corvikate

I've done a lot of clearing out lately. When I unpacked the kitchen, a lot of stuff went into the donation box. When I went through my closet, a lot of stuff went into the donation box. Our old microwave needs to be cleaned and donated. (Since October, that's embarrassing!)

I went through a big tub of fabric, and kept about 1/10th of it. The rest is going to charity. I have another container in the storage unit to go through as well. I'll take a pile of stuff over there on Saturday. We have some things for our ever-impending yard sale, but there's no reason to keep them on site. (We've been threatening to have a yard sale for at least 2 years. It will happen in April. It will. We spend far too much money for that storage unit on what is essentially long-term procrastination.)

The kids are coming to visit at the end of the month. We will need to bring the daybed and Doris's couch back from storage into the house, so they will all have somewhere to sleep. Aiden and Sammi are both coming, and Aiden's bringing his girlfriend, Abby. Sammi wanted to bring her boyfriend, but his parents said no. Abby's parents said okay, and David agreed, provided they sleep in separate rooms. I'm staying out of the discussion. I'm looking forward to meeting Abby and seeing the kids. I'll take them to see my folks, too. They adore the kids, and rightly so. They are good kids.

So, cleaning, storage, and donations. I've got my work cut out for me this weekend!

Well, February is finally at its end. I'm glad of that. It's warm here, and the redbuds and forsythia are all in bloom. I expect the pear trees will be next. The days are getting longer. Ah, spring!

The man returns in about a week. The Army gave us a window when they will be home, but not a day, yet. I'll find out eventually. I'm really looking forward to seeing him again. I also need to clear up some of my stuff - for example, my swift and ball winder are clamped to the coffee table. Handy for me, but not for David. I have some straightening up to do.

Now that we have pretty shiny floors, I have noticed that my dog drools a lot. The floor is disgusting. I am not especially squeamish - I can and have cleaned up feces, urine, and vomit. Spit, on the other hand, just completely undoes me. So, so disgusting. Anyway, I cleaned the floors last week, and I will clean them again, so that I can stay ahead of the yuck. I am an indifferent housekeeper, but the drool situation must not be allowed to get out of hand again. ~shudder~

Otherwise, same stuff, different day. My class ends on Thursday. Part II starts in April. I'm going to keep going, and see where it leads. I enjoy my workplace, but not my work. So I will work towards a new career, and see where it goes. Can't hurt, might help.

Man, it's only the 15th? What the hell? It feels like it's been going on forever. It's been chillier, and apparently I am ready for summer because this morning I dreamed that I was wearing a sleeveless shift dress. (Check back in the summer, when you will find me whining about the heat.)

I've been trying lots of new recipes. Well, I've been printing a lot of new recipes. I've tried a few - some were not so great, some are pretty good. It's always good to try new things. Oh, I made a kale & potato soup that was surprisingly delicious. I can recommend this one wholeheartedly.

I've been watching what I eat and lost some weight, so I've had to get some new clothes. I put the too-big ones in a storage tub up in the attic. I'm back to the size I was when David and I first met. I gained most of that weight from emotional eating when I was helping with the in-laws, so I feel like I've shed the stress AND the weight.

Other than that, not too much to report. February needs to pick up the pace.

I know I've been AWOL. Not too much going on, just waiting for David to come home.

I made a Black Magic Cake again this weekend. It was amazing. Here's the recipe.

Black Magic Cake
Ingredients:

• 8 oz butter (2 sticks)
• 3/4 C water
• 2 C granulated sugar
• 1 C sour cream
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 2 C AP flour, stir before measuring
• 1/2 C Dutch process cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking soda—(If you’re using a standard baking cocoa, increase by 1/2 tsp.)
• 1/2 tsp salt

Preparation:
1. Grease and flour a 10- to 12-C Bundt pan. Heat oven to 350°F.
2. Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium-low heat; add cocoa, stirring until smooth. Whisk in the water and remove from heat. To the warm cocoa mixture, add the sugar, sour cream, 1 tablespoon vanilla, and eggs; whisk until smooth.
3. In another bowl combine the flour, soda, and salt. Add all at once to the first mixture, whisking until well blended.
4. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, or until it feels firm to the touch and has slightly pulled away from the sides of the pan. Cool in pan on a rack for 10 minutes ONLY. Carefully loosen the cake with a knife and invert onto a large plate.

When you grease and flour the pan, it leaves white smudges on the top of the cake. The author recommends using the Pam for Baking, which has flour in it. I used regular Pam and sprinkled some cocoa in the bottom of the cake pan, and it turned out fine. Also, don’t forget the extra bit of baking soda if you need it, and let the cake cool for ONLY ten minutes before you flip it, because it gets stuck if you wait longer. You can put chocolate chips in the batter for extra chocolaty insanity.

This cake needs NO icing. Maybe a little dusting of confectioners sugar for a fancy look.

The author wrote of this cake, “After you take the first bite, you glare at the rest of the piece accusingly, daring it to be as good as the first. It is.” She's not joking. Try it and see.

I've been unpacking here and there, and moving some furniture around. It's starting to look like someone lives here again. I have moved things around such that there is less storage for the china and serving plates we inherited from David's mom. We plan to buy a china cabinet, so we will have space someday, just not today. So I left some of it packed up and took it out to the storage unit to get it out of the way for now. I brought home the little pie safe to go in the dining room. This goes here, that goes there, re-arrange, etc.

I have been watching what I eat for a few months, and have lost a good amount of weight. I'm back to the size I was when David and I got married. I feel better and look better, so I'm pretty happy about it. I have been sorting through clothes, putting the large sizes aside, pulling the smaller stuff down from the attic. I need to shove all those tubs back up the attic stairs, they're blocking the hallway.

I have not finished painting the small pantry, so the yarn is still piled up in a storage tub. It rained Saturday and was too chilly today, so it'll have to wait a little while yet. It's still getting dark too early to paint after work. I have a few other paint jobs I need to get to.

I went to church today - I've been going since mid-December. The new preacher is pretty interesting. I don't go in for everything he does, but he has had a couple of really good sermons lately. I hope David likes him. We joined the church when they had another preacher, and stopped going when he retired. Now that they have a new permanent preacher, I started going to see how he does. I'm much more tolerant than David - he has very strong opinions about how church services should be conducted.

I enrolled in a class for substance abuse counseling certification, which began this month. There's some good information. There is also a world of misunderstanding of the disease of addiction. I try to keep my trap shut in class, because I have finally learned that I don't know everything. (Imagine!) There's another class after this one. I plan to keep at it. I'm still not sure that I want to pursue counseling, but I'm keeping an open mind. If I decided to do adult education instead, for instance, having some clinical experience would be very helpful. Also, the work hours requirement for certification and licensure is much shorter (by 2/3) for those with bachelor's degrees than those without. (Thank you, Aunt Jean, for making me go to college in spite of myself.)

David should be returning in a few weeks. The kids are coming to visit at the end of March, so we will have our work cut out for us getting the place pulled together before they arrive. David has a lot of swords to hang, you know. The more I can get done before he gets home, the better.

‎"We must learn to live together as brothers or we are going to perish together as fools." Dr. M. L. King, Jr.

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I realized that I had pictures of the range and sink, but not the island.





This kitchen is really nice!

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I went to Myrtle Beach with a friend for the Gratitude Retreat. We went last year, and liked it. We drove down in the afternoon and got there in time to have dinner and get to the evening meeting. Saturday, we went to the morning and evening meetings and went shopping at the outlet mall in between. We also went back to that great German restaurant, Cafe Old Vienna. There was one last meeting on Sunday morning, and we drove home. It was tiring but I'm glad I went - for one thing, I finished two of my knitting projects. That's always a good thing.

This morning, after walking the dog, I made spaghetti sauce for lasagna, and Moroccan kefta, or meatballs. I had the kefta for lunch, and boy was it good. It's usually made with ground lamb, but I used ground beef. It's lemony and spicy and just delicious.

I sent two hours today unpacking books. I re-packed two boxes of paperbacks, to be stored in the attic. Afterwards, I made a tuna noodle casserole and put it in the fridge for later. I went to the gym for water aerobics (still fun, but chilly this time of year). When I got home, I made the tuna casserole for dinner, then put the lasagna together, and baked it for 30 minutes. It will go in the fridge for dinner on Wednesday.

A fun and productive weekend!

Ever since the construction was finished, I haven't been able to light the gas fireplace. Neither the pilot light nor the logs would light for me. I am a total coward where gas is concerned, so I called the HVAC man who put in the new gasline for the stove. He was pretty sure he hadn't done anything to the fireplace line, but was willing to come check it for me. I also asked him to service the heating unit as long as he was coming over. We hadn't had it done since we moved in (four years ago), so it was well past time time. Well, of course he lit the fireplace pilot light without a bit of trouble, and cleaned the coils on the gas pack, so we're both happy. I have a working gas fire and he had a paid service call. Today I called the plumber about my leaky water supply valve in the bathroom. He came out this morning. He told me it was the supply line, not the valve, and and replaced the line in about 10 minutes flat. I put the plastic dish back under the valve in case he was wrong about the fix, but when I went home at lunch 2 hours later, it was dry. Yay, happy home repairs!

I have a number of painting jobs still on the to-do list. I hope to get to some this weekend. David asked me to take an oriental carpet to a dealer to be appraised, and as there are no dealers around here, that's an out-of town trip. The trim needs to be done in the living room, foyer, and bathroom. I hope to get that out of the way, at least. The weather is supposed to be mild, too, so perhaps I will get to the pantry out in the carport. The sooner it gets painted, the sooner I can stuff it full of yarn. Mmm, yarn. I also disconnected the old doorbell in the hallway. It was hard-wired, so it left a hole which I patched. That needs to be sanded and painted too.

I got some interesting recipes from Epicurious.com in an email, so I bought a few things at the commissary, and I hope to do some cooking for the week ahead. (I'm running out of weekend already.) Whatever else I am this weekend, I don't think I will be bored.

Things I did over the three day weekend:

1. Painted the living room walls (trim still needs to be done). I may be the worst painter ever. Tape or no tape, I still can't color inside the lines.
2. Hung up the toilet paper holder & hand towel holder in the main bath. (The towel bar is pending a placement decision, and a robe hook is pending re-painting the door.)
3. Hung up a new windowshade in the master bath (with plenty of cursing). I was going to hang another one over the kitchen sink, but decided against it. Found the receipt and will return the second shade.
4. Cleaned the master bathroom, especially the shower tiles. (Grout must be replaced, possibly the shower doors too.)
5. Went through clothes - moved some items to guest room dresser for the season, chose some to donate.
6. Filled another box and bag for the thrift store.
7. Walked the dog Saturday, went to the gym on Monday.
8. Re-arranged yarn stash (again) and moved craft supplies and baby yarn into cedar closet.
9. Sorted through winter hats & scarves, put some in the closet, got some into the charity bag. Filled one container for ballcaps that we never wear, and stashed it in the closet. Dumb.
10. Put a small pantry in the main bathroom (white one is much too big).
11. Sanded the white pantry. (Planning to use this for yarn storage.)
12. Hung the large mirror back up in the hallway.
13. Made a Black Magic cake, took it to Mary for New Year’s Day.
14. Found the knife block, put the knives away. (It was not buried as deeply in the back room as I thought, but I guess I did need to paint the living room to find it, after all.)
15. Cleaned the window screen over the sink - we had an exhaust fan in that window and it made two round dirty spots on the screen. It's been bugging me for ages.

Not bad.

I did walk the dog, and I went to church, but I skipped the big lunch. I had some homemade 15 bean soup instead. Maybe there were some black-eyed peas in there. I sanded the piece of furniture I need to paint, I put up curtains in the dining room and bathroom.

This afternoon, I took a bundt cake to a friend. I found the recipe online, and it starts with 2 sticks of butter and a cup of sour cream, so you know it's gotta be good. The person who shared it calls it Black Magic Cake. It is appallingly good. You take a bite and glare at the remaining piece, daring it to be as good as that first bite - and it is. When I took it to Mary, we each had a little piece and exclaimed over it. Holy guacamole, that was good. I left that bad boy over there - I can't afford to have that kind of thing in my house! The recipe also listed a glaze to put over the cake which was not as good as the rest of it. It tasted like the cookie icing recipe from Joy of Cooking. No matter, the cake doesn't need icing - it's moist and flavorful all by itself.

Note the distinct lack of painting. I never did work up to it, and I haven't gotten a bit of knitting done, so that is my plan for the evening. Knit knit knit. I'm on a deadline for at least one project. which is about 3/4ths done. A nice quiet evening ahead, wherein I attempt to knit and Noel the cat tries to occupy my lap at the same time. It's the age-old struggle, she settles in for a little while, then I evict her, then she insinuates herself back into my lap, then I evict her, and so on. At least she doesn't tackle the yarn anymore - I convinced her that was a bad idea some time ago. Her name begins with NO for a reason.

So, my long, long to-do list is like the old song, "the foot bone's connected to the ankle bone," but in this case, it ends with painting the living room. The boxes in the back room need to be unloaded. The ones closest to the door are boxes of books, from the bookcases, which are in the living room. I don't want to load up the bookcases with books and then have to move them to paint. Somewhere in that room is the knife block. If I want the knife block, or a cake plate, or the little bookcase along the outside wall, I gotta paint the living room.


It's kinda dark, really. Perhaps it will grow on me.

It should only need one more coat (oh please). Then there's a lot of trim that needs to be painted white. There's always the bathroom and the hideous wallpaper & dusty rose paint (how I hate it). There's a small pantry that needs to be painted. Paint paint paint. Sigh.

They say whatever you do on the first day of the year you will do all year long, so I cleaned the bathroom, did some laundry and ran the dishwasher tonight. Tomorrow morning, I plan to walk the dog. I sure hope I get to do that all year long! There's a New Year's lunch put on by local politicians every year - they serve black eyed peas, greens, barbecue, sweet potatoes, and sweet tea or water to drink. (I have to get water, because the sweet tea is made about 4:1 water to sugar. It makes my heart race.) I plan to go to church. And I plan to knit.

I have gone through my stash a few times lately, trying to get it organized. Today I took a few skeins with me to the thrift store, along with some clothes, books, and kitchen stuff, mostly coffee mugs. This morning, I categorized the bulk of the stash into projects that are in progress (9), hibernating (11), and in the queue - that is, I have a pattern and the yarn, but have not cast on yet. There's some yarn that is not intended for anything yet - stuff I bought without a project in mind. Right now, I have one baby to knit for, and a whole pile of projects in various stages of completion. I bet I can knit all year long just out of stash. Now, if my cousins will stop having babies all over the planet, I may just get some of these unfinished project done, and might even get some of the queue cast on! (Hey, I can dream, can't I?)

I don't have any resolutions to post, but 2012 is going to bring some big changes into our lives. I look forward to the new year with optimism!