Curtains, cookies and chaos

Okay, I've been MIA.

First, Jenny came to visit Wednesday-Thursday. We went to Founders for dinner and ordered what turned out to be an absurd amount of food. Before that we had done a lot of shopping.

I'm looking for window treatments for the guest bedroom. Since that room is not even halfway finished, I decided to buy new curtains for the home office/guest bedroom.

I bought new curtain rods, which I know I like. I bought a curtain panel to bring home to see how well it matched since I was no longer looking for window treatments for the room in which I was originally planning on buying them for. I wasn't prepared to change the home office/guest room curtains, so I didn't have any idea of what color I would need for that room. Jenny and I guessed and it turned out to be a bad guess.

I returned the wrong-color panel today. No harm no foul. While I was out today, I stopped by another store and found curtains that would be great for our bedroom.

Wait a sec. Would the curtains in our room look good in the home office/guest room?

They sure would! This means new curtains for our room.

I bought the one panel that was at the store that will now go in our room. When I got it home I hung it to see how much I liked it. I had already liked it a lot in the package, and I liked it even more hanging in our room.

However, the store only had the one panel so I quickly got online and bought three more. I'll have new window treatments [hopefully] by the end of next week. And the home office will have "new" curtains too. Eventually the guest bedroom will have new window treatments but first it needs windows, a fresh paint job, a finished floor, a scraped and painted ceiling, and the furniture moved back before I think about window treatments. However, Jenny did help me figure out exactly what kind of window treatments I want (not curtains although as I've typed all of this why would I have different window treatments in one room when the other two have curtains… I have time to think about that one), so I can at least work on getting them ready for the eventual finished product.

Tonight, we went out for our friend's birthday. We went to the Winchester. We had a very good time.

Tomorrow, we're going to a CMU game.

Today, I baked cookies to take with us tomorrow.

We also helped a friend, who had foot surgery, put air in her tires and take out her recycling.

I had an eye doctor appointment.

So you can see, I haven't had much time to blog and I certainly haven't had time to work on the guest bedroom. I'll have time next week… or at least I'll keep telling myself that.

Just the facts

It turns out I'm Irish! Irish on both sides of the family. I was pretty certain there was Irish on the maternal side. My paternal aunts are red heads, I don't know how I didn't put two and two together sooner.

My guess on the fraction is also pretty close. It's something like my great, great grandfather on mom's side and my great, great, great grandfather on dad's side. So 1/128 sounds about right. Don't worry, my mom told me that she has all of this written down. Whew. I'm really not good at genealogy.

It also lends more weight/credence to my liking for warm beer (it has to be stout, I can tolerate a porter as long as it's not cold), meat & potatoes, and my temper. I've always blamed my strong German roots. Now I can blame the wee bit o' Irish and it's legit.

I'm still looking for Italian roots. Maybe that was in a former life.

In the meantime, check out dinner from Saturday night.

 Don't worry, last night we celebrated by eating the traditional Mexican Skillet. Oh, wait. That's not tradition for St. Patrick's Day...

Saturday also included my first official trip of the season to Jersey Junction. Yum! This means warmer weather is headed our way. And I promised Bill that we don't have to go back until Memorial Day.

Today I'm thankful that I'm feeling better. I have no idea whether it was the cabbage, corned beef, beers, ice cream, all the food I ate in Chicago, taking my vitamin on a less than full stomach, or what but it has passed and I am happy for that.

going the distance

A few Saturdays ago we "raced" a .1k to help raise money for Duchennes Muscular Dystrophy. Our dear family friends', the Friar's, have two sons, both of whom have this. We participated last year and had a great time. We get to run down the best bar street in the city, and then celebrate by having a beer, or two.

This year, we were ready. We had a team, Team Bald Ego. When I set up the page, it asked me for a goal for our team. Each team member registers for $25 which counts toward the goal. I set the goal for $500 thinking if we asked our parents and friends who live further away we might be able to reach it. We ended up with eleven team members (twelve if you count our goddaughter)!

Not only did our team numbers blow me away, but so did our fundraising. We ended up raising $725!!! I can't thank our friends and family enough. I'm sure you can still donate, click this link to go directly to our team page. Or wait until next year. We've been challenged to raise more money and have a bigger team. (Overall the event raised over $35,000!) Chandra and Jason accidentally recorded Fox 17 news and there we were! Unfortunately, I cannot find that footage online. You can read more about the event, watch a video and look at pictures here. 

I have to say it was fun last year, but this year was a blast! Our team was raring to go. Bill threw down the gauntlet and started talking smack about beating me. Jen, one of our team members, jumped on board and the next thing I knew the three of us were at the front of the pack. The rest of our team held back. They just wanted to make it to the finish line. They had no idea there was going to be an actual race.

Neither did I.

I must say, Bill is pretty fast. He also threw an elbow keeping me from getting a good start. Not that it would have helped me. He was halfway up the street before I even had time to blink. I realized I had lost Jen, so I turned around to find her and she was as far behind me as I was behind Bill. I let her catch up to me and we continued to the finish line.

Bill was easily in the top ten finishers.

As the rest of our team crossed, we cheered for them. Then I realized Heather was crying. She was so overcome with the seriousness of it all, and the hilarity, that she was laugh-crying. That was my favorite moment. We take our .1k serious. And then we laugh about it.

Next year we have to come up with a group costume. This year there was a team of four guys and one girl. The men were dressed in hunting camo and the girl was a deer. They carried her through the entire race, and I'm sure she felt more like a hunted deer as they all pulled her in different directions.

Perhaps next year Bill can control his racing urges and we can stick together as a team. Especially if we have a costume.

We really do have to make it better next year. We were the second largest team there! Plan on joining us or at least donating in 2014. Team Bald Ego will fly again!

focaccia & eggs

I had my favorite breakfast this morning; poached eggs over toast. Except I used focaccia bread. I made it last week and it's amazing. It's so delicious and so easy. If you like bread but don't want a complicated recipe, try making focaccia.

The recipe I followed used two packets of active dry yeast.

I think the trick to getting bread/yeast to rise is to not just use warm water but to heat the water and use a thermometer to get it between 120 and 130 degrees F.

It also makes a difference as to how warm your house or kitchen is. If it's too cold or too humid, you may have a problem with your dough rising. If that's the case, I'll preheat the oven to 250 while I prepare the dough. Then, once the dough is ready and the oven has preheated, I turn the oven off and let the dough rise nearby. The heat activates the yeast and it will rise nicely (sometimes too quickly, so keep an eye on it).

I did find this recipe as an advertisement in the Gourmet magazine back when I was given a year subscription. Here it is, in case you wanted to try it.

I also had some of the best pizza I've had since we were in Naples five years ago. If you're local, check out Harmony Brewery. They're on Lake Drive just past that crazy Wealthy intersection with the Subway and CVS. Their beer is amazing but seriously, their pizza is great.

They're not paying me to say this, but I know one of the owners (and I've mentioned it before). We took our friend Heather W. there on St. Patrick's Day. We had the breadsticks. I'm so sad that we didn't try the pizza that night. It's the best pizza. Seriously, you gotta try it. And if you come into town to visit, ask. We'll take you there.

free beer and hot wings

If you live in Grand Rapids, or anywhere in the U.S., there is a morning show on the radio called "Free Beer and Hot Wings". I actually don't listen to it. But that's because I don't really listen to the radio. Or the station that it's on. But I think it's syndicated, so pretty much most everyone has probably heard of it (I think).

The title just made me laugh out loud. Not because I find the morning show funny (again, don't listen to it). But because we had our free wings (well I ordered the wings) the other night.

I just sent an email to the other Commissioner who just opened his brew pub, Harmony (remember? I mentioned that too). He missed the first meeting February because that was his opening night. He mentioned there might be some free beer for us Commissioners as an apology. I mean, we can miss meetings, so he doesn't really need to apologize. But free beer sounds good.

Hence the Free Beer and Hot Wings.

We had the hot wings now we're trying to make a date for the free beer.

It was funny to me.

See? I told you I'd have something better to blog about today!

Okay maybe not.

Are you still reading?

I'm finished now.

Wait.

Bueller.

Bueller.

Okay, now I'm done.

(Did you get it?)

before the grand opening

The new BW3 is opening in downtown Grand Rapids on Friday. I was fortunate enough to receive a V.I.P. invitation through various connections in the HPC. One of the other Commissioners and I decided we would go check it out. Bill had a meeting at the B.O.B. so he would join us after our HPC meeting.

Everyone did a nice job and seemed to know what they were doing. My (boneless) wings were delicious. We got appetizers too; fried pickles (good, but not as good as the Corner Bar in Rockford) and the "southwest bites". Those were yummy.

The best part? It was all free.

Beers were $1. I think there were some other alcohol related beverages that cost money, but all that food was free.

We will likely never eat there again. I love the boneless wings, but there are too many other (locally) owned restaurants in GR that we would chose over BW's.

For instance another Commissioner has just opened a brew pub with his siblings. We need to get over there and check that out. "Harmony" is the name (in case you're a local and want to check it out, it's on Lake Dr. over in Easttown). Right now they're only serving pizza and beers. They will have more beers on tap as the days go by (and the beers get brewed).

GR is known, as is all of Michigan, for the micro-brewery and brew pubs. That's a good thing. It means lots of choices.