cuisinart coffee maker conundrum

through sheer impatience we've ended up with two coffee makers. they're both made by cuisinart, they're both four-cuppers. the difference is that one is red and refurbished and from amazon and the other is black and brand new and from sears.

what do we do? keep them both? send one back? if we send the red one back we have to pay for shipping. but george already broke down all the packaging for the black one from sears. and the packaging for the red one isn't the same as for the black one so we can't even switch them around and try and return the red one to sears.

george thinks we should keep them both. what do you, our adoring public, think we should do? or, do you need a four-cup coffee maker?

sugar, sugar, honey, honey

yesterday my co-worker, emily, and i went out to the jelly belly factory in fairfield. it turns out president reagan loved jelly beans, which makes it only natural for the jelly belly factory to be wicked patriotic. 'president reagan this, president reagan that, illinois, oregon, family family, tradition tradition - that's why we're opening a factory in thailand.' i got a nice sampling of jelly beans, one with all sorts of different flavors and another bag with a small selection for george: peanut butter, strawberry jam, and roasted garlic.

then i made five cupcakes (vegan chocolate with orange buttercream and coconut), some almond biscotti:







and gave george a haircut.

here a link, there a link

lately things have been quiet; george works fairly normal hours (nine am to sixish pm) and i work fairly normal baker hours (four am to twelve thirty pm.) today we went into the big city and picked up a chair for george to fix and made a half hearted attempt to update our wardrobes. the highlights were getting to see an awesome, awesome san francisco apartment, getting coffee, and driving down the really windy part of lombard street. then we went to sports basement. then trader joe's, then elephant pharmacy. the educational part of the day was the part where i bought a book about psoriasis.

oh, and while picking up the chair and seeing the awesome, awesome apartment, dyani (happy birthday), i met my first puggle.

here are some links to other themes in our lives:

skunks
coffee makers
andy's car
knitting cables
blueberry coffee cake
entrepreneurship

kittens!

we are offically the proud not-owners of a truck! the guy came by yesterday and picked it up and drove it straight to the dmv. as a bonus gift i threw in a fresh loaf of banana bread.

i spent the day watching batman begins and starting a new knitting project. missing the banana bread, i took out last mushy banana and made a small batch of muffins, of which there's only one left. liz came over and we did some knitting, then we picked george up from work, then i made lentil soup.

the cats were very worn out after such an exhausting day of watching a movie.

a couple of days

yesterday after i was done work george and i decided to drive out to tiburon to see what we could see. tiburon is one of those tiny towns on a peninsula where the wealthy live and keep their boats. it's....quaint in that fake way. we walked down main street and looked at the over-priced women's clothes and starbucks and continued on our way. we drove around the peninsula and stopped to check out the view:







as you can see, we're fascinated.


this morning i finished making a case for my double pointed knitting needles.





clearly i need more needles.


then, after much hemming and hawing and frustration we drove out to berkeley in search of a table top for the base we'd found. after more searching we found one! at ikea! it's just right.

baking & blood

for me yesterday started out with grocery shopping and ended in a bloody mess.
it all started when i decided to make cupcakes. from vegan cupcakes take over the world i present Toasted Coconut Cupcakes with Coffee Buttercream Frosting. everything went really well, though the cakes themselves came out a little flat which makes the frosting look less attractive.





then i made a sweet potato pie. but i started by making the wrong crust and then had a difficult time decided what to do about it. ultimately i just put the incorrect crust in the fridge and started over. the part of the filling i was unsure about was the 3 seedless oranges.




then george came home and we decided to go for a bike ride up to and possibly around pheonix lake. we also discovered a trail that went back across the ridge to town so we thought we'd try it out. on the way there george took a tumble when he decided to ride in the little paved drain think that was right next to the road (presumably trying to stay further from traffic) and got some scrapes and bruises. we got to the lake and found mostly it went up up up and around around around. there were some great views of the whole bay area - we could see richmond and the city at the same time. after a while i declared it "offical not fun anymore" but luckily we were near the top of the climb and started down. everything was going fine and then i fell.




i tried to get some good macro pictures of the gore, dad, but the camera couldn't quite focus enough to see it. also, i got a hair cut, but that was a few days ago.

ch-ch-ch-changes

after little consideration i've decided to move the fascinating story of our lives over to blogger. i made this decision based on little information and because i thought it might be a nice change. also, blogger is slightly easier to use in regards to uploading photos (you know, for us less-than-web-saavy.) i don't want my life to be sucked up by trying to show you how adorable our kittens are or how awesome our new hats are, i want it to be sucked up by doing other things i can tell you about with reasonable quickness.

with that said, here's my new hat! it matches george's; now we're cool. or warm. or, in our current situation, hot.