Last Saturday we had friends over for dinner. We love to entertain. It is one of the things I have always loved about my husband, no.. wait! I love that he likes to entertain as much as I do and he is not the type of man who sits on his ass and expects everything to get done without his help (cleaning, cooking, serving, etc.).
I've watched some of my female family members (the older generations) work themselves to the bone when having parties. Exhausted over cooking and cleaning while their husbands sit around like guests expecting to be waited hand and foot. I don't know how many times I've wanted to smack some of these older gents on the head and tell them to get their asses moving!
This very nightmare was a big problem for me dating. Once they (the exes) got wind of my "traditional Latino upbringing" they thought they had it made and could just kick back and let me handle it all! NO CREO YO! (I don't think so!)
The first dinner party my husband (boyfriend then) and I ever gave he was right there with me cleaning, shopping at the grocery store, cooking, and taking turns with me working the kitchen while the other sat down and engaged with our friends. It was the type of entertaining I had always wanted to have at my place (with a mate). That was a big sign for me that he could be long term material...He has not only participated that first time, but every single time after thru our dating, moving in together and now marriage! It makes entertaining pleasant occasion rather than a chore! (One of the many reasons I married him!)
Anyways, dinner was nice! I dug up an old recipe (a chicken, bell pepper, prosciutto and capers dish) that I had never cooked in the years my husband and I have been together! It all turned out great and our guests were wonderful company. We will definitely be having more small gatherings as opposed to larger parties. Less preparation, more of a chance to practice my cooking skills with more elaborate dishes and definitely less clean up afterward!
Hope your weekend was perfect!
Wedding Photos
Monday, March 26, 2012
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Organizing the clutter of our hobbies
In our household art supplies are abundant. My husband paints miniatures for gaming (check out his blog) and I try different things for a while, until the next interest comes along. Between my husband and I we have more art supplies than the average preschool. Because of our different interests, we hoard a variety of empty containers, wires, bits and pieces of you name it, "just in case". Can you say pack rat??
My latest hobby has been fun; I've been beading for a bout a year. I mostly make jewelry for gifts, and can honestly say I have only kept few pieces for myself.
My mother (a true merchant) keeps trying to encourage me to sell my jewelery, but I bead for fun; HAVING TO make jewelry for profit would become a chore and no longer fun. I don't think I could do it anyway, I have a short attention span and usually end up putting things away for a month or two (or more) and come back to them when I have nothing better to entertain me.
I did just that with hand-painting flower pots. My husband is my witness that I haven't painted anything in over a year (may be more -- no concept of time) and I still owe him a pot for "Robert," an ivy he's had since before we met!
This year I have told myself we need to purge our home of some of the clutter. We need to stop accumulating and start disposing of things. I hate to say it, but I am the adult when it comes to these types of chores. It has been difficult taking on this role in our marriage! All my adult life I did as I saw was needed and the only obstacle was my procrastination. Now I have to negotiate with my husband and be patient of his explanations of why we must hold on to something. I've resorted to the logical argument of not being his parent and not wanting to be the "police" in our home, but it's very hard when your first impulse is to save things.
There has been one wonderful thing that has helped keep order in the house and the pack rat tendencies at bay. Since we moved out of our apartment in to an actual house we have a weekly recycling service and a huge bin that gets picked up like the trash does in our neighborhood. It is much easier to rid of things once we can agree we have too many "just in case" items. Our old apartment didn't have recycling on site and it was a pain in the ass to recycle since we had to drive out our recyclables to the nearest drop off site. If we saved something, getting rid of it was nearly impossible!
Anyways, I foresee the need of more de-cluttering and storage solutions. My mom and siblings gifted me a brand new sewing machine that I haven't even gotten out of the box. I am afraid once it's out it will reside on our kitchen table (our craft area) for weeks at a time. I've already been looking for material to sew aprons for Mother's Day gifts and I know once I get started the project will take up much of the nonexistent free time I have during the week (most of it is spent commuting to and from work).
Even with our decent sized "catch-all room" (office/honey's gaming storage/drum room), there is no space for my sewing machine in there. We seriously need to work on moving some of those things into the garage, but that would entail cleaning it out and going thru all the boxes we have yet to touch since our move a couple of years ago.
We are in desperate need of motivation or an adult to come and force us to get the job done!
My latest hobby has been fun; I've been beading for a bout a year. I mostly make jewelry for gifts, and can honestly say I have only kept few pieces for myself.
My mother (a true merchant) keeps trying to encourage me to sell my jewelery, but I bead for fun; HAVING TO make jewelry for profit would become a chore and no longer fun. I don't think I could do it anyway, I have a short attention span and usually end up putting things away for a month or two (or more) and come back to them when I have nothing better to entertain me.
I did just that with hand-painting flower pots. My husband is my witness that I haven't painted anything in over a year (may be more -- no concept of time) and I still owe him a pot for "Robert," an ivy he's had since before we met!
This year I have told myself we need to purge our home of some of the clutter. We need to stop accumulating and start disposing of things. I hate to say it, but I am the adult when it comes to these types of chores. It has been difficult taking on this role in our marriage! All my adult life I did as I saw was needed and the only obstacle was my procrastination. Now I have to negotiate with my husband and be patient of his explanations of why we must hold on to something. I've resorted to the logical argument of not being his parent and not wanting to be the "police" in our home, but it's very hard when your first impulse is to save things.
There has been one wonderful thing that has helped keep order in the house and the pack rat tendencies at bay. Since we moved out of our apartment in to an actual house we have a weekly recycling service and a huge bin that gets picked up like the trash does in our neighborhood. It is much easier to rid of things once we can agree we have too many "just in case" items. Our old apartment didn't have recycling on site and it was a pain in the ass to recycle since we had to drive out our recyclables to the nearest drop off site. If we saved something, getting rid of it was nearly impossible!
Anyways, I foresee the need of more de-cluttering and storage solutions. My mom and siblings gifted me a brand new sewing machine that I haven't even gotten out of the box. I am afraid once it's out it will reside on our kitchen table (our craft area) for weeks at a time. I've already been looking for material to sew aprons for Mother's Day gifts and I know once I get started the project will take up much of the nonexistent free time I have during the week (most of it is spent commuting to and from work).
Even with our decent sized "catch-all room" (office/honey's gaming storage/drum room), there is no space for my sewing machine in there. We seriously need to work on moving some of those things into the garage, but that would entail cleaning it out and going thru all the boxes we have yet to touch since our move a couple of years ago.
We are in desperate need of motivation or an adult to come and force us to get the job done!
Friday, March 16, 2012
Kitchen conversation & St Patrick's Day
Tomorrow is St. Patrick's day and last night my husband and I were busy in the kitchen preparing goodies for him to take to his office party this afternoon; nothing to do with the Irish holiday, just an excuse for them to munch out. I am very jealous because at my office there was no celebration of the upcoming holiday!!
What were our contributions to the party you say? Well, not Irish at all (our goodies) my husband made his famous salsa and at his request I baked some yummy cornbread muffins. Not wanting to hear that someone pinched the little muffins I added some green to them in the form of chopped jalapeno ( to the batter).
As for our kitchen conversation, well.. I asked why he volunteered to take cornbread muffins! Was someone taking a dish in which cornbread would be appropriate? He really couldn't remember what the sign-up sheet said, but I have a feeling it was an excuse to ask me to bake the muffins and enjoy them unsupervised (out of my sight).
The rest of our conversation while we cleaned up the kitchen stirred to me mentioning to my honey how much I had been enjoying the CD of Adele he gave me (which I asked) for Valentine's Day all the way up to the point where I noticed what big lungs the woman has. No off colored remarks please, what I meant is that the woman can suck up some air in between phrases! I had not noticed until after a few days of my blasting the music and singing along in my car. I began to inhale in the same places as she does and just as hard!! I thought I was going to hyperventilate on my daily commute!!
I still like her (Adele) but I would love to write her some fan mail to say "Thank you for enunciating (my choir teacher would be impressed), but would you please work on your breathing!!"
Happy St. Patrick's Day.
What were our contributions to the party you say? Well, not Irish at all (our goodies) my husband made his famous salsa and at his request I baked some yummy cornbread muffins. Not wanting to hear that someone pinched the little muffins I added some green to them in the form of chopped jalapeno ( to the batter).
As for our kitchen conversation, well.. I asked why he volunteered to take cornbread muffins! Was someone taking a dish in which cornbread would be appropriate? He really couldn't remember what the sign-up sheet said, but I have a feeling it was an excuse to ask me to bake the muffins and enjoy them unsupervised (out of my sight).
The rest of our conversation while we cleaned up the kitchen stirred to me mentioning to my honey how much I had been enjoying the CD of Adele he gave me (which I asked) for Valentine's Day all the way up to the point where I noticed what big lungs the woman has. No off colored remarks please, what I meant is that the woman can suck up some air in between phrases! I had not noticed until after a few days of my blasting the music and singing along in my car. I began to inhale in the same places as she does and just as hard!! I thought I was going to hyperventilate on my daily commute!!
I still like her (Adele) but I would love to write her some fan mail to say "Thank you for enunciating (my choir teacher would be impressed), but would you please work on your breathing!!"
Happy St. Patrick's Day.
Monday, March 12, 2012
A quiet weekend at home..
We've had a few busy weekends this past month. We drove south to visit grandma, drove east to attend our niece's first birthday and hosted a family dinner in honor of my sweet aunt Mary visiting from Chicago. Between the traveling, cleaning and the regular chores to prepare for the work week the days have passed at the blink of an eye. It is wonderful to have some time to just sit back and recharge.
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| This is "Mongo". He gets pruned a couple of times a year. |
We were up early this Saturday morning; gosh I think back of a time when I would sleep in until almost noon on a non-work day. These days even if there is nothing going on we are up and going before 8 a.m. on weekends. Waking up early makes me feel old!
Anyway, on a slow weekend I actually have the time and the attention span to tend to our plants. We have one huge ivy that grows like crazy and keep having to trim. My honey usually moves it around for me since it gets big and heavy and he has named it Mongo. I've mentioned before that we have low maintenance plants, mostly ivy but my pride and joy are my African violets. I keep hearing how difficult they are to grow, but I've found that if you don't fuss too much with them they do pretty well on their own.
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| African violet corner. |
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| "Mama" plant |
This is my "mama plant". I call it that because it has grown so big I've had to split it in to (babies) smaller plants twice before and it's way overdue to be split again. I've had it since the mid 90's; a gift from a co-worker who I think got tired of my plant envy. She had a pretty little one on her desk and I would ooh and ahhh at it every time I would enter her office. I think she would be proud of how well it's done!
This gifted plant was the usual 3 inch radius but look at it now!
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