Good Thing(s)†

This has been an epic post in the making because I’ve been storing up goodies for weeks upon weeks whilst whiling away time doing various other things (I’m such a dabbler; it’s really doing a number on my attention span issues!). Anyhoo, I finally got my lazy arse into gear enough to upload all my pics. 

Hang tight, kiddies. This is going to be a big post! If I am ambitious enough, I might come back up and make a TOC for your reading pleasure.

Goodies for Goodness’ Sake!
I’ve been easing back into creating new things for The Walrus, and my newest offerings are these fun blank notecards, redolent with the light, airy breezes of summertime. I hope these appeal to you who are fans (aww, you sweeties!) of my shoesies illos.

Good Times
Operation Make New Friends was really good last weekend! Sailing†† was a fun, relaxing time. I was surprised, because I was scared to bits about the prospect of actually getting into the boat and was tense for the first half of boat time (Monkey got to do the sailing stuff, and I was passengering, toes clenched, willing myself to stay inside the boat). I was scared when I took control of the rudder I’d make the sail luff and overturn the boat (it was cold and cloudy, and our boat owner/instructor was slightly curmudgeonly, and I really didn’t want to capsize his boat). Fortunately, the winds calmed a bit, and the sun came out in full force by the time I took on steering duty, and I had a fantastic time! It was so relaxing and enjoyable. Monkey and I both slightly burned our faces (we were fully covered up everywhere else, so we are tan heads on very pasty necks/bodies…nice!), but we were so content at the end of the day. Monkey’s now shopping for sailboats (we may be buying one from one of the club members), and we’re charting out weekends so we can sail almost every weekend!

Even better than sailing was the Dine-Out Columbia group. It was great! In particular, the hubby-wife team who set up the meetups were so much fun! We learned that they used to live in one of our neighboring burbs directly down the road (literally) from us in Chicagoland. And we used to hit a lot of the same spots for food and such. AND! Amy, the wife, is crafty and knitty and belongs to a few craft/knit nights here in Columbia (yay!). She and I met up this past Tuesday at the ceramics spot she’s been keeping studio in and then headed for lunch and a driving tour of spots around the city. Gnome playdate! Monkey and I were marveling how like dating it is (we both thought they liked us, and we really hoped that they liked us, because we liked them), so I am hoping for the best. But we’ve already had lots of fun (and I got to meet their 2 pugs, who are adorable). And Monkey and I are both really looking forward to taking ceramics classes this summer!!

In other (way overdue) good times news, Monkey and I had the distinct pleasure of meeting up with Rubber-Sol Leslie, her hubby Hank, and their gorgeous, joyful little people Alison and Henry. Way back at the beginning of April! We met up at the Botanic Garden while Monkey and I were packing up in Chicago and the Rubber-Sol clan were visiting friends and family in the midwest. It’s amazing to me that we’ve come to make friends from being part of the blogging world. Wonderful and fantastical and magic! It was a great time. And Leslie and Hank gave us the sweetest roadtrip gift bag full of yummy sustenance for our drive back down to SC: Comfort Cakes (yum!), Trader Joe Chocolates (yum!) and Chocolate-Dipped Cranberries (yum!). When we headed back for SC, our hearts and our tummies will full of warmth and yumminess.

And, the day after I had surgery, my beloved Lizzie flew into town to keep my spirits up, to hang out with Monkey and Casey and me, and to just be there. I love her to bits. I am totally campaigning for her to move here from Chicago too, but I am not too sure it will happen (but a gnome does miss her sister). Why don’t you help convince her she should move here?!

Good Tunes
A few weeks back, Daily Candy introduced me to Nouvelle Vague. I just love the light, sweet chanteuse takes on old school punk/80s standards.

I’ve also been racking up on some free tunes from willing participants (ie., legal free downloads). I’ve long been a fan of 3Hive, but also check out Jones Music and 6ize (which I found from iPodLounge).

Good Food
Pics and links to recipes when at all possible. Some recipes are from our heads, some are from offline books. If you want any, let me know! Monkey and I have become quite the cooking fools.

 Apricot Basil Chicken + Mache Salad + Rice. I saved loads of time by using the pesto Monkey made fresh the night before. Yum!

  Shake n Bake + Butter Lettuce/Bibb Lettuce Salad + Rice. Shake n Bake was a new adventure in time-saving for us. I don’t think we’ll be using it again.

 Ham & Goat Cheese Baked Orzo + Arugula Salad.

 Fresh Berry Crepes

 Grilled Haloumi Salad

 Mango Salsa

 Baked Maple Pork Chops + Crisp Potato & Bacon Casserole + Peas

 Mojo Chicken + Orzo, Pine Nut & Feta Salad

 Sweet Onion & Goat Cheese Tartlets

 Farfalle with Pesto & Smoked Sausage + Peas + Mache Salad

 Williams Junk Fried Rice + Thin Pork Chops

Good Gifts 
I’ve been so blessed to get so many wonderful snail mail treats and surprises from so many wonderful folks. Big props (way, way overdue) to all of you warm hearts! Thank you so very, very much!!

 I ADORE this gnome air freshener from Sweetpeas Jes. He is cute and sweet.

 Hope sent me this really cool book of Gnomes Games. It’s full of really great illustrations and lots of quirky games. I love it!

 JustJenn sent us these great ‘Gnome & Monkey’ personalized notecards and a fab-o mix of homey songs.

 Dream Life Studio Lorilyn crafted this fab ‘Gnome Home’ banner with lots of fun fabrics and bits and pieces. This banner is now gracing a wall in my craft room. It’s so sweet!

 Island Girl Amanda sent me this sweet ‘Home Sweet Gnome’ plaque (also on my craft wall right now) and a sheet of swanky foil gnome stickers. Hee!!

 Rubber-Sol Leslie and her fab gifting self sent me a thank you gift (!) for her cybershower gift. Fun notepad, stamped picture frame, and fancy little pen!

 Isn’t this a cutie card? Yvestown Yvonne sent us warm new home wishes in it! 

 We got this really warming gift of schmancy soaps and yummy teas from one of my oldest friends (I mean, we go way back…she’s 2 months younger than me, and I’d like to think I’m not considered old just yet), Amy F. We go back to 3rd grade, y’all. I remembered sitting around in reading circle and me remarking in my head what a cute little outfit Amy had on (she was a bit Esprit girl when we were younguns). It’s a wonder of quirky fate that we lost touch after college and got back in touch when her older bro started work at my first corporate giant spot out of school.

 Darling FoodieChickie Ani sent us this batch of goodness, and it arrived the afternoon after we got back from surgery. It was really belly-warming to get such an uncannily-timed package in the mail! 

 A week or so ago, I was stunned by the size (check out its scale on that parson’s chair. big, huh?!) of a box that arrived in the mail for me. My darlingest Special K sent me a swanky Red Envelope package of aromatherapy candles (they smell heavenly) to cheer me a bit with all the bad stuff that was going down with my road to spawning little monkey-gnomes.

 Lizzie surprised me with this cute pair of flippies in the mail the other day. Just because. Sweet!

 Lizzie gave Monkey and me these gifts to get us off on the right foot back before we headed back for SC in April. At this point in time, we were still pregnant and unaware of all the unpleasant things that would come of the pregnancy. Anyhoo, there’s a fabulous scrapbook with pics of our old house and our new apartment, and we’re to keep our new adventures in this book. =) Lizzie also gave me the cutest monkey socks around + great goodies from Origins (Perfect World cream for preventing stretch marks–it smells like heaven and is wondrously luxurious; Get Down clay cleanser for keeping my skin clear in the hot, muggy southern climate). My absolute favorite thing, though, was the incredible little storybook/happy blessings card she’d created for Monkey and me. I HEART this like nothing else.

Good Causes 
I learned of this also from Daily Candy this week: a good place to buy your gifts for friends and family while still giving back to good causes. Shopping + good causes, nice!

Good News 
Happy news from our friends Carrie and Marty! They are finally parents to one very healthy little fella. Liam James was born on Wednesday and tipped the scales at a little over 10 pounds. I can’t wait till we come back to Chicago to meet him in person!

In other mommy news, my very special Special K, JustJenn, and Shokufeh are all expecting little ones late this fall. Special K really knew how to cheer me up even while I was in the valleys of post-miscarriage days–she called me up to regale me with this story, complete with gorey details. She always makes me laugh, no matter what is going down. And that is a supreme gift.

I also learned that our Murano made some good lists for total quality. Yay! I must vouch for my trusty Murano. I love it! I think it will someday make a great little-person-toter (Casey loves riding around in it too). Off-topic, but basically our little people for now: check out Brutus and Casey on Dogster! Are you on Dogster too? Drop me a note and our poochies can be friends. Awww!

Welp, I hope the wait was worth it. And I hope you have a fabulous Memorial Day weekend. Take good care of you!
 

†For years, the phrase ‘good things’ has almost always been tied to Martha. But I think it’s nicer to link it to the FYC. Because of the 80s fiend thing and such. Good thing.

†† AnneMarie, you’re totally right; we are definitely landlocked. But there are huge-arse lakes that are super for sailing!!

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randoms…

Last weekend, Monkey bought this DVD for me because it really excited me(if you would like to buy yourself one, we found our copy at Circuit City). Because I am such a huge 80s fiend¹. I was terribly jazzed² at the prospect of a big collection of videos from my formative years, and Monkey claims to not be as big a fan of the 80s (because he was all cool-teenager-punker by the time I got into music as a 9-year-old with her first taste of MTV…old fart!). But the thing is full of “live” performances of the bands lip-synching and dancing wildly or standing around coolly (in that 80s kind of way). Mildly disappointing, but great tunes (because, let’s face it…some of these bands were fun to look at, but to listen to live, perhaps not so much). Anyway, to get us in the mood to go out tonight, Monkey popped this DVD on. Great tunes.

The funny thing is, I loved Depeche Mode (still quite enjoy them), but Monkey has never liked them³. He actually got physically agitated when their clip came on (great song) and tried to fight his shaking foot, but alas two notes into the song, he had to skip forward to the next track. He dislikes them that much! He find them “painful to watch.” He then skipped around a bit and actually got up and danced around (including the Skinhead Moonstomp) with Madness and The Specials (Casey has joined in; she’s such a sport). And me, the 80s fan, I’m just sitting here, sedately typing away…Oh, but he just put on Duran Duran’s “Wild Boys!!” I so wanted to be Mrs. John Taylor. Even if he was 15 years (or so) older and I was merely 10. He was (still is) just so pretty.

In other 80s news, I saw an ad on NBC last night that this show will be coming in 2 weeks. Exploitive and sad, but I think I’m already sold. I’m totally going to watch. (I loved Bands Reunited on VH1 and want more of that, too.)

Finally, Island Girl sent me on a most fantastic blast from the past with this post. I hope (if you’re an 80s fiend too) that you enjoy it too.

operation make-new-friends

In other real-world news, Monkey and I are now on the fast-track to trying to make new friends (and keeping the old…one is silver and the other gold, no?), because we don’t really have any in this new city of ours, save a few of our complex neighbors and Monkey’s coworkers. As many of you in Blogworld have more eloquently put it, it’s really hard making new friends when you’re a grown-up. But try, we will. Tomorrow is a big day, as we’re going to take sailing classes (that’s more because Monkey’s always wanted to take sailing classes, but whatever), and then tomorrow night we’re trying the Dine-Out Columbia group. 

Wish us luck!!

Hope you all have an extraordinary weekend. Take good care!

¹I had an 80s AM -radio show the last 2 years of college…it was way more popular than my college show, Nocturne, my first 2 years at the FM station, and you could only get the AM-radio 80s show if you lived on campus and actually plugged your radio into the campus electrical outlets {carrier current technology}.

²Thanks to Kathleen for this really cool phrase that has come in most handily in my head lately.

³Apparently, he came across the DM dudes in a bar in London. They were acting like absolute wankers and he thought that was uncool, esp. since they were much more popular in the States than they were in the UK.

illustration friday

It’s been forever since I’ve participated in Illo Friday, and I had the itch to draw something, so here it is…in the spirit of my new cooking kick, I think of feeding family and friends when I hear the word nourishment.

 

I’ll be working my way back to you, babe…

It has been forever since I’ve posted! Thanks for all the nice comments and thoughts!!Things have just been busy (Walrus, movers brought the rest of our boxes last week, I still can’t find my sewing machine or several of my craft supplies in storage, etc…)…I’ve been finding many ways to keep my mind on other things. And I’ve been reticent to post because I have a ton of pics to post, but my arse has been entirely too lazy to upload them and such…I think tomorrow perhaps will be the day the pics finally make an appearance. :}

Anyhoot, I played Housewife to the hilt today and made dinner for the first time for a boss. Monkey’s boss, since I’m unemployed currently. That’s pretty Carol Brady (except Alice did the cooking, and did Mike have a boss ever show up in the Brady house for a meal?), no? I’ve been honing my cooking skills quite a lot lately. It might be a residual thing from being pregnant (where all day long I thought about food, even when I was queasy as hell…I was watching Food Network all hours of the day and am still hooked), but I’ve been trying all sorts of recipes out lately. It’s been great! Today’s meal {cooked along to this}:

Linguine with Caper and Green Olive Sauce ~ from Real Simple (if you need to enter a code to get in, it’s ‘clean’). It turned out really well. Nice mix of different flavors and textures and colors. Yum!

Spring Mix Salad with Pear and Feta ~ My favorite way to make a nice salad is to buy a base bag salad (spring green mix is a fave) and then add the toppings I like for extra vavavoom. I added chopped bosc pears and crumbled garlic and herb feta cheese. Tossed it all together with Monkey’s balsamic/dijon vinaigrette. Yum!

Choco Berry Parfait ~ This is a variation on one of my favorite quick-make desserts I’d first concocted a few years back. I lay a base of Belgian cream puffs, slapped on a scoop of chocolate ice cream, popped in sliced strawberries, layered a plop of Cool Whip, and then pressed in a Fudge & Walnut brownie bite (from the Kroger bakery) into the middle of the Cool Whip layer and then topped that with a teensy dollop of Cool Whip and more sliced strawberries, which then get a sprinking of sugar. Lots of different textures and temperatures and flavors. So yum!

I bought a loaf of garlic bread from the Kroger bakery to bake at home. It was way buttery and not so tasty. See how unappealing it looks in that picture? Yeah. It was a case of time-saver (kind of) not worth the effort. If I’d just bought a baguette and made my own garlic bread spread, as my mom taught me back when I was a wee middle schooler, I think the bread would’ve been way better. Lesson learned! Also, the pasta really does look scrummier (with all the yummy bits of olives and capers and parsley) in person. I ate halfway through my portion before I remembered to snap a pic. =}

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Happy Birthday to One Fabulous Becky!

Becky, happy happy day, darling! I hope this day has been spectacular and a wonderful start to a kickass year and a wonderful decade too! You’re awesome!

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I promise to be back with more fun stuff (good lordy, do I have a huge storehouse of goodies to share) much sooner and more often than I had been over the last couple of weeks. Happy May!

peep!

Just a small peep to let you all know I made it through surgery with nary a hitch! Thank you all for your wonderfully warming thoughts and emails (and for so many of you who shared your own experiences and stories). I’ve been not spending too much time at the computer for long periods over the last few days, but I will be working on a proper post soon. Promise! Thank you again for sending along your good vibes, prayers, and warm wishes. They surely helped me recover well after surgery (I awoke a couple hours sooner in recovery than they’d anticipated and I’m feeling physically better than I had in months).

Thank you!!