Jennifer's 365 Project

Whenever the clouds in the sky look like this all I can think is how it reminds me of a quilt I had once.

Also, it makes me think of the quilted northern commercials. Go figure.

There's a family reunion today on my mother's side, over in Midland, MI (hence all the baking yesterday). So we set out Sunday morning to make the drive (it's little over 2 hours from where we live).



Much of the crowd attending this reunion are cousins, aunts, and uncles of my mothers, so it's a crowd I don't get to see very often. It was nice to see everyone and introduce Chris to my extend family members.



Plus, these was quite the table of crockpot concoctions and various home-made desserts. We actually ended up leaving the reunion with more food than we came with!

It was a nice Sunday to hang out and enjoy family and food.

I started the day off with some baking shortly after dinner. There's a family reunion tomorrow and I decided to make two types of dessert bars: Graham Cracker Chewy Bars (which are kind of like Pecan Pie blondies), and Raspberry Oatmeal Bars. I have to say that the stand mixer and the tablet are wonderful devices in the kitchen.

By the time 10am rolled around everything was baked and cooling, which meant a little straightening up and some gaming.
We did some shopping in the early afternoon. As pointed out in this amusing InfoMania graduation speech (starts around 1min mark), we received our regularly scheduled Bed Bath & Beyond coupon. Coupled with a gift card from my friend Lori (thanks Lori!) we snagged a food dehydrator & I got to slicing various fruits and vegetables.
Once everything was loaded into the dehydrator I sliced up the dessert bars for tomorrow's family reunion and decided that I should probably not start cooking anything else, especially something elaborate. Oven makes the apartment a smidge warm, after all.

Work was busy, hectic. So when I came home and saw Leki lounging, I thought it was a great idea.

He always has the best ideas for kicking off the weekend.

Twitter is an interesting place. For one thing, Twitter is where Chris and I met, and we all know how that turned out! So when an awesome nerdy person that we both follow suggested meeting up for drinks and dinner, how could we refuse?

Chris and I headed over to Stella's Lounge, which is a nice little bar near my work with an interesting and tasty menu. We met up with Meghann and her fiance Mike. They are both illustrators, into comics and video games, and all around fun people to hang with. So you can imagine the range of conversation - from the merits of the Superman Returns movie, how awesome Zelda in 3D is, to how over-hyped Avatar was.

Chris and I both had a good time meeting and hanging out with them. We look forward to doing it again sometime.

And that's the magic of Twitter!

What do you do when you have brownies, strawberries, and ice cream? Combine them!

Normally when we make dinner for the two of us, we are eating roughly the same thing. Sure I might have a bigger helping of veggies or Chris a bit more meat, but essentially it's the same meal.

Tonight, instead, I made two different meals using the same base - chicken and rice. So I cooked up Chris's meal first, keeping the various ingredients separate (as you can see at the top of the photo).

Then came time to craft my dish. I fried up some chicken in a pan with some chopped up garlic, then slowly tossed in every vegetable in the house (they're getting old and I still have quite a bit left). So that means zucchini, squash, mushrooms, corn, and spinach. I even tossed in some salsa I bought just to add some flavor (which was ok but I probably would have been ok with a chopped up tomato instead).

When all was said and done I mixed in some white rice, let it simmer and voila! The strange assortment of veggies and chicken was ready for eating.

It wasn't bad, and I'm definitely getting the feel for using veggies I don't normally think to eat more frequently.

Now off to make brownies!

Read some news, went for an after dinner stroll, and then spent a bit of the evening playing Tiny Tower on the iPad and listen to the cat make happy meowing noises.

All in all, a stress-free evening.

I grabbed a few boxes this afternoon, cut some holes in them, taped them together and dubbed it "ferret playground."

So far its small, as we get a few more boxes I'll make the playscape more complicated and interesting for her. That is, of course until the playground grows too large or too unmanageable, as has happen in the past.

Then I'll just have to make her a new toy.

It's the last day of the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair and the only weekend day it is open so what better way to spend Saturday than wandering the streets of Ann Arbor with family?
We met up with everyone (my father-in-law and my parents) at The Cottage Inn Pizza for lunch before heading out into the heat and sun for a few hours to look at all of the art booths.
There were lots of interesting things sprinkled throughout all of the booths. Admittedly I think Chris and I have seen several of these people recently at the Grand Haven Art Fair. Mostly it was just fun to chat with everyone and see what's been going on lately. Plus we walked through the Borders bookstore. Everything was on sale but, quite honestly, not as cheap as you'd except a company in liquidation to have things. I suppose they'll do it tiered and sell as much as they can now, then keep dropping the price as time goes on to move what isn't selling fast.

Anyway, it was a hot one with lots of sunshine. I had a good day, but I was glad to be home with a snuggling kitty and air conditioning. I dont mind lots of walking, but I am wimpy when it comes to heat and humidity.

Also, I learned the Maker Fair in Detroit is next weekend, and we're busy, so I'm kind of bummed. Not that I build anything or have much of an aptitude to do such things, but I thought it would be interesting to walk around and check it out. I know both Chris and his dad enjoy making and creating things. Maybe we can check it out next year.

Captain America opens this weekend, so after work we headed out to meet with Dan and Jeff for an evening of comic-goodness on the silver screen.

It was 90 degrees out when left for lunch today. That's pretty hot. So I decided to head over to the library and enjoy a cool break from work instead sweating over at Rosa Park Circle.

The walk over was a hot one, even walking along the buildings in the shade.