Presenting...

She says:
   One of the things I wanted to do during my winter break was catch up on craft time that I have greatly missed while being busy with school and work and more work and homework. While I still have a ridiculously long list of things I want to craft, Jason and I were able to meet my crafty needs by making our own Christmas cards and the presents we gave to our friends.
   Here are the things we made:

A "dilly" of a homemade card.

 

 

See the resemblance?  The dog on the card was made from the silhouette of an actual picture of Dilly.

 

 

A "local time" clock for a friend who loves traveling. 

 

 

A music clock for a friend who teaches band and orchestra.  The quarter note is for a quarter of an hour...

 

 

A tooth clock for a friend in dental school.

 

Etched tumblers, personalized for the drinker, including the rebel alliance symbol from Star Wars, MU logo, an airplane and a bass. 

 

 

P.S. This is "Dillzilla" destroying Geometry Town--the only "crafty" thing I made during the past semester.  Can you believe that was a final project for a graduate level class? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Two Year!

She says:
   A year ago we started our blog so that we could tell our friends and family how cool our life is.  Ha!  We're so happy that 12 months have passed and our blog is still going strong at all.  We hope to keep up with the sporadic posting or do even better in the blog's second year of existence, and we hope that you will read along and think we're interesting.  :)

Bokashi

He says:

The Seymour household has recently become a zero organic waste establishment. We were using a worm bin to compost most of our food wastes, but this system couldn't compost any meat/dairy/oils. It was nice because we could keep it indoors, but since it was made out of huge Rubbermaid tubs it took up a lot of space. Our new rental duplex is significantly smaller than our previous house so the worms had to be moved outside. This was fine during the spring/summer/fall but come winter we'd have a bunch of frozen earthworms.

I found a different system for composting using microbes instead of worms. It's called bokashi. The microbes are delivered to the food by inoculated wheat bran. You can buy this stuff premade, but it's simple enough to make at home by fermenting rice water (which Abby was unaware of) then using that to ferment milk (which Abby didn't like) then using that to ferment wheat bran (which Abby really didn't like). I kept the fermenting wheat bran sealed and under our bed. It didn't smell until Abby accidentally opened it one day. She thought it smelled like the worst thing ever. I thought it smelled like sour barbecue.

Using the wheat bran, we can essentially pickle any type of food waste (except uncooked meat - for health reasons) in an airtight bucket. There's virtually no smell associated with it at this point, far less than the fermenting wheat bran or even a bin full of worms, and the whole process is done in as little as two weeks. After that you just go out and bury the waste which decomposes in the ground in about 2 more weeks.

We both like that fact that we're not letting any food waste unnecessarily go to the landfill, and we don't have to feel bad about murdering worms.

The Comeback Cake

Eating our wedding cake a year (and then some) later.  Surprisingly good, although we didn't actually get to eat any at our wedding as a comparison.

Waffles

He says:

  For Abby's birthday this year, I was waffling between ideas, trying to iron out exactly what to get her. 

  Finally I came up with the perfect gift: a waffle iron. Abby has been craving waffles for weeks every day for all of time, so we made them right away.  Since it was a special day, we fancied them up a bit: Abby had hers with a strawberry puree that I whipped up, and I topped mine with a festive cranberry orange sauce.

Making waffles

Fancy toppings

   Since then, we have had already had waffles several times.  Pancakes aren't even been mentioned in this house--except as a joke, and it couldn't be batter.
  

The Fox and The Hound

 

She says:

   After changing my mind practically every day for a month, Jason was finally able to get me to stick with a costume idea--The Fox and The Hound.  I think watching this clip (about 10 times a day) really helped me make my decision:

  As I had wasted days and weeks trying to come up with an acceptable costume in the first place, we had all but run out of time to prepare.  Luckily, the costumes only took about an hour and $3 to make (one Goodwill sweater, 1/2 off, and about 6 pieces of felt).

Dilly was especially helpful during the creation process.



The Fox and The Hound

Complete with tails!

 

At the Halloween party, Jason spent the evening dressed as a dog and harassing the cat...

...But Chloe was only interested in staring at and hissing at me and my (apparently) threatening fox ears.



Jason and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

She says (this happened a long time ago):

   Once upon a time Jason had the kind of day where things got smashed all over the place, but (spoiler alert!) he was still able to live happily ever after.
   First, as Jason was relaxing on the couch, enjoying some literature, he was interrupted by a knock at the door.  It was Ross.  Ross was a random person who had stopped by to inform Jason that an old lady had just backed her car into the side of his truck and driven away.  Luckily, Ross had gotten her license plate and the model of her vehicle.  Jason was no longer able to enjoy his reading, but rather had to call his father, the insurance company, the police,  and the woman's insurance company. 

Happy ending: The woman's insurance paid for all of the repairs and a rental car--a Toyota Yaris, which Jason lovingly described as "virtually a toy".

   Then, when Jason was finally done with all of the calls, he thought he would unwind with some dinner and Netflix (the usual evening events around the Seymour home).  While deciding on side dishes, Jason noticed that his avocados were quite ripe.  I wondered if a ripe avocado would smash open if thrown on the ground or just dent inside the thick, Godzilla-green exterior.  Jason didn't believe that I would actually thrown an avocado on the ground to find out.  So I did. 

Happy ending: Jason had another avocado to eat, my curiosity was satiated, and Dilly got to lick tiny specs of avocado off the fridge and cabinets to help us clean up.