Productive (FAST) weekend!

In between helping the neighbor roof his house, hauling rock with my parents, and all of the other fun stuff going on, I decided I needed to make 'fall' happen. It's been way too hot lately, and I needed fall weather and fall food. So, on a recent trip to Trader Joe's, I bought a BUNCH of arborio rice, a packet of pancetta, and a little wedge of Parmesan to make risotto. Roasted carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower along with onions, white wine, and homemade chicken stock.
Tastes like fall, AND the cooler weather rolled in almost immediately! :)

Yesterday afternoon was spent at my sister's house in Ankeny. She is expecting a baby girl midway through January and is crafting and decorating enough for twins! :)
She and I had talked about a mural of some kind for the nursery - she found an artsy little tree online and decided that's what she would like for me to do. So, my lady friend and I made the trip to Ankeny, mapped out a tree over most of the wall, and painted it for her while she made little flowers out of felt and pretty fabrics downstairs away from the paint smell. We hung all sorts of embellishments on the wall even after this picture, but this gives you the best view.
Didn't turn out too bad, did it? :)

Did I Mention I had Roommates?

So, in one of my last updates I talked about my new roommates. Since that time, I’ve added two more..dogs.

They have decided that anywhere I go, they go.

Roz seems happy about it.

That’s right, in a matter of a couple weeks my house went from just me – all by my lonesome, doing whatever I wanted – to having a female roommate, a cat, and two yappy little dogs. Animal House.

The dogs are from my parents’ house. The parents took a Spring Break trip to Texas with a couple friends and I figured watching the dogs was the least I could do given that they gave up most of last summer and the better part of a years-worth of weekends to help me put my house back together. So far the dog-watching has been alright.

That’s not to say it hasn’t come without ANY hiccups, though.

Of course, there was the mandatory marking of the territory upon entering a new place. Luckily the wood floors wipe clean easily enough. There’s also the incessant click-clacking of dog claws on the hardwood, which is something to get used to. Watching them run around and slide on the wood floors is kind of funny, though. J

Then there was the matter of the cat. Apparently cats and dogs don’t get along?

I thought this would work well, being the naïve young man I sometimes am. Charlie the cat has lived with a dog before, and Tripp (the darker black dog) has lived with a cat before. Piece of cake, I thought.

Wrong.

Tripp and Charlie detest each other.. It might have something to do with Tripp peeing in Charlie’s food bowl, but I’m not sure.

Roz, our old, deaf dog is just along for the ride. She, very likely, doesn’t know where she is, nor does she seem to care. As long as the Milk Bones keep coming, she’s a happy camper.

Coming home to let the dogs out did cut our St. Patrick’s Day plans a bit short. We walked home only to let them relieve themselves and ended up taking a five hour nap. Oops. J It was fun up to that point though!

Maybe just one more before bed..

And, because I don’t have stunning progress pictures for you just yet, I took a picture of dinner from Monday night. I will call it “Cleaning out the Fridge Risotto” It’s what you make when you want risotto but only have four carrots, a partial bag of spinach, and some Parmesan cheese in the fridge.

"Cleaning out the Fridge Risotto" made a nice big dinner and a couple lunches. Tasty!

It was delicious. But it’s still time for grocery shopping.