food(ies)

Jon loves his new ginormous charcoal grill/smoker. Last Sunday he made the most delectable mesquite smoked pork tenderloin.

Now, Susan does not like pork tenderloins (unless made by her gourmet chef friend Meredyth who puts it with herbed chevre cheese and rosemary garlic mashed potatoes), so had a hard time eating it - very picky about meats - but even she had to admit its mouth-watering flavour. The grill was one of our best buys this summer (as we are often obsessed with cooking and dining).

Today, Susan wanted chocolate cake. She had been reminiscing about her mother-in-law's infamous chocolate-chocolatechip-bundt cake and got a craving.

And today, a new cake was born: Chocolate Hug cake: devil's food hugged by raspberry wine chocolate sauce, and sprinkled with confectioner's sugar. So rich and delicious you might get a little dizzy.

After dinner, Margie and Jon played: who can bark louder at one another?

It was quite delightful to listen to.

remodeling the kitchen

this was our kitchen when we first moved in:

shortly before we officially moved in (during painting week) we painted the walls a rich sunset yellow color. apparently no photos were taken of it during this phase (phase 1: obsession with a yellow kitchen), but here is a shot of the wall indicating the color:

phase three, entitled: obsession with black and white kitchen, came to fruition today. a week ago, susan became obsessed with re-redoing the kitchen in black and white (having attained a love for the colors [or absence/presence of all color] several months ago). she quit her job last friday (think, if you will, back to a time when jon once wrote to an evil company he worked for: "i'm going to lunch...and never coming back.")... quite abruptly due to their lack of ethical practices and professionalism, and decided to use her time wisely - creative home improvment project. so, without further ado, here is the black and white kitchen!!!

...and yes, i know you are judging me in your head, or perhaps outloud while your spouse in the other room says, "did you say something dear?" while you mutter: "black walls??!" And to this i respond: YES! Black walls! I Love them! I love my black and white kitchen. I should be a designer on Trading Spaces (the materials here only cost $70 for new hardware and paint). You might note it's a bit reminiscent of an italian restaurant mixed with the 1960s pop culture. And I'm in LOVE.

meals not included (unless you come over).

lilacs

thanks to jon's transplanting skillz, we now have four lilac bushes in the front yard. thus, my first lilac bouquet from my first owned lilac bushes:



As i was plucking the violet bundles off the bushes, jon remarked, "what's the point of having the bushes if you pluck off all the flowers?" and then belched loud enough to scare birds out of the neighbouring trees...

...then we went inside to find Margie modeling some lilac petals on her collar for us with a big toothy grin:

what a weird family i have.

susan's tulips

Black Beauty

red & yellow parrot

dandelion, dandelion

Because of this children's nursery rhyme:

...

"Oh dandelion, yellow as gold,What do you do all day?"

"I just wait here in the tall green grass

Till the children come out to play."

"O dandelion, yellow as gold,What do you do all night?"

"I wait and wait til the cold dews fall

And my hair grows long and white."

"And what do you do when your hair is white

And the children come out to play?"

"They take me up in their dimpled hands

And blow my hair away."

...

Susan will spend her adult life with a yellow lawn. She has a hard time thinking of those golden flowers as weeds. Goodbye lush grassy lawn.

sculpting fun out of stones

since jon is poor, he has to play with rocks.

here he is building a sculpture...

and then bowling margie over with his mad backyard games skillz.

elbow

why are susan & jon so happy?

because they had delicious sushi and went to an Elbow show...

cheers!