Glass blowing experience

Saturday night we went and did our glass blowing and beer tasting class as a part of Nate's Christmas present this year. It was a blast! It was through Living Social Adventures (one of those Groupon style websites) at the FOCI MN Center for Glass Arts. When this came through my email as an offer, I knew that it was something Nate would be into, not only would we be tasting beer, but we'd get to make our very own pint glass!

We arrived about 20 minutes early and the last class was just wrapping up. We had a chance to walk around the studio, it is a neat place and they have a gallery with various glass pieces on display - pretty awesome stuff.

Others began to trickle in and we met another couple who were there for the same reason - the wife bought this as a Christmas gift for the husband. They were very nice people, about 10 years older than us and ironically, the husband used to live down the street from Nate's parents.

The Living Social people then introduced the instructors and explained the itinerary for the evening. Then we watched a demonstration and were broken into groups of four to work with an instructor to make our pint glasses. It was definitely hands on, though the instructors did do some of the work as there are steps involved that are very difficult for beginners. But we got to gather the glass on our rod, we got to work on shaping it, and we got to help blow the glass to help it expand into a larger size to make the pint glass.

Here is a picture of me helping to blow the glass - it expands almost like a hot, fragile balloon.

This is me twirling the glass to keep it from settling. Our instructor was going to get another piece of hot metal to help create the opening.

Here is Nate opening up the inside of the glass. Even for very advanced glass blowers this is a two person operation.

A little earlier in the process, here is Nate shaping the glass, you use very thick wet newspaper, almost like sandpaper, it protects your hand and you're able to give it a round shape.

It was really informative. The entire process for each person took a half hour to 45 minutes. But it was fun to watch others even when it wasn't your turn. Also, we got to pick two colors to melt into the glass and make it unique too. I chose blue and pink and Nate chose green and yellow. The final step was blow torching the bottom of the glass and stamping it with our initials.

Then they put it in a special kind of oven that cools the glass down at a slower temperature, to prevent breakage. Because of this we had to wait until Monday to go pick the glasses up.

After we finished, Great Waters Brewing Co. from St. Paul had a little informal beer tasting with four of their brews. They also gave away 8 growlers to be filled at their brewpub - we each won a growler! Not that we ever lack beer in our house, but it's still cool that we won!

We had a lot of fun and would be interested in even taking a beginner glass blowing class someday!

Here is the final result:

Mine is on the left and Nate's is on the right. Pretty neat huh? They're good sized and are completely safe to use for drinking out of.

I tell you though, I keep setting the bar higher and higher each year, I don't know what I will come up with to top this for his Christmas gift next year!

Whirlwind weekend

Whew. What a wonderful long holiday weekend I just had! I don't want to brag, but it was pretty freaking awesome. Now that it's over I feel like it flew by, but really, I enjoyed every moment and felt very present in each moment, so I feel pretty good about that.

So I mentioned previously that I saw The Muppets twice. In addition to that, we celebrated Thanksgiving with Nate's side of the family and it was nice to see all of them. We went to the gun range on Friday morning to do a little recreational shooting. I still can't believe I can do this now, I have come so far. It helps that I have outstanding hearing protection. Anyway, we had some fun there and had lunch out at my favorite deli (Nelson's Cheese Shop in Spring Lake Park). Friday was one of the days we saw the movie then in the afternoon and after that we had dinner at Punch Pizza with my parents and Nate's parents. Then we met up with Ali back at my parents house and had dessert and opened presents.

Saturday we were a little bit lazier but that was ok because the weather was totally crappy. We did venture out in the afternoon to find a beer store we've been hearing about and it's like total Nate and Beth's ultimate candy store - The Four Firkins in St. Louis Park. Holy beer Batman! I have never seen such a huge selection of craft brews. And they do "create your own six pack." Total win. The store is organized so well too as to the different types of beers. I'm mildly embarrassed to admit we spent close to an hour in there. After that we picked up Five Guys burgers and brought them home and settled in with some movies.

Sunday I got down to business and after breakfast finally set about getting my Christmas decorations up. I had done a little bit of it on Saturday, but hadn't gotten the tree up and all that jazz. Nate was even teasing me that I was "running behind" on that, but with all the birthday hoopla, just hadn't had the time to work on it until Sunday. I got all the lights strung on the tree and discovered that one whole set was burned out. Crud. So I planned a trip to Target and Nate said he'd go with because he needed a birthday card for his dad. And somehow said trip to Target involved a slight detour to the Verizon store so I could buy myself an iPhone. No big.

Oh back up a bit here....I GOT AN IPHONE! Yes I am excited. So that was pretty big news for yesterday. We did go get the lights and stuff too. Returned home and I finished up the tree, we met up with my in-laws for a short walk in the cold air, came home and made shepherd's pie and tried to unwind a bit more before getting ready to face the week and come back to reality.

All in all a great weekend. I have no complaints!!

Fabulous Friday - 10/14/11

Oh friends. I am so giddy and bouncy right now it is difficult to focus! This weekend will be legen - wait for it - dary. (How I Met Your Mother reference if you don't know that one). Anyway, here is the best I can do for a Fabulous Friday post today!

What I find fabulous this week:

1. Oktoberfest - our big event of the year, the chance to showcase Nate's homebrew and a chance to see our friends and family. I just can't think of a better way to spend what should be a fantastic fall evening tomorrow.

2. Generous Friends - I don't think we'll be going hungry tomorrow, so many wonderful people have stepped forward to contribute something, I think that will go a long way in helping to feed the potentially 30 guests we'll have in our home!

3. Being less one fish tank - Nate's fish died long ago but we haven't taken apart and put away the darn tank yet. And it's been an ugly eye sore. Right now he has too many other hobbies/interests that there is just no time to deal with a fish tank. So I told him before this weekend it had to go. And as of last night - it is GONE. Hasta la vista fish tank (I have never been crazy about it if you can't tell!)

4. New recipes - Testing out some new recipes for tomorrow with the help of my momma and if they turn out well, I'll post them here - but I'll leave you with this - pumpkin tiramasu. Yeah, my mouth is watering too.

5. My awesome husband - who has helped me immensely in getting ready for this big event. He has cleaned up the yard, worked hard to make sure the beer is just right and I just could not put this together without him! And while I'm excited for the party, I'm excited for the next day too - it has become our tradition to treat ourselves to breakfast out the day after Oktoberfest so we'll definitely be doing that this year too!

Well you can see where my mind is today! I hope you all have fabulous Fridays and a wonderful weekend too!

Fabulous Friday 9/23/11

Whew, we've made it to Friday again.  It's been a week at times.  Honestly, I'm just in a season of craziness, but I'm working on some changes and re-focusing on what's important and things are starting to improve.  In the midst of it all though, I still have some Fabulous things for the week!

1. Returning shows - as I touched on in my post here, many of our favorite shows started returning this week and it's been nice to have some mindless ways to relax and unwind once again!

2. A new bag - yeah, I have a problem, I can admit it.  But up in Pequot Lakes last week I found out that Fun Sisters has an OUTLET store up there.  They call it "Thrifty Sisters" and prices are wayyyy low on stuff.  I have been wanting a dark green bag, because one of my winter coats has a dark green in the pattern (and I wear a dark green hat and scarf with it as well) and I found one!  And it was a great price.  And yes I'm using it now even if it isn't winter yet.  You know me, I'll be back to a different bag in a couple of days.

3. Brewed Beer - we got the last beer we needed to brew before Oktoberfest done on Monday night.  It's so nice to have that finished, now we get the batches kegged up and focus on other things to get ready for the party.

4. FALL! - it is officially Fall today, it is my favorite season as I've mentioned many a time before!  I have been loving the weather as of late too, especially sleeping with the window open on these cool nights and snuggling down under the covers.  Love. It.  I know they say we'll have "Indian Summer" next week and that's fine as long as the 90's don't come back, I can handle it!

And I am also finding it Fabulous that it is Friday, but that kind of goes without saying. :)

Happy Friday, Happy Autumn and Happy Weekend!

Whoops

Well, we learned a good lesson in homebrewing on Thursday night.  A nylon sock does not make a good substitute for an actual grain sock.

Long story short - everything should be included in the beer kit you purchase, including the "grain sock" which is what you put the grains in to then steep in your boiling hot water (think of it like a giant tea bag).  And when we opened our kit on Thursday night, everything was there but the grain sock.  We could have gone to get one, but that would have majorly delayed things and so Nate being a quick thinker said "hey, maybe we could use one of your nylons as long as we clean it and such, it should work about the same."  And it seemed like it would at first - until after the 1/2 hour of steeping it started to smell of burned plastic.  Bye bye brew.

So you're probably wondering, what do you do now, you wasted the grains, can you still brew it?  The short answer is yes.  We were able to go back and just purchase the grains that were in the kit (and a grain sock!)

We ended up running to the homebrew store to pick up those items before we left town on Friday.  Now it's a matter of finding time to brew it again.  We were going to do it yesterday when we got home, and we were home in plenty of time, but the weather was not cooperating.  So now it might be happening tonight.  We'll see how things go.  Sure would like to have this beer on tap for our party, but if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out.

So there's your beer lesson for the day.

You know that feeling...

...that you get when you are going on a little trip, even when it is just a couple of days worth and you have a list a mile long of things to do including packing, cleaning up your house a bit for the person caring for your cats, running errands, making corn bread to take with you to eat with your dad's chili, and brewing up a batch of beer because if you don't by tonight it won't be ready for the Oktoberfest party you're having in a few weeks and you want to have a packed bar so you really need to do it?

Yep.  That.

(P.S. I decided to take the afternoon off.)

A good weekend

Now that I'm done remembering 9/11 I'm back to your regularly schedule ramblin' gal!

And today I thought I'd ramble a bit about the weekend.  We had a good weekend full of good things!  It was a bit warmer out at times than I like, but otherwise I really enjoyed the things we did.

Saturday I indulged myself a little bit in having my own Stella and Dot party.  I will be able to get a few pretty new things that will help me totally rock 30 in a couple of months. I made a couple of new appetizers that turned out really well too and that was awesome!

Saturday night found me stepping out of my shell just a little - I went to a women's homebrewing group.  Yep.  I thought I'd give it a try.  Long story short, there's another women's beer group I found on Facebook that just got started here in the Twin Cities called Barley's Angels.  It's a group that meets monthly at various bars to do beer tastings and educate women on beer - and help them foster an appreciation for it.  I've been meaning to go to one of their meetings, but I just haven't had the time yet when they've had them, but I still "liked" their Facebook page so I could keep up just in case.  Another woman who is in that group then contacted me when she noticed that we homebrew - she has a group called Bitches Brew Crew and they brew beer monthly at her house in New Brighton - not far from us at all.  I decided to give it a try, figuring it was close to home if I hated it but otherwise, would be interesting to see what other homebrewers do.  It ended up being pretty neat - about three other women came, and the option is there to purchase a share of what is brewed, so it's divided up by about four of us.  We brewed a Pumpkin Ale and I'm excited to give it a try when it's done.  I don't know how many of their events I'll be able to make it to with our busy schedule, but I'm kind of proud of myself for stepping out of my comfort zone and trying this out.  Nate's excited too because the woman in charge of this group does all grain brewing with her husband and we might get to learn about that sometime (we currently do what is called "Extract brewing").  I was home early enough to still unwind with Nate for a bit on Saturday night too, so you can't beat that!

Sunday we slept in and that felt really good.  Then we got up and tried the brunch at our favorite restaurant Brasa in NE Minneapolis.  I had a feeling we'd end up loving it as we have everything else we have tried there and I was correct.  It was amazing.  I had french toast, Nate had a ham and egg hash and we shared these prawn cheese grits.  Yummmm.....

Then we went home and both just vegged for awhile - I honestly don't know the last time we were able to just do that on a Sunday afternoon.  Nate played video games while I took a nap!  I loved that!  Ha!  Then we decided to be crazy and take our afternoon walk by going up to Cub to pick up things for dinner - man was it HOT.  We kind of regretted that decision later, but hey, we got our exercise for the day, that's for sure!  Then my in-laws came over and enjoyed chili dogs with us and then we wrapped up the weekend with a couple of TV shows.

Now we're on to a short week, we're cabin bound at the end of this week which I am looking forward to!  Gonna be chilly up north and that's just how I like it!

A beer day

We finally brewed some beer over the weekend. I swear, this summer has just been...I don't even know if I have the right words to describe it. We've been busy, but we have had downtime too. The problem is, we like to brew out on the deck as much as we can, and when we've had downtime, the weather has sucked this year.

So we haven't been brewing much beer. And we've still been drinking the beer we have. Which leads to a problem - the bar is getting empty. And even though it's still a couple of months away, I'm already in planning mode for Oktoberfest - which has made me realize, we need to get some beer going if we are going to actually have some in stock by that time!

So, yesterday finally worked out to be a good day to brew and we now have a German Alt beer sitting in fermentation. Then Nate bought another Surly Furious clone kit, we made that one last year and it disappeared pretty quickly, so we're excited to have that one again. We may attempt a third somewhere in there too, we'll have to see.

It almost makes me sad that it feels like a chore to brew beer - I want it to be a fun hobby for us. But again, this summer overall has felt...odd for a lack of better words I guess. I feel overwhelmed and then I feel bored. Still working on that balance thing I guess. We'll get there.