Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Hm. Where to begin. So, we have only owned our house since the 2nd. We have only been staying there since, um, maybe the 10th? In 20 days of ownership we have had:

1.) Two attempted, but inevitably cancelled, large item moving days.

2.) I forgot to have our water turned on over a holiday weekend, so we were without water for 6 days (luckily still sleeping at other house).

3.) I made 7 phone calls to AT & T about my internet service, none of which were fruitful, because; neither of our cell phones works reliably inside the house (I had to lean up against the window with them on speakerphone, which is tons of fun when you are talking to another country!) and the calls were inevitably all dropped. I finally talked to a girl from my work phone during the day and she was all "Sure, you can take care of all your registration from your work computer! No problem, do this!" And I was all "Grrrrr... How come none of you fuckers told me that during the last 6 calls! Arg!"

4.) The sink in the kitchen clogged up. After 12 hours, a half-day vacation, a borrowed power washer, a borrowed cutter(an orange hosey-thing to attach to the power washer), and 12,000 gallons of black, rusty, 60-year-old cast-iron pipe and food goop (yum!), Mister finally located the culprit. 60 years worth of S.O.S. pad build-up. I don't say it enough, but I love my fiance!

5.)The toilet in the master bath would not stop running every three minutes, no matter what we tried, so Mr. took it apart.


It has looked like this for 5 days now, because it is so old you cannot buy parts for it. Good thing my man is a jimmy-rigging expert! It has taken five trips to the hardware store, but he thinks today's purchase will fix the problem. (Fingers crossed.) Oh, and we can't just buy a new toilet, because the style equivalent is only available through Kohler and is $800.00. See that beautiful art deco tank? Apparently our old house is trendy!

6.) So while that toilet was out of commission we started using the other main floor bathroom, which is a half with wood floors and lovely plastic mint green swirly tile. Yay! Somehow in using this toilet, we upset the house and the floor in the basement began to leak under said bathroom. I went home at lunch yesterday because I left a window open and it was supposed to storm. I walk in to find the dog has broken free from her room and has eaten more boxes! And Mister's gum! So, I had to clean all that up and when I went to put her back in the room, I noticed a steady drip from the ceiling. I called Mr. and when he got home he went to work on yet another problem. This is what he found under the press board tiles.


Concrete!! And not like "Oh, our house was a slab and they decided to put a basement in" concrete. See those red things? Those are ceiling girders or whatever they call them. Why in the hell would you concrete in the ceiling? WHY??? Now I cannot have another phone jack upstairs. I cannot have grounded electric sockets. I cannot have plumbing that works!!!! Grrrrr again. So now he is going to have to rip out the lovely, plastic tile and go in from the wall of the bathroom. Oh well, gives me an excuse to rip it all out! One bleak ray of sunshine...

7.) We have to do our business in the basement bathroom which looks like this:


Yes, that is a urinal. In my house. This bathroom also has a walk-in shower. With a duck shower curtain. Not like cute little yellow rubber duckies(which my apt. bathroom was totally decked out in like 5 years ago, embarrassing? You decide.), but mallards, wood ducks, and something else. They are labeled. Learn while you pee!

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Junk-y Goodness...

Check out all the fun antique crap we inherited along with the house, a "cabin", and four acres....







This cabin was supposedly the first residence on this property. It had been in the family for four generations. It's a bit sad that out of four kids, no one wanted to keep such a unique home.

This is just the stuff outside, in the woods. It doesn't include all the loveliness that was hiding in here:



This toolshed was jam-packed with rusty, rotting, and otherwise useless "treasures". Isn't it amazing how people can work up the energy to take all their good stuff with them, but cannot be bothered to clean up after themselves? I suppose we could have written junk clean-out into the contract, but Mr. was convinced he would find some great shining gem in the piles of decaying debris. Nope.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Flowers

I had to stop at the grocery store on the way home from work and I picked up a bouquet for literally the first time ever. I was inspired by the beautiful flowers Kim at NewlyWoodwards is growing with her super green thumb!I wanted to brighten up my yucky, in-progress house. Well she was definitely right in saying it is much easier to put just a couple flowers in each vase than to arrange an entire tableau. Here is my first attempt at flower arranging:



Pretty sad, no? Makes me wish I had the rest of my vases to spread them out a bit more. Martha Stewart I am not...

Slacker

The title of this post describes me to a T. (Why do people say that? Why not "to an X"? I am sure there is an explanation. If you know it, please, do tell!) We have had our house since the 2nd of July and all I have managed to do is pick the paint for the ceilings/radiators, the living room, and for the dining room. Pick them, not start painting them. That would involve actual work and there is always an excuse to put off actual work. Last Saturday my excuse involved driving to my parents house to pick up the drop cloths, the Wagner power painter (for aforementioned radiators), and to let the dog get some energy out, then going to Lowe's for ferns and Home Depot for paint. I still have not used the dropcloths or the Wagner. Or the paint. The ferns are hung on my front porch, though! Yay for the little things. So, my goal for this weekend is to paint the hallway connecting the dining and living rooms and to paint the ceiling in the dining room. Any more than that and I will feel overwhelmed. But hopefully I will be productive and get more done than that.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Hmmm...

Well, I had a post planned with lots of pics of the new house, but blogger won't upload my photos.... bastards...

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Etsy Find

How absolutely beautiful are these pillows by missmosh on etsy.com?






I love, love, love that she focuses on eco-friendly fabrics, too! There are other
options besides the rosettes, but I am completely taken with them...
Click on the pics for links to each listings. She has better quality photos in her shop!

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

New Recipe

My boss made this Amish Friendship Bread and brought it in to work with the extra starters. I tried it and thought it was simply OK, but I took a starter anyway. The dough takes ten days to ferment, or whatever it does, and of course that tenth day we were staying at the new house. We still don't have everything moved and I had to run to the grocery store for the things I had forgotten to bring. I even had to buy new baking pans! But it was totally worth it. It turned our great! I chose Vanilla Pudding and I added pecans to the mix and on top. I also used McCormicks Cinnamon Sugar instead of just cinnamon in the mix and as the cinnamon sugar combination they say is optional. I also mixed it all in a metal bowl with a metal spoon(*gasp*) which apparently is a no-no, but it didn't catch fire or anything dramatic. I kept one of the starters for myself and I think next time I will try Banana Pudding with pecans and see how that tastes. I also did not use the 1/2 tsp. of salt they call for.

Amish Friendship Bread

Do not use any type of metal bowl or spoon for mixing.
Do not refrigerate; it is normal for the batter to bubble, rise, and ferment.

Day 1 – Do nothing. (This is the day you receive your starter.)
Day 2 – Mush the bag.
Day 3 – Mush the bag.
Day 4 – Mush the bag.
Day 5 – Mush the bag.
Day 6 – Add to bag: 1 c. flour, 1 c. sugar, 1 c. milk. Mush the bag.

Day 7 – Mush the bag.
Day 8 – Mush the bag.
Day 9 – Mush the bag.
Day 10 – Pour batter out of bag into a non-metal bowl.

Add 1 ½ c. each of milk, flour, and sugar. Mix well.
Measure 1 c. batter into 4 separate gallon size zipper bags.
Give starter bags to friends along with a revised copy of this recipe.

Preheat oven to 325°.

In a separate bowl, combine 1 c. sugar, 2 c. flour, ½ tsp. baking powder, 1 large (5.1 oz.) box of instant pudding (pudding flavor will determine flavor of bread), ½ tsp. salt, and 2 tsp. cinnamon (optional). Mix well.

In the bowl with the starter batter add 3 eggs, 1 c. oil, ½ c. milk, 1 tsp. vanilla. Mix well.

Optional: In a small bowl, mix ½ c. sugar and 1 ½ tsp. cinnamon to dust pans and top of bread.

Grease pans (2 large loaf or 3 smaller pans). Use above mixture to coat pans. Pour batter into pans, adding remaining cinnamon/sugar mixture on top.

Bake 1 hour at 325°.

Try getting creative with your mix! Add raisins, chocolate, Heath chunks, toffee, even marshmallows for a taste and a recipe that's all your own! Yum!

Here is the recipe for the starter (from allrecipes.com), in case you don't have any friends passing them around.

1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
3 cups all-purpose flour, divided
3 cups white sugar, divided
3 cups milk

DIRECTIONS
In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in water. Let stand 10 minutes.

In a 2 quart container glass, plastic or ceramic container, combine 1 cup flour and 1 cup sugar.
Mix thoroughly or flour will lump when milk is added.
Slowly stir in 1 cup milk and dissolved yeast mixture.
Cover loosely and let stand until bubbly.
Consider this day 1 of the 10 day cycle. Leave loosely covered at room temperature.
On days 2 through 4; stir starter with a spoon.

Day 5; stir in 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar and 1 cup milk.
Days 6 through 9; stir only.
Day 10; stir in 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar and 1 cup milk.

Remove 1 cup to make your first bread, give 2 cups to friends along with this recipe, and your favorite Amish Bread recipe. Store the remaining 1 cup starter in a container in the refrigerator, or begin the 10 day process over again (beginning with step 2).