Dia De Los Dirka

We celebrated Dirk's birthday this past weekend Yay! Over the past five years, this is only the second birthday I've gotten to spend with Dirk, poor guy. I was always traveling on his birthday, so we made it extra special this year.

The girls and I woke him up with veggie sausage and biscuits and orange juice in bed!
I slaved away over this two-layer chocolate creation.
We went to dinner with friends at Taj India and then we headed to drinks with more friends at the Garage, the coolest bar in Birmingham.
The courtyard is amazing with a bunch of collectable treasures just laying around. Each one of the garages (my great Uncle Bubba used to park his car here back when they were functioning garages) has a different theme and is full of fun stuff.
And creepy things, too.

After the Garage we all headed to listen to a great band named Pharm Hand at the Open Door Cafe. I danced the night away. And Dirk drank the night away. We were joined by some more friends and we were able to celebrate both Dirk's birthday and Aimee's graduation from the Master's Program at UAB. So proud of her! And still recovering from all the fun!

intense dance battle

This occurred last weekend at the Funky Fish Fry, a benefit whose proceeds went towards the Autism Society of Alabama (or something along those lines.) No one encouraged these kids to start dancing, we all just looked around and suddenly this was going on. I almost peed my pants a little bit I was trying not to laugh so that my iphone wouldn't shake. Oh, and that's Dirk's band in the background.

Improvings

Major home improvements going on at This Young House. The paint job that they swore was going to take 24 hours turned into 96. Yeah. But it's done (well, almost.) We're going to paint the front door bright red, and Dirk still needs to put lattice up under the front deck, but he's continued to be very handy (he made the front steps himself, for instance.) All in all, I'm happy with the colors we chose, and Dirk has agreed that we're going to take a break from "working on the house" which is his favorite past time and extremely boring for me. Because his idea of my helping is to hold screws, but the minute I try to do anything else he gets bent out of shape because I'm not "helping." Props to all couples out there who have renovated or redecorated their homes!


I came home from a long night at work on Friday and discovered that Dirk had driven to Huntsville to purchase a new sound system. I very calmly walked to the kitchen, poured myself a glass of wine, and talked myself out of losing it completely. Because do we really need SEVEN new speakers in our little living room? Not to mention that two of those speakers come up to my chest. I mean, the first thing anyone would see upon entering our home would be huge black speakers EVERYWHERE! He pouted around a little bit, "You don't like them!" "But just wait 'til we watch a movie, it's like being in the theatre" and "Now I can run speakers to the back deck for you!" Like this purchase was for me. Yeah, right. I promised him that I would give the speakers a chance and that I was sure they would grow on me, but they'd grow on me a lot better if we could get some sort of new furniture to hide them in. So we got this new entertainment center and it really ties the room together :) And yes, the speakers are a little less obtrusive now (he ran all the speaker wire under the floor and let me decorate them with pottery and plants.)


So here's to a break in improvements! Woo hoo! Maybe we can begin to relax on weekends now?

Once a Year

Birmingham gets snow. And everyone FLIPS out! It sticks for a few hours, long enough for the children who see snow once a year to run outside, create "sleds" out of cardboard boxes, and build pitiful-looking snowmen. I had thought that I left the snow in Michigan, but I suppose it just had to follow me down south. And after driving in complete white-out conditions, in 18" of snow and 50mph wind gusts, driving yesterday was like a walk in the park.

The dogs LOVED playing in the snow. Piper would dig herself a hole and burrow into it. Digging, eating, even last night she came running into the house with a big ball of icy snow she'd managed to find somewhere, one last remnant of the 5 inches that blanketed everything yesterday morning.

Since I'm in a snowy mood, here's a link to photos taken during my visit to Michigan's Upper Peninsula last month:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/libbadibbado/sets/72157613963044874/

savage for savage's

Mama's obsession with Savage's Bakery (www.savagesbakery.net) is a running joke amongst our extended family. Sarah Graffeo loves to tell about the time she was personally responsible for transporting an entire box of cookies from Birmingham all the way to Iowa and Mama nibbled on ONE cookie and then threw the rest away.

I have to hand it to my mother, though, she DOES have incredible taste. Not only does Savage's make signature cookies such as the smiley face cookies, sand tarts, and gingerbread men, they also make amazing breakfast pastries and petit fours. Then there's their amazingly decorated, delicious cakes. One year they even made a cake shaped like the torso of a heavily endowed bikini-clad female for my grandfather.

While I rarely endulge in my Savage's cravings (the line to the register is always about a half a mile long), I get hot flashes whenever I spy their signature white box with distinct maroon logo (whether it's at a house where I'm babysitting or the company break room.) I almost puked I was so excited when Jorge brought this cheesecake for Aimee's birthday celebration down to the lake:

Magic City Art Connection

Every year artists and musicians gather in Linn Park in downtown Birmingham to share their work with the rest of us.  In addition to art and music, there is also carnie food (funnel cakes!)  I've been visiting area art festivals since I moved to Birmingham, and it's so much fun to spot familiar pots, jewelry, paintings, metalwork.  Chris Clark is an area folk artist whose work has become extremely popular in the last five years.  For instance, Brooke and I purchased a piece of his for Mama's Mother's Day gift a few years back for $75.  Today, his smallest paintings are going for $500!!  Dirk and I took Sipsey with us, and she was the belle of the ball and got tons of attention.  Luckily there are lots of fountains in Linn Park, so when her paws got hot she could cool off a bit.  My favorite part of the day was when Sipsey spotted a metal cat and mistook it for a real one.  She got very anxious and did not know WHAT was going on.

Purple Sweetcorn?!?! & Lake Purdy

Yes, that's right. PURPLE sweet corn. This is what happens when Dirk accompanies me to the grocery store, we come home with about $30 worth of impulse buys. Whereas, when I grocery shop alone, I have an organized list (aisle-by-aisle, of course) and can get in and out in under 30 minutes. I'm a woman with a plan. To Dirk's credit, however, the purple sweet corn rates a very high 9 out of a possible 10 for sweet corn experiences (and I'm from Iowa, remember.) At a whopping $5 for 4 small ears, it was quite pricey, but then when I noticed that the bag of grapes I purchase weekly has gone up to $7/bag. Maybe NPR has something on this "rising food prices" story I hear daily.Sipsey and I have started meeting our friends the Kights weekly for some outdoor/nature time. Tim is the proud owner of three doggy children, Howard, Boomer, and Molly, and when we get the dogs together, they play until they fall over. Yesterday we met at Lake Purdy, which is Birmingham's water source, so great clean swimming water. Molly is a 10-month-old Golden Retriever from the same breeders as Sipsey (same parents, different litter, one year apart,) so they're pretty much identical. Sipsey started swimming at 10 weeks, but Molly, up until yesterday, had never figured out the paddling thing. We were so proud of her!