Month: February 2016

Super Bowl Weekend Things

Lauren6 Comments

SUCH. A GOOD. WEEKEND.

And not even just because the Broncos won the Super Bowl.  Though I’d say that played a significant role.  Other factors being steak dinners, a brewery visit, back to back nights at the movie theater, coffee in our new Chemex, a facial, Valentine’s crafts and… ordering groceries online!!!  Trying to pretend I’m more excited about the Broncos than having my groceries show up at my door while I’m still in my pajamas at noon.

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Friday night, Joey made THIS!  And this would be steak and creamy chive potatoes, a recipe I’ve been hoarding for months and finally put on our weekly menu.  GUYS!  It was life changing.  I don’t even really like potatoes and I wanted to eat the entire batch.  Full disclosure: we used almond milk, so basically the opposite of the half and half it called for, but it was still so creamy and perfect.

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And then we grabbed a beer at Baere Brewing before seeing the Oscar Nominated Live Action Shorts at the Mayan.  I’ll be honest, though there were a couple of more lighthearted ones, the majority of the shorts were intense.  Since they come from a variety of countries, a lot of them are religious or political and I always wish I had more context or knew more about the history of other countries, but even so, it is INSANE how powerful these short films are.  It blew us away.  Unanimous favorite was “Stutterer.”  So sweet!

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I semi-jokingly told Joey I wasn’t going to be able to sleep on Friday because I was too excited for coffee and pancakes on Saturday morning.  We’d been using a regular coffee machine but it started doing this thing where we’d put six cups of water in and three cups of coffee would come out.  I’d had it with that thing so we decided to get a new one and then decided to make the leap into the world of Chemex brewing.  Many YouTube videos have been watched.  We still need some practice but dang, that coffee tasted good.

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I made honey-sesame pancakes to go with and I’m maybe thinking of posting the recipe because I love the flavor combo that much.  What do you think?  Spontaneous cleaning energy appeared post-breakfast (thanks, coffee!) and then right in the middle of cleaning our living room, my groceries showed up!Read More »

A Book Review: The Paying Guests

Lauren2 Comments

“My wife, the rare library card holder.”  This is how Joey described me as we drove to the Denver Public Library a few weeks ago.  That’s right, I DO go to the library still and I kind of LOVE it.  As soon as I walk in, I feel such a sense of inner peace.  This is my place and these are my people.  But being a library goer also means waiting for the books you want to read, having to return books when you haven’t finished them yet, and the worst… waiting weeks then getting slammed with three books at the same time.  Book time management is the name of the game.

I was lucky enough to be able to check The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters out with plenty of time to spare before January Book Club and actually finished it weeks ahead of time.  Gold star for me!  I also made it through this one pretty quickly, though that doesn’t necessarily mean I liked it.

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I’ll spare you the recap and just say that my biggest issue with this book was that it seemed to have a split-personality plot disorder.  Meaning, it was headed one direction for the first half of the book, then BAM! took a turn in the middle and went a different path entirely.  Our meeting was really interesting because it was pretty divided between those who were really into the first half of the book and not so into the second half and those who felt the exact opposite.  (Or those who just straight hated the whole thing, start to finish…).

As for me, I’m choosing to focus on the redeeming factors.  The historical fiction aspect — it takes place in post-WWII England — and the actual writing, which I thought was well done and especially descriptive.  Sarah Waters was such an expert in the way she described the house that most of the plot took place in.  You could just picture it so clearly and it wasn’t until after our meeting that I realized how big of a roll that house played.  If only the plot had been a little more focused and the ending hadn’t wrapped up a little too cleanly to be realistic.

Have you read The Paying Guests?

What are you reading right now?

Do you have a library card?