Hi!

Wow so it's been... well too long to think about since the last time I posted.

The last time I made a post on this thing was in January of 2011 :-/

So the last time anyone read this blog I was all excited and then not so much excited about the prospect of moving to a house in Sullivan. Our house is still on the market, we still haven't moved, but the prospect has changed for a house to move into. (Drum Roll Please) We are (as soon as our house sells) moving to Brunswick... Yeah I know. I have my ups and downs about this decision but this is what Dave really wants. We would be buying his parents house from them now, that being said there are a lot of things that need to be done with this place. The exterior is fine there are a few trees in the back yard and potential for gardens (which I recently discovered I really enjoy) and we will (this is a battle I am willing to fight) we will be putting up a fence in the back yard so the neighbours dog doesn't come over and shit up our yard like he does now. The interior however... I'll be changing almost all of it. It's just not my style, I've been reading Better Homes and Gardens and visiting websites like houzz http://www.houzz.com/ it's all rooms and furniture and some of the spaces tell you where to get the stuff that is in said room. I'm thinking semi rustic country. The major upside to buying his parents house is that I know what everything looks like. I know what I can do where and we both have started walking around the house picturing certain things in one place or another. We have to both agree on something for instance if I wanted to paint the living room neon pink and he said no and I did it anyway... Not that I would do that I have serious colours in mind, blues, yellows, reds, browns, grays (I'm really all over the board right now) but nothing as extreme as neon pink (anywhere). Also there's a wood burner not a wood burning fireplace but it's a step up from not having one at all (we had a fireplace when I was a kid and it was the best thing EVER). So that's my life right now, there's more but I'm not going to bore you (is there even still a you that reads this blog?) with everything at once.

until next time

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2011

Is it 2011 already? wow, weird! I have absolutely nothing interesting to say, nothing has changed on the house front (not really at least) it's on the market (has been for about 7 months) and we now have a place to move into. Incidentally it's Dave's parents current house. Kind of a touchy subject for me as I am not as in love with that house as he is (also I suspect he's all over this deal cause it'll be easy we don't have to wait once our house sells to make sure the house that we are moving to sells we can just slowly move our stuff in.) however it's nice cause I know the house so I am able to walk around and picture what I want to change once we've "taken over" BWHAHAHAHA!!! Aside from that nothing, we've had three people look at our house and none are interested, the price is good and it's a cute house (for a couple starting out or an older couple) but (and I am not a realestate agent) so please don't take my word for it but, in my opinion the town we live in at the moment isn't the place to be and it's the one thing we can't really change. Maybe someone will love it there as we do but it's a hard sell, it's not very close to the city, the commute isn't bad but... it's not by any means an easy 20 minutes. it's more like 45-60 depending on traffic and weather. I'm not trying to talk down our neighborhood or house but anyone who would want to move out there would have to love it too.

Wow for not having a lot to say I sure did have a lot to say. :-)

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Pros and Cons

Sullivan

Pros:

1. I'm sorry did you look at the pictures? You didn't? Well you need to.
2. 2.5 Acres
3. Brand new barn (built in 2007) with an indoor riding arena
4. 1 acre of pasture area
5. City water (as opposed to well) don't get me wrong I'd get over using well eventually but if we don't have to then why worry about it.
6. It's out in the country
7. I could have horses
8. The price is right
9. This is basically what I've always wanted
10. The house is small and manageable and we'd be able to add on if we wanted to (and we sort of already want to)
11. We could have a billy goat (that would be Dave's pet)
12. Dad is fully supportive
13. The house was built in 1997 (yes it's a manufactured house but seriously. I'm not that shallow that I care if I live in a manufactured house seeing what it has on the property completely makes up for it)

Cons:

1. There are some foundation problems and while I know that Dave and his father "can" fix the problems it's a matter of will they. I will have to mention it everyday and it makes me nervous
2. I'd like to be able to please my mom (this is not pleasing her even a little bit) I don't think she's even trying to be happy about it and I know she has her reasons but it's frustrating
3. It's far, while we are excited about living in the country I'll have to work at my current job and look for a new job at the same time because

A. I cannot imagine not working

B. This place is really far from my current job and while I can do anything for any given time I don't think I would like to spend the rest of my life driving 1 hour and 15 minutes to and from work.

4. Now we need to prepare our house to be sold and hope that everything falls into place because selling a house takes a lot of time and cleaning and (for lack of sounding like a whiny child) IT'S HARD!!!!

5. oh yes I don't want to have to move in with either of our parents because we've sold our home and something happens and this new house gets bought out from under us.

I'm sure that I will be adding to this list and modifying it as I go but right now this is all that I have. I know that I haven't done any posts lately but to be completely honest with all of the baby having going on around me I don't feel like I have anything interesting to say. That is by no fault of the baby having people my life just isn't interesting.

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Update on Sullivan added December 1st 2009.

Damn it, Damn it, Damn it!!! If I've seen you or talked to you since Thanksgiving you already know this but for the blog readers I don't see all the time the deal fell through. We have a bid in and everything, the people selling the property are on vacation right now and need to get back to us but we now can't do it cause Dave has hit a seasonal wall at work. Meaning he's been laid off. this is the earliest lay off we've ever had but I suppose it's better for it to happen now instead of after we've signed papers and done all kinds of stuff and are in the new house and something happnens that costs a large amount of money. So there you have it that's the update. We're still planning on a move at some point but it will probably be more like Spring.

Happy first day of autumn

Again I've been slacking it's tech week in my world which means any spare time I have right now is being dedicated to sleep, otherwise it'll be bad I'll be falling asleep at the wheel and it'll be mass chaos! I'm a serious bitch when I don't get enough sleep so I haven't really been keeping up on my blog lately. Here's what you have missed... Actually I don't think you've missed much at all, Autumn has arrived (YAY!) by far my favorite season EVER! There's pumpkin lattes, pumpkin pie, apple cider butternut squash (I'm very one track minded right now and it'll all about the food.) But aside from the food I love the colors, everything is so pretty and it's cool (but not so cool that we're freezing) and there's that bite in the air Oh how I love that bite. Over the weekend I went to Presque Isle with my sister Sarah to see the horse races. I've never been to a horse race before. I know you all think I'm crazy cause probably most people who go there are there for the race and nothing else (unless you're a trainer then in that case...) but all I wanted to do is sneak back to the barns and hang out there all night. (How much do you pay warmup riders? Can I totally do that? I know I'm not the right size but I'll work for free.) Yep I'm a dork but I'll say this it was really fun and cool and I'd totally go back in a heart beat.

When we wern't cheering for the horse(s) that we bet on we were admiring how pretty some of them were.

Other then that there is not a damn thing going on for me right now at all. Hope everyone is having a beautiful first day of autumn!

:-)

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Remembering a Legend

I have to admit I didn't know the last name Travers but Mary from Peter, Paul & Mary. Well that's a no brainer. this is me remembering a legend.

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Mush

And no I'm not talking about "MUSH!" as in if you were in a sled race with dogs and stuff. I mean I made mush. I know it doesn't sound very appetizing and to be honest it looks equally as non-appetizing. But it was damn good. So here's where it starts My friends Joe and Paul ask hey we have eggplant from our garden anyone want some? We'll bring them to rehearsal! And I'm thinking YUM Eggplant too bad Dave doesn't eat that stuff (see post before this about eating things plain) but I love eggplant. I've never cooked it before and have no clue what to do with it but what the hell I'll take some I'm sure I can figure out something to do with it.

So I go to the store and buy some Garlic (yes the jarred kind that is already minced up and everything, I'm sort of lazy like that) mushrooms and an onion. Tomatoes are easy to come by at my house, our neighbor grows them and I frequently find a bag of them on my front porch so that is an ingredient that I don't have to worry about buying.

First I cut up and soaked the Eggplant in salt water (you have to do this so they are no longer bitter) I soaked them for about 30 minutes.

I cut my tomatoes in half and tossed them in a pot with a little but of water.

I let those cook for about 10 minutes. Then I added the eggplant.

Again let them cook (covered I forgot to mention that before) for about 10 minutes. Add mushroom and another 10 minutes.

Add Onion and again (duh) another 10 minutes.

Add basil, thyme (and any other herb of your choice) Salt and Pepper to taste and let cook covered for another 5-10 minutes.

it resembles mush (I don't know how to keep my tomatoes from turning) but it's amazing. Add Mozzarella cheese and eat!

It looks disgusting but it' tastes amazing. I need to jar this stuff up and use it on pastas and what not especially since this bowl was an entire meal and it was a bit much for me I was stuffed afterwards. But again Dave wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole so this would be my personal pasta sauce. YUM! So I think that's it for today consider my slacking erased.

:-)

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Just another amateur restaurant review

I don't read restaurant reviews, I have read reviews that friends and friends of friends have written but as far as I know none of us are professional restaurant reviewers, we don't get paid and therefore are amateurs. This is no different, my husband was out of town all weekend (paint balling with the boys in Michigan.) So I figured I'd eat out at any of the places that he would probably never eat at and have all of the foods that he finds repulsive. One of these places happens to be Bar Symon, now I know what you are saying "how do you decide you would never eat at a Michael Symon restaurant?" Well as Dave said to me after I read off some of the things on the menu that I found on-line "You don't go to a Michael Symon restaurant and order a burger plain." (the Bar Symon burger by the way has a fried egg and cheddar cheese on it, he'd be removing the fried egg)

Huh, OK that makes sense and to be completely honest I don't think there is much else on that menu that he would eat, that is without taking everything off and making it as plain as possible.

But me on the other hand, Most everything on that menu looked amazing! Link for all that are interested http://www.barsymon.com/. Except for probably the bone marrow cause that simply freaks me out and the pork cracklings aside from those two things I would probably at least try everything on this menu.






Saturday after I got home from a long day at the barn and just wanted to relax and get some good food in me so I called Bar Symon and ordered some dinner to go. I have dined by myself before and it generally doesn't bother me but today was one of those self conscious days where I thought if I were to sit in this restaurant all by myself people would stare and wonder why I was there alone and the fact that it's in Avon Lake chances of me running into someone I know are really good. It was one of those days where I just wanted to go home to the comfort of my couch and eat quietly by myself. So I ordered the Lola fries with rosemary (for those of you who have been living under a rock or aren't from the Cleveland area Lola is a very popular Michael Symon restaurant located in Downtown Cleveland)

They were sort of that shoe string type of fry and they were cover in rosemary and salt and they were amazing!

I also got the Mac & Cheese which consisted of rosemary (I think Michael Symon has a thing for rosemary) Goat cheese and Chicken. Again so good definitely hit the spot.

These pictures would probably be prettier on plates but let's face it I'm lazy and just took the picture of them right in their to go boxes. I suggest of you ever get the chance to visit Bar Symon do it. The interior is beautiful, a mix of wood, brick and metal, Metal tiles hanging from the ceiling. Very low key and sort of rustic-ish.

Seems like a great place to go and grab a bite to eat I would absolutely suggest going here.

that's it my amateur restaurant review. enjoy!

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Lets face it

I haven't been keeping up on my posts lately, I've been... well torn I guess there has been all this talk about having a baby and moving and all of these things while I realize are part of life are just things that I am not sure I am ready for yet. The baby thing frightens me more then anyone will ever know and the moving thing well... We have a hard enough time taking care of the postage stamp yard we have right now. If I am going to move I want it to be to acreage, I am not moving 3 times because... Well as far as I can tell at the moment just because. I have looked at some houses lets face it it's fun to look and see what's out there and say "oh look at how pretty" but do I really want it?

I don't know. I suppose I am still a bit of a child and moving is hard and it isn't like we'd be moving into a house from our parents houses as we did before no we'd have to get our house ready to be sold and pray that someone comes along and loves it as much as we did when we first moved there. Don't get me wrong I still love that house we've made some improvements and have done some work on it I know that it needs more work mainly some serious cleaning but I suppose if we were to move on I can deal with that and I could move on.

Also I am doing a show right now. Now I know what you are going to say I've done shows before and I have to be at rehearsals for what seems like an eternity every day of every week and for what? To be on stage a total of 20 minutes in a 2 hour play? Well I'm working much harder in this show as I am OFF stage for a total of 20 minutes (probably we haven't actually run through the entire show yet) It's a big part with many, many lines and it's tough. For those people who have done big parts in shows before (that are not musicals) I applaud you I don't know how you do it. I've got to say the musicals are probably difficult as well but it's so much easier when most of your lines are songs, for whatever reason songs are much easier to memorize. Why is that? We're two weeks away from opening and most of us still have our books on stage (there are only seven of us by the way)

Can you spot me??? Yeah frightening isn't it? The part is completely hilarious and a bit psycho but it's fun and different and you aren't even seeing the makeup. Apparently that's going to make the character even more CRAZY!

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