Nerds sharing too many MTG RSS posts

Name: Nerd RSS Feed
Cost: 3UU
Type: Enchantment – Curse
Rules Text: Nerd RSS Feed enchants any nerds in play, causing them to share too many MTG posts in Google Reader. Add an Ignore counter to any non-nerd creature each round.
Illus. Eric Deschamps
Rarity: Common
Set Number: #112/155

The Chronic’ WHAT ‘cles of Buying a House

Well, it’s been a few months since we posted last, and for that I am sorry.  Ben and I are in the middle of a house hunt, and put an offer on a house this week, only to find out today that they rejected our offers.  From now on I’ll be chronicling our house hunt here so those of you who will go through this at some point can see the roller coaster this process takes you on.

We started looking about a year ago, but when we got engaged and started planning for the wedding, our priorities changed.  We took several months off, but always kept an eye on the listings to see if something would strike our fancy.  The first few months were rough.  We went to see houses, and always found problems with them that made us shy away from them.  Things like crooked floors, leaky basements, or an acre of land that was mostly swamp.  The good thing about this process is that now we know what we want.  It’s just a matter of finding the house that is for us.

We’re pretty much settled on the fact that we want at least an acre of land, so we can raise goats/chickens/bees and have a garden, as well as fun space for any human children that may come into the picture in the future.  We know we hate ranches, split entry houses, and we need some privacy from our neighbors so the goats/chickens/bees/children don’t bother anybody.  We don’t like cookie cutter houses, and want something that has its quirks, just like Ben and I have our own quirks.  Most importantly, is the price of the house.  We’re looking at homes slightly above our budget with the hopes that we can make a lower offer and have nice, motivated sellers that would accept it.  After several months we found a few houses we’ve liked, but with unmotivated sellers or properties that don’t pique our curiosity, we hadn’t put down an offer.  Until this week.

About a month ago we came across this property in Littleton, MA (where 495 and rte 2 cross one another).  It’s a really cute little town, but this property is on the outskirts, not too close to the town common.  It was an old schoolhouse, with just the kinds of quirks we liked, lots of land, and just the right amount of bedrooms and living space.  We even had my father come by to do a pre-inspection of the property to see what his instinct could tell us.  This week we decided to put an offer on it, with lots of careful conversations and lots of planning.  We knew the seller’s asking price was too high, it was just a matter of figuring out how high we thought it was so that we could make the best educated guess of an offer we could.

The first step was to make sure we had a solid picture in our head of the property.  We made a list of all pros and cons about the property, and ended up with a really big list of pros, but also a list of cons, many of which would require putting money into the house.  Things like the house needing new insulation, or a vapor barrier in the basement were at the top of the list.  We also looked at listings of neighboring houses to see what they recently sold for.  We looked at the pictures of these houses and found that they had other things that our Littleton house was lacking.  By this point we were convinced that we had to offer significantly lower than the current asking price of the home.  The house has been on the market for nearly 8 months and they hadn’t had a single offer yet.  We thought we had a good shot at getting a house we really liked.

Well, apparently the sellers don’t have the same idea, and our counter offer to their counter offer has been rejected.  The owners aren’t very motivated (they don’t live there and have tenants paying them each month), and in the 8 months they’ve only lowered the price of the house $10,000.  Their counter offer was only $10,000 less than what the current listing price is.

I guess this was a good learning experience for us.  We know that there’s no shot in HELL that they’ll sell the house to us now, but at least we learned a lot of valuable analytic skills when it comes to buying houses.  We’re also aware that house owners like their houses a lot and always think they’re worth more, but that isn’t going to stop me!  We want to find a house that fits all of our needs, but also doesn’t break the bank. At this rate we won’t even find another house that fits our criteria for 2-3 more weeks.  Wish us luck for next time!

 

 

 

 

 

What we learned in Peru…

1.  Jen’s pinky finger fits perfectly in Ben’s ear.

2. It’s possible for a man under 5 feet to carry someone almost 6 feet tall down a mountain.

3. Don’t drink the dirty water.

4. Drivers in Peru, but mostly Lima, are clinically insane.

5. You can’t go anywhere without seeing people and they stay out ALL night and day.

6. We, in the USA, are very wealthy.

7. Need a prescription?  No problem!  (doctors not needed).

8. Bring toilet paper EVERYWHERE.

9. It’s possible for dogs to not care when new people are around.

10. Llamas have sexy legs.

Sexy Lama legs!

Thanks!!! <3

We’re finally getting back into the swing of normal life without wedding planning and would like to give everybody who helped out a HUGE thank you for everything that was done.  We were impressed to see how beautiful the tables were and loved every minute of the wedding.

First and foremost I want to thank the Adams family for providing such a beautiful location for our wedding reception.  They were so welcoming and giving I really couldn’t thank them enough.  When we first got engaged we couldn’t imagine a wedding anywhere else than Van Hornesville, and by allowing us to celebrate there you made our wish come true.  Thanks for your kindness, Walter and Shirley, and to the rest of your family.  We’ll never forget your generosity!

Thanks to all the girls (and Stewart) for making the cupcakes!  I don’t know what we would have done without you!  The biggest thanks goes out to Emily who skipped out on a lot of the activities to make the delicious key lime cupcakes.

Thanks to all of the aunties and uncles and to Bronwen and Dassance for helping set up the tent and Carriage House!  Everything was gorgeous and more beautiful than we expected.

Thanks to Jen’s mom and dad who helped with so many things, including growing the flowers, making the wine, and creating all of the flower arrangements.  They even drove around Van Hornesville in the last few minutes before the wedding to pick wildflowers to supplement the already beautiful flowers.

Thanks to all of our bridesmaids and groomsmen for all of your help.  We loved all the drinks you brought us.  Eric and Becky, your speeches were wonderful and very very entertaining.

Thank you to Ned, for being such a good master of ceremonies.  The wedding ceremony was perfect and just what we hoped for.

Thanks to Ben’s parents for planning such a great rehearsal dinner.  The food was amazing and plentiful!  What a perfect location to eat and have fun with all of our friends and family, even if the weather conditions were cold and windy  It was still super fun!

And finally, thank you to all of our loving friends and family not mentioned above.  The super fun reception wouldn’t have been nearly as fun and filled with dancing without you.  We loved that each and every one of you could make it and had such a great time.  We wish we could throw a party like that every year!

We’re heading off to Peru on Wednesday and will be posting updates on our blog whenever possible.  Keep your eyes peeled for iphone pictures as we’re not taking the laptop this time around.  Real photos will be posted when we return.

Last Minute Wedding Update!!

Hi friends and family!  This will probably be the last blog post before the wedding so enjoy it for all it’s worth!  Just an upfront warning, you will see lots of exclamation points and incoherrant rambling (due to my brain being filled with all things WEDDING). If that makes you nauseous, read no further. And lastly, we wish that all of our friends and family in the entire world could be there to celebrate with us and we will really miss everybody not there with us.

Over the past few days things have been winding down, but we have been able to fit in a little fun as well!  My wonderful girl friends and sisters (yup, already calling Emily my sister) threw me a wicked fun bachelorette party.  Thank you so much for a night filled with delicious food, tasty girly drinks, and tons of laughs and happiness.  I am so glad you could turn a stressful week into one of my most fun weeks ever.  I can’t wait to see you all next weekend!  Currently Ben is away for his bachelor party and I am sure his friends are having a nice relaxing weekend on the lake.  Enjoy it honey…this is the LAST time you’ll ever have this much fun with your friends!!!  Married life begins in T-6 days

After about 9 months of planning, almost everything is all set.  This means on Sunday there will actually be food to savor, music to dance to, and drinks to help our guests dance better than they already can!  It’s hard to believe there is less than a week left and I know it is going to go by fast.  We are leaving for Van Hornesville on Wednesday morning, we’ll meet the guy setting up the tent, and from there things are just going to get rolling.  Ben’s parents also leave on Wednesday, followed by my family on Thursday.  Our first friends arrive on Friday and I can only imagine that we’re going to have 3 straight days of partying with everyone around.   What else might you need to know before you leave for upstate NY?

• The weather is going to be on the cool side.  The weather predictions say it’s going to be around 65 so bring a sweater or wrap to keep warm!  The tent will have sides if it’s too cold, and you can go into the carriage house, but neither will be heated in the evening.
• There is a pool that we will be able to enjoy with us and there is a lake at our rehearsal dinner.  Don’t forget your suits!  Also at the rehearsal dinner there are fields for playing in.  You should bring frisbees or wiffle ball sets.  Also, get ready for some games of “Ninja” which we learned at Eric and Clarissa’s wedding.
• If you have a cooler, we can probably use it!  Would you mind bringing one for us to borrow?
• If you are looking to meet up with other people in the area for our wedding, or would like to set up a hiking trip up the creek (I know Amy might be interested!) post a comment here or on Facebook to find others who want to go too.  There are tons of really amazing things to do outdoors and I am hoping many of you can take advantage of the outdoor beauty.

We can’t wait to see you all and spend a wonderful weekend with everybody we love.  See you soon!

C is for Cupcakes!

Wow- it’s been a long time since I last posted here.  Ben and I have been extremely busy with wedding planning, work, and other peoples’ weddings.  For our own wedding, we’ve accomplished a TON of tasks lately and it really feels good to have so much finished, however after attending Eric and Clarissa’s wedding, it became very clear that we are nowhere near finished!

Before we left for California Ben and I worked on our invitations and favors.  The invitations were designed by Ben, and I proofread and edited them.  He’s a bit more talented when it comes to using Illustrator.  I think we got what we wanted in the end!  The invitations were printed on Fino Cream paper from Paper Source, and stuck onto a Pool backing.  Inside we included directions and a map as well as a little postcard for RSVPs.  We left a space blank for our guests to write an Exclamation! (ad lib style) and have gotten back some great responses!  We love all of you!

After returning from Eric and Clarissa’s wedding (which was beautiful!) I decided it was time to get down to business.  My sister and I made cupcakes and cookies today!  We tried a revamp of the key lime cupcakes and I am happy to proclaim that these are a success!  First, I made my own cake mix, which is very easy, and probably a  lot cheaper.  (All recipes are posted below.)  We added the normal oil, water and eggs to the mix, but threw in some key lime juice and zest for flavoring.  Key limes are so delicious!  They’re so tiny and cute that you know they must be tasty.  Once they came out of the oven we let them cool for an hour.  This is key in order to make the filling work.  The filling is just sweetened condensed milk and lime juice.  To insert the filling, this time we skipped the pastry bag and went for the big guns– a cookie press gun. I don’t know why I did the following, but in order to prime the gun and make sure there weren’t bubbles I started pulling the trigger, but didn’t think about what would happen when the air was gone.  I shot a nice stream of key lime filling straight across the kitchen.  We were entertained by the line of white creamy filling covering my kitchen floor.  Oh, how I love vinyl flooring….  After the mess was cleared we put the cupcakes in the fridge for awhile to let the filling chill.  Becky and I both thought it would be better to frost them once the filling had set.

Then it was time to test the cupcakes...YUM!

Success!  We now know which two recipes we’re going to serve at our wedding.  The only thing left is to figure out the cherry filling for the chocolate cupcakes.  Hey you chefs out there– have any suggestions for me?

I am also making spritz cookies for the wedding.  So far, I’ve made two kinds- cream cheese sugar cookies, and baby chocolate chip cookies.  They’ve both turned out pretty good, but I think I am going to need more variety for the wedding.  What kinds of cookies tickle your fancy?  I have 7 weeks to make as many cookies as possible so don’t hold back, folks!

Without Further Ado here are the recipes:

KEY LIME CUPCAKES
1 large lime, scrubbed (for 1 teaspoon zest and 2 tablespoons juice)
4 eggs
1 package (18.25 ounces) plain yellow cake mix or 2 cups of your homemade mix (see recipe below)
1 package (3.4 ounces) vanilla instant pudding mix
1 1/4 cups water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon coconut flavoring (optional)

FILLING
1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk
1/3 cup Key lime juice

CAKE MIX
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoons baking powder
1/2 cup Crisco
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
2/3 teaspoons salt

CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup milk

Stop Being so Picky!

As many of you know, I used to be very, very, very picky.  Over the years I’ve been overcoming my fears of trying new foods, or foods with weird textures and funny smells.  Meeting Ben was something that really helped since his father is a chef and makes all kinds of foods that I had never been exposed to.

So here I am today, once again a vegetarian, about to go on a trip to a foreign country where the food is guaranteed to be totally different from what I am used to.  Ben always thought that my biggest problem travelling would be the food since I was so picky.  Well, we’re going to Peru, and word is that they cook lots of strange things, from Guinea Pigs to Quinoa.  I’ve done some research and talked to people who also say that they cook a lot of corn in many different ways, and I love corn.  But what about those other things?  Quinoa?  Small rodents?  I can safely say I will not have the Guinea Pigs, since I don’t eat meat now, but quinoa I can deal with.

Quinoa is a pseudo-grain that you cook like rice (you eat the seeds).  Ben and I have been experimenting with it over the past few months, and are slowly getting used to it.  It comes from Peru so there will be tons of it on our honeymoon.  It’s really really healthy for you and has tons of protein, so for a veggie like me you can’t get anything better!  Since I am not a big fan of tofu quinoa and beans are perfect!  It’s so tasty and can be eaten hot or cold.

This is our quinoa! It looks yummy

Here’s a recipe we made last night:

2 cups quinoa

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 shallot, minced (I had none, so I used scallions from the Farmer’s Market instead)
3 pounds asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces (Fresh Hadley Grass I got this weekend!!)
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme  (Again, no thyme, so I added my own spices)
8 ounces feta, crumbled (ok…we had nothing.  Not even feta, so I used goat cheese instead)
Juice of 1 lemon

1. Bring 4 cups of water and 1/4 teaspoon salt to a boil in medium saucepan. When the water boils, add the quinoa and stir. Cover and reduce the heat to low. Cook until the quinoa has absorbed all the water, 15-20 minutes. Set aside covered for 10 minutes, then fluff with a fork.

2. Meanwhile, prep the rest of the ingredients. Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. When it’s hot and shimmering, stir in the shallot. Cook, stirring often, until the shallot is light brown, 5-7 minutes.

3. Add the asparagus and thyme and cook, stirring often, until the asparagus is tender but still bright green, 8-10 minutes. (Add a tablespoon or so of water halfway through cooking to steam the asparagus a little).

4. When the asparagus is done, remove the pan from the heat. Stir in the quinoa, then the crumbled feta, lemon juice and remaining tablespoon of olive oil. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Edit: I forgot to mention that there is a restaurant in Union Square called Machu Picchu that we want to try.  Who’s in?

Franconia Ridge

We did it…again!  2 years ago we hiked Franconia Ridge and I swore I was never going to hike it again.  It was a very difficult 9 mile hike and it took us 9+ hours to hike it.  Since we’re determined to hike to Macchu Pichu for our honeymoon, when our friends asked if we wanted to hike it again we said, “SURE!!!”

Luckily, this time around it was a much more pleasant experience.  We did it in an amazing 6 hours and 40 minutes for a group of 18 of us!  Congrats to everybody who did the hike this year!  You rock

We’re pretty happy to have made it because even though there were some really hard parts, we kept pushing on and made it to the end for the second time!  We didn’t know it at the time but when we hiked Franconia Ridge 2 years ago I had a heart condition that probably made it more difficult to hike.  We’re happy to say that it’s been a year since my condition was cured and it was very obvious from this weekend’s hike that I’m healthier than ever and can accomplish anything!

The only bad thing about the hike is that we left with tons of bug bites.  My neck is covered, there is  one near my eye, and Ben has several on his legs.  When will the itching go away?  I have to admit, I was warned in a forum about the black flies, but we were still totally unprepared.  I suppose this is a warning to make sure we’re prepared for the Andes.  Who knows what kinds of bugs we’ll encounter in Peru?

Preparing for Machu Picchu

Ben and I have decided that we will be hiking to Machu Picchu for our honeymoon.  That means we have a lot of preparing to do.  Not only do we have to go out and get hiking/camping supplies, but we also have to get in shape.  The road to Machu Picchu is called the Inca Trail.  The part of the Inca trail that we will hike was built to provide the Incas with “easy” routes to Machu Picchu.  It goes through all kinds of environments including a cloud forest (sounds cool to me!).  Most of the trail is a neatly groomed path made hundreds of years ago.  That sounds easy, right?  Well, the trail goes anywhere from 13,000 to 15,000 feet above sea level.  For those of you that hiked with us on Franconia Ridge, that was only around 5,000 as is Mt. Washington.  Altitude sickness is definitely a possibility!

There’s nothing you can do for altitude sickness, but in preparation of the 4 days of hiking the Andes, Ben and I are trying to follow a strict exercise routine.  We’re trying to go to the gym and do the stairs every day possible.  On the Inca Trail, where they couldn’t build a path because of the steepness, they carved steep stairs into the side of the mountains.  We have to prepare ourselves for days of climbing stairs.

In addition to going to the gym (or playing softball or ultimate) we’re going on hikes most weekend.  Since the Fells are close, we’ve been going there, but there isn’t too much challenging terrain there.  We’ll be visiting the Blue Hills, and also want to plan a Mt. Washington trip this summer (who’s in???).

Yesterday we went to the Fells and it must have been Lady Slipper bloom weekend.  Lady Slippers are orchids (I love orchids!!!).  They had been in steep decline because they are such a unique flower.  Like all orchids, the actual flowers are unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.  Here’s the first one I saw in the Fells.

It was so amazing to see this growing in the wild.  My dad showed them to me when I was a kid, and ever since then I have been searching for them in the woods.  They were so mysterious for several years…then we ran into this

Holy Cow! So many Lady Slippers!

I was soooo surprised to see so many in one group.  Little did I know that we would see HUNDREDS that day!  Almost everywhere we looked we found groups of 10-20 Lady Slippers.  I was so excited and will never forget the experience.  It made me really excited for all of the plants we might see in the Peruvian Andes.  What kinds of plants grow there?  What are the really special plants to look out for?  What is poisonous?  What can we eat?  I’m so excited to learn the answers to all of these questions.  I’m such a nerd.

Ben was a Lumberjack

For a few months, Ben had been working very very hard and for many many hours per day/week/month…it was rough for all of us.  In this period of stress, Ben thought it would be a good idea to grow out his beard and hair.  He looked like a lumberjack.   Thankfully, he shaved, but don’t worry.  He says he’ll grow it back in time for Eric and Clarissa’s wedding, just hopefully not this big!

Before and After

What do you think Ben should do for our wedding?  I’m thinking somewhere in the middle will be good