Blogging Facelift

I have begun using Wordpress for my blog, and it has moved: to the.olfelts.com

This is mostly because I kept forcing my web developing husband to create new templates for this blog and he convinced me that the changes would take place faster if I switched to the more flexible Wordpress blog hosting. And here we are. I hope you will follow me.

the.olfelts.com

A Month in Pictures

"Last post: September 18th"
Whoops. When did September get away from me? It has been a fabulous month around here with fun date activities, friends coming to visit, and recipes being baked. Here is our month (and then some) in review:

State Fair:
I meant to make a whole entry about our time at the state fair - so many Minnesotan stereo-types to analyze - but that was right about when life picked up for us and the day after the fair I started my full time job. Did we have loads of fun at the so-called "Great Minnesota Get Together" ? You becha we did. We saw log rollers and tractors and live music, doncha know. It was quite the hoot. :) Walker Art Park Date:
In our desperate attempt to be a hip young Twin Cities couple, Dan and I have been perusing the local artsy-fartsy places. One such place is the modern art/sculpture park near the art museum downtown. On a Friday evening after work, Dan and I swung by KFC for some to-go meals - the epitome of classy - and brought them to the park for a picnic. As we strutted our "watch-out Minneapolis elite, here we come" stuff... we posed for a few pics, model style.
This picture is not supposed to be rotated, but I kid you not, Blogger won't let me post it normal. Let's call it modern art, shall we?
Pearl Loves the New Digs:
Enough said.
DIY Sushi:
I. love. sushi. However, sushi doesn't like my budget, so in true Olfelt fashion we decided to make our own for cheaper. Enter 45 minutes at the local Asian grocery store (United Noodle Co.) trying to read characters foreign to us, and $40 later we had enough food to make sushi for a large army (thanks to a little hands on help from our friends the Germanns). We learned a lot and there are many changes we decided we will make next time, and there will be a next time seeing as how we still have nori, wasabe, and masago coming out our ears.My First Pumpkin Pie:
I used the Betty Crocker cookbook recipe for Pumpkin Pie - well, sort of. I put in the wrong size can of evaporated milk (called for 5oz, put in 12oz... that's a boo boo) and after realizing this, I was sure what would come out of the oven would be more pudding in a crust than pie. In fact, the pie looked and tasted (mostly) right! Who knew!? I'm not recommending it per se, but if you're fast to cook and slow to check directions as I am, things can still work out in your favor from time to time.To top it all off, I was a Costco a week later and had a sample of their in store bakery's pumpkin pie. Suffice it to say that I'm never trying my hand at pumpkin pie again. Why re-invent the wheel when your version of the wheel turns out soupy and there's a Pirelli* vendor just up the street?

I feel like I've left a lot of updates out... for example the entire genre of house projects. I have some more pictures to take around here and I'll get those up soon! Furnaces and frame collages and vanities, oh my!

*Pirelli: the type of car tire my dad used to make me put on my BMW

Falling in Love

Lately I've been thinking a lot about:

apple picking, the smell of fall, cool and crisp days, pumpkin carving, hot apple cider, scarves but no gloves, Yankee candle's "Autumn Wreath", making apple pies, corn mazes, pumpkin spice lattes, crunchy leaves, apple cider donuts, bright red trees, crisp evening walks, candy corn, and clementine oranges, just to name a few.

This is the view from our living room.

I am very, very excited for autumn.

Living the Life

My dad and Step-mom came to visit us in Minnesota last weekend. Felt kind of weird that I was hosting them. For the first 18 years of my life that was the other way around.

For about a week before they arrived, (when I wasn't dodging Republican National Convention traffic and road closures) I started to think about what we might want to do with them in the twin cities - what cool touristy things we could bring them to to show off our new digs. I really couldn't come up with much, so I asked my parents to do the research for me, "Let me know if there are any sites around here you'd want to see!". My dad responded that they just want to see me and see our life out here.

That was all the invitation I needed.

I told my dad that "seeing our life" meant house projects. So my father installed another branch of the forced air system (with Dan's help). My step mom and I went to Menard's and bought a fire and water-proof safe, for all those important papers that it would suck to lose. Later that afternoon we cut down some branches of the apple tree in our backyard that were interfering with the power chords, then promptly made a ton of apple sauce out of the apples. No, seriously, at least a gallon of apple sauce. Then in the evening we went to a Color Me Mine pottery glazing studio and "painted" a large popcorn bowl - a house warming gift from my Dad and Debby (that's an "O" for Olfelt in the middle there).


The other part of seeing our life out East (in the Midwest. It's East of the West. But it's not the East) is seeing Dan's family - a major part of why we live here. So, on Sunday the whole family (with the exception of the 9 who live in the East, not the midwest) came over to our house for a pot-luck. There were 18 of us cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents. The younger cousins played on our garage sale foosball table while the adults got tours of the house and talked about our renovation projects and plans. It was so much fun and I feel like it was such a good reflection of how warm and loving the Olfelt family is.

It wasn't anything glamorous, but it was wonderful to have my dad and Debby literally experiece our life out here. I think it was a much better way to spend the weekend than traipsing around the largest mall in America or taking a tour of Target's global headquarters.

Accessorized Confidence

I have a vivid memory of being in a grocery store as a 4th grader and seeing a girl slightly older than me with a purse hanging from her shoulder. It was love at first sight - with the purse that is. "Someone near my age is old enough to have a purse?" I thought, and the campaign was on. It took me approximately 3 months until I had convinced my mom that it was time for her little girl to go through the right of passage and get herself a big girl purse. I saved the subsequent weeks' allowances, and invested it all straight into that glorious symbol of maturity. I can picture it now in all it's light blue, plastic, Caboodles-branded, long-strapped splendor. I have no idea what I put in it (my best guesses are: Lipsmackers lip glosses in flavors like Dr. Pepper and Vanilla Icing, a Hello Kitty pen, a half-finished friendship bracelet, and pogs) but there's been one on my shoulder ever since.

Nowadays the staples of my purse are wallet, keys, sunglasses, phone, checkbook, lip gloss (Burt's Bees is more my style now), and a pen. In reality that's all that will fit, and even then I have a hard time zipping it unless those items are all in the appropriate places. This means that anything else I need to tote with me has to find other means by which to be carried - typically my hands. For example, I have been putting my makeup on in the car on the way to work (I should state here that DAN DRIVES. We now carpool everyday which has been awesome) . When I get to work, I sling my purse on my shoulder, grab my lunch bag with one hand and that makeup bag with the other, then finagle a finger out so that I can press '9' on the elevator. At the end of the day yesterday, I grabbed my beloved-ly small purse and left the office, only to realize that I forgot my life line... *ahem*... makeup bag in my desk drawer (ladies, ever had to go out in the morning in business casual completely sans makeup? 'Naked' is the only feeling I can liken it to). It was this oversight due to maximum purse capacity that made me realize: it's time to move up another step on the purse totem pole.

Don't worry, I didn't shell out the cash for a designer bag (although, if there's anyone in NY or LA reading this and knows a good street vendor... I'm in the market), but I did buy a new one that is more than double the volume of any purse I've previously owned. It's fantastically roomy and will fit my usuals, AND my makeup bag, AND my planner - all with room to spare, although I've yet to figure out how to pull out a floor lamp, Mary Poppins style, I do believe it is possible with this sucker.

In complete contrast with the feeling I had of going to work naked-faced, having this "I am woman, hear me roar" bag on my shoulder gives me a phony yet enjoyable woosh of empowerment. When I was 9, a transparent blue purse meant I was growing up. Now, it's as though I'm making the statement 'I am important enough to have enough crap to fill this purse' (arbitrary elitism, it's a little game I play). What does that mean really? Absolutely nothing. But it feels like I'm announcing my grown-up-dom all over again (14 years later), and it is wonderful.

Chez Nous

Alright folks, here they are - pictures of the rooms I'm willing to show you of our house. For the less glamorous photos, see the rest of the blog.

Our bedroom. Missing:Bed skirt, headboard, curtains.

My desk, also in our bedroom. I bought the desk at a garage sale for - no joke - $10. After paint to re-cover it, new drawer pulls, and a lot of time spent sanding, the total cost was less than $50.

Two views of our kitchen. I'll leave it up to your imagination to figure out how they fit together. (Hint: stove).

The dining room (hmmm, those chairs look familiar).

Two views of the living room. Somehow this album didn't seem complete without a picture containing Pearl wrestling with an over-sized stuffed animal (bottom).

And there you have it! Happy three-day weekend!

Under Construction

The Olympics are coming to an end, and Dan and I have been trying to find something new to occupy our evenings and weekends. So we decided to install a brand new HVAC system, you know, as one does. Call it green (save 20%+ energy), call it space saving, call it upgrading... I call it Dan flexing his man muscle. Ever since he was a toddler and his dad bought him his first tool belt, Dan has been itching to work on his own big, impressive projects. Well, this project is certainly big.

This is our present source of heat that we are getting rid of, a radiator under almost every window in the house (this is our bedroom):


You know those air registers in the floors of every house built in the last 50 years? That is what we're installing - a forced air heating/AC system. It consists of running air ducts throughout the ceiling of the basement and up into every room in the house, then installing a furnace. No big deal, really.

So, Dan started going full steam ahead this weekend, getting to the store when they opened Saturday morning and working ever since in our creepy, dusty basement. Old Man Germann (since, we decided, 25 is old) came over Saturday and the two of them installed the main air duct:


They even got as far as installing the first complete register in our bedroom. This notably involved taking a jigsaw (Dan's birthday present) to my oak wood floors. I had to avert my eyes and swallow the tears - rightfully so, because this was the beautiful result!


It may seem like we're well on our way, but there is still a LOT of man muscle flexing to be done. This is just half of the duct yet to install (we didn't even buy the other half yet):

Also to be noted in this picture - the awesome basement floor tile. I'm looking forward to starting that project. But, one thing at a time!