Well, I made it to thirty. Darren and I celebrated with a day off work and a huge lunch at Fogo. Last night we had a bunch of my favorite people over for food and games. It was for sure the best birthday I can remember.
such twins.
So! Let’s check in: how’d the 30 by 30 thing work out? Click that there link to find out. Long story short: as I expected, I did not accomplish every item, but knocked out some great ones.
Life is good, y’all.
As evidenced by my 30 by 30 list, I have been wanting to dye my hair again for quite some time. I think the last time I did was in college. I’d been considering it off and on since then, but was never able to make a decision. Also I didn’t want to go to a salon because $$$. I’m all about the box color, y’all.
Um. Anyway, I read about eSalon on a message board, and saved it in the ol’ memory file. The gist is that you answer some questions about your hair, choose your color, and their stylists customize it for you based on your answers.
Here’s the ridiculous photo I uploaded to eSalon during the questionnaire:
I also had it cut recently, and got rid of the asymmetrical swoopy thing I had going on.
The color that I ended up choosing was “Darkest Brown Red Mahogany.”
via eSalon
Yes. So dark, so interesting. Spoiler alert: this isn’t quite how mine tuned out!
My order arrived yesterday and, instead of waiting for the weekend like I’d originally planned, I dove in. If you’ve ever dyed your own hair before, the process is the same. Thanks to my short hair, it was extra simple- minus the rinsing process, which still took forever and made my bathtub look like a crime scene.
Wee! Here’s the result:
The difference is much greater in person, I think. Depending on the light it might look purpley, reddish, or nearly black. I’m kind of obsessed. Mission accomplished!
PS, if you decide to try eSalon, your first order is only $10 plus shipping. And if you use my link, I get a little deal too. Everybody wins.
During one of this winter’s extra-cold days, I decided it was time to crochet something warm. I poked around Ravelry for a while, and decided this tunic was the one. It wasn’t terribly difficult, although I did have to start over after having made a lot of progress because I realized it wasn’t going to fit. I also lost inexplicably lost count of my stitches while working on the front, so it’s a little narrower than the back… fortunately you can’t tell.
I’m pretty satisfied with how it turned out. I took a risk with the sleeves, not knowing how the style would look on me, but at the end of the day I was just looking for something cozy that I could wear in my cold, cold apartment (when it’s -30 outside, nothing keeps this place truly warm), and that’s what I achieved.
This post is late-coming. I finished the sweater over a month ago, but I have yet to take any pictures. I’ll edit this post to add them once they exist.
ETA: Here are some pictures, finally. The quality is not great, which is the norm for photos taken in my apartment.
Goofy pose #1
Goofy pose #2. The back does lay normally, I assure you.
I never thought it would happen, but Darren and I just got back from a sunny, warm trip to California. It is unusual for us to do something so extravagant, but a good-sized tax return and some friends willing to house us – savings us a few hundred bucks, which we did end up accidentally spending but I’ll get to that later – provided us with the perfect opportunity.
This idea was actually born the night before Christmas Eve, when some of Darren’s internet pals came over for drinks. Paul and Aleecia are from Eagan, but moved to Orange County last year after Paul got a sweeeet new job. Come out and visit us and we’ll go to Disneyland, they said. And so we did.
I’m all sick and stuff, which happens every friggin’ year during my holiday break, and Darren very well may be headed down the same street. So thanks mostly to that but also in part to laziness and the bitter cold, we’re staying in for New Year’s Eve. He had to work, but while he was gone I put together an epic holiday feast. A few little milestones happen in 2015 (we both turn 30, plus our 5th wedding anniversary), so we might as well go into it well-fed. Bonus: cooking a multi-course meal is on my 30-by-30 list.
So! Our New Year’s Eve dinner:
Yum.
I was hoping to go to a New Year’s Day yoga class in the morning, but the state of my sinuses seems to be working against me there.
Tonight when the clock hits 12, I’ll be watching Roseanne on Netflix, working on one more 2014-centric blog post, and eating a slice of pie. And possibly also sneezing. Happy New Year!
I made cheese!
I’ve long been aware that basic cheese making is incredibly simple, but as with most of my ambitions it took a while before I got around to trying it.
Recipes for basic farmer’s cheese (which is the same as paneer) are all over the internet. All you need is milk, lemons, and cheesecloth. A fine mesh strainer would probably do fine in place of the cheesecloth, but I actually used both.
Seriously, all you do is slowly heat the milk to gentle boiling, then turn the heat down and add lemon juice (I used a bit more than 1/4 cup). The juice separates the whey from the milk solids. Then you strain it all through your cheesecloth and squeeze out the remaining liquid.
I lined my mesh strainer with cheesecloth and set it over a bowl to catch the whey. I’m freezing the whey to use in bread and soups. I salted my milk while it heated up, otherwise unsalted whey has several more uses.
It’s pretty tasty, especially with honey. I’m going to put some on tacos tomorrow.
Pictures after the jump!
I made truffles last night. Making truffles was one of the easy items on my 30 by 30 list, so it doesn’t make for a particularly interesting blog post. But there were a few other things on the list that I didn’t write about for the same reason, so here’s something.
I used this recipe from Instructables. To flavor the cream, I followed the second method and put ground coffee into a tea ball to infuse it while it heated. I ran into a minor problem though, because I only had half the amount of chocolate the recipe called for and was too lazy to go buy more. The taste turned out fine – great even – but it meant that when I rolled the ganache into balls they were melty as hell. So I have wonky truffles. I popped ’em in the freezer and then rolled ’em in cocoa. Tasty wonky truffles accomplished.
So ugly, but pretty yummy.
Oh, surprise! I actually did another thing.
I mentioned in my last post that I’ve been going to yoga classes at Tula Yoga & Wellness. This afternoon I attended an aerial yoga workshop, which is a prerequisite for their regular aerial classes.
It. Was. Awesome.
The sling is a prop, so not everything is done off the ground. Spinal alignment is a big focus. That said, we spent plenty of time in the air. And upside down! We definitely did this:
photo by Tula Yoga & Wellness, via FB
(FYI, These photos aren’t from today).
Savasana is done in the sling and it’s super comfortable. I could have fallen asleep.
photo by Tula Yoga & Wellness, via FB.
I’m looking forward to future aerial classes. These ones have a fixed price (whereas most of their other classes are donation-based) so I might not be able to afford it quite as often as I’d like, but that’s okay. Variety is the spice of life, and all that.
Apologies in advance if I become a full-blown yoga fanatic. I promise I’ll talk about other things too. Probably.
photo by Tula Yoga & Wellness, via FB.
Four years ago, we acquired a sad-looking but functional ’97 Dodge Caravan. It was a hand-me-down from Darren’s parents and we payed exactly zero dollars for it. But it’s been on its last legs for a few months now and especially after this winter, replacement is a necessity. Since around September, we’ve been passively searching for an affordable vehicle that can handle the weather that we deal with in this sorry state.
Darren’s coworker Joe buys cars at auctions, fixes them as needed, and sells them. When he told Darren he had a Subaru for sale, we were intrigued. It’s a 2002 Impreza; the car itself has 150K miles on it, but the engine was replaced at around 130K. There’s some cosmetic issues – small dents, mostly, and a wee patch of rust on the wheel well – and the muffler needs to be replaced. It also needs a good cleaning. But instead of taking care of all these things and selling it for double the price, we got a sweet deal (so sweet that the loan payment is only $35 a month) and will be unloading the stupid van at the same time.
I have exactly one picture of said car.
Darren got a shop recommendation from someone in the know, and made an appointment for muffler repair next Thursday. So we can’t really drive it yet, unless we want to risk a ticket because it’s so very, very loud. We’re hitting up the DMV tomorrow I think, and we’ll get the insurance switched over sometime this week.
All of this to say: ALL WHEEL DRIVE, YOU GUYS! And I’m so excited to not be rolling around in that shitty mom-van anymore.
One of the things on my 30 by 30 list is “learn how to knit.” Thanks to Kate’s unused copy of The Knitter’s Handbook and several sets of needles, I have succeeded. Or, I know the basics anyway, well enough to make Darren a new scarf. Ribbed for maximum knit-purl experience.
You know what I don’t like about knitting? Blocking. I had to pin this scarf to the hallway floor and shoo the pets away while I steamed it. It was worth the effort though, obviously, because it’s a nice scarf in the end. I should probably make one for myself, because I definitely need MOAR SCARVES.
Now that I’ve managed this simple guy, I’ll have to find time this winter to learn more complicated patterns. Knit things for everyone! One day there will be sweaters. One day.
This is a long post about money. My money, specifically.
I don’t read my horoscope regularly, but it pops up on Yahoo every day and I happened to glance at it earlier today:
You may be on solid ground right now in terms of money, but it would not hurt you to conserve a little bit more. Cut back on some of your excessive spending and get more aggressive in your savings plan — and if you don’t have a savings plan, you might want to get on that today. Ditch your credit cards for a while — they make it way too easy to spend way too much! You work too hard for every penny to let even one of them slip out of your fingers without a fight.
It’s an amusing coincidence, because just this morning we went to the bank to take care of some business. Business involving paying off credit cards and getting pre-approved for an auto loan.
We actually took out a loan to consolidate our debt. Actually I took it out, because I have a good credit score but Darren has no credit at all, so the interest rate is better without him. Anyway, the debt isn’t terribly high, but the interest rates on the cards are ridiculous. Consolidating them onto a loan with less than half the interest rate, plus a smaller monthly minimum payment, is going to save us an absurd amount of money in the long run- especially since we’ll be able to make payments much higher than the minimum. Once the payments go through to the card companies we are straight-up closing those credit accounts. SO OVER IT. Incidentally, paying off the CCs is on my 30 by 30 list. Nice.
As far as the car thing goes, we’ll see what happens. We’ve set a maximum allowance for a purchase price but I’m aiming to spend well under that. I obviously don’t want to take on more debt when we’re trying to get rid of it, but actually with everything else we’re doing, plus having payed off a couple loans this summer (two student loans left to go! One of them is 15 years away from repayment though) we’re not going to be paying any more in bills than we do now. Likely even less, depending on what we end up paying for le car. Plus our stupid old van eats gas like crazy, so saving money with a more fuel-efficient vehicle, which of course is what we’re looking for, is a big win. Andplusalso it’ll be a joint loan so Darren can finally build some friggin’ credit.
So that’s that. We’re also doing a lot of non-spending of extra money in general. I mean we spent plenty on vacation because of course we did, we saved for it for months, but now that’s over. Less dining out, less nights at the bar, less unnecessary shopping. Less Caribou, DARREN. More saving. That’s the goal. We want to go on more vacations, and maybe buy a house someday, so we’re making some choices now that will lead to fun things in the future. The downside is it sometimes affects how I kick it with buddies, but we’re all pretty excellent at making our own fun. Hello, toga party tonight?
I’m kind of excited about this, actually.
This is the part where I totally plug our new bank. We recently left Wells Fargo and joined Affinity Plus, a credit union based in Minnesota. It’s a non-profit, and everything is wonderfully straightforward. I researched a lot of CUs for a pretty long time before I made the choice (I wear the pants in the family, I guess? Everything was thoroughly discussed but the legwork was all me) Their employees are trained in every area of the business which has been so helpful. They want their customers to succeed and that has been very clear to me in every interaction I’ve had with them. Plus there are so many little things that are awesome. Participation rewards, for example. plus they have a program called Stash Your Cash, where your debit card purchases are rounded up to the nearest dollar, and the extra amount is deposited into your savings account. We’ve only been with them about a month, but it’s been a very good month. I’d recommend them to anyone. Bonus: the fellow we worked with today noticed Darren’s extensive customer service background and let him know that Affinity Plus is hiring like crazy, and said to use him as a reference if he was interested. He even gave some interview tips. Cool!
All this to say that my horoscope today was bizarrely accurate. Well played.
fearlessly, myself. 