Husband of a Blogger

August 4, 2013 7 Comments A Well Crafted Man

A Blogger's Better Half — Yep, on her phone again.

This was a sweet message sent from me to my wife. Ten minutes later I get a notification I was tagged on Instagram.

Why was this (and several other) images not used? She looks nice. It shows off the dress well. The atmosphere is great. Oh, there is a light coming out of her head. Bummer.

Me. Dressed as a Rabbit. For the world to see. YAY.

Jenni used to be an editor at a newspaper. I think the journalism blood is still pumping through her veins. She’s been blogging for most of our marriage, and, at times, I worry that she might have an addiction. I’m not sure there’s a cure.

These are the times I’m reminded I’m the husband of a blogger

Bloggers often get solicited by companies and marketers, trying to reach the blogger’s audience. This can manifest as an invitation to dinner at a hip, Portland restaurant. I hear Jenni gush about the delicious, free food she’s given for review. They should have blogger-husband-to-go-containers for that kind of thing.
She has an all day blogger event, putting me on single daddy duty. Not that I mind being with my own kid, it’s just that he’s easier to handle when you get to say, “tag, you’re it; he just poured his milk in my shoe.”
I do get invited to join her on some of those events. I feel like she’s a celebrity when people say, “oh, you’re Jenni’s husband! I love her blog.”
Sometimes we have to stop the car so she can get out and pose next to a warehouse. But then none of the shots show off the outfit just right.
Random text conversations of ours get posted to her Instagram. My photo has been seen pinned on Pinterest.
Our car’s interior is currently covered in glitter – and she knows how much I hate glitter. When a 3-year-old girl needs a birthday gift wrapped, however, I’ll suffer through.
Craft projects litter every surface of the house.
Whenever we go out to eat, and the server brings our food, I have to wait until she gets it on Instagram before I can dig in. In all honesty though, I do the same thing with beer.
She experiments with recipes, and I’m the guinea pig. I can’t complain. My co-workers ask me who’s always making me so much good food.
We have email addresses that just contain our first names and our domain name. It’s pretty cool. I don’t even need numbers after my name!
I can drop phrases like SEO, printables, WordPress conversion, etc., into conversations.
I recognize people from their blog. I feel like I know their superhero alter-ego, since I know them in real life.

So, it’s not all bad. Her foray into the blogging world has allowed us to meet some great people, who are also bitten by the bug. We’re part of a larger community that’s developing ways of sharing life together, online, and in person.

Happy blogging, honey.

A Well Crafted Man

Picnic Week: Summer Picnic Beer

July 28, 2013 4 Comments A Well Crafted Man

It’s Picnic Week here on A Well Crafted Party. My wife bought me beers to try so I could tell you which ones I’d bring to a picnic. It’s a hard, hard life. Check out the other picnic-related posts, but only after reading about the beer!

Beer in a Can, Perfect for a Picnic

Beer comes in cans or bottles, usually. We once thought that beer in cans was cheaper, not as tasty, and only for frat boys and hipsters. It still is, but the audience is widening. Around 2009, craft breweries starting canning in addition to bottling. That lead to a shift in perception, and there are a few good reasons for breweries to offer their beer in cans. Cans don’t break like bottles do, and are cheaper to ship. For beer drinkers, the beer quality is actually better in cans, since no light can penetrate them, and the seal is tighter than bottle caps. The green consumer will also be happy that cans recycle much more efficiently. So let’s get tasting.

Right now I’m trying the “Sweet As” Pacific Ale by GoodLife Brewing Company. They’re a brewery in Bend, Oregon (can we call Bend Portland’s tomboy sister, and get away with it?), and it’s a satisfying pale ale for an Oregon summer. The Pacific in the name refers to the two hop varieties used in this pale ale: Galaxy from Australia, and Pacifica from New Zealand. The galaxy hops give the beer a slight citrusy, passion fruit profile, and overall, it’s not so hoppy to fall into the IPA category of bitterness. If you’re a fan of Widmer’s Drifter Pale Ale, you’d probably like this summer brew by GoodLife.

Hopworks Urban Brewery IPA is next. The hops hide behind the malt – the aroma’s all sweet and malty, and you don’t really know you’re drinking an IPA at first. I’d recommend it to beer drinkers who want to like IPAs, (oh, you’re from Portland? You must like IPAs, right?) but find that most are so bitter they shrivel their tongues. Now, I may be losing beer snob cred here, since Hopworks claims this beer is 75 IBU. But taste it, then taste something like Ninkasi’s Tricerihops. The HUB may indeed be a better picnic beer, but it’s not overly hoppy for an IPA.

Another selection from HUB: Rise-Up Red, NW Red Ale. This seasonal beer was only made available in cans this year. It’s full bodied, thicker on the tongue than a pale ale or IPA, but delicious. It’s brewed with the northwest mainstays, Cascade and Centennial hops. I prefer more refreshing beers for picnics, but might go with the Rise-Up Red on a hiking trip in the spring. By the way, Centennial hops are also used in many other Oregon beers, like Bridgeport Brewing’s Hop Czar, Rogue’s Independence Hop Ale and Double Mountain Brewery‘s Pale Ale.

21st Amendment Brewery’s Hell or High Watermelon is an American wheat beer, with watermelon added during second fermentation. I love eating watermelon, but I’ve never really been a fan of anything watermelon-flavored. When I tasted this beer, I did first notice the watermelon, but it really wasn’t overpowering. It ended up being really thirst quenching. I would pair it with campfire food or burgers.

Looking for a cheap, session beer? Some picnics call for trunks full of beer, but you just can’t stoop down to the level of Bud and Coors. And PBR makes you feel like you’re trying too hard. Our local Trader Joe’s stocks the Simpler Times Lager, from Minhas Craft Brewery, in Wisconsin, IL. Set your expectations to low, and you’ll be happy with this affordable (under $5!) six pack.

If bottled beers are allowed in parks where you live, like they are in Oregon, I’d also recommend 10 Barrel Brewery‘s Swill. It’s a summer sipper, a berliner weisse infused with grapefruit. You might not find it to your liking, if you’ve never had a penchant for fruit beers. I loved the taste, and the look on people’s faces when they take a sip. It’s surprisingly good. And even the most machismo of men can maintain their masculinity while partaking in this fruity picnic beer. Maybe they’ll sell it in cans, after they read this post? C’mon 10 Barrel, you liked my tweet that one time, about your beer; you know you owe me for the free advertizing.

For the perfect picnic, my recommendation is just to try them all. If I had to pick one, I’d suggest the Hell or High Watermelon Wheat. I had two at the Portland Blogger’s Family Picnic this afternoon, and it just felt right.

What are your favorite canned beers?

A Well Crafted Home

Urban Gardening: Getting Started

July 21, 2013 6 Comments A Well Crafted Home

I do not have a green thumb. I don’t live with a dog or cat, partly because my toddler is enough of a mess to take care of, but mostly because I wouldn’t be a very good pet owner. I’ve always thought I should try and keep plants alive before taking on the responsibility of a dog.

Despite my terrible sense of responsibility, I had a strong urge to learn how to garden, and when my family and I moved into a house with a yard last summer, I decided to risk taking (botanical) life into my hands. I was motivated by seeing friends and coworkers show off their bountiful produce (the size of one coworker’s zucchini was astounding).

I’m a little bit of a scifi nerd, and some post-apocalyptic stories seem more likely than others. And if the grocery stores are all empty, I want to at least know how to grow my own vegetables. Ideally, I’d have a few goats, chickens, bees, and alpacas as well, but I thought I’d start with a veggie garden.

Urban Gardening—Choosing the Plot

I am the epitome of a novice, so this gardening series is not meant to be tutorial, but more “try not to cringe at all Brian’s mistakes.” Perhaps you can learn a little from what I’ve screwed up.

Spring was arriving in Portland, and I was ready to get started. I’d done a little research into how to convert a grass lawn into a vegetable garden. There were different options, like covering the plot with newspaper, letting the darkness kill the grass for a month, and mulching in the newspaper. I had two problems with that option: I didn’t have any newspaper (who doesn’t read their news online? Sorry, print journalists), and I didn’t have a month’s worth of patience. I decided to go with the other option I’d read about – flipping the turf.

We moved to this house from an apartment, so the only tools we had for outdoor work were left behind by the last tenants. I had a sturdy, if dull, shovel, and that was enough for this task. Some people rent a back-hoe for this – I witnessed a neighbor actually tearing up his yard with one – but I’m not that gung-ho, or that full of money. Besides, gardening should be done as much by hand as possible, don’t you think? (I changed my mind later!)

As you can see, my brother and I dug a rectangle, about 8 by 10 square feet. No real planning went into the dimensions or the location. It just looked to be the right size, and maybe we got a little worn out. Flipping sod is not for city folk, with flabby city muscles.

My first mistake was choosing the plot location. I didn’t put hardly any thought into the most important element: where sunlight fell in my yard. What a rookie mistake. All I needed to do was spend one day occasionally eyeballing my yard, and marking the extent of sunlight and shadow. The plot I chose is about 40% shady (that’s my very scientific measurement). Shade is okay for some plants, like lettuce, so it wasn’t the worst mistake I could have made. But now I know what I would do differently next time.

In the next post I will tell you about how my laziness and impatience lead to my next mistake. It’s not all bad news – we have successfully harvested spinach, lettuce, and basil, so far, and there is a fat cucumber getting fatter everyday.

Do you garden? If so, what were your mistakes in the beginning?

(Come on… make me feel better!)