granola

i think colorado is making me granola-y.  (or maybe the world is more granola-y and i'm catching the vibe at a point in my life where i happen to live in colorado.)  cases in point:

• i love craigslist not only because it allows me to be more frugal than buying all-new stuff at stores, but also because it keeps some older-but-still-useable stuff out of landfills.
• i'm not pregnant, but have already firmly decided that i will be using cloth diapers, and have contemplated how to let people know that it's okay with me for them to get (nice) second-hand stuff for my future baby showers.
• when our washing machine broke, we got a high efficiency model not only because of the sweet water rebate, but also because we liked the idea of using less water and less electricity to wash our clothes.
• i just spent the past hour researching local grass fed beef ranches, comparing quarter-share prices, looking up chest freezers on consumer reports (to hold the hundred pounds of beef) and debating whether i'd rather spend less on a slightly less energy efficient freezer, or slightly more on a freezer with an "excellent" energy efficiency rating.  then i realized that i might should start out with buying non-bulk grass fed beef that would fit in our current freezer to make sure we like it before dropping that kind of money on meat.  right-o.  i'm smart like that.
• i drive a subaru and own chacos.
• i think it's absurd that people don't recycle solely because it costs $4/month, and made scott take our old gutters to a recycling place rather than tossing them in the dumpster.  i thought they were aluminum, but apparently they weren't, so we only ended up getting about $15 for them ... oh well - still recycled, and still $15 we didn't have before.
• i saw an article on easy composting using a rubbermaid tote and got really excited.  then i realized that i think we already have a little composting area next to our house, behind our little storage shed, and got less excited because there are thistles and spiders back there and as such i have yet to brave it (two years after moving into our house).  but i think i'll have scott go back with me and help me clean it out later this spring, so that we can compost our yard waste and banana peels and whatnot at the very least.

lest you think i'm bragging about my green-ness, i'm not - i happily use paper plates and plastic utensils when we have groups of people over, i eat kraft mac n cheese with hot dogs on a regular basis, i bought the car i like rather than the one with the best gas mileage, and i willfully have trees in my yard chopped down without necessarily having an immediate plan to replace them.  i appreciate that the culture in colorado makes me think about how my actions and food choices impact the environment and my own future, though. 

i want sunshine

in honor of denver's second winter storm warning in a week (5-10 inch forecast this time), i am officially looking forward to summer!  we still haven't made any plans or reservations yet (but it is only march), but i am researching.  the three specific things that have me excited for warmth and sun:

1. my parents got me a subscription to outdoor photographer magazine*, and the april edition has a fabulous article about the national parks.  there are some beautiful pictures, and it reminded me of all the fun we had exploring our lovely state last summer (even though we didn't hit up any national parks).  and, it got me excited to play with my lovely new-to-me nikon d50 this summer.
2. today i was reading an article about the rockslide on i-70 up in the mountains, and it mentioned its proximity to the hanging lake exit, which reminded me that scott and i have wanted to go hike hanging lake for the last four and a half years, which reminded me that we want to get daypacks since both of us are still rocking the jansport college backpack, and then THAT reminded me that i need to figure out the daypack/dslr thing.  the daypack/dslr is slightly challenging only in that i want to have water and normal daypack stuff - layers, food - in my pack in addition to my dslr and maybe an extra lense, but a lot of packs i was initially seeing were these $200 monstrosities with spots for the huge pro-size camera bodies and like 5+ lenses, and that's just not my style.  so i've been shopping around online for packs, and i think i'm coming up with some good options, including getting a neoprene pouch for the camera and just putting that in a normal daypack.  anyway, back to why this gets me excited for summer - bike rides and hikes and camping will all be enjoyed much more with more appropriate gear ... plus i'll get to play with my lovely nikon d50!
3. daydreaming about where we'll go this year - i think i've mentioned before that we've talked about yellowstone, durango, and aspen among others.  i also want to go to the black canyon of the gunnison, and to the grand junction area, and and and ...  i think we've mostly nixed the long distance travel vacations for this year, which i'm fine with - i'm looking forward to road tripping around the region!

* - outdoor photographer also had a neat article in the march issue about shooting abstract bird pictures that looks like a lot of fun to play with.  (btw, parents, i got my first issue of op on my birthday, three days after i got your card mentioning it ... and then got my second issue a week later!)

roof

the house is looking SO GOOD!!!  we woke up saturday, went to look at the trim, liked it, and have liked it more and more the more we see it.  which is good, since we're not re-painting.  :)

turns out the roofers will likely be able to finish the job tonight yet - i am so excited.  (they may still have a bit to finish up in the morning, and the gutters are still going on wednesday.)  even by the time i got home from work tonight, the whole house looked SO different.  it's honestly like a brand new house.  i don't think i realized how dated i thought the house was until i saw it looking so sleek and updated.  yay!!  pictures will be forthcoming.  and, as a side note, now that it's 7:30pm and there's still occasional pounding, i think we might should bake the the neighbors some cookies as an apology for the noise ...

hmm

well, the trim doesn't have quite the zesty contrast that we were going for ... hmm.  in the parts where the trim is against the siding closer to eye level, it looks good, but the trim on the high trilevel peaks sort of blend in with the siding.  scott pointed out that the sun was setting when we got home, which could impact how the color looks, and that we really need to wait for the gutters and new roof to be on before we can really judge the full effect.  i'm a liiiittle bit disappointed thus far, but i'm trying to reign it in.  plus, as i pointed out to scott, we'll likely need to paint the siding at some point!  :)

high gear

• january 27 - we had a handyman out and he told us to call a roofer about the flashing.
• january 30 - we had steve the roofer out, he mentioned that we have hail damage and should call our homeowner's insurance to have an adjuster come out, and left us with sample shingle boards "just in case".
• february 11 - tedd the adjuster finally made it out (after a few delays due to snow storm), confirmed that we're eligible for full replacement, and wrote us a check to get started on the roof.
• february 25 - we had our friend nick the painter out to give us a bid on trim painting
• march 4 - steve the roofer came back out to answer my myriad of questions regarding the project, and gave us a ring of sample gutter colors.
• march 5 - i faxed in a signed acceptance of the roofing company's final estimate.
• march 6 - we finalized our color picks, e-mailed them off to steve the roofer to place the order, and took the old gutters off our house so that we can get the trim painted pre-roofing.
• march 7 - we gave nick the painter the trim color chips.
• march 10 - steve the roofer says that our materials are set to be delivered on the 12th and that they are on schedule to start early next week.
• march 12 - nick the painter is painting our trim to a lovely clay color as i write this!

and weather permitting ...

• march 15 - over two days, steve the roofer's crew will tear off the old roof, put on the new roof, and maybe replace a piece of water damaged soffit board or two if we ask nicely and pay them on the side.
• march 17 - daryl the gutter guy will install our lovely new galvalume gutters.

wow!  things have really kicked into high gear in the last week.  things went from "yes, we're getting a new roof at some point in the next month or so." to "our house will look completely different by the time we get home from work next wednesday."  very exciting!  i was feeling a little anxious about the process before the meeting with steve the roofer last thursday, but hearing the whole process laid out, and getting to sit down with scott on saturday and make the final color picks together, i'm just looking forward to seeing everything come together.  now i'd just like the get the second installment check back from insurance ...

sunshine!

we are having such a lovely sunshiney weekend!  we slept in this morning til 9 (ooh la la), finished picking our house colors, and went on a nice bike ride in the 55* sunshine for an hour or so.  so fun - i love lazy saturdays!  we also had leftover pizza for lunch, which i think is the 4th time this week that i've had pizza for a meal.  we had planned to hang out with friends tonight and bring over a pizza, which will make 5 meals.  i love pizza (truly, it's one of my favorite foods), but healthwise i think i might should take at least a week off of it.

last night was my birthday date, and it was super fun.  we had another 5280 dinner at the melting pot which was soooooo good.  i love fondue.  we had fondue once at geja's in chicago and loved it, and i have been wanting fondue again ever since (wow, just realized that our geja's date was six years ago).  i decided that if the melting pot participates in 5280 every year, i will happily make it my annual birthday dinner.  in keeping with our tradition of doing a cultural date activity for my birthday each year, we got tickets to guys and dolls at the littleton town hall arts center, conveniently located three blocks from the melting pot.  also very fun!  the theater is small, maybe six or seven rows deep, but they do seating in the round, sort of a semi-circle shape around the stage so there really aren't any bad seats in the house.  the musical was funny, engaging, and well acted.  had i known at the time that the melting pot extended their 5280 special through the whole month of march (it was supposed to end last night) i think we would have done dinner and the show on a saturday night rather than after work on a friday, but still, very fun birthday date night!

vacation planning

i keep trying to convince myself that vacation traveling isn't really a necessity, that i'd much rather do something pracical and useful with the money we'd spend on a vacation - like putting it toward student loans, or into a retirement account.  i'm not sure i have myself convinced, though, since i've researched five different vacations in the past week.

the vacation i had talked about surprising scott with was to san francisco.  (i told him about it this last weekend - i just can't make that level of decision by myself!)  i had great plans of renting bikes to ride over the golden gate bridge, taking the ferry to tour alcatraz, riding the cable cars, etc.  i couldn't commit to it, though, and plane ticket prices went up a bit, which made me waffle even more.  then last week i saw a 50% off special on rooftop seats for a cubs game, so i was looking into a springtime trip back to chicago - fun, right?  i've also researched cabin rentals in yellowstone for the late summer, going to a marriage conference (campus crusade's "a weekend to remember") in lake tahoe, seattle, and spring cabin rentals here in colorado to go snowshoeing.

i finally told scott this weekend that i don't really care what we do, i think i just want to have something on the calendar to go somewhere fun this summer, even if it's just back to the mountain cabin where we spent a lovely long weekend last year.  it's entirely possible that i was spoiled by the last two summers of amazing vacations - alaska two years ago, and our grand tour de colorado last summer.

weekend review

we made it to kinley's birthday party on saturday night - so fun!  our friends lori and aaron came up a bit earlier in the afternoon and hung out at our house with us for a bit to catch up before the party. maura's sister brook and her family were there, as were mike's mom and step-dad, so it was a small party, but still a good time.  we got to eat kinley's favorite foods, which consisted of macaroni and cheese, calzones, lil smokies in bbq sauce, and fresh fruits and veggies - very diverse, no?  it is amazing to watch 2-year olds open presents, by the way.  brook's oldest boy's bday is today so maura got him a few gifts to open while kinley opened her presents, and between the two toddlers, it was like a whirlwind of shredded paper and flying boxes and squeals of delight.  sadly the two cute outfits we got kinley were nowhere near as big a hit with her as the giant legos and babydoll outfits she got from grandparents - alas.  maura liked them, though, which counts for something!

also this weekend, i finally bought myself a food processor!  i've been debating the purchase for approximately 3 years, and had purchased a small 1-2 cup food chopper at wal-mart a while back in an attempt to convince myself i didn't need an expensive kitchen appliance, but hated it and thus never used it.  in reading reviews of food processors on consumer reports, though, i found that kitchen aid and cuisinart food processors are basically ranked the same - but bed bath and beyond has a $20 mail-in-rebate on their kitchen aid food processors!  so between a b3's 20% off coupon (which doesn't exclude kitchen aid - i was surprised!), a $24 in-store credit leftover from christmas, and the $20 mail in rebate, i got this normally $200 food processor for $115 + tax, which is 44% off.  awesome!  i haven't used it yet (although i should have last night - i had to chop two onions and a bunch of celery and cilantro for the pioneer woman's thai chicken soup), but i'm very excited.  homemade pesto here i come.

i've been fighting a cold for the past week, and apparently my body decided to add a stomach bug to that last night.  i made dinner, started feeling gross and took my temperature to find it at 96.15*.  what?  i then spent the rest of the night curled up on the sofa under three blankets, with a bottle of pepto by my side, a packet of saltines on my lap, and watching my gilmore girls season 3 dvd.  by the time i went to bed, my temperature was a normal (for me) 97.6*, but this morning as i was getting ready for work, it was up to 99.4*.  i took some tylenol and headed to work anyway, and so far i'm surviving the day.  i'm tired and my tummy still hurts, though, so i'm debating canceling tutoring for tonight ...