Wishful Slacker

Ahhh Muppets

I feel that this is far too good to pass up!

Our House

After 3 1/2 years in our tiny 1 bedroom apartment in Lincoln Park, we are moving.  This was not anticipated as our lease is not up until the end of May.  But, this place has been plagued by a persistent leak in the bedroom for over a year now, and has developed a new leak in the living room, and we've been given permission by our landlady to break our lease.  We feel really badly for the woman who owns this unit.  She's been so wonderful to work with and is now stuck with this unit that the building's management company is simply refusing to fix.  It's  a big ole mess!

We were fortunate to get in touch with another woman looking into renting out her unit through a mutual friend, and -BADDA BING BADDA BOOM! VOILÅ! ABRA CADABRA!- we now have a new home and are planning on moving in a week!  We just love this new place.  LOVE.  And it's in one of our favorite Chicago neighborhoods, Roscoe Village.  I will definitely make sure to post pictures of our new home once we're in and settled, but for now, I am taking a few moments to say goodbye to our little place on Pine Grove Avenue.

Despite the fact that it's been raining indoors here for the past year, I have genuinely enjoyed our time in this apartment.  This was our first home together, so for that fact alone I will always remember our life here with fondness.  Together we've made it quite the cozy home.  It was always cramped with guests over, but for just the two of us (and the cat) it really was perfect.  And Lord Almighty, it has the best 18th floor view of Lake Michigan.  You always hope that at some point in your life you will be blessed with a view, and this was our time.  There is always something to look at here- traffic on Lakeshore Drive, boats on the lake, the sun- and moonrise, downtown, and the lights along the Indiana horizon.  I have been reminding myself that the majority of the population goes each day without a view, just like I did before moving here, and one is able to survive without!  So, as we approach the upcoming (busy) workweek and step around all these accumulating boxes, I am looking ahead with excitement, but also looking behind with gratitude for this place that Jim and I built together. 

Our house is a very, very fine house
With two cats in the yard
Life used to be so hard
Now everything is easy
'Cause of you
And our la,la,la, la,la, la, la, la, la, la, la..... 

 

 

 

Goodbye Pine Grove!

  

Pork, three yummy ways

Hello all!  I've been meaning to post several recipes that we've made in the past month, all featuring pork- the other white meat. And no, bacon is not featured in these recipes (mmm bacon...) but rather healthier cuts of pork tenderloin or pork chops.  Sometimes we just get sick of chicken breast.  And, all these pork dishes are SUPER easy.   

So here is one from Rachel Ray-  Pork tenderloin with sauteed apples.  It is so good, and while many of Rachel Ray's recipes require a zillion ingredients, this one doesn't.  Much of what it does require are foods found in the home anyways, and you can always use dried thyme if that's the only thing you're lacking in regards to produce on hand at home.  For some reason I love having green beans alongside this dish.   

The next two dishes we made in the past week, with some days in between so as not to get porked out.  I got them both from last month's Real Simple magazine, which featured recipes for 4 weeks worth of meals.  I made the mistake doing very extensive meal planning for a week that ended up being really busy.  It was not my best organizing moment in that respect, because I over-planned for the time that we had available.  While the food was terrific, it was way too stressful!  I felt like I was rushing in the kitchen either before or after our evening events.  Each night we ended up having something to do, but I HAD to use up the parsnips and radishes and avocado and other perishable items that I'd bought (no worries- the parsnips, radishes, and avocado did NOT all go into the same dish!).  I made too many dinners using perishable foods on a week when we needed greater flexibility, and this lesson has been learned.  I found it is also better to plan your week to start off with fresh produce before tapering into meals that you can make with canned and frozen foods (hence, our Cuban rice and beans was saved for Friday night- that was at least one thing I got right).

Here is the first dish we made last Thursday- roasted pork with brussel sprouts and dried apricots.  Let me tell you, this was fantastic, especially for those of you like me who LOVE brussel sprouts.  I had purchased dried apricots (from Walgreens of all places) a few weeks ago using a coupon, thinking they have a longer shelf life and are seen in many dishes.  I popped raw almonds (buy in bulk from Costco- I have not found a better deal than that) into our toaster oven for a few minutes, careful not to burn them (I don't have a good record with roasting pine nuts).  This meal also heats up very nicely the next day for lunch (another reason we enjoy pork tenderloin is for the leftovers). 

And the last meal is pork chops with garlicky broccoli.  I used broccolini from Peapod (on sale!) instead.  This meal is great.  Make sure you use low sodium soy sauce- regular soy would just be too salty for this dish.  Peapod had a sale on these Birds Eye Steamfresh white rice packets which are really convenient.  I see from their website that they also have brown rice.  I now think it's really worth it to stock up on those bags if they're on sale.  Regular rice is terrific, but when you don't have time to cook it for 45 minutes, having this frozen kind on hand is really handy.  The whole meal cooked in about 10 very easy minutes last night.  I will say that the basic Steamfresh bags had just enough for Jim and me, so for a family you may want to heat up a couple of them.

I hope you try at least one of these!  Enjoy!       

The last of the cottage memorabilia

It is Friday, and I am running around like a crazy person right now.  We've had a very busy week- busy during the work days, busy during the evenings, thoughts about work during the evenings, and thoughts about the evenings during work.  So argh- I haven't been able to post any of the nonsensical jargon that I usually enjoy spewing out during the week.  But, hopefully life will settle and I can get back to it!

I'll leave you with a few last images from our week in East Tawas.  First, I took this picture of a box I found in my parents' storage room in their cottage in Michigan.  The label my mom wrote on it just cracked me up.  Couldn't we just get rid of some of the extra straws???

 

 

And here are a few other touches around my parents' cottage that I love:

I wonder if these guys have names?

 

 

 

And last but not least, we have this handsome guy, who also was able to enjoy the Michigan wilderness with his parents.

 

 

Website of the Week

My Parents Were Awesome is a great site that has been featured on Chicago's WGN morning news show recently.  And while we're on the subject of terrific photographs of our parents and grandparents:

Here is my maternal grandmother back in 1945, in a picture that was sent off to my grandfather who was serving aboard the USS O'Bannon in the Pacific.  On the back she had written "Woo woo!"  I love it.

And gosh darn it, why didn't I inherit those gams???