RecipeMuncher

It's been nuts here.  And that's not over yet - today will be a marathon day of putting the house back in order after the past two months (two months???) or whatever of demolition and reconstruction.

And painting.  Oh, the painting.

Yesterday we FINISHED the trim in our bedroom.  Windows, doorframes, doors…two coats…DONE.  Also primed (that was on Monday) and put one layer of paint in the hallway - will do the second coat of paint later today.

We have made so many trips to Lowe's lately that if we don't go at least once a day, Lowe's files a missing persons report with the local police, who then come to our house and remind us that we probably  need more of that blue tape or paint rollers or a toilet seat or something, and to please head on over to Lowe's and not waste the town's time and resources like this any more.

Anyway.

The exciting news?  Are you ready?  Sitting down?

We slept IN OUR OWN BED, BED FRAME ASSEMBLED AND EVERYTHING, IN OUR VERY OWN BEDROOM last night.

And after sleeping on a mattress on the floor in the basement for an eternity, I was sort of amazed at how high off the floor our bed was, once we got the whole thing set up.  You know the story of the Princess and the Pea?  How she's on a bed of tons of mattresses stacked way high up and yet she can feel the little pea left under the lowest mattress, and that (somehow) confirms that she's royalty?  THAT is how high up in the air our bed seemed. 

So we got that set up, and we got Julia's frame and mattresses set up, so now all of us are sleeping in our real beds up high off the floor, just like real people!

Forgive me if I sound a little idiotic this morning (or more so than usual) - we had thunderstorms through the night and I kept waking up.  Plus, Bill went fishing this morning, so we were awake at 4:00. 

Oh, speaking of tired, yesterday I had WAY too much coffee and at some point, while I was working on the trim - and in a very small, steady-hand-imperative area, my hands just started shaking uncontrollably.  It was sort of funny, in a giddy, "I'm-so-sick-of-all-this-insanity-and-painting" sort of way.  They just shook and shook.  But I kept painting, trooper that I am.

We've decided we like the zig-zag pattern.

The kids' rooms are mostly done - enough so that we've got beds and bureaus and book shelves and toys in them.  We've still got doors to put in and baseboards to make and all that, but the rooms are definitely live-in-able. 

At last.

So now the push is on to finish our own bedroom and the hallway.  Bill did the joint compounding and sanding - there were some cracks here and there - especially this one big zig-zag one - and once he gave the all clear, I started - AT LAST - priming the ceiling and walls in our bedroom.

And while I was doing that, I figured I might as well prime the walls and ceiling in the upstairs hall as well, so I did that, too.

While I was doing all that, he cleaned out and cleaned up the bathroom upstairs, which has been packed with a mess of tools and rollers and brushes and paint cans and other debris from the last - what has it been?  something like two months??  Ugh.  Anyway, he cleaned everything out of there, washed down the countertops and every little thing that had accumulated dust from time, compound and plaster, and so once again we can get to that toilet.  It's funny how much you miss having that second bathroom when you're reduced to using just one.  Especially with kids….

"Okay, kids, I'm going to soak my weary, aching body in the tub take a bath now, do either of you need to go to the bathroom?"  "No!" "Not me!"  "Are you SURE?????" "Yep!"  "Yes, Mom, I don't have any pee in me!"  "Okay, because I'm NOT opening the door!" A while later - of course - while I'm soaking in steaming water and reading a book in peace…"MOM!"  (groan) "What's up, Julia?"  "I have to go potty!!!"  And I can hear her dancing in place, too, while she jiggles the handle of the door and I rise, a reluctant whale, from my ocean, step out of the tub, wrap a towel around myself and let her in.  She dashes into the room, then pauses, taking in the bathus interruptus.  "Where are the toys?"  "JUST GO POTTY!"

Anyway, what was I talking about?  Oh, yes, we have two bathrooms again.  YAY.

And - also YAY - the bedroom and hall are primed and ready for paint, except one wall that I skipped because Bill needed to reapply joint compound to the crack that ran down the wall from one corner of the window, which then needed to dry before I could prime it, so I just skipped that whole wall.  It's not a big wall - shouldn't take long at all to prime it.

And then…

PAINT.

As my kids would say (borrowed and adapted from the movie Madagascar) "Paint like you mean it!"

If we paint productively today, we could (dare I say it?) move our own bedroom furniture into that bedroom and actually SLEEP IN OUR OWN BED TOMORROW NIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And on that note, I will end this post and get moving on this day. 

No, it's not jewelry or coins or highlights in my hair.

No, it's not the sun, which is finally out after days and days of "should we be building an ark?" weather.

It's stock.

The other day we caught fish and among other things, made fish stock out of the heads and bones.  I have more of a story about all that, which hopefully I'll post today, but you know how that goes with me lately.  But for THIS post - the point of that fishing trip is - there are 17 cups of lovely fish stock in my freezer.

Seventeen cups.

And ALSO, at the moment, I have…let's see, 18 plus 34 plus 6…that would be 58 cups of chicken stock in the freezer also.

FIFTY EIGHT CUPS.

Plus about another twelve or so in the fridge, but I ran out of ziploc bags. 

24 of the cups are kind of a plain stock, and the 34 cups are a blend of MOSTLY a dark chicken stock and a bit of plain stock.

I made the dark by browning onions and carrots in a pan, and then browning all the wing tips and trimmed meatless bones and necks and bits and pieces of chicken we've been bagging up and tossing in the freezer for who knows how long, and finally putting it all in a big pot and topping it off with water, almost to the top of the pot, and then simmering it for hours and hours and hours.

My house smelled like a thousand roasting chickens.  It was wonderful.

Anyway, I bagged up some of the plain chicken and all the fish on Wednesday, and then the rest of it today (I made these stocks over the course of the past few days), and we'll use a little of it in the paella Bill's planning to make tonight.

Fifty eight cups of chicken stock.  Seventeen cups of fish stock. 

We've also got probably…10 or so cups of beef stock, and maybe a few cups of clam stock…in the freezer downstairs.

It may not be the color of it, but all that stock? 

That's GOLD.

We're all sick of each other.

We're sick of sleeping in mattresses in the basement.

We're sick of sidling through the living room and/or the dining room in order to get to the front door or the stairs.

We're sick of dust.

We're sick of paint.

We're sick of drop cloths.

We're sick of sharing just one bathroom instead of two.  (I know, boo hoo for you, Jayne, you big baby)

We're sick of monsoon season here in New England.  Not that I like the heat and humidity that comes along this time of year, but at least a bit of sunshine now and then would be good.  For the gardens. 

I know.

I'm sounding petulant and whiney.  I'm actually not feeling either of those things - I'm just giving you all (those who are following this slow-rolling drama) the update.

We're not in the bedrooms yet.  There's a big z-shaped crack in the ceiling in what will - some day - be our bedroom, so yesterday Bill ground/grinded (whatever sounds right to you) all that down plus a couple other little cracks we figure might as well get fixed now even though we're ACHING to get the bedrooms set up…and a couple spots in the hall ceiling.

Lots o dust there.

So today's plans are to joint compound (ugh - he's doing that, not me) those areas - he already put fiberglass tape on the areas and joint compounded them yesterday - so that tomorrow he can sand them down and

GOOD LORD WILLING AND THE CREEK DON'T RISE

there will be NO MORE sanding upstairs EVER IN OUR LIFETIMES.

But.  With all this rain, plenty of creeks ARE rising, so who knows.  The Good Lord may not be so willing after all.

So he'll do that and I'll touch up some areas of Julia's room that need touching up (with paint) and I'll paint the bookcases that used to be baby blue (2) and yellow (1) so they match one kid's room or the other.

I've also got eighty gallons (okay, i kid) of chicken stock to cook down some more - yesterday I pulled out all the little bags of chicken pieces and parts that we put in there as we trim things or whatever, and I made two huge pots of stock.  But it was late, and I didn't cook them down as much as I wanted to, so I'll finish that little project today.

And them's the plans.

Yesterday my husband was on his way to play at a wedding in Bristol, RI.  Barbara, the flute player, was driving.

As they drove through Warren, the town you go through on the way to Bristol, Bill heard a loud crack and saw a tree - a whole tree - start to topple over from the other side of the street, just up ahead.  He had time to yell "Tree!" and Barbara slammed on the brakes, and the entire tree (it cracked at the base of the trunk) fell straight across the road and crashed down on the hood of the car they were in.

The car was severely injured.

Amazingly, fortunately, thankgodfully, Bill and Barbara were not.

The police gave them a ride to the wedding, where they played the ceremony as scheduled.

I had been at the kids' swim class and just happened to check my cell phone - the phone was on vibrate, but I wouldn't have heard it ring in there anyway - it's so loud.  I saw there was a message left a few minutes ago from Bill, and I listened to it and called him back and at that point they were still waiting for their ride to the wedding, so I said as soon as the kids were done I'd switch vehicles and come get them.

I mostly just wanted to yank the kids out of the water and go, but there was really no need, so I sat and watched them distractedly.

Then we zipped home, got into the truck (which has more room in between the two booster seats than my car does) and headed east.

If they'd sped up instead of slamming on the brakes, the tree might have landed on their heads. 

I kept trying not to picture that scenario. 

I finally reached the spot where Bill was waiting for me.  Barbara's husband was coming to get her, so once Bill got in the car we headed home. 

We drove by the spot where the tree had been.  There was a pickup truck and a couple guys sawing up the last of the trunk, but you could see the jagged part where the tree just split and toppled over.  And we could see the diseased and hollow inside of the trunk.  It was inevitable that the tree would fall at some point. 

Anyway, we got home and had pizza and chips and guacamole, and Joe came over and Bill put the last coat of polyurethane down and Joe saw how it was done, and then we packed up and headed to Joe's house for our last night of exile from the house.

Today we are home.

And we're all here.

And I am very, very grateful.

Today we bring all the pets home.  And we're also going fishing.  Running errands.  Getting dropcloths and paint.  Ziploc bags so I can freeze the chicken stock I made the other day.

Normal, everyday, unexciting stuff.

Which is good.

No, really.  I mean it.  In a good way.

When I married Bill and married into his family, I gained, among other things, three more nephews and another niece.

I've mentioned Joe before, in this blog - he's the only one of them who lives nearby.  The others are scattered - a nephew out in the Seattle area, one in the DC area, and the niece is in Florida.

Well, today I'm talking about the nephew in DC.

Meet DC Rainmaker.

He competes in marathons and triathelons and all sorts of other "thons" and "elons" here, there and everywhere.  He also cooks, is an awesome photographer, travels extensively, and blogs about all of it. 

He also does stuff like this.

Anyway, he has entered a competition sponsored by Quark Expeditions to be the official blogger on an expedition to Antarctica.  The winner will be announced on September 30th, 2009, and the journey to Antarctica will take place in February 2010.

And I want him to win because A) it would be extremely cool (no pun intended), and B) he's my nephew, after all, and C) he'll do an awesome job blogging and photographing the trip, and we can all live vicariously through him for a few weeks.

So.

Please go vote for him.

All you have to do is register here (to prove you're a human being) and then log in and vote. 

Quick, painless, and free.

I'd be ever so grateful.

Bill and the kids worked in the gardens outside while I worked in the kitchen inside.

I made:

A couple pounds (or so) of ricotta.

6 8-oz jars of more of that rhubarb ginger jam plus some extra that went into the fridge and will be gone by the end of the week.

6 loaves of bread (using, among other things, 4 cups of the whey from when I made the ricotta) - four loaves are straight-up bread, and the other two are experimental loaves.  I'll let you know how that went once I sample one of them.  I expect success.

You know, it seems like I did a lot more than that.  But no, that's what I did.  It took time.  But it was good, productive, awesome-smelling time, and therefore no hardship.

We saw some baby bluejays in the trees this morning, too.  They have such raspy, demanding little voices.

My sister and brother-in-law stopped by - Meredith trimmed my bangs, Julia's bangs, and gave Alex his summer buzz cut.  When she was done with the clippers, there was more hair on the floor than there was left on Alex's head.

Oh, yeah, when I was making the jam - I burnt the bottom of the pan.  Isn't that nice?

I learned somewhere (I think I read it, but I can't think of the source - online or not.  Hmmm) to mix a little cream (or half-n-half, in my case) with the homemade ricotta.  OH MY.  So lush and creamy and addictive.  I may just eat this whole batch with a big spoon.  Tonight, after everyone else is asleep.

Tomorrow will be the final day of polyurethane application, and boy are we all glad.  I think we need these bedrooms, just so we can all get away from each other.

Before Bill and I move back into our (new) room, we're going to patch a crack in the ceiling (more joint compound - UGH) and then paint the walls something other than the current blue and white.  I'm thinking sage green.  I love that color.  And then, once THAT is done, we'll move our furniture in.  The kids' rooms also need doorframes and baseboards, so hopefully we can get that done mid-week as well. 

So close to the finish line.  So close!

Air.

Wow!  I'm amazed.  We came home this morning and I swear I thought I could smell fumes several blocks away, but when we opened the back door, it smelled fine.  Maybe a hint of new furniture smell, but nowhere near what I'd expected.

Yay!

You know how annoying it is when someone bites a chocolate from a boxed assortment and doesn't like it and puts it back in the box?

I don't actually know anyone who does that, but it SOUNDS really annoying.

Well, think that kind of annoying, and that's what I discovered when I went to pick the sour cherries from our tree earlier today.

I knew the catbirds and blue jays have been raiding the tree, but the cherries weren't really ripe enough to pick (for us humans), so I figured they could have a few and I'd get the bulk of them in a week or so.

Ha.

Today I decided that the majority of the cherries were ripe enough, and it was time to take back the tree from all the feathered thieves.

Except that those feathered thieves didn't just take a cherry and eat it.  No, they obviously poked their sharp little beaks into a bunch of cherries, sampling as they went along, leaving their leftovers on the tree for me to find.

So about half the fruit that looked ripe had already been partially eaten and was starting to rot where the skin was broken, and it was therefore no good to me.

I harvested all the berries I could reach that weren't ruined, and, after pitting them, I got about two cups.  Two lousy cups.

But it was enough, coupled with the big bag of cherries I happened to get at the grocery store, to go into a cherry cobbler for dessert tonight.  I've got vanilla ice cream to go with it.

Let's see the birds top that.

For Father's Day the kids gave Bill cards and candy and hugs and generosity (they didn't eat all the candy before he got some).

And tonight I'm roasting some Cornish Game Hens and cooking up some lovely kohlrabi I got at the farmers' market the other day AND some of the pea tenrils and leaves, not that most of the pea pods have been consumed.  Should be tasty.

And we'll probably sample some of the goat cheese I made - I'll do a whole post on that probably tomorrow - not enough time today.

And so what does the lucky Man of the House get to do today?  Go fishing?  Play darts, drink beer and smoke cigars?  Snooze on the couch?

Nope.

He's upstairs patching the hardwoods outside of the kids' rooms.  When we (well, Bill and Joe - I had no part in it) took down part of the wall and the original doorway into the original big room, it left some gaps in the hardwoods.  And so Bill is fixing that whole mess.

It's a big project, partly because whoever put the floor in originally has the tongue & groove parts lined up one way for a while, then the other way…plus there are a couple boards that were cut thinner so they could fill a space wider than a standard piece of hardwood flooring…it's all kinds of tricky, especially when it's not Bill's day job.  But he's got it figured out, and he's up there sawing and nailing and cursing as I type this.  But he's determined to finish it today, and I'm very sure he will.

That's his Father's day gift to himself, I think.  To get that project over with.

And in other news, I've primed Julia's room and I bought the paint, so I'm all ready to go on that, but I'll probably leave it til tomorrow, since I don't want any of the flying sawdust to end up as a funky texture on Julia's walls.

I lucked out at Lowe's, too, where I bought the paint.  I wanted a gallon and a quart of one of the shades of pink, and the guy gave me two gallons.  They were out of quarts (which seems odd to me, but whatever) and so he gave me the second gallon for the price of a quart.  Woo hoo!  So who knows what else I'll paint pink…

By the way, in case you were wondering, I'm using Olympic Premium Interior Paint on the walls - it's got zero VOCs, so we're not letting harmful chemicals loose into the atmosphere or our kids' lungs. 

The colors for Alex's room are Free Spirit, Aqua Dusk and Aqua Chiffon (I think.  The cans are upstairs and Bill's got all his saws and things in the way and I don't want to disturb him.) and there'll be a dark green - I think it's Medieval Forest - for the baseboards and around the doorframes.  But that's not done yet, since we don't have the door frames or most of the baseboards up.

Julia's room will be swathed in Cotton Candy, Pink Chintz, and Magic Magenta.  Of course.

I don't think I'll be using the same sponge technique I used in Alex's room this time around, but I'll be doing something to add some texture and visual interest.  Just not sure what yet.  I bought a few practice boards so I can play around with the sponges for other effects. 

Updates to come.

Right now I need to check the bread in the oven.  Oh - and here's a handy tip for you - when you're doing things upstairs and in the kitchen, like putting primer on walls and making bread…and then you take a shower and make your list of paints…and you've got your bread IN THE PANS for their final rise…well…maybe it would be a good idea to bake the bread first.  That way when you get home they won't have risen to twice their size and be stuck together and threatening to spill over the sides of the pans. 

Just in case you were thinking about multitasking like that.  But you probably weren't.

Besides trying to work on Julia's bedroom, plus Bill's project of patching the hardwood floor before we sand and poly the whole thing next week, and a T-ball game today, and a kid's birthday party to bring Alex and Julia to later this afternoon AND a family double birthday party to go to after that, and oh, yeah, return Alex's library books…

I am making goat cheese!

It's actually draining RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE!

And will continue to drain for hours - 6 to 12 of them in fact.

So the saga will not be finished until tonight, and my report on the whole thing will come some time as soon as possible after that.

But I am EXTREMELY excited about this current cheese project.

Stay tuned.

Or at least check back some time.