Handy Andrew

In case you're wondering why I didn't label the post with the seemingly more obvious choice of "Handy Andy", it simply because no one calls Andrew "Andy".  It just wouldn't seem like I was talking about my husband!

So I'll start this off by saying this is an example of a rare occurrence where Andrew was right and I was wrong. Very rare.  He called me at work and told me he wanted to install a shelf on our sun porch for our plants...actually, he told me he had already bought the shelf.

I wasn't too keen on the idea of screwing something into our walls, as I told him, wouldn't it make more sense to get a cheap, short bookcase-type of furniture or a plant stand so we could move it around at will?

Andrew would not be swayed from his vision, and like all good husbands, sensed that it would be futile to change my mind over the phone and calmly ended the conversation.  Like all good attorneys, I think he had already had his persuasive argument planned out in his head for when we both got home at night.

This was the situation we were dealing with - due to Phu's green thumb and generosity in sharing plant clippings as well as a few potted vegetables we've been nurturing over the summer, our sun porch is overrun with plants.

Don't get me wrong, it's nice to sit out on the porch and be surrounded by the plants and the view of the park next door. It's just not so nice to have the only surface suitable for holding drinks covered with flower pots.

Andrew described his vision of where he would install a shelf and how he would do it and I gave him the all clear to move forward (admittedly, in a somewhat exasperated tone of voice).  The end result was beyond my expectations.

The shelf stretches perfectly from one end of the porch to the other, and is aligned to fit snugly under the existing window frame.

End result: a charming display for our plants, more sunlight for all of them and a tidy looking table that's ready for a plate and a drink.

As a side note, while I call them "our plants", they are truly Andrew's labor of love. He putters around each night watering them (if you look closely in this picture, you can see the teeny little green pepper growing on the plant Andrew's watering):

Clearly, they're flourishing under his care, as these two tomato plants demonstrate.  I just wish the plants would flourish enough to start producing some edible additions to our kitchen!



Time To Relax...

Today was another hectic day at work, and I ended up staying late to make sure I could finish up some work in preparation for being out of the office tomorrow for a training class and out Thursday for my cousin Jim's graduation. I was supposed to bring my computer home tonight (as I normally do) to finish up some work and realized I forgot it once I got home. No way was I going to do over an hour round trip to pick up the damn thing just to come home and work.
So I took it for a sign and relaxed tonight, and let Andrew serve me our first meal cooked on the new grill - burgers!

Unfortunately, all my pictures from the weekend are on the other laptop so the graduation party recap will have to wait until I'm reuninted with my laptop on Wednesday.

Tool Time: Toro Blower/Vacuum/Shredder

I thought I would take the time to share something I've been experiencing since we've moved in.

Andrew showing off yet another gadget that he's deemed necessary for the house and/or yard.

Note the look of glee on his face. I have to point out that I haven't seen him get this excited about wedding planning (except maybe the cake tasting portion of the process):

I believe this was about the point where he's promising me all that he can get done with a tool that has three different functions:

To his credit, he did manage to clean the deck and our paved backyard quite nicely over the weekend before we had family over for lunch.

For Camie

Milk tea (in a bottle). For the record, Andrew wasn't a fan, and switched back to coffee. And yes, that's Souboudai-mae in the background.

Andrew's First Hamburg Set

As Enoshima (the island) was mobbed with tourists - and to be honest, filled with scary seafood - we crossed the bridge back over to the mainland to grab a quick lunch at a city convenience restaurant (aka fast food) place that my dad had eaten at with Amy and Rich on a previous visit.


I don't ever remember seeing these restaurants when I lived in Japan, but I'm beginning to notice them everywhere, especially since there's now one in Machida. They're apparently known for their flavored potato fries, which was a little annoying when we were ordering. All we wanted was plain fries, and we couldn't explain that to the cashier with our limited language skills, so Andrew and my dad went with BBQ fries since that was the only recognizable flavor. I chose consumme, thinking the fries looked plain in the picture and I was pretty sure it was a type of French potato soup - in case you were wondering, the other flavors were hot chili, jagabata (apparently their most popular flavor but what the heck is it?), mental (?) butter and cheese. Unfortunately, everything was written in Japanese inside the restaurant, and we didn't see this sign with all the flavors until after we had ordered, otherwise I definitely would've gone for another flavor!


I was able to order one of my favorite sodas, C.C. Lemon, Andrew went with a Pepsi and my dad's beer somehow didn't make the order (they kept telling us it wasn't a part of the package meal and I kept trying to explain to them that we wanted to order a beer a la carte):

At first, Andrew looked horrified at what Japanese put on their hamburgers (just kidding, I just happened to catch him with an odd expression):

But after biting into the burger that was topped with cheese, bacon, an egg, tartar sauce and ketchup, he decided that it was edible:

All sets of the fries came in a bag doused with flavored powder that you were supposed to shake around. They were OK, but there was a little too much powder, and consumme kind of tasted like the chicken flavoring that comes with ramen.

Andrew had definitely noticed that there were a ton of Japanese restaurants offering "hamburgs" but now he truly had an understanding that these were not your typical American burger, especially in terms of toppings!

Dryer Drama

Here is the final resting place of my dearly departed dryer.

Yes, I know it looks gross. It died peacefully but my basement is old and grungy.

I worked from home yesterday in order to receive delivery of the new dryer I ordered from Best Buy. Here it is - are you wondering why it's sitting outside my basement door in the rain?

That's because we didn't measure the doorway before buying the dryer - doh! I thought I had bought the same model as my old dryer, but apparently not. The new dryer was exactly a 1/2 inch too big to fit through the basement door. While the Best Buy delivery men were able to take out my old dryer, they had to leave the new dryer at the foot of the outdoor stairs that lead to our basement:


They assured me that the dryer would fit through once the door was taken off but they couldn't do it themselves because of liability issues. I took a deep breath and crossed my fingers that Andrew would be able to figure it out when he got home.

Luckily, he was able to get the door off (with, ahem, a little help from me to hold the door steady):

Tada! The widened doorway with dryer missing...


...because Andrew was able to squeeze it through - he takes a moment to pose victoriously by the object of our frustration:

As for connecting it to the dryer vent...that's a whole 'nother story.

I long for warm, dry clothing.

Meet Andrew's New Friend

This is the same view of Andrew I've seen all evening - face down and intent on his iPhone. He doesn't even look up when I'm talking to him- just grunts enough in a distracted manner to pretend that he's following what I'm saying.

Got one smile when he figured out how to download his fantasy sports application:

What have I created? I'm starting to rethink this whole iPhone as a birthday gift thing.

Andrew's Birthday Celebration

Friday was a busy night for us, with Andrew's birthday to celebrate and a friend visiting from out of town.

First stop was Amy, Phu and Pete's place, where we cut into an excellent ice cream cake from Cabot's (the writing wasn't too pretty, but I watched the man pipe the frosting in front of me and I give him an "A" for effort) - the cake itself consisted of Heath bar ice cream, Jamoca Almond Fudge ice cream, gold cake, chocolate crunchies and whipped cream frosting:


Here's the birthday boy himself with his friend Pete visiting from Philly:


Jen was also out to help us celebrate, wearing (ahem) the lovely cardigan that was a birthday gift from me :)

Our first stop was Bleacher Bar, which is built into the side of Fenway:

Bleacher bar's claim to fame is a large window (just to the right of us in the picture) that looks out into the outfield of Fenway, which must be awesome during games. Unfortunately for us, the field lights were off that night:

At Jen's suggestion, we raised our spirits with a round of Alabama Slammers in toast of Andrew's birthday:


That's Andrew's expression after choking the very sweet shot down:

A few of us ordered food, and found the food to be mediocre. However, their homemade potato chips and pretzel sticks were pretty good:

Amy's club sandwich was gigantic - despite her evident glee in the picture, she wasn't a big fan of the sandwich:

We all had a good time introducing Pete (a Phillies fan) to the Fenway area:

Another odd feature of the Bleacher Bar is the fact that the men's room has a window that looks out into the rest of the restaurant. It was designed that way so men at the urinals would be facing the large window that looks out to Fenway. What it ends up being is a creepy, TMI look at men's faces when they are peeing. Case and point, Phu - who also, believe it or not, ended up mooning us through the window. I refused to take a picture in the hopes that it wouldn't call attention to him, and by some miracle, no one but our table noticed:

Andrew also mugged for the camera:

Next stop was Boston Beerworks. After hearing Amy promise to make him a scarf, Andrew decided to try on the scarf she made me to see how it would fit:

Our group was split between Boston Beerwork's blueberry and pumpkin beers but everyone seem satisfied with our choices:

We ended the night at Cornwalls, but alas, this blogger was much too tired at that point to take pictures. Needless to say, we all had a great time helping Andrew ring in his 28th year.

Happy Birthday Andrew!

Feeling like a mom sending her child off to school with birthday cupcakes, I asked Andrew what he wanted as his birthday treat for the office (not to be confused with his birthday treat for home - pumpkin bread). I did offer cupcakes but he opted for a birthday trifle and selected everything that went into it. This actually ended up being the second trifle I made this week, I had made one on Monday for a coworker, which might have put the idea in his head.

In the middle of layering the trifle, I paused to take a picture because the strawberries looked so pretty:


More strawberries were placed down on the layer of chocolate pudding, and where eventually covered by Cool Whip:


The final product had layers of chocolate cake, white chocolate pudding, chocolate pudding, chocolate syrup, heath bar bits, Cool Whip and strawberries, each layered twice:

The trifle ended up slightly overflowing the top, crammed with all the pudding goodness:

Considering that only four people are working today in Andrew's office, I think it's safe to say that there will be plenty of trifle left over!

More to come on Andrew's birthday festivities.

On a Short Hiatus

My apologies on the lack of posts, it's been a crazy week at work (including driving to Albany at 5 am this morning), on top of the stress I'm experiencing through the whole wedding planning/house hunting process. Add some family drama on top of that, and I'm ready to call in for a mental health day! I should be back to normal by the weekend, and rest assured, I have some interesting post ideas bouncing around my head!

A sign that sunny days are ahead, Andrew just found out today that he got a raise! :)

Mixed Berry Shortcake

After enjoying pizza from Sweet Tomatoes tonight for dinner, Amy threw together mixed berry shortcakes for us from things she picked up at Whole Foods.

Amy showcases her Raspberry, Blackberry and Strawberry shortcake topped with whipped cream while Andrew shows his appreciation for the treat:

Meet the Parents

Andrew has met my dad before, due to two previous business trips that he's taken. This trip marked the first time my mom has been back in the states in five years, thus, Andrew's first time meeting her.

Being the smart guy he is, he decided to surprise them both with gifts - I apologize for the blurriness of the photos, I need to fix the setting on my camera!

Here's my parents unwrapping their gifts - note the "masculine" tool gift bag for my dad:


My dad is pleased by his new Red Sox sweatshirt and the Jon Lester and Dustin Pedroia shirts that Andrew picked for him. My mom was very pleased to see the familiar box (or cylinder?) of a Swarovski crystal figurine:


My dad takes a closer look at the Chinese zodiac rabbit that Andrew picked for my mom.


First meeting with my mom - a success!!

Bribes will get you anything...

...including getting your boyfriend to pose for an embarrasing picture.

Andrew's in sore need of a haircut. He's getting one tomorrow from his favorite barber, Mario.

But tonight, after taking a shower and having his hair sticking straight up, I told him he reminded me of Brendan Fehr, an actor from one of my favorite TV shows, Roswell:



So in exchange for a promise to make his favorite snack, buttery popcorn (this isn't the microwave-type folks, I pop the seeds in a heavy-bottomed pot, melt butter, and drizzle it on top with plenty of salt), I got Andrew to pose in a slight pout to match the Brendan Fehr picture below:



Is it just me or is there a resemblance? I know it's faint and based on hair, but still? As a loyal girlfriend, I have to say Andrew is much cuter and looks better in a suit to boot!

Andrew Is Handy To Have Around

I do appreciate Andrew's presence on a daily basis. But I have to say, he really distinguished himself in my eyes today.

Those of you who've visited my place know that my bathroom faucet has had a leak for an infinetly long amount of time.

Andrew took it upon himself to figure out how to fix it by doing some research, in the form of asking his Dad what to do and looking up directions on the Internet. I had gotten as far as doing this myself a year ago but ended up getting intimidated by the complexity of this supposedly "simple" task.

I have to admit, I was a little skeptical at first, but was encouraged by the fact that Andrew was able to figure out how to turn off the water supply to the house.

Next, he brought my meager supply of tools up to the bathroom to take apart the faucet:













After a short side trip to buy a wrench at Walgreens, Andrew was able to successfully take the stem out from the faucet:













He picked out the replacement at Lowe's (and we bought an extra stem in case both handles needed to be replaced):

Mission successful! Turns out, it was just the cold handle that was leaking. It's made an immediate difference in the bathroom - no leaking obviously and it's so easy to turn off the water now. I didn't realize how hard I had been turning the handles in the past year until I compared it to how little effort it takes to turn it off now.

See, no leak! Just ignore the water damage and how grimy my sink is looking at the moment.

I can't tell you how thrilled I am at the fact that Andrew's hard work paid off. Poor guy doesn't realize that he's slowly cementing his status as my handy man around the house now!