A Manly Post

Okay, so I messed up and I'm going to have to push the post about my project to Friday. In the mean time I decided to share a blog that I've been enjoying. It's called The Art of Manliness.

The Art of Manliness is a blog who's purpose is to inject a shot of adrenaline into the chest of the lazy, beer guzzling, sweats wearing, couch potato that is today's modern man. Now, I don't want you to think that if you're not a man you can't get anything out of this blog. There is so much useful content here that you could probably read for days and still find useful tips, fascinating facts, and life changing philosophies.

One of the articles that I have enjoyed is called: Willpower Part III: How to Strengthen Your Willpower and 20 Ways to Conserve It. The whole site is basically about bettering yourself, and this article focuses on how to strengthen your willpower so you don't find yourself giving into the various temptations that you might be trying to avoid (i.e. spending too much money, eating to excess, etc.).

I'm also reading the accompanying book. It goes through a man's life and lays out all the things he should know. It addresses how to behave toward women, how to be a good friend, fashion, parenthood, being an outdoorsman, learning to be a leader, etc. It's not the end-all be-all, but it's been an enjoyable read so far.

If you're a man, check it out. It'll make your chest swell with pride to be a man. If you're a woman, check it out anyway. Maybe it will help you understand men better. Or if you thought we were all hopeless maybe this will show you that we're gradually pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps from what we've let ourselves fall to and shaking our collective fists at the stereotypes that we have come to be known for. Either way, enjoy.

The Monkey Wrench

I'm disappointed to say that today's post will not be about my recently finished project. Unfortunately I forgot that all of my pictures were on my camera instead of my phone where I thought they were. I don't have time to get all the pictures uploaded and everything done today, but I will post it this week. I think I'm excited about it because not only am I pretty pleased with how it turned out but I also learned something new and that's always exciting. I don't want to say what it is but I will give you a hint and say that it's made of leather. So, if you're interested in some simple leather working stay tuned.

I can, however, update you with what I did over the weekend. On Saturday we went to the farmer's market in Ashland. We got some strange looking eggplants and some golden zucchini among other things. The crepe truck was there which was really cool. We decided to get something because... it's a crepe truck! We got a crepe with blueberries and mascarpone cheese and ate it on a park bench in the shade. It was very good and we had a nice time.

We picked up our new sink and then went to meet some friends. We ate at Q Barbecue and then hung out at the mall for a while. If you've never been to Q I would definitely recommend it. Their barbecue is delicious and you absolutely cannot leave without trying their hushpuppies. We ended the night over at my parents house for the usual Saturday night family dinner.

Sunday we ran in the morning and then went to Goodwill to get me some shorts! Actually we went to get me some pants that I could turn into shorts. Seriously, I've been wanting some new shorts, but I think spending upwards of $30 on shorts is ridiculous. So I found this nice pair of Dockers (they're so nice I might cry a little when I cut them) for $2.50! Maybe I'll blog about those later. We also found a nice 4 piece set of Fiestaware with 4 place settings for $10! If you don't get why that's incredible look up how much Fiestaware costs.

After our typical weekend grocery shopping we grabbed some movies and went home to relax. I had decided earlier that I wanted breakfast for dinner so I made roasted rosemary potatoes and eggs (which we had gotten from the farmer's market) with diced green peppers, mushrooms, and onions. My wife made a delicious peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream. (I hope there are still some leftovers when I get home) To cap the night off we watched John Carter. I really enjoyed the movie and would definitely recommend it to anyone. It's a fun action movie that's sort of like Star Wars and Indiana Jones put together.

Sorry about the lack of pictures of this weekend. I didn't think about taking pictures of the cobbler or anything until after we had decimated it. Did you have a good father's day weekend?

New Acquisitions

So, I guess this is my end of the week post. What have I been up to this whole week? It's actually been pretty productive. I've gotten projects finished and started on new projects (will post more about that next week). I went on a little date with my wife to Sweet Frog last night. We also went to a couple antique junk stores and made some purchases. We have recently been looking at getting a toy kitchenette set because our little guy loves playing in the sink and running around the kitchen opening all of the cabinets, pulling out all of the pots, pans, Tupperware, etc. We were inspired by blogs like this to make our own. We ran into a "snag" though when we saw this kitchen at Hickory Creek Antiques in Ashland.

We loved the idea of a DIY kitchen set but it was so adorably vintage that we just had to get it. It didn't hurt that it was also only $15!

It's a little dirty, but we're going to clean it up and see what we can make of it. If we can't clean it up as much as we want to we might have to paint it. That's alright though.

Before the excitement passed from that purchase we found this sweet sink at Thrill of the Hunt.

It definitely needs some work but we got it for a steal. I've never refinished a piece of furniture before so this might be the first one I tackle. We'll see though because I already have a rocking chair waiting to be redone. We're picking this one up after the farmer's market tomorrow since we didn't have room in the car.

I know there's plenty that happened this week that I've missed, but this is what's on my mind as well, as a preview of a couple things that might make future appearances on the blog. Speaking of future blogs I can't wait to make my project post for next week. Did you do anything fun this past week?

Have a happy Father's Day weekend everyone! Do you have any special plans?

Release the Kraken! Dessert Style

If you're friends with me on Facebook you might know that I got a bottle of Kraken Rum for my birthday. I was pretty excited about it, but aside from being used to make my birthday tiramisu (which my wife made and was awesome!) nothing much has been done with it. The other night we were discussing dessert possibilities for the night and my wife suggested I try to make a drink version of Bananas Foster. Turns out that was an awesome idea!

I've never actually had Bananas Foster before (it's on my list of things to experience) but I got this recipe from the restaurant that claims to have invented the dish so I would hope it was accurate. I'm just posting the ingredients list here since the steps don't apply.

¼ cup (½ stick) butter

1 cup brown sugar

½ teaspoon cinnamon

¼ cup banana liqueur

4 bananas, cut in half lengthwise, then halved

¼ cup dark rum

4 scoops vanilla ice cream

Because I was making more of a blended beverage I just used the recipe as a guide for what ingredients I needed. I also unfortunately didn't have any vanilla ice cream. While my results were delicious I'm going to assume they would be even more so with some quality vanilla ice cream.

I put in one banana, some milk (eyeball it), somewhere around two teaspoons of brown sugar (be generous, it's delicious), maybe a half teaspoon of cinnamon, and a shot of rum in the blender, along with a few ice cubes and blended until it was smooth. It shouldn't take that long. Pretty much as soon as the ice is blended it's done. You should have about a serving and half... or one serving if you're greedy like me.

I wish I had something to use as a garnish to make it more attractive but just trust me, it was delicious. I'm not going to claim this tastes like Bananas Foster, since I wouldn't know anyway but I fully enjoyed it. If you decide to give it a try let me know. Did you do anything differently? Do you have any other favourite boozy or banana themed desserts?

Starting Off

So this is new to me.

Not the sharing what I like to do with my time part, that's not new. I'm pretty good about talking about myself. Maybe too good.

No, the part that's new to me is putting myself on some sort of schedule where I share what I've been up to. But I guess that's what I'm going to do. Hopefully this will be interesting to others while also helping me to stay disciplined and get things done. For me to blog about something I have to have done something, right?

So to get this going I'll start with a project my wife and I started a little while back. We decided we wanted to make a forray into the gardening arena with a raised bed garden. Why a raised bed garden? No tilling required. No digging in hard ground. Better weed control. Less back ache. No worrying about what type of soil is in your backyard. We checked various helpful DIY websites (google "raised bed garden" and you'll get plenty of good information) gleaned what we needed and set to work.

Materials needed:
4 - 18" long 2x4s
4 - 4' long 2x12s
32 - 3" #10 wood screws
1 - 4'x4' section of tough mesh (I'll explain)
16cu ft of soil

Tools:
Drill
Clamps or a second pair of hands
Post hole digger
Shovel
Wheelbarrow (optional)


When it comes to the wood there are several options out there. The most obvious and inexpensive is treated lumber. If you want wood that hasn't been chemically treated but will still hold up to the elements you can use redwood or cedar, but it can be expensive. We wanted this to be a natural, organic garden so we had to compromise on the wood a little to keep it inexpensive. We went with an untreated "regular" lumber. It should last us a year or two, which is actually pretty perfect considering our current living situation isn't permanent anyway.


The first thing I did was mark my wood and pre-drill the holes. (The two holes on the edge needed to be further apart)

I promise these lines are straight. I think I took the pictures at a weird angle.

The 2x4s get attached flat to one end of the 2x12 giving more surface area to attach the next 2x12 to.

It's important to stagger the holes on the 2x4s so your screws don't run into each other. You don't want the holes on the 2" side to line up with the holes on the 4" side.

First I attached one 2x4 post to the end of each board. Then I used clamps to hold the sides together as I attached them to each other.

Voila! Once it was all together I moved it to the nice spot that my wife had prepared for it. She "tilled" it as best as possible with a rake and shovel. The main purpose was just to try and clear away any ground cover to keep it from growing through. I marked where the posts would go, moved the frame aside, and used a post hole digger to give myself a blood blister, er, I mean, to dig the holes for the posts.

It's a good idea to use some sort of mesh material under your soil to keep out small burrowing animals. Hardware fabric, wire mesh, or small chicken wire will work. I used chicken wire and just laid it down before I put the dirt in.


Depending on how you get your dirt you might need a wheelbarrow or a shovel. We bought organic soil at the hardware store and just dumped it in. The wheelbarrow still helped in getting it from the truck, but we didn't even need a shovel.
The soil was so loose and soft that we planted everything by hand as well.

Here is it after a couple weeks worth of growth. We have eggplant, purple peppers, sweet banana peppers, roma tomatoes, and jubilee tomatoes. I'm pretty sure we're a little overloaded, but we'll just have to cross our fingers. The next step is to get some bamboo or something and tie the tomato plants to them. That should help keep them to themselves and not overrunning everything else.

We put it next to the playground so the boy can play while we tend.

Hopefully this wasn't too ridiculously long. I hope it was helpful or at least somewhat entertaining and that you will have success in your own gardening adventures! Feel free to share any tips or tricks you've found that work well.