Put Up, Or Shut Up!

Don't mind if I do, thank you very much!

I am going to be so bold and say I am a canner. I decided this about 3 weeks ago on a recent trip to Meijer's with my mama and stumbled upon the aisle with all of the Ball Brand canning and preserving materials.  Anytime I've been out shopping and have seen preserving materials, I've always been drawn to the concept.  I love, love, love to cook and the thought of being able to even further control what I put in my body by "putting up" (i.e. preserving food) ingredients I've prepared in my own kitchen, is a win-win.  I heart tradition, and the thought of creating a new tradition within my family, makes this new adventure all the more appealing.

So, getting back to the story...I'm at Meijer and decide I'm going to go into it full throttle.  Allow me to mention that canning supplies are not cheap.  Purchasing all the supplies is definitely an investment, and the way I looked at it, would pay for itself over the years (at least that's what I told myself).  I've decided to hold off on purchasing the steam pressure canner, which will set me back $300 smackers, so that means I will be limited to preserving high acid foods.  So, it's water bath canning for me until then, and mostly means I will be gifting you all homemade fruits and jams.

After reading and re-reading my dog-eared copy of the Blue Book Guide to Preserving, I felt I was ready to begin:

I decided on two recipes to begin my canning adventure, and tonight it began with a recipe for Lemon Curd that I found here.  I love this blog and cannot recommend it enough to anyone who is even remotely interested in this amazing art.  Anyhooter, I digress...so I got all my loot in order, sterilized my jars and got to work on prepping my ingredients:

From start to finish, it probs took over 2 hours (not including the first batch of egg yolks and sugar that I scorched...oops).  Finally, the time arrived where I was to drop my golden goodness in the water bath to be processed and sealed:

Once the little buggers were snug in their water bath, they processed for 20 minutes:

After all was said and done, my jars came out, not only perfectly processed, but with perfectly formed seals. Done & Done!:

I can't wait until tomorrow, when the plan is to put up 4 half pints of sour cherry preserves for my deeder.  My pal Kris is the lucky recipient of this here lemon curd (guniea pig, anyone?) and I can't wait to bring it on Sunday for the BBQ...after all, that's the main dish.  Right, Kris?

Everybody's Workin' For The Weekend!

Oh, Loverboy...how relevant your words still are 30 years later!

Mem Day Weekend is almost here folks, and that can only mean one thing in the Batch household...BBQ!  Since the last couple months have literally been crazy busy, one can imagine the state of my household affairs.  When I tell you my house was in disarray, that is truly an understatement.  As of last weekend, my dining room was the catch-all for any and every thing that needed to be taken down to the basement, yet somehow had lost its way.  Luggage from our recent trip, giant rubbermaid containers that housed my Spring & Summer wardrobe as well as bins of my Summer shoes.  In addition to this, laundry needed to be done, Easter decorations desperately needed to come down and be packed away...spring linens washed and laid out to dry.  All this to make much needed room for my patriotic decor, just waiting to be put up.  I needed to get cracking, and I first needed to start out by organizing, cleaning and reprioritizing!

Those who know me well, know that I have an obsession with my clothes and my shoes.  Seriously.  I have always, however, prided myself on giving away nearly as much as I bring in.  When purging my closets, I prefer to give my duds to friends since I have a tendency to purchase spendy threads.  But, I'm also not a stranger to donating to Salvation Army, Amvets and the like.  I decided that Sunday was going to be the day that I finally changed over my clothes, packed away all my Fall & Winter wear (yes, I must change out my closets for the seasons) and get my house in top order for good ol' Mem Day Weekend!

After meeting a gf for bfast at 9am on Sunday, I immediately got to it.  I stopped only once, mid day, and by 8pm not only had I completely cleaned out and reorganized my closets, I had packed all my Fall & Winter clothes in their garment bags, finished all the laundry, had all the linens and rugs cleaned and all Easter & Spring deco packed away.  5 bags are filled with "give-aways" and below is the final product after hours of hard work:

Taken with my camera phone, def not of the highest quality, but you get the point.  Having all this done and out of the way, I can now "officially" look forward to one of the best weekends of the summer.  Tomorrow I plan to work from home and Friday I'll be cutting out early, so the work week should fly by and before I know it, I will be enjoying an ice cold beverage in the backyard.  Friday, our good pal Mikey (and Birchwood bestie #2) is flying in from NOLA for his bday.  I will be leaving work on Friday and cabbing it to his sister's place (Birchwood bestie #1), post haste.  My loving husband & I will spend the evening with the Meredith clan and I can't wait!  Saturday, I will be helping (whilst hung over, I am sure) another pal move into her first ever home (congrats Brianne & Rich!), followed by yet another BBQ that night at our buddy Keith's.  Sunday Funday will take us to the town of Geneva (which I am most jazzed for) to spend a leisurely afternoon with my bestie ginger pal Kris & her adorb family.  Monday, will be my day of rest, and by the time it rolls around, I am certain I will be justly deserving of just that.

Promises, Promises!

There are so many things about the Chi that I love; Wrigley Field, the Sig room, the skyline, every single neighborhood tucked in the North side (EP!), farmers markets on Saturday mornings, & the daily Trib outside my door each day as I step out to face my day.  Summers in Chicago are love in the first degree.  The promise of summer is in the air and as Spring sloooowly moves into summer, my mind goes to the sidewalk cafes where I will spend many afternoons for happy hour. 

I am a lucky gal in that my days are spent in an office that overlooks Michigan Ave., right at the river.  Today, as I peeked past the Wrigley Building and beyond the double decker tour buses, my biggest mental debate was whether I would walk over to Water Tower and spend my lunch shopping for prezzies I would gift to myself (duh!) or peruse the farmers market at Daley Plaza.  Tough decisions for a girl to make, I tell ya.  But since the day was so pretty, I opted for the farmers market.  Besides, where better to get organic, whole foods for my "real" eating and preserving (more to come on that subject, get excited!) than from local farmers?  I chose well.  I spent the lunch hour walking around and enjoying the city I love so dearly.  My city.

Over the course of the next several weekends, I will be doing all the things I love.  With Mem Day Weekend upon us (I mean, everyone  knows that's the official kickoff to summer) we'll have to work extra hard to do it up right. 

Believe me, I won't disappoint ;)

Show Me Your Character

Some days more than others, I have to work that much harder at being the kind of person I want to be. What kind of person is that, you ask?

A person of character.

Not always easy, you say. No. No, it's not. I once heard it said that it's about striving to be better; a better wife, a better sister, a better daughter, a better co-worker. A better person. You won't always be better, but you've gotta try. That's what character is. It's in the try.

I'll never stop trying.

Words to live by.

<3

How Did That Happen?

What's this? I don't contribute to my blog in a year, and now I post twice in the same week? I guess that's the name of my game...all or nothing.

This weekend was pretty uneventful as far as weekend's are concerned & we actually did not have plans or go out on either Friday or Saturday night. That seriously never happens. We're the two most socially committed people ever in life. So, really it was nice for a change to be able to do jack shizz.

Then came Sunday*...uffda.

*Disclaimer: Sunday is my day of rest. I typically do not make plans on Sunday's, or any other school night for that matter. The j.ob. is pretty demanding & because of this, by the time I get home, get to the gym, and get it together, I'm so not down with participating in anything else. That's just the way it is.

So Sunday rolls around and we have tickets to the Cubs game with a bunch of our ultra awesome friends. It's a 1:20 game and not only is it fah-ree-zing out, it's also windy as fark and raining. Good times. The only thing that could possibly put a silver lining on this grey, raining cloud of a day is that it's a Cubs game and that can only mean one thing: Day Drinking! Oh, wait...what's that you say? The Batch's can't truly partake in a fun-filled day of day drinking because they have their nephew's 2nd birthday party immediately following said Cubs game. Yes, you've got that right folks! A child's birthday party immediately following an hours-long drunk fest on a day you normally don't even like to get dressed & move your ass off the couch.

Moving on...so we meet by a friend's house at 11am on the dot for the drinking to commence prior to setting out for the game. A half hour into brunch cocktails (minus the brunch), the game gets called. Normally, this would be ideal, seeing as it's cold & rainy and no one really wanted to sit outside anyway...except for the fact this just encouraged even heavier drinking on our part. By 2pm I was h.a.m.m.e.r.e.d. and we still had a fun filled afternoon at my in-law's complete with tons of screaming 2 year olds (insert sarcasm here).

Needless to say, by the time we got home at around 7pm, I fell asleep face down on the couch (this oh-so-ladylike behavior has been lovingly coined as a "face nap" by the Seibel girls) with all my clothes on. Around 10pm my loving husband gathered me up & brought me to bed.

Then...Monday morning came and I thought I was dying. I was miz. I spent the day chugging ice water & downing Advil. If I could have inserted my face under the water dispenser in the break room, I totes would have. The line of work I'm in does not allow for me to "check out" so I also had to act alive. I literally felt like I was 100 years old. Gone are the days of my college youth, when I was able to stay up until the wee hours of the night, after spending all of my hard earned dough from my PT gig on $0.50 drafts at Duffy's. Gone are the days when I was able to function on 2 hours of sleep.

How Did That Happen?

When did I become all adult-like and responsible? It clearly happened when I wasn't paying attention. I suddenly need a minimum of 8 hours sleep & can only drink on nights when I don't have to get up before 7am.

I can still, however, sleep until noon on any given Saturday with the best of 'em. The day I start waking up at 7am on a Saturday because of my "internal alarm clock", is the day I hang my head in shame. I'm not a lost cause. Yet.

I'm Baaaack!

It's been nearly a year since my last entry and I've been oh-so-busy that I've had zero time to blog.

Not really. I'm just lazy.

Quick recap: Lots has happened since the last entry in June of last year, but don't worry, I won't bore you with the details of it. Besides, the 6 of you who actually read this, already know what the hell I've been doing. In January, for Mike's 30th, I threw him a surprise party:

I'm a totally awesome wife and worked super hard to pull the big ol' reveal off. He totally had no idea, and also had no idea I was slowly siphoning money out of our bank account to pay for said surprise party. The poor kid had some big shoes to fill and didn't want to let me down when it came to my birthday (who would?) So, I made it easy and announced that I wanted to go on vacation for my 30th birthday. The way I looked at it, why spend all that money on another party when we could just spend it all on ourselves? Exactly. Besides, all our friends were turning 30 and everyone's spouse was throwing them a "surprise" 30th birthday party. Uh, newsflash...when everyone you know throws their spouse a "surprise" party, it's hardly a surprise. I mean, you can't possibly expect us to believe that your spouse didn't expect this party (and in some cases, likely helped plan it). I also would like to add that Mike's birthday was in January, so I totes threw the first party. I'm such a trend setter. Booya.

But, I digress. So we decided to do the ultimate roadtrip since there were a couple stops we wanted to make, with the ultimate destination being New Orleans. A super good friend moved down there in September of last year and we've been anxious to visit him. So, the plan was to stop in Memphis on the way, move on to NOLA and then stay a few nights in Nashville on the way back. We were gone for 10 glorious days and we had the time of our lives. First stop: Silky O'Sullivan's while in Memphis. The drink you see before you is fondly referred to by Memphians as The Diver...and yes, I drank it all:

And then Mike finished his on Beale Street. We're classy like that:

Upon arriving in NOLA, Mikey Meredith (Birchwood bestie #2) promptly took us to Bourbon to Lafitte's for a beer, or two, or three and I heard my first ever live Zydeco band (who stole my chicken?)

We ended the night on Frenchman Street to listen to live Reggae. It was hot, humid, and I was hammered:
Nothing says Easter Sunday like an afternoon spent at Pat O'Brien's, consuming several hurricanes near the infamous fountain:

Clearly, a trip to New Orleans would not be complete without Benignets:

And a 30th birthday dinner cooked in true NOLA fashion (it's fire chicken!) by one of my bestest buds at his place:

Nashville was the last stop and the BBQ was to.die.for:

Last stop was the Grand Ole Opry, and was a great way to cap off an amazing vacation:

I couldn't have asked for a better vacation, a better family, better friends, or a better husband. In true Sue fashion, my 30th birthday lasted about 3 weeks total. If you count the dinners from my parents prior to our trip, the trip itself and the week following when we celebrated back home with friends, one might reflect and say I had a pretty ridic fab birthday. And I did. I wouldn't have it any other way <3