This dude is the BEST.
My Sancho was diagnosed with diabetes this week. With changes to diet and daily insulin injections he should be just fine, but we’d really appreciate some good thoughts all the same.
I sure do wish he could live in New York with me.
Tuesday night we hung out on the streets of Rochester’s big annual international Jazz Festival eating cart food (artichokes french for me and Louisiana cookin’ for Ted) and finding some cool shade to sit beneath and listen to great jazz tunes from wonderful bands – everything from big band to smooth jazz and in between. It was totally lovely. Good jazz music is just so great.
Wednesday after work we booked it over to the food truck rodeo at the public market for some grub, sunshine, and more live music.
This time we decided to try out The Daily Refresher’s truck since many of the other trucks were parked at Jazz fest instead.
Meanwhile, Ted found gizzards – a happy throwback to the gizzardfest he and his sister attending in Michigan a few years back.
We passed on the gizzards and stuck with more gourmet comfort food fare – and it was fantastic! Although next time I’m trying the carrot dog that has intrigued me so the past two rodeos!
Cheeseburger with cheddar, bacon, arugula, caramelized onions, tomato, and egg on a toasted bun…so good.
Crispy fries with fresh parsley, fresh garlic, and parmesan…they were outstanding and packed with flavor!
Watermelon and green apple Italian ice!
So glad he’s here for good :)
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Summer rules!
The two kinds of things that scream “summer!” to me couldn’t be any further from each other on the spectrum.
Hot fudge sundae – the quintessential summer treat.
Rainbow chard, asparagus, and mint from our farm fresh CSA share. Loads and loads of any and all vividly colored, ripe, and juicy fruits and veggies. Yum!
Kind of funny how different they are, yet they indicate the same thing.
Food for thought.
*******
Also…(and totally unrelated to above)
Cray…just hanging around. Like you do.
Hope you’re having a great week!
…out in the boonies for a night of mini-golf, a Monsters University and Iron Man 3 double feature, and tons of junk food.
Summer, thou art the BEST.
I am so glad that drive-ins still exist in some parts of the country, and that we are lucky enough to have lived within 30 minutes of one both in Cincinnati and in Rochester.
Life is grand!
A celebration in honor of Friday, June 21 – the first day of summer!
We arrived home at 2 a.m. smelling of smokey campfire with bellies full of blueberry beer, pesto pasta, hot dogs roasted over an open fire, and s’mores. We spent the night in excellent company, with plenty of laughter, and we saw our first fireflies of the season!
First day of summer = blazing success.
Summer, I welcome you with open arms!
Things I do not want to have to do again anytime soon…
#1: Move
#2: Spend a morning at the DMV
#3: Shop for furniture
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When we started this whole epic hunt for a new set of living room furniture nearly two months ago, I knew the look that I, in a perfect world, was going for. After all, if we’re going to make an investment that should last for the next decade and shell out big bucks for a brand new sofa, chair, and ottoman (with the threat of bedbugs and unsanitary upholstery, etc. we just weren’t willing to go the used or vintage furniture route) then I want it to be attractive (read: non-hideous) and high quality. This will be fun, I thought! This will be easy, I thought! Let’s spend a day furniture shopping, I thought!
After just one stop in a store, my brain was full of ideas. I wanted sleek, track arms, tapered shaker legs, a tight back style with cushionless padding built into the frame, a soft and smooth fabriced solid neutral hue for the body of the sofa with pops of fun pattern and color on the decorative pillows, and it needed to compliment – not clash with – our awesome forest green area rug, and I definitely wanted nothing puffy, full of marshmallow rolls, leather, floral, brown, or nailhead trimed. Also, though I wasn’t into the idea of a sectional, I totally had my heart set on a chaise lounge, because…duh. Chaises are awesome. See, all figured out.
Think this (perhaps not this color exactly, and add brighter pillows, but you get the idea)…
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Not this (the Michelin Man called, he wants his torso back)…
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After well over a month of wishy-washy browsing, really liking then doubting, and general uncertainty before returning back to sqaure one and hitting up all the same furniture places again and again, never really solidly settling on anything or making a committed decision, depsite seeing several pieces we both liked, I realized a few things that initially hadn’t entered my mind when I thought about what kind of furniture might grace our living room and how easy and fun this expeditious adventure would be.
A. Ted is tall and has strong opinions too. Because he is tall, he needs a sofa and chair with decent cushion depth for when he’s sitting and respectable length for when he’s laying down. I’m short. I fit in everything. But as a tall dude who probably doesn’t want his knees in his eyeballs eveytime he takes a seat, the stylish sofas were always “okay” but they just weren’t unquestionably comfortable for him. There’s also the fact that the man is stubborn and opinionated (just like me) and our sense of style couldn’t be more opposite. Whereas the brown chair and ottoman above make me shudder, Ted gravitates toward furniture like that, both for the comfort and style. With that, we discovered our first two stumbling blocks: fit and style.
B. In all honesty, those stylin’ track armed and tight backed sofas, though fairly comfy and right on par in appearance, just weren’t comfortable enough for me to take the plunge either. Ted described them perfectly when he said, “They’re formal furniture for entertaining. They look great and I’d be perfectly happy and comfortable sitting in this at someone’s house for the evening, but for my own home, I don’t want a straight backed sofa and uncushioned armrests, I want to sit back, sink in, and relax.” I do too. And while I was pretty comfortable in these pieces, loved how they looked, and appreciated the fact that they wouldn’t sag over time, they do lack cushion in the armrests for laying your head on, you don’t really sink back into them as much as you stay atop of them, and they are a bit too formal for the many fuctions they were serve in our home.
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C. Finding quality furniture (and doing all the research to even learn what constitues quality furniture) is a ton of work and adds a whole other layer to the furniture buying experience. I spent hours researching how to select quality pieces. I researched how to look for quality in upholstry, springs, cushions, fabrics, frames, joint construction, and everything in between. I made a chart, an entire Excel spreadsheet, dedicated to little tests to do and checklists of things to look for in each piece we were interested in, to determine if it was worth the money, would hold up well, and stand the tests of time and abuse. All of this is to say that upon finding a stylish and comfortable sofa that you both like (already a miracle in our book), you may discover that the interior of the cushions will soon sag, or the fabric will fade or pill, or the wooden frame twists, or the springs squeak. But it’s far better to spend 30 minutes with it in the store, picking it apart and pestering the crap out of the salesperson with detailed construction questions to find out that you want something higher quality, than to spend the big bucks, get it home, and be unhappy with it in only six months. If you’re ever in the market for some new furniture and would like to see my quality checklist spreadsheet to help you determine the quality of the pieces you’re looking at, just let me know! On the plus side, I have learned a lot! I’ve learned a whole new vocabulary! Whole new styles and options! About construction! About quality! Oh, and about compromise and decision making skills too. Never stop learning, right?
D. Finding furniture that is attractive, comfortable, quality, fits in the room you need it for (oh yes, there’s this onion layer too), and then having it actually fall within your meager budget (keep on peeling, baby!), is not a quest to be scoffed at. I have learned my lesson.
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E. The furniture does not have to compliment the rug. The $150 forest green area rug that you love can easily move to another room in the house, or you can purchase a different color rug if need be, or it may wear out in a few years and need replacing anyway – but the $4,000 furniture you just bought, you still need to like the color of in five years. If you simply cannot find a set you love that compliments the rug, don’t sweat it; just get the furniture and deal with the rug later. If all the decorative pillows that come with your dream set don’t light you up – don’t worry about it; just stop by Marshalls or Home Goods and throw a couple of awesome $15 pillows in your cart that do work for you. The little things are easier to modify or replace than the furniture and are not worth the hours of agony, analysis, or stress if the rest of the furniture is just what you’ve been looking for. Sounds like a no-brainer, but sometimes we just need to be reminded of the simple things.
F. Reading online reviews of particular styles, manufacturers, stores, or individual pieces can be helpful, but use them wisely. Keep in mind that sometimes people have something useful to say, and other times they’re just complaining as loudly as they can about things that are pure happenstance, illogical, don’t really matter, or could have been avoided. Also…salespeople. Not all stores and not all salespeople are created equal. Find a store who’s style and quality you generally trust and are in line with your own wants and needs, and whose salespeople are knowledgable and honest, not just interested in the sale and subsequent commisison (easier said than done, I know). Aren’t overly attentive and pushy salespeople the worst? Your eagerness is not convincing me that you actually know what you’re talking about or want me to find the right stuff for my home and money. We found a brand store where nearly every salesperson had an interior design degree (meaning they were all, for the most part, actually knowledgable about how their furniture is constructed, about fabric types and blends, about color pairing, etc.) and it showed. We received helpful input, honest answers about quality vs. expense, and had useful conversations about functionality, construction, sizing, and design every time we came into the store. It helps that Ted knows a lot about these topics as well, but we truly appreciated their non-pushy and un-sugar-coated approach.
Or you could just scrap all the information above and go with this piece of art…
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All of this being said, I am still a big fan of chaises and am currently having a love affair with an awesome seating corner piece that I desperately want, neither of which look like they’re in the cards this time around (though there’s always my eventual reading nook!), but after a lot of work that I’m not eager to repeat anytime soon, I think we’ve come to a nice compromise that bears in mind all the onion layers that go into this whole complicated furniture shopping shebang.
Stay tuned for the results :)
(But don’t worry, we’re not getting this, this, or this, so feel free to stop over, take a seat, and stay a while)
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(and you’re welcome for the photo goodness)
After a long Monday morning at the DMV shelling out a few hundred smackers for new drivers licenses, titles, registrations, and license plates (which, with only one minor snafu at the tail end, was a breeze compared to what I had mentally prepared myself for, I’ll admit. So, kudos NY), followed by parting with over a thousand more bucks for oil changes, tire rotations, the required NY vehicle safety and emissions inspections (and, uh, reattaching the engine to my car, which somehow became completely unmounted over the past twelve years), a complete change over of all our various insurances, voter registration, and the many change of address forms…we are officially (poor) residents of New York state!
To celebrate we’re ordering furniture.
We know how to party.
Also, I’m pretty sure the DMV is where people who do not know how to parent go to show off their lack of parenting skills and unsupervised spawn. And there needs to be a People of the DMV website. I mean, I realize that nobody wants to hang around the DMV unless they actually have to be there, but somebody needs to get on that website immediately because the rest of us are missing out an absolute bank of hilarity, disbelief, and grand photo opportunities. Furthermore, I have learned that growing up with the Boerne DMV, in a small Texas town, with no lines or sketchy folk and workers with friendly faces, I was spoiled silly.
Thus concludes my adventures at the DMV, hopefully for as long as I can possibly avoid it.
{Friday all day work retreat at Village Bakery in the morning – from where this incredible pear raspberry pastry and cream soda hails – followed by India House for lunch, and the afternoon spent at Starry Nites cafe and coffeeshop. Working at a theatre truly is the best. job. ever. And “off-campus” work retreats are pretty amazing too.}
{Rhubarb soda? Be still my heart!}
{Just upstate NY on a Friday night – on our way to our umpteenth furniture shopping expedition…the good news is that I love cows and after weeks and weeks of searching, we’re finally getting close to making a decision on living room furniture that combines style, comfort, and quality – finally!}
{Saturday splashing at the beach on the shores of Lake Ontario}
Not pictured are the two fab chunks of driftwood we hauled home from the beach for our new landscaping project for the townhome, the piles of weeds we sprayed and pulled in preparation for our new landscaping project, the nightly ice cream cones packed with delicious Cincinnati Graeter’s ice cream I consumed, the movies we watched and awesome handmade dish pizza eaten (Moulin Rouge and Open Season), the progress we made unpacking and organizing a few more areas of our office and basement, or a wonderful, fun, and relaxing Saturday night sushi dinner with my old roommate and her husband before their big move to NYC, where they recounted the humorous and wild adventures of their recent trip to the south of France. Winner of a weekend, indeed. And happy belated Father’s Day to all you dads and fatherly figures out there…thanks for all you do and the great men that are you – especially my own dad and father-in-law! You guys are the best!
What did you do this weekend?
We hosted a theatre education programs fundraiser/major summer gala and show at the theatre last Friday night.
We all chipped in, and on this night, my duties as the Associate Director of Education consisted of wine passing, schmoozing, and assisting during the paddle call and live auctions.
That I can do!
(Preceded by a day of delicious food, and followed by downing pizza, beer, wings, and leftover fancy food when the night was through.)
With over $150,000 netted from the evening’s festivities for our theatre’s exceptional educational programming (thanks to the ladies of Devo), I’d call the night a smashing success!
(And, also, we clean up well, on occasion.)
Close off the streets, put up the big tent, and bring on the search lights, gorgeous flowers, delicious food, Rochester celebrities, and free flowing drinks as we raise some money for arts education!
And for fun…
Clearly, we’re all in the right profession.
{free tickets, excellent seats, beautiful weather on a relaxing night…win-win-win…except that the Rochester Red Wings didn’t win :/ oh well.}
{Cinnamon sugar fry bread and red berry ale}
{fried ravioli}
{at the ballgame}
{fireworks!}
Yes, this summer is shaping up just nicely, indeed.
