Mojitos & Masterpieces

We set out yesterday with the mission of exploring Adams Morgan and its cultural oddities while enjoying food (as usual).  After hitting a couple shops that smelled like my brother's high school basement bedroom and looked like my grandmother's attic converted to a hookah bar, we decided to fill our bellies with some tapas at Rumba Cafe.  I love remembering Groupons I purchased months earlier, then it feels like free lunch!  The food was great (I absolutely loved the ceviche and Shrimp loved everything) and the mojitos weren't half bad.  We wanted to explore the area a little more after we finished, but all the bottomless drink brunches were over, Madam's Organ doesn't open until 5pm, and the weather was NOT quite as comfortable as last weekend.  Instead we stopped in at Tryst to grab some coffee and a slice of carrot cake, but there were no seats.  And no sign of any seats coming available (as evidenced by the presence of several small gaggles of people trying to look sly while eyeballing every Macbook-using, coffee-drinking creature in the place).  So, we got it to go... this would make great dessert later!

On the way home Shrimp spotted a grocery store we hadn't yet visited.  As foodies, we've been on the hunt for the perfect grocer since moving to the DC area and haven't quite found it yet.  But this little place was great!  Shrimp reports a scarey restroom situation, but the produce (and most else) was so cheap, there were at least three cute older gay men couple, ("Tom!  Tom!  I found the jelly aisle!"), a whole mess of adorable little (well-behaved) children, and an AUBURN fan (insert obligatory WAR EAGLE! here).  Yep, we stopped and talk to the Auburn fan.  That's how we roll.  After filling our hippie granola re-usable grocery bag we hit the liquor store and headed on home.

Immediately upon walking through the front door I whipped up a pitcher of mojitos (what can I say, I was inspired!).  We griddled up some sirloin burgers, and finished up the first disc of Modern Family's first season.  It is a terrifying series.  Not scary in the traditional sense, scary in the oh-my-god-this-is-too-much-like-real-life sense.  I hardly watch TV anymore (save for college football.... War Eagle... again), but I absolutely recommend this show to anyone who wants to feel normal :)  The mojitos helped me feel better about it too.

 Good drinks and good company.  Like my mojito-stache?  I love Urban Outfitters!

Then it was project time.  Yep, Saturday night and these exciting girls decided to try their hand at exciting internet-inspired, hallway-quality art.  I gathered all the acrylic paint and canvas in the house, and we sat down with (more) mojitos to make things happen.  But the yellow paint was dry. Oh no!  Our night was practically ruined!  Not to fear, there is a craft store about two miles from our place that is open until 9pm, and I managed to save the day.

We made it through most of the project with lots of laughs and limited "I suck at thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis"es from Shrimp :)  She downright enjoyed herself, until she got tired and tipsy and just wanted to go to bed.

Shrimp, aka Picasso, hard at work on her masterpiece

And at the end, we had beautiful art!

The final products... Shrimp's on the left, mine on the right.

Like I said, hallway-quality!

Don't be confused, we didn't intentionally hang our art at 11pm when we finished, there are these two GIANT screws with anchors in the wall that we just don't feel the need to pull, but are always looking for something to hide them with.  This week, OWLS!

In the end we forgot the carrot cake even existed until crawling into bed last night, so cake for breakfast?  It's about that time!

Our genius Ikea project (one of many)!

Well lately it seems like we are on our way to having an Ikea furniture/items filled house so why not go all out and give the cat an Ikea litter box, right?

 Inspired by something like this that we saw in a SkyMall catalog.

We got a great deal on a storage bench with 3 compartments in the "As-Is" Ikea section a few months ago. The genius idea that made us break down and purchase this was "We could so make one compartment hold (HIDE!) a litter box for the cat and we'll be litter box "free"! So we purchased it and spent a solid 30 minutes trying to make this huge box fit in Tater's Honda...which ended up w/ me in a super uncomfortable awkward position smashed under the heavy box and Tater laughing in the driver's seat.

Now, this piece of furniture sat in the box in the spare room for at least a month.  It wasn't until we found out that Tater's mom would be staying with us for a few days that I decided to put this thing together for her to have a place to put her stuff while she was here. So of course the morning of her arrival I started working on this project.  A few hours later it was all done even if I had a few pieces left over (crazy Ikea instructions...I mean who really knows how to read those things correctly?!) it looked great!

Look familiar?

 A few months pass by....still a great piece of furniture in our spare room, but still haven't had the time to turn it into a fully functional piece with a hidden cat box!

Then one February evening, after a few mimosas, we decided to pull out the Dremel Tater's mom bought us (best house warming gift ever!) and get started on this project!

After several broken dremel blades, more mimosas, a hand saw, mallet and determination we (mainly Tater) successfully cut out a square opening in the side of this wonderful Ikea wooden storage bench...and we immediately say "This damn cat is gonna have the coolest s!@* box in town"!"

 Tater thinking this is going to be a piece of cake.

 Me hard at work wearing my "safety goggles."

  We even made her a ramp.  We were so excited after we cleaned up our mess and put her litter box in the compartment and shut the door...surely this cat is going to love this!  NO.....not at all!  She. Hates. It! So now the litter box just sits beside it...FAIL!

After all that work and planning of our amazing idea...I'm just hoping she warms up to it soon!  If not...then like Tater says "Well, we can just put a blanket in the compartment and she'll have a really neat place to sleep and we'll be really sweet cat owners for making her a comfy hideout."

We'll keep our fingers crossed and start planning our next home improvement project...over mimosas of course.

~Shrimp