, I know) and it was so much prettier than I ever thought! It was so good to be able to walk and enjoy the fall weather. Overall, it was a fantastic weekend and for once, it actually went by slowly! We had such a good time celebrating our first year of marriage. I am excited to see what year two holds!

Jeremy: Hello everyone! I just wanted to say something about two more fun milestones that we've recently passed. First off, my car passed 280,000 a few weeks ago!

And more importantly, this blog passed 3,000 views sometime last week. So I just wanted to say thank you all so much for reading and we really hope you've enjoyed what we've been doing so far. My hopes for this blog were that it would be a good way to chronicle our work, give us a good tool to share what's going on with us and our work on the house, and to maybe inspire a few people out there with things that we're doing. Hopefully we're off to a good start in these areas.

Thanks again for all of your support, both now and as we look forward to the future!

Painting, Plastic, and Curtains

Another week and another few things done around the house. Nothing major, just a few little projects that have good effects without impacting our budget too much.

First off, we hung a new painting over the bed. We picked it up at Lowe's for a very reasonable price and think it adds a nice touch. Leslie asked me if I thought it was too girly, to which I replied, "It's fine. This is a bedroom. We already have six pillows on the bed that we don't use for sleeping so it's clearly not a man's bedroom already." Plus I do think it looks nice, flowers or not.

We also changed out the curtains in the den. We still like the other ones, and will hopefully reuse them in the rec room or something like that, but needed something thicker for here. The glare on the computer monitors was really bad and Leslie found these curtains at Target. They match the room well (again, flowers or not) and darken the room a lot more. And no more pesky glare means a higher K/D ratio for me.

I've also wanted to do this little project for awhile. One of the bad things about having animals is that you are constantly picking up poop. This means we keep a lot of plastic bags leftover from grocery shopping to put the poop in. Where's a good place to store these bags? Well, until this, the answer was the in one of the cabinets in the laundry room. We figured that space could be used for something a little better and I worked out where to put the plastic bags instead. I made a nice little bag storage system out of 4" PVC. This hangs in the garage and keeps the bags close enough to the litter box (which is in the laundry room, just inside from the garage) and will also be conveniently located once we get a dog so we can grab a bag on the way out when we go for walks.

I took about a 24" length of the cheapest 4" PVC I could find and attached an adapter to the bottom. I also got a test cap to place on top of the assembly just to help keep sawdust and bugs and whatnot from getting in. For complete instructions, check this project out on Instructables (my first one!).

And that wraps it up for us this week. Thanks for reading and we'll be back with you Tuesday!

Rings and Things

We are coming off of what was another busy weekend in the middle of a month of busy weekends. But we certainly aren't complaining, since (at least in this case) busy means fun. And we're all about fun.

On Friday night we drove back up to Fort Wayne (well, Huntington actually) for a surprise party. My cousin got engaged and he invited a bunch of us to come watch it happen and to celebrate with them afterwards. It was fun - we hid in a barn behind where he had everything set up and then peered out through the cracks in the siding to watch as he got down on one knee and put the ring on her finger. After the proposal we hung out around a bonfire eating cupcakes and s'mores. It was a great time and we loved to see them both so happy. The best part - his now fiancee loves cats, so instead of proposing like normal people, he got her a cat and put the ring on its collar. Now she gets a diamond and a cat! This makes for the third wedding we'll be going to next year. Gunna be an exciting wedding season!

We also had a pretty fun day on Sunday. One of the vendors that we use a lot at work had an appreciation day for my company. We went to their warehouse downtown for food, drinks, and fun before heading to the Colts' opener against the Raiders at Lucas Oil Stadium. It was lots of fun hanging out with some of our friends that I work with and seeing the Colts win, even if it was just barely. And hey, we certainly can't complain about going to a game for free. Plus this was Leslie's first time going to an NFL game, so definitely a good way to do it.

Frank has been settling in pretty well. Ellie still isn't sure what to think of him. Bernard wasn't nearly as playful as Frank is, so that seems to be confusing her a little. He'll run over and attack her and she runs away, even though she's three times his size. I think they'll get along nicely, even if it takes some time.

That's about it for now. We've been doing a few things around the house, but that's another post. Also, I have added the list of projects that Leslie posted awhile ago as a page (along with the "About Us" and "The House" pages). I'll be crossing things off the list as they are accomplished and linking to the posts where we talk about them. So check it out!

Thanks for reading and we'll see you Friday.

Culinary Adventures

We have lived in Indianapolis for awhile now, and in that time have been able to sample some of the great food here. Indianapolis has the usual chain restaurants, but there are also a ton of unique places that exist in our city. Jeremy and I love going out to eat, and in the past few weeks we've been able to visit two places that we've been dying to go to for a year!

Our first stop was to Rick's Cafe Boatyard. This restaurant is best enjoyed in warmer weather, as there is a huge deck that overlooks Eagle Creek reservoir. Jeremy and I were able to enjoy a beautiful sunset over the water as well as some delicious seafood! There were also a lot of sailboats out which was fun to watch. Our food was amazing, especially the crab cake Jeremy got with his meal. When we go back, we will definitely be getting more of those!

Our second food adventure was to BARcelona Tapas downtown. We went during Devour Downtown, when a ton of different restaurants offer a smaller menu (typically their most popular items) at a set price. Barcelona Tapas was a great place to go as we were able to get six different tapas (small plates that you share with the table) - two appetizers, three entrees, and one dessert. These plates were not large, but we were definitely full after! It was great to be able to savor the favor of these dishes and appreciate all the work that went in to making them! Our favorite was the Solomillo con Cabrales, a beef tenderloin with blue cheese in a red wine reduction.

We have a lot more places that we're hoping to try in the coming years - let's just hope we have enough room in our stomachs!

What a Weekend

We have had an extremely busy extended weekend. Actually, a doubly extended weekend.

Saturday we got to hang out with some of my family. Most of my dad's side was able to make it down to Fort Wayne for a Labor Day gathering and birthday celebration. There were a few who couldn't make it, but a lot of the family was there. We had a great time eating food, talking around a bonfire, and watching Purdue lose (hopefully things improve as the season continues). It was a great chance to catch up with everyone since we hadn't seen many of them for quite awhile and probably won't see them again until Thanksgiving or Christmas.

The Family Around a Bonfire

The Evening's Sunset

The Sunday of Labor Day weekend is the day for our annual Cedar Point trip! Our group grew from three to four this year since my cousin brought his girlfriend. It was tons of fun, as usual. We left Fort Wayne early Sunday morning and drove up to Sandusky. We spent all day at the park and managed to ride pretty much all the important rides. The weather started out pretty cloudy, and we even had rain for a little bit, but overall the day was sunny and hot - the typical Cedar Point experience. After a day full of roller coasters, arcade games, and basketball shootouts, we headed to a nearby hotel for a quick swim in the pool, then off to dinner. On Monday morning we headed back to Fort Wayne to see our families for a bit before heading off on our next adventure for the weekend.

New Entrance and Gatekeeper

Arcade Dominator

Waiting for the Wicked Twister

Gatekeeper Line

Ride 'em Cowboy!

Leslie and I, along with my cousin and his girlfriend, and seemingly everyone else in Indiana, went to the Mumford & Sons concert at Klipsch on Monday night. What a show! The band was incredible and definitely did not disappoint. I had been able to purchase tickets pretty early on, so we got seats in the pavilion, which was a lot nicer than being stuffed in with everyone else on the lawn. The weather was beautiful, which really added to the experience. They played all their popular songs and I don't think they left anything out that I would have liked to have heard. The show even got out in pretty good time and we were able to leave quickly and get home. After all this madness on Sunday and Monday we figured taking off Tuesday as well would be a good idea. And that would give us a chance to do a few more things...

Like pick out another member of the family! Obviously we will never really be able to replace Bernard, but we still wanted another kitten. It's been a few weeks and we figured now was as good a time as any. So we went back to Indy Humane and picked out a new little kitten. His name is Franklin, aka Frank, aka Frankie the Fuzz, and he is as energetic and curious as they come. As I write this he is running around, chasing his toys, and digging furiously in the litter box. Hopefully we'll have lots more to say about him in the coming months.

Now it's time to attempt to sleep enough to recover from all this fun... wish us luck!