Sunday Morning in the Seevers House

A morning of relaxing before I start getting ready for church... watching some cartoons (Nora couldn't care less... so pretty much just me watching Spongebob), checking email... as well as:


Nora taking bites out of magazines - 

...and the dog drinking an entire cup of coffee while I change a diaper... my fault for leaving it sitting on the coffee table (what kind of dummie leaves a coffee cup on the coffee table?). 


At least it's a better start to the day than yesterday, when we woke up and realized we had no power and hadn't had power since the middle of the night... and wouldn't be getting power back until 2:00 in the afternoon. Not having power kind of sucks. I reminded myself every so often as I eagerly awaited the electricity to return that there are thousands and thousands of people in other parts of the world right now - Japan, New Zealand - that are in MUCH worse shape and would be thrilled to only have to worry about not having power for 12 hours. I, however, could only think about the fact that my head would be killing me by about 11am if I didn't find a way to make coffee. And that I had a 3lb tri tip in the refrigerator marinating for dinner that night with Nick's family, with a death sentence as it got less and less cold in there and I wondered about a plan B for Nana's birthday dinner. And that I really needed to vacuum the rugs and run the washing machine to wash the bathroom rugs and towels before they came over at 6pm. Obviously, these were very trivial concerns in the grand scheme of things, but when the power's out and you can't watch TV or use the internet, you have time to dwell on silly thoughts like this.  Of course, everything turned out fine - the power came back on suddenly a little after 2pm, and we had plenty of time to finish cleaning and get the food ready before everyone came over (...early, of course... I'm so used to my family that shows up about a half hour late to everything, so arriving early is quite a foreign idea). We had a great time visiting with Nick's mom, uncle, Nana, and Nana's best friend Bertha. Enjoyed some champagne, ate a good dinner, shared in some birthday cake. Happy 85th Birthday, Nana!

Feeling a little old… but not minding it so much.

I’m officially another year older, and I have to say, I’m okay with it. (How do you feel about it, Jon Hamm? Don’t worry, you’ll always be a young and dapper dreamboat in my eyes…) I know that I’m still by no means old… some of my older more distinguished friends and family members would not be very pleased with me if I said that 26 was old.

I think it’s the fact that 25 was such a nice round number… only a quarter of a century, still only halfway to 50, old enough to rent a car (…who really cares, right?), and by definition, in the “mid” twenties. Even though it’s only a year’s difference, 26 just seems like a big jump… it could even be argued that I’ve now entered “late” twenties. Arguably.

But to be honest, I don’t really care what my age is; I just really appreciate the fact that I have so many great friends and family to be incredibly grateful for – there’s nothing like a million 'Happy Birthdays!' on facebook to remind you how much you’re loved. Or at least to remind you how many people are on facebook often enough to see that it’s your birthday. Either way, it makes me happy.

Here’s to an even more fantastic year ahead - Cheers!

p.s.: that's my way of saying that I'm drinking a bottle of wine at my desk right now... just kidding. 

p.p.s.: am I kidding? I wish I wasn't. It would make the afternoon go by so much faster.

A Birthday Feast

Today is my husband's birthday... Happy Birthday, my dear - I do love you soooo much, and wish you many many happy birthday wishes. 


We went to Mehran with a discount gift certificate from restaurant.com (check this site out if you haven't... really great deals for only a few bucks...) for a delicious and extremely filling dinner of Indian food. The gift certificate we had was $25 off a bill of $35 or more, so we went a little overboard to ensure we got to the $35 minimum. We clearly weren't keeping track of the dollar amounts as we were ordering, and ended up just pretty much ordering everything that sounded good. We were still able to keep it under $30 out of pocket including the tip (which was happily handed over since the waiter/manager/possible owner let us use the gift certificate even though they apparently aren't valid there anymore, which we didn't know). For the three of us, we ordered vegetable samosas, a mixed grill special (with shrimp, lamb, and two different kinds of chicken), chicken tikka masala, rice, aloo palak, plain naan and garlic naan, and a mango lassi. And really all that was just for the two of us, since Nora had about two bird-sized bites of naan. She clearly needs to step up her game.

Business Time: Success!

Wow, I just realized how long it has actually been since my last post... much too long. Aside from my brief praising of Jon Hamm (Happy Almost-Birthday, by the way, Mr. Hamm... we have the same birthday, you know... I'm pretty sure that means we're soul-mates. I know you read my blog.)... my last real post was about re-designing our office/guest room to convert it into a more usable office. Well, we've done it, and it's been feeling quite successful lately. 

We've spent time every single day in our new office space, whether Nick is working, I'm crafting, checking email, paying bills, or feeding my new obsession of entering online logo design contests into the wee hours of the morning (...I've been having some vivid flashbacks of studio lately...), and we've been enjoying nearly every square inch of it. We can fit everything we need - I, all of my indoor craft supplies (the saws, tools, and messy stuff will stay in the garage...), and Nick, all of his files and paperwork, plus all of our miscellaneous computer/electronic/digital what-have-you and a good portion of our books. 

The only piece we can't fit now is the 'guest room' portion of the room... my hope was to have enough room to include a small futon in place of one or two of the smaller pieces of furniture we were first considering to remove and put somewhere else in the house. I wanted to have a futon so 90% of the time it would serve as a couch/seating, and then fold out into a bed when we occasionally needed it. Now..... everything just seems to fit so well the way that it is, that we don't know if we want to take anything out to make room for a futon. Which means when my sister comes to visit next weekend, she may be sleeping on a desk. Or sharing Nora's crib.

Don Draper = Advertising Phenom.

Don Draper really is an advertising genius. Or Mercedes-Benz has the most genius ad campaign ever: using the voice of Don Draper to sell cars. Or sell anything else they feel like selling. Because let's face it - that voice could sell a dump. I literally stopped flipping through radio stations today when I was caught by the immediately-recognizable voice of Mr. Jon Hamm and honestly continued to listen until the commercial was over. I will probably listen/watch every single Mercedes-Benz commercial on the air as long as they continue to use voice-overs by Jon Hamm.


Little does Mercedes-Benz know that I'm poor and will never actually buy a Mercedes-Benz. I'm just enjoying the free ear-candy.

Business Time.

Maybe it’s been the nice spring-like weather we’ve had (although short-lived… hello again, rain) or just my constant nagging need to organize and re-organize our house, but I’ve definitely been in the ‘spring cleaning’ type of mood lately… feeling the need to purge, to de-clutter, to spiff up the house, to have a garage sale. This past Sunday, Nick and I were sitting across from each other at our dining room table – me, at my sewing machine finishing my latest project...

...and Nick, on the laptop working on his real estate website. I realized as we were sitting there that we hardly ever use our dining room table for dining… which is probably what a lot of people will admit, since everyone we talk to says the same thing. The thing is I want to use our dining room table for dining, and want to have another space where we enjoy working on other things… like an office or something – what a novel idea!

We have an office/guest room that is only seldom used, mostly when we need to use the printer (which is in the office) or when my sister is in town and stays with us. Other than those times, we mostly just have an under-utilized room of about 100 square feet with a queen-sized bed taking up about 60 percent of it… what a waste of space! 

So we got to scheming and decided to take a trip to Ikea in search of some affordable and efficient solutions to create an enjoyable and functional ‘home office’ that we both could utilize on a regular, if not daily, basis. Nick could keep all of his files and do all of his real estate work and keep everything organized, and I could have a space to work on my crafts, use the computer, and whatever else I deem necessary and Business-y. We took some measurements of the room, agreed on a basic plan of what we were looking for, and headed to my favorite place to spend way too much time and money on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. By the time we left Ikea, we had eaten four hot dogs (still the best lunch deal on the planet) and purchased two desks, a room-size rug, and a giant 5’x5’ cube-y sort of shelf, along with fun baskets and magazine holders to fit. 

We also had to call Nick’s dad to bring his truck in order to get our new shelf home (which we really hadn’t planned on buying, but was marked down in the ‘as-is’ section – my favorite place – because of a totally unnoticeable small chip on the back side, and was exactly what we were looking for). I was thrilled with our purchases, but already kicking myself a little that I had just tacked more onto our Ikea credit card which by this point was only $50 away from being completely paid off… ugggghhhhhh, sometimes I think it’s me alone keeping that Swedish-designed Disneyland of assembly-required-furniture in business.

So now I am just aching to get it all set up… it’s driving me crazy letting it all just sit in the garage, begging me to let it populate its new home in our soon-to-be-redesigned home office. We decided to wait until the weekend since my sister will be visiting, and we figured she’d rather sleep on a bed than on or under a desk. I’m way too into this and will definitely post photos after the transformation. 

Domesticity: Part 2.

Continuing with my cooking adventures... tonight I experienced a couple of firsts: we ate my first attempt at a 'freezer meal', and I cut up a whole chicken for the first time ever.


The 'freezer meal' we had for dinner tonight was a pan of beef enchiladas I made about a month ago. When I first made it, I had simply made too big of a batch of enchiladas to cook at one time in our tiny oven. Oh yeah... I probably haven't mentioned it before, but we don't actually have an oven. Our kitchen just literally did not have an oven when we moved into our house, and we still haven't gotten around to really finding one that will fit/work with the existing gas and lack of adequate electricity as well as space. So my mom bought me a small countertop convection oven for my birthday last year, and that's what we use. For two people, it's usually more than sufficient (except when I make way too many enchiladas). So I froze the extra enchiladas and we ate them for dinner tonight, about a month later... and I am happy to report that they came out quite tasty. I must do this more often for nights like this when it gets too late to cook a real meal.


The chicken situation was... interesting. I've always been much too intimidated by the thought of butchering a whole chicken to even try. (Plus, like I said, we don't actually have a real oven so I've never been sure if my kitchen could even actually handle cooking an entire chicken at one time.) During my last big grocery shopping trip, I bought a 5+ lb whole chicken marked down for quick sale to a little more than $2. I couldn't pass up a deal like that, so I bought it and stuck it in the freezer, thinking I would one day summon the confidence to tackle that bird. And tonight was the night. I came across a yummy sounding recipe for Tandoori baked chicken and thought this chicken would be perfect. So, I sharpened my knife (a scary task in itself), rolled up my sleeves, and found a very helpful Pampered Chef video tutorial on YouTube. I felt a lot like Amy Adams in Julie and Julia. And once I started, I actually enjoyed it. It was so satisfying that I wondered if I should be worried about latent maniacal tendencies. The chicken pieces were then put into a mixture of Greek yogurt and exotic spices to marinate overnight, which tomorrow night will hopefully become a somewhat edible version of Indian Tandoori-baked chicken, whipped up by the whitest girl you know.