"Fields of Opportunity"

Is the slogan on the sign as you enter Iowa.  Opportunity... I'm not quite so sure, but field, definitely YES!  When it comes to driving straight through a state, I have had my fair share of driving through Iowa, I think it's a little better than Kansas, and MUCH better than Nebraska, but still it's a flat, boring drive.

Except one area....

The wind mills!!


I just love these fields of windmills for some reason. They are so fun to watch.




Happy Spring!

Fall Yard Work

We don't have a very big yard. It's actually quite small and we've made it just fine with our reel mower the past year, but we did break down and by an electric mower about a month ago. Not for the sake of mowing the yard, but to make fall clean up soooo much easier!!

Last year we raked the whole yard, this was not fun.
This year I used an 'electric rake' and it was MUCH easier.


Last year we ended up using over 10 bags to put our leaves in for the recycling guys to pick up.
This year we only needed 4 bags!




Thanks for reading,

Uninvited Guests

When we moved into our house I did a LOT of blogging about all the work we have done and continue to do. You might remember this post... talking about a composter we have that we keep in the backyard.

Well I FINALLY got to use some compost! While my mom was visiting we got some soil and made a second pot for our strawberries to overflow in. So I mixed some of the compost soil in that, and I also topped off one of the house plants I have (well it was outside until about a week ago when it decided to frost here and it was time for it to become a house plant again).



Now it is back in it's old spot, by the window in our dining room.

Except something is different, can you see it?


The compost has caused little visitors to sprout up... I wonder what they are?


Should I wait and find out or try and get rid of them? Although I think they are just going to continue to come back. maybe we'll get some fruit for the winter :-)

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Uptown Art Fair

This weekend, uptown is having it's annual art fair. Uptown is actually south of Minneapolis - not really sure why it's called uptown, but it is. I didn't realize how big this art fair actually was until I was reading the little booklet I picked up while we were at Old Chicago a few days ago. This art fair is the #2 fair for attendance statewide (second to the Minnesota State Fair). This got me thinking "the state fair is a lot bigger than uptown.... what are we getting ourselves into by going?", but it was early and the rain had finally let up, so we ventured off.

We decided to ride our bikes; for one it was pretty nice out, or so I thought, and it was only about 4 miles away, along the street. You can read about our bike ride here. Once we made it, dripping in sweat, we found a place to land our bikes. Now this is uptown, where people are green... it was actually a pain to find a spot since all the poles had been taken, but luckily we found one... right next to the light rail petition signer enthusiasts.


At home, I was craving some coffee... thinking ahhh once we get there it'll be so nice to have a cup of coffee (or how I like it, sugar and cream with a little coffee) and walking around looking at the art booths. But the bike ride and the humidity changed all that... all we wanted was some water. Too bad the water was $3.00 a bottle. So we toughed it out until we got up near a store to buy a real bottle of water (McDonald's had them for $1.50, eat that beverage booth)

After walking a little ways we did stop and get a smoothie to share... mmmm a real fruit smoothie!

There were some pretty nice booths, of course I gawked at the photography and we ooooh and aaah at the unique paintings and wood work. Walking around in the uptown mall area was nice, it was shaded, not crowded.... to begin with. Things started to pick up when I took this shot:

Once we made it to the top of the hill to Hennepin Ave, we realized the place was starting to fill out, and that we totally forgot to put on sun screen... really what were we thinking? I was even wondering why I didn't wear a sports bra because I was practically sweating through the shirt I had on. But we went north a ways til it directed us to turn around and went south to Calhoun Square. I suggested we walk the south route inside (in the A/C) then come out the other side of the building to walk north along the street and head back to our bikes. AHHH the coolness was so nice. There were booths and sidewalk sales going on inside Calhoun Square (Kyle asked if I knew about it, which I didn't really I just wanted to be in A/C for a while, but I pretended I knew all along, hee hee), I was also trying to save his red forehead from getting much worse. We stopped at the kitchen store, where they had many food demos and samples going on (SWEET, Lunch!) We had this Calamari and Chorizo Paella... cooked in one HUGE ASS skillet! Check this out:


We also had these yummy Pork Dumplings with excellent soy dipping sauce. She made it look so easy making these dumplings, we'll have to try at home. Oh and they had recipe cards for all the little samples they had. Of course I picked them up, I love trying new things.

Speaking of new things, I just made some Baba Ganoush! And it actually turned out good! I've made it before, but I've never been impressed with how it's turned out in the past.
Okay back to the art fair. Once we made our way through Calhoun Square we got to the end again and picked up where we left off on Hennepin Ave. This time heading north. From the time we got there in the shaded mall area to now, in the hot, sticky, sunny, crowded, Hennepin Ave area, the crowd had pretty much quadrupled!

It was no longer a leisurely stroll gazing at art work from afar... so we pretty much booked it back to our bikes. And hopped on the trail to head home.

We decided to take the trail back instead of risk our lives by the road again. The trail is only about a mile more than taking the driving route, but it was worth it since it is a secluded trail, that's a little flatter as well. You never notice hills until you're riding them on a bike :-)

Taking it Easy

As you have probably noticed, we've been taking a break from the whole 'house work'. My mom came to visit last Thurs through Tuesday. It was great to see her and have our very FIRST visitor in our new home. We think she really liked it, and I know she liked the fact that the house that is getting put up across the street is bigger and better, therefor our neighborhood is getting built up (woo hoo for our property value!) Also during her visit (well the last day) she got us some patio furniture. We did have a couple of fold up camping chairs out there, which was suiting us just fine except for the fact that the whole weekend my mom was here it was raining and she kept saying "I wish you just had some plastic chairs I could wipe down and sit down to have a smoke"... well her wish came true (the last day).

They're noting fancy, but will make due for now. Our deck is so big, it helps to have something out there. And besides we got the whole set for $15 at the thrift store!!!

Today we did get back to a few house chores. Kyle lowered the blade on our reel lawn mower and mowed the yard (the front, not the sod yet). We could actually tell it got mowed. All the other times you couldn't really tell we even went over it... it helped to lower the blade. That took a total of about 10 minutes (we have a small yard, lol).

I got the kitchen walls washed, which was a PITA! I was using hot/boiling water, which worked, just scolded my hands. I was wearing gloves, but it wasn't like they were insulated. Hopefully it got all the goo off and we can putty, sand and prime in the next few days. We've picked out the paint we want for it, but haven't purchased it yet, not sure when we really want to get it done. We mainly want to get the coat of prime on to fix where the wallpaper pulled some of the drywall off.

I also did laundry today and hung the sheets out to dry! I was amazed how fast it was before they were dry, it took no time at all AND we saved electricity by not using the dryer!! YIPEE

Speaking of being green, our compost is going very well, the bottom is already turning into dirt! It's great to be able to have a place to throw weeds, random twigs from all the trees in our yard (btw we don't have a tree in our yard, but we get sticks, funny eh?), and any kitchen scraps we have (egg shells, veggies that went bad before we had a chance to eat them, coffee & tea grinds, banana peels and apple cores).

Well that's about it, off to registry land :0) Oh the joys of wedding planning! (which I've been able to start doing more of since the house work is winding down...)

Getting some relaxing in

This morning we went to the state fair. That was fun, and also tiring, we both came home and took a nap. Then I got the office a little organized, we got a shelf up in the closet to use as storage (we used to have this in a storage locker at the apartment). It's a little narrow, but there's room to the left to hang some hanging shelves we have, ya know those canvas shelves that you can hang... anyway.

Yesterday we got the box springs, that won't fit upstairs, out to the garage so the guest room is walkable. It just holds the boxes that will go on the bookshelf and the board shelves we took out of the office closet. But it is pretty much all ready for my mom to come visit!! I can't wait, less than two weeks.

Yesterday we also got some more of the concrete busted up. We plan to do a little more tomorrow, a lady is coming at 4:00 to pick up the broken pieces, so we want to make sure there's all that she needs :0)

I think I had mentioned that I got a home composter..??.. anyway I've been working on getting that filled. Today at the fair in the eco-building there was some info on composting and I was also able to talk to someone. I'm painting a little plastic container to keep our food scraps in to put in the composter so we're not always running outside to put them in and we can just wait till the bucket gets full and dump that in. Whenever Kyle mowes, probably tomorrow, I'm going to go around and get all the dead leaves in the yard to add to it.

But as for tonight we just plan to take it easy and grill out. We started a movie last night but both ended up falling asleep, so maybe we can get through it tonight!!