Are You Friends With Your Ex?

All my exes live in Texas.  Or down the street.  Whatever.  Today, we’re chatting about exes.

Specifically, do you think you can you be friends with someone you’ve had a relationship with in the past? Someone you dated casually?  Someone you loved? Someone you had a crush on?  Someone you were married to?

And how does your spouse feel about it?

I am always intrigued with how other relationships work.  Exes can be such a touchy subject.  Jealousy can be problematic.  Mentally not being over someone can be problematic.  Comparisons can be problematic.  And sometimes, as is the case for many people, being friends with your ex isn’t problematic at all. 

Does it matter if the person is happily married to someone else or if the person is single?  Does it matter how much your spouse trusts your ex?  Does it matter how well your spouse knows your ex?  Maybe they’re even friends?  Is someone you dated for a month in college before you decided you’d be better off as friends less of an issue than someone you dated for five years?  Maybe anyone in the ex category is an automatic veto?

And does it matter to what degree you’re friends with your ex?  Facebook friends?  Hang out in person friends?  Is there a line drawn in the sand somewhere that relegates all exes to a cordial nod at the grocery store?  What if you and your ex have a lot of mutual friends and run into each other often?  What if you have a child with your ex?

Neither Dave nor I were married or had kids before, but we both dated other people, some seriously.  I am friends with some of my exes.  Dave, not so much.  He is friends with some of his old crushes, but no one he’d say he was very serious about.

Double standard?  Probably.

We never really had a big conversation about it while we were dating.  We were friends for months before and he knew that I had ex-boyfriends who were friends, but was never bothered by it.  At that time, he was only friends with one of his exes.  When we were dating, she ended up crossing a whole host of boundaries that he wasn’t comfortable with {honestly, I wasn’t either} and aside from being nice and saying hello if he runs into her, maintains no contact.  Not even Facebook.  Which?  More than OK with me.

For what it’s worth, there is only one person from my past I thought he might not be cool with.  So even though he’s never asked me not to, I don’t maintain any contact.  When I discussed the topic of this post with him, I asked  Dave if that was really the case and he confirmed that he feels better that we aren’t.  So I’m good with my decision.

Some of our couple friends have a zero ex policy and some don’t care at all.  Are you friends with your exes? Is your partner? Did you have a discussion about it? 

It’s Fall. Speaking of Fall And Bad Luck…

It was 97 degrees on Tuesday.  We set a record.  For the RECORD, I want them note that is too damn hot for me right there in the Farmer’s Almanac.

This morning we woke up and it was 52 degrees. 

Clearly Mother Nature has lost her mind.

What was my point?  Oh yes, so this morning we were driving to school talking about how it feels like fall weather.  Apparently the word fall must have triggered something because, Finn then tells our neighbor friends about the time that Dave jumped a fence.  I started laughing because it is a ridiculous story and now that he’s all healed up it makes me laugh even more. 

Finn:  Once my dad broke both his arms jumping a fence!

Oldest Neighbor:  Oh, when he was a kid?

Me:  No, last summer.

Oldest Neighbor:  WHY did he do that?

Me:  Because he does dumb stuff.  Trust me, you don’t want to jump fences.  I think he learned his lesson.

Finn:  Yeah.  He had a cast.

Youngest Neighbor:  Whoa.

Only my Davester. 

Happy Friday 13th!  Has the fall weather settled in at your house too?

Element 112.

Dave and I had an excellent experience at Element 112 last month for our anniversary.  If you are local, I’d highly recommend it.  We’re already planning a trip back with friends to try the private tasting room later in the fall so we get to sample an entirely different season.  Chris Nixon has done a phenomenal job sourcing fresh, local ingredients, including butter made from his own cow.  He steps just across the parking lot to grab the freshest, in season produce at the Sylvania Farmer’s Market, so each week you’re getting a different experience. 

I don’t want to tell you too much because part of the fun is the dinner event itself.

Trust me when I say, Ohio has never tasted so good. 

 

 

How To Grill Pizza.

Grilling pizza is something we do a lot over the summer since there is no need to heat up the oven.  I’ve covered using pre-cooked crust and popping it directly onto the grill grates and a yummy barbeque chicken pizza before.  Today I’m going to share with you a fun tip on how we grill homemade pizza dough.

While you can use the direct grill method, the crust tends to burn a bit on the bottom when you use a dough.  We’ve also used the indirect method, where you turn on two burners at high and leave two off, putting the pizza on the ‘off’ side and using the grill like an oven.  That one is good too, but it kind of defeats the purpose of grilling if you’re doing it like an oven.  Now, I want to introduce you to the elevated method.

The what?

The elevated method.  It consists of building an elevated cooking rack and putting the pizza dough on that to cook.  It gets it just enough away from the heat that it doesn’t burn, but close enough that it still gets that great crunchy crust.  We use a veggie grill basket that has a removable handle with a metal cooling rack on top.  {Those are Amazon Affiliate links to the two specific things we use.}  You can also use a couple empty tin cans or fire bricks in lieu of the veggie basket if you have those available to you.  Just make sure it’s stable so your pizza doesn’t end up falling all over the grill.

After you build your rack, preheat the grill to 500 degrees.  You will want to cook the pizza around 450 degrees but as you open the lid the temp will go down.

Get all of your toppings ready to go and roll out your dough.  {I don’t care one bit if you get the pre-done dough in the refrigerator section or buy it at your local store or Trader Joes.}  We use a recipe from a bread book that Dave has had for years.  There are tons and tons of recipes out there if you like to make your own.  

 

Put the dough on the elevated rack and grill for a minute or two, then flip it and top it with anything you like.  We don’t have a pizza peel, we just use a giant spatula to flip ours.

 

Close the lid and let it cook for 8 – 12 minutes depending on how done you like it and how much stuff you put on it.  To pull it off the grill, you can just slide it onto a cookie sheet.  We’ve been stacking ours with mozzarella, pepperoni, and sliced Roma tomatoes right out of the garden sprinkled with some Italian seasoning.Then right before serving we top it with loads of fresh basil from the garden.

I’m totally going to miss summer when it’s gone.