Last night was a day and night of whats new, whats borrowed, and whats blue. What was new was my first attempt at Risotto, the classic italian preparation made “in the long and painful way” which I found actually to be quite enjoyable and not painful in the least. It was amazing to witness so few rice grains swell up with so much chicken stock! Scott has announced that if I make Risotto once a week he’d be a happy camper. At the end of this I’m going to have Popeye arms — toot toot!

Whats borrowed is the beer. I came across something I thought I’d never see in Michigan, a case of Labatt’s Ice Beer. The only negative thing about my find was that it was in canisters and not in bottles. I prefer beer in bottles but in a pinch aluminum canisters are minimally acceptable. It brought back memories, lots of them. Ice beer is college-kid beer. It has absolutely no character whatsoever, it’s just really alcohol for alcohols sake. It brought me back to nights in Toronto with friends and going out in Buffalo. In New York you can get Labatt’s Ice in bottles. It’s another reason why I HATE NEW YORK. They get the good stuff. 😉

As for whats blue, our hallway is. We spent all last night taping and priming the entire “room” and then this morning we laid down a delightful light shade of blue called “Cassiopeia” from Laura Ashley, which is just a color set on Valspar Paint from Lowes. And now you all know why yesterday we checked into Lowes on Foursquare. The hallway and the living room and the bathroom all carry various notes of a blue color. It’s light enough to not drag the house down into the murky deep, but not so light as to appear like a pastel factory exploded in my house. Once we’re done trimming and touching up I will share pictures. There is already a picture of the primed surfaces here.

Now we’ve got to go back to Lowes today and get a smaller mini-roller (the big full-size roller is too awkward to use on much of the surfaces in the hallway) and then get new switchplates and pulls for the cabinets because the ancient-bronze look that the house initially came with just won’t work with this hippy-happy-blue we’ve covered it with.