Chris and Jess

Shut the front door!

2011-12-31T18:19:00.004-05:00

We celebrated the holidays with Chris' parents the weekend before Christmas (more on that later). The Saturday they were here was a busy one. See what was happening at Casa Gibson?? Brr...

We've needed a new front door for a very long time. The door itself was in decent shape, but the trim around the door was rotting. I should have taken a macro picture of it so you could really see. Chris is pretty handy, but decided that installing a front door was beyond even his skill level. So we asked our realtor to recommend a good carpenter and Fran came through.

Inside of the house with the OLD door...

and with the NEW door!

Outside of the house with the OLD door and rotting trim...

And the NEW door! Doesn't it look sharp? We haven't decided on a color yet and won't worry about it until spring; it's primed so it's weather resistant. And it's just too cold to paint right now. We actually kind of like the white...what do you think?

We decided to skip the storm door this time. I'm glad we did. I think it looks nicer and I have to say, it's REALLY nice not to have a door smack me in the hip whenever I'm unlocking the front door!

We totally love the look of the new front door. Plus, Chris made a new Porsche friend! The carpenter, Mike, is actually quite the Porsche enthusiast and had done lots of work on his. Now maybe with Mike's help Chris can tackle that engine drop this winter... :)

So warm and cozy.

2011-12-31T18:00:00.001-05:00

Our house was built in 1890. Needless to say, our home is not well insulated. In the winter it gets COLD. We don't have a fireplace to add extra warmth and the furnace runs on heating oil ($$$), so we keep the temp around 65. It's super drafty and very rarely feels warm.

The past few years we used a kerosene heater to heat the living room. Have you seen a kerosene heater? They are ugly and smelly and meant for garages. Or when the power goes out. Not for heating a living area day in and day out.

So a few months ago we ordered a Harman pellet stove (click on the link to see them, Dad). The savings we'll get in oil means the stove will essentially have paid for itself within a year or two. Plus, Chris saved us about $650 by building the hearth himself.

We only had two corners in the living room that worked for stove placement and the corner to the left of the TV won.

We picked out a box of 12x12" tiles that we liked. Chris cut a large piece of plywood to fit the space, then cut the tiles as needed to fit on top.

Grouting!

Then finally came installation day! The pellet stove was installed on December 14 and I have been completely smitten with it ever since. Doesn't it look warm?? It's amazing! Which means the 2nd floor is pretty cold, but I've got an electric blanket for that. :)

This week Chris added trim to the edge of the plywood and the hearth is officially complete. As soon as the Christmas tree gets taken down (it's on the opposite side of the room) we'll move all the furniture so we can pull the rug away from the hearth.

The stove is awesome. It takes a bag or a bag and a half of pellets each day, and will automatically turn off and on as needed to keep the room at a consistent temperature. I love it!

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-12-31T17:24:00.003-05:00

So...this post is a bit belated. As in, over a month after the fact. Since today is New Year's Eve! But still, there is lots to recount about Thanksgiving 2011 so I better get it done before I forget. :)

One of the more initially entertaining, but quickly turned annoying, incidents this autumn was Bailey discovering our pear tree in the backyard. Took him four years at the house to realize there was fruit lying on the ground, just there for the taking. (We actually thought it was a crabapple tree for years until Chris' mom pointed out they were pears.)

Once Bailey realized they were out there, nothing could stop him from eating them. If we'd take them away, he'd just eat them secretly on the side deck before coming back to the glass door. Or he'd quietly bring them in the house and we'd find pear stems on the rug a bit later. Thankfully, winter is finally here and all the pears are gone. But it was pretty funny while it lasted!

On Thanksgiving day, we decided to head into the city to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade again, just like we did in 2009. Our front row spot for watching the parade was amazing two years ago, so we we drove in with realistic expectations that the view would not be as great. And it wasn't, but we still had a good time. We watched from the far side of Columbus Circle. Our view looked a little like this:

There's a mall at Columbus Circle, and the view from inside (this was on the 2nd or 3rd floor) was actually pretty good too. And as an added bonus...it was warm. :)

Back in CT we enjoyed a delicious Thanksgiving dinner with our friends, Paul and Elizabeth, and Elizabeth's parents. Elizabeth and her mom are gluten-free, which I found fairly stressful at first since I was supposed to bring dessert. But I made Ina's pear-apple-cranberry crisp in individual ramekins, and just used gluten-free flour to make the crisp for theirs. And it was delicious!! I hope the gluten-free ones were too. I am a big fan of gluten and ate the ones with regular flour.

To end the long Thanksgiving weekend, Chris tackled a big project in the backyard. The shed that he reroofed this spring/summer had a huge window in the back of it. Not sure why you'd need a window in a shed, but there are many things about this house still a mystery to us. A few of the panes were broken which allowed leaves, animals, dust, rain, etc. to get into the shed. Chris took out the whole window and replaced it with plywood and siding. Much better!

The next day, he left for Taiwan. Nothing like a 20 hour plane ride for sore muscles, right? Here are some pics from his fancy hotel. He can't blog about it himself because he is down in the basement tinkering with the Porsche. Seriously, what did he do in his spare time before he bought this car?? :)

It took Chris awhile to figure out that he had to insert his key card to adjust the lights in the room.

View from his room. He said he saw so many almost accidents on the street below. Apparently there are no stop signs at intersections in Taiwan!

Happy Birthday, Mary Pat!

2011-11-12T16:45:00.000-05:00

Last week the Gibsons (the other Gibsons) came to CT to celebrate Mary Pat's birthday! It was wonderful to have them in town for the weekend for such a special event. My fabulous mother-in-law's wish was to see a Broadway show and the winner was...

The show was great! We had lunch beforehand, at the same place Chris and I tried after we saw American Idiot: Room Service. It's Thai food, and it's fantastic. It was sort of a last minute decision (we hadn't planned on getting food since their puppy Poppy can't hold her business too long yet) but we were all glad we stopped for food before the show.

Great pic of the birthday girl!

Intermission!

On Sunday we took the puppies for a walk at Fairfield Hills. The Fairfield Hills campus, now abandoned, was a psychiatric hospital for CT from 1931 until 1995. There are a ton of buildings to walk around and no traffic- a great place to take the dogs for a walk. Bailey and I go all the time.

From wikipedia- an aerial pic of Fairfield Hills.

Poppy, MPG, and Jay!

Thanks for spending your birthday with us Mary Pat! We had a wonderful weekend!

CT Wine and Cheese Festival...would have been fun!

2011-11-06T19:28:00.001-05:00

There's a store that we love in Southbury called the Artisan Food Store. They carry the most amazing selection of New England cheese! And there's a winery that we love in New Preston called Hopkins Vineyard. As soon as I learned they were co-hosting a wine and cheese festival on October 22, I penciled it in on the calendar!

The vineyard is near Kent, which is famous for beautiful fall foliage, about 40 minutes from Newtown. I thought it would be fun to take the Porsche to the festival. We could enjoy it one last time before it really gets too cold to drive it, and see the leaves too. It was going to be the perfect day!

Cue the wop-wop sound effect here. :)

The weather was supposed to be beautiful and sunny...and ended up cold and cloudy. Luckily I could sit on my hands in the car to keep them warm. Poor Chris had to use his hands for steering and shifting...they were freezing! Once we got there, the festival was so packed with people that we decided not to go in. We did stop at the lake for a quick walk to appreciate the foliage. Chris was rather cold and unhappy by this point. :)

But, we salvaged the day by going home via Washington Depot so we could stop at Marty's Cafe. I just love that place. We ordered two cappucinos to warm up, plus I can't go there without getting a chocolate croissant. Chris decided to try their pumpkin soup, a daily special, and I was so glad he did! We loved it so much we decided to make our own version a few nights later. You can get the recipe we used right here. We didn't use cardamom or curry leaves, but we did add the mustard seeds. It was fantastic! I can't get enough pumpkin this year. I also made the most delicious pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. You've got to make them!

Columbus Day Weekend in the White Mountains

2011-11-06T19:09:00.000-05:00

I'm making progress in the blog catch-up! We are up to Columbus Day weekend. (The blog is a huge help when I'm scrapbooking or making a photobook months and months later, so I try not to miss things...even if I have to write about them weeks after they actually happened!)

The foliage up in the White Mountains was truly spectacular this year. And, as we expected, there were a ton of "leaf peepers" in the mountains to enjoy said incredible foliage! Since we went up on Thursday morning for an extra-long weekend, we decided to do our "big" hike on Friday when the trails wouldn't be too crowded.

I can't remember our exact route. I know we did parts of the Avalon trail, Ethan Pond trail, and Willey Range trail. Along the way we stopped at the summits of Mt. Willey and Mt. Field (both four-thousand-footers!) with a final stop to enjoy the view from Mt. Avalon as well. Round trip we covered about eight miles. Despite the fact that it was unseasonably chilly, it was a beautiful day. Perfect for hiking!

Quick walk by the falls with Bailey on Thursday afternoon.

Glad Bailey's on the leash here!

Almost to the top of Mt. Willey!

These little birds (Canadian jays, I think?) are NOT shy! They ate breadcrumbs right out of my hand!

Can you see the pops of orange and yellow?

Mt. Field

Mt. Avalon! Starting to get tired!

This was Chris' first chance to meet Poppy! She's adorable.
Both she and Bailey had a great time digging (and digging and digging...) in the sand by the river.

At the red bench after a walk around Ammonoosuc Lake.
Bailey's actually looking at the camera! That rarely happens. :)

Great picture. :)

Meg and Scott visit CT!

2011-11-06T18:44:00.002-05:00

Wow! So I'm super behind. Meg and Scott came to visit us a month ago! Although I apologized for the recent lack of blogging in my last post, I owe an extra special apology to Meg because she's one of the four people who actually reads the blog. And we had a great time with them, so I definitely wanted to blog about it!

Chris' Aunt Meg and her boyfriend Scott drove down to Connecticut on Saturday morning (the first weekend in October). We took them to McLaughlin Vineyards for a walk by the river and a wine tasting. We drove by Blue Jay Orchards to pick up delicious apple cider and apple cider donuts. After dinner, we took them to Ferris Acres Creamery for ice cream. Even though it was forty degrees outside and we were all shivering, they loved the ice cream! Which makes me happy, since Ferris Acres is one of my favorite places ever. They enjoyed it so much, in fact, that we went there again on Sunday before they drove back to Maine! :)

Meg and Scott, thanks for driving all the way here to visit. We loved having you and hope y'all get to come again soon!

At McLaughlin Vineyards

McLaughlin is beautiful...here are Meg and Scott enjoying the view!

At Ferris Acres on Sunday...much better weather for eating ice cream!

Snow in October?

2011-11-06T18:28:00.001-05:00

Wow! So it's been two months since I've posted on this blog?! My apologies to the four people who actually read it. :) No major reason for the lack of posts, the new school year has just been keeping me busy.

Case in point: on the Friday before the snowstorm hit a week ago, I managed to go to five schools before I realized I was wearing my sweater backwards. Whoops! I guess it wasn't a bad time to get a week off from school. That’s right…a week off from school. Combine that with the three days we lost due to Tropical Storm Irene, and we already have eight days to make up in June. And winter hasn’t even begun!

Througout the night last Saturday, you could hear trees cracking under the weight of leaves piled with heavy, wet snow. It was downright eerie. Trees fell across the road on either side of our house, including one that smashed a section of our new fence. We lost several trees in the backyard as well. I think Chris is planning to purchase a chain saw to tackle the downed trees...as soon as stores have them back in stock!

We lost power on Sunday morning but had it back by Tuesday night. On Monday I waited for almost two hours to take a hot shower at the middle school. Long line, quick shower, but totally worth it! As of this evening, 90,000 homes in Connecticut are still without power. Complete restoration isn't expected until Wednesday at midnight. And it's coooooold outside! Internet, phone, and cable went out during the snowstorm and only came back yesterday. So, all things considered, I'm feeling very well rested and ready to go back to work tomorrow!

A big branch that fell on the OLD fence.

The tree that fell on the NEW fence. :(

View of the fence from the road.

This was the culprit: heavy snow. We got about 10 inches overall, and not enough wind to knock it off the trees.

This huge tree limb came down Sunday morning when we were cleaning up the yard. I heard it from the other side of the backyard, but Chris actually saw it fall from the driveway. Yikes!

The little tree on the left was sagging, but after digging the limbs out of the snow it looks good as new.

Snow in October...still can't believe it!

Meghan's NJ wedding and Tropical Storm Irene

2011-09-03T13:11:00.003-04:00

What a week! Chris and I are thanking our lucky stars we never lost power here at Casa Gibson. Over 80% of Newtown did (some of our surrounding towns were 100% without power) and even today almost 20% are still without power. Our friends in other towns who live on smaller, more rural streets are still without power and have no idea when they'll be back on the grid. We've been inviting them over for showers and hot meals!

We live in Newtown right on the Newtown/Bethel border. On Tuesday night we took a drive to use our cell phones and saw exactly how lucky we were. Homes were lit up about half a mile in each direction from our house, but then after that they were dark until you got to either Newtown or Bethel's town center...at least four miles each way. We got our internet, phone, and cable back on Wednesday. Our church still doesn't have electricity, so I will be teaching Sunday school in the dark tomorrow. Our school year in Waterbury was supposed to start on Monday, but ended up being cancelled until Thursday. That's right, we already have THREE days to make up in June. The irony of all of it is that districts tried to start even earlier this year due to all the days we missed last January. Oh well! Maybe the state will waive the days and we won't have to make them up. They did that for us in Houston after Hurricane Rita.

But back to last weekend. It started out with a quick but very fun overnight trip to Morristown, NJ. Meghan, Chris' very good friend from Bucknell, and her fiance were married on Friday night. Chris and Meghan lived in the same hall freshman year and stayed friends throughout school. Chris had been looking forward to the wedding all summer and it didn't disappoint!

Neither of us had been to a Friday night wedding before, but serendipitously Meghan and her fiance Chris decided to get married on Friday rather than Saturday. If they'd had it on Saturday night instead, many of their wedding guests would not have been able to attend at all, thanks to Irene! Friday was beautiful, sunny, and warm- perfect summer wedding weather.

Something else new for me? The incredible amount of FOOD during the cocktail hour. Seriously, I thought that was dinner. There was a Chinese food bar, a seafood bar, a pasta bar, meat carving station, antipasti table, not to mention the waiters who were bring around additional appetizers. Wow. Any time I commented on the food, the general reply was "Must be your first Jersey wedding!" I tried to not get carried away since I knew we were about to sit down to a steak dinner.

Although we had to leave early Saturday morning to beat the storm and get the house ready, we had a blast. Congrats Meghan and Chris! Have fun in Hawaii!

We love weddings!

John and Dan, two of Chris' fraternity brothers. My favorite moment was when Dan shared a story from Chris' days at Bucknell. Apparently they were trying to get into a house party they weren't invited to. The guy at the door asked if they were on the list. Chris answers: "no, but she is!" and opens up a Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. They got in. :)

I finally got a picture of Chris with the beautiful bride!

So Chris had told me that Meghan's great-aunt Ellen is actually the acress Ellen Albertini Dow. You might remember her from her rendition of "Rapper's Delight" in The Wedding Singer?

Not only was she at the wedding, and so tiny and cute you just wanted to pick her up and put her in your pocket, she actually performed. It was awesome. If you don't want to watch the entire video you can skip ahead to 3:30. I love it!

The Wedding Singer from Jessica Hasty on Vimeo.

The Westin is dog friendly so Bailey came to NJ with us. He was so good. He didn't bark once, and had no problem going all the way down six floors and out the door before doing his business. Here he is enjoying the Westin's "heavenly bed".

When we arrived back in CT on Saturday we took down all the chairs from the deck, brough in the plants, took down the flag, etc. I washed the dishes and did all the laundry, so convinced was I that we would lose power. I filled every pitcher we had with drinking water and filled a huge ice chest with water for flushing toilets. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, right?

Luckily all my preparations ended up being unnecessary for us! The storm could have been so much worse. We didn't get as much wind as was anticipated, but we got an unbelievable amount of rain. Since we still had power we were able to use the shopvac to get water out of our basement. It definitely wasn't as much basement flooding as others in our area had, another wonderful stroke of luck.

We drove down to Sandy Hook Sunday afternoon to see the river that runs behind our favorite coffee shop. It was unrecognizable. It's usually very quiet and gentle, but after Irene you could have gone white water rafting down it!

Pootatuck River Post-Irene from Jessica Hasty on Vimeo.

Now we're thinking about our friends in Lousiana and hoping they don't get too much damage from Tropical Storm Lee today.

Goodnight [Hurricane] Irene

2011-08-28T08:42:00.001-04:00

It's Sunday morning and Irene is here! Chris and I spent the night on the air mattress in the kitchen due to the huge tree outside our bedroom window. So far, so good though, and obviously we still have power.

I'm so thankful my family didn't pick this week to visit! They were here two weeks ago and almost everything we did in the city has been closed this weekend due to Irene. The city that never sleeps is actually taking a nap!

Wednesday morning we took the train from White Plains, NY so they could see Grand Central Station. This was Josh's first time on a train!

Josh at Rockefeller Center, iconic-landmark-not-to-be-missed #2.

Empire State Building!

This was actually my first time to go up to the observation deck. The views were incredible. And the elevator goes from the 2nd floor to the 80th floor in exactly one minute.

The next day we took a break from all the walking in the city and hung around Newtown. I took them to a wine tasting at McLaughlin Vineyards which they really enjoyed. My favorite part? When Josh told the person faciliating the tasting that this wine was way better than the wine my parents usually drink. :)

Friday we went back into the city. First stop: Battery Park and the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. This was also my first time to see Lady Liberty!

From Battery Park, we walked through the financial district so they could see Ground Zero. This is the new, still being built World Trade Center.

Next stop: Central Park!

Final stop for the night: dinner in Koreatown. Yum...

Chris was able to take the train into the city after work and meet us for dinner!

The original plan for Saturday was to go to Boston, but I think two days in NYC wore my mom (and her new heart valve) out. So we ended up staying in CT and I took her to Silverman's Farm to pick peaches! We made 10 jars of peach jam a few days later.

On Sunday after church, Chris hung out with my dad and brother and I drove my mom into the city to see her first ever Broadway show. We went to the TKTS booth in Times Square to hopefully get tickets for Jersey Boys or Mamma Mia. Jersey Boys was sold out and Mamma Mia wasn't listed that day, we got tickets to see "Catch Me If You Can" instead. I hadn't heard much about the show, but it ended up being fantastic! Too bad it's closing next month. Mom LOVED it. :)

So that was my family's visit in a nutshell! It was so much fun to have them here. Too bad my sisters and their families couldn't have been here too. Although if they had come we would have had to rent a van or something...we could barely fit in my little Civic as it was!

8:41 and we still have power...25% of the state is currently without power...maybe we won't lose it after all? Fingers crossed! :)

All Shook Up?

2011-08-23T15:27:00.002-04:00

So by now everyone has probably heard the news that an earthquake was felt all along the east coast...but somehow it missed Casa Gibson! Can't say I'm disappointed. There's a reason I never wanted to live in California, and it's not the exorbitant real estate prices.

Chris said his office in Orangeburg, NY shook for about a minute! Crazy. I did have the dryer and the dishwasher going, and I was running around the house, but I think if it was shaking I would have felt that. And Bailey certainly would have let me know something was wrong. Who knows?

Here's what the Newtown Bee posted on their website.

Virginia Earthquake Rattles Newtown
8/23/2011

At 1:55 pm Tuesday, Newtown police said they started receiving telephone calls from residents across town reporting that they had felt the shaking effects of what seemed to be an earthquake.

Police said they received calls from areas including High Rock Road, Todds Road, and Main Street. No injuries and no physical damage had been reported, police said.

Police said they received between 7 and 10 calls immediately after the shock waves were felt.

Inside The Newtown Bee's building at 5 Church Hill Road, the floors of the building seemed to oscillate up and down for about 15 seconds during the incident.

National news organizations were reporting that a magnitude 5.8 earthquake had occurred in Virginia, with associated temblors felt along the eastern seaboard from North Carolina to Massachusetts.

Within minutes of an initial posting about the event on The Newtown Bee's Facebook page, more than a dozen commenters reported feeling the quake throughout Newtown, in surrounding towns including Southbury and New Milford, and as far away as Port Chester, NY.

Eat, Drink, and Be Married...Congrats Jill and Will!

2011-08-20T10:35:00.001-04:00

I can't believe the summer is almost over! I go back to work on Thursday and my head is already spinning with all the things I need to get done. But before that happens, I'm getting all blogerrific and catching up on some of the fun we've had this summer that's gone by way too fast.

Two weekends ago we went to Newport, RI to celebrate the absolutely spectacular wedding of Chris' cousin Jill and her handsome new husband Will. She was gorgeous and the entire weekend was beautiful. Chris' great aunt and uncle, Laura and Al, were able to attend the wedding. I had never met them, and even Chris' sister hadn't met them, so it was such a special opportunity for everyone to visit with them. Here they are taking the pedicab to the rehearsal dinner Friday night:

And I'm afraid that's about all the pictures I took that weekend! Chris' dad had his camera, his sister Caroline was taking pictures with her DSLR, so I just sort of sat back and enjoyed the festivities. Hopefully they will share some of the pics with me! But just to remember what a fabulous weekend it was, here is the video Jill and Will's videographer put together the day of the wedding and showed at the reception. We couldn't believe they could edit that quickly!

Congratulations Jill and Will! Your incredible wedding is just the very first step in your long, loving, joy filled marriage! Best of luck as you start out together. See you at the Horan Family Christmas Party! :)

Jill + Will || Same Day Edit from Chris Walsh on Vimeo.

4th of July Recap

2011-07-24T20:55:00.000-04:00

I know the 4th of July was several weeks ago but better late than never, I guess! We spent the week up in the White Mountains. Chris was finally able to relax after a busy couple of weeks at work (not to mention that hour-plus commute each way).

We managed to fit a hike in every day, despite some rainy weather.

{here we are hiking the Sugarloaf trail}

{the next day we hiked the Falling Water trail. it was full of, you guessed it, beautiful waterfalls.}

{the third day we let Bailey tag along while we hiked Frankenstein's Cliff. he loved it!}

{he got a little tired but he LOVED it!}

{yikes...I could barely bring myself to peek over the edge! it was a LONG way down!}

{relaxing on the porch at the gorgeous Mt. Washington Hotel}

Saturday was finally clear enough to do a BIG hike. We hiked up to Mt. Pierce, then to the top of Mt. Eisenhower, then back down to Pierce, then to the Mitzpah Springs Hut, then finally back down to the car. Phew! In total we hiked about 10 miles. Lots of water, one injured knee (that happened to be mine), and eight hours later, we were finally done. A long day but well worth it!

{on Mt. Pierce}

{beautiful views!}

The fireworks from the Mt. Washington Hotel were amazing, as usual, and we had a great time visiting with Chris' mom and dad. Happy 4th of July!

Our New Stone Wall

2011-07-23T08:27:00.001-04:00

What is the opposite of DIY?

That would be WAC, or "write a check". In our case, it actually meant "go to the ATM and take out cash because Jorge will give us a discount for cash". Regardless, we recently added a lovely stone wall to our property that was definitely NOT a project Chris wanted to tackle himself.

When we moved into the house there were railroad ties holding up this little area of greenery (and the Propane tank) around the side of the house and going down the driveway. Railroad ties don't last forever and they had seen better days.

Not great, huh? Jorge recemented our front steps a month or so ago (all the salt in the winter is terrible for the grout) and we thought he did a great job. The first day they knocked down the old wall...

And then the wall started coming together!

And here is the finished wall! It looks amazing. I'm confident it will be standing long after we've moved onto a different house.

What a difference! We love it. :)

Don't Go Chasin' Waterfalls...

2011-07-10T14:52:00.009-04:00

Oh, yes I did.

I did just quote TLC's Waterfalls circa 1995. The reason? Because when Chris and I got to visit Niagara Falls several weeks ago, he would NOT stop singing it. Loud enough that everyone around us, including tourists from the far reaches of the earth, could hear him singing it as well.

Thanks Christopher...the song has been stuck in my head for weeks. :)

Monday, June 20 was our last day of school in Waterbury so Tuesday, June 21...I got to go to Buffalo with Chris! He's always traveling there for work and this is the first time my school schedule has ever allowed me to go with him. I got to see all his favorite spots there, including Duff's Famous Wings. (Technically the Anchor Bar claims to have invented buffalo wings, but all the 'locals' go to Duff's. It's also where President Obama stopped for wings on his visit. Not that anyone on my side of the family would care about that little side note. :)

Chris had seen Niagara Falls before but this was my first visit...and I was amazed! Yes, it's totally built-up and cheesy and an obvious tourist trap but the falls themselves are just incredible. Absolutely breathtaking. Can you imagine what it must have been like to be the first people who stumbled up them?!! Unreal.

The Maiden of the Mist...just like the one Jim and Pam got married on. Aww... :)

And, in case you can't remember the grammy nominated awesomeness that was TLC's Waterfalls you can see it here.

The Great Howldini

2011-07-08T18:35:00.004-04:00

Despite being five years old, Bailey still has "accidents" in the house. Don't misunderstand me, they're quite rare, but they do happen. And I use the term accident fairly loosely since I'm pretty sure when they happen Bailey's just gotten tired of waiting for me to get home. I know he could hold it.

Anyway, for whatever the reason, yesterday I came home from work to find some unpleasantness in the office (his favorite place to "go"). Bailey was following me and as soon as I looked at him, his little ears dropped. He knew he was in trouble! His punishment? A serious time out in his kennel.

Chris came home from work shortly after (where he was given strict instructions to please leave Bailey in the kennel for awhile longer.) I went to the park for a run and when I came home...Bailey was sitting in the living room. And as it turns out, Chris was as surprised as me! Somehow our dog had had finagled his way out.

Now I've seen Bailey make entire sandwiches disappear, but this? This was a brand new magic trick. :)

And, like any great magician, it's imperative that Bailey get a good night's sleep.

Which means he must be directly in front of the window-unit air conditioner.

With all four legs in the air.

The roof, the roof, the roof...

2011-06-19T22:16:00.001-04:00

...is brand new! Thanks to my handy-dandy husband.

The shed in the backyard has needed a new roof pretty much since we moved into the house. We're actually amazed that it survived this winter's massive snow storm without collapsing. Needless to say, once Chris started ripping off the old shingles he realized the plywood underneath would need to be replaced as well. Boo. What seemed like a simple job was going to add many, many more hours to the job.

By the way- shingles are HEAVY! I helped Chris carry load after load of the old shingles to the driveway...and then let myself skip the gym that day. :) Another fun job I was assigned? Scrubbing 20 years of mouse droppings from pieces of vinyl siding Chris found stored in the shed. The smell was ridiculous.

Chris started the roof Memorial Day weekend and finished it yesterday. (Roofing is hugely dependent on weather and we've had lots of thunderstorms lately, so it ended up being a longer process than Chris anticipated.) I think it turned out amazing! Now we realize what a great little shed we have out there and can't wait to start using it more often. Doesn't the after look great?!

Spring!

2011-05-15T17:11:00.000-04:00

So except for today's rainstorms, the weather these past few weeks has been fantastic. It's still chilly at night, but we can sleep comfortably with our window open just a few inches. The sun has been shining and all the flowers are in bloom. It's still too early for our hydrangeas, but I brought in some lilac yesterday. The best part is, they smell even better than they look! (Forgive the poor quality of the pic from my phone.)

Last year we sort of neglected the lawn. Maybe that's too generous. We really neglected the lawn. Blame it on the massive deck restoration project. We had dead spots due to grubs, bald spots due to, we think, the acidity from the pine trees, and weeds that were out of control. From the vantage point of our freshly stained deck the grass looked great, but on closer inspection it was terrible. To reference one of the best films from the 90s, our lawn was like a Monet. Green and healthy looking from afar, but a hot mess when you got up close.

Now that Chris is finally done with his Saturday classes, we've been tackling the lawn with a vengeance. Over the past few weeks we have put down:

- grass seed (in three different spots in the lawn)
- lime
- starter fertilizer
- moss killer
- two treatments of weed killer
- grub killer

The entire backyard gives off the ever-so-subtle scent of chemicals. Yum. But hopefully it will do the trick.

We put down grass seed in one area of the lawn a few weeks ago. When we realized it was actually growing, we did the two other spots. Chris was in Buffalo all week, so I was in the backyard every morning at 6:00 a.m. in my pajamas...watering the grass seed. :) I can't see any growth since it's all covered in hay, but Chris said he's starting to see little tiny shoots of baby grass. Fingers crossed!

Now that I think about it, we haven't had perfect weather all spring. Easter weekend was pretty rainy. I ran a 5K the Saturday of Easter weekend with some friends from church and it poured the entire time. And it was cold. But ever since, we've had great weather. That night, we went to our friends' house for the doggie birthday party. It's their tradition to give their dogs hamburger "cakes" with hot dog dog "candles"...and this is what that looks like:

Happy Birthday, Nifty! from Jessica Hasty on Vimeo.

I married a prince.

2011-05-06T19:16:00.001-04:00

Well, not technically. Not the way Kate Middleton married a prince.

But my sweet husband Chris, after watching me analyze every little news bit leading up to THE royal wedding, agreed to wake up at the crack of dawn with me last Friday to watch the royal wedding LIVE. How many husbands do that? He's prince worthy, I tell you. :)

I really couldn't care less when celebrities marry, I don't watch all those gossipy TV shows or read the magazines. But THIS wedding, a ROYAL wedding, totally had me at hello. I was born a little too late for the huge Prince Charles and Princess Diana royal wedding extravaganza...I was not going to miss this one!

The wedding came on at 6:00 here on the east coast. I got up a little after 5:00, took a quick shower, and ran downstairs just in time to see Princes William and Harry leaving for the church. So exciting!

I did sort of bribe Chris with the promise of French toast and bacon, but I think he would have gotten up early even without a yummy breakfast. I thought about doing scones and tea but really, who wants to bake scones at 5:00 in the morning? And English scones are really more like our buttermilk biscuits anyway, which Chris doesn't care for.

I used our wedding china. Really, is there a more appropriate time to pull out the Waterford china than a ROYAL WEDDING?!

A different angle...the mother of the bride is arriving!

I ended up replacing those tall juice glasses with champagne flutes. We had some leftover champagne in the fridge from a risotto and I thought mimosas were in order. Very weak mimosas, mind you...we did have to go to work. :)

My very own Prince Charming!

I think Bailey really appreciated all the pomp and circumstance of this royal affair. He is British, after all. :)

Catch-up!

2011-04-21T15:45:00.000-04:00

It's been a bit busy here in CT, so the blog has taken a backseat for awhile. But! This week has been my spring break and despite tackling my long to-do list, I finally have a little time to play blog catch-up.

Where to start...we made a headboard! I can't remember exactly when we did this because it happened in stages. Chris chopped the rungs off the back of the bed and painted the whole bed dark brown (it was natural wood before). Then we picked out a fabric that we both agreed on...which was probably the toughest part of this whole project. :)

The plan was to start with MDF, use 2 inch foam, cover that with batting, and then staple the fabric over all three layers. We purchased enough fabric to run it longways across the headboard, until we realized that the fabric only ran in one direction. So I had to cut the fabric and sew it together to make it long enough to use. After several failed attempts, I was finally able to match it up. Can you find the seam in the after picture?

I still haven't found bedding (I was just trying out the brown pillows here.) Since Bailey sleeps with us it seems silly to spend money on bedding that will only get dirty, so for now we still have the old duvet. BUT I did buy some fun table lamps that actually match! Before we were using mismatched lamps from our days as single people.

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On April 4, Bailey turned FIVE YEARS OLD! I can't believe it. I thought it would be fun to have a party, however Chris wasn't on board with that. (A fun sidenote- we're actually going to a dog birthday party Saturday night. :) I didn't let that stop me from buying him a special birthday bone though.

Since the bitterest part of the winter is over, Bailey and I have been going running a lot. I use the word "over" in the loosest sense by the way. It was 43 degrees when we were running yesterday and I still had to wear a knit cap. I get grumpy if my ears get cold. Anyway, almost every day someone asks me if Bailey is a puppy! Sometimes they attribute it to his huge paws, sometimes they say he just looks puppy-like (maybe because we don't give him that sissy cocker cut?), but no matter the reason people are shocked to hear that he's 5. Aww...I remember when he was just a puppy. He was so tiny!

-----

I love our dining room table. It's 8 feet long though, and nearly impossible to find a table runner for. So I made one! It's not perfect, but I like it.

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Finally, my little project for this week! Our coat closet was driving me crazy. The walls were unpainted and the previous owners picked the ugliest planks of wood to use as shelves.

So this week I painted the shelves white, painted the walls a creamy yellow (the same color as that room), and added trim to the edges of the shelves so they look smooth. I love it!

The wooden knobs on the doors had been painted white over and over again. Not cute. We replaced them with some bright, colorful ones I found at Anthropologie. Plus, I realized that the previous owners had placed thick pieces of velcro in between the doors to help hold them shut. Yeah, it actually had the opposite effect. I took some pliers and pulled it all off. It's just a closet, I know, but I think it looks great!

Aren't they fun? They sort of match the carpet runner that's in the front room too.

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Chris had school Monday night so we celebrated our anniversary on Tuesday night. I still can't believe it's been two years! Time flies when you're having fun, right? We had chicken marsala, parmesan risotto, and Prosecco at home. We thought a little Italian would be nice to remember our fabulous honeymoon. :) We've been married two years and Bailey just turned five...as my Grandma would say, where does the time go?

Fenced in.

2011-03-27T18:01:00.000-04:00

Our fence has been in sad shape since we moved into the house. At first we bought yellow paint, thinking that a fresh coat of paint would save the fence. At closer inspection, we realized it wasn't worth the effort. We've lost a few sections of the fence to snow and rain over the past few years. I was shocked that the fence was still standing after this year's snow melted!

We decided this was the year for a new fence! With unrepressed glee, Chris took a sledgehammer to the old fence.

And on Friday, we came home to the new one! It's vinyl, which I wasn't sure about at first, but meant that we wouldn't be standing by a busy road painting the fence every other year. I was sold. Doesn't it look beautiful?! We should have done this years ago. Then again, had we replaced the fence before this winter, it might not be standing today! :)

Representin' the 504...in the 203

2011-03-22T22:06:00.002-04:00

I know Fat Tuesday was a few weeks ago...but I'm just now getting around to writing about it. Chris and I are both over the top busy with work. I don't even think I even blogged about the last day of our St. John trip! I'll add that to the ever growing to-do list. But back to Fat Tuesday.

Even though we couldn't actually be in the 504, we still wanted to celebrate it New Orleans style! So we made chicken delmonico with cheddar cheese grits. Delicious.

Still, what's Mardi Gras without a king cake? They don't sell them in the regular grocery stores here, no surprise, so I had to make my own! Now don't laugh...

I stuck a Corningware dish in the middle of the cake pan and then poured the batter all around it. Once it was baked (and cooled), I removed the dish and trimmed all the corners to make it look like a great big oval. I didn't make quite enough frosting to cover the inside edges...note to self for next year. But the funnest (most fun?) part of the cake was making the colored sugar to go on top. I just took three plastic bags, put a little sugar and the appropriate food coloring in each, and then smashed the sugar around until the food coloring was evenly distributed.

It didn't taste as good as the king cakes from New Orleans, but it was fun!

Fat Tuesday always marks the beginning of Lent and this year, we gave up something we love...restaurants. We don't go out to eat every night or anything like that, but we enjoy going out once or sometimes even twice a week. It varies from pizza and beer at Carminucio's right here in town (BEST pizza EVER) to picking a fun restaurant in the city. Wherever we go and whatever we eat, we love catching up and spending time together over a great meal. But for Lent...we gave it up!

A couple at church (fellow DINKs) who are good friends go"Wait...does takeout count too? Tell me takeout doesn't count too!!" :) Yup, no takeout either. The only exceptions we made were that we could still go out for coffee and if we were ever running late and didn't have time to brownbag it, we could buy lunch.

It's no so bad. I'm calling it "Operation Purge the Kitchen" and I'm using it as an excuse to eat all the food stockpiled in the freezer and pantry. Tonight, for example, we used half a box of lasagna noodles and leftover spaghetti sauce from the freezer to make an awesome spinach lasagna. Who needs restaurants, anyway? :)

Like Buddy the Elf says...

2011-03-12T17:10:00.001-05:00

"We elves try to stick to the four main food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corns and...

SYRUP!"

Like Buddy, Chris and I are also big fans of syrup. So today we visited the Woodbury Sugar Shed to see how maple syrup is made! Chris visited a sugar house once before when he was 10...and enjoyed it so much he tried to convince his parents to let him tap the maple trees in the yard. :)

This is the big boiler where the sap is boiled down to syrup.

The whole room smells like burning wood and sugar...such a great combination.

219 degrees but boy, does it look delicious!

Pretty amazing that such a little shack can make 10-12 gallons of maple syrup an hour!

Now comes the tough question...do we make pancakes or waffles for breakfast? :)

Only in New York

2011-02-24T19:47:00.000-05:00

I almost don't have words to describe our experience on Arthur Avenue last Friday night...but here goes. :)

Chris and I had been hearing about how great the Italian food is on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx for awhile now. We looked up a few restaurants but didn't really have a specific one in mind. Sometimes it's more fun that way. We just parked the car and started walking up and down the street, peering into windows and perusing menus until we found one that looked promising.

We settled on Enzo's Restaurant.

Some of the places looked way too big, almost like banquet halls, and others were small but empty. Enzo's looked cozy and most of the tables were already occupied- so we figured the food had to be good.

We were seated at a little table in the corner and it didn't take us long to decide what we wanted. Eggplant rollatini to start (which was fabulous!), stuffed pork for Chris and penne with vodka sauce for me. It was all excellent and, although we were too stuffed for dessert, we couldn't resist ordering two cappuccinos.

Once our drinks arrived I got nervous that the time on the meter was going to run out. It would not be my idea of a good time to have our car towed in the Bronx. Chris left to add another 15 minutes or so...and that's when it started.

See, just as our appetizer arrived a table of four had been seated right next to us. They were funny, loud, and had very distinct accents. (Think "Jersey Shore"). No big deal, they seemed perfectly nice.

Once Chris left I overheard one of the husbands tell a short story about his brother's behavior during a recent trip to a strip club. I realized quickly that the wife wasn't happy about it...

"You are disrespecting me, and everyone in this restaurant!"
"You shouldn't be telling ANYONE that story, let alone ME, your WIFE, in this restaurant, in front of our FRIENDS!"
"You and your bleepin' brother Mitch!"
"You are a bleep! Such a bleepin' bleep!"
"BLEEP YOU!!!"

And so it went. They weren't making any attempt to keep their voices down. I know the entire restaurant could hear them because when I went to the restroom a customer at a nearby table was complaining to one of the waiters. The yelling did stop briefly when the waiter came and tried to take their orders, but they eventually sent him away and resumed the argument with even more vigor. Chris came back somewhere in the middle of all this. We sipped our cappuccinos and tried to look anywhere but at the table of four less than two feet away.

It sounds sort of terrible, and I was at one point worried that someone was going to throw a punch (or worse), but it was just so darn ENTERTAINING! We laughed about it almost the entire drive home. Chris even complimented me on my great Italian accent.

But after all that...the food was so good we'll definitely be back. :)

St. John: Day 2

2011-02-23T21:00:00.003-05:00

Saturday- dive day! We were both really excited to dive after all the work to get certified (or re-certified in Chris' case) and we knew that St. John would be 1000 times better than diving in Long Island Sound!

We woke up bright and early on Saturday morning...one hour too early, actually. For some reason I thought we needed to be at the dive shop at 7:30, when we actually didn't need to be there until 8:30! Whoops. Totally my bad. But in keeping with the laidbackness of an island vacation, we threw our towels on the beach and gazed at the harbor until the employees of the dive shop started to arrive.

We'd heard from several people that Low Key was a great company to dive with. We had a full dive boat, with four different dive masters splitting the divers between them. Ours was Jeremy and, although he sort of lost us at the very beginning of our first dive, he was a great dive master and very understanding of the fact that these were our first real ocean dives.

The reefs were beautiful, the fish colorful, and we didn't see any sharks! Didn't see anything bigger than a Carribean lobster, actually, but had a fabulous time nonetheless. The visibility was just amazing! I was swimming on the bottom and could see all the way up to the surface! Just incredible. Oh, and one more thing about the dives...my husband thought I was crazy to do them. Because as we were getting all our gear on at the first dive site, I fell on my mask and cracked it. Yeah...the mask is sort of a critical component for diving. But, I popped my prescription lenses back in, confirmed with the dive masters that the crack was insignificant, and into the water I went! No way was I going all that way to sit on the boat and be seasick. :)

We had lunch at Hawksnest Beach and then ended the afternoon at Trunk Bay. Trunk Bay is the beach that has an admission fee of $4 per person, but it is worth it! I couldn't resist taking a video so I could remember how beautiful it was:

The sweet sound of St. John from Jessica Hasty on Vimeo.

We had dinner at Morgan's Mango, which was the perfect way to end another day on St. John. My new most favorite place on earth. :)

St. John: Day 1

2011-02-19T17:45:00.000-05:00

We left for St. John on Thursday, February 10. It was f-f-f-freezing in New England and we couldn't wait to put our toes in the warm Caribbean sand! :) After a slight mishap with our plane (they had to deboard everyone for over an hour because some pipe had frozen), we arrived in St. Thomas! We picked up our rental jeep, drove to the ferry at Red Hook, and after a quick ride on the ferry...WE WERE IN ST. JOHN! It was just as beautiful as we imagined.

Once we found Sol Cottage, our rental house that was just a 10-minute ride from Cruz Bay, we decided we needed to EAT! We were starving and it was late. Though we couldn't wait to try out some of the restaurants in Cruz Bay, we decided to have dinner at the lovely Westin Resort. And since, no matter how hungry I am, I can't eat half of a chicken, my leftovers provided lunch on Saturday and Sunday! There's something about being on the beach, after a swim, that makes a sandwich takes like the best thing ever. :)

We woke up bright and early on Friday, excited for our first full day on the island. And it did not disappoint!

We started the day at Cinnamon Bay.

After lunch, we drove to Maho Bay. This pic is from the road looking down on Maho. So beautiful!!

These guys are everywhere! Now that's free range! :)

Maho Bay. The water was so calm here! While snorkeling, we saw a stingray and a HUGE sea turtle. He was right there in front of us! Incredible. Since we like to bring home a Christmas ornament from every trip we take, we found a beaded stingray to remember this day. :)

This isn't a great picture, but Zozo's Restaurant looks out over the ocean and is THE perfect place to have a drink and watch the sun go down!

I may be overusing the word perfect, but our first day on St. John really was! After Zozo's we had dinner at Rhumb Lines. Although it wasn't in either of our guide books, several different people had recommended it. And it was fantastic!! Soooo good. So good, in fact, that we were worried we'd found the best restaurant the first night and would be disappointed every night after! :)

Sweet St. John

2011-02-15T20:24:00.001-05:00

We're back! We're relaxed! We're tan!

St. John was wonderful. The perfect vacation. Not enough time to blog about the fabulousness right now (plus the Mac is at the Apple Store and uploading from my laptop is slooooow). I will, however, leave you with this picture of us on the most beautiful beach I've ever stepped foot on. Maybe looking at this picture will make me forget that the low tonight is 11 degrees? :)

Trunk Bay - St. John
February 12, 2011

Thanks Phil, at least you've got our backs.

2011-02-02T10:32:00.002-05:00

Well, it's official: Punxsutawney Phil didn't see his shadow and we're going to have an early spring.

Right.

Tell that to our NBC Connecticut chief meteorologist, Bob Maxon, who looks like a kid on Christmas morning each time he gleefully announces we have another winter storm on the way. (Cari- he's from Oswego!)

I do feel like he hyped this current storm up a bit too much, at least for our area. We were supposed to get 6-10 inches of snow yesterday and I think we got 3 or 4. We were all prepped for an ice storm with batteries, candles, and kerosene, but so far the ice today doesn't seem too bad.

View more news videos at: http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/video.

This is our ninth snow day for Waterbury, which means we'll be in school until at least June 20...and winter's not over yet. I really can't trust a groundhog that's only right 39% of the time, you know? I'm pretty sure the guys in his Inner Circle (yes, that's what they call them, it's Phil's very own secret society) decided that morale was getting a little low this winter and, poof!, no shadow.

Another unfortunate side effect of this winter mayhem? Our mail isn't coming every day. :( Although they did leave this helpful note in our mailbox:

Happy Shoveling! :)

Bailey loves...chocolate?

2011-01-30T18:50:00.002-05:00

This will go down as a classic Bailey tail, I mean, tale. :)

Winter is a great time for crock pot cooking and yet we don't use ours nearly as much as we should. Yesterday, however, Chris thought the perfect way to reward himself after snow and ice removal duty was a dinner of pulled pork sandwiches with BBQ sauce. Yum. (I think I'm going to make my husband an honorary Texan...it was that good.) When I came downstairs early Saturday morning and saw the size of the pork (it was SEVEN POUNDS!) I immediately texted our friend Heather and invited her over for dinner. I love leftovers, but we would have been eating pulled pork for days on end.

As I said, the pulled pork sandwiches were fantastic and we had a great time with Heather. She had kindly offered to bring over dessert, so after dinner each of us had a generous slice of chocolate ganache cake from Ross' Bread.

This is a picture from the Ross' Bread website...amazing, right?!

After a big BBQ dinner none of us could finish our cake. So we left the half-eaten pieces on the dining room table and let the dogs (Heather brought Gracie) out to use the restroom. Bailey came back in right away and the three of us continued to laugh at Gracie trying to tiptoe through the snow without sinking.

If you know Bailey, you know he's always underfoot. And all of a sudden...he wasn't. And he was being waaaay too quiet. I knew something was up so I ran to the dining room...where all 3 pieces of cake were gone and Bailey was licking his lips. I called the vet, of course, but they thought Bailey would be okay. Still, I slept terribly because I kept waking up during the night and checking to make sure he was still breathing.

Don't worry about Bailey, today he's totally fine...but I wish I had some more chocolate cake. :)

Bailey loves snow days.

2011-01-27T17:53:00.002-05:00

Dear Bailey,

I think you're getting a little too used to the idea of having me around the house all the time. Between all the delayed starts and snow days, I've been spending quite a bit of time working from home and...I think you're loving it.

Sometimes you just plop yourself right across my knees! Please keep plopping...you're very warm.

So I hate to break this to you buddy, but spring will be here in 51 days. All good things must come to an end...but we'll enjoy it while we can, right?

Love,

Jess

PS- Don't tell Chris that I called all this snow a "good thing". I think he's pretty tired of it. :)

I'm snow tired of winter: an addendum.

2011-01-26T17:05:00.000-05:00

Just heard on the local news that this is the snowiest January on record...and they've been keeping records in Connecticut since 1905. Oh, and after tonight's "winter blitz" (that's what NBC Connecticut has dubbed it), January 2011 will be the snowiest month on record...EVER. It beats the previous Connecticut record from December 1945. Unbelievable. :)

I'm snow tired of winter.

2011-01-26T13:03:00.002-05:00

I still love snow, but it amazes me how much we've already gotten this winter! I grew up somewhere where it never snowed (you can't count the dusting every decade or so) and now I'm getting nor'easters every couple days. Feast or famine is an understatement.

I made this handy calendar to demonstrate how crazy school has been these past few weeks. Really, I am just dreading going outside to shovel the driveway and making this calendar was the perfect way to procrastinate a few more minutes. :) Each little snowflake is a day we've had off from school. As you can see, we had an early dismissal today. And tomorrow is shaping up to be snow day #6...

Raise, er, RAKE the Roof!

2011-01-23T15:29:00.000-05:00

When I got into my car for church this morning...it was -7 degrees. MINUS SEVEN! Needless to say, it's been an indoor kind of weekend. Except for the roof raking yesterday. Chris has already shoveled the snow off the roof several times in the past week, including once in the middle of a freezing rainstorm and once at night (luckily we have awesome floodlights on the front of the house). But this was the first time he was able to try out his new roof rake.

Truth be told, I do not have a very important role to play in this process. I wait until Chris has climbed onto the roof and then I hand him the ladder, drill, and/or shovel. That's about it, he does all the work. He doesn't even need my help to get down; since the snowbanks are so high, he just jumps! I stay outside the entire time when Chris is on the big part of the roof, or when it's raining or nighttime. But yesterday it was so cold he told me to go back inside the house. And I did. :)

The view from the mini room...

And there he is! It still makes me nervous every time he goes up.

Chris used the widest drill bit he has to drill an opening in the ice dam. It's way too cold for any snow to be melting now, but when it warms up, it can find a way off the roof through this opening (instead of just pooling up behind the dam).

And that's the rake!

Looks like hard work. :/

Oh, and did I mention that there's an 80% chance for a wintry mix on Wednesday? How many times can we get snow?! It's been like Groundhog Day, except that instead of repeating the same day over and over we repeat the same snowstorm every five or six days. Stay tuned for Wednesday! :)

Houston, we have a problem.

2011-01-18T16:51:00.001-05:00

So...I'm home. Been home all day. Chris too.

Today was my 5th snow day for the year. Already. And it's only mid-January!

I guess I should have thought of a better title for this post. Because really, if we were living in Houston this wouldn't be a problem at all.

It's supposed to stay above freezing tonight and into tomorrow, which will hopefully melt the rest of the snow off the roof.

Wish it would have warmed up a few days ago...before I had to shovel all the snow off the deck. It was like a thousand cubic feet of snow. Yes, I did the math.

BUT, I shouldn't be complaining because I am very grateful to have a roof over my head and a cozy place to hide from this weather.

Even so...counting down the days until spring. :)

Wildlife

2011-01-16T18:59:00.001-05:00

I was getting ready for Sunday School this morning (I had to skip big church...more on that in a bit) when I looked out our window and saw these guys:

Despite the fact that back in 2008 a deer ran into my new car only a week and a half after I bought it...I still think it's fun to see them in my backyard. It was obvious to us that momma deer checked things out first, and finally these three little guys followed behind her. Look at how deep they are in the snow!

And the reason I had to leave church right after I taught Sunday School was because we had a reservation at the Shepaug Dam Bald Eagle Observatory! It's open weekend mornings from 9:00-1:00, starting in December and continuing through March. The eagles made a comeback in Connecticut in 1992 and have been wintering near this dam in Southbury ever since.

There was a whole slew of volunteers from the CT Audubon Society who helped us see where the eagles were located. There were only two there today, but last weekend they had about 20! We thought this pie graph describing the bald eagle's activity patterns could also be used to describe Bailey's day-to-day activities. Just replace perching with sleeping, and flying with wandering around the house. :)

You can see the dam through the observation hut's window. The eagles picked this spot because the water right below the dam doesn't freeze, meaning they can catch fish throughout the winter.

The new zoom lens Chris got us for Christmas is fantastic, but still didn't have quite enough zoom to get close to the eagle! :) We were pretty far away. Still, I think if you click on the photo to enlarge it you might be able to see the eagle in the tree. Here's a fun fact: did you know that eagles are five years old before they get the white feathers on their head?? I didn't. :)

American Idiot

2011-01-15T20:17:00.004-05:00

Thanks, Nielsen! Because of you (and our dedication to pressing your buttons) we went into the city today to see American Idiot on Broadway. And, I have to say, it was pretty amazing.

A little racy? For sure. Violence, swearing, etc., all in there. And with a definite message about the direction that our country is headed if we don't fix things soon. Which doesn't bode well for my family's (and I think my husband's) opinion that I've somehow been brainwashed by this blue state I'm living in. But I haven't. I just lean a little to the left every now and again. Blame it on the N-N-N-N-N-NPR.

(This is longer than the original video I posted, but the bad words are bleeped out here...and whoops! they were not on last night's video.)

Anyway, the show was great! Awesomely talented cast. After the show we had Thai at a swanky (but remarkably affordable) restaurant called Room Service. Check out the gorgeous chandelier behind my handsome husband:

Snowpocalypse: Part Deux. AKA, Snowmageddon: Storm of the Century.

2011-01-12T18:29:00.002-05:00

I could totally have a second career naming cheesy action films. Just saying.

Chris thought I missed the snowstorm of the season while I was down in Arkansas for Christmas. Today, we realized he was wrong. We woke up this morning to TWO FEET of beautiful, white, fluffy snow on the ground. Pow, as my sis-in-law would call it. :) TWO FEET! That's taller than Bailey. He's still too intimidated by the snow to venture into the yard.

I just got a call from the emergency information system in Waterbury and was informed that the schools will be closed again tomorrow. Not surprised. There was already a lot of snow still on the ground in Waterbury...I have no idea where they're going to put two more feet of snow. Unfortunately Chris won't be able to stay home with me again tomorrow. I enjoyed having him here today. :)

Here are a few pics from today. We took a ton (because really when will I see this much snow again?) and the rest are on Picassa. If you'd like to see them all, you can click right here.

Still snowing this morning. Good thing Chris re-roofed the little shed, huh?!

I'm slightly concerned about the amount of snow on the roof of our house...

The deck. Whoa.

24 inches!

So pretty.

This is the picture I was taking...

...when Chris was taking this one!

After snowblowing the driveway...not an easy task.

Have you ever jumped face first into a snow bank? If you haven't, you must try it.

White everywhere!!!

The sun finally came out for a little bit this afternoon.

The path the snowblower took from the garage to the front of the house.

New Art

2011-01-08T07:48:00.001-05:00

Chris and I have had these pictures hanging in the master bedroom since we moved into the house:

I found them from a photographer at the Red Stick Farmer's Market, Baton Rouge's downtown farmer market, and my Dad wanted to buy them for me. They are of two of my favorite spots in New Orleans:

But since our bed is all white (we can't agree on bedding at all so we're sticking with plain white until...one day...we might find something we both like) I thought we could use some art with a little more color up there.

So for Christmas I ordered six prints from http://www.kodakgallery.com/ of a few favorite pictures we've taken recently. Kodak Gallery offers professional printing, and these were done in the metallic color setting. It really makes them shimmer. The frames were only $6.99 apiece from Michael's. If I tried to buy six actual frames with mats included it would have been at least $100, maybe more. I wasn't sure if I'd like the look of the glass with the clips, but I love it! (It does look better in person.) Someday I might add three more frames to make a total of nine (I love things that are square), but for now, this is it.

And here are the pics:

Near the Lake of the Clouds Hut

Crossing a stream at the start of the hike to Lake of the Clouds

Brave little bird in St. Lucia (I think my F-I-L may have taken this one!)

Cappucino in Mennagio on our honeymoon...yum

Hiking up Mt. Jefferson

Italian honeymoon on a rainy afternoon

We represent.

2011-01-07T16:11:00.000-05:00

For almost two years, both Chris and I have represented 30,000 people in each of our demographics.

The reason? Nielsen Ratings. Do you remember after last year's Super Bowl (Geaux Saints!) when it was announced that the game had beat the record of most viewers previously held by the final episode of the show MASH? That data comes from Nielsen, and little boxes like this:

Whenever the TV was turned on, the button for Jessica and the button for Chris would automatically start blinking red. Whoever was watching had to press their designated number and then say OK (we had a remote control, too.)

Two years ago a woman from Nielsen knocked on our door and asked if we would like to participate in their program. (Apparently it is very difficult to locate people in our age range in Fairfield County or households without children...we were a rare find. :) They would compensate us for our time every 6 months and they would remove the equipment at any time if we wanted to stop. Paid to do something we would do anyway? No brainer!

It did get annoying, though. The buttons start blinking every 40 minutes or so, just to make sure you're still watching and haven't walked away from the TV. It's a tad disruptive in the middle of a movie. But, now the two years are over and we're taking our last $100 check to see American Idiot in the city! Should be fun.

Good riddance to the Nielsen box!

They came and took the box away on Tuesday. The next morning I heard a story on NPR about the latest Nielsen findings. Of all of the highly viewed shows they mentioned...we don't watch a single one of them! We represent 60,000 people and still they don't mention The Office or How I Met Your Mother?

There are also a few shows that we watch separately. Like, for example...I watch Glee. Please don't judge me. :) And Chris' guilty pleasures are Ax Men and Pawn Stars. Those shows weren't mentioned in the report either. Oh well. I shouldn't be surprised. The #1 show is still American Idol and I have never watched that show. To each their own!

Blinded

2011-01-07T12:39:00.004-05:00

Nope, this post has nothing to do with my job. Which, subsequently, is the reason I'm blogging in the middle of the day...it's a SNOW DAY! (Although it certainly doesn't look like it will be another snowmageddon...it's just past noon and finally started to snow lightly.)

We recently purchased blinds for three of the rooms upstairs: the office, the mini-room (which is sort of my office), and the master bedroom. Both the office and mini-room had those really cheap (like $5) plastic shades that you glue onto the window frame and hold up with clips. Yuck. But they where there when we bought the house so they stayed. And the master bedroom had nothing on the windows at all. Okay in the summer when the trees are full of leaves, not so okay in the winter when the trees are bare. Granted, we don't have any neighbors, but we do live on a busy road. :)

The roman shades were a steal from JCPenney's website (cheaper than in-store) and what a difference they make! Should have done this years ago.

Office Before

Office After

Office Before

Office After

Mini-room Before

Mini-room After

Master Before

Master After

And, for anyone who was worried, our master bedroom is at the back of the house so it's not like anyone from the road could really see into the windows, but I still feel more comfortable with the shades up. :)

The Christmas of the Snowpocalypse

2011-01-02T19:36:00.004-05:00

Happy 2011!

I can't believe that I've been out of high school for over a decade now! It's a rare occurrence if I get carded anymore. And I no longer get asked for a hall pass while at work. Although I did answer the phone the other day and the caller asked if he "could talk to my dad." :)

But back to 2010. Chris and I made plans to spend the Christmas holiday down in Arkansas with my family. He hasn't seen them since last Christmas and I haven't been down for a visit since my mom's surgery in April. Our friend Heather offered to watch Bailey while we were gone (he adores her). Of course he got to open his Christmas stocking before he left.

Hmm...what's in here??

Who needs hands?!

The service was great and we made a special dinner when we got home (since we would have to leave early Christmas morning for the airport) and used our wedding china.

Christmas morning (our 2nd as husband and wife! :) while I was finishing our suitcases, Chris came upstairs with some bad news: our flights had been cancelled. They connected through Atlanta and since that region was expecting some icy/snowy weather...Delta had preemptively cancelled the flights. And decided not to answer their phones. Chris couldn't get through to anyone. Somehow, he managed to book an alternate flight for me online from a different airport, but he couldn't book that same flight for himself. He was booked for the 26th.

We were in such a rush to get to the airport, we didn't even get to open all our gifts!

The Delta employees at the airport were really nice, but even they couldn't get Chris booked on the same flights as me. So, after much debate, we decided to cancel his flight altogether. We knew with the blizzard coming the next day that his new flight was going to be cancelled anyway, and since he had to come home on Tuesday to go back to work...it seemed like the most practical idea. We made a good decision (over 10,000 flights ended up cancelled over the holiday weekend) but it still wasn't fun to spend Christmas apart.

Even without Chris, I had a wonderful time in Arkansas with the fam. And, on Thursday we got the best news ever...my Mom doesn't have cancer!!! All the tests the past few weeks indicated that she did, which made me all the more ready to get home and see her. But when we went to the cancer center in Little Rock they were almost 100% certain that she doesn't! She still needs to have a lot of tests done because there is obviously something wrong...but it's NOT cancer. It was the first time I saw her smile all week. :)

The girls at Grandma and Pop's house

And the men (yes, one glance at this picture and it is not hard to figure out that we are in Arkansas)

To entertain the nieces, I showed them how to make their own lollipops. (Kaylee is modeling the I heart NY shirts that we got for all 5 nieces and nephews...it made shopping so much easier getting them all the same thing! We're totally doing this every year.)

And she lost her very first tooth a few days after Christmas! The Tooth Fairy left her a dollar. She is going to "save it so [she] can get rich." A girl after her Uncle Chris' own heart.

-----

I flew home on New Year's Eve, anxious to see my husband, my dog, and the sixteen inches of snow they got while I was gone! Some of the snow had already melted, but Chris' time lapse video made me feel like I was right here for it! He set up the webcam to take one picture every minute.

Chris picked up a cowboy steak for our New Year's Eve dinner. It was a deliciously ridiculous amount of meat.

January 1 almost felt like spring, so we took Bailey to Huntington Park. Not a bad way to start the New Year!

Oh, Christmas Tree

2010-12-11T13:05:00.000-05:00

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas here at Casa Gibson! I decided that our dining room table needed a little sprucing up for Christmas. I found the set of 4 festive plates for $10 at Home Goods and everything else I already had. I add this picture just so Chris' cousin Jill knows we patronize the stores of TJX Corporation. :)

At Paprowski's Tree Farm last Sunday. We found a tree in under 10 minutes. (I find the amount of time it takes to select and cut down a tree is inversely proportional to how cold it is. It was pretty chilly that day!)

As soon we got the tree home and in the house, Bailey commenced with his favorite part of the Christmas season: eating the tree.

With lights! But no ornaments yet.

And here she is all decked out!

We have three new Christmas ornaments on the tree this year.

This one we got from Chris' parents last year. I love it!

Chris and I like to bring home a Christmas ornament from each trip we take. We're not really souvenir people, so ornaments are the perfect way to remember each and every vacation (although our St. Lucia trip went by so quickly we didn't find one. Whoops!) This one I found on Block Island when we went this past June. Technically I think it's a sun catcher you're supposed to hang in a window, but I think it looks beautiful on the tree.

And this one is another Christmas gift from last year. My older sister Angie gave Chris and me this to remember our first Christmas as a married couple. :)

And one more thing...last week when we were at the Christmas tree farm, a reporter from the Danbury News-Times (local newspaper) asked us if she could take our picture. We swung by the grocery store this morning to pick up a copy, and lo and behold there we were, right on the front of the section! There's a smaller picture of Chris at the bottom of the page, sawing down the tree. Very fun. :) Click right here to go to the News-Times website and get a better look at the pictures. Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving and...Christmas?

2010-12-08T21:16:00.001-05:00

We've been really busy this fall and winter. I've been doing a terrible job of keeping up with our little blog here, not that we have a lot of readers anyway. :) But, it's time to blog because we got to spend Thanksgiving (and Christmas! sort of) with Chris' family a few weeks ago and it was great fun.

Chris and I both had to work on the Wednesday before Christmas. Because we've seen how bad traffic can be on the Mass Turnpike the night before Turkey Day, we opted to drive to Maine on Thursday morning. And it worked like a dream! There were cars on the road but no real traffic and we got to Eliot at 10:30. Perfect timing.

I'm sad to say that I don't have many pictures from Thanksgiving (could have something to do with the fact that I did a LOT of eating) but here are a few:

How's the gravy, Chris?

FIL (or Jay to the rest of you) carving the bird!

Beautiful table!

And somehow after all that amazingly delicious food I managed to go shopping at midnight with Mary Pat and Caroline. Once we actually got to J Crew I realized I was pretty tired and sort of walked around in a zombie-like state for awhile, but I perked up at Banana Republic. I bought Christopher 8 pairs of boxers for $19! It was practically highway robbery. :)

Then the Saturday after Thanksgiving we got together with Chris' side of the family for the annual, not-to-be-missed, better-wear-your-stretchy-pants-because-there's-bound-to-be-tons-of-food, time-to-get-your-Yankee-swap-on, HORAN FAMILY CHRISTMAS PARTY!

Meg, Scott, and Eric

That adorable little ball of fluff is Sophie! Jill's maltipoo!

I think we need one. Bailey could use a teeny little sister.

Dick was #14 for the swap so he got stuck with Chris' gift, which was actually pretty fun- 2 sleds and a box of hot chocolate! Just add some snow for a fun afternoon!

So much merriment. And the Christmas season has only just begun!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Is it a bird? A plane?

2010-11-17T20:51:00.001-05:00

Nope! Just Jess. I haven't posted in about three weeks so I figured you might not recognize me! We've been busy, to say the least. Here's a little catch-up.

Here are the clams that Chris collected at the bottom of Long Island Sound during our dive three weeks ago! He cooked them on the grill and made a tangy sauce to go with them. I actually didn't try them, but Chris said they were great! He wasn't able to get all the grit out of them though...wonder what we should do different next time?

I had hoped to go diving again that following Sunday, which was Halloween, to do my 3rd and 4th open water dives, but that didn't end up happening. Somehow on my second dive in the sound, water got behind my right ear drum. A week later my ear felt better and the water was slowly making its way out, but my Dr. strongly suggested I not dive again so soon. Bummer.

Another week went by and we found ourselves in Boston for Jill and William's engagement party! Chris found a bed and breakfast in Newton, MA that was just a quick 15 minute drive into the city.

We had dinner in the North End before the party. Restaurant look familiar?? It's Il Villagio, where we got engaged two and a half years ago! It was the first time we'd been back since that night, and just as good as we remembered. The night we got engaged I had chicken parmesan, but my new favorite dish is gnocchi. Yum.

We had planned on finding a Starbuck's where we could change clothes for the party, but we didn't pass one on our walk back from dinner. So...we changed into our party clothes in the parking garage! More specifically, in the car, in a very dark, unlit corner of the parking garage. Once we both had the chance to get dressed, however, Chris moved the car. Dark corners are good for changing clothes, but not good for keeping your car safe.

But back to the party. We had such a great time! It was wonderful to see everyone. We can't wait for the wedding in August...congratulations Jill and Will!

We woke up early the next morning (daylight savings helped) and drove straight to Bridgeport, CT...so I could do my 3rd and 4th dives! We knew Capt. Steve was taking the boat out one last time, but originally he'd been planning to take out a group of 10 hedge fund managers (or investment bankers? I can't remember) who were getting certified together as a team building exercise. With 10 students there wouldn't be room on the boat for me. But luckily half of them dropped out by the end of the course so I could go! There was room for Chris to go too, but diving in 52 degree water didn't sound like much fun to him. :)

The other guys on the boat ended up being a lot of fun and by the end of the day, we were all certified SCUBA divers! Now I'm even more excited for our trip to St. John. It was definitely worth freezing my tail off in Long Island Sound!

After another week of work (the weeks just fly by when you're busy!) and it was the weekend again. This past weekend we ate a LOT of food. And it was all FANTASTIC! Friday night Chris and I went to the Inn at Newtown (one of the few restaurants here in Newtown we like) for dinner with a couple from our church. Saturday morning we drove into the city for breakfast at Sarabeth's with a few Texas friends who were visiting the city.

After breakfast and a quick stroll through NYC, we drove back to CT and straight to our pastor's house. He and his wife had invited the whole church (it's a small church) over for BBQ ribs. Even though I'm from Texas, I can honestly say these were THE best ribs I've ever had. Wow. When we got home that evening we both fell asleep before 8:00. Nothing like a baby-back-rib-coma!

And that's what we've been up to lately!

Scuba Update: Open Water Certification

2010-10-25T19:57:00.000-04:00

To earn your scuba certification (after the classroom and pool sessions), you have to complete four open water dives spread out over two days. As I've mentioned before, our instructor likes to take his students to a few sites in Long Island Sound. We knew the visibility in the sound would be around 6-8 feet. Not great, but better than the sandpit where Chris did his open water dives! As far as the sixty degree water went, we reckoned that if we could dive in a long wetsuit...with a neoprene jacket on top...with a hood...and gloves...then the warm waters of St. John would be a ~~walk~~ swim in the park!

That said...day #1 was an epic FAIL.

Saturday:

We had hoped to get in two dives but ended up with zero. I didn't take any Dramamine...per my scuba instructor's warning...and ended up sicker than I was when I went fishing waaaay out in the Gulf of Mexico. I felt terrible. When we anchored Steve (our instructor) wanted to get me in the water right away because that helps seasickness. It takes awhile to get suited up when you feel sick, but eventually I was dressed and ready to get in the water. And in the water I went! And then I waited. And waited. And waited some more. My mask was fogged so I couldn't see anything that was happening on the boat and the surf was whipping the tag line (and me with it) in the water so much that I couldn't defog it. As it turns out, the holdup was due to our instructor's zipper breaking on his wetsuit. Eventually he joined us in the ocean, broken zipper and all.

After a few attempts at descending (I was just nervous and Chris was having mask and hood issues) I told Steve I wanted out of the water. I'd rushed to get into the water and then spent way too much time bobbing around in rough surf. Despite all my training and practice in the pool, I was rattled. So we got back on the boat (where I was stillll seasick) and went back to the marina.

Sunday:

We did a lot of things differently on Sunday. I took Dramamine at 9:00 a.m. We went back to the dive shop where Chris got a smaller hood and I got a much smaller wetsuit (my farmer john had been way too big the day before). The seas were a bit calmer as well. I felt 100 times better than I had the day before.

On Saturday, it was just our instructor Steve, Chris and me, and Jose, a former student of Steve's. On Sunday, the four of us were back along with Capt. Noel and another student Gary, who was getting certified to be on the police department's diving rescue team. This worked out really well because Noel stayed on the boat, Steve took me and Gary, and Jose and Chris (the already certified divers) were able to go off on their own.

Lots of tanks!

We did our first dive at the site of an old wreck that was in about 25 feet of water, our second in a clam bed about 20 feet deep. Chris and I weren't diving together, but we both saw a TON of starfish, he saw a huge crab, and later collected a bagful of clams. We're not sure if taking clams is entirely legal, but he's cooking them on the grill right now so it's a bit too late to worry about that!

Jose and Chris with their contraband clams!

Despite our many layers of neoprene, by the end of the second dive we were COLD. But we'd had such a great time that it didn't even matter! And I can finish my scuba certification by doing my final two dives in St. John! There's a chance that I can do two more dives on Halloween, but that depends on a number of factors, one being my right ear. I didn't think I was having any problems equalizing pressure on my descents but on our drive home my ear felt full of water...and now loud noises hurt it. Pots and pans banging together, Bailey barking, even the sound of ice dropping into my Nalgene bottle make me wince. Hopefully it'll go away soon.

Brrrr!!!

I'd been dreading diving into Long Island Sound since we started these classes. Now that I've done it once...I totally love it and am ready to go again! Yes it's cold, and it's murky, but it's so neat to see what's down in the ocean right where we live!

Thanks, Captain Steve! Here he is in his dry suit (since the zipper on his wetsuit broke the day before.)

Columbus Day Getaway

2010-10-22T22:45:00.001-04:00

So, I know Columbus Day was nearly two weeks ago, but better late than never, right? Chris and I have been busy with our scuba classes!

We spent the long weekend up in the White Mountains with Chris' parents. We took a (chilly!) hike up to the glacial potholes on Mt. Jefferson, where we passed people coming down with frost on their hats! Brrr.

The four of us also did the Bretton Woods Canopy Tour and it was SO MUCH FUN! It included 9 ziplines, 2 sky bridges, and a few spots where you had to repel down. We had beautiful weather and a ridiculously good time. I highly recommend it!

On Mt. Jefferson

Ready to zip!

@ the Top of the Quad

On one of the sky bridges...these were scarier than the ziplines!

The couple that zips together, stays together. :)

View of the Mt. Washington from the treetops!

This was a video taken by Paul, one of our guides. This was the longest and HIGHEST zipline!

Ziplining from Jessica Hasty on Vimeo.

Scuba

2010-10-07T22:50:00.001-04:00

When Chris was living in Beaumont (and just a teeny bit bored), he took a course to become scuba certified. He even did his qualifying dive...in a sandpit! Not much visibility, but it meant that he was certified to scuba dive almost anywhere in the world. I'm not though.

Luckily, a few weeks ago Chris found a scuba Meet Up group here in Connecticut that offers a "I Tried Scuba" experience every few months. I thought it would be a great way to try out scuba diving and see if I liked it before I invested all that money in the full course.

So last Saturday I went to the Norwalk YMCA, put on all the gear, and tried scuba diving...for FREE! And I loved it! The full scuba course entails three nights of classroom training and three nights in the YMCA pool. Chris was certified so long ago that he needed to take a refresher course. The scuba instructor said he could take the full class with me for the cost of a refresher course...so we signed up for the October class! Tonight was our first night in the pool.

Just a few more weeks and we'll be certified! After the qualifying dive of course. Did I mention it's in Long Island Sound? No, you read that right. I'm nervous already! :)

Here I am with our scuba instructor whose name is...wait for it...Steve.

Yes, I am learning to dive from Scuba Steve. Hee, hee.

My New (forty-year-old) Chair

2010-09-19T07:09:00.002-04:00

I'd been looking for something to make our master bedroom a little more cozy. I thought a "reading nook" might be just the thing, but I didn't want to spend a lot of money on a piece of furniture that wouldn't get used all that often (since we have so much seating downstairs.)

I found this chair for $20 on Craigslist:

And somehow it became THIS:

I still can't believe I actually did it! I know a professional could have done it in a day or two. It took me six weeks of working on it in pieces. But, somehow, slowly, it all came together (even with my serious lack of sewing-know-how) and I ended up with a chair that I love! And the owner of a sewing shop that reupholsters furniture said I probably saved $500 by doing it myself. Even if you subtract the cost of the chair itself, the fabric, and some supplies, the total for the chair still comes in at about $100.

Like most of my other sewing projects, it's certainly not perfect. But I'm so proud of it and I can't wait to cozy up in it with a good book!

********

Now, for anyone who might be googling around for reupholstery tips (like I did), this is what I learned along the way...

Do your homework. Having never attempted reupholstery before, I knew I needed information. I borrowed the book Complete Step-by-Step Upholstery from my local library. I didn't have the book open in front of me while I worked or follow their directions explicitly, but the book was a terrific source of information about the process. I also stopped by a local upholstery shop and spoke with the owner. He said the Sunset magazine series has a great issue on furniture upholstery.

Tool up. The books might tell you to get fancy tools, but from my personal experience a flathead screwdriver, good pair of pliers, sewing machine, hot glue gun, and staple gun are all you need. My chair was FULL of staples, so I was convinced I would need a special tool to remove them: a staple lifter. But after checking with four hardware stores and a few fabric stores, I couldn't fine one.

The owner of my local upholstery shop told me I really didn't need one if I was just going to dabble in reupholstery. So I used a flathead screwdriver and pliers and got all the staples out. Don't get me wrong, though, it was not a quick task. I devoted a few hours in the afternoon on three different days to removing fabric and staples. And, a word of caution when removing staples. Some of them are going to be tight. Make sure that nothing (hands, legs, eyes, etc.) is in the path of the screwdriver. (I even kept safety glasses next to me just in case I had to get close.) It is all too easy for the screwdriver to slip on the most stubborn staples and go flying. (I've heard that the staple lifter can make a HUGE difference, if you're willing to spend between $25 and $40 for one.)

As you take off each piece of old fabric, try to keep it as intact as possible so it can be used as a pattern. It also helps if you cut your new pieces just a smidgen larger, so you're guaranteed to have enough room for stapling. My old fabric was is such terrible shape I wouldn't even sit on the chair until it was all removed!

Find a fabulous fabric. The cost of upholstery fabric adds up quickly. I chose to search for fabric at Joann's because they frequently put their 54" fabric on sale (for 40 or even 50% off) AND because as a teacher I get an extra 15% off that sale price.

I took a yard stick to the chair to estimate how much fabric I would need (I figured four yards) and it turns out I was right. Fabric stores usually have a book that shows different styles of furniture and how many yards of fabric would be needed to cover each. Sure enough, the book said four yards, but as a nervous first-time reupholsterer, I bought five just in case.

I picked a fabric that I loved...without thinking about whether it would be good for my first reupholstery project. Picking a solid fabric definitely would have made my life easier, but it turns out the pattern wasn't as difficult to work with as I had feared.

All buttoned up. The back cushion of my chair was buttoned. The book recommended taking your buttons to a professional to get recovered. Which was what I was planning to do until my mother-in-law said I could buy a simple button cover kit for a few dollars. I bought this one at Joann's, which included the two round "tools" to cover the buttons along with four buttons. Once you have the tools, you just buy the packages of button cover refills (which are even cheaper) until you have all the buttons you need.

I had to buy VERY LONG upholstery needles to thread the buttons through the cushion and out the back of the chair, but they were relatively inexpensive at Joann's.

Bring out the big guns. Chris has an air-powered staple gun and boy does that thing pack a punch! I think it would have been incredibly difficult to use a manual staple gun on forty year old hardwood.

We had to use tacking strip to create a finished edge along the top edge of the back of the chair. This was the only edge that wasn't covered up with glued on double piping. The tacking strip seemed simple enough, but it turned out to be a HUGE headache because we laid the fabric over the front of the chair while we worked instead of just holding it up like a tabletop from the back and working from underneath.

See what happens? Attaching the back with the tacking strip was the LAST difficult step of the process. I just knew this moment was going to be big finish! My husband was humming "Chariots of Fire" to mark the end of our loooong chair recovering process when...

Whoops. from Jessica Hasty on Vimeo.

Luckily only the back edge was a finished edge. The rest of the pieces were just stapled on, as is, and then the rough edge covered with double piping. I though this was going to be difficult to make, but it was actually one of the easiest steps. I used a zigzag stitch (with the piping foot) to sew the pieces together. Then I just folded one side over the other and used a straight stitch to hold it all in place.

Then I used a regular hot glue gun on the high setting to attach it to the edges. And that was the FINAL STEP! Wahoo! :)

I'm so happy that I saved money AND saved an old chair! Although if time is money...I may not have actually saved any money in the long run...but I still had lots of fun!

Big thanks to my two helpers. Chris helped me pull out some of the toughest staples and also did ALL of the stapling. Bailey...well, Bailey just did what he does best: jumped in the middle of the project right whenever we needed a little encouragement. :)

Giving back.

2010-09-18T19:46:00.003-04:00

Today the church that Chris and I attend had its annual Great Day of Missions. There were three different service opportunities to choose from, but we opted to go to Jericho Partnership in Danbury. Jericho is a collaboration of Christ-centered ministries and congregations serving the youth, homeless and other at-risk populations. A lot of churches in the area support the church and at least two other churches were there with us today.

Chris and I thought we were going to be picking up trash or working on the grounds, but as it turns out we ended up doing something completely different! Jericho needed a group of people to walk to the homeless and drywall the ceiling. Chris' recent experience with our half-bath made him a natural choice for this group.

They also needed a group to sort through and organize their storage space. I'm talking food for their food pantry, clothes, school supplies, furniture, books, plates, utensils, etc., etc., etc. You name it, there was a TON of it down there! And as nice as it would have been to work with Chris, I knew as soon as I heard organize that that was where I was supposed to be. :) We both had a great time, and got to know people at church a little better too.

They fed us lunch at Jericho, but we realized when we got home that we were both wiped out! So we went to Demitasse Cafe for coffee and a snack to perk us up. Demitasse is our new favorite coffee shop that opened up in the space formerly occupied by our old favorite coffee shop, Mocha. We were pretty bummed when Mocha closed at the end of May. Luckily we think Demitasse's coffee is even BETTER. And the owners are great too. And guess what we finished when we got home???

I'll give you a hint: it starts with "ch" and rhymes with "stair"!! :)

What's cookin' good lookin'?

2010-09-16T15:48:00.004-04:00

How many women can say that their husband is a fabulous cook? I'm part of a very exclusive club. :) My husband became such a great cook out of necessity. He missed his mom's wonderful cooking so much when he moved to Beaumont for work that he had to try and replicate it!

I'm a rule and recipe follower (which makes me the better baker), but Chris' tendency to follow his instincts and just toss in whatever he feels like makes him the better cook. So cooking together has always been something we love to do, especially when we get to try out new recipes and they turn out to be winners! Here are a few new ones we tried out over the weekend.

When we were in NYC with Evie the weekend before last, we stopped at Alice's Tea Cup for iced teas. And a white chocolate raspberry scone...yum. Which reminded me of the one I had when Chris and I went to Vancouver way back in 2005. Which made me want to try baking some myself! So I used this recipe that Chris found online and I was more than happy with the results. I always thought scones were difficult to make but they weren't bad at all!

I was excited that they matched my shirt. :)

Once school starts and we're both busy again, we like to make big suppers on Sunday night so we don't have too much cooking to do through the week. We've been enjoying grilled chicken breast stuffed with goat cheese with a smoked chile cilantro sauce and toasted Israeli couscous with vegetables and lemon-balsalmic vinaigrette. I take terrible pictures of food but trust me, it was delicious!

Poor little shed.

2010-09-07T16:43:00.000-04:00

This is our shed.

It's sad, I know. Chris painted it awhile back, which made a huge difference, but he decided what the shed really needed (and ideally before winter) was a new roof. Always one to try new things, Chris did a little research on roofing and now the little shed looks like this!

It was great for practice, because the big shed also needs a new roof before winter.

Chris actually wanted to start this project on Saturday (since I was spending the day with Evie who came up from NYC for the weekend- yay!), but I think I convinced him that a super-windy, post hurricane day was not the best time to be standing on a roof. Thank goodness. :)

Driveway Do-over

2010-09-06T17:39:00.007-04:00

The area that borders the front of our house is enclosed by lovely belgian bricks:

The area directly across from it, just on the opposite side of the circular driveway, was not nicely enclosed with belgian bricks. In fact, the shrubs there were bordered with good 'ol rocks.

But underneath the deck we found a whole stash of leftover bricks, so we assumed the former owners had intended to line both sides of the driveway. A few trips to Home Depot for cement and mortar, plus a trip to Lowe's for a few extra bricks, and now our driveway looks like this:

Didn't Chris do a great job?!! I helped ferry bricks up from the side of the house, but that's about where my help with this project stopped. Chris can handle 80 pound bags of cement and rocks...reason #137 why marriage is awesome. :)

Who doesn't love a busy weekend?

2010-09-02T17:45:00.001-04:00

Well, you know school has started when I don't get around to blogging about our weekend until Thursday night! On Monday, the students' first day back, I managed to visit 8 schools...that's a personal best. All while the temps are in the 90s and the aforementioned schools aren't air-conditioned. Not to worry though! Last weekend (which you're about to read about) was gorgeous and this weekend (after Hurricane Earl, of course) is set to be equally lovely. Fall is right around the corner...I can feel it! (And drink it- had my first pumpkin spice latte of the season yesterday morning at Starbuck's!)

So back to the weekend. Last Saturday Chris spent the morning working on a project out front: putting a border on part of the driveway using Belgian bricks. I was no help during the cementing part of this (80 pound bags of concrete...what could I do?) so I figured I wouldn't be much help during the mortaring part either. I was correct. I went to help pull weeds at church.

When we were both done, we loaded Bailey into the Porsche and headed to Kent! Our first stop was Macedonia Brook State Park where we took a very quick hike up to this spot:

Nice view, right? But that's not my regular hiking backpack in the picture. I was wearing a special picnic backpack that we received as a wedding gift. The front compartment has two plates, sets of utensils, cutting board, etc., and the back compartment is insulated to keep things cool.

Turns out the side of a big hill isn't really the ideal place for a picnic. So we headed to Lake Waramaug, where we could spread out a blanket and enjoy the cheese, salami, crackers, and olives I'd packed for the afternoon.

And I also packed these! How cute are they? It's hard to tell from the picture, but it's one of those tiny little bottles of wine that have the screw top. I'd always wanted an excuse to buy one...or four...and I thought a picnic would make for the perfect opportunity.

And cheap wine makes my husband pose for some awfully funny pictures.

The "Zoolander" face...as usual.

But the "Clint Eastwood" face is a new one.

Then we took a bunch of pictures of Bailey. Because that's what DINKs do. :)

Red Velvet

2010-09-01T07:34:00.000-04:00

So after years of searching for a good red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting recipe (including one attempt when I didn't realize exactly how much red food coloring was needed and I ended up with a pink velvet cake)...I think I've found a winner. The cupcake itself is certainly tasty, but it's the cream cheese frosting that puts it over the top. Aren't cupcakes terrific? :)

Go Team Dodo!

2010-08-30T21:13:00.001-04:00

I want to give a HUGE shout-out to my fabulous mother-in-law and sis-in-law for finishing the Susan G Komen 3-day walk for breast cancer this past weekend in Denver! They walked 21 miles on Friday, 23 miles on Saturday, and 16 miles on Sunday. You counted that right...it was 60 MILES in all!!!

Chris and I kept our cell phones (okay, my cell phone- if you know Chris you know why!) on us at all times throughout the weekend so we could get updates from Chris' dad. Mary Pat and Caroline walked every single mile, not once using the van that gave weary walkers a ride to the next check-in point. Together they raised thousands of dollars for breast cancer research in memory of "Dodo", Chris' maternal grandmother.

Mary Pat and Caroline- we are so unbelievably proud of you for your amazing strength and incredible dedication...congratulations on a job very well done! With each step you took, we got one step closer to finding a cure someday. We love y'all!

Just keep walking, just keep walking, just keep walking, walking, walking!

We made Bailey wear pink on Sunday to show his support. He was thrilled! I promise. :)

TOP 'o the evening to ya

2010-08-18T19:22:00.000-04:00

So today I sewed my first real article of clothing! (Can you tell I am anxious for school to start...now I have to rack my brain for things to fill my time.) I found an online tutorial for a spring ruffle top and it actually looked like something even I could do.

Technically, this is my second article of clothing, because I did sew one sweatshirt my freshman year of high school in a truly awful home economics class. But since I remembered literally nothing from that class when I sat down with my sewing machine after Christmas, I figure this top can count as #1.

Will I ever wear this top out of the house? (Not just a random thought. An actual question posed to me by my husband.) Probably not. Because though I love the fabrics (I should, I picked them out), I'm not sure if the top is really my style. So why did I make it? Well, I figure the best way to learn is just to do. I learned how to make pleats and ruffles, not to mention putting the whole thing together, for less than $10 worth of supplies.

It was fun and I'm REALLY proud of it! Even if I just wear it around the house. :)

A little wine, a LOT of water

2010-08-15T18:53:00.003-04:00

This weekend we toured Connecticut by car and by boat. Or, more specifically, by Porsche and by canoe.

The weather on Saturday was absolutely gorgeous. Chris spent the morning tinkering around with the Porsche (he was actually doing something very complicated and detailed, the likes of which I cannot explain here) and once he was done, we took it for a drive! We didn't have a plan but headed out towards Kent, stopping at Marty's Cafe for an iced tea and chocolate croissant, and eventually ending up right back in Sandy Hook at McLaughlin Vineyards.

I had been to a meetup event at McLaughlin Vineyards once while Chris was in class, but it was his first time to this vineyard. It's hard to believe that such a beautiful vineyard is only 15 minutes from our house! We did a wine tasting ($7 for seven different wines...excellent deal) and then sat outside and enjoyed the view. It was the perfect, unplanned, afternoon.

Butterflies resting on a butterfly bush outside the vineyard

Grapes!

Today we drove back towards Kent to go CANOEING! We were a little disappointed that the weather wasn't quite as sunny and warm as had been predicted but we enjoyed it nonetheless.

Normally the canoe company runs 6 mile and 10 mile trips, but due to an abnormally dry summer, the 10 mile route was inaccesible. The alternate route was 13 miles long...but we decided to do it. Oh boy. The Housatonic River was still as a statue. No current + a strong headwind = a very tiring trip! But we did make it! And in only about four hours.

How cute are my boys in their matching life vests?

Is Bailey the King of the World?!

The guy from the canoe company who drove us to the launch point told everyone, almost as an afterthought, that at some point we would come across an old dam. He said it would look like an easy set of rapids that you could go right over, but that we shouldn't because there was hidden pipeage underneath. Instead, he said, we should just go to the left of it.

We arrived at this old dam right behind another canoe and a kayak from our group. We all paddled around to the left of the wall...but couldn't see how we could paddle around it. Eventually we decided the best solution was picking up the canoes and moving them over the wall, then putting them back into the water beyond the old dam (which was a bit rough).

I'm glad to report we all made it through that spot! At one point our canoe ended up right between two large rocks and we were just sure that we were flipping, but luckily we made it through. Thank goodness for this little bit of excitement to break up an otherwise long, dull, uneventful canoe trip.

We're pretty beat (I actually fell asleep on the drive home- sorry Chris!) but had a great time. Can't wait for the next one!

Looking back at the old dam once we crossed it.

It DOES exist!

2010-08-12T22:10:00.004-04:00

Phew! So glad I'm not crazy. By now, I think everyone on the planet has seen the trailer for Eat, Pray, Love. It's a movie with Julia Roberts based on the book, and life experience, of Elizabeth Gilbert. And the trailer is on television all the time.

Chris and I actually think the movie looks great. Does this mean we'll go see it full-price at the movie theatre? Probably not. But we'll definitely see it sometime because there aren't a lot of movies we agree on!

The song you hear in most of the trailers for the movie is "Dog Days Are Over" by Florence and the Machine. And they've found the best 20 seconds of the song and used only that in the trailer. But I could have sworn I heard a different song on the movie trailer just once...and it was a song that I'd also heard on the radio and loved. But I didn't know who sang it.

I googled and watched the movie trailers online, and just when my husband was convinced that this song was all in my head...BAM! I found it. The band is The Temper Trap and the song is "Sweet Disposition". I love this song. It almost sounds like it could be from the 80s...but it's not. And since I don't have anything exciting to blog about because my chair project is still incomplete, here is the song for you (and me) to enjoy!

Yes, I am that kind of dogowner

2010-08-12T12:44:00.000-04:00

What kind of dogowner, you ask?

The kind who buys a lifejacket for her dog.

Not because I think of him like a child (although I guess I sort of do), but because he genuinely needs one or he may drown. We're going caneoing this weekend up near Kent, CT and want to bring Bailey...but the last time we took him canoeing he fell out of the canoe and we almost didn't scoop him out in time.

Here's a pic from that trip. We went canoeing in Delaware (or Pennsylvania, can't remember). Bailey did an awful lot of this:

So even though he looks ridiculous and probably feels mortified, Chris and I will be able to relax in the canoe knowing that Bailey will be a-okay. Here's to the weekend! :)

Warning: this is NOT an announcement!

2010-08-05T08:55:00.005-04:00

Summer school ended just last week and I've thrown myself into some fun projects around the house.  Like reupholstering this awesome chair I found on Craig's List for $20.

The fabric looks okay in the picture, but let me tell you that forty years of wear was NOT nice to it. The frame of the chair is in great shape, though, and I think it's going to look terrific when it's finished! And if it doesn't, that's okay too, it's just going in our bedroom.

I've taken all the old fabric off, removed a thousand staples (maybe that's an exaggeration, but only slightly), and cut out all the pieces of new fabric.

I was actually making nice progress until yesterday, when I realized I need a double piping foot for my sewing machine and I couldn't find one at Joann's. So, with the chair project on standby I decided to try my hand at clothing. But I didn't want to buy any fabric because I'm still just learning how to sew. When I found this adorable FREE pattern online for the Itty Bitty Baby Dress, I knew I could work on my sewing skills AND use up some extra fabric I had lying around. This is what I ended up with:

It's not perfect but isn't it cute?! I don't think Chris was too happy to hear that I was sewing a dress for an infant. But let me reiterate, it is NOT for us. Whichever one of my friends or family members has a baby girl next, I'm sending it right in the mail to YOU! :)

Just another weekend

2010-08-01T21:06:00.005-04:00

Buckle your seatbelts...our weekend was super exciting!

Well, not really. We didn't go hiking in the Presidentials or out for a night in the city, but we enjoyed a beautiful weekend here in Newtown nonetheless. We always look forward to our weekends together whether we have big plans or not, and this was no exception.

Saturday morning we made crepes for breakfast...yum! Chris chose to fill his with strawberries, blueberries, and fresh whipped cream. I filled mine with strawberries and nutella.

If you've never tried strawberries and nutella well...you're just missing out. They go together like peanut butter and jelly. It's awesome.

Did I mention the beautiful weather? Notice that I'm wearing long sleeves in this picture (just for the morning, though). And we've been sleeping with our windows open...so nice!

Saturday afternoon we took advantage of the gorgeous weather and decided to up our curb appeal. Well...I guess it's not curb appeal since you can't really see these things from the road, but it definitely makes our home's exterior look a LOT better.

This is the side of the house (part of the backyard). We pulled a bunch of weeds, moved a plant, added a few mums, and tossed down some mulch. The garden hose has always just laid in a little pile in the flower bed because there was no place to hang it. I knew my husband could engineer a solution to that problem!

The after. Not a huge difference, but we were happy. And I love having the hose hanging from the deck.

Front fence. There was nothing to the left of the one rose bush and the three big hydrangea bushes. So we planted three little mums there. We also pulled out the stone boundary and have something else in the works...but it's only about 60% done. So that's another post for another day!

Hiking to the Hut

2010-07-28T20:54:00.001-04:00

This past weekend Chris and I headed up to our favorite place to get away- The White Mountains! We arrived Thursday night. Friday morning we woke up, made waffles, and went off to hike the Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail! This trail is snuggled right in between Mt. Washington and Mt. Monroe and leads up to the Lake of the Clouds Hut. We had lunch on the lake and then headed back down. The first 2/3 of the hike is relatively easy. Once you pass the Gem Pool, there's just no other way to describe it: it gets STEEP!

Hiking to the Hut! from Jessica Hasty on Vimeo.

Sunday afternoon we got to have lunch with Chris' parents and his aunt and uncle. Dick and Linda brought over hamburgers, potato salad and corn on the cob- YUM! Oh yes, and they also brought over 6 pounds of hair and total cuteness- Jill's malti poo Sophie! She's an absolute doll and seemed to enjoy getting to know Bailey.

We were pretty proud of Bailey for letting Sophie jump all over him! And I think that Bailey definitely needs a malti poo little sister. He slept like a log in the car all the way home! Sophie can come visit us in CT anytime!

It's what's on the inside that counts

2010-07-20T19:36:00.002-04:00

We just gave our closet a mini-makeover! I know that nobody really sees our closet but us, but knowing that there is a place for everything (and everything in its place) makes me super happy.

This project actually started back in April during our prep for the new carpet. When we ripped up the old carpet we realized the floor of the closet was lower than the room. Chris used plywood to build up the closet floor to the same level as the bedroom. One problem solved.

There was also the issue of these weird pipes. Or vents? We really had no idea what they were. But we knew we didn't need to look at them anymore.

Chris built plywood boxes to hide them. Nice handiwork, right?! To build the box, however, Chris had to pull the metal striping that was holding the shelves away from the wall.

There's nothing wrong with the metal strips, they're just not very cute. Since they were bent, we decided to find an alternate system for hanging shelves. Chris bought trim (and an air-powered nail gun) and used pieces of the trim to hold up each shelf. Doesn't it look better?

Before and After...

Before and After!

I got new shelves and curtain rods on my side of the closet (since the old owners never put in permanent ones) and we painted the inside of the closet with leftover bedroom paint. After two weeks of having my clothes strewn about the guest bedroom, I was more than ready to move them back. And things fit even better than before! :)

Another one bites the dust

2010-07-18T17:03:00.003-04:00

We were hit with a home-improvement emergency this past week. Sadly, the top shelf in the kitchen pantry had reached the end of its life. The shelves were held up, not very well, by plastic brackets...not the best idea for shelves that support heavy canned goods and bottles of cooking vinegar.

Luckily there was a can of peanuts and a container of bread crumbs on the shelf below that managed to hold the shelf up for a few days! :)

I knew my Mr-Fixit-husband could repair the shelves, so Friday morning I took everything out of the pantry. You don't realize how much stuff you have until it's all over your counters!

Chris cut boards that fit underneath the front and back of each shelf and used his nail gun to secure them to each other. (He says he has to justify his tool collection.)

Good as new! Better, actually, than before. Bailey seems to think so too.

Picking Peaches...and Tomatoes?

2010-07-17T18:19:00.000-04:00

We were kind of thrilled when we realized we had no major DIY plans for the weekend! We missed strawberry picking season but neither Chris or I had ever picked peaches. So we woke up early this morning and drove to Silverman's Farm, a pick-your-own in Easton, CT.

Chris wore his peach colored shirt to hide any peach juice.

After all, they highly recommend you sample what you're picking!

Are all peach trees this short? We really had to duck our heads to pick the peaches underneath.

Under the tree! I got a haircut yesterday...can you tell?

Yum...

Not yet sure what we're going to do with all these delicious peaches. We had our friend Heather over for hamburgers today and we used a few for bellinis (since we had leftover champagne in the fridge) and a few more to make the Sunrise Smoothies that we're crazy about. We had so much fun making strawberry jam last year that we might have to repeat the process with peaches. We'll see!

We swung through Bethel on our way home to hit their Saturday morning Farmer's Market. We wanted some tomatoes for the hamburgers and for a caprese salad (we thought our basil died while we were on Block Island, but it's amazingly come back to life).

We found some absolutely beautiful tomatoes at one of the stands. They were huge, unblemished, and bright red. Perfect! And yeah, I saw that the sign said $4.00 a pound but I didn't really think that each of the tomatoes I was holding in my hand could be over a pound. Clearly I'm not a good judge of weight. Because the guy told me the total for my two tomatoes was $9.60! I thought I did a good job of maintaining my composure but Chris said he could tell what I was thinking! They were a little more expensive than the ones at the grocery store, but I do understand the importance of buying locally and supporting local farms. And they were the best darn tomatoes we've ever had.

The picture doesn't quite do them justice...these guys were HUGE!

Red door no more

2010-07-11T19:07:00.000-04:00

Painting our front door has been on my to-do list for awhile now. Besides the regular dings and scratches, at some point the oval lock was replaced with a smaller round lock...and the paint job never touched up. All the way around the lock you could see the natural wood of the door. Not pretty. Unfortunately unlike most of the other paints used in the house, the former owners didn't leave this paint color for us in the garage. We could either try to color match the paint or just pick a brand new color. It was really no contest: we were picking a new paint color!

But deciding on the color was easier said than done. Our house is yellow and our shutters are a very dark navy. I love red doors, but more so on white houses than yellow. Green might have been fun, but would that make the house too colorful? So we settled on a blue to try and match the shutters. Truth be told, it came out a LOT bluer than we were anticipating, but it's fun to change things up. We can always paint it again down the road!

Pretty blue, yes?! I called it "cerulean" the other day and my husband accused me of making up color names. Cerulean's a real color...right?

Done and Done

2010-07-10T18:47:00.009-04:00

This past week we finished not one, but TWO projects that have been works-in-progress for a very long time. Or, in the case of the downstairs half-bathroom, a very, VERY long time!

We started working on the downstairs half bath almost a year ago. It started innocently enough, with Chris just wanting to replace the toilet. But then we found a hole in the wall behind the toilet, which couldn't be fixed without ripping down the paneling, and with the paneling came the wallpaper, and with the wallpaper came the drywall...you get the picture.

It's actually been 95% finished for awhile now, but Chris finally added the quarter round to the new trim last weekend. (He was waiting to purchase a new tool to do it...finally bit the bullet and bought it last weekend. He loves adding to his tool collection!) Anyway, we're super happy that this project is DONE. And, as an added bonus, we finally got the incensy smell (left behind from the previous owners) out of the bathroom for good!

We started the deck project around the end of May. We replaced 17 boards (a process that involved cutting to size and routing the edges of new boards), cleaned and scrubbed the entire deck (upper and lower- we have a deck outside our bedroom on the 2nd floor), and then stained every square inch of bare wood.

We used a solid stain to camouflage the older wood. The deck boards got stained an orangey/reddish-brown color called "pinecone". The deck railings got stained a creamy brown called "lodge brown". Boy, do decks take a long time to paint! Luckily we had beautiful weather for practically the entire month of June which made the whole process that much more enjoyable. We're so happy with how it came out and SO thrilled to be done! :) Now who wants to come over for hamburgers?

We eat to beat the heat!

2010-07-08T17:44:00.008-04:00

So we're in the middle of a pretty vicious heat wave up here in New England. (Or I guess it's a "wicked" heat wave?) But that didn't stop us from tackling several projects around the house OR heading into the city to enjoy the Macy's fireworks display on the 4th of July. I will post the pics later (the deck is done! the bathroom is done! the closet is done! can I get an amen!?) but for now, I thought I'd share the ever-so-fabulous recipes that have been keeping us happily well-fed despite the temperatures.

Herb-marinated pork tenderloin
This recipes calls for three tenderloins so I only made 1/3 of the marinade. Got to use the thyme from our herb garden in this one...yum!

Chive risotto cakes
I love, love, love risotto so I thought these sounded amazing. I got to use our chives for the first time AND I got to try panko bread crumbs for the first time. I would cook 2 or 3 of these and then keep them warm in the oven while we finished getting the rest of our dinner ready.

Beatty's chocolate cake
Over 800 people have reviewed this recipe on the Food Network website and it's received 5 stars. Seriously, best chocolate cake ever. Probably wasn't the best idea for me to make it when it was ninety plus degrees outside (buttercream frosting- enough said) but still, best cake ever.

Blueberry muffins
Sorry there's no link for this one! But if you want the recipe just ask. Chris and I enjoyed getting coffee and splitting a blueberry muffin many mornings on Block Island. To beat the post-vacation blues, I made a batch of these. He loved them. :)

Sunrise smoothies
Forget everything else- during the heat wave this was what helped cool us down! We've made this smoothie twice in the past week and it is the PERFECT summer drink. And super easy to make (even if your blender is broken so you had to use a food processor). Try it!

Upon reading the reviews for the chocolate cake we noticed more than one person reference a half-century old Hershey's Black Magic Cake recipe. If you want to LOL, you can check out the website Food Network Humor. The bios of the foodnetwork stars alone will make you laugh!