Uggggh

I don’t know why I decided it would be a good idea to drink beer AND scotch on a random Tuesday night, but I did, and it turns out I’m getting old because HOLY GOD when I woke up this morning I thought I might actually die.

Source    Kids are dumb.

In my defense, we had a friend over for dinner, and I didn’t want to be rude and, like, not drink all of the beer that she brought. Also working against me is the fact that we stayed up until midnight last night. Actually, everyone else stayed up until midnight while I slept on the couch like a slug, probably with my gullet wide open from the way my mouth felt when I jolted awake. Much sophistication. Such class.

The good news is that I rallied pretty quick after drinking some seriously strong coffee. Now I just have to drink a million glasses of water throughout the day so that I won’t die on my run tonight. Who has two thumbs and is totally regretting signing up for a damn 10-miler next week? THIS GIRL. Also, probably a lot of other people because that shit is hard.

Two days until Friday! Woo!

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I’m In a Fight With TurboTax

Dave was planning to write his recipe post for me last night, but instead I wound up hogging the computer all evening trying to do my taxes.

It did not go well.

I’ve used TurboTax online for the last three years, and it’s never taken more than 20 minutes to file my taxes. Last night it was going smoothly, like usual, until I got to the homeowner deduction section, and my mortgage interest and property taxes did not make my refund shoot up. That seemed weird, so I clicked on the chat help button to see if someone could help me. An hour later, somebody finally popped up and spent an hour after that wasting my time by typing things like “cool beans” when I told her my problems. After several failed attempts at screen sharing, I closed the chat window and waited 15 minutes to talk to someone on the phone, who basically told me she had no idea what was happening, but because I was being so nice she wanted to give me a free download of the desktop premier version. You know, just in case I feel like not being able to do my taxes on my desktop instead of the Internet.

Anyway, the best solution is probably for me to do them by hand, but thanks to TurboTax and the fact that I spent high school economics daydreaming about meeting Joshua Jackson (oh, Dawson’s Creek), my tax knowledge consists of “click in boxes, WHEE! MAGIC MONEY!”

Source
Me, basically.

I finally gave up and decided to quickly make my mortgage payment online before going to bed, and proceeded to enter the wrong password enough times that my account locked me out. I think the computers are conspiring against me.

OOTD: Striped Dress

I’m attending a social media workshop today, so all you’re getting is an outfit picture. That I took in a bathroom. I suck.

I got this dress on sale for $10 at JCP a few weeks ago. I’d link ya, but I’m on my phone trying to be incognito in the back of the classroom. I miss college.

House Budget So Far

If you follow me on Instagram, you may have noticed that we bought the entire Lowe’s paint department on Friday night.

I should note that I have no idea if this is the correct amount of paint.

Why did we buy 11 individual gallons of paint in the same color? I’m glad you asked.

Apparently they were out of 5-gallon tubs of the paint + primer base they needed to mix our interior wall color, so they had to mix them all individually. My annoyance turned to jubilation when the paint guy offered to give us a $3 discount per gallon for our trouble. It turned back into annoyance when the guy at the register took half an hour to ring us up because he insisted on moving all of the cans off of the flat, and would then scan them one by one and manually key in the discount before placing each can back on the flat. I somehow resisted the urge to be like, “There are 11 of these and they call cost the same so JUST KEY IN THE DAMN QUANTITY, MAN.” Yet I remained silent until the bitter end, when he rewarded me for my patience by accidentally voiding the order, forcing him to start the process all over again from the top.

When we finally made it to the parking lot after Act 2 of “Even More Boring Than Watching Paint Dry,” we realized he had charged us for an extra gallon of paint, plus $50 for the ice maker that was supposed to come free with our refrigerator. We prevailed, but not before having to traipse back into the store two more times.

At first I was kind of freaking out about how much money we spent that night, but once I broke it all down I realized we got a ton of stuff. Plus we got a 5% discount by opening a Lowe’s credit card. Anyway, I decided to keep a running tally of our expenditures here on the blog, partly to keep us on track and partly because I thought it might be a helpful resource for anybody wondering how much they might need to spend to fix up a house. (Answer: Way more than you have.) So here’s the rundown so far, rounded to the nearest dollar because I hate numbers:

Paint/primer (13 gallons total): $310
Wood laminate flooring (28 boxes): $980
Flush mount ceiling fan: $57
Paint brushes/rollers/tape: $30
Two-pack of hallway light fixtures: $18
Shower head: $44
Spackle compound: $4
Refrigerator: $598
Total: $2,041

The final two big-ticket items we plan to buy are a sectional couch and carpet for the bedrooms. We’re going to try and find matching remnants to lower the cost of the carpeting, since it turns out it’s not as cheap as we thought it was. And speaking of not cheap, I found out yesterday that the city is charging us a $100 “new account setup fee” to change the water service to our name.

And before you lecture me, I know how municipal fees work, and I’m sure that money will be going toward something really important. Like buying refreshments for the next city council meeting where they will decide to charge us $100 per month to park in our own driveways. I did have to laugh when I saw the “reduced fee schedule” for those with financial hardships, though – it is literally $2 less per month. THANK GOD I’ll have a support system in place should I find myself in a financial emergency that could be abated by saving an extra $24 per year.

Guest Post: How to bounce back from a major kitchen fail

A couple nights ago, Dave saw me looking at a recipe for peach crisp with maple cream sauce that I had pinned and decided he wanted to make it. SPOILER ALERT: It did not go well. Below is Dave’s account of the Peach Crisp Incident of 2013, and his subsequent redemption in the form of a truly delicious recipe he made up for Turkey Sloppy Joes with a rosemary cream reduction. I know, right? A school cafeteria classic made fancy? I think we’ve been watching too many Gordon Ramsey shows.

…

The other day I had the driven look of a long-time baker who grabs the spirit of inspiration from a new-found recipe that looks both delicious and fun.
What did I say after being gripped by this cooking passion, toiling away in the kitchen at the hot oven?

Ow, my spirit.

My inspiration came from the Pioneer Woman’s masterpiece seen here:

Mine came out looking something like hers, but generally tasteless, poorly textured and boring:

It did not feel good to eat this thing.  So, on my path to healing, I have developed a multi-step program aimed at rebuilding my self-trust and bolstering my future cooking.

Step 1: Admission of past wrongs.
I once made a tiramisu cheesecake that called for coffee in the list of ingredients. In my early twenties, I had maybe had coffee twice, and thus I assumed that the grounds themselves would fulfill this requirement. Imagine cheesecake, but with dirt in it.

After dirt tiramisu, I had experimented to a great extent with fruit cheesecakes, to the point where I wanted to make banana cream cheesecake. After adding the mashed fruit to the batter, I cooked the pie for about two hours with it never solidifying. Banana cheesecake slurry just didn’t have a great ring to it.

Step 2: Define the problem.
Now Ree Drummond has given Heather and I a number of excellent recipes with great outcomes, so she obviously was not the problem. If you happen to try her Peach Crisp with Maple Cream Sauce, I have some tips:

Use real maple syrup, as the light faux-maple syrup I used evaporated out of the mixture in no time flat.

Do not use baker’s sugar. The ultra-fine grains made my coarse crumb mixture turn into a dough. I know what you’re thinking – “Oh, I bet it got crispy while cooking.” Not quite. It got a little bit done on the top, but underneath it had the consistency of the Blob:

Use peaches that do not make you say, “These peaches taste gross.” Self-explanatory.

Step 3: Create your own recipe that tastes, well, awesome.

Turkey Sloppy Joes with fresh parsley, basil and rosemary cream reduction

You’ll need:
1/2 to 3/4 lb. of ground turkey
1/2 cup of heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup of plain breadcrumbs
1 cup of chopped onions (I actually used leftover onion rings. I recommend this)
Approximately 1/4 cup of fresh parsley, four leaves of fresh basil and four leaves of fresh rosemary
Salt, pepper and garlic salt
Buns
Cheese

Pour the whipping cream into a small pot.

Chop the fresh herbs and place in the cream.

Turn the pot on low heat and leave for approximately 40 minutes, stirring occasionally. When the cream is nearly done, place the turkey, bread crumbs and onions in a bowl. Season with the salt, pepper and garlic salt.

Pour the cream mixture into the bowl and let it cool for a moment before mixing the meat with your hands. If you think it feels gross with your hands, remember that we all do.

Place the meat mixture into a pan pre-heated on medium heat and cook until there is no pink left (unless you are feeling adventurous), caramelizing if you wish. When the meat is almost done, I recommend broiling the buns with the cheese.

This recipe is for two people, but if you have more, just multiply the ingredients by the appropriate factor and…

Step 4: Tell Heather that math is awesome, preferably in the comments section.

A dip into the archives

I’m busy prepping for a big event at work, so I didn’t get anything written yesterday. HOWEVER, in honor of Jonathan Taylor Thomas returning to television (!), I’m going to share a post I wrote a while back about my obsession with JTT as a middle schooler. Nobody read my blog back when I posted it, so you probably haven’t seen it before anyway:

I had a squirrel named Numb Nuts

Yesterday one of my Google Reader friends (Hi, Jennie!) shared a Happy Birthday Jonathan Taylor Thomas video because if you can believe it, little Randy from Home Improvement is 30. If he’s 30, I’ve got to be like 80, which probably explains why I always want to yell at the damn kids outside who make all kinds of racket when I’m trying to take my afternoon nap.

You will have to watch the JTT video here because WordPress wants me to give them $59 to post videos on my blog and I feel like using that money for something so frivolous would be very irresponsible of me, especially since I’m starting to navigate the murky waters of retirement savings. So far my retirement plan involves going to a casino tonight and making sizeable investments in slot machines. Way better than having to actually learn what the hell a Roth IRA is. I had to craft some sort of plan though, because Chase (my bank) keeps sending me emails being all, “You’re 27 and have no retirement account! Do you want to be a burden on your children later in life?” And then I’m like, “QUIT PRESSURING ME TO HAVE KIDS, CHASE. GOD!” and my boyfriend goes, “WHO THE HELL IS CHASE?”

Thanks for ruining my life, MONEY.

Speaking of fail-proof plans, let me tell you about the time my friend Betsy and I plotted for like three weeks to get JTT to visit us in podunk Northern California where, upon seeing our scrunch socks and rainbow-colored braces, he would undoubtedly decide he was in love with us, give up driving around Hollywood in his solid gold Ferrari and move to a place where curtains are made of Confederate flags and duct tape. We never really worked out what would happen when he had to decide which of us to date and marry, but I feel pretty confident that since Betsy was my best friend and all, and I was a nice church-going girl, I would have felt pretty bad about having to cut that bitch.

On second thought, maybe he WOULD have fit right into small town life. I hope his former stylist had to pay for making him look like the love child of Yosemite Sam and Jenna Elfman.

Stage One of our plan was to read every JTT interview we could get our hands on, taking notes about his likes and dislikes and then storing the lists in a binder with a picture of him on the front and OH MY GOD I CAN’T BELIEVE I AM WRITING THIS ON THE INTERNETS. Stage 2 was to write him a letter including all the information we amassed in Stage One. This letter was perfect. We casually mentioned that we loved the Boston Celtics and tofu; wouldn’t it be weird if he did, too???!!? Through these subtle hints, he would realize that we were totally soul mates (and possibly crouched outside his bedroom window sniffing a lock of his hair). Just to seal the deal, we told him in the letter that we don’t like to brag about it, but we both work for Seventeen magazine as models. We learned in Stage One that JTT loves Salinger and uses his spare time to study, so obviously a man of his intelligence would need proof. So we cut a page out of Seventeen, wrote our names above the two hottest models, and mailed it along with the letter.

Actual JTT quote about discovering his teen idol status: “I was in St. Patrick’s Cathedral actually. My Mom was showing me how to light the candle and all that, and this person comes up and is like, ‘Can you sign this, please?’ I was like, ‘Okay, let’s get out of here, because I don’t want a big old lightning bolt to come down on me, thank you very much!'” Oh, JTT. How did you never get into stand-up.

After receiving our letter, he immediately departed the “Man of the House” set and drove up to meet the 12-year-old Seventeen models of his dreams.

Just kidding. But he did send us two signed pictures of him sitting on a step stool wearing white cargo jeans. WHITE CARGO JEANS. If a big old lightning bolt was going to come down on you, JTT, that would have been the moment for it. Anyway, we of course paraded the pictures around our school and when too many people had touched mine and the ink started to smudge I put it inside a plastic sleeve and made people form a line to look at it while I held it safely in my clutches. DO YOU SEE WHAT A FUN GIRL YOU MISSED OUT ON, JTT?

JTT seeing what he missed out on.

I held out hope for some time that he would call me, but it turns out that JTT was merely the first in a long line of men who would be intimidated by the fact that I had collected their personal information in a binder with their face on it.

I gave you my heart, JTT, and you gave me white cargo jeans.

Fake tan fail

Yesterday it was finally warm enough to wear a skirt without tights, so I broke out my fake tan lotion after my shower … only to find that the bottle was empty. I rooted around in my beauty supply drawer and found a couple of Comodynes self-tanning towelettes I received in a Birchbox and never tried, so I decided to use one of those instead of my usual lotion.

Should you ever find yourself in possession of Comodynes self-tanning towelettes, I suggest you throw them away immediately or give them to somebody you hate.

After unknowingly applying Satan’s self-tanner, I went off to work, met with people, went to appointments, and then got in my car to drive home. Which is when I noticed huge, white streaks running up both shins.

This picture really doesn’t do it justice. In real life the white streaks are so vivid that I look like an Oompa Loompa-colored candy cane. I’ve never used a tanning towelette before, but I feel like there’s no way I forgot to wipe huge portions of my shins when I was applying this horrible stuff. I actually have finger marks on my thighs, which is kind of mysterious as applied it using a TOWEL and not my FINGERS.

I was actually glad when I woke up to cold, dreary weather this morning, since I’ll be wearing pants until this stuff wears off.