The laundry "Oops."

It was over a week ago. I can blog about it now.

I was up early, like before 8, and thought I'd get some laundry on. I started it no problem. Then, I went back downstairs to check on it and found this.

I had to go back upstairs and get my rubber boots on so I could get closer to this, without getting my feet wet. I may have sworn first. But quietly.

So a rag fell into the laundry sink, which the washing machine also drains into, and plugged up the drain. Then it overflowed. Unfortunately, the drain on the floor was also plugged (which we didn't really know, it's not usually one of those things you check...) So I brought the plunger down and gave it a good plunging. It opened up right away and whisked the water down with it. Some of it. The rest had to be pushed towards the drain with my swiffer (I don't have a regular old mop), and then mopped towards the drain with the very rag the plugged the sink up in the first place.

The carpet, unfortunately, didn't make it. I rolled it up, still dripping, tied it, and carted it outside. As soon as it was wet, it stunk. I didn't want to risk the smell not going away, and wasn't sure how I was going to squeeze out the water anyways.

Insert big white box fan here, and the floor was dry before 10AM that very day.

I was actually pretty proud of myself. I stayed calm. I didn't yell. I didn't call anyone so I could freak out first. Sure I had one little swear, but it was quiet and I think totally justified. And then I got over it. I just dealt with the situation.

Sometimes I surprise myself.

PS The laundry room floor actually looks pretty good now, nice and clean! And when Ian spilled water on it last night I made him dry it up so it wouldn't leave water marks. He didn't understand.

Disappointment

One of the biggest things I've been struggling with since our move has been what I'm going to do for work. I've had some temporary work, but haven't worked now in three months, and the money is running out quickly. We're not destitute, but we can no longer afford to do any work on the house. We'll finish painting the final room upstairs, but the crown moulding, 1/4 round, cupboards, doors, etc. will all have to wait until I find a way to make some money.

I've been toying with some ideas of working from home, but I haven't really been able to come up with anything that will make enough money to help us. I mean, if I was working outside the house as well as working from home it would help, but my ideas of the crafty things I could make and sell, or tutoring, isn't going to bring in enough money to make ends meet.

I am a teacher.

I was a teacher.

When we first talked about moving I thought I could use a change from teaching. I still wasn't sure if that was what I wanted to spend my life doing. I wasn't sure if I loved it enough. It's a lot harder than you think it is, unless you're a teacher. Then you know how hard it is. Teachers are highly under-appreciated, and they work way harder than most people give them credit for. Sometimes it is a thankless job, but teachers do it because they love it. I wasn't sure how much I loved it. Until I stopped.

For months I've been weighing how I feel about it, reflecting on my choices. I came to the conclusion that I really do love teaching. I miss teaching. I miss my colleagues, my students, and I miss learning about teaching, and how to teach better! I miss my classroom and my books, the noise, the mess, the smiles and laughs. I really miss a paycheck. Maybe it's just because I feel so lonely here sometimes, but I miss it so much it hurts my heart to think about. I want to teach again.

Here, I don't know what I am. I don't know what I'll do. I've applied for many jobs now. I've had two interviews. I've turned down two job offers. One was tutoring, but I didn't get a good feeling about the company or the boss, and they couldn't garauntee how much I'd work. I didn't think it would be a good place for me. That was back in August or September. The other offer was at a greenhouse, last week, but it was minimum wage and only three months. Unfortunately that would mean I wouldn't make enough money to have a car (by the time we purchase a second car (estimate $2000), get a safety inspection, fix anything, transfer it, insure it, and pay for gas, I estimated $4,500 total) and the job was a 30 minute drive away, no bus access. And again, it didn't sound like the hours would be garaunteed. That one really hurt my heart to turn down. The people there seemed really nice and I think I might have enjoyed it. I've been feeling really down about it.

I've been watching all the websites I know of, looking for something I can do. Some ideas, some hope, anything. But I've been distracted from my "real" job. I needed to wait until the end of January to apply for my criminal record check here, so I could apply for my certification here. I was distracted. I didn't do it until the end of February. I was going to apply to the school district here. I realized last night that I missed the deadline for applying by 21 days. It was March 1st. I finished the application and submitted it anyways, but I suspect it will be to no avail.

I'm so disappointed. I think I cried myself to sleep last night.

I have no idea what I'll do for work here.

Sounds of Spring

As spring approaches, so does the singing outside our windows in the morning. The cardinal has been particularly vocal lately, and I'm afraid that means he might be leaving us for the warmer season, and I'll miss him if he goes. I don't remember seeing him until the weather turned cooler, so I doubt he'll stick around. But maybe he was just being elusive and he'll continue to be a regular visiter through the spring and summer. On the other hand, if he keeps flying into the window, maybe he should just move on!

I made the video small, and apologize that it's also sideways - I always forget that I can't rotate videos!!  But the point was not the scenery anyways, it was the accompanying audio.

And yes, I think that also sounds like a woodpecker in the background (among the other noises) and I hope he's not wood-pecking my house! Preferably not my trees either, but definitly not my house!

Peanut Butter and Ian's Birthday

Ian's birthday was Saturday and we all went out for dinner to the Hard Rock Cafe. After dinner his family all came over to our house for Dairy Queen Blizzard cake (Reese's flavour of course!)

If you don't know him, you probably don't know that Ian is a peanut butter fiend. My nick name for him is Peanut Butter. He once ate an entire jar of peanut butter for Christmas dinner. His sister brought him Reese's Pieces to Thailand because you can't get them there. For the last several years for his birthday, my good friend Lyn has made him a peanut butter cheese cake. Since this is our first year together away from Vancouver, I'm not sure if you can mail cheesecake, and Lyn won't give up the secrets of her delicious recipe, I figured I had to make Ian a peanut butter treat for his birthday. I have a recipe for peanut butter fingers that we both LOVE, but those are sort of a Christmas tradition, and I thought Ian should have something special for his birthday. I've tried making homemade peanut butter cups but they were just disappointing. So this year, after some consulation with Ian, we settled on Peanut Butter Nanaimo Bars. Now, because they don't have custard filling, I guess they are just Peanut Butter Bars, but I used a Nanaimo Bar base for them; you know, chocolate, coconut, walnuts, graham crumbs, butter, mmmmm... For the middle layer I jut made a thick but simple peanut butter icing, with icing sugar, peanut butter, and butter. For the top, chocolate layer, it was simply semi-sweet chocolate chips melted with butter (Butter, butter, butter! That is sooo bad! Good thing these are a once a year treat!) Of course I topped the whole thing off with Reese's Pieces. They are delicious. They are super sweet. They are almost gone! Seriously. I made them Friday, today is Monday, and I think there are like six left.

On Friday night we stayed in to celebrate Ian's birthday, just the two of us. We attempted to make one of his favourite dishes of all time, Thai Penang chicken curry, and one of my favourite dishes, Thai Mango Salad.

Now to make Penang Chicken Curry, technically you need Penang curry paste, or sauce. We scoured this town and couldn't find any. I browsed the Internet, trying to find a simple substitute and couldn't find anything. To make the paste ourselves required spices there is NO WAY I would find in this town, particularly at this time of year. So I came up with an idea (because, like with the peanut butter bars, that's what I do. If I can't find what I want, I make it up.) So we used regular Thai red curry paste, coconut milk, and peanut satay sauce mix (it's a powder that comes in a pouch). It's Ian's favourite dish, he knows what he likes it to taste like, so at this point I put Ian in charge of it. He fried up some chicken, then removed it from the pan and poured in the cocunut milk. Then he added the red curry paste and the satay sauce and simmered it a bit. To that, Ian also added a little bit of regular old peanut butter, and tossed in a couple of bay leaves right near the end, before tossing the chicken back in. The outcome was a little more peanuty than the original that he loves, and next time we wouldn't add quite so much extra peanut butter, and I think I'd go a little easier on the Satay sauce too, but it was amazing anyways! It was soo amazingly delicious I can't even describe it!

While Ian was monitoring the curry I was preparing the mango salad. I used two ripe mangoes, and chunked them up. Then I sliced up a golden delicious apple, in tiny match stick slices. I added some very thinly sliced red onion, and a very generous handful of cashews. I dressed it with lime juice and a sprinkling of sugar. It was really good too, although the lime juice was pretty sour. I'm still working on a better dressing, but I don't really like the ones I've been able to find online, so I'm thinking I'll have to keep working on it. I think finding a suitable oil might be the trick, and I'm wondering if peanut oil, or coconut oil would work.

For dessert, of course we enjoyed our peanut butter bars!

Maybe it's the larger kitchen, maybe it's the dining room, maybe it's the fact that we actually eat at a table here, but Ian and I have both commented that food tastes better here. Maybe it's just that I've had way more time and energy to cook, and find recipes, or make things up. Maybe I'm just finding better recipes now. But whatever it is, we have definiately had the best meals we've ever made since we moved here.

I hope you had a happy birthday weekend, Peanut Butter! xoxo

The haunting of the rooster room. Oh yeah, and your room is ready!

Do you remember the Rooster Room? It was our guest bedroom, kindly left for us, as is, by the generous Mrs. S. when we purchased the house. It's been named the Rooster Room because it is absolutely filled with rooster and chicken items. All of the pictures on the walls are roosters or chickens (approximately 10 of these!), the plates (2) are roosters or chickens, even the clock is a rooster cock. The witty Mrs. S. was not unaware of the possibly nicknames for that room (giggle.)Our first week here we slept in that room while we frantically tried to get the master bedroom ready for habitation (aka get the smoke smell out.) If you don't remember it, here it is.

First of all, we removed all the furniture and pictures, filled and sanded the imperfections in the walls, pulled out the carpet, and then primed. But a funny thing happened at that point. Well, not so funny maybe. We noticed, immediately after finishing priming, that the spare bedroom smelled like Kentucky Fried Chicken.

No joke.

So we closed the door. We left it for a couple of days. It really was not a nice smell. We were hoping it would go away. It didn't. I think it even got worse.

I took it as a sign from the roosters that they were done with that room and would not be returning. That's okay with me! Actually, I took it to mean that they were dead. So I painted the trim and Ian helped with the ceiling, and then I painted over the primed walls. I've become a painting-machine!

Luckily, the smell went away.

Next we pulled out the underpadding. We have been leaving it on while we've painted because it doesn't touch the trim (so we don't have to worry about trying to paint around it) and it protects the wood floors underneath from the occassional rogue paint drip (or light splattering that occurs every time we prime.) Unfortunately, as with our bedroom, we discovered a huge paint splotch (is that a word?) on the wood floors when we pulled the underpadding out. The master bedroom had a lot of paint on the wood floors, but luckily the rest of the house has been alright so far.

But I'm getting good at this house reno stuff. I tackled it with my chisel and 0000 steel wool. I tried a putty knife  and although it works well on the light small splatter spots, it wasn't really doing anything on this big splotch. After two days, this is the outcome.

I'm pretty happy with it actually. The floor will have to be re-varnished, but I'm okay with that.
I washed the curtains, and they shrunk. And they're double layers. And only the outer yellow fabric shrunk, not the white liner fabric behind it. So it looks dumb. We'll have to get new curtains. All the other bedding is still sitting downstairs in the laundry room, unwashed since we moved in. I don't plan on using it. I'll probably wash it and donate it, except for two possibly wool spare blankets that were on the beds. I think I'll wash and keep those. We bought new bedding just before New Years because we were having our first overnight guests!

So, it's done.

Well, almost...

We'll have to get a new curtain, I wouldn't mind getting a rug, the lamp shades need some attention, and we'd like to hang some artwork. Hanging artwork on our freshly patched and painted walls seems to be the hardest thing for us to grapple with. First off, picking out nice artwork that you can live with forever isn't easy. Ian's got lots of photographs we'd like to use, but how do you even decide? And then there's the part about putting holes in our lovely walls. We just filled all those holes! That's the worst part I think. We do have SOME pictures to hang on walls but so far haven't been able to bring ourselves to put a single one up. So we just stare at our bare walls. Good thing we like the paint colours.

So when are you coming to visit?

A visitor

Nearly every morning I wake up to a "tap... tap tap.. TAP.." on the back window (in the den/bedroom). The first few times I heard it, I thought it was someone throwing rocks at the window and I couldn't figure out who would do that, or why for that matter. Those thoughts lasted only seconds as I walked down the hall towards the den/bedroom to find out what was going on. This happens nearly every morning. THIS is the culprit. (Turn your sound up for the full effect.)

This video is one of the most clear I've taken, and you really get the idea that it doesn't happen just once or twice... He just keeps going! One of these days the poor, dumb little guy is really going to hurt himself (if he hasn't already given himself brain damage doing this!) However, it doesn't really capture the way he sometimes backs up into the branches, puffs himself up big, and litterly throws himself into the window! You'll just have to trust me, he does. And if we close the curtains, he still does it. Sometimes he'll sit outside the window and sing. I take it when he does that it means he wants food. But he'll throw himself into the window whether there's food outside for him or not. Maybe Mrs. S. used to feed him. Someone else wondered if she maybe let him inside. Apparently the woman across the street invites the squirrels into her home. Ian saw Hairband squirrel leaving the other day, darting out of her house, and she wished him (Hairband) a good day, and told him not to stay away too long. Interesting...

P.S. Hairband is a brown squirrel with a blonde tail, reminiscent of a bad hair-band blonde ponytail... He's the most identifiable of all our neighbourhood squirrels.

My Ruffle Apron

For several years I've been seeing these super cute ruffle aprons for sale. I always think "I could make that, it would be so easy!" and I'm always really surprised by the price people charge for these. (Although I saw some at Pier One last week that were only $15.00 and I really think that is reasonable!) Anyways, the sewing stars aligned: I found an online tutorial (here), have the space to do some sewing, dug my sewing machine out and oiled it, got some fabric on clearance, and finally decided to make my own! What do you think? I'm thinking if I can improve my technique a bit, get better at sewing (especially straight lines over ruffles), and get some more fabric on clearance, I might try to sell some of these. I have another pattern for a retro apron (no ruffles) that I'm going to try next.

PS I love my slow cooker! I use it all the time, especially in the winter! This, I think, was pulled pork, for pulled pork sandwiches. I found a recipe that used a pork loin roast, and a can of Root Beer, so I thought, "what the heck?! How simple!" and decided to try it. You shred the pork when it's cooked, then you drain out the Root Beer and add BBQ sauce. Serve on a nice hamburger bun with fresh cole slaw. It turned out sooo good! But I'm a sucker for pulled pork... Apologies to my non-pork eatting friends who would be gagging at the thought of eating a pig...