Category Archives: Daily Life

by | January 23, 2014 · 11:45 am

House Arrest

I’ve been sporadically on and off the blog radar for the past few weeks, but I promise I have good reasons!
amHmm? Oh, that’s just me, standing on the foundation of my NEW HOUSE!
AM8After months of searching and weeks of filling out loan applications and credit reports, they’ve broken ground (and then some) at the site of my new home! I’ve been spending my days playing around with budgets (I probably should’ve titled this Budget Arrest), the idea of not being able to afford to feed myself, and Pinterest.
Screen shot 2014-01-23 at 11.10.37 AMI love the idea of having as many things as possible being made by me in my house. Since I won’t be able to afford furniture and the like…
Screen shot 2014-01-23 at 11.11.16 AMI’ve also been going over color ideas to distract me from the panic attacks that threaten to overcome me when I re-do my budget over and over and it just keeps getting smaller and smaller.
am2Shopping for said furniture I can’t afford can still be fun, though…
am3I went out with the parental unit for a little fun/relaxing/celebration time after all those long documents were signed. I’ve gotta soak up as much spoiling as I possibly can before things get even crazier!
am1Side note – one of the best dishes I’ve ever had in my entire life. No joke. Butternut squash ravioli draped in a creamy sage sauce, cranberries and roasted pistachios with a side of hot garlic bread at Next Door in Loveland. Oh, it is heavenly!
AM6I’ve also been (still) hitting the archery range and shooting out some of that anxiety. There’s something so calming and confidence-inspiring about drawing back 30lbs and letting the arrows fly.
AM4My current bunkmate. I’ll miss fighting him for pillow space on my bed.
AM7I’m certain I’ll be stealing him for a few nights here and there to keep my bed warm when I can’t afford to turn on the heat.
AM5So yes, it’s been crazy and my days have been filled with stress and excitement, but I promise to keep you filled in as things go. And any recommendations for homemade/reclaimed furniture ideas would be greatly appreciated! I already have my wine rack ready to go!
am13And now I’m off to curl up next to the fire and read one of my new books.
am14Happy Thursday!

Have you ever built your own furniture? I’d love tips and recommendations!

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by | January 13, 2014 · 7:50 pm

Lessons and Obsessions

If you follow me on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, you’ll see that I’ve developed a new obsession.
AM2Obsession: I love my new bow!
AM1I’ve been going to the range quite a bit before work lately. Nothing like getting a little stress out with sharp, pointy arrows!
AM5Lesson: I’ve also learned a lot about myself – I’m good at maiming animals (on paper), but probably couldn’t ever actually kill one. For multiple reasons.
AM4Luckily my pops was able to put this one out of its misery. I think I’ll stick to archery for the sport, and not for hunting.
AM6Obsession/Lesson: I’ve also learned that a nice chilly Schwarzbier is a good idea afterwards. Gotta settle the nerves after injuring that poor paper elk.
AM7Obsession: My Latin Lover. Tall, dark, hot and rich. This is a wonderful caffeinated creation I found at The Coffee Tree in Loveland made with espresso, chocolate, cinnamon, cayenne and almond milk. Perfect for these cold days while the snow is still resting on the ground.
AM8Lesson: We’ve been experimenting at work and discovered that there are 3,628,800 ways to blend all ten beers we have on tap. This is the Suicide –  a little bit of each. Extremely complex with barnyard aroma, coconut, molasses and fig flavors with a weird sour hop finish. I wouldn’t recommend it. We’ll keep trying to find the other 3,628,799 blends that work.
AM9Obsession: This book. I’ve heard about it all over the blogosphere, checked it out at the library, had to renew it twice before I actually opened it and now can’t put it down. I paired Gone Girl with a Lost Abbey Angel’s Share. Quite an exquisite pairing, if I do say so myself.
AM10Lesson: Apparently I’m someone who has to take all tests twice. My last 23 and Me test “didn’t have enough DNA” to get a result. Fingers crossed for try number 2!
AM7You may remember yet another of my obsessions – abandoned towns/buildings. I’ll be taking a road trip during my three day “weekend” to visit another beautifully creepy abandoned place this week!

What are your obsessions in life?

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by | January 6, 2014 · 6:00 am

An Avalanche of Awesomeness

We’re six days into the new year! How did you guys spend the big night?
am13I started off with the important things – we opened up my Firestone 16th Anniversary that’s been aging in my cellar for a good year.
am14A brilliant glass of this and writing out some resolutions! I’m on the small team of people out there who still enjoy writing down resolutions. They’re not the generic “get healthy” “lose weight” “stop drinking” (of course not that!), but some smaller goals/hopes/dreams I like to strive to. A handful of examples – hike a 14er, make an effort to give good friends actual phone calls (I’m not great at actually talking to people on the phone for some reason…), read at least one book every month, sit down for twenty minutes every morning with my bible for my SheReadsTruth bible study…
am12And one of my new resolutions – spend some quality time with my new bow! I finally got my Samick Sage, and can’t wait to spend more time at the range!
amI’ve been there three days so far since picking up my Sage.
am1Post archery range brews are nice too!
am2I spent Friday night with some friends at the Eagles game at the Budweiser Event Center in Loveland! We feasted on barbecue at Nordy’s before and enjoyed a fun win that was only marred by the excessive use of cowbells. I will never understand why anyone thought painfully loud and distracting bells were a good idea during a hockey game…
am11Since I hadn’t gotten enough of a hockey fix, Saturday was spent at the Pepsi Center watching the Colorado Avs play!
AM3We started off with a (slightly) cheaper beer and food at the attached restaurant and then headed into the rink.
AM6SUCH. GREAT. SEATS!
AM7Our neighbors were kind enough to invite us along – they get amazing seats since their son plays youth hockey and the Avs are big on encouraging aspiring players.
am8THE AVS WON!!! I believe that’s the first time I’ve ever seen the Avs win in person, out of four games!
am9We went out to Wynkoop Brewery for celebration beers afterwards.
am10I started off with the Colorojo but found it to be a bit of a diacetyl bomb, and they kindly exchanged it for a B3K Black Lager. Muuuch better.
am17I’d say that this year has been many degrees of awesome so far. I’m loving 2014!

How’s your new year/new resolutions going?

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by | December 21, 2013 · 1:40 pm

Trimming the Tree

I think the Christmas Kettle Corn did the trick! I really am starting to feel the Christmas spirit!
am8I finished that entire batch all by myself over the course of an hour after I made it. It’s really addictive – be forewarned.
amI finally finished ALL of my Christmas shopping! I celebrated with a taster flight from the newest brewery in Loveland: Crow Hop.
am2Exposed brick, warm lighting and heaters blasting. We then traipsed across the parking lot to Henry’s Pub for mass quantities of mango Sriracha wings, fish ‘n chips and even more brews.
henryLittle Red Cap ala Grimm Brothers Brewhouse!
firestoneI also celebrated by buying myself some Christmas presents… Debating whether to drink this or age it for a year… Thoughts?
eclipseAnother gift to myself. I’m very generous. This one will be aging while we enjoy the other three that I cellared over a year ago!
am11Today was “decorate the tree” day! We normally don’t wait so long, but with all of our busy schedules, it was the first chance we had.
am10Silk Seasonal Nog and coffee to start off on the right foot!
am5We have quite a collection of ornaments that we’ve accumulated throughout the years. This is one I got for my parental unit two years ago when I was in Breckenridge with the artist.
am9My first Christmas ornament! Man, I’m old.
am12“Mom, look! This was eleven years ago!” No…. make that 21 years ago. Man, I’m old.
am14I had a lot of teachers who encouraged homemade ornaments. I give you – gingerbread house by Becki Kregoski, age 6.
am16The year we learned about fossils and the imprints they leave in rocks.
am17Indian Princesses corn husk doll from when I lived in Boulder during elementary school.
am15My teacher made this one (as what I assume was an apology for all of the ugly crap with which her students were adorning their parentals’ trees) in 1996.
am18“Squeeze my cheeks and I’ll give you a kiss” Santa. My mumsie and I used to make these when we lived in Illinois. You’d squeeze the sides, Santa’s mouth would open and a Hershey’s Kiss would be sitting inside!
am13This was gifted to me right after high school when my dreams of becoming an actor were in full blossom.
am7Those dreams gave way to a different dream/career after college.
am6A very, very different career.
am8My parental unit knows me so well!

Now I’m off to bake Busia’s Yuletide Cookies – aka Thumbprint cookies, before a loooooong day at the brewery. And, it’s snowing outside! Tis the season!

Do you have any holiday traditions that you just can’t skip?

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by | December 11, 2013 · 3:00 am

They Called It Puppy Love

My goodness, the week JUST started and it’s already been insane and overwhelming!
amI worked at the brewery on Saturday and participated in some terrible awesome brewery puns. “Wouldn’t IBU like to know?” I’m so very hilarious. You’re welcome.
am3Myself and some of our customers played “dodge the impaling snowflake” aka the putty that held up our Christmas ornaments and decor didn’t work out that well. Nothing like a little excitement/fear of dismemberment to spice up the day!
am2On Sunday after church, I met up with my bro for pho and brews! We swung by Grimm Brothers and got a taste of cask – Santiam dry-hopped Farmer’s Daughter. I love this beer on its own, but the Santiam hops really enhanced it with a gently sweet floral flavor. And I love cask ale. Cask cask cask. Cask.
am4Curtis and Liz Chism stopped by the brewery! I met Curtis virtually through Bites ‘n Brews a few years back and then randomly ran into him at Hess Brewing and met him in person almost two years ago. He and his wife Liz are starting up Council Brewing in San Diego in the next year. Check out their Kickstarter here and get in on the ground level! They were in Colorado enjoying what will likely be their last vacation ever. I kid, I kid. Kinda… The perks of owning a brewery!
barHave I inundated you with enough pictures of this guy? My parental unit’s pup, Barleywhine, wasn’t feeling so good on Sunday. We’ve had health issues with all of our previous pets that (for the most part) weren’t too terrible, so we let him rest for a day to see if the issue would resolve itself. It didn’t. We took him into the vet on Monday morning and found out that he was suffering from HGE – hemorrhagic gastroenteritis. I’ll spare you the gory details, but this is a really bad disease that can result very quickly in death. The vet told us that basically his blood was turning to sludge. We left him in the vet’s care where he was put on an IV and covered with a heated blanket to raise his temperature.
am5Since our vet isn’t open 24 hours, we had to pick him up late Monday night and play puppy-ambulance to take him across town to another vet that would watch him overnight and make sure his fluids were still being pumped.
am6He was somewhat more perky at this point until we had to leave him. Oh, the guilt escalated quickly when we saw the realization in his eyes that we were leaving him yet again. Early Tuesday morning we returned to puppy-ambulance him back to the vet for another day of monitoring. Guilt. Overwhelming.
Screen shot 2013-12-10 at 11.07.06 PMBut it was all worth it! He’s alive and healing and HOME! I have the privilege of keeping his crate in my room to monitor him overnight and since his colon is reawakening, there’s an oh-so-lovely aroma that just won’t air out. This is love, guys.
am7This is love.

I’ll be back with some holiday recipes later this week!

Anyone else suffer from insurmountable amounts of guilt when leaving your pet? It can’t be just me!

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by | November 22, 2013 · 11:28 am

Psychosis

Something is wrong with my dog.


If you don’t hear from me after today, it’s because Barley went completely off his rocker and murdered us all.

For now, I’m off to pick up a growler just in case we get trapped in another freak snowstorm and need to survive off of liquid bread.

Happy Friday!!!

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by | November 19, 2013 · 3:00 am

Weekend Snapshots

My weekend extended into Monday after a few late nights at the brewery followed by even later nights transferring brown ale. My spice extract is soaking in bourbon right now and should be ready to pitch into the keg in about two days!
am10I’m very fickle when it comes to diets. Once I tell myself I can’t have something, I crave it more. Surprise, surprise.
amHealthy success at one of my favorite fast food joints – Mad Greens: a build your own salad place. Salads that are made by other people just taste so much better for some reason… This one was stuffed with cannellini beans, roasted red peppers, artichoke hearts, tuna and a sprinkling of goat cheese. I could eat this every day!
am4A gorgeous, chilly, cloudy hike.
am5Driving by Lake Loveland on a different, yet still beautiful, day.
am3Dozy lap dog.
am7My new niece, Hallertau – Hallie for short. We’re a very beer-centric family.
am9A gorgeous sunset. I love this view.
am6Save the Berries at Verboten Brewing.
am11A six-pack of KCCO Black Lager found in Fort Collins. So glad I didn’t have to drive down to Denver to find this!
am1Nutty, roasty with a crisp ending and a hint more caramel and body than I was expecting in a black lager. I ended an incredibly busy weekend at the brewery with a couple of these. Have I mentioned yet how much I love my job?
am13Frost on my windshield as I prepared to go get my new license plates! I’m officially an official Coloradoan!

Are you able to stick to eating plans or do food restrictions get the best of you?

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by | November 13, 2013 · 8:48 am

What I Ate Wednesday

This is kind of like a What I Ate Wednesday, except that I have no idea what the rules are for WIAW and didn’t read about it on the link I just provided you with and I didn’t eat these things on a Wednesday (did I mention I don’t know the rules?) and I forgot to take pictures of some of the things I ate. I’ve already failed.

The first time I did the Sonoma diet was when I was working on Grey’s Anatomy. Since the first wave excludes sugars of any kind, including fruit, the craft service table was absolute torture for me. I had a choice between raw broccoli and six different kinds of cookies, cakes and chips. TORTURE!
am5am9Breakfast was the same thing as yesterday – a hot boiled egg, coffee in my ugly rooster mug, whole grain toast with peanut butter and more coffee. This kept me satisfied up until lunch.
AM1Crazy delicious balsamic chicken with roasted broccoli tossed in a light marinade of sesame oil, low-sodium soy sauce, lemon juice, garlic and ginger. Happy happy! For a snack I had an un-pictured bell pepper with hummus.
AM3I’m absolutely in love with this tea! From now on, we must keep this in the house. Warm and spicy and perfect for clearing the nasal passages. Halfway through my cup, the doorbell rang.
AM2PRESENTS!!! Bison Brewing sent me some of their new recipe of organic Gingerbread Ale to try/create a recipe with.
Photo on 2011-10-16 at 16.26 #6I actually tried this beer (at least the old recipe) waaaaaay back in October of 2011 and haven’t had a chance to try it again since.
AM4 I was planning on going alcohol-free last night, but I had to taste this so I could figure out which spices would go with the recipe I’m making, and to test the bitterness factor in case I wanted to make a reduction.
AM5I paired the beer with the Colorado Avalanche game and my previously planned vegetable and tofu stir fry – white wine, low-sodium soy sauce, ginger, crushed red pepper tossed into a wok (or frying pan if you’re like me and don’t own a wok) with sliced carrots, minced garlic, chopped bell peppers, extra firm tofu and soba noodles. I hate tofu with a passion, but I choked it down. Something about that texture just gets to me…
AM6After a depressing loss, I threw together about a half cup of popcorn tossed in a light dusting of this stuff from the Old Town Spice Shop in Fort Collins. I love that place.
AM7Overall, the Sonoma diet is relatively on track except for the unexpected surprise beer that arrived in the mail. But hey, I live in Colorado, belong to plenty of beer clubs and work in the beer industry; I wouldn’t want to stop supporting my community and lose my job!

What are your ways of getting back on track – in your diet or life in general?

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by | November 11, 2013 · 8:54 am

Under the Weather

I survived my first few shifts at Loveland Aleworks!
am2Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve worked in breweries before, but Friday was absolutely insane! There were two different events going on in Loveland so the place was beyond packed from the time I got there until after we closed. Considering that was my first real shift, I felt like I was drowning just a bit, but now that I’ve got the glassware down I think it’ll go smoothly from now on. Saturday was more my pace (still really busy, but much, much lower decibel) and it was nice to be able to get to know people behind and in front of the bar.
am3I started feeling slightly under the weather Sunday morning, so after church I got a little binge-y. I needed comfort food.
punkinI wish I’d gone for this. It would’ve been much healthier. Think even more orange and out of a box. Sometimes Kraft mac ‘n cheese is what’s called for.
am6It got worse from there.
am7Ohhhh, it was so bad! I’ve decided it’s time to get back on track.
am8I actually did this “diet” a few years back after getting interested in the Mediterranean diet. The only thing it was lacking was thick, rare steaks. The Sonoma diet incorporates that in. In general it’s just a reminder to focus on veggies, proteins and whole grains instead of Ben and Jerry’s and processed Yellow 9 from a box. Plus, it allows for a glass of wine here and there, which I’m fairly certain I will substitute out for a beer. Modifications to suit my life.
am5I started the day off right with a hot boiled egg and coffee…
am9…plus a slice of my homemade spent grain/whole wheat bread slathered in peanut butter. And more coffee.

In other news:
Screen shot 2013-11-08 at 10.15.07 AMMy pairing suggestions were featured on Ask a Cicerone again, which was very pleasant! It’s always nice to see the influx of new readers after these come out.

And now I’m off to curl up in a ball, feel sorry for my under-the-weather self and study my photography and web design books. Happy Monday!

What are your go-to foods when you’re feeling under the weather?

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by | October 30, 2013 · 3:00 am

Rainy Day Meals

I’ve discovered something about myself lately: taking pretty pictures of things in slow cookers is not my forte.
AMMonday was our first truly chilly and drizzly day of the autumn season. The low fog was sending a constant mist over everything. The temperatures hit 32 degrees Fahrenheit. It was officially freezing – the perfect type of day to cook something warm and delicious.
AM2Coconut Curry Chicken with homemade vegan naan. See? I told you. Not a pretty picture. (Side note: clean up was pretty! I love those slow cooker liners with all my heart!)
AM3Try again? Nope, still not pretty. All I can do is tell you how very delicious this fragrant and simple dish was, and highly recommend that you make it. And buy some pre-made naan from Whole Foods. The homemade vegan naan was a massive fail on my end.
AM1Tuesday was pretty similar in terms of weather. We got a three-mile hike in with the pup before returning home with windburned cheeks and frosty noses. I sat down in front of the fire to defrost and was thrilled to see that my Ask a Cicerone article went out yesterday morning!
Screen shot 2013-10-29 at 10.24.02 PMI knew something was up when my views had spiked through the roof by 9am! Always love promoting my local breweries – Verboten Brewing, Loveland Aleworks, Grimm Brothers and oh, so many more that I still need to do full write-ups on!
AM4After returning phone calls, planning meetings and picking up an un-Godly amount of Halloween candy, I got back into the kitchen to prep for another wonderful meal. Dinner was homemade pizza – one half with my spinach basil pesto recipe (coming up soon once the pictures are all edited) and parmesan, the other with balsamic caramelized onions and bacon over homemade pizza sauce.
am3I also wound up making another batch of spent grain bread with the remains of my snow day brew day spent grain. Something about this cold weather just makes me gravitate straight to the kitchen!
AM5After hearing about it all over the blogopshere, I had to try it.
AM6Lactose intolerant friendly? Yes, please! Flavor? No, thanks, I’m good.

Sorry to say, all you Arctic Zero fans, but I was not in a happy place. Please tell me it’s because my flavor choice was wrong? I’m willing to give it another go if anyone has recommendations… Instead I ate too much Halloween candy and felt ill. Hooray.
AM7And here’s one more gratuitous beer and beer related pumpkin carving as an apology for the horrific food pictures above. Go in peace.

When it gets cold out, what are your favorite meals to make/beers to drink?

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