Sweet Home.

Since we've gotten our mortgage approval and squared away all that other jazz, I think it's finally safe to publicly brag on our new home. This is the three bedroom bungalow that we are closing on in just two weeks:


We first saw this house before we "officially" started house hunting. They were having an open house, we were driving by, and we stopped in impulsively to see it.

After we got mortgage preapproval, we went out with a real estate agent and crammed 16 houses into one Saturday, because Mike has so little time off. The next day he went back to work and I saw three more houses alone. After seeing so many places, my mind went straight back to that first open house. I knew it was the best fit for us by far. Our agent managed to get me in to take a second look that day, and the next morning we'd put in a an offer.

The house is everything we wanted - an older, small home in excellent condition, in a nice older neighborhood, close to Benson's business district which is one of our favorite places in Omaha. We'll still be close to our health food store (where we buy dog food), our beer store, a library branch, and all those bars we never go to. The house itself was built in 1925 and has a bit of Chicago Bungalow flair, with natural wood trim, all hardwood floors, lots of sunlight, and a simple but pleasing floorplan.

The only drawback to the place was - at least for Mike - that the master bedroom is upstairs with no bathroom. This made him want to keep looking, and so we did. But ultimately we saw a lot of dogs and oddballs in our price range. One house had no bathroom on the main floor. Two houses had bathrooms that were in the master bedroom, and in one case that was the only bath in the whole house. One frightening home had a shower in the basement that prompted Mike to remark, "Now I know where Psycho was filmed."

So I knew - this was it. I suggested to Mike that we should buy the house but didn't try to talk him into it. I put the idea out there and let it marinate. I wanted him to fall for it on his own accord, and luckily he did.

This is the ochre-colored dining room that immediately grabbed my attention as we entered through the living room. It's such an intense, enveloping color that Mike and I are both having trouble envisioning any other hue in the room. We may even just repaint in something very similar. The corner hutch at the right is one of a pair that are staying in the house.

The front living room is very small. We plan to use it as a quiet sitting/reading room with no television. It gets lots of sun and is open to the dining room. It also contains the staircase leading up to the dormer bedroom, of which unfortunately we do not have a photo yet.

These are the listing photos, and I'm guessing that they couldn't get a flattering photo of the dormer master bedroom. It's large, with lower ceilings but still high enough that Mike (at 6' 2") won't hit his head. The chimney of the house bisects the room, and there someone has installed a small closet in the middle of the bedroom.

Two bedrooms are on the main floor, both being your standard square bedrooms. All have hardwood floors, which we love. One of the bedrooms will be an office and one a guest bedroom for the time being. The current owners painted a Dr. Seuss mural in the front bedroom that we are waffling on whether to keep or repaint. It's cute, but so bright, and do we need a Dr. Seuss mural?

The kitchen is small but cute and with a lot of cabinet space. The countertops are red tile and the owners put in a new wood laminate floor. They're leaving all of the appliances. This means that for the first time in our life as a couple, we will have a DISHWASHER. Mike is going to have to come up with new ways to spend a half an hour every morning. I'm sure he'll think of something.

Downstairs is the finished basement... family room, den, TV room, whatever you want to call it. We would like this to be the only TV room in the house. We currently have zero furniture for this space, other than the television, so IKEA here we come! I think we're going to paint all this dark blue paneling in a creamy off-white to brighten up the space. The floors are wood laminate. Have I mentioned how much I'm going to love having NO wall to wall carpeting? I hate wall to wall carpeting with an unholy passion.

Also downstairs is a laundry room (we have to buy the machines), a half bath that the sellers installed, and some storage space. There is also a shower head just sort of hanging off a pipe in the laundry room, near a drain in the floor. Not a place I'll probably ever bathe myself, but it might be a convenient way to wash the dog!

Out back the owners built a nice deck, and the yard is fully fenced. I had uploaded a photo of the yard too, but it disappeared and Blogger is driving me crazy. As you would have seen in the photo, we have neighbors all around, but they're not right on top of us, which is nice. You would also have seen that we have a detached two car garage with automatic door openers and a lot of built in shelving that will come in handy for all my painting supplies.

And here's the best part, the part that will make all our Bostonian and Californian friends puke: we're getting all of this loveliness for less than $115,000. Life is sweet.

Save the Cows: Eat Beets

USDA recalls 143 million pounds of beef.

After I watched the beef recall story on the news this morning I left a note for my slumbering husband: "Thank you for turning us vegetarian!"

In June of 2006, Mike was in trucker school to get his commercial drivers license. At the time we were living a blissful life full of barbeque ribs, roasted chicken breasts, herbed sausages, and ham and egg sandwiches. I doubt that either of us had ever went a single day without a bite of meat. But one night Mike came home from trucker school and said he didn't think he wanted to eat meat anymore, simple as that. It wasn't because he wanted to get healthy or lose weight, though we both ultimately did both, but because he wanted to stop eating animals. (Yes we are THOSE awful kinds of vegetarians, the kinds that even some other vegetarians hate, who want to spare the fuzzy wuzzy little cows from being turned into hamburger.)

Since I love to cook and also to seize any opportunity to delve into some new research and development project (dog training went fairly well, knitting not so much), I volunteered not only to join his meat boycott, but to find out everything we needed to know about what to eat and how to eat without eating meat.

Nearly two years later, we've found vegetarianism to be not only much easier than we might have thought, but also much more delicious. Being a newbie vegetarian (and not even a strict one - we eat cheese, eggs, and occasionally seafood) I'm not going to pretend that a grilled sirloin looks disgusting to me, but I will say that stepping off the Chicken Every Night carousel has been a relief in a variety of ways. As a cook my horizons have broadened: once you remove meat as the heart and soul of your cuisine, you're forced to be more creative about proportions and flavors. We've eaten and enjoyed vegetables that previously were entirely unbeknownst to me: burdock roots, daikons, golden beets, collard greens, and my personal favorite, Swiss chard. We feel better, we look better, we eat better. And we can watch 143 million pounds of beef being recalled and feel good about what we're putting into our bodies every day.

Here's one of my favorite dinner recipes, from The Flexitarian Table by Peter Berley (paraphrased for brevity):

Penne with Beets, Beet Greens, Goat Cheese, & Walnuts
You'll need to buy about 2 lbs of beets with the greens still attached - make sure the greens look healthy and appetizing! I've made this with red and golden beets. Both are good, the red have a stronger flavor but tend to turn everything in the kitchen pink, at least when I'm cooking.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and roast beets in foil for about 45 min.
Wash and drain beet greens, cut into 1/2-inch wide ribbons.
Unwrap beets and cool under running water. Remove skins, trim ends, and slice into 1/2-inch wide sticks.
Bring water to boil and cook 8 oz whole wheat penne until al dente.
Meanwhile, saute garlic (4 sliced cloves), 1 TB fresh tarragon (I usually skip it or use thyme bc who buys fresh tarragon??), and a pinch of red pepper flakes for a couple of minutes. Add beets and greens and cook until greens wilt, about 1-2 minutes.
Drain pasta and add to pan. Stir in 4 oz goat cheese and 1/4 c cream (I use soy cream/milk) and bring to a simmer. Season with salt and pepper, serve sprinkled with chopped walnuts.

Meet the Humans.

Since things are going so smashingly well for us here in Omaha, Mike and I decided to start a blog together to keep friends, family, and fans updated on our best laid plans and plots to take over the world.



For those just tuning in or reuniting with us, two short years ago we were living in Boston and mulling over our Amstel Lights about how our plan for world domination was ever going to succeed in the land of $500k starter homes and insanity-inducing rush hour traffic. Mike then received a message from his brother Phil at the heart of the American Dream: there was a magical place where a person could drive 5 miles at 5pm on a Friday in under a half an hour. Six months later we sold most of our possessions at a yard sale in the rain, packed the rest into the minivan, and drove to Omaha, Nebraska.

There were were: two recent converts to vegetarianism moving to the birthplace of the most reknowned steaks in the nation, a city that one of us had visited once and the other had never seen. That's totally normal, right?

Our risky move paid off: in the 16 months since we arrived we've gotten married (our wedding was awesome by the way), both found good work, and are in the process of buying our first house. We caucused for Obama this month and haven't had a bite of meat in almost two years, except for that one time Mike accidentally ate a chicken quesadilla and wondered why it was SO damn good.

Some of you poor souls know us both, and some who come to read our little blog will only know of us so I'll sum us up briefly: Mike is the funny one and I'm the brains of this operation. Which of us is cuter is a conundrum that may never be fully resolved.