Filed under: Uncategorized
So, instead of sweeping and dusting and being all efficient-like, I’ve spent the morning perusing photographs and I’ve finally got before-an-after stuff together from the kitchen renovation. Here they are:
East Wall- Before
East Wall-During
East Wall-After
West Wall- Before
West Wall-During
West Wall- After
Yes, we loves it very much. It’s more fun to cook in a kitchen that reflects one’s own style, and has plenty of room for the oddities one prefers to vienna sausages.
Yesterday I was feeling a tad prickly. Well, that’s relative, I suppose. I was feeling 5’4″ of cholla cactus parked at the entrance of the Sunday Canyon Subdivision prickly. It’s the kind of cactus even the contractors with the heavy equipment are reluctant to tackle because cholla thorns are 3 inches long of razor sharp meanness that can puncture a tire or be used to perform all manner of alternative In Touch With Nature piercings for people named Moonbeam. Cholla thorns are a regular force of nature, they are.
So, I mentioned to Sweet Daddio that I was feeling some touchy, and a side order of meanness, and he gave me a subtle sideways look (his looks are usually like that, subtle and almost unreadable except that I know him well) and offhandedly mentioned that yeah, he’d noticed that. I guess the kids did too because they were scarce most of the day. Just as well, I might have barbequed their butts if crossed just wrong.
My children, boy children all, will be so prepared for their wives and moods. Nothing like a pre-menopausal bipolar mother to get them ready for the storms that lie ahead.
The good news is, all this pre-menstrual stuff, it all happened *after* I went to walmart, so no one died there, and *after* we finished the utility room (so nice! so organized! I should take a picture!), so SD and I apparently didn’t butt heads too hard about it. It was simple, really. He got the shelves on this wall and the pegboard, I got the long shelves on that wall. I got more shelves but he got the pegboard.
It will all (this emotional lightening storm) have passed by this weekend as well. I am flying to Texas to spend a few days with my grandmother. Grandad died 6 months ago, and by all accounts Grandmother is happier than she’s been in a VERY long time. My guess is 71 years, because that’s how long they were married and to say he was a Difficult Man to Live With is being very kind. Because he was a VERY difficult man to live with. Anyway, I’m flying out there to check up on her and visit a bit. The home she lives in has a guest room, so I don’t have to deal with hotels, and they let me take meals there as well. Very convenient, and it’s a nice place to boot. I am glad I am prickly today, because it means I won’t be saying nasty thing to the guy who reeks of curry and BO in the seat next to me. I’ll just pop a couple of tridents, offer him one, and bury myself in a book.
Right now, however, I am kind of…hm…procrastinating. I have a list of stuff to do, ordinary housewiferly things like putting CLR in the toilet and sweeping the bathroom floor. How 2 relatively clean and tidy people like SD and myself can create so much hair on the floor is beyond me, but we do. In the closet even, whose doors stay shut, there’s great clods of dustbunnies, breeding and replicating and all. It don’t make no sense, but it needs to be cleaned up. It will, however, require me to carry the broom upstairs (Oh! I need a maid! A Broom! upstairs! Woe!), and remember a couple of trashbags, and the rubber gloves. I will need organization and frankly, I’m just not feeling it right now.
My Fun Project for the day is to go through all the photos of the kitchen, both before and after, and print them out to show Grandmother. I’ve been keeping her abreast of the constructional festivities and she is anxious to see the end result. Especially since the chair at my kitchen desk (I have a kitchen desk! Whee!) is one she found at a Junque Shoppe some time back in the 1950′s. The seat looks like an enormous pop top off a Corona beer bottle, complete with reverse embossed “Corona”. Picture:
So, instead of cleaning, for the moment I’ll ponder what to eat for breakfast. Cheese eggs, maybe, or a bowl of cheerios when I really want a cranberry muffin from Dunkin Donuts but not with the effort of actually driving the 3 miles to get one. I have some dried cranberries, and an orange, I suppose I could make my own. That would also require effort and I’m really wanting to be waited on right now.
So I’ll sit in the cool breeze of the open window and grouse about the mess these people leave behind.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Yep, that thing what rules the turning of my planet, tasty food.
We spent the weekend organizing the utility room. It was a disorganized pit of a blackhole, where everything was lost and nothing ever found. I guess Sweet Daddio had his fill, because he declared that we were off to Lowes to purchase shelving and containers, and the UR would be whipped into shape. And so it is. It would make Whatshername Budigeg on Neat really proud, with all the new matching containers and a spot for everything and everything in it’s spot, even a great big pegboard with the most frequently used household tools hanging right there! No more scratching through bins, looking for the Robo-grips, for they have their own peg, hanging there for all to see. It is a Very Good Thing.
What does this have to do with food? Well, today, SD and I went back to Lowes, to return an unsatisfactory bin for a better suited one, and to get pegs and hooks and a much needed Cook’s Illustrated magazine (Thanksgiving fare, like Apple Cranberry Pie and How To Roast a Turkey) and as we were leaving I was overcome with the hankering for egg salad. Nothing fancy, no dill or horseradish or capers, just good ol’ pedestrian Egg Salad On White Bread With a Side of Chips. And so it was.
Egg Salad (can halve the recipe if you aren’t feeding the Mongol Horde like I am)
12 eggs, boiled 8 minutes, peeled and chopped
1 cup high quality mayonnaise- I like Dukes, but Kraft is ok
1/3 cup sweet salad cube pickles- the cubes, not the relish. The relish is too finely chopped. Get the cubes.
2 tablespoons rice vinegar (the unseasoned kind)
1 tablespoon yellow mustard
2 good pinches paprika
1 good pinch cayenne pepper
Mix everything except the eggs together really well. I like to put it all in a jar and shake it up. usually there’s just enough mayo left in the jar that I can put everything else in with it, and it saves me the aggravation of scraping the jar out. Once it’s all mixed well, pour it over the eggs and mix well. Make a sandwich with white bread and about 1/2 cup of the salad.
It’s kinda like deviled eggs. Sometimes I get fancy, and add dill or whatever, but today, just the basic stuff was all that was required.
It’s a nice feeling, reclaiming this utility room. It’s not a huge room- 8×8 or so, with a hot water heater in one corner, but with plenty of shelving now, the space can be used efficiently. I have a box for kitchen stuff, rarely used, another one for paint related items like rollers and dropcloths and about 20 cans of spraypaint. SD has little bins for screws and nails, bigger ones for other, more mysterious stuff, and that fine, fine pegboard with all these tools hanging from it so when I need a hammer or some vice-grips they are right there. I have a tote with my cleaning supplies, he has a bin full of cordless tool batteries. I have a bin full of lightbulbs-now we can quit buying them everytime one goes out because they’re all in one place and sorted. He has a bin with car care stuff like engine additive and bug-and-tar remover. Organization. What a concept. I highly recommend it.
Filed under: Uncategorized
The thermometer thingy over on the right of my page! She says 73F right now and I know for a natural fact it’s not one degree warmer than 45F. I know this because I am wearing sweats *and* my wool Faribo shawl and still my fingers are blue and there be icicles hanging from the end of my nose.
Dangummit it’s not supposed to get cold ’til after Thanksgiving, and even then only between the hours of 7pm and 8 am. Global warming…or another Little Ice Age…something. Maybe I should hop on the media bandwagon and find a way to pin this on Geo W.
You think I’m whining about the cold now, just wait ’til January. That middle week is usually heckishly cold. Close the windows cold. Put a blanket on the bed cold.
There’s a Bass Pro Shop in Savannah. Maybe I could go get me a nice parka, or some fleecy boots, or some flannel. I don’t own any flannel, not even in the nightgown drawer. Maybe I’d be more comfortable with a plaid flannel shirt or two. Or some cordoroy…how do you spell that…corduroy.
All I know is I went through my long-sleeved drawer today and realized I own 4 long sleeved t-shirts, 1 sweatshirt, and have oh, maybe 5 or 6 hanging shirts, all thin cotton and most practical in the summertime for keeping the rays of the sun from poaching my arms, but useless when considering arctic tempuratures. Maybe I’ll go to the fabric store and buy up some fleecy stuff, and make a few tunics. Not exactly stuff for the runway models, but warm and comfortable.
My hands are the first thing to get cold. It’s hard to warm them up, too. I’ve tried submersing them in hot water, wrapping them in a heating pad, and sticking them in Sweet Daddio’s armpits. You want to talk about a romance killer? There’s nothing like ice cold hands to take the wind out of someone’s proverbial sail.
And here it is, not even October yet, the trees aren’t changing, the portulaca is still blooming, one could even consider (theoretically, it would appear) wearing the linen. And I’m freezing.
Filed under: Uncategorized
The kitchen project approcheth it’s closing! Hurrah! With the exception of flooring, which will go down November/December, and a couple of small bits of molding and trimwork, it’s Done.
This picture is my desk, located where the pantry used to be. We were planning on removing the wall altogether, opening the room into the office, but alas, ’twas not to be, thanks to multifarious plumbing related objects located inside the wall, stuff in the form of cast iron and copper pipes which would be a righteous pain in the rear to relocate, and probably would add next to nothing to the property value. So, we put Plan B into action, and Sweet Daddio built me a cute little desk, and bought some ready made shelving (I know! ready made! He risked his Fine Woodworking license by doing that…it must be love.). The chair is strictly temporary. I am on the hunt for a chair that has fine Queen Anne bones, or something approximating them. Must Be Delicate, as anything with real substance would look funny. Anyway, here it is:
It’s nice to see the light at the end of the tunnel. This will be the largest project we do at this house, and it’s comforting to know the remaining projects will require less emotional investment. Maybe we can get through them without any drama from me, or egregious patience from SD.
This weekend I went to Auburn, ostensibly to see my parents but in reality to get some business attended to and see The Good Dr. H. Monday afternoon.
Sunday saw me on the requisite tour of The Garden, a lofty name for a few dried out and weedy bits of dirt in the middle of a 15 acre field punctuated with piles of this and heaps of that. As we wandered out og the Herb Garden, with it’s pretty healthy patches of lemon thyme and oregano and No thanks, I don’t need tarragon because I’ve got Mexican Marigold, we ambled to the scuppernong arbor. Mom looked at it and panicked because the vines were LOADED and they were leaving town in the morning and Oh! No! What to DO! She handed me a basket and got one for herself and we filled um UP, with 2 varieties of scuppernongs and one of deep purple muscadines. She asked did I want any to take home and I said yes, I’d take a gallon of muscadines.
And last night and today, I ate that gallon of muscadines, feeling virtuous because they were all-organic and fruit and all.
*an aside* A muscadine and a scuppernong are a type of wild grape, as big around as a quarter with tough leathery skin but a magnificent delicious flavor unlike store bought grapes entirely. ambrosia, to be sure. /end*aside*
Monday, I spent the morning at the bank, dealing with financial things, and at J&M, puchasing Auburn University Fan Propaganda in the form of stickers for my car. I went into Hobby Lobby and slobbered all over everything, and bought a brushed aluminum telephone for the kitchen at Target. I went to World Market where I got Sweet Daddio some Negra Modelo and rice crackers, then to Good Dr. H, where he decided to forgo the additional med, given the deeply unpleasant reaction I had to the last stuff. (Have you ever been constipated to 12 days? I don’t recommend it.One’s perspective on the world changes subtly.) “Take a whiff of Xanax” he said. “Have a gin and tonic if it’s after 5, but only 1.” I asked if I could go by Greenwich Mean Time and he said if that’s what it took to keep me calm, he’s ok with that.
Then I drove home, with my stepsisters in a cage in the back seat. Coco and Maggie, Mom’s
Pwe-shuss widdle weinerdogs. I call them Thing One and Thing Two. My dogs are ever so much more so smarter than them, but they are funny, in a mindless squeak-toy sort of way. Mom and Dad are on A Trip, and I agreed to babysit. 6 weinerdogs in a household, even one as big as ours, is borderline ridiculous. They’re Everywhere!
Today was spent doing everything I usually do on Monday, plus what I normally do on Tuesday. Laundry, painted a desk, finished the drywall in the kitchen- I’m not happy with it but then I’m not getting paid to do it.
And that’s all I’m going to say about that. Everyone’s standing around sucking their cheeks in waiting for supper.
Filed under: Hooray!
Not officially, of course, but certainly philosophically it is. When we woke up this morning, the thermometer read 62F! SIXTY TWO 62 62 62 62 62!
La la la it’s 62! And dry! With real dew on the ground! Not just leftovers from the golf course sprinklers!
I knonw, Northern Girl is probably snickering and rolling her eyes at all this excitement, but y’know, here in Statesboro, Georgia, Deep South East O’ Nowhere USA, you have to find a topic of interest where you can. And it is indeed usually the weather.
Weather conversations here go like this: “Sure is hot today.” “Yep.” “You could grab the air and wring a handful of water out of it.” “Yep.” “Want a coke?” “Yep”
So, thanks to the sweat-reducing chill (relatively speaking, of course) in the air, Lily (my sweet chocolate long haired dachsund Princess Dog) and I took a nice walk on the golf course, getting our feet (and her low-to-the-ground tummy) wet on that wonderful dew. We sniffed mushrooms, and waved at the guy manicuring the greens, and looked at lots of people’s backyards who either have someone to help with the work, or way more time on their hands than we have. How come everyone’s back yard is prettier than ours? There’s this one with a really nice pergola sort of thing, covered with some kind of vine and containing attractive and probably expensive furniture. Hmph.
If someone gave me $100,000 for no good reason, I think the first thing I’d do is fix up the back yard. I’d build a nice storage building that matches the house, and is big enough for all our shi…er…stuff and would give Sweet Daddio a place to build furniture that’s out of the rain and the pine straw. I’d put a pretty fence around my vegetable garden, have all the pine trees cut down and plant hardwoods and fruit trees. Peaches grow well around here, as do pears. So do persimmons but I really don’t like them, they taste kinda like they’ve been left on the windowsill a couple of days past their expiration date. I’d take up the brick patio, and put down a new one, this time properly,with a sand foundation. I’d also expand it a bit- double the size and put a new wall around it. I’ve grown to love the privacy afforded by the 6 foot brick wall. Then I’d landscape, with flowering shrubs like chinese witch hazel and camellias and NO azaleas. None. Sue me for being a Southern heretic and not liking azaleas, but they’re only pretty 2 weeks every year and the rest of the time they’re just a dumb boring bush.
But today, since I don’t have $100,000 laying around collecting dust, I’m going to finish up the stenciling in the kitchen. SD has declared that he’s going to rip out the old pantry this weekend. In it’s place will go a desk and shelves, a nice spot for the laptop and maybe I’ll take the cookbooks off the hutch and put them there. The phone is going there as well (HUZZAH!) which means it will be out of the dining room and in a much more logical place! I found a phone at Target I’d like to get- it’s brushed aluminum and kind of old-fashioned looking. It would go well with the kitchen. Once that project is finished, all we’ll lack is laying the floor. That will happen in November, when we can get the 900sq ft of laminate needed to do the entire main floor. Now *that* will be a project. *whew*
All this climateological (however you spell that) excitement, this cool weather, this harbinger of wonderful things to come (like Christmas. I LOVE Christmas!) has me in the project doing frame of mind.
Filed under: Another Silly Meme
you know you love them.
I got this from Daily Drudge (link over there because I’m too lazy to link it here). Just so you know, JerseyChick and I have known each other longer than we’ve known our husbands. We are opposites, but compatible. I trust her, she trusts me, we accept each other’s differences and celebrate them at Steak and Shake.
The Marriage Quiz September 18, 2008
How long have you been married? 22 years…or weeks…it’s gone by really fast.
Is this your first marriage? yes
Is it how you imagined it would be? Yes. I’ve always had a June Cleaver image of marriage, and that’s pretty much how it’s turned out (except for all that other stuff)
What would you change? His job, so he’d be home more.
Are you married to your soulmate? I am married to the person I believe God wants me to be with.
What do you argue about the most? Who gets the TV remote.
What do you see eye to eye on the most? Childrearing, money
Where did you meet your spouse? At an SCA meeting
Where was your first date? 6 weeks before our wedding. He panicked and realized we’d never been on a real date, so he borrowed my parents car and took me to dinner.
Where were you when you became engaged? In his car.
Did you live together before Marriage? No. We’re both far too old fashioned for that kind of thing.
What was your wedding song? No music at the wedding, but “our song” is Blue Sky by the Allman Bros.
Who was in your wedding party? our parents
Did you go on a honeymoon? Yes, 4 days at an unairconditioned cabin on Lake Martin. It was July, and hot.
Do you get along with the in-laws? Pretty well
What’s your view on Children? They are not more important than our relationship, but it is our responsibility to teach them what they need to know to be productive members of society.
Does your spouse feel the same way? Yes
Are you a 2 peas in a pod or opposites attract couple? 2 peas, for sure, except when it comes to the TV remote.
Do you go out without your spouse? Not really. I fly to Texas once a year, but that’s about it.
How long are you away from your spouse before you start to miss him/her? 10 minutes…thereabouts.
Have you ever compared your spouse to someone you have dated in the past? In what way? Not really. He’s alot nicer and more reliable than people I dated in the past, so I never felt the need.
Do you trust your Spouse? Implicitely
Does your Spouse trust you? Yes
How well do you know your spouses favorites? Pretty well. I know he likes Hoyo de Montery 1066 cigars, and Elijah Craig bourbon, and NASCAR. He’s quite the guy that way.
How well does your spouse know your favorites? Better than I know them.
Do you get along with your spouses friends? Yes. He doesn’t have many but I like the ones he has.
Does your spouse get along with your friends? Yes
Do you watch the same TV shows? Ha. No.
Can you agree on Pizza toppings? Well, he likes meat lovers and I like Veggie lovers but we both like ham and pineapple.
Who takes out the trash? Child #4
Who does laundry? I do. I am a stay-home mom/wife. I consider it part of my job description.
Who is the first one to wake up in the morning? He is. I usually wake up to the sound of the shower.
Do you have any traditions? We eat Mexican on Halloween, instead of Trick-or-Treat, the usual Christmas stuff, and always a non-traditional Thanksgiving meal, and Turnip Termite Day (don’t ask, I’m not going to tell you)
Is there anyone in your spouses family that you can’t stand? I will not answer on the grounds that it might incriminate me.
Anyone in your spouses family you adore? Yes
Do you know your spouses passwords/pins? Yes
Does your spouse know your social security number? Yes
Do you ever nag your spouse? I’ll ask him 3 times, no more.
Do you admit wrong doing?.yes…occasionally. I try to blame it on the dog if I can.
Does your spouse? yes, it’s rare because he hardly ever does anything wrong.
When is the last time you or your spouse bought each other flowers? He bought me some rose bushes in the Spring. He knows I’d rather have a living plant than a cut flower. I don’t think I’ve ever bought him flowers. he’d rather have a yellow cake with chocolate icing.
Filed under: Uncategorized
See now, with all this kitchen renovation stuff, we’ve done the bulk of the work ourselves. Ok, so we bought the cabinets from Lowes. I did that because Sweet Daddio simply did not have the time to build them himself. Building the hutch was a bandage to his wounded ego. Anyway, thanks to certain reconstructive necessities, I had to do some drywall work. I hate doing drywall. Last time I did it I swore up and down I’d never do it again and we’d pay some person who listens to Hank Jr to come in the house and do it.
But, cheap won out and I did it again, swearing up and down I never would.
Here’s why I hate it so. It’s messy. The paste (mud) is very alkaline and hard on the hands, not to mention the manicure. If you have a manicure. Anyway, Getting it on right takes a certain finesse, that thing you can only get from lots of practice, which I haven’t had. Then, after it dries and cracks because you were impatient and frustrated, you have to sand it. Mind you, it’s not as if you’re sanding a block of ebony, it’s soft stuff, like sanding chalk. Which makes dust, which coats your glasses and gets in your hair and on your skin and did I mention it’s very alkaline?
Yesterday I finished up the bulkhead over the pantry unit and washer/dryer thing. I grumbled and cussed and complained and it took all day long but by golly it’s done, painted, ceiling part textured and everything.
Ok, I know every designer on HGTV hates textured ceilings, but hon, if you’re doing the drywall yourself and you don’t listen to Hank Jr or go fishing on the river in your spare time, you need the texture. It’s like crinkle cotton on a zaftig body- it do cover a multitude of sins.
So, I stenciled a bit from Psalm 59 all along the bulkhead. I’m happy with it, it fits my family situation. I love it when I can find something from the Bible that’s totally appropriate, even if taken completely out of context. The verse is this:
“They wander about for food and growl if not satisfied.” Psalm 59:15 The boys tried briefly to take offense, but decided it probably fit better than they initially thought.
So, sometime in the future, we’re going to cover the painted panelling in the dining room (it had to be painted, It was this cheap dark stuff put in last century about the time I was born. yuck). Drywall it is. Hire it out we will. We can to the major work of installing it, but some guy who likes to fish at the river is going to mud it. A really skilled person could do it in a short day, come back the next day to sand and touch up, and be done.
That’s down the road tho. We gotta do something about the Aqua and Orange bathroom first.
