Lazy Sunday

Just taking it easy this Sunday morning - french toast, coffee, the sunday paper ads, and golf(?)

Had some friends over for dinner last night. We kept it low-key, with tomato-sausage lasagna, a green salad, and garlic bread. Unfortunately, I didn't hear the timer for the first 60-min bake of the lasagna, so the noodles were a bit on the soft side - oops. Had cherry pie (from Trader Joes) a la mode for dessert. And Stew made Giada's white bean dip with toasted pita wedges, and caprese salad (again, using our fresh basil) for pre-dinner snacks. The cocktail master whipped up a nice batch of tangerine martinis too.

We also watched Walk the Line last night - it was pretty good. Caught the seaon premiere of Prison Break this week too - not bad, but still anxiously awaiting the season premiere of Lost... just a month or so away.

Deal of the Day

We bought this 1-gallon basil plant at Trader Joe's today, for $2.99! You can hardly find a tiny packet of basil leaves at the grocery store for that price.

This week's menu includes couscous paella with shrimp, vegetarian chili, homemade mac and cheese, oh, and caprese salad as an app (to take advantage of the fresh basil). Mmmm.

Floor It

I'm finally getting around to posting a picture of our newly installed wood floor. Also purchased out a new rug this weekend to go under our dining room table. Have been browsing around in catalogs for some ideas for living room furniture.
[Edited 8/18]: We ended up getting a different color rug than the one shown here. The 'putty' color was a tad too pink, so we opted for 'stone' instead. It is the Unior Pier Rug from Crate and Barrel. And as a side note, we've never done so much rug exchanging in our lives - between the new color, and 2 defective rugs, it was a total of 4 tries before we got it right.

Oh, and the cats seem to enjoy the new floor too. We just hope they don't scratch it up....

Tried another new recipe this week, for salmon baked in foil, which I saw on Everyday Italian. I liked that it is really simple to make (even baked it in the toaster oven!).

Creativity & Chaos

I created some more cards while assembling a stamp order for my mother-in-law this weekend - here are 3 samples.

I'm finding this quite addictive - guess it is about time I put all my supplies to use anyway.

Also found time for a little shopping. Picked up some cute shirts, a cool ceramic leaf tray for the dining room table, a pomegranate scented candle, and a couple of other things.

Snapped this shot in Marshalls - I feel badly for the worker who draws the short straw for toy aisle clean-up.... Notice how items on the higher shelves are still relatively orderly :)

Yum

Tried a few new recipes in the last few days. We enjoyed Giada De Laurentis' chicken florentine, very easy to prepare and good flavor. Also decided to try a chocolate-ricotta icebox cake I saw in the latest issue of Everyday Food. The cake is quite dense (since it uses ricotta), but it looks quite fancy - would definitely impress your friends :) I ended up substituting dark chocolate (from Trader Joe's) for semi-sweet, which made the cake more rich than sweet - I think the semi-sweet would have been better.

Oh, and Project Runway Season 3 has started! We've only watched the 'pre-show' so far (love TiVo!), but looking forward to all the crazy designs (and drama).

And finally, now that my 'craft corner' is semi-organized, I can craft once again. Made the card below this evening.

Takeoff

At long last, my first post. Here I plan to post (as probably most do) a collection of random stuff. I will likely include such things as our latest home improvement/decorating projects, restaurant reviews, craft projects, travel adventures, favorite recipes, and of course, overall musings on daily life :)