If This Isn't Nice, I Don't Know What Is.

I'm not sure what I can even say about this week.  It's been just lovely in some respects: bidding adieu to students from long ago at graduation, not having much to do at work, eating lunch out, shopping, meeting a good friend's new lady friend, and making enough bolognese to feed a team of competitive eaters.  

But for some reason I've been really annoyed and crankfest crankypants all week, too, partly because I had so little to do (or that I could do) at work, because I was eating massive amounts of restaurant food, and because I have been floating around in this little limbo between school and summer.  And I won't complain about coworkers on the blog, but if I did I could've written about seventy-five posts about them this week.  But that would violate my ratio of positive to negative.

So instead of being all fussface about stuff, I'm going to follow the advice of the very handsome and sassy Mr. Vonnegut.

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Here's what's making me happy right now.  (And so what if a disproportionate amount of it is food?)

1.  School is over.  Post-planning is over.  I've got to go back for little stuff here and there through the summer, but it's done for now.  Shoot yeah!  SUMMER!!!

2.  Awesome sales at Gap.  It's not easy to dress this boring!

3.  Bacon jam on homemade artisan bread.  Kind of the best thing that's ever happened.

4.  Back in the Day Bakery.  Probably my favorite place in Savannah.

5.  Frozen bananas.  "My friend asked me if I wanted a frozen banana.  I said, 'No, but I want a regular banana later--so. . .yeah.'"  Also, Mitch Hedberg.

6.  Fun prizes from the Target dollar spot.  I've got big plans for them.

7.  Cutest erasers ever. (Also from Target's dollar spot.)

8.  After-school snacks.

9.  After school, watching crappy movies and pigging out on Nilla Wafers in the guest bed with the dog.  Note the newly styled shelves, courtesy of one Cassie.

10.  Bossypants.  Awesomepants.

11.  The cutest little dog feet in all the land!

12.  Random inspirational quotes spread around the school via someone named Waffles.

And if all that isn't nice, I don't know what is.  

Nordic Ware Easter Cookie Sheets

Um, are you ready to be jealous or what?

Okay, so I've been wanting some new cookie sheets for a while.  My mother-in-law has these really nice cookie sheets, and they're stainless steel and they're all the same size and she has four of them so that she can more easily bake oodles of cookies.  My cookie sheets, with the exception of one nice Calphalon one, were all busted and gross and mismatched, and I really liked Matt's mom's idea.

But I also didn't want to throw down buckets of money on cookie sheets that were totally a want and not a need.

But then last week I saw these at Target*, and it was pretty clear to me that the cookie sheets had left the want column and entered the need column.  And then, lucky for me, a pretty fantastic former roommate got them for me for my birthday.

Aren't they beautiful?  

*I couldn't find these online, but they are currently at Target along with some other Nordic Ware Easter stuff, and they're only $10/each.  They also have some cute bundt and muffin pans in the same color scheme.

I'm Basically Bob Vila.

So, a couple of months ago, I read this blog post where this girl took an old funky dresser and jazzed it up by removing the drawers and painting it. It was kind of awesome, and I thought it was something I might be able to do myself.

And just a couple of weeks after that, I was browsing the free section of Craigslist and I saw this dresser that was missing two drawers. Perfect! It was a little busted looking, but it had good bones, and I thought it had some potential for awesomeness.

After I picked it up from a very nice lady named Penny, I brought it home and put it in the office/junk room/catchall for everything in the house that has no real place. And there it sat for two months.

But then last week I got motivated. I removed the hardware, borrowed a sander from a friend, and went to town. In the house. Note to self: do not sand a dresser in the house. Seriously. It was a very stupid idea, but Matt wasn't home and the dresser was too big and cumbersome for me to move it outside myself and I wanted to do it RIGHT THEN and I, on occasion, lack patience. I'll be wiping up brown dust for the next year of my life, and I may or may not have made myself sick with inhaling all of the dust that was laced with Ebola or something comparable. Oops.

So after I sanded the dresser and filled in the wood holes, I primed it and gave it two coats of paint (The same paint that I'll soon be using on other house projects, so none will go to waste. The color is slightly off-white, Martha Stewart's color Talc from Home Depot. I plan to put the dresser in our guest room, and it'll be joining the IKEA Expedit shelf which is a little off-white as well.) I also added new hardware (which I found at Target on clearance for $13.98).

The last thing I needed to do was figure out how to do the bottom part. I considered baskets or some other kind of solution, but ended up just lining the inside with some fabric that I got from IKEA last year.

Anyway, here it is now. I'm in love.

Yeah, you can still totally see where the old hardware was. Also, I don't care.

And here's a breakdown of the cost:

• Dresser: free
• IKEA fabric: I had it already, but I paid $4 for it originally
• Paint: $15, but I only used like 1/10 of a gallon, and I'm using the rest for other stuff. So this was like $3 worth of paint and primer.
• Hardware: $13.98

Total: $20.98

Ain't Nothing Gonna Break My Stride. . .

Thanks to all for your kind words yesterday.  After some phone chats, a few indulgent Target purchases, a dog, a husband, and baking a LOT of cookies (So many that I actually forgot to eat dinner.  I don't think that's ever happened.), I'm feeling much better.  And it doesn't hurt that it's Friday, and the sun is shining, and I was insanely productive at work, and within the hour I'll be in Mexico with friends. 

I am determined to have a good weekend, even if that means convincing myself that it's fun to deep-clean the house and grade essays.  It's looking like I'll be able to do it with the windows open, at least.

Happy weekend to you!  Any big plans?

Merry Christmas!

We all know that the best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear.

But this Christmas it's been a little different for me, partly because I have a singing voice that sounds a little bit like a dying cat, and partly because, well, my Christmas has been more about other people--in a totally awesome way.

I'm not writing this to be all "look how great we are" or anything, but this Christmas--the last couple of weeks in particular--have been more dedicated to serving and helping others than they have been to taking daily trips to Target and Gap.  And even though I'm a little worn out and don't have as many new sweaters as I usually do this time of year, I can't remember a time I felt better about Christmas, about human compassion and generosity and camaraderie.*

Tomorrow will be about sleeping in, and opening a few gifts that are under the tree, and eating, and snugglin', and going to the movies. 

May your Christmas be as lovely!

XOXO

*And then every little good deed would make me feel so good that I was beginning to think that I was only doing them for that good feeling and not to help other people.  This is a dilemma that my friend Phoebe dealt with one time.

Bacon Jam: An Epic Fail

Remember how I was all jazzed up about bacon jam the other day? And how it was all I could think about and all I wanted to eat from then until the end of time?

Well, after eating all of Matt's sandwich (he preferred the Back in the Day rosemary chicken salad), I decided that I absolutely had to make my own bacon jam. And just how convenient was it that the latest issue of Martha Stewart's Everyday Food had a recipe for bacon jam? I fantasized that I would make bacon jam, and then I would eat bacon jam, and then I would share bacon jam with everyone I love (and maybe even people I didn't love, you know, just to show off my culinary prowess and make them feel inferior), and then I would be the most popular and happiest girl who'd ever lived.

So this weekend, I set out to the store to buy the ingredients, and spent about $20 on stuff to make a double batch of my new favorite food (Which is, by the way, a lot of money to make something that turns out awful.  I could've had the mega pack of Pilot Precise V Rolling Ball pens for that amount of money.). Once I got home, I was absolutely giddy. I was listening to "Hey Ya!" and I was dancing about the kitchen, confident that I was about to make something that would forever change my life.

In all of my excitement, however, I fell into an old trap: neglecting to follow directions. I was doing pretty well at the start. I cooked up my bacon and chopped onion and garlic and carefully measured (Matt would be so proud) the rest of the ingredients.

One of the ingredients was brewed coffee, and so I made coffee at home for the first time in my life (I've made it millions of times in restaurants, but just never at home.) Looking back on it, I realize that I probably should have measured the amount of coffee grounds that I added, because the coffee might have been a bit strong (but I really don't know, because I'm not a coffee drinker and Matt was off watching the Buffalo Bills lose to the purple team).

The recipe also called for the bacon jam to cook in a slow cooker on high for 3 1/2 to 4 hours. But I hate using the slow cooker (impatience plus possession of a Le Creuset dutch oven), so I decided that low heat in the dutch oven was the same as high on the slow cooker.

But apparently that's not how it works. When the bacon jam had been cooking for 2 1/2 hours (on low heat in the dutch oven), and the house smelled like heaven itself, I realized that I hadn't yet been to Target that day, so I ventured out for a quick trip. When I returned 30 minutes later, the whole house smelled like burnt coffee bacon disgustingness. I tried to salvage what I could of the bacon jam that wasn't a charred glob on the bottom of the pot, and jarred it.

Bacon fat--not as pretty as it tastes

I ate one sandwich, and I don't even know if it was actually good or if I was just determined to think that it was good. The next day I went to heat up some more (which had congealed in that gross bacon fat way in the jars--definitely not going to be a gift to give to people) to give it another try, but then I forgot about that in the microwave and burned it again. So my kitchen smelled like doubly-burnt bacon jam, and I wanted to puke for the rest of the night.

The verdict?

Eat bacon jam at Back in the Day Bakery where it's the most delicious thing of all time. Do not eat bacon jam that comes from Mandy's kitchen. If you want to make your own bacon jam (that could very well be delicious), then be sure to follow the directions, because they're there for a reason.

Well, I Didn't Know You Could Buy THAT at Target.

Today I got this Target holiday catalog/advertisement thing in the mail.  It contained a bunch of decent coupons (coupons I might need to use if I wasn't already done Christmas shopping!) and pretty pictures and such, so I was thumbing through it.  I got to this coupon for Legos, and I was all, "Hell yeah, Legos!  I love Legos!"

And then I looked a little more closely.

Wait a second.

A slave ship?  Really?  Couldn't have called it a "rocket cruiser" or something a little less startling?

Now, I will happily admit here that I am clueless about Star Wars.  I haven't seen the movies, and I don't want to ever see the movies.  But I'm guessing that there is some kind of slave ship in one of them?  I just question the marketing approach in neglecting to find a proper euphemism for the children's toy.  And maybe I'm just stuffy or a prude or a crazy liberal, but something about giving a kid a slave ship for Christmas just doesn't sit right with me.

"Hey, little Timmy.  What'd you get for Christmas?"
"A slave ship."

Maybe that's why it's $10 off?

Score!

You know how Target is my home away from home?  It's kind of sad, really.  It's just that Target is less than five minutes from our house, and it's nice, and clean, and if I have to get something small (paper towels, cough drops, a new pack of Pilot Precise V Rolling Ball pens), I opt to go there instead of the nearby grocery store, the one that makes me more of a misanthrope with each visit.  So, in short, Target keeps me from hating people.

And when I go to Target, because I have the luxury of time at this point in my life, I'll put that one necessary item in the cart and walk around the entire store looking for a good deal, usually whilst talking on the phone.  My friends and family must think that I actually live in Target, like Natalie Portman lived in a Wal-Mart in that awful movie that I watched once. 

For the last week and a half, every time I was at Target, I'd walk through the purse section, and look at this bag.  I am usually not a fan of bigger purses, but lately I've been carrying my camera around a lot and I needed more space.  And I liked how this one had all of the compartments and looked all weathered.  It was like I could carry this purse and also ride a motorcycle.

But it was $35, which is, in my opinion, way too much to spend for a Target purse.  But then it went on clearance for $25, which is, in my opinion, still way too much to spend for a Target purse. 

So instead of just buying the purse, I'd put it in my cart, walk around the entire store staring at it and debating the purchase.  I'd run the tag under one of the price scanners to see if there was some kind of miraculous price reduction, and then when there wasn't I'd put it back where I'd found it.

I was beginning to get nervous, though, because this was the only one of its kind at the store.  I was playing fast and loose.

So on Thursday, while walking around and talking to Chloe on the phone, I decided to be cunning and to hide the purse behind a bunch of other purses and turn the tag around so that another shopper might not notice the red clearance tag.  I think Chloe thought I was crazy.  I figured that I would wait until Tuesday (when our Target does all of their markdowns, or so I've been told), and then I'd go back (or I'd be there anyway) and see if the purse was still there and if the price had gone down.  It was farfetched, sure, but I had nothing to lose.

But then Saturday I was at Target again because we were getting low on dishwasher detergent.  I went back to the purse, put it in my cart, and walked around the store talking to Matt's mom and looking at it.  At this point I was about to cave and just pay the $25 for the bag since I was obsessing over it so.

I ran the tag under one of the price scanners just to see. 

$8.74!

Who's the big winner? 

So now I have a fancy brown fake leather purse from Target.  And tonight I wore a denim jacket. 

Tomorrow I'll be buying a motorcycle.

Moment of Realization

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So, at around 9:00 tonight I was walking into my local Target, because that's what I do and because I needed some boring household items and the new David Sedaris book.  On this particular Saturday night, Target was hoppin' moreso than usual.  There were about 10-15 people waiting outside the store, talking and socializing, and the parking lot was about half full.

Walking toward the store, I encountered a guy, about 55-60 years old.  He didn't look crazy or homeless or like a serial killer--or what I think a serial killer should look like (damn you, Trinity, for f'ing with my notions about what serial killers look like).  Our exchange went something like this:

Guy [confused]: What's going on?
Me: What do you mean what's going on?
Guy: It's nine o' clock, right?
Me: Oh, you mean because it's so busy?  Eh, that's just 'cause it's Saturday.
Guy [pointing at sky]: It's. . .dark outside.
Me: Yeah.  It's nine o' clock.
[guy pauses for a few seconds and then his eyes widen]
Guy: Oh no!  Don't tell me it's nine o' clock AT NIGHT!
Me: Yeah, it's nine o' clock at night.
Guy: Oh dear.  I just slept fourteen hours without realizing it.

Poor guy was all out of sorts.  That must've been one hell of a coma nap.

Lagoon, Meet Your New Sister, The Deep End.

Ever since I painted the floor in The Lagoon, I've been jonesin' to give the kitchen a little makeover. It's not that it was awful (at least, I didn't think it was awful until I changed it), but it wasn't particularly pretty. See, the cabinets were a color that I like to call "Formerly White, Now Nicotine Yellow" (the people who lived here before us smoked in the house). The cabinets were chipped, the trim was looking rough, and the whole room was just kind of dingy. One of the walls even had [hopefully not lead] paint chipping off of it.

And don't even get me started on the wallpaper.  Sure, there was a certain charm about the strawberry print that had probably been there since the late '70s.  But it was peeling off, and also sported the smoker dinge.  Yuck!

(see the chipped cabinets at the top of the picture?)

I had resisted the kitchen project because I knew that it would be a bitch, and, plus, we rent this house.  To do it right would require days of work and waiting for paint to dry, and more work.  Plus, we wouldn't really be able to use the kitchen during that time.  I knew that the expense would be minimal, but I didn't know when I would have the time or energy to take on such a feat.

And then Matt made plans to go out of town for the weekend.  I didn't have much to do, and I had four nights with nothing planned.  Hmph?  So Thursday night I was talking to Cassie about how bored I was going to be all weekend, and threw out the idea that I might just tackle the kitchen project, and she encouraged me to go ahead and do it.  For about fifteen minutes we discusssed what to do, and then, inspired, I set out for Home Depot.

Eighty-two dollars later, I had three gallons of paint and some supplies (and two new friends from the paint department).  I made myself a little schedule:

• Thursday night, remove wallpaper
• Friday, remove everything from kitchen and prime all walls and cabinets
• Saturday, paint all cabinets
• Sunday, paint walls, clean up, and put everything back in its place

Easier said than done. 

I think at this point I'll just let the pictures tell the story. . .

Phew!  That was a lot of work!  But it sure was worth it.  Check it out.

This bin was the only new item (with the exception of the Amish Butterprint bowls) to enter the kitchen.

(That note on the refrigerator says, "This is your last chance to forgive me and that's what God wants."  Cassie found it at the kiddie table at Old Navy and gifted it to us.  Oh, and do you see where I missed a spot?) 

I had to frame part of the border, just like how Uncle Jesse on Full House framed the pink bunny.

Howl if you love the new kitchen!

Total cost: $89 (and the brain cells I lost while priming).

And how's this for a before and after?

Oh, and I know it's been killing you that The Lagoon has such an awesome name while the kitchen has to settle for "the kitchen."  Well, no more!  Starting tonight, we will refer to the kitchen as The Deep End. (Thanks for the suggestion, Cassie!)