What am I doing you ask? Other than standing awkwardly in sweat pants wearing a headlamp, I’m SUP’ing, UNDER THE MOONLIGHT. No. Joke. Amazing right? The water was like glass and it could not have been more incredible.  Talk about stress relieving y’all, there’s absolutely nothing like it.  It was totally silent except for the sound of the paddle dipping in and out of the water and the light of the moon was STUNNING.  My head has not been that clear in ages.

This morning husband snuck to the beach with me for an hour or so before departing to work and I of course stayed until the sun had almost disappeared.  I stayed so late that the sand went cold and it could not have been more enjoyable.  I can’t appreciate where we live enough, being able to be at the beach among good friends within 7 minutes of leaving your front door is such a gift.

Tomorrow it’s back to work, which amazingly isn’t a bad thing. If I’m going to have to work, there is no company I’d rather work for, and being able to do it from home certainly doesn’t hurt.

I love my life.

And on that note, I think it’s time to come clean. I’m a real person. There, I said it. Since I started this blog and since abandoned it 75 times I have struggled with putting any type of identifying info out there.  I’ve done this for a number of reasons, and if I’m going to be honest the first and foremost being I’m scared.  As documented, in my shall we say “formative” years, I had a bit of a difficult time, let’s leave it at that – or let’s not, I got the shit bullied and harassed out of me.  Thankfully I survived with my confidence in tact. Or so I thought.  The only lasting effect to my knowledge is I’m quite self conscious about putting myself out there publicly.  In person I’m good, great in fact, but hidden behind a computer where you can only know me by what I write, I become VERY, very scared. What if that bully from high school find this and blasts it everywhere? What if I write something weird that I think is funny that everyone else thinks is incredibly lame?  Well in person, I wouldn’t give a shit, so why do I now? I don’t know, but I’m working on getting over it.  My next concern which is basically tied with this one, is work. Work work work.  What if I write a blog post and 14 years down the line my future employer finds it and decides against hiring me because from my BLOG they learn I am a pro-choice believin’ democrat??? We ALL know the interwebs don’t hide things; once you’re on, you’re on. Perhaps if my name was Marie Smith and I could be confused with the other eleventy billion Marie Smith’s of the world I might not be so nervous. But alas, I’m not Marie Smith.  I’m Huntley. Hi.

Aaaaaaaaand deep breath out. Weird name, I know. Why yes, it’s my real name. And no, I do not play polo, sign country songs, or belong to a country club. I am also not a stripper. Not in public anyway.

This is me.

I had my hair and makeup done for a wedding 6 hours before this picture was taken but I had to put my best foot forward on our first date right?!  Typically I look like this:

Okay fine, I only look like this sporadically, girl’s gotta work! Otherwise I would probably be yoga-ing on a board all damn day and look like this quite often. But in real life, I look mostly like this, minus the Bowie T-shirt. Except on Tuesdays. And Mondays. And…I LOVE LABRYNTH. Woah, sorry about that, sometimes the mullet just gets me going.

So there we are. Hi again. That’s me. That’s really me. Holy shit. I think I need to go now. But I’ll be back! I hope!

-Broke my jaw, almost got a brain infection (not that fantastic at all actually)
-Hung around a villa in Mallorca – with said broken jaw
-Got a new job. An AWESOME new job.
-Am very good at new job. Get paid money at new job. Very good indeed.
-Loving Husband a whole lot. Have found peace in my marriage.
-Competing in a race where I’ll get electrocuted soon.
-Came in second in my last race.
-Hung around St. Thomas with Muffin. Without broken jaw. Thank christ.

There is more, however I’ve forgotten most of it. You see, I rely on my photo album in my phone to chronicle the recent past, and my current phone is only 6 months old, so anything prior to 6 months ago has basically been completely forgotten. That’s pretty sad, hence, why I’m back, and am making an attempt to blog. There are just too many fun and happy times to let them pass by become forgotten.

That being said, I spend 10 hours in front of a computer every day for work as it is, so it’s going to be a challenge to make myself sit in front of it for any additional time for personal reasons, yah dig?

Time shall tell!

Don’t judge me.

In other news, we had a few surprise guests last weekend, and it was a BLAST!  Word to the wise, don’t let boys make plans, I know this is a broad generalization, but we all know this is a bad idea. Case in point, this is how we ended up with 6 people sleeping over with 24 hours notice. That being said, we had a wonderful time. Friday night  we threw together some porchetta, skillet corn, grilled bread, homemeade dessert, and vintage wine brought back from a cellar in France and had ourselves a lovely evening on the deck under the stars. Saturday I had pre-ordered donuts from the local donut shop (I PRE ordered donuts. WHO DOES THAT?! fuck, maybe I am a garbage gut), and sandwiches from the general store so we were able to hit the beach early and more importantly; prepared! Husband had made fresh bloody mary mix, so needless to say everyone was pleased.  I’m not sure how happy everyone originally was with my drill seargent schedule, but I was thanked profusely when we were finally sitting on the beach with plenty of food and beverages for a full day of relaxation, and activities. Now, when I say activities, I mean we brought every beach/outdoor activity you could think of. We had 8 people with bats, and horseshoes and bocce balls and footballs and soccer balls and frisbees and coolers trekking down the beach, but it was totally worth it. The group stayed occupied for the entire day, which is some type of record for The Husband, he’s not a big beach fan.

Did I mention I latticed the shit out of that pie?!!!! It was my first time trying the ole’ lattice crust, and if I do say so, I think it looked pretty freakin decent, and more importantly it tasted FAN FREAKING TASTIC.  Speaking of things tasting fan freaking tastic, did you know you can make cookies out of the Funfetti cake mix?! Did you know that my wedding cake was Funfetti?!  This development has changed my life.

=

AND

WHO KNEW?!  WHO KNEW AND DIDN’T TELL ME?!  YOU ARE DEAD TO ME.

In other news, I might have ADD. I just reread this post and realized this. Hmmm, oooh something shiney!  Ahem, okay, back to the going’s on lately. Let’s see, the Nugget officially is in working order and we went on the maiden voyage this weekend!  Husband isn’t terribly pleased with the name, but I say until he comes up with something better, the Nugget it is. It’s tiny, how can you NOT name it the Nugget? Pfffft. We took it out for a few hours and it was absolutely gorgeous, although my ass hurts (there were some big swells and as mentioned, the Nugget is, well, Nugget-ish.)  Regardless, what a wonderful gift from Grandpop.  Where I come from, buying your first boat is a rite of passage, it’s not just buying a boat, so Saturday was a great day. Until Husband yelled at me for telling him to put the anchor UNDER the railing, not OVER.  Apparently wives are supposed to keep quiet when it comes to man things; to that I say, when you stop grounding the boat and calling the lines “ropes” and the swells “waves”, I will stop trying to teach you boat related things. Take that.  

I’ll leave you now with a picture of the asshole being cute.

He stayed like that for an hour. He fits right in here.

Okay, back to business. Have you seen the show on MTV called “If you really knew me”? It’s heartbreaking and powerful in a slightly cheesy way. Essentially, it groups together high school kids that would normally never associate with each other, and they go around in a circle speaking; they begin with “if you really knew me you would know…” then they insert their own personal information such as, “my mom is a drug addict, and my dad is in jail.” For a long time now I have been terrified of having children for a number of reasons, one of which is the simple fact that teenagers scare me.  Now I realize this is a broad generalization, but as far as I can tell they are mean and destructive, and it’s only getting worse, which is why I find this show heartening.  My parents recently said how glad they were that Facebook wasn’t around when I was younger because I would have been destroyed. My entire high school hated me and I was taunted horribly simply because I was cute.  Case in point; I was voted “class boyologist” (aka, class slut)  before I had my first kiss.  I only came to realize this was why I was teased as I got older, at the time I couldn’t figure it out.  Anyway, I thought I’d take a little inspiration from terrible TV targeting teenagers and create my own little confession, here goes!

If you really knew me you would know…

• Despite being harassed relentlessly for the majority of my formative years, it never occured to me that those people were right. I never went home and cried, and it didn’t stop me from doing anything or being anyone I wanted to be. So there, I win.
• I’m over it, so if I see you at a bar in town and you are compelled to apologize, please don’t. I don’t accept, I don’t want to be your friend, but I wish you all the best nevertheless and I hope you have learned that this behavior is cruel and lesser people could not have withstood it.
• I would like to formally commend those friends that did stick up for me, I know it was a full time job and you probably got harassed yourself as a result of associating with me, so thank you. That is a big stance to take as a teenager, nice stones!
• My roof is basically caving in, I live paycheck to paycheck, my husband likes me only some of the time, but I’m still happy, really and truly.
• I miss my grandparents terribly and can’t get through a week without weeping about this loss.
• I’m terrified of losing my parents, which I realize everyone is, but I’m genuinely nervous that I might have a breakdown and cease to exist if I lose either one of them, ever.
• I was really angry at one point in my life, not too long ago. I never figured out why, or who or what I was angry at, but it seems to have subsided for now. Every once in a while my anger rears it’s ugly head and I have a few days where I know I am unreasonable but I recognize it, and I work my way through it.
• I’m scared my husband will never be happy or fulfilled and I can’t do a thing to help him because it has nothing to do with me. I’m scared this is going to effect us for the rest of our lives.
• I haven’t settled, I’m just happy.
• I think I want kids soon. I can’t believe I just wrote that.

I’m sure there is more, but that’s me and my tragedies in a nutshell, oh wait, add this one: I realize all these things are teeny, tiny tragedies/worries and I’m not consumed by them, I recognize that I’ve been incredibly fortunate in every area of my life and I’m thankful.

If I really knew you, what would I know?

Jimmy Buffet! (did you know he’s kind of hot?! who’d have thunk it??)

Courtney Love. She is as batshit crazy as you’ve heard, probably even MORE crazy than you have heard.

Fun party desserts!  How great is all that glassware?  Love, love love it, aside from the massive amount of cabinet space it all takes up. Note: Crystal Light raspberry lemonade makes a mean mixer for vodka. Not that I would know, but that’s what I was told…

The Dew Tour Skateboard Open. These guys were badASS, skateboarding is a hell of a lot cooler up close, not to mention my 13 year-old self would totally have dated about 90% of the crowd.

And the crowning moment……MATT & KIM!!!! Up CLOSE!!!!! Holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit. I’m not a celebrity or star monger by any means, I don’t understand that mentality, however after their show I have the most awkward crush EVER on Kim. Yes, Kim.  Watch for yourself:

Seriously, if their energy isn’t contagious, I’m not sure whose is.

Interspersed here and there I enjoyed a few great books, the most lovely beach (did you see my new header?!  Riiiiiiiight?), the most handsome husband, and my lovely family.  I’d say I’ve got it pretty good. Oh yes, I also enjoyed a promotion, that was nice.

Till next time!

Please note: neither of those large men are in fact me, but I did crawl through that mud pit. After I ran a 10k. And completed obstacles every mile. Sooo yeah, I’m basically a bad ass. A really muddy badass.  This was my first time running over 2 miles, and crawling through mud for that matter and if I do say, it was ridiculously awesome, I want to do that every weekend! Who knew?

Husband’s birthday is coming up, and he’s turning the big 2-8!  What better way to say thank you to our lovely party guests than with homemade pickles?!  I know, I’m a genius. On Saturday a few friends will gather to play some wiffle ball, enjoy some cocktails, and eat some pig. Porchetta to be exact, husband walked me through the whole process of making it which included this lovely quote: ”and then Oscar picked up the skin blanket, and wore it around showing everyone!” Sounds delicious, right? Right. Dinner, made with a skin blanket, get your appetities ready people.

Sooo, in other news, this is our boat!  It has an engine which isn’t seen here, which isn’t really worth seeing anyway because currently it’s not working. You gotta start somewhere right? Back in the day my parents bought almost this exact boat with family friends. I have many fond memories of about 9 of us jammed in there which looking back is highly illegal and totally unsafe, but when I was 5 it seemed pretty awesome. We were able to purchase this lovely water-vehicle due to a small inheritance from my beloved Grandpop, and while we’re essentially financially drowning, it was intended to be spent on something special and lasting; I’d say we made the right decision, I think Grandpop would approve. Not to mention, BONUS: it’s a project for the hubby!  It’s been well documented that Husband doesn’t do well with free time, so this boat is an amazing addition to our family for so many reasons. 

This is a snapshot of the view off my brother’s boat one night after work, how lucky am I to be able to enjoy this on a random Tuesday night?  It makes the 2 hour commute and endless traffic worth it.

In other news, I think I have a tapeworm. Now, I recognize that it’s incredibly obnoxious to complain about being underweight, but I’m getting just the tiniest bit concerned that I’ve mysteriously dropped 5lbs. I’m on the small side to begin with, so I blame it on a tapeworm because sure as shit I haven’t cut back on my chinese food and ice cream binges. Very weird, I guess I’ll just have to force myself to start eating cookies for breakfast, again. *sigh*

Did I mention I’m producing a small acoustic session with Hole? Yeah, that should be interesting to say the least. Stay tuned for more from the super exciting mostly retarded wifesauce diaries.

Now, all of that said; don’t get me wrong, I don’t go bananas on my dinner preparations, but it is really important to me that we eat healthfully, and fresh.  Usually our plates contain chicken (it’s cheap!), and two vegetables, over the past week or so here is what you would have found on our plates:

Do you see a theme here? DING DING DING!!! Chicken!! Spinach!!! Green things!!!  The best part is whatever we don’t eat goes directly into tupperware and then on to my lunch basket for the next day.  I’m all about getting the most bang for our buck, food is expensive!!  If you’re looking for a few easy dinners, I’ve included a few tipes below that make my life a LOT easier.  I’m big on easy, by the time we get all the way home, we rarely make it to the table before 9:30, so easy is good.

Weeknight dinner helpful hints:

First and foremost: plan your weeknight menus!! More often than not one or both of us will not be home for dinner at least once a week so we don’t need food for each night.  Lot’s of times I have leftover ingredients from the previous week that I can use for the upcoming week, if you build this into your menu you won’t need to buy as much! Each night while you’re cooking, remove the next night’s meat from the freezer and let defrost overnight, that way you won’t forget the next morning and it will have proper time to thaw.

Marinate! I buy 6-12 chicken breasts weekly, put them in baggies of 2, pour in some marinade and freeze. Sunday nights I cook two, cut them into small pieces and voila! Protien for my lunch salads for the week.  You would be surprised how far you can stretch two chicken breasts. If you’re a big eater, leave a quarter of your dinner protien on your plate and add that to your lunches.

You CAN bake healthily: I’m a huge proponent of grilled food, however that isn’t always an option.  Just because you are baking your food doesn’t mean it needs to be covered in cheese or sauce, you can bake clean, I swear!  I order you to go to a cooking supply store and purchase a medium size cast iron pan, it will run you about $12 and last you a lifetime. Do NOT buy one from a retail kitchen store, they mark these puppies up like crazy.  To use your cast iron pan: spray with PAM, empty baggie o’ chicken in all it’s marinaded glory into pan, stick in preheated oven at 350.  Turn the chicken over at 15 minutes and cook another 15.  Remove immediately and you’re done!  While the chicken won’t have a beautiful browned color that you would see at restaurants or may want to have if you’re entertaining, it will get the job done and your chicken will be juicy and delicious.  WARNING!  You should not use harsh soaps or any type of rough scrubber on your cast iron; stick it in the sink immeidately and scrub it down with a sponge.  Once it’s clean dry it off, pour in a bit of oil and grease that bad larry up! Take care of your cast iron!

Veggies: EAT THEM! A LOT OF THEM, THE NOT-FROZEN KIND!  “Salad” doesn’t actually have to have anything in it, did you know that?  It’s true!  Throw some spinach in a bowl, toss with a little oil and vinegar, sprinkle with a teeny bit of feta and there’s your salad!  DONE!  You can also roast veggies right alongside your chicken (not technically alongside, but in a seperate dish NEXT to your chicken) to save you some time.  I’m a huge fan of roasted cauliflower, here’s a quick recipe:  remove florets from stem and put in bowl.  Mix a few chopped anchovies and some red pepper flakes with oil and drizzle over the florets. Spread on foil-lined baking sheet and stick in the oven until browned, turning once, about 20 minutes.  This is DELICIOUS, I know anchovies are scary to some, but once they are all chopped up and you don’t have to look at their hairy asses they are quite tasty.  Another quickie for you is roasted tomatoes with olives: empty a carton of cherry tomatoes into a small casserole dish and coat with salt and oil.  Throw that puppy in the oven at 350 for about 20 minutes.  While those cuties are roasting, half about 8 calamata olives, then dice in your cuisinart, or just dice by hand, whatevs.  Add the olives to the tomatoes once done and there you are! Easy peasy!

I could go on FOREVER, but those are a few of our standards in my house.  Happy cooking!!

(That small bag of chips you see is from last season. I ate them. This season. Classsssy)

Do you know what this is? Do you? Do you? Do you? It’s my BEACH BAG!  Do you know what that means?!!! It’s BEACH TIME!!!!! Holy CRAP! It came early! I feel like a kid on Christmas!  Except MORE EXCITED!  Now living in New England, you get used to snow, sleet, rain, nor’easter’s, etc. etc., you actually come to expect it all. There are those of us that shut up and deal, and there are those of us that whine and bitch endlessly about it.  Let it be said that I’m not thrilled when I can’t feel my toes or it is so windy I can barely stand, but it is what it is: NEW ENGLAND.  This year however, was a bit of an exception, for whatever reason I REALLY needed some sun.  Perhaps the “vacation” to MON-FREAKING-TANA in the middle of February?  Not that the trip wasn’t ridiculously awesome, it just was cold. And snowy. And definitely not tropical.  Thank goodness, summer came early!!! May 1st to be exact, BOOYAH.  I spent the most beautiful day at the beach Saturday and it totally renewed me, with the exception of the sunburn I got that definitely did NOT renew me. It burned me. 

Being the beach bum that I am you might think to yourself: self, has she not learned her lesson ONE THOUSAND ZILLION TIMES already?!!!! To that I say, see above.  Does that look like sunburn weather?!  That’s what it looked like when I fell asleep on my towel at 10am, as you can imagine that is not what it looked like when I woke up, hence the sunburn.  Either way, it was a gorgeous weekend! I spent Sunday liesurely running errands, and then enjoying a few afternoon hours at the beach, which is my all time favorite time to be there.  I love walking in as everyone else is walking out, watching the wind-down of all the families and couples, it’s so interesting.  I am convinced people like each other more then they’re at the beach.  Sunday evening I baked my absolute favorite bread, recipe compliments of Darby’s blog here.  It makes my morning to enjoy a thick toasted piece with the tiniest bit of peanut butter, I think I’m turning into a Quaker. Speaking of Quakers, did you know there are only like 3 left on the planet?  I read a really interesting article about them once. Anyway, on top of bread my cookie jar was looking bare so I threw together a batch of Alton Brown’s ridiculously delicious recipe for “The Chewy.”  I bake cookies almost every week and I usually can restrain myself and have maybe 1 cookie a day, these however are giving me trouble, I want to eat them until I get sick.  Argh. Willpower is not a strength of mine.  The icing on the proverbial cake ( I didn’t actually bake a cake surprisingly) was when Husband came home and before saying hello blurted out “you are the only person that would be baking in 85 degree heat. Are you crazy???”  Heh heh, yes.