mice

pardon the interruption to my normally scheduled blogging; my life has contained much drama over the past few weeks, including things like friends visiting from out of town and mice in my pantry.

first the friends - we've actually had three sets of nu friends come through town over the past month, which has been so much fun!  first was chris and lesley, who graduated from nu a year after us, moved to wisconsin for her to go to grad school and him to work ... then up and moved to kenya for a year!  they just got back earlier this summer, and passed through denver with their moving truck on the way from the midwest to northern california, where they have lots of friends and family and she has a job.  we had a great time hearing about their time in kenya, seeing pictures, hearing what they're looking forward to in california ... just generally catching up for the four years it's been since we last saw them!

next was andrew and anne, a friend from nu and his new wife as of last labor day weekend.  they had originally planned to be moving from wisconsin to portland, oregon, but there are still some question marks surrounding andrew's job status there - but they'd already booked his mom a one-way ticket from denver back to illinois so that she could join them on the roadtrip through kansas and see her family with them.  since they knew they had to be in denver and didn't have any commitments until late july, they figured they may as well seize the opportunity to take a three week camping roadtrip around the national parks of colorado, utah, and arizona.  why not, right?  so we got to see them for a night between roadtrip with mom and camping adventure and had a lot of fun.  we went out for their wedding last fall, but hadn't really had any opportunity to get to know anne at all, so their stop with us was doubly fun in that we got to catch up with our old friend and also get to know his new wife who we thought was fabulous and perfect for him.

third nu friend of the summer was clair, one of my best friends from college (and my maid of honor), who was in town for a few days for a training seminar for her work.  i don't think i've seen her for more than maybe a day at a time at the occasional wedding over the past few years, and that was always in the midst of tons of friends coming together, so it was extra nice having her stay with us and getting more time to catch up.  we went out for pizza, took a long bike ride, ate ice cream, stayed up late talking, she told us all about her new boyfriend, and i tried to sell her on moving to colorado.  and, the night that she got to our house, i discovered a mouse in the pantry, which leads me to my next point:

we have mice in our pantry.  ick.  i had scott stop on his way home to get traps the first night i saw the mouse (last tuesday), and it took until thursday morning before we found him in the trap.  hooray!  we were mildly optimistic that he was the only mouse, since our kitchen's right next to the garage and we didn't think it was unreasonable that he might have hopped in from there when we left the door open at some point.  sadly, that night, we were in the kitchen talking, and scott saw another mouse scuttling under the stove - boo.  we went to home depot and got another 8 traps, which we placed throughout our pantry, next to the stove and behind the fridge, and in the crawl space under the kitchen, and got this thing that you plug in and it sends vibrations out through your house's wiring that is supposed to annoy mice that may be nesting between walls so that they want to leave.  no sign of mousey in the trap yet, and i saw him running into the pantry when we got home from hiking on saturday ... but last night, i bought a bunch of plastic bins, cleaned all of our non-canned goods out of the pantry, and didn't see anything that had been nibbled on other than an open bag of pine nuts (that was cleaned out!  the first mouse had found an open bag of chopped pecans that he had been going to town on) ... so i'm unsure what food they think they'll be eating from our house.  i'm hopeful that the mouse realizes that he's cleaned out his food sources and moved on, but i don't know how realistic that hope is.  any idea how long we need to wait to sound the all clear?

the boring list

haha!  i was just reading a column on msn listing out the top ten "boring" (reliable rather than flashy) vehicles on the road.  while i've expressed my deep-seated love for my forester, apparently it makes the list, with the following commentary:

If the rally-romping WRX is Subaru's wild child, the Forester is the nurturing big sister, always thinking of others and their well-being. Man, that's boring. And so is the Forester. While the redesigned model is clearly "better" than the old Forester in terms of performance and appointments, the former model's quirky, Subaru wagon vibe has been washed away, replaced by a generic crossover design. There's nothing bad to put your finger on, but not much of a pulse, either.

i'm pretty sure they're referring to the new 2010 forester as the generic crossover design and my '08 model as having the "quirky wagon vibe".  (for the record, i love the wally's styling, and think that the '10 models are pretty stunning.)  oh, and out of curiousity, just checked kelley blue book - if i were to sell wally right now private party, i should be able to make about $3,000 more than we paid for him!  (i'd probably have to get the non-functioning cd changer fixed, though.)  the article made me laugh because i can see the validity in their point, but i'll take boring and lovingly reliable any day.

while i (clearly) love cooking, i've never been a huge baker.  i think i made a cake once for scott, back in our first year of marriage - he was just reminiscing about it this weekend - but it was from a box.  i made bread and banana bread a few times, but it just made me cranky.  i knew there was potential for me to love baking, particularly for the fresh baked breads, but it just wasn't happening.  i think this is all about to change, though.

my parents got "us" (me) a stand mixer as an early anniversary gift, and i'm smitten.  i just used it for the first time this last weekend to make those homemade hamburger buns, and it was such a joyous experience - no more wresting with the hand mixer, muscling it through stiff doughs, splattering all over the kitchen, getting massive shoulder knots and snapping at scott ... just dump in the ingredients and let it merrily go to town!  (so really, the stand mixer is a gift to both of us - makes me a cheerful baker and therefore scott a happily un-snapped at husband, and he gets to enjoy the fruits of my labors.)

my next project for the stand mixer is sugar cookies and frosting.  i'm helping throw a baby shower for a girl from church this weekend, and volunteered to make gingerbread man-shaped sugar cookies that we'll decorate with frosting onesies.  the idea originally came from abba's bachelorette party 5+ years ago, when we decorated sugar cookies with icing lingerie.  i've since done it for maura's baby shower with frosting onesies, and for christmas parties with ornaments - very versatile and yummy craft!  in the past, i've always used tubes of premade sugar cookie dough and canisters of frosting because i couldn't bear the thought of trying to make it with my mixer, but this time i'm going all out with from-scratch sugar cookies AND frosting!  the results will hopefully be delicious.

in case you're reading this asking yourself, "um, didn't she just write a post about doing a no-dessert july?"  well, yes.  i think i'm going to have to rename the month "no-daily-desserts july", because going an entire month without eating sweets is super hard!  the other girl planning the baby shower with me is having a cake made - white cake with raspberry filling and whipped cream frosting.  i seriously don't think i can be in the room with that thing for the entire afternoon and not have any.  *sigh.  being conscious of what desserts i'm eating and when is probably a good habit to get into, at least ... and i can still shoot for a dessert-free last half of july, right?  (if you're now telling yourself that i have very little willpower, you're probably right.)

cooking kick

i think i'm on another cooking kick.  i can tell when one is coming on because i find myself spending inordinate amounts of time thinking about food ... and i know it's here when i actually cook a real dinner at home several nights in a row.  the products of this cooking spree have been particularly tasty, though.  meals we've enjoyed in the last week and a half:

• country ribs on the grill with corn on the cob and french bread
• fried rice made with leftover ribs and corn on the cob
• chicken fajitas made with leftover spicy honey chicken thighs
• homemade margherita pizza with garden fresh basil
• whole wheat pasta with broccoli and broiled chicken breast
• burgers on the grill with homemade hamburger buns and homemade salsa and guac for the 4th of july
• grilled rosemary lamb chops with basil, chive, and sundried tomato couscous

hmm, apparently me being on a cooking kick means scott grilling out.  (i think i've also been on a grilled meat kick!)

the homemade hamburger buns were super easy to make - it was my first expedition with the stand mixer my parents got me/us as an early anniversary gift a few weeks ago, and i love it already!  the buns were so fresh and tasty, although i will say that without the preservatives stores add, they start to dry out by the next day.  the recipe made 16 buns (next time i'll likely do a half recipe, unless we have a giant bbq at our house), so i sent a handful off with our friends andrew and anne, who were in town for the 4th before they set off on a grand three week camping expedition through the national parks of colorado, utah, and arizona.

the rosemary, basil, and chives were all from my little herb planter and so tasty!  in addition to those three, i planted cilantro and sage.  the cilantro has really struggled - a few of the stalks have died off, and the one remaining has really skinny, lacey leaves (rather than the broad cilantro leaves you think of) and has started to flower and seed, even though i tried to stay on top of chopping off flowers when they popped up.  according to wiki, the seeds are coriander - who knew!  oh, although this page suggests that's normal, and that cilantro just has a quick life cycle - also, who knew!  the sage is going strong, but i have yet to actually use any of it.  i need to figure out what sage goes in ... suggestions?

world cup scrooge

call me scrooge, but i don't think america should win the world cup.  (admittedly our chances aren't great, so it's kind of a moot point.)  i love living in and being from america, and when the game is on, yes i will cheer for our team.  but there are countries where people live and breath soccer year-round, and this isn't one of them.  realistically, thinking about major sports in america, soccer comes in what, fifth?  maybe?  canada may dominate us in hockey, but football, baseball, and basketball - those are OUR sports.  we cheer our usa soccer team on because we are a nation of winners and thus we want to win this world sporting event because that's awesome ... but not because we love the game of soccer.  let a country who cares about the game take the glory on this one.

relatedly, i decided today that part of the reason why we think soccer is a great sport for our kids to play is the same reason why we don't love watching the sport professionally: lack of structure.  when you're 5, it's the perfect game because you just get out there and run and kick the ball and it's all great.  to watch the game, though?  yikes.  yes, there are rules, but there are like five of them, and overall it's more about skill than play-by-play strategy.  no time limits, no special teams, no time outs, and at the end of the game, the ref adds time to the clock based on a formula known only to him!