The peonies that I got at the farmer’s market are fully splayed and were at their peak this morning. This is a perfect example of a time when I would be using a macro lens for the closeups. I want one so badly. Can I take any photos for you? Do you need any pets photographed? Babies? Food? Do you have an awesome garden and want me to photograph it so you can hang it on your wall to enjoy year round? I hope so. Because I would be more than happy to do this for you. I can also design stuff. And then maybe I can get a new lens. Let’s talk.
Why I waited so long to plan a vacation for Justin and I is beyond me. The long weekend was a success and we are trying to weasel in some more getaways this summer. They may well be in a tent rather than an inn, but I am excited for more adventures none-the-less.
So everyone always asks “How was your trip?” I really can’t imagine theywant to hear about it at length, but here goes:
The best parts of the Door County trip:
The Blacksmith Inn. This place was so relaxing and beautiful. They had fresh cookies in the common room, hammocks on the balconies, fireplaces and in-room hot tubs. I would go back in a second. The owners were sweet and had breakfast waiting every morning. Each room is different, so take your pick.
Fried Cheese Curds. I don’t need to explain why this is awesome.
Wild Tomato.Such a great lunch. Featuring wood-fired pizza and artwork done by the owner’s children.
Thrift Store in Egg Harbor…or Fish Creek. We scored golf clubs, a bowling bag/new purse, and Trivial Pursuit from the late 80’s or early 90’s. We are now experts on the U.S.S.R. and the six-year-war.
Selfishly hogging Justin to myself. Undivided attention is the best birthday present.
Mama Bird. There was this little sandpiper nesting right next to the doc. We checked in on her a lot and had several quality conversations with her, regarding her muffin-like stance on her nest. A rival mama bird in the area did a weird feather dance that we can only imagine is called “splaying.”
Nature.
Not involving airports in any way. There is something to be said for road-trips making a vacation less stressful.
The Inn's dock.
Sorry for the feet shot, but the hammock was the BEST
Mama bird settling in on the nest.
<3
My raptor impression is better in person.
Fresh flowers from the garden on the breakfast table
Strawberry ice cream soda from the Yum Yum Tree in Bailey's Harbor.
And if you are into orchards–cherry or apple–you will be highly satisfied.
I haven’t posted much happiness in the last couple days because I have been crazy busy at work. Like fall-asleep-at-the-computer-just-before-midnight-the-wake-up-at-5:30-am-and-have-work-for-breakfast-busy. Sprinkle in finals week to that mix and you have zombie-brained Boleys. Unless you are Porpus Boley, in that case you just hang out in boxes and bite your toenails in-between snacks.
So this little Door County vacation comes at a great time. We will be packing up and leaving this morning. Disapproving Squirrel is being put in charge. He doesn’t like this one bit.
He is clearly irritated about being left alone with Schween.
I threw out all the fresh flowers that would have gone rotten over the weekend and was thrilled to see this orchid is going strong. I don't know what it is, but I imagine it will last for weeks. I am a big fan.
Oh yeah, it is my birthday on Saturday! My momma sent me my first card. I love it.
I am off to pack now. I will return with many photos of the county. Ciao!
Justin is taking finals for two more days and then we are going on a vacation.
I have mentioned this before, but this is the first time we will have gone on a trip alone in our 6 years together. No visiting family–although we love family (hi and hello, family). No visiting friends. Just a regular vacation. I hear this is a good thing. I get a burst of excitement every time I look at the place we are staying. Happy birthday to me!
Now we just need to get through the next two days. Luckily, I have been working on a new project at work with a team I don’t normally work with. So I am having fun and staying busy which always makes the time fly. I would take a picture of what I am doing as my DPH, but then I would have to kill you. So here are some of Porpus in a blanket cave and on the coffee table instead.
I had forgotten how delicious a long-exposure with a side of flash can be. I will be exploring this more...although it makes the subject of the photo appear drunk 99% of the time.
Season change=pressure change=storms=major headache. I am loving spring, but not the side effects. I stayed home from work and slept a lot today, but I did go for a little walk to get some fresh air. Andersonville is gorgeous right now. I know I have been posting a lot of foliage, but I can’t help it. I am in love.
I found the "Andersonville Gardens" that are all along the Ravenswood tracks. Happy little walking trail. Picture perfect.
Then I slept for a long time…until it was time to make tacos.
Onion skins again...now in purple!
This is the third post featuring onion skins. They are just so dang pretty. For some reason, the I <3 Garlic post has the most hits of any individual post on Megagood. I don’t really know why that is. Speaking of site stats…people are searching for interesting things and ending up here.
Weird search engine terms that recently lead people here:
#1: If you ever see Brown Cow yogurt in the store, you may want to try it. After that, you may want to try 20 more. Cherry vanilla is my favorite. I can’t go back to Yoplait. Think yogurt is just for women? Well, Justin is pretty manly and will eat this stuff daily.
The sweetness you will taste is fruit and honey. No aspartame allowed.
#2: If you were just sitting there wondering to yourself, “Hey, I wonder what Schween is up to?” then you are in luck. And you are a weirdo. You are lucky this picture is rated G, because usually “what Schween is up to” is NO GOOD.
#3: GAHHHHhhhhh! I am pissed that the fennec hare is a fake. I am so gullible and I feel cheated. For almost a month I have been loving this new-found little dude. Then I sent the link to my friend Randy, and he noticed the comments under the post. BAH! And it was originally posted on April Fools day. UGH. And Google image search only brings up that one photo. We all know Google image search doesn’t lie. I am a fool. *Sigh*
What are these gorgeous little purple flowers called? There is an army of them taking over Chicago. And I like it.
Here is a sneak peek at the roof-deck-garage that is being built in our backyard. I was going to wait until it was totally finished to do a post, but I am too excited to wait. Something that concerns me about the roof deck is the low power lines. What are they planning to do with those I wonder?
Now let’s talk about dinner.
I really love mashed potatoes. I love any buttery, cheesy, starchy comfort food. I have only made mashed potatoes once though. They are associated with holidays, and I have only hosted one holiday thus far. They take a long time to make unless you buy potato buds or instant mashed potatoes, but I have never attempted either of those. Last night, I thought I would try an alternative to spuds, and made a cauliflower mash up instead.
Results: OMG. Tastes way too good to be healthy. But it is indeed the healthiest comfort food I have eaten in months…if you don’t count the butter; but I bet you could use olive oil instead.
Megagood Cauli Mash Up
Rough idea of ingredients:
1 head of chopped cauliflower
Salt...um not sure how much. It is up to your taste.
Fresh ground black pepper
Shredded or grated Parmesan. I am sure you could do other cheeses as well, but Parm is really flavorful and you won’t need much. I bet goat cheese would be delicious also. Or cheddar? I will have to experiment a little more.
Your favorite blend of herbs. I used Italian Seasoning last night.
Horseradish. I can’t help but add a heaping couple of spoonfuls for kick.
Butter. About 2-3 tablespoons.
All purpose flour. Only a teaspoon. It helps everything stick together and adds body.
Pretty lousy directions:
Boil water. Generously salt the water. Add the chopped cauliflower and simmer for about 8-10 minutes or until a fork can easily pierce the cauli. Basically make sure it is seems “mashable” to you. Drain the cauliflower and put it into a LARGE mixing bowl. This could be messy.
Add all the rest of the ingredients to the mixing bowl and use an electric mixer or potato masher to blend all the goodness together. When it starts to look like the consistency of a starchy comfort food, you are getting somewhere.
Return the mash to the empty pot on the stove. Heat the mash on low and continue squishing the chunks in the pot. The cheese will get melty. Taste it. Add more salt if you want. Add whatever you want.
Plate it and then trick your dinner date into thinking they are eating indulgently on a weeknight.
Kind of. By garbage I mean compost, animal crap, and fertilizer, to be more accurate. It is important for me to remember the idea that good can sprout from filth. Last week, a series of things happened that really got me down. I ended the week with two pieces of cake followed by a test of my new mascara’s cry-proof capabilities. This is very uncharacteristic of me. Megafail.
The “bad things” didn’t happen to me directly; they happened to people that I care about very much. I will not list them all here because it will bum you out in a major way. I am not an overly-sensitive person, but I do feel a lot of empathy for what happens to people I know.
One “bad thing” that I do feel the need to address is that 1/3 of my former agency was laid-off last week. This was not a large agency where this kind of thing happens all the time. Though the company had some less than savory characteristics, loyalty was one of it’s greatest virtues…I thought. I feel like a stupid girl that just found out her boyfriend has been cheating on her. I haven’t worked there in a year, but I still feel betrayed. I am sad about how it went down. I am disappointed. I am stressed for my friends who need work in a terrible economy. I know it is “just business” but is still smells bad to me.
WAIT! Don’t be too sad. Don’t go yet. Here comes the “flowers” part. My friends that were laid-off are very talented people. They deserve to work in a better place anyway. In the long run this whole thing will be a blessing to them, even if it is rough right now. A few of them have the capability to lead their own shop. I hope they do that. I hope they are wildly successful and 100x more happy than they were in their former job.
If I were to be laid off, I would take a long look at what I truly wanted to do–what really makes me happy. I would start down that path, even if odd jobs in the meantime were necessary to stay afloat. Would I apply to agency positions that originally seemed out of reach? Would I go to school again? Start a business? Work at the zoo? It’s hard to say, but if I was kicked out of my current comfort zone, I would be self-evaluating like never before.
The news will get better. The economy will recover. My friends will flourish again. Life goes on.
Speaking of flowers, the Macy’s flower show starts this weekend. On Friday, when I was feeling low, I was pleasantly surprised at lunch to see that the flamingo bodies have been re-united with proper heads:
Yay!
Half of the first floor is now a living garden. The displays and cosmetic counters are stunning. The aisles now have a median of trees and flower beds down the center. My marketing side is dying to know how much this flower show effects Macy’s sales next week. I think it is BRILLIANT. (I still miss Marshall Fields by the way.)
Sunday nights get me down. The weekend is over and it is dark outside and I am kind of sad about it. How can I remedy this? Two things seem to help:
Launder the bed linens. Lame? Maybe. But I am a huge fan of a soft fresh-scented set of clean sheets and blankets on my bed. It is a really simple thing, but seems to make Sunday night a little better, and starts the week off right.
Organize the photos. If the weekend went well, there are usually many photos that tell that story. I am behind a couple days on uploading the happiness photos, and they really added up. Especially since it was above 50 degrees here for 2 days in a row.
I haven’t posted since last Thursday, so here is Friday:
Cauliflower obsession continues. This was my lunch from Tuscany. Delicious. I urge Jo to give Cauli a chance.
Alex hosted another happy hour in the corner office. Fizzgig came, and brought pretzels to pass. He is clearly excited.
Drea is enjoying a Snakebite, courtesy of Alex. I was inspired to add a gradient to this photo after watching the video posted below.
Happy hour continued with more coworkers off-site. Blonde curls were in abundance.
Black and white heels were also in abundance. This photo is also of two separate people.
Saturday brought the sun. Porp laid in it of course. Schween was no more than a foot to her right.
I don't really want to talk about this.
Weird bush that now lives in the front yard instead of the backyard. Transplanted during construciton of the roofdeck garage I assume.
One of the happiest things I have seen in months.
Winnemac Park. This will be lush in a couple months. I didn't know it existed until today because I had never crossed the train tracks. Dumb.
Prairie things.
More dead prairie stuff. I took pictures until our table was ready at Over Easy on Damen.
Very popular. Not a lot of seating, so the wait was long. We didn't mind hanging out in the park across the street though.
Officially the best taters I have had for breakfast.
I don't remember what he had, but I remember tasting it and being envious. And beans were involved. <3
Who doesn't love egg-bead curtains, tin ceilings, brick walls and crown molding?
If anyone understands this, please comment to tell me the significance of "NINE."
After breakfast I decided to take a nap in the sun on the porch with the cats. Face-down. Woke up with nap face and the need for wine and flowers. Picked up some dried mango slices as well.
Meet Lidia. She is new. She eats jelly beans and wards off evil winter spirits.
Now I am going to sleep in my freshly-cleaned sheets. Goodnight.
My kitchen smells so flippin good. These lilies are stinking up half of the house. In a good way. Their aroma is leaking into the dining room, two rooms away. They are sitting pretty on the kitchen counter and the only thing that would make them better is if they were Stargazer lilies. I can forgive them.
Justin is basically gone for 3 days…with the exception of sleeping here…I think? There’s a group of his buddies in town for one of the last bachelor parties of the crew. I clearly want nothing to do with it. (He will not be around to help with my typos–Ryan please advise.)
So I am sniffing lilies and talking to myself/cats. It isn’t half bad. And I am really looking forward to the clothing exchange, margaritas and delicious Ruark food that I will be sharing with a bunch of rad ladies this weekend! Not only will it make me clean out my entire closet and both dressers, but it is a very *recession* friendly idea. (First and last time I use *that word* on Megagood…unless I am laid off of course. The internet doesn’t need another site talking about it. I’m not ignorant of what is going on.. I just don’t want to write about it on here. We get it.)
The real excitement of the day was hard to capture in a photo. It is hopefully the subject of many future DPH photos, but it is yet to be confirmed. I am planning my first vacation alone with Justin! Yeah, this is year 3 of our marriage and the 6th year of our relationship. Yes, of course we have been on vacations and trips together. A lot of really great ones. BUT…it was all to visit family or friends. NEVER…(there was no honeymoon) have we gone on a trip together as a couple. This has to stop. By the time I turn 26. Which is coming up in May.
After a lot of research on places to stay in Door County, Wisconsin, I think I found it. Blacksmith Inn on the Shore. If you know of anything better up there, please let me know. Justin doesn’t know about this yet. But he will surely be on board. I think there are some wineries to visit.
Hopefully I can upload some good DPH after our trip that looks like this…(only more macro I am sure):
.gif)