Super Sweet Brewing

I love beer. It has to be one of my favorite things on earth. I’m not talking about grabbing a can of Coors or Labatts, that would be gross. I’m talking about real beer. After lots of thought, I’ve decided to try my hand at home brewing. I didn’t want to jump right into buying one of those kits you see everywhere, if I’m going to do this, I’m going to do this shit out of it. First off, I wanted to do some reading. After visiting numerous forums, the best book to get is:


“How to Brew: Everything You Need To Know To Brew Beer Right The First Time” by John J. Palmer.

With almost 200 Amazon reviews, this book has an average rating of 5 stars (out of 5). The book is loaded with information, pictures, recipes, and great tips. It gave me a list of things I need and/or might want to consider getting depending on what my brewing plans were, making my decision to hold off on the generic “Home brew Kit” a good one.
I decided to start off slow, so this week I ordered my lab, and next paycheck I will start ordering the hops and other wonderful ingredients. I am truly excited over this new venture. Like Walter White, soon it will be time to cook.

March 24, 2012 0

Week 4 Weigh-in

A slow week for me this week. I went from 202.4 to 202.2. Not much of a loss but according to weight watchers, I am right on track. My average weight loss for 4 weeks has been 2.6 pounds a week and weight watchers says the average should be around 2. That being said, I’m not frustrated at all. 2.6 pounds a week is a healthy rate of loss, I’m just super eager to get below 200! This weekend, I’m going to try to stay active.

March 23, 2012 0

There are still good people around.

After work yesterday, I packed up my ratty old back pack with some orders that needed to be taken to the post office, stuck my wallet into my back pocket, and hopped onto my cruiser bicycle to go drop off the mail. When I arrive at the post office, I lock up my bike and reach into my back pocket to grab my wallet, only to find emptiness. My wallet had fallen out of my pocket during the ride. All of my credit cards were in there and my I.D. card. Luckily I never carry cash, but the panic soon took over and I started running the route that I took to get there, leaving my bike at the post office. After retracing my steps, the results were negative. It was gone. I gathered the numbers for all of my cards and cancelled them. This was a true bummer.
About an hour later the doorbell rang. A younger kid was standing at the door with my wallet in his hand. I was truly amazed. I never even imagined for a second that it would ever be a possibility. Thanks again.

The drywall work is moving right along in the main foyer. For the most part, it has been relatively easy, with only a few hiccups here and there. I ran in to one minor problem. One of the pipes in the wall was not pushed back far enough and it was pushing the drywall out. I had to shave down a section of the drywall so that it would lay correctly. With a little mud work, it shouldn’t be noticeable.

March 22, 2012 0

What a week!

This weather has been amazing. I sincerely hope we do not get a freak snow storm. Its not even April and our lawn is already growing and super green. With the weather constantly gorgeous, our weight watchers recipes haven’t been all that exciting. We are still sticking to our program, but just keeping it simple so that we can grill outside.


It’s hard to be in a bad mood after work when its this amazing outside!

Stay tuned this week as we should have some new onesie designs and new T-shirts!

March 20, 2012 0

!@#?% Pole!

Well, we had to start somewhere. We have big plans for our backyard this summer but right now it’s in awful shape. We have to change the pitch because the water currently rolls towards the house, and we are planning on fencing it in and covering it in old red brick.

Step #1: Remove the rusty yellow clothes line.

Simple enough right. Not exactly. I anticipated a concrete base buried in the dirt, but nothing like what we ended up pulling out. This baby was almost 3 feet long engulfed in a sloppy wet mush. It was awful. Nicole and I took turns digging around this massive pain in the ass, occasionally rocking it back and forth in hopes of loosening it. Eventually I ran out of patience and pulled down on the pole as hard as I could, and of course it bent. It seemed like it was going to be impossible for the two of us to remove this. So I thought to myself, “What would ‘Breaking Bad’s Heisenberg do?” That’s right, he would create a way to solve his problem using science! In my case, physics. I wedged some bricks under the bent pole and pulled down on the one end which lifted the massive concrete base. I had Nicole come over and stand on the end while I pulled it out of the hole using my legs so that I wouldn’t rupture my intestines. After about 2.5 hours, we got it out of the ground.

Next up is that gross shrub, although I’ll save that for next weekend as I am sure it will be equally as awful to remove.

March 19, 2012 0

Week 3 Weigh-In!

Today is weigh-in day for week 3. I lost another 1.6 pounds. It’s a loss, but I would’ve liked to have lost at least 2. This brings my weight to 202.4. I’m so close to being under 200, I can taste it! Pretty soon when I walk down the street, women will get light headed and have irregular heart beats because my new look. Nicole is super lucky.

“Would you like to go for a bike ride back to my place for some Sangria?”

March 16, 2012 0

Bring on the great weather!

What a great weekend we had. It’s amazing what warmer weather can do to your mood. Our winter has been super mild, but it has still been cold. Having a blast of warm weather over the weekend and for the upcoming days, is going to be great.
On Saturday we took Izzy to the park. We figured that a nice long walk for the dogs would tire them out, so we packed up the camera and the dogs, and headed to the park. The park is loaded with other dogs, all on leashes of course, but its a great place to let dogs interact and do some sniffing. Ric is used to this interaction as he gets it all the time but I wasn’t all that sure how much of this interaction Izzy gets. She ended up being fantastic, she loved being around the other dogs and was even pleasant around other men in the park (she’s usually “iffy” when it comes to being around males).

We have been getting the itch to work on the house, and although I need to drywall, it has still been too windy to bring drywall home on the car, so this weekend Nicole and I went to Home Depot and tackled other projects. The cabinets in the kitchen have no handles on them and can sometimes be difficult to open. We went and picked out some new handles which ended up looking awesome.

One other thing we had to change was the awful vanity in our bathroom. When we originally moved in, our bathroom was nonexistent. It was straight out of Alcatraz. We were able to get a great deal on a new kitchen and bathroom, but for the price, we would have to make a few sacrifices in the bathroom. The vanity he chose was clearly something that he caught a great deal on because it didn’t go well in there at all. It was gigantic and didn’t really match anything. It was nothing we were going to complain about, but we were going to have to add a new vanity to our list of things to get. This weekend we found one that looked great and like doubled the space in our bathroom.

March 12, 2012 0

St. Patrick’s Day is coming quick!

Just a little reminder (cheap plug), St. Patrick’s day is quickly approaching! I’m far from Irish but recognize that the day is filled with people who are, and they are all drinking like there is no tomorrow, and wearing wacky clothing. This year we have given them an option! Super Sweet Shirts presents the “St. Patrick’s Day Madlib shirt”.

This is available in men’s and women’s sizes, both currently up in our Etsy store. These are not up on our main website because I am currently in the processes of remodeling the sight, so new items have only been listed on Etsy and our eBay store.

March 10, 2012 0

Week 2 Weigh-in!

Two weeks into Weight Watchers and I’m down from about 211 pounds to 202.4! This plan has been pretty easy, I’m able to eat comfortably, even though I’ll always miss over eating! Giving up bourbon and beer during the week is tough. I love those two things. I love them. Nicole is having really good luck with it also and is losing weight too. Its nice wearing fit shirts and not looking like a sausage.
Last night was the first weight watchers dinner that I failed at making. The recipe listed was for chicken marsala. Everything was going great until the final step. I was to “pour marsala mixture into the pan” with the sauteed mushrooms. As soon as I did this, it looked like I blew an alien’s brain up. It turned into a disgusting, coagulated, purple sloppy mess. It looked like something from a 90’s Nickelodeon game show. So we had to toss that mess and just have chicken and veggies.
We have been babysitting my parents dog all week. She is an amazing dog, but a total diva. She doesn’t go outside when it rains. I have to push her into the yard. She also needs me to season her healthy dog food with a few morsels of my dogs food or she wont eat. She is super ridiculous, but we love her and it’s nice having a big dog around.

Izzy (right) really likes Ric (left), but she hates being away from my parents. This looks like a wedding picture from a fixed marriage.

March 10, 2012 0

Weight Watchers: Week 1

Last Monday, Nicole and I started Weight Watchers. We figured that if we started it now, by the time we get married in a few months, we will look awesome. We have tried all sorts of diets before this one, and they are all really bad. Calorie counting sucks and it doesn’t work well. My mom has lost a ridiculous amount of weight in the time she’s been on it, so we decided to do it. In 6 days I had lost about 5 pounds. I am allowed 43 points a day and sometimes its hard to even eat that much. In addition to that I get 49 cheater points which are points that you get for the week to splurge. I save those for beer on the weekend. So far its super comfortable to do and sort of fun because it forces me to cook food. There are hundreds of recipes for lunch, breakfast, dinner, and appetizers. I figure why not blog some healthy recipes that I really love.
Last week we made a bunch of things, the thing I liked the most was the Turkey Reuben. This is a great, filling sandwich and it’s only 5 points! The recipe is as follows:

Weight Watchers Turkey Reuben
Low calorie or light Rye Bread
2oz of 98% fat free turkey
Low fat Swiss cheese (we used the fat free)
Dijon mustard
Sauerkraut

Fire up a skillet or pan and spray it with some PAM spray. While the pan is heating up, build your sandwich. Once the sandwich is built and put together, place it on the pan until both sides are a golden brown.