I have been attacking my closet with a slow and steady pace. Sunday night I started going through my closet. I needed something cheesy and mindless to watch and our DirecTV box is out in the bedroom, so I grabbed our Apple TV from the living room and brought it in the bedroom. I tested out the movie rental feature by renting 27 Dresses. It was exactly the kind of light-hearted, predictable rom-com that I was in the mood to watch. If you can believe I had 22 black dresses in my closet ranging form casual to dressy and my goal by the end of the movie was to halve the number of LBD’s in my closet. I am proud to say I achieved my goal.

Yesterday I got rid of more dresses in various colors.  While undertaking that feat, I streamed episodes of AMC’s Mad Men on the Apple TV.  I love the show and am so excited for the new season on July 27.  Plus, the costuming is so wonderful and I imagine myself to be as hot as Christina Hendricks as Joan Holloway (the redheaded office manager), so it made it easier to let go of clothes that didn’t make me feel great.

Anyway, tonight was skirt and pant purge night.  So first I started with YouTube ABBA videos, but I was getting tired of finding a new one after one ended.  Rob suggested hitting up our DVD closet.  There was no ABBA, but there were tons of other musical goodies.  I tried to watch Later…with Jools Holland on DVD, but it kept screwing up.  So, I moved on to Kylie Minogue’s Body Language DVD.  There were some skippable moments, but overall it’s a joy to watch.  She has such great style and  she’s just so cute (well, when she doesn’t look like Joan Rivers).  

Anyway, when that was done, there was more work to be done in the form of folding clean laundry, so I popped in this Michel Gondry video anthology I have.  Side A is pretty good, and I’m not familiar enough with his earlier work or the artists he worked with to be interested in Side B yet- maybe another night.

I have been watching the videos going chronologically backward starting in 2003 with the White Stripes “Hardest Button to Button”.  I like how Gondry riffs on repetition in this collection.  Visually, he uses two different views or combines takes and has lots of dreamy repetitive people walking around.  Anyway, Michel Gondry is one of the things on the list over at Stuff White People Like.  I do recommend at least heading over to YouTube and watching some videos.  They are such nice eye candy and he definitely has a unique point of view and even when using the same “gimmick” of repetition in a few videos, he manages to keep it fresh.

Here are a couple of my favorite videos:

“Come Into My World” - Kylie Minogue - Kylies EVERYWHERE!

“Let Forever Be” - The Chemical Brothers - Hard to tell on YouTube, but uses video and film in a nice contrast.

“The Hardest Button to Button” - The White Stripes - Just a great pairing of simple visuals that really work with the music…

I’m gradually greening things around here and something that I have done since we got back from Japan was to get some reusable collapsible bags to replace the plastic ones that are handed out everywhere.  Did you know that Americans use 60,000 plastic bags every five seconds?I got a couple good ones when we were in Japan, but when we got back I got a set of Envirosax that I try to keep in the car so that if I run in somewhere I always have a bag along so I’m not toting the plastic. I bought my Envirosax at Delight.com and I love them.

I bought this set:

They also have a couple other styles and I highly recommend checking them out.

I also have a Rootote from Japan (in a cute Paris print) that I love because it folds up and you can use this little clasp and strap to attach it to your purse handle. I don’t know where you’d find one like this in the US, but you can search Ebay for Rootote and you’ll probably come up with some winners. 

So, I don’t know how many people know this, but I am actually a pretty decent cook. Recently we had a party where people claimed I made the “best grilled cheese ever” and I’m pretty sure they were being sincere. I know grilled cheese isn’t hard, but I think people could taste the love. LOL. Now that the house is clean, I hope to have some small dinner parties at some point. Plus it will be incentive for me to keep the dining room table clean.Last night I made some Japanese chicken. It’s one of my go-to recipes that I use quite a bit because it’s just so darn easy. Last night when I was making it, it was seriously almost perfect. The chicken was browning so perfect that it looked like I belonged on Top Chef or something.Anyway, next time I make it, I’m going to try and take my camera in the kitchen, because I never think of doing that until I am unable to walk away without risking burning the food.Anyway, I also had another little epiphany while cooking dinner last night. I need to just ditch my spatula/turner things. I probably only need like two of those for pancakes and eggs. Tongs are just so much easier and more sensible. It’s so easy to turn pieces of chicken over or stir fry or whatever. I really don’t know how I went so long without discovering the joy of silicone-tipped tongs. I need to get one more set, if not two, of tongs like this pair I already have (but I am on the lookout for a fun pair like the kids tongs at Williams-Sonoma):Anyway, here’s the chicken recipe. I cook some rice in the rice cooker and then we heat up some vegetables (last night they were thai style soy ginger carrots from Trader Joe’s) and it’s a great meal that’s tasty and good for you. It’s pretty spicy, so if you don’t want so much spice, just scale back the red pepper flakes. Enjoy! Oh, and make extra rice so the following morning you can make hot cereal with rice, milk, cinnamon, and honey. Yum yum!Chicken nanban recipe

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 lb chicken thigh or breasts if you prefer
• 1 onion It’s surprisingly tasty with the onion, but if you don’t have one on hand, you can still make the recipe and it doesn’t suffer. It’s kind of optional.
• 1/2 cup vinegar
• 4 tbsps sugar
• 4 tbsps soy sauce
• 1 tsp chopped red pepper
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil I use a little blend of canola, flax, and olive oil that I make to maximize the good fatty acids.
• *katakuriko starch or corn starch for dusting I use corn starch.

PREPARATION:

Thinly slice onion and soak in cold water. Mix soy sauce, sugar, vinegar, and red pepper in a pan and heat on low heat. When the sugar dissolves in, stop the heat. Cut chicken into bite size pieces. Dust chicken with katakuriko starch or corn starch.

Heat 1 tbsp of vegetable oil in a frying pan and fry chicken pieces in the pan until brown. Pour the spicy and sour sauce over the chicken and stop the heat. Drain onion slices well and serve on plates. Place chicken pieces on top of the onion. Pour the spicy and sour sauce over the onion and fried chicken.

*Makes 4 servings

We finally got our bookcases installed a little over a week ago. We spent last week filling them with records and books. We were able to get so much stuff out of boxes, and Rob purged some of his vinyl as well. Things are really shaping up around here, I must say. I can see the floor of my office now (it’s been a long time).        

I know that Sears often gets a bad rap, but I actually like shopping there for tools and appliances. Our refrigerator we bought awhile back was from Sears and was a Kenmore Elite. Today I needed some Craftsman, and I was off to Sears.

While getting ready Saturday night I was looking for some plum eyeliner. I recently acquired one in a cute Bourjois makeup kit. Our master bath has 4 drawers in the vanity. They have no glide to them and they are really too deep. I had a bunch of stuff in the closet in totes with lids attached. But I had used this eyeliner in the past two weeks and knew it was either on the countertop or in one of the drawers. I looked to no avail and then gave up and used some black eyeliner. Anyway, I knew I needed a better way to organize my bathroom. I remember watching that Bravo show Blowout and the hair stylists stations were actually Craftsman tool boxes. Problem solved.

I check today’s ad and there was an offer where if you bought the Midnight Blue 6-Drawer Roll Away cart, you’d get the 10-drawer chest that sits on top for free (a $219 value). I really wanted red, but as our vanity currently has yellow formica, it doesn’t really matter too much. Plus, I figure that it won’t matter the color if it ends up in our garage in the future. I’m not one of those people that needs a totally matchy garage. If the toolbox works out, then I can always move this one to the garage and replace it with a good-looking stainless steel one when we redo the bathroom someday.

Now, if I could just find an old card catalog…

Behold my Craftsman tool chest of beauty…click this link to view it on Flickr where you can rollover the picture with your mouse to see what’s in the drawers.

So, I am totally convinced that even though I paid a $50 (17%) premium on an in-stock snowblower at a local store that it was worth every penny. And I am also totally convinced that I made the right decision getting the electric snowblower over a gas one. It’s light and makes quick work of the snow. It only clogged about 3 times and that was at the end when I was doing cleanup in some already-thrown banked snow, but it was easy to clear. It worked pretty well and it was pretty cheap. Plus, it’s a Toro. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its quirks, but for something I’ll probably use about 8 times a year- and maybe less in the future with global warming- I am happy.

I have to say that the Snowpocalypse was faking us out pretty good last night. I thought the white death was going to end up the clear death because it was all rainy and then it started freezing. There was a nice layer of ice under the snow on our front steps. It was really satisfying to pour the salt on it and hear it crackle.

Before- note the line on the left where you an see where I cleared about 2-3 inches off the driveway yesterday.

After

The latticework:

It’s a winter wonderland!

So, if you ever buy anything online, I highly suggest you sign up for an Ebates account (and by clicking that link and signing up, I’ll get a $5 Tell-A-Friend bonus after you make your first purchse through them). Basically, it works like this:

1. Go to Ebates and sign up for your account (they don’t spam you)
2. When you’re ready to make your first purchase, use their site to visit the store you’d like to buy from.
3. Ebates takes you to the site and tracks your purchase there
4. You get anywhere from 1-10% cash back after you complete your transaction.
5. They send checks or deposit to your Paypal every 3 months.

I get 6% at Drugstore.com (plus Drugstore gives you Drugstore Dollars for a future purchase), 4% at Amazon, 4% at Overstock, 4% at Sephora, 6% at Zappos, and the list goes on and on. In fact, I am kicking myself for upgrading my Photoshop without checking Ebates first, because even Adobe offers 6% back through Ebates!

And if you’re shopping at a store, make sure you see if there are any coupon codes floating around. I like to use retailmenot.com or naughtycodes.com

Altec Lansing INMOTION

Dude these speakers rock. They sound great and make your iPod into a boombox, then they fold up flat. You can hook non-iPods to them too, but it obviously won’t look as cool.

Harmony Remote
So, I just bought one of these Harmony Remotes on Ebay- the H688. It’s really easy to set-up because you just plug it into your computer’s USB port and tell it what your devices are (I swear it has codes for everything) and then everything is programmed by activity. Plus, it’s super customizable. I did the initial setup and it programmed 95% of all the commands successfully for what I need it to do. It’s pretty rad. I used to have the Sony RM-AV3000, but you can’t update its code database, you just have to fake it and “learn” everything. Plus I wanted more hard buttons. It’s going up on Ebay soon.