Our condo association has been busy this month, and sometimes not in a good way. I’ll save you some time and give you a summary: our condos were apartments two years ago, and were then converted. They were already 8 years old when converted, and instead of fixing stuff, the company just looked the other way. They also didn’t do our budget correctly, shorting us in the areas of snow removal and savings. Now, we have a lot of stuff that should have been fixed and no money to do it. This creates a lot of frustrated home owners and board members.

The good news is I (Jess) am now on the condo board with a few other fresh faces. It should be really exciting actually. Yea, we have problems, but we are only two years old and have 42 places. That means we have the chance to do a lot of really cool stuff, including a web site that Boone and a neighbor are working on. My mom thinks this could be the start of a Paul-Soglin like career, but I don’t know about that (You can read up on this Madison-celebrity from his blog in our linked blogs section). Let’s see what position on the board I get and how the first few meetings go.

So, with all the weddings done and summer coming to a close, I’ve been trying to keep busy with other things besides work. My latest adventure? Cooking. We got so many neat kitchen and cooking gifts for our wedding, and I’ve been trying to put them to good use. My favorite is the box of Penzeys Spices we got from Boone’s old co-workers at MSOE. There are lots of grilling, dressing, and pasta spices to try out.

We are also part of a CSA (Community Support Agriculture) and get a box of veggies every two weeks. If you are not familiar with CSA here’s how it works: a regional farm grows local fruits and veggies, packs them, and sends them to local communities. The veggies are organic, it supports local farmers, and reduces our use of gas (you don’t need to ship veggies across the country in trucks). Our CSA program is Harmony Valley in Viroqua, WI and they ship to West and South WI, and the cities. They also have a stand at the Dane County Farmer’s Market and are always busy. The best things we have gotten are the sweet corn, edamame, and asparagus, but we also get tomatoes, strawberries, peas, cucumber, raspberries, and others. The veggies are really fresh, and sometimes we get some weird stuff that we aren’t use to cooking with, so it’s been interesting to try to come up with ways to use them. Luckily this farm sends a newsletter with recipes and tips with the boxes, so I at least have a place to start with my kitchen adventures.

For those who doubt the power of the Cooper:
Last night, we went to Ikea and bought a bookshelf I’ve been looking at for months. At about six feet tall and with 16 compartments, it’s huge- I have a lot of books. The cost of shipping was almost as much as the cost of the shelf itself, so we decided to measure Ace and see if she could handle it (For those who don’t know, my car’s name is Ace). It looked good in theory, but would it work? We headed down there, grabbed the shelf, and pulled up the car.
About 5 minutes and several sounds of laughter from the other customers, it totally fit! I could even shift, see out the back window, and see all my blind spots. Boone was squished against the from window a bit, but not too terribly.
Here’s some photos for those out there still doubting- I know I won’t be anymore. 🙂

Boone and I recently when on our first drive with the Madison Mini Cooper club. It was pouring outside and Boone thought that it might be cancelled but when we got to the meeting spot, eight other adorable MINIs were lined up and ready to go. They found the most windy, twisty, fun roads they possibly could and, despite the weather, we took them pretty fast. We ended with dinner at this tiny seafood and steak place (the food was good!) and then headed home to put Ace to bed. It was great to see some other Mini owners and to get some driving tips from them.