Another Weekend, Another Walk

This time, in 40 mph winds!

Also, my hip has been hurting for the past week (no idea what I did to it), so a two hour long walk may not have been the best choice, but I’m working extra hard on my “diet” after my boss had to take a picture of me for a webinar that we’re doing next week…I know I have a round face, but this is a little out of control (I’ve lost 12 pounds since the new year, but I don’t know where the hell that weight came from, because I’m not seeing any difference!)

Anyways, my walk!

I started out grabbing a coffee at Flying Fish (the coffee shop in Mount Pleasant–yay!), and then hitting my bank on the way through the center of Columbia Heights.

I walked past what is soon going to be luxury apartments.  The spot where this building is going up used to be a homeless shelter.  But, you know, DC needs more $2,200/month one-bedroom apartments more than it needs some scuzzy homeless shelter. /sarcasm.  I am not a fan.

A little further east, there’s a church for sale.  Wheee!

I love rowhouses that are funky colors, and I love the way the colors turned out in this shot! 

And of course I had to stop by and say hello to my baby, Hampshire Gardens.

On the way back south toward Mount Pleasant, I stopped by the new hardware store in Petworth, and even (finally!) bought some paint to paint the ceiling of my kitchen–soon, it will no longer be random beige while the rest of the paint in the room is grey and white!

Wheeeee!

I Have Will-Power! (And Also a Broken Window)

I often spend my lunch hour at work browsing through Craig’s List (yes, I’m that cool).  Today, I spotted a listing for a cute one bedroom apartment that’s for rent up in Brightwood.  It’s in a condo building, and was recently renovated (actually a decent renovation that didn’t involve ripping out all the original molding or doors!  Huzzah!), with a nice slick kitchen.  And it’s $100 less per month than what I’m paying now (and is walkable to the Takoma metro station, and right by a Safeway).  I was drooling.

But I talked myself out of it!  Largely because the bedroom is carpeted, and my last apartment taught me that my cats do not get along well with carpeting (Lizzie is the queen of the stealth-hairball-under-the-bed, which I didn’t find until I moved out…and Max seems to think that any surface that is covered in carpeting = scratching post, and no amount of squirting him with a water bottle seemed to dampen his love of ripping into that poor bedroom carpet).  So, in the interest of generally getting most, if not all, of my security deposit back, I figure that carpet is a poor choice for me.  Also, moving is a pain.  A HUGE pain.  And I don’t want to do it.  Even though THIS happened over the windy, windy weekend:

That is the bottom right corner of the wooden frame around the glass in my kitchen window.  And yes, it just came apart.  I’ve known since I moved in that the windows in my building are on their last legs, so I’m actually kind of impressed that I made it almost 2 years before this happened.  But yeah, not so cool.

Maybe something like that would send a sane person (who’s on month to month, so just needs to give 30 days notice to be out of her current place) running to open houses looking for a new apartment.  But I like my quirky little place.  So until one of the windows totally falls out or something, it looks like I’m resisting the call of another apartment, and I’m staying put!

Miz Liz

Lizzie demands to know why Mommy is getting up–she didn’t say that snuggles time was over!

Dream Projects

Being a renter on a very limited income, I often post about projects I dream of taking on.  Gutting my bathroom and redoing it in a way that’s much more fitting for the time period of the building (buh-bye 12×12 stone-look tiles on the floor and tub surround!), tiling the second floor landing, reglazing windows, fixing transoms, etc, etc.

The couple behind the blog Old Town Home (they’re actually just across the river from me in Alexandria, VA) are actually doing the types of projects that I dream of!  Things like a meticulous revamp of a tiny entry vestibule to return it to what it might have looked like when the house was built in the late 19th century.

What they started with.

What they ended with.

You have to go read about the whole project!  The amount of work they put in to getting all the details right is just amazing (and I love their extensive use of salvaged materials!), and incredibly inspirational.

More Whirlwind Trips

This time for work!

My boss and I took a road trip to Ocean City, Maryland for the Small Museum Association conference this past weekend.  It was extremely fun, and extremely exhausting (we got home yesterday afternoon, and I promptly went home, went to bed, and woke up this morning!)

DC gave us a parting gift as we were loading up the car Sunday morning.  Mmmmm, smashed rat.

The ocean!  The very, very cold ocean.  There’s a reason why our conference is in Ocean City in February!

Apparently not many other people frequent Ocean City in February.  Silly people.

There was a costume contest during the final dinner where we had to make costumes out of recycled materials. (The people in this picture may yell at me for putting this on the internet, but I’m not identifying you guys!  Be happy that I’m not doing that!  )

It was a great conference, but I was definitely happy to get home to the fur-babies.  There were lots of snuggles when I got home. 

Tightening the Belt

You would think, almost four years out of graduate school, that one would finally be getting to the point where buying a desk from Ikea would no longer be something you’d have to agonize over for months.

All I can say right now is that I’m really glad I’d put off buying that new desk.  Because as much as I want it, that money should really be going into savings right now.

I’m having to re-buckle down financially because I just found out that I will only be getting one day a month at the weekend job for the foreseeable future.  This is decidedly NOT COOL, because I kind of need the money.  So until I can find a THIRD job to fill in some extra weekend days, I’m going to have to put aside any unnecessary spending.

Luckily, this isn’t cutting into my clothing budget, because I’m not buying clothes right now anyways, since I’m in the middle of losing a bit of weight.

But I’m still really not happy that the museum field keeps pulling this shit on me.  Hrmph.

A Rough Life

The fur-babies obviously have a very rough life, having to share the couch with a pile of mommy’s half-finished knitting projects!  (And don’t you love my classy laptop cord hanging over the back of the couch?  Yes, I use my laptop on the couch most of the time–damn, I need a new desk!)

More Half-Assed Gourmet!

Had a fairly busy weekend:  worked at the “Awesome” Historic House (we’re on the rocks right now, but hopefully things will get better after February…long story *sigh*), bought wicked cheap awesome new pillows at Ross (yes, this is how exciting my life is ), and went out for dinner and drinks with some people from my grad program and other assorted friends on Saturday, and then slept in, did laundry, braved the grocery store, and made dahl on Sunday.

So yes, dahl!  (This recipe is a combination of some info I found on the internet, and a recipe from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything)

First, heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil in a pot, then add:
-1tbl. mustard seeds
-1tsp. cumin (use whole seeds if you have them–I just had ground, so that’s what I used)
-1 tsp. cardamom (again, use a few whole pods if you have them–I used ground)
-1/2 tsp. ginger (and again, if you want to be less half-assed, grate up some fresh ginger–I just used ground)

Saute those spices for a few minutes, then add 1 small chopped onion and 4-5 chopped cloves of garlic.  Let all that saute for a few more minutes, until the onion is soft.  Then add a can of drained diced tomatoes (use petite diced if you can–I used regular diced and they were a bit too chunky, or just dice up a few roma tomatoes), and 1 cup of red lentils (you can also use regular lentils, but I’ve found that they’re a bit grittier when cooked).  Then add enough water to cover the mixture by about an inch (I used about 2 1/2 cups, and that was a little too much–my lentils were a little soupy at the end).  Bring to a boil, partially cover, and simmer for at least 30 minutes, or until the lentils are soft–you can add about a tsp. of turmeric just before it’s finished simmering, but it’s not essential.

Slightly soupy lentils (and yes, my stove is due for a cleaning again–I’m kind of a mess cook!)

I also tried to make pita to go with the dahl, but I seem to have lost my pita-mojo (I used to be really freaking good at cranking out awesome pita, but now I can’t seem to figure out how I did it!  *pouts*), so I ended up with slightly crispy flat rounds of dough.  Oh well, I’ve never met a bread product that I didn’t like! 

And my freezer is actually starting to get a little bit full–It is currently home to several servings of half-assed soup (awesome sausage barley soup that I threw together when the grocery store was out of most of the things I needed), some dahl, an assortment of frozen veggies, and a bunch of the bagels I made a while back. 

I’m Being Practical and Rational Again

(that was sarcasm, in case you were wondering )

So, my latest “thing that would be cool to do but I’ll never actually do”?  Tile the second floor landing in my apartment building.  You see, the second floor landing (where the door into my apartment is located) doesn’t have the same glorious, century-old wood flooring that the rest of the building has.  Instead, it’s got what I assume is subfloor.  Not a good look.

What would be a good look?

How about something like this?

Or this?

Translation:  Vintage-looking tiles would look so much better.  Maybe it could echo the greek key pattern just inside the building’s front door (yes, my header is a photo of the floor of the entry to my building)!

But yeah, never going to happen.  Because while I don’t think my landlord cares overly much what I do inside my apartment, taking my love of doing strange things into the public areas of the building might be a little over the line.  And, you know, my upstairs neighbor might kill me, because she needs that hall to get in and out of her apartment, and me taking it out of commission to indulge my love of old-looking things might make me a bad neighbor. 

Black Cat!

I don’t post that many pictures of my black cat Lizzie, because (as anyone who has a black cat or dog knows!) it’s freaking hard to photograph her!  But she’s a sweetheart and my snuggle-baby, so she definitely deserves a little more blog-love!