Aside from adding a few new pieces of furniture this summer, we’ve had a slow-down in the decorating department thanks to my injury and with travel. One of the things that have been on the list since before we moved in was redoing the shelving alcove in the kitchen.
I wasn’t a fan of those buttercream walls and robin’s egg blue alcove. The colors just didn’t go with the mid-century modern / folk feel of our design scheme. The walls went white, but I felt the interior of the alcove needed something extra other than a few coats of paint. So we picked out some cute reusable wallpaper from Chasing Paper, but the rolls sat in our storage closet since we moved in 6 months ago in March. (Oh, and as a side note, “we picked out” means I presented Graham with three choices and then opted for one of the two he didn’t select.) Continue reading
Cape May 2016
Vacations in Cape May, New Jersey are an annual thing for Graham’s family.. ok.. sometimes multiple times in a year, but predominantly in the summer. Graham and I missed out last year with wedding planning, but this year, we packed up the car and Huxley, our lazy greyhound, to spend a week at the shore with his parents and younger brother.
Sadly, Graham had to work during the first few days of our vacation.. and then we had to cut our time short since Hermine threatened to put the area in a state of emergency as well as making evacuation a possibility. We decided to head back to Philly Saturday morning to avoid the challenge of a slow-rolling mass traffic exodus. We were sad to leave, but it was nice to have a few days at home to recover. Continue reading
An Open (Ransom) Letter To My Brother-In-Law
First, I’m going to say how disappointed I am that I couldn’t do a cut-out letters ransom note since we don’t have magazines at home.. or glue that isn’t dried out.. and you know who this is anyways so that already defeats the purpose.. in short, I’m disappointed. Anyhow..
*We have your Lillet.
It is currently unharmed.. really… proof of life as of today, September 7. 2016.
But whether it continues existing in its current state depends on your ability to meet *our my demands.
Your Lillet will be returned to you unharmed if you successfully exchange it for a dozen of your homemade macarons.. any flavors will suffice with the exception of those listed here.
Failure to comply will force a fate on your bottle similar to its friend:
That one is nearly empty… only a fraction of the bottle that it used to be.
Tell your parents, and the Lillet will suffer the consequences. You can start saying goodbye to it piece by piece at a time.. again.. like its buddy..
You have 72 hours. Clock starts now.
Stacy
*Your brother did not approve this message.
Subversive Design – Update 2
On the morning of our first anniversary, I came home from walking Huxley to find Graham in the kitchen with that “hand in the cookie jar” look on his face.
“Don’t be mad at me. I know we said no gifts, but I was thinking about how marriage is about compromise… or more like.. how compromise is about making you happy.”
He took me to the dining room where I was greeted by this:
So, that last item on the list?
No starburst/sunburst clock
Done.
I won. And I don’t mean the design war.. I won the husband lottery. Sorry about the cheese.
Stacy
Summer, Sunglasses, And Booze Hound
We’re taking the week off spending time with family. In the meantime, here’s a little something to start your week off right…
Stacy.. And Huxley
Things I don’t understand after being married for a year
This is a guest post, from the frequent victim husband of the blog’s owner.
Stacy is generally a wonderful human being, but she can also be a little strange, which you may have guessed from previous posts detailing her totalitarian sandwich ordering or how excited she gets about having an old loyalty card work. There were a great many things I adjusted to during the first two years of our relationship, but now that we’ve been married for a year, there are certain things I’ve resigned myself to never really understanding.
- The appeal of ‘informative murder porn’, which she’s watching next to me on the couch as I type this. If I turn on the TV upstairs, there’s at least a 99% chance it’s currently tuned to Investigation Discovery, Oxygen or, occasionally TLC. I can get behind a good detective story, and even something like Netflix’ Making a Murderer, but these shows… The interviews aren’t good, but the acting is worse, and seriously, how many different puns can you make about murder?
- She’ll occasionally make up colors, which she’s mentioned before. That said, these colors are defined as whatever Stacy’s thinking of at the moment, and they’ll be presented as the authoritative name for a given shade. Melon & Coral may or may not be different things depending on…who knows.
- Walking. Everywhere. Some people enjoy walking, but given complications, like distance or weather, it will typically occur to people that there are other methods of transportation. Not my wife. In freezing rain in January, Stacy will bundle up in 26 layers and mentally prepare to walk several miles instead of thinking “Maybe septa won’t be that awful today”. This obviously also applies to the hills of Seattle.
- Delayed intoxication. We’ll occasionally be out drinking with friends, and we’ll have a few drinks. Stacy has always kept her composure while out in public, but sometimes, half an hour after we’ve arrived back home and I’ve sobered up, she’ll start bouncing around the house yelling “Wheeeeeeee!” and generally terrifying our poor greyhound.
There are, of course, many more. I could write entire posts on her musical taste (featuring both the Divine Comedy and Hillary Duff, sometimes in a single sitting), but I have to keep some things tucked away to use in revenge for future posts detailing how she’s messed with me that time.
Graham
Review Of Graham
Happy Anniversary, Graham! Thank you for a wonderful year.
Stacy
PS. Apologies for the crappy formatting of this post. There were a lot of technical difficulties.. I finally gave up because I already lost an hour and a half working on this post instead of spending time with my husband on our wedding anniversary. Did I mention he’s patient?
In The Mood For Summer… Indoors – Film Watch 2
I finally got Graham to watch my other favorite summertime film Terrence Malick’s Badlands from 1973. Like a lot of Malick’s other works, it’s divisive. You either love it or hate it.
The film is loosely based on the 1957-1958 murder spree of teenage couple Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate and stars Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek. It starts out in small town Port Dupree, South Dakota with what seems to be the innocent meeting of Kit (Sheen) and Holly (Spacek), but as Holly’s voiceover foreshadows, “Little did I realise that what began in the alleys and backways of this quiet town would end in the Badlands of Montana.” Continue reading
In The Mood For Summer… Indoors – Film Watch
I’ve been suffering from brain-melt the past few days thanks to the heat index pushing the temperature over 100 in Philly. We’ve been trying to spend as little time outside as possible. It’s been a good excuse for me to pull out my two favorite summer films. Just as winter never feels complete without watching A Christmas Story all the way through at least once, there are two films that have become a summertime tradition for me.
Today, I got in my annual viewing of Take This Waltz (2011), Sarah Polley’s second feature length film as director. I love watching this film every year because it’s so… PRETTY. Continue reading
Corpse Reviver #2
Those who know me, know that I prefer my alcohol in the form of whiskey.. preferably a rye.. and typically not mixed with anything other than ice if anything at all. 
Summer’s a different story. Thanks to a friend of mine who introduced me to the glory of a Pimm’s Cup, we make sure we have a bottle of Pimm’s on hand during warmer months. However, the heatwave that tortured Philly last month had me craving something lighter and more refreshing. Maybe it was the sentimentality playing on my tastebuds – before bourbon, I wouldn’t drink anything except gin – but I found myself in the mood for a Corpse Reviver #2.
Sadly, I’ve been disappointed when ordering them at bars as there always seems to be at least one ingredient missing, but I did have some luck at Goat Hollow where the bartender wasn’t familiar with the drink but was up to the challenge.
I figured it would just be easier making it at home. Since we FINALLY got all the ingredients last weekend – tracking down absinthe was a pain, I thought I’d share the recipe on the blog.
