delight in life

august goals revisited

My original resolutions for August were:

1. Exercise 5 times.
2. Bake 6 loaves of bread.
3. Get a haircut.
4. Be tourists. Go to at least 2 museums/sights/tourist spots.

How'd I do? NOT BAD.

1. Exercise: check plus!
2. Bread: check. I made 3 loaves of sandwich bread, one flatbread, one cinnamon pull-apart, and one loaf of banana bread.
3. Haircut: yep.
4. Be tourists: we made it to one.

I also survived a hurricane and an earthquake, spent a dreamy weekend in the mountains, completed two quilts (which I'll share soon), went to a friend's euphonium jazz fusion show (it was awesome), and fell more in love with our new city. Good month.

gym rat, that's me!

Remember my goal to work out 5 times this month? Some of you lightly mocked me for my...lack of ambition, shall we say? Well, I'm proud to say that as of today I've doubled my goal.

The plan all along was to start Bar Method and go more than 5 times. But since I'd never tried when I set the goal, I didn't want to commit myself to something I may hate and then be stuck running or something. We know how much I hate running. Luckily, I loved Bar Method and I've been to 10 classes in 20 days. It's really hard and it hurts and sometimes I want to cry when I'm there, but I keep going back. And I can already start to see a change in my body. The classes are expensive but this is the first exercise regimen I've ever enjoyed, much less stuck to, so I think it's worth it. (Chris agrees.)

Yay for being healthy!

come on, Irene

Every time I mention Hurricane Irene I want to start singing "come on Irene" a la Dexys Midnight Runners.

As it started lightly sprinkling around 11 am, this scene from The Lord of the Rings popped into my head:

It's a little nervewracking sitting here waiting for something to happen, but it's nothing compared to my close encounter of the tornado kind earlier this year. Where we are, I expect lots of wind and rain and probably a power outage or two, but nothing more serious than that. We've got water, granola bars and flashlights, so we're good to go. If you're in the danger path of the storm, stay dry and safe!

quilt #6: colors

I haven't even showed you quilt 5 and I'm already moving on to quilt 6. I'm planning to try lots of new things with this one. Should be an adventure!

i chopped my hairs.

Check. Thanks to Yelp, I found a great place to get my hairs chopped. I kind of forgot I'd made an appointment and as a result, hadn't thought about what I wanted done at all. I basically said, "uh, I don't know, I trust you?" She cut off a few inches and asked if a little more was ok. "Uh, sure, why not?" That happened a few more times and when I walked out my hair was pretty short! I love it, though. (I also like my floating head in these photos...maybe I should have put on a colored shirt.)

milestone

What you see here is the spool of thread my mom bought me a zillion years ago when I first started quilting. I emptied it on quilt #5. 250 yards of tiny hand stitches!

smitten kitchen flatbread

This bread from Smitten Kitchen (recipe here) was super good and pretty easy. The honey + salt + thyme + cheese was a strange combination to my taste buds, but I really ended up liking it. Highly recommend. (I also recommend halving or even quartering the recipe unless you're cooking for 12, and definitely eat it while it's warm.)

farmer's market tomatoes

We are lucky to live just two blocks from a small weekly farmer's market. I've been encouraged to branch out a bit from my normal produce selections. Sometimes I buy with no plan in mind and have to improvise, which is not really my forte in the kitchen. However, I was pretty proud of myself for coming up with this tasty pasta dish on the fly from our on-hand ingredients.

I came home from the market with this basket of cherry tomatoes, everything else we already had. (That's not too fancy, I know, but I'm not normally a big tomato fan. I was persuaded by their pretty colors.)

I simmered the tomatoes in some chicken broth and cooked some spaghetti. Drained the spaghetti, mixed in the tomatoes, a bit of the broth, torn basil, and a healthy dose of feta cheese. (Another thing I'm not normally a fan of, but we had a huge container we're trying to use up!) Mixed it all up and the cheese melted and combined with the broth to form a tasty sauce. We loved it.

Nothing too fancy, but it's definitely one I'll be repeating a lot!

baseball: national league edition

One of the best perks about moving to DC was being back in National League territory -- specifically, Atlanta Braves territory. The Braves and the Nationals play each other 8 or 9 times a year and I'm overjoyed that I get to start watching my home team live for the first time in years.



In a funny coincidence, we ended up sitting next to several other Georgia transplants, one of whom turned out to be a neighbor of someone in our group! We turned into buddies pretty quick and I was glad to have some extra voices to assist me in my cheers. It's a slightly different experience cheering for the away team! My new friends Lucas and Jason (Jason's got his rally cap on; we were wayyy behind): 

If you were listening to the broadcast, I'm quite sure that in the 9th inning you actually heard me yelling "LET'S GO BRAVOS! *clap clap clap-clap-clap*" The game was a blowout (not in our favor, unfortunately). People were leaving in droves and I could practically hear my voice echoing through the stadium. Too bad it didn't help.

The Braves come back September 23 and you can bet I'll be there!

music: some new favorites

I'm totally obsessed with these bands lately. The first two especially are super fun and happy. Wanna listen?

Magic, by Rabbit

Hey Mama, by Mat Kearney

and Welcome Home, by Radical Face

Happy, happy Friday!