Once again, we over-booked our weekend, but we had a great time. Saturday morning we drove out to The Plains and did this corn maze. The weather was fantastic and it was great to spend the time outside. We were doing a good job, right up until we got to the last station. We couldn't find it for love or money and just wandered around in the same circle in the big chicken's wing for about 20 minutes until we figured out how to get out. All together, it took us an hour do to the maze.
the third row, to the right and there was only one small bit where we had a bad sight line. The set made fantastic use of the stage, which has a very big thrust (the part that sticks out from the opening). There was no curtain for this show, either, which was interesting in terms of how the play opened and the "curtain" call. I was a little disappointed in the performance of the actor's playing Sabrina, who could have toned it down a bit, and Linus, who could have been more arrogant and aloof. I may have been spoiled by Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart, but it was still a perfect lovely evening out.
I made very few changes to this recipe. I used 3 lbs of sweet Italian sausage and 1 lb. of hot sausage and I substituted dried herbs instead of fresh. Other than that, I followed it as written.
After a bit of trial and error, I discovered that kitchen shears are the perfect thing for cutting sausage. I browned it in batches, because my skillet is not big enough to hold it all at once.
I always get my pizza dough at Trader Joe’s. They have a plain white, whole wheat and garlic & herb dough and best of all, it’s only 99 cents!
My top shrunk up when it baked, but it didn't overflow. I waited until the very end of the week to make this recipe, but it was worth the wait.
We were invited to attend a birthday celebration for Jim's high school youth pastor today in Westminster, MD. It turns out that Westminster is only about 30 miles from Gettysburg and it would have been a shame to get that close and not see the battlefield.
n. This monument marks the spot of his address.
I love artichokes, in all their varieties. I like artichoke dip, fried artichokes, artichokes in my salad, marinated ones right from the jar. I even cooked my very own whole artichoke for the first time this year, so I did a little happy dance when I saw this recipe, even though I am totally incompetent at rolling things up in chicken and getting it to stay there.It started off great. I got a fantastic deal on the fish at B.J.’s warehouse. I got them for $4.49/pound when the grocery store had them on sale for $6.99/pound.
The stuffing came together beautifully and smelled delicious.
Then, I got ready to stuff them. And I got scared. They didn’t “open flat like a book” which flustered me. Then I tried to cut the tails off and they didn’t want to go and that made me more flustered. And they have bones. And I forgot the lemon juice. I eventually got them stuffed and into the oven.
Poke, poke. Is it done yet?
They actually came out pretty good, but I won’t be doing whole fish again for a very long time.
Look what I came home with from my trip to Georgia. 
brulee in progress
You may recall that earlier this year, I signed up for a farm share. To be honest, to date I have been pretty disappointed with the veggies. That is, until today. Today's share was ah-maze-ing. We got two baby eggplants, a yellow squash, a zucchini, a cucumber, five white potatoes, a head of garlic and a big handful of basil. I told Jim that we got a basket of eggplant parmesan in our share. I am excited again and can't wait for the tomatoes to start to come in.
Today I got to cross one more item off of my 101 list. We went to Baltimore to see the Nationals play the Orioles at Camden Yards. We had to drive because the MARC train doesn't run on weekends, but it is actually not a bad drive to get there from our house.
y in a row to lose to the worst team in baseball, but other than that, it was a lovely day at the ballpark. And I got my picture taken with The Oriole Bird.
We have a small media problem. We are working on unloading the boxes that we had stashed in the office-library-man cave, now that we have acquired some more bookcases. This is two IKEA Benno CD towers, two IKEA Billy bookcases with DVDs (the red boxes also contain CDs) and a bookcase full of VHS tapes (72 cassettes on each shelf).
This week I made my menu plan from the Annie's Eats blog. Last night I made the very long titled pasta with roasted garlic, white cheddar and wine sauce. The title completely ignores the fact that there is also chicken and broccoli. 
Yesterday was officially moving day, although we had been moving boxes in the cars for the last week or two. We hired movers to get the large furniture and it was worth every penny. They were early arriving, fa
st and very careful with our stuff.
We are almost done painting (for the time being). Please excuse my poor husband, who has passed out in the middle of the living room floor. This weekend we completely finished the living room and the entryway. The dining room needs a second coat on the top half and then we are adding a chair rail. All that's left to paint before we move in is both bathrooms.
In the meantime, we are furiously packing. Jim is moving boxes over each morning. Since we drive by the new place on the way to the Metro, he stops off on his way back home with whatever got packed the night before. 
This is our kitchen with the first coat paint on it. I started painting on Friday afternoon after we closed. I did the first wall - awesome. I made the turn onto the second wall - not awesome. The kitchen was painted with semi-gloss paint, which I totally understand. However, new paint WILL NOT stick to semi-gloss because of the shine. Crap. After several trips to the Home Depot (because I refuse to sand the shine off), we final came up with a primer that would stick to the old paint and let us put up the new paint - Zinsser Bulls Eye 1-2-3. So, we primed yesterday and painted the first coat today. I'll go back Tuesday and give it the second coat. This is a cell phone picture, so it's not the best, but it will give you an idea until I can get back with the digital camera.
After several days filled with drama caused by our seller, we closed on the new condo this morning. The seller threatened to back out of the deal repeatedly over the past week (he couldn't, which was explained to him many times by my agent, his agent and the closing attorney) and he was a half an hour late to the closing, but we left with keys.
Two of my friends, who have been a couple for a long time, got married this weekend in Asheville, NC. They took over a lovely
bed & breakfast, A Hill House, for the weekend and had the wedding Sunday morning in the side garden. It was a small, simple ceremony and it suited them perfectly. It was just family and close friends. There was a lot of good company and conversation, good food and drink, love and laughter.
We went from having nothing to do this weekend, to having two really cool things to do at no cost.
Then, we were given tickets to the Nationals baseball game against the Brewers on Sunday. Unfortunately, the game did not go so well and 
the Nats were down 10 to 0 in the first (yes, you read that right). However, as the saying goes, a bad day at the ball park is better than a good day anywhere else. We had fun and the Nats made a valiant effort at a come back and pulled to within three. The game ended 11 to 7 and we both got a beer and a little sun on our faces.
