also!

Just to brag a little, I went to yoga last night and left Brandon a cryptic post-it note on the fridge which read, "Gone to yoga. Back at 7. Start dinner please!"

We had talked that morning about the fact that we'd gotten the ground beef out of the freezer to thaw. We planned to use half of it for burgers, half for stuffed peppers. I thought for sure he'd go the burger route.

He didn't. He dug through three cookbooks (only going for the Joy of Cooking last?) to find a recipe and made those stuffed peppers from scratch!

He complained they were a little bland. I said they just needed a touch of salt to be brilliant.

it's a good thing

A few good things from the desk of me:

• Wegottaeat.com – Since the dawn of the personal computer (or thereabouts), I have been searching for a recipe organization program I could love. I have tried several, loved none. My biggest pet peeve? The TIME it takes to enter each recipe, and the fact that most programs make you enter quantities in decimals rather than standard fractions (ie: 0.66 cups instead of 2/3 cups). I save recipes from all over the place, frequently found on the web, and the last thing I want to do is re-type everything when I feel like a simple cut and paste ought to suffice. Enter We Gotta Eat recipe manager. The smart cookies developing this site (still in beta) realize that a lot of times you just want to copy and paste, and have made it easy for you to do so. Also, it looks like it's got a social function, whereby if your friends are also members, you can share recipes. Cool.
  
  (I'm already drooling over Cookbook, one of three winners of the "My Dream App" competition, but until it is released, wegottaeat.com has my vote.)
  
  
• Epicurious has a redesigned website that kicks booty, while we're on the subject of recipes.
  
  
• Gaim.com – The community portion of this site has tons of great articles about living well, living whole, living green.
  
  
• Just found out that this lunchbag is on sale at reusablebags.com — I'm totally buying two right now!
  
  
• Bought one of these Chico Bags at Vitamin Cottage a couple of months ago, and I cannot TELL you how handy it is. I keep it in my purse at all times and use it whenever I'm buying just a few things that don't REALLY need a plastic bag. The best part is that It is really easy to stuff back into its carrying pocket — a must for collapsible bags like this.

fooffera

I think I'm finally coming out of my wedding hangover. It went well, Emily was amazingly beautiful, as always, and I found out that not only is Matt a fine dancer, he's a heckuva singer as well. ;)

If you haven't already seen them, there are a few, mostly blurry, pictures on my fickr page.

Tonight, the hubby and I are going to see "The Little Mermaid" at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House. I'm kind of interested, because apparently, based on how this six-week run goes, the show could change dramatically between its run here and its opening on Broadway in December. I'll have to let you guys know what I think. Actually, I'm angling to write a sort of pre-review of it for the winter NYC guide book here at work. We'll see if that pans out.

~*~

Last Friday, I went to my first ever baseball game. Truth be told? It was kind of boring. But as my friend Jeff put it, you don't go to a baseball game for the baseball. We were actually there to support my coworker, Mikey, who won an American Idol-style contest to get to sing the national anthem, and she ROCKED. You can download a recording here if you'd like to listen. Unfortunately, the Cubs beat the Rockies rather soundly, but we had great seats, decent stadium food, and lots of fun with drunken coworkers. Good times.

~*~

I'm reading the most awesome book called "Eat, Pray, Love," and it's beautiful and may be changing my life. It's made me want to take up yoga again and maybe learn to meditate, and I've found an ashram south of Boulder that sounds perfect for both. Of course, what REALLY sounds perfect is a week-long yoga retreat up in the mountains, but I don't see that happening any time soon. Maybe for Christmas...

~*~

On the subject of vacations, however, the husband and I have booked three nights in Vail for our anniversary/Labor Day weekend. I'm v. excited. Apparently, it is also the Vail Jazz Festival and Gourmet Festival weekend, which sounds delightful. They're doing a sale thing for the end of the summer, so we got a pretty swank hotel room for $81.50 per night — because Vail is at 8,150 feet above sea level.