Friday, July 17, 2015

blink.

Well.  May, June, July you sly little bastards.  You sure snuck in and out without so much as a hello or goodbye!  It's been a while, ol' blog.  Here's a quick { yeah, right.  lengthy } recap of what's been going on in my little neck of the woods!

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I've been baking.  A lot.  This is new territory for me.  I can throw together a Thanksgiving dinner for 13 and barely break a sweat, but ask me to bake muffins / a cake / cupcakes and I tend to spiral out of control.  The thing about running a bed and breakfast is...people expect { rightfully so! } freshly baked goods.  I'm too frugal to go out and buy pre-made muffins / scones / sweet bread every week, so it leaves me with one option, and one option only.  Baking these baked goods myself.  Thankfully I was at my parents house a few weeks back and I was able to get several recipes that my mom made all throughout our childhood.  This has helped me get over my fear of baking because I know what they are supposed to taste / look like so I have a pretty good idea if I'm navigating through the recipe okay.  Scones though?  Uncharted territory for me.  But I loved making them!  I am working on perfecting my bagel forming technique, which you won't find us Madfields upset about.  I've made 3 batches of bagels in 7 days  { enter oinking noises here }, though many of those bagels were used for breakfast sandwiches and served to our guests so technically we haven't ate three batches of bagels.  Technically.

I've been going to LiftUp.  A lot.  LiftUp is our main thrift store in Steamboat and I was afraid of it for the first 12 months I lived here.  Why was I afraid of it?  I'll be frank.  It's a smaller building with tight congested corners and to be honest, more often than not smelled like a giant fart.  However - a few months back I needed to find a few little things for the b&b and refused to pay inflated Steamboat prices in buying these items new, so I took a stroll through LiftUp and hit the jackpot!  I've continued hitting the jackpot week after week since then.  The way I justify this { mostly } weekly visit is that seeing how we've just moved, I will find one or two things I want to get out of the house and donate and oh ok while I'm here dropping these things off I suppose I'll take a stroll through the retail side.  It's ridiculous justifying spending $25 on several boxes of items { they often have 50% off all item specials } because it's been a really fantastic way of filling up our new unfurnished home, which is more than double the size of our last furnished home btw, on a budget.  The second to last time I went, the cashier said "Oh my.  Well don't you have quite an eclectic group of items?"  I wasn't too sure how to respond to that comment, so I just didn't say anything at all.  For being a small establishment, I really have been finding some fantastic finds that add the perfect touch of decor to our home.

I've been drinking iced coffee.  A lot.  What is my method for brewing iced coffee you ask?  It's quite scientific, actually.  I simply bring home the leftover pot of coffee from the bed and breakfast most mornings and pour what is left in the glass pitcher in our fridge that has been designated our iced coffee pitcher.  Sometimes it's with a little cream and sugar.  Sometimes with some Kahlua but mostly just straight coffee and ice.  I chuckle now at Beth 8 months ago who would toy with the idea of giving up coffee and/or having just one cup of coffee each day because Beth now essentially drinks bottomless coffee on the mornings that she works the breakfast shift.  Cooking breakfast for groups morning after morning, I knew it would be easy getting into the routine of making just a little extra frittata or baked french toast to reserve for myself...but I also knew it would add { haha - when I first typed that I accidentally typed ass.  Quite fitting. } up quickly and I would have to kiss my jean size goodbye.  I've gotten into the good habit of just snacking on the fruit if I'm hungry in the AM's, then eating a more balanced and healthy breakfast once I get home.  But coffee?  All bets are off.  There are some mornings where I'll admit to drinking half a pot of coffee before the guests even get out of bed.  Soon I will work to correct that habit, but it's really the furthest thing from my mind right meow.

I've been eating watermelon!  A loooooot!  As in averaging buying one watermelon a week....and Hunter doesn't snack on it nearly as much as I do.  I can't even help it though - I feel like City Market's watermelon's are especially good and juicy + sweet this year and I won't even apologize for it.  When we lived in Washington, fresh watermelon juice with lime was my go-to afternoon drink.  I continue buying watermelon and limes with the intention of making that juice again but sadly both ingredients don't last in our house long enough to hit the juicer.

Mixing our own night caps.  A lot! { hence the limes disappearing before it's time to make juice }....well not a lot because it is quite rare that there are a lot of evenings where Hunter isn't on call or I don't have to wake up at 6am the following morning.  But I declared the summer of 2015 as the Summer of the Night Cap.  We are such beer + wine drinkers that it's really all we've ever kept in our house.  When we moved into our new place we had the perfect spot for a little bar, except the only liquor we had to put on the bar was a nearly empty small bottle of Absolute Vodka and Sailor Jerry's from when I made homemade spiked apple cider last winter.  To remedy this "problem", we made a few trips to the liquor store to stock up on various liquors and have been having fun coming up with different night cap drink recipes.  We typically bring the dranks upstairs to the bedroom and just sit with the windows open and fan on high chatting about our days and the week ahead.  It's a new routine for us and I'm totally loving it.  We've been making Manhattans { and have seriously stepped up our game per Hunter's suggestion on what we use for Manhattans.  I'd been doing it the poor girl way of using Bullet Bourbon with a little maraschino cherry juice, but now we have bitters and vermouth and I will admit they taste far more authentic. }, White Russians, G+T's, mojitos { with the massive amount of fresh mint we grow at the b&b }, vodka sodas - the list goes on!

I've been making lists!  A lot.  Holy heavens, so many lists.  It feels like there are endless things to keep tabs on lately, all b&b related, between schedules, both cleaning and breakfast, menu planning, grocery lists, to do lists, guest check ins/outs, social media lists etc.  My life is one big piece of paper right now and secretly?  I love it.  I've always loved running errands and grocery shopping, which sounds strange when I type it out, but I really do.  I tried a system of list making on my phone to save paper, but I couldn't keep everything straight so I'm finally using up some notebooks I've had for a few years.  I feel like I have a good system down, so we'll see how long that lasts. ;)  A lot of my lists look the same seeing how I do a lot of the same things every day - but if it isn't on that to-do list, it won't get done.  Ha!

Watering our gardennnn!  A lot!  But maybe not as often as I should.  Our landlord's son built us a garden and we've had so very much with planting and watching our little babies grow.  I've come to terms with the fact that I am that person who sits outside with her cup of coffee talking to her plants.  It is so fulfilling watching those little seeds sprout and form plants!  I remember being thrilled beyond belief when not only did our greens come up, bit I could see the shape of kale leaves take place.  Gah.  Proud parents right here!

We've been la-a-a-oving our new house!  We had our eye on renting this house for a few months before we knew it would be available { our good friends live right across the street and gave us the tip to stalk the landlord to keep tabs on when his renter was moving out. }  { Ok, they didn't tell us/me to stalk the landlord necessarily - that was something I decided on all on my own.  But we are here!  Moved in!  Loving life!  So it all worked out.  heeheehee. #stalkerrenter } and the timeline of moving out of our last place and moving into this place worked out pretty perfectly.  It's a really lovely 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house in old town Steamboat with a great yard, right across the street from a park with access to mountain bike trails which anyone who knows Hunter knows he HATES the quick access to mtn biking { wink }.  It's only about 5 blocks from the b&b so the mornings when I don't have a strata/waffle mix etc to bring to work with me, I'm able to bike to work!  The size of our house is perfect for what we need - spacious with room for guests (YAY!) with the added bonus of actual privacy when there are more people than just Hunter and I in the house.  In our last house, there was just a sheer curtain separating our room from the kitchen/living room.  Which was charming, for sure - but got a little old.  In this house we have room to spread out if, let's say, one of us wants to take a nap, and the other one wants to catch up on watching Teen Mom 2 online while indulging in the last bit of last night's ice cream.  I MEAN THAT IS JUST AN EXAMPLE.  Yeah, an "example".  ;)

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I feel like I could go on and on { shocking }, but the moral of the story is that life is good right now.  Really good.  I have an amazing circle of friends, both in Steamboat and my long-distance besties.  I have my mom, dad and sister only a 3 hour drive away now that they moved to Denver about 2 months ago.  I have a loving, handsome, driven and supportive boyfriend.  I have a job that challenges me and allows me so very much creative freedom.