This Weekend

Better late than never, right?
Friday night - I worked out and then drank wine. 

Saturday - I worked out again - wahoo - go me!  Then we did a quick truck trade with Steve so that we could pick up some room dividers that I was taking from work.  Not sure yet what I'll be doing with them - maybe a head board of some sort??

Saturday Night - we had dirty Mexican dinner with Sakah.  The thing about dirty Mexican is that if they ask if you want a big beer, you have to say yes, it's practically state law.  But do you really want the big beer - NO, hell no you don't want the big beer b/c mixing the big beer with beans and rice is a BAD idea.  No one's stomach is built to hold that much substance.  No one.

Damn you Big Beer - I love and I hate you.
Sunday - We did have our Sunday morning movie:
Taken

It was good.  There is one line where he talks about his "specific set of skills" that makes the whole movie.
 
It was more than beautiful outside and since I'd gorged myself the night before - we had to get out and do something.  Matt pulled the bikes out of the shed and we took a ride over to a guy's house to look at a rug.  And the rug was awesome. We bought it.  (Does that count as working on the house?)
It's currently living in Living Room 2.  The old rug was too small and this one is perfect.  It's an 8 x 10 West Elm rug that we scored for $140.  You can't beat that with a stick.

The old rug is just a little small and doesn't really match anything - got her from Craig for $40 so while worth it, she's not quite what we want in this room.  Never fear, she will soon live in the front room upstairs where she matches and will feel much more at home.

And here's the new guy:

He's chocolate brown and big and beautiful.  And sooo thick.  He came from a home with a dog and a baby and the puppies are having a field day scratching and licking and pulling at the rug trying to find said dog and baby b/c they smell them.  A little strategically placed red pepper has hopefully fixed the issue.

We drank Mimosa's with Morning Glory juice which is a blend of pure sunshine and rainbows.  Awesome.  While I vacuumed the new rug (outside on the front porch,) Matt got sucked into a John Cusak movie on TV.

Seredipity

Who doesn't love a good and sappy John Cusak movie.  There was no rain in this one though - there was snow.

We finished the weekend with the Grammys.
Lady Gaga, Lady Antebellum, Eminem, Mumford and Sons, Avett Brothers.  Love them all.  Period.

Food, Inc

I've been interested in my food origins for about the last year now.  I quit buying and cooking chicken about 2-3 years ago, partly because I gave it up for Lent and never recovered and partly because I had heard the rumors about how chickens were raised and I wasn't comfortable with it.
Matt and I have been talking about buying a freezer and "buying a cow" for about a year now.  I've been reading the Omnivore's Dilemma.  Needless to say, I've been interested in where my food comes from for a while now.  I just never made the effort do something about it.  I preferred to ignore the thoughts in my head and keep going to the grocery paying more attention to price that quality.

Well, I watched Food Inc. and now it's worth the time and money to me to make the change.  I've made friends with the Turnip Truck, our local organic grocery store.  And yes, it is more expensive but until I get my garden growing and my freezer and my grass fed cow - it's where I'll be going.

So for now, we're on the hunt for a chest freezer, a CSA, and a cow.  Click that link to find your own CSA.

This Weekend

I think we're just over the house stuff.  This was another weekend of no house/reno stuff, just normal stuff.

Last week was longer than it should have been for both of us...so I hit the couch on Friday night and promptly began my Wine Haze while Matt continued his scrubbing of every surface of the bike.

Saturday we lounged around the house, ate more HOT chicken, Matt worked on the bike somemore, and I had a documentary day of movies and monthly menu planning.
Blood Into Wine

We were most interested in this because we're Maynard fans, the man sings like he's from Heaven.  This probably wouldn't have been as interesting to us if not for that....and the fact that I like to drink wine.  I was also glad to know the story behind his wine named Judith - it made him more real to me.

The Business of Being Born

Since kids are a future endeavor for us, this was an interesting take on labor and delivery.  I think I may be a hippie. 

And finally, Food Inc.

Ok, I'm definitely a hippie.  This one deserves it's own post for all the changes that we're making due to it.  Maybe I'll get to that later this week.

Sunday was spent grocery shopping and cooking and eating and SuperBowling at the Sunday Ryan household.  Saw Vince and met Jordan of MONA while there.  If you haven't checked them out, then do.  Ms. Ryan has dubbed me a superfan and I kind of love them.
Anyway, we watched the game, ate too much food, and then went home to bed.  Unfortunately, we missed our Suday morning movie this week.

$200k - HA!

HA!  I say!  I laugh in the face of $200k.

If you pay attention to the sidebar on this blog you will notice that the amount of money we're saving is totally different.  And by totally different - I really mean double.
*Hint - it's listed in my profile info.*

What led to that drastic change was a meeting with this lady: Lynn Taylor
She is a pseudo architect that has a bajillion years of experience with old houses.  And we spent almost 2 hours walking through our house and talking about all the stuff that's floating around in our heads.

Good News -
What we want to do inside is completely doable.
Bad News -
We don't think we can change the front of the house b/c we're in a historical conservation overlay - boo.
This means that this:

May not be possible.  The front of a house is sacred in historical overlay land. 
Poops.

And then there's the bottom line - we've got a LOT of saving to do, otherwise none of it really matters.

Monthly Menu Planning

So I was doing some Googling around ....
Sidebar - don't you love that Google has become a verb.  Matt even says he googles his iTumes library now.  No really - that actually happened.
Anyway - on my Google trip the other day, I found this.
Monthly menu planning = interesting.

I don't know if I have the cojones to try it.

Pepperfire Chicken

As part of my hangover cure on Sunday, something fried totally fit the bill.
On our way home from running errands - we passed Pepperfire Chicken.  If you don't know, hot chicken is kindof our thing here in Nashville.
For me it was like all those tourist attractions in town, like 2nd Avenue.  Something that I know the tourists do but I steer clear of....until now.
While you won't be seeing me on 2nd Ave. anytime soon, you will find me back at Pepperfire Chicken.  It has both qualities I find non-negotiable:

1. It's really effing good.
2. It's on the East Side.

I'm no restaurant critic so I'll let the Nashville Scene do the talking:
http://www.nashvillescene.com/bites/archives/2010/11/19/fire-in-the-hole-pepperfire-spiced-chicken-opens-on-gallatin-pike
And Yelp has always helped me out when it comes to reviews:
http://www.yelp.com/biz/pepperfire-nashville

And since my family are the only ones that read this little dittty - let me know next time you're in town and we'll go together.

This Weekend

What we did:
The normal stuff and none of the reno stuff.

Friday night - we went to see Dooze and Lester, Sakah came too.
SaturDay and night - we watched a movie:  Beer Wars

Kinda slow and everyone HATES Anheuser Busch.
Then Matt researched the restoration of his 1960s Hornet bike, and I went to Sarah Qs for a girls night in.  I had a pregnant DD and that means trouble in my world.

SunDay and night - I was HUNGOVER which means I aimlessly followed Matt around while he went gather supplies for Hornet restoration and then I camped out with Grey's Anatomy Season 5.
Oh yea, and the Sunday morning movie was: CouplesRetreat

Pretty funny.  I laughed out loud a couple of times.  A little slow towards the end but mindlessly funny, which is exactly what you need when you're HUNGOVER. 

So no house progress but Matt is gonna have an awesome bike when he gets done.  And maybe someday I'll stop getting hungover so I can actually do a project or two.