Happy New Year!

I've just finished cooking and devouring the last meal of 2011. Alderwood salmon with potlatch pilaf, sauteed spinach and rosemary roasted sweet potatoes. It was amazing, which is indicative of how wonderful 2011 has treated us.

We're saying goodbye to this year quietly. Just my husband and I, Casa Crustante, and a few bottles of Belgian beer:

Leffe brune, the one we drank with every meal while we were in Belgium, La Trappe Quad (my personal favorite), Delirium Tremens, La Fin du Monde, La Chouffe (the traditional style along with a holiday bottle), Duchesse de Bourgogne, Ommegang, and various friends.

I get pretty emotional anthropomorphizing our little house. Last year it sat here, all alone, gutted, holes in the walls, no insulation or electricity. And this year, we're living in it, and it has been such an amazing home to us that we hate to leave it for a single night. The simplest chores have become acts of love, little tokens of our affection for our tiny domicile. It makes us so happy. It is limited in space, sure, but it is completely full of love.

Happy New Year from those of us at Casa Crustante! Rest assured that we will raise a glass in your honor.

Merry Christmas!

It's a blissfully quiet night at our house. I'm trying to choke down some eggnog (I hate the stuff- but each year I attempt to drink it to try to be festive), and I'm basking in the joy of giving and receiving.


This year I've particularly have so much to be thankful for. A new car, a new house, my beautiful chickens and my productive garden. I have my family and my health- I've just been given the go-ahead to stop my medications. After several years of beta-blockers to treat hypertension, and surviving the resulting depression and fog-brain that those types of medication cause, I finally feel awake. Alive, even. Here's to hoping it stays that way!

*raises a glass of eggnog*

Happy Holidays and a very Merry Christmas!

Ch..ch..ch.. changes!

Chickens are almost all grown up! Kinda. We're at 6 weeks now, and we've got most of our feathers (photos are about a week old now). The boys went to a great new home on the 26th, which was a relief.. So much more space now for these little ladies!

The run isn't done yet. We're hoping that it'll happen this weekend, as we'll have an extra set of hands around. The ladies seem pretty happy with the setup, I haven't had a lot of fighting and they're pretty easy keepers, so I'll definitely be a bit sad to see them leave the house. It's comforting to hear their trills and chatter. Such expressive little creatures!

We survived Thanksgiving on our own. I baked my first full turkey. It turned out well, and we were able to devour all of the leftovers, miraculously. I'm amazed that my little tiny fridge could handle a full turkey dinner and the leftovers that resulted from it.

And in other news, I have embarked on a juice fast. I did visit the doctor beforehand to make sure I was healthy enough to do it. So far it has been a really positive experience. I'm on day 6, and so far I've learned that kale + lemons taste like burnt rubber, kiwis + sweet potatoes are surprisingly delicious, and that spinach + cucumber make an incredibly refreshing drink. It's a learning process, for sure.

Dachshund + Firepower

One of my favorite sites lately is Animals Being Dicks, a great compilation of animated gifs full of mischief from a variety of non-human species.

And this really takes the cake! Really glad nobody was hurt in it, that could have ended very badly!

Hope you survived Independence Day with the same number of limbs you started it with!

Happy Valentine's Day!

As a person who loves love but who gets incredibly spoiled on a day-to-day basis, I find Valentine's day to be nearly obsolete. But I can't help but feel a tinge of jealousy of those celebrating it... as I'll be spending it alone for the first time in twelve years.

It's an honor to be with the hubs. He is the sharpest person I've ever met, and I'm confused daily by why he has decided to spend his days with me. But the price of having someone brilliant is that other people need him too... and sometimes his brain is exactly what a difficult project needs. So if he is needed last minute in Taiwan, so be it.

He'll only be gone for 5 days hopefully- Tragic, truly. After all, that only leaves 316 days left in the year to shower each another with affection.

Holiday Cheer

So I'm in the mood to be a bit of a consumer and hunt down some holiday cheer. Earlier this year, I went on a bit of a rampage and tossed out everything and anything that wasn't absolutely necessary in our entry closet. That included all of our holiday decorations, including our fake tree. Now that it's after Thanksgiving and cheery little glittery lights are popping up everywhere, I'm feeling like our condo needs some festiveness as well and I'm seriously regretting my impulsive lack-of-space driven anger.

I guess it's a fresh start, then, huh? So where should I begin? I'm really loving the current trend of a smaller tree hoisted up by being placed in a wicker basket. It gives the tree extra height without taking more room in storage, and plus I could use the wicker basket to keep the other decorations stashed nicely away. And there's way more room for presents. Which is always a good thing. Plus, a shorter tree is typically less expensive... so not only do we save more room, but we have more money left over. Score!

I also would like to get a bit crafty. Take a look at this adorable tabletop tree:

More lovely crafts and instructions here.

At the above site she has instructions to make some incredible ornaments and gift boxes using the same style. Perhaps I should use this to decorate my tree? I'm so over breakable ornaments!

And check out this clever and amazing Kanzashi tree:

Details and how-to found here.

It's hard for me to wrap my head around the work that is necessary to create this. All those squares of fabric, folded, stitched, glued... I don't think I'd have the willpower to complete this. The person who made this had an etsy site at one point- I would be so tempted to buy one if she still sold them. They're gorgeous!

I'm always so impressed by the creativity of the people found on both sites... I wish I had planned for the holidays sooner! Perhaps if I get started on the Kanzashi tree now, it might be ready for 2012!

Happy (Early) Pawlidays

Look - My newly dark plum nails are making a cameo here!

We ventured to our friends' home this evening to drop our doglet off for the weekend. They had some holiday outfits for their kittens lying around (their cats* tolerate them, amazingly!).

...and so we decided to deck out Abby with some festive attire, too. She's about the same size as the kittens.
This is what happens when you say the T-R-E-A-T word:

And then things got silly. Swear to god, this hasn't been manipulated
.
I laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes. Such a ridiculous picture. It has been a lovely evening. I guess I should finish packing to Sacramento, eh?

*All cats shown here are considered "Good Cats." These types of cats are rare and hard to find. Do not assume that all other cats are forgiven for their heinous behavior and crimes against my furniture and sleep patterns

It's Halloween already??

Yeah, so we've been really out of it.

Turns out French restaurants have a much different standard keeping their food. Bacteria levels in their food tend to be much, much higher than in the US. And thus the husband became very sick, and we had to spend the majority of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday with various doctors and in the hospital. They hooked him up to three liters of IV he was so dehydrated.

France was a bit of a crappy experience all around. Pun intended. Thank goodness for beer and Belgium.

So once the Hubs stopped the process of dying and started recovering, I got the flu. And so instead of taking care of him I've been getting high off of theraflu and sleeping. And suddenly it's Saturday. I have a Halloween party to get ready for. This whole week was supposed to be dedicated to sewing my costume. And I need to make jello shots. And now I'm panicking.

Drinking earl grey with lavender. It is delicious. It's not even 8am. I'm going to march into a Halloween store, pick out the gaudiest, ugliest garb I can find. And then I'm going to make jello shots and all will be well.

See? Disaster adverted.

An Official Update? Nah...

I'm sorry I waited so long to really update this. Since my last post a lot has happened. Since the post before last, even more has happened.

There's really no pleasant way to say it, so here it goes. On November 26th, my dad decided to have a banana split, some cold duck, and some cranberry sauce. He ate these treats, went to sleep, never woke up. He was sick for a long, long time, and while it's a slight consolation that he's no longer suffering, it still tears me up to think about it. I miss him more and more each day as the realization sinks in that I won't see him again. He was almost lucid all the time towards the end... I'm glad we were able to talk as much as we did before he died.

On the bright side of life, my brother is getting married to a really wonderful girl named Sarah next year in July. My dad got to see the ring that my brother picked out for her, and he really enjoyed seeing it.

Val and I aren't wasting anytime on making wedding plans of our own. Since Saturday we've picked out the dress, picked out the date (May 16th, subject to change!), and have an idea for what we want our themes to be. I'm so excited... Val and I make a great team, I'm really really flattered he wants to make it permanent.

Happy 4th of July!

Hey everyone!

Just wanted to wish you guys a happy 4th!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Val and I shared a simple Thanksgiving alone this year. We cooked up 2lbs of turkey, along with stuffing, mashed potatoes, cornbread muffins, cranberry sauce, and green beans... all while watching James Bond! It was nice to spend the day together cooking up a feast and laughing our heads off at the cheesiness that is "The Spy Who Loved Me."

On Saturday the real festivities will begin- The Greatest Cook in the World (who just happens to be my mom) will be provided even more food for us to gorge ourselves on. Since I have to be back to work at 8:45 tomorrow, there's no way I could just go home for the day. It's kinda sad to be away from my family this time of year.

Anyway, tomorrow promises to be all kinds of interesting. Yay for Black Friday! Let's hope that people don't blame me for their financial inadequacies.

I have Christmas gifts all planned out for my side of the family. It's Val's family that has us temporarily stumped... Why does it have to be so hard to shop for your SO's family?