Living in a war zone....

Today, we completely moved out of our kitchen.

For the next 8 weeks, our existing kitchen will be gutted, re-vamped, a bathroom moved and the bloody awful swooshes that have haunted me for the past year will go away.

On Saturday, we had a Demolition party to celebrate the demise. We gave the kids markers and full permission to write on the floor, on the cabinets, (on each other), along with hammers and one very evil sledgehammer.

After only one handle of rum (god bless the sailors that pre-partied before they came to our house!) the fondly named Beam-Me-Up light was taken down, a countertop was blown away, the pantry was forcibly removed, as was a section of cupboards.

On Sunday we finished the emptying of the kitchen. The dining room has become our new kitchen, complete with the new beautiful cherry hardwood floor that Mr. H finished last week. We have a toaster oven, a portable stove, a microwave and a crockpot. Dishes will be done in the bathroom. The fridge is moving into the entry way hall (which I'm kind of excited about because it means going for a late-night snack is just steps away from our first floor master).

As thrilled as I am that we are getting kitchen redone, walking through the kitchen makes me a little weepy. It's not sealed off yet, so it feels like a war zone. There is no light (since the beam-me-up light is gone), there are holes punched in various areas of the walls, the cupboard doors have all been taken off. Nothing is in it, except for our stove, Lizzie (which is staying).

Although we have lived in three apartments and two houses over the 12 years we have been together, I think this is our first home. This is the first residence we have had to work on. The house feels like us, and I feel like this level of deconstruction mirrors somehow something within myself. I feel like crying every time I walk by it.

Tomorrow, the kitchen will be sealed off and true demolition will begin. We are keeping our fingers crossed that this project will be done by Christmas.

I got my arm caught in the freezer, and that's why I haven't written.

Unfortunately, I wish this wasn't true. But I did get my arm caught in the freezer when I was alone in the house. I had about 10 minutes to contemplate whether the spaghetti sauce or the caponata would go best with my arm (as clearly gnawing it off was the only alternative) before I managed to rip it out. Quite painfully, I might add.

Otherwise, things have been busy these last few weeks. The Marvelous Miss Thing is in her third week of first grade. She's exhausted, all the time. She has also started ballet, much to my relief, as I am hoping it will alleviate some of the random pirouettes we've had in the house and school over the past year.

I am in the process of preparing for candy season. As I am officially an LLC now, I am in business. Summer is too hot for candy without a climate controlled area (which mine is not), and who wanted to eat melted chocolate, so I am just starting to ramp up now.

Today, I made chocolate chip cookie dough truffles and some buckeyes to start taking with me to various places. Free candy always intrigues people.

Confession...

I have been living a lie. I have to come clean. It's been bothering me for a month now.

Remember when I wrote about my sauerkraut?

I am ashamed to admit, my fermentation experiment failed.

Five times.

After the first time it failed, I tried again, which was when I wrote the original post. But that batch failed too. And the next. And the next.

What is worse, is that each time I made a new batch, I would make a slightly bigger batch, because I would think to myself "Well, *now* I know what needs to be done. This batch will work." Except that one would die too.

And the pattern was generally the same each time. The cabbage would happily bubble and ferment for about a week and a half. Then, it would stop. Just stop. I would be left with a big vat of slightly sour but mostly salty cabbage. We would leave the vat of it on the counter where I would look at it with the shame of a parent whose child turned out to be a serial killer dog molester.

After we had finally decided that it was, indeed, not ever going to turn into sauerkraut, Mr. H would take it out to the compost bin (which is now about 5 inches of non-fermenting decomposing cabbage). I have gone through approximately 40 pounds of cabbage over these few months. Thank goodness it is cheap.

I have one vat still sitting on my counter awaiting my final time of death. I think I'm giving up on this one for a while. I need to step away.

Turn on the funeral dirge.

Boat pictures...

I realized the other day that I posted about our cruise, but did not post any pictures of our trip.

Sailing is not for everyone. Sometimes, I even wonder if it is for me (that is generally when we get caught in a storm or it's really windy). However, when you wake up after anchoring in the middle of the lake, and you get to sit out and watch the sun come up over the water - then you realize what a beautiful hobby it can be.

Back to school sandwiches...

I love back to school time. I love school supplies. I love the (idea of) organizing and re-organizing. More than New Year's, the beginning of school signifies to me a fresh start. A new school year, new teachers, new things to learn, new pens... ahhh... it just rejuvenates me.

Except this is the first year it is totally vicarious. This is my first post-graduation-no-school-in-sight-for-me autumn. Bummer. I keep looking longingly at the school supplies and dorm organizers.

The Marvelous Miss Thing starts school this week. First grade. Big time. Her school does not offer cafeteria services, with the exception of the importing of fast food every day. I'm not real excited about that prospect, and quite honestly Miss Thing isn't a huge fast food fan. She likes a hamburger, but isn't thrilled with pizza and has some sort of recessive gene that makes her not.like.french.fries *gasp*. Clearly, not my good Irish Catholic genes in which we ate potatoes with every meal, and french fries were the top of the potato "yum" chart.

I have been trying to come up with more nutritious yet convenient and portable lunches. The one thing she begged for at the store were those little round pre-cut frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Well, looking at the price, I figured I could make those puppies at half the cost, plus, by using my homemade peanut butter and jelly, I was cutting down on all that other crap they put in it.

Two squishy white pieces of bread (I let the bread slide. I'm not going to use good bread for this project) cut out with a water chestnut can. Peanut butter on both sides. A spoonful of jelly in the center. (It helps if you kind of squish the bread a little bit)
Seal the two slices of bread with the tines of a fork and pop in the freezer. Puffy white PB&Js. They defrost easily. Heck, Miss Thing eats them frozen.


I felt like a super genius after this little project.

My big bald bird...

About three months ago, we noticed what we considered to be an odd site. A male cardinal hopping around our back yard appeared to be going bald. At first, he had a few feather on the top of his head, but as the summer progressed, he eventually went completely bald.

Apparently baldness is not deterrent in cardinal sex appeal, because he had a mate (I understand this, as Mr. H has completely shaved his head). We frequently see the two of them at our feeders in the back yard.

I thought this little guy was doomed. And that we had witnessed some bizarre twist of nature. Little did I know that this is a relatively common thing. Seriously.

I tried to take a picture of our little guy, but couldn't get a close enough shot.

Turns out, I don't need to given the plethora of information about bald cardinals...

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/pfw/AboutBirdsandFeeding/BaldBirds.htm
http://www.tulsaaudubon.org/bald_cardinals.htm
http://www.birdchick.com/2007/08/bald-cardinals-and-other-bald-birds.html

The internet is a beautiful thing...

Boat knitting.

IMG_1804

We got back from our ten days on the lake late Satuday. One consequence of being on a boat for so long is that when you get back on dry land, everything still moves as if you were still on the water. Particularly if the ride was bumpy and/or wavy, which our trip was. I think I spent most of the sailing portions of our trip feeling nausous. Not fun.

I did get some knitting in on the trip over. I finished the presents for Miss G. for her birthday/boat trip including this little shawl (man, what a pain it was to finally get that done. I tried knitting it in another yarn using a different pattern and couldn't get it right. Improvised, and it looks adorable).

I learned from this shawlet that bulky yarns can be very fun and fast to knit up, that I am a combined knitter at heart.