Kitchen Reno Day 3

The $19.99 single burner hot plate is being put to good use. I bought it at Target, mainly because I couldn't think of a way to prepare oatmeal every morning without a stove. Both Jamey and Cam eat it daily. I buy oatmeal in 25lb bags through the North Linn Food Buying Club, and I didn't want to switch over to instant packets; mainly because I'm sure Cam would get hooked on the sugar!

We've enjoyed our oatmeal for two days, and last night, for the UNO game, we even made popcorn on this little contraption. It's much slower to heat than the gas stove we're used to, but it's doing it's job. Willa has requested ownership of the hotplate after the reno. She has visions of getting electricity in the yet-to-be-completed tree house/fort structure. She thinks after hooking her crib up with electricity, she'll be able to put in a mini-kitchen, so she and Will B. can experiment with snack recipes. I'm sure a mini-fridge request will also be in the works.

Kitchen Reno Day 2

I found myself turning around looking for a non-existent towel hanging on the non-existent oven door handle. Silverware is on the dining room table, food is in the pantry, microwave is in the family room. Craziness.

We had toasted bagels for breakfast, grilled cheeses on the George Foreman for lunch and salad with crock-pot veggie lasagna for dinner. Didn't even miss the stove or oven!

Kitchen Reno Day 1

Deconstruction Day.

The day I've been anticipating and dreading. Today all upper cabinets came out. Good-bye to the double ovens, the cook top and convection oven and the thing most likely to be a trash compactor (complete with trash from former owners). So long to the bright yellow and blue Mexican tiles. 

Before demolition this morning I baked a loaf of banana bread and browned some sausage for crock pot pizza soup; my final farewell to the stove top and oven. 

With the help of JP and Larisa, we knocked out our work in about 4 and a half hours. Not bad, considering it included three trips to Habitat for Humanity Restore in good ol' Rusty but Trusty. 

For the next six weeks (or so) we will rely on a grill, an old displaced microwave, our crock pot and rice cooker. I think we'll head out to look for a hot plate tonight. I can't figure out how we can do with out our daily morning oat meal!

Crock Pot Pizza Soup

2 cans of pizza sauce

3-4 cups of chicken broth

chopped onion & green pepper 

mushrooms (sometimes I saute in EVOO before, sometimes I just throw them in)

Italian sausage, browned

Put everything in to a crock pot. Cook on high 4-5 hours or on low 6-7 hours. To serve, put a handful of croutons in the bottom of a soup bowl, ladle in some soup, top with mozzeralla/parmesan cheese mix. Pizza in a bowl!

 

Good Bye A Avenue

Over Labor Day weekend, 2008, Jamey and I moved into our first home; a lovely little bungalow on A Avenue. We had no idea how much work, sweat and love would go into and come out of that house over the next fourteen years.

From the start, it was Jamey, me and our black cat Izzy. We brought minimal furniture (we didn't even own a real couch!), a vehicle and a bike for each of us, and little more. 

Here's my attempt to inventory what we did and how we grew in this place:

• 17 new windows
• three days with a sledgehammer and jackhammer to remove the big cement slab steps in the front; replaced with a lovely wooden deck. Uncountable hours sitting out there with ice cream, yogurts, snacks, books and beer.
• one layer of old siding ripped off, one layer of new added
• baby dog in 1999
• two layers of new tiles in kitchen
• baby girl in 2003
• kitchen gutted to studs and rebuilt
• bathroom semi-gutted and rebuilt
• one new room in the basement
• sixty gallon fish tank rescued from storage crate...too many fish to count. Seven inch Convict Jack is buried in the back yard
• ten gallon birthday fish tank revealed: one frog and lots of fish...all dead
• two different sandboxes built, one un-built
• baby boy in 2009
• mac-daddy tree house designed and built (it all started when a friend offered a "free" play house for dismantling)
• paint in every room (several rooms had multiple paint jobs!)
• new roof; new roof on garage as our do-it-yourself project 
• countless outside movie nights in the back yard
• four feet of a new chimney
• motorized vehicles that came and went: Lisa's original Grand Am, Toyota pick up, Camry, BMW motorcycle, Izuzu Trooper "bio diesel" project (plus associated motors...), The Prospector, Toyota 4Runner, VW Jetta TDI. 

A lot of living...

I just read a historical-fiction book about Frank Lloyd Wright and Mameh Borthwick's love affair. The descriptions of the home FLW built in Wisconsin for his love are exquisite. The home was their refuge from the world, connected to nature and built with love. I've begun to feel that way about our new space. I love sitting in the family room, with the beautiful view of the trees in the back yard in place...peaceful and quiet. I didn't feel it at first; I think I needed the fall to really let go of A Avenue and embrace HH. 

Winter

Testing. This is a test post from the Blogsy app on my iPad.

This is the beautiful view of my back yard. I think I've absorbed all the beauty now and it would be fine with me if it melted now.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Slippy Slides & Spinach

On Memorial Day we planted what I think will be our last plantings (until fall plantings). Here's the tally of things we've planted:

• several varieties of lettuces - we've been enjoying them for close to two weeks!
• spinach: came in spotty, but it seems we're getting a decent harvest
• peas: dismal failure = replaced with more beans
• pole beans
• sweet corn (about 7 inches tall already!)
• cucumbers
• squash
• rainbow chard
• cantalope
• brussel sprouts (had to try them! they're so pretty)
• popcorn (not coming in too well at all)
• tomatoes
• onions (we lost quite a few and had to do a replacement planting)
• carrots (another dismal failure: we did a second planting on Monday with some new advice and hopefully better results)
• peppers
• basil
• red & white striped beets
• sweet potatoes
• regular potatoes: they're HUGE!

It's been so rewarding to eat our lettuce and to share it with our friends & neighbors! I can't wait for the rest of the harvests.

The other addition to the garden scene is the slippy slide. For a mere $40 at Target, this thing is going to provide endless summer entertainment. Will & Willa already had a 'fail or fun' game going on and Cam digs it, too.  To add to the water fun, Ev got out an old water tank. This tank was the original "pool party" for Larisa and her siblings when they were growing up on the farm. Now it's fun for another generation: the Fu-lympics were a featured event in our afternoon gardening session. If only I'd gotten in a few laps to train for the Pig this weekend!

Gardening tip of the day: We are putting crushed egg shells around and in the tomato and pepper plants. Both of these are fast growing plants that strip vital nutrients from the soil. The calcium carbonite in the egg shell is one of the nutrients the plants need.

30 Day Challenge

In my 'other life' at Coe, I'm leading a summer development program called "13 Things to Think About."
The first post in the program introduced a quick TEDtalk by Matt Cutts, Google Engineer. Matt talks about trying something for just 30 days. Check out Matt's short talk HERE.  My 30 day challenge for May is to stop eating after 8:30PM.

On the surface, I thought this sounded sort of cheap for a 30-day challenge. But when I stop to think about it, I think it's a good starter for me. It's about improving my over all health. It may seem like a small thing, but this will be a big deal for me. I'm a terrible snacker. I snack when I'm not even hungry. The kids have a "night-time" snack between 7:30-8, and I snack along. Then I tend to have another snack close to my 'night-time' between 10-11. Sometimes, in my moments of insomnia, I'll snack around 2am.  I've read many times that it's good to give your digestive system a nice long break every night. Mine rarely gets any break!

I'm certainly not off to an impressive start (I am committing to this on May 7 - so I'll have to carry on my 30 days in to June!). No more night-snacks - starting NOW.