WWFD?

Maybe I've been watching too many episodes of Frasier, but I thought it might be fun for you all to interpret a dream I have had a few times over the past year. A little game of What Would Freud Do?, if you will.

In my dream, I buy this awesome house. It's huge and Victorian and the complete opposite of my real house.

BUT, I am relegated to the main floor because the attic has been rendered unusable by some very proper and very evil Victorian ghosts. They spend their days lounging in parlors and watering ferns (don't ask me why, but that just seems like something a suffragette would be all 'bouty 'bouty) and wearing corsets and they do NOT act kindly to non-ghostly visitors like me.

I also cannot go downstairs because it is constantly moving and crumbling and it looks like a really cheesy 70sVegas-style hotel with a carpeted refrigerator. It's also covered in bugs.

So, readers. A dream where I live in a house with no usable basement and no usable attic - can any of you tell me what this could possibly mean?

My vote is that this is proof positive that DIY house renos will indeed change your mental makeup - even way before they are started (the attic isn't on tap to get tackled for at least another two or three years) or after they are finished (happy five month-a-versary, Finished Basement!).

Powdered Milk Magic

So, things got kind of weird last night. I wanted to make English muffins since I had picked up a new set of muffin rings this past weekend at Kitchen Collage. I'd made them before for a very ill-fated birthday breakfast for poor Hubs. One of the ingredients in the Alton Brown recipe for English muffins I use is powdered milk, which is apparently sold only in tonnage.

As I made the muffins and eyed the four tupperwares full of powdered milk that I own, I got a brain flash: why not make cheese with fake milk? I shall be the Kraft of This Humble Home, I crowed, eager to get the fake milk made and into cheese before Hubs noticed because I was 99% sure he was going to be skeezed out by powdered milk, just like I would be if I thought about it too much.

So I just got to steppin'. I mixed up a gallon of fake milk, using a half pint of whole cream I had lying around and tap water, plus 5 1/3 cups fake milk.

Then, I followed my regular mozzarella-making steps while the English muffin dough was rising. Aside form the fact that it had to sit off the heat about twice as long as regular milk mozzarella, it seemed to be going just fine.

I was pretty frantic between stirring the cheese curds and flipping the muffins, but I survived by the skin of my teeth.

When I finally finished, we had English muffin pizzas with the new cheese. And they were delightful.

The verdict? I'll totally make fake milk cheese again. Since I have to buy the fancy milk in glass bottles to make real milk cheese, the cost per ball ends up at about $2.50-$3.00 per ball, same as Bel Giosso at the store. But with fake milk, I can get my mozz fix for $.50-$.75 per ball (all I need to buy is the whole cream). Perfect for this cheapskate!

Tentative, cautious spontaneity

My brain has not been in Iowa for the past few days. It's busy ambling down cobblestone streets, sipping blonde ale and savoring the best damn croissant a brain has ever had.

You see, dear blog, we are plotting another vacation.

After last year's horrendous bout of me being too persuasive and impulsive for my own good, it is understandable that we are cautious creatures when it comes to cementing our plans. The last thing we need is to frittle away another few hundred dollars and rattle our nerves when they are so tender from months spent underground hammering things. 

We hatched a plan last Thursday, amid two liters of homebrew, to visit Paris and Belgium - of course for more beer. We've been researching, pondering, mulling it all over. I've been to Brussels before and (unlike our ill-fated escape to Panama) can already feel the good vibes of the countryside calling our names. I've never been to Paris because frankly, it sounded a little too artsy-fartsy and high-minded for me. Maybe I'm getting snobbish in my old age or maybe I was always wrong, but now I'm 100% totally stoked to France this shiz up.

All signs point to yes.

We bought some CDs to help us parlez the vou and a guidebook for Belgium, but we're holding off on making actual commitments until we're quite, quite, quite positive on this (but holy heck, you guys. I have my eye on the most beautiful and perfect itinerary of all time - no flights before 9:00 a.m., no 12-hour layovers, arrivals at perfectly normal times of the day and best of all - it's out of our very own DSM and somehow does not cost arms, legs, first borns!). It seems not going to Panama changed how we travel just as much as going might have. 

So, there you have it - proof positive that I am quite old and hardly any fun anymore. But, I promise that once we actually buy the plane tickets and get there, I will do my best to dig deep and find adventure.

So, any tips for seeing Paris or Belgian breweries in ways that don't make me feel like a fuddy duddy? (First tip to self, don't ever say fuddy duddy again. Sick.)

Good thing I didn't see this one year ago

       
Somehow, I stumbled upon a site that sells composting toilets, which sound equally terrifying and intriguing. I didn't read too much about how they work because a quick glance used phrases like "rake bar", "Click here to watch the Bowl Trap in action" and "mulcherator." These nuggets of information were more than enough, thank you.


But what really got my semi-green brain whirling was that these potties don't need to be tied in to traditional plumbing, making them perfect for basements since you don't need to bust up the floor to lay pipe.


See how this might be intriguing to a woman who spent the first half of 2011 underground and had to forgo a second bathroom due to everyone's unwillingness to bust floors?


I don't think these thrones are in our future, but I did want to pass them along in case any of you readers are brave enough to be this decidedly hippie. 

Didya see us?

Our garage-painting project popped up on Offbeat Home yesterday!

How cool is that? Our formerly dumpy garage is Internet Famous! I'm so proud.

Casualties of looking this good

Like every other Pinterest-obsessed blogger, I too have tried (and been won over by!) the no heat curls via headband.

Hello, vapid side eye. 

I did have one issue with this method:

See that massive forehead dent? Yep, I lived with that for about an hour after taking the headband off. Pinterest never warned me. But I have warned you, dear blog. I'm considering it my good deed for the day.

Decade of DeMo

Dear Des Moines,

Ten years ago today (ish), I packed up my bags, put on my very best Good Charlotte t-shirt and moved here. Sure, I skipped out on you for a summer or two, and ran off to Europe for a few months, then New Zealand for a few more, but I always came back, Des Moines. You grew on me in a way I never expected.

In honor of our tenth year together, I've compiled a list of my ten favorite things about you, you nutty little city, you.

1. You're where I met and married Hubs. Yeah, the house we met at was torn down and most of the bars we frequented back in the day are closed, but we both oddly ended up in the same place, at the same time and that place was here. Eventually, we hauled all our people out here and threw a real crackerjack of a wedding. It gives this town a little family history it wouldn't have had for us transplants otherwise.
2. You're where my favorite little house is. I own .75 acres of you and have made that little section of your city a cozy home with bright paint and lots of cat hair.
3. You have surprisingly good BBQ. And I appreciate that.
4. You still surprise me. Since I'd never had a decent bike or a desire to run anywhere but my little neighborhood stretch, I had no idea how awesome your trail system was until this summer. Having rarely ventured south of Grand, I didn't realize what awesome pizza was waiting for me at Tavern on Army Post Road. Someone is putting in an adult playground with a Tony Little-style Air Walker behind the Franklin Library for reasons beyond my comprehension. I'm glad you keep me on my toes.
5. You have good veggies. I'm sorry, but as a non-native Iowan, this whole gorge-yourself-on-sweet-corn-while-the-gettin's-good season is just precious. What could be more adorable than one cute old guy selling veggies out of his truck? Hundreds of them - one on every corner. Adorable, Des Moines.
6. You have good napping weather. This is crucial to my happiness. You provide me with excellent, snow-bunny napping weather during blizzards and sublime sunny-day snoozes, too. You got it all.
7. Tenderloins. I know it's wrong to eat a breaded pork tenderloin bigger than my face, but it feels so right.
8. Fifteen minute commute that I can do via bike once the Neal Smith Trail is done being resurfaced. Oh, holla!
9. You're a small pond, in a good way. In such a cozy little city, it's easy to get to know the folks running the show and easy to make a name for yourself. Who doesn't like that?
10. You're just pretty.

Here's to us, Des Moines! Thank you for being a damn fine place to be.

With snugglies,
A