House 101

...or how to decorate your home without the future owners* cursing the day you were born. (part of a new ongoing series?)


1.  If you ever say the words, "Pure white is just too white." go ahead and slap yourself for me. (Or pinch yourself, because in truth I'm a pincher. Pinch hard.) White is always going to be white. It will always exist, unlike the un-fucking-matchable eggshell ecru that you chose because you're too much of a wimp to go all the way white.

2. Wallpaper. Use sparingly, if at all, and for gods' sake do not wallpaper things like those big baseboards that some older homes are lucky enough to have. I know there's a big flat oh-so-tempting spot between the pretty router-y bits and it seems to be the perfect place to a glue a coordinating stripes & flowers border to go with your flowers & stripes wallpaper, but just don't. Seriously. Go into another room and sit on your hands until the urge passes.

3. Do not add insult to injury. Say, for instance, you have a lovely dining room with a charming little chandelier, lovely hardwood floors, and a bay window overlooking the garden. This perfect room has the singular misfortune of having wallpaper covering the original lath and plaster walls. At the time, it may seem a good idea to cover the wallpaper with something else, like cheap wood-esque paneling. You will go to hell for this, guaranteed.

4. When installing locks, repeat the mantra, "Lefty loosey, righty tighty." Similarly, up is typically the on position for light switches. Sigh.

5. Adding color to your garden can be as easy as sowing a packet of wildflower seeds in a small patch of soil or planting annuals in a nice container. Do not dig up and transplant weeds from the side of the road because you think they are "pretty."

__________________________

*and there will be future owners (unless you have a gigantic, domicile-sized sati ritual upon your death)

Showercam*

Well, after a lot of sweat, hours of labor, many trips to the hardware store, and four different paint colors, the bathroom is finished. My bathroom, that should have been someplace special. After all, it is the room I stagger into all bleary-eyed each morning and perform all of the rituals required to pass as human - so why not make it as pretty as possible, right?

Instead all the walls were yellow. And all the wood was oak. And oh lord, the whole thing was just dreary as hell.

So, I paint. And paint. And paint. (For weeks now. Really.)

I refinished the cabinets and woodwork.


& painted the walls a robin's egg...








Now I'm happy with my blue loo!

*no, not THAT one.

Also, I'd like to mention that while I was sitting in the driveway, touching up the cabinets with a small paintbrush, Mike said, "You know...you'd make a great serial killer. So much attention to detail."

I made a face at him. Everyone knows that sort of thing is just exhausting.

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what Breda's been doing*

• Painting practically every available, non-moving, non-living, surface in my home. The kitchen cabinets, the upstairs bathroom (robin's egg blue and white trim! Looks so cute, ohmigawd), the bathroom cabinets, the front hall (purple!), the other hall (not purple), maybe the kitchen floor (apple green!) because I seem to have completely lost my mind.
• Container gardening (yes, cucumbers really will climb up a tomato cage)
• Getting rid of the dishwasher, for reals. Seriously, does anyone want a perfectly good dishwasher? It's sitting on my porch annoying me. 
• Attempting to devise a way to nap with my eyes open and still retain the ability to answer reference questions.
• Sweating. Drinking water. Sweating some more. (lather, rinse, repeat)
• Organizing the Labor Day Northcoast II blogshoot. (anyone else planning on coming? PLEASE EMAIL ME YOUR RSVP, I want to cook food for you.)
• Actually reading books. (Fiction, even. Go figure.) This usually occurs while I'm sitting in the shade under my magnolia tree with something cool, and sometimes grown-up, to drink
• Admiring the hard work of the sparrows who have taken up residence in our birdhouse. They are currently raising their 3rd (!) clutch of eggs.
• Occasionally hanging out with William the Coroner
• Rescuing the disabled guy who lives next door after he fell and busted his face on the concrete. First time I've ever worn another person's blood, so that was interesting.
• Becoming friends with the pit bull who lives with the guy next door. He only looks scary. I give him sticks to play with, Mike made me buy Milkbones. Mike is a big softie.
• Still going to the chiropractor.
• Open carrying while openly wearing a prosthesis, short shorts, and a halter top. No one notices the gun.
• Other things even less noteworthy than these.

*I'm writing this post under the pretense that more than three people actually care.

gone retro

For a house with only two people in it, handwashing the dishes honestly is far less work than rinsing (pre-washing) the dishes, loading the dishwasher, wheeling the dishwasher over to the sink (no, we don't have a built-in. Our kitchen is circa 1935 - I'm lucky I'm not using the term "icebox" literally), hooking it up, wheeling it back, unloading the clean dishes and then starting it all over again with the dirty dishes that had somehow managed to collect in the sink. Believe me, the whole dishwasher full of clean dishes, sink full of dirty dishes cycle was a neverending source of housewifey angst. Add in the fact that the hippies (who seem determined to ruin everydamnthing in the modern world) have taken the most of usefulness out of dishwasher detergent and you can see why I've convinced Mike that we need to get rid of our dishwasher. (anybody want to buy a dishwasher?)

It's crazy, I know. It's like we're regressing back to the stone age or something. No television and now no dishwasher, either. Stop me when I start dragging my laundry down to beat against the rocks on the banks of the Chagrin River.

Garden globe

In case anyone was curious about the results of my terrarium project...


I now have little gardens hanging in my kitchen window.

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Geeking out, BRB

I've spent the morning at various garden centers, craft shops and hardware stores collecting tiny succulent plants, moss, activated charcoal and river rocks. I'm making a hanging terrarium today in the hopes that my ceaseless obsession with miniature gardens under glass abates for at least a short while.

I doubt it though because look at how absolutely cool these plants are!


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Spring.

Such a tease.




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so wrong.

(but I laughed anyway.)

Read this little news item to Mike this morning over bacon:

John Joe Thomas, 28, of the first block of Sunshine Road in Upper Darby, allegedly told police he killed Murray Joseph Seidman, 70, because the older man had made sexual advances and that the Old Testament spelled out stoning as the punishment for homosexuality.

"I stoned Murray with a rock in a sock," Thomas said to police, according to court documents.

His reply:

"In a box? With a fox?"

Snowpocalypse, part, um...

Hmm. Seems I've lost count.

Anyway, we got five or so inches overnight and there's no sign of it stopping. There is a utility truck stuck in front of my driveway and the guys are trying to dig out as fast as they can, because I have to get to work. Sometime. (yes, schools are closed but the library is not.) Five minutes outside cleaning off my car and I'm soaked - my hair is wet and my mascara is somewhere in the vicinity of my cheekbones.

UPDATE: Called the library to say I'd be late. Was told nothing was plowed and my boss wouldn't be into work because the freeways are closed.

Hey, at least we're not in Japan, God help them.

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no mistake (on the lake)

Despite our crappy weather and struggling economy, Cleveland can be pretty hip - if you know where to look.

Come visit and I'll take you for a bratwurst at the West Side Market.

New toy

Meet Spitty the Mouse.

Before:



After:



Shortly after this photo was taken, Spitty's tail was chewed off. Poor mouse. (good thing Spitty came in a 6-pack)

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when life deals you lemons...

Not many recipes begin with "Step 1: fly to Arizona" but on our recent trip out west Mom and I paid a visit to my cousin's house, or more specifically, his lemon trees.

We thought that we'd pick a few lemons, box them up and ship them home at a flat rate. Lemons are so expensive in Ohio, around 80 cents each, that we figured it'd be worth the trouble.

Despite my love for every- and anything lemon, I had no idea about how they grew. I figured they grew on trees somewhere vaguely south but as far as I was concerned, they might as well have been little zesty jewels filled with yummy wonder and sunshiney goodness magically delivered by citrus fairies. I just had never really thought about it. My best guess involved a yellower version of an apple tree, which has been the sum total of my experience with fruit trees thus far.

I wasn't too far off, except I wasn't prepared for just how many lemons a lemon tree can hold. Or how large lemons can become when they're allowed to fully ripen. My cousin's wife apologized for how small this year's lemons were, while holding a fruit about the size of a softball. I boggled...and quickly came to realize that the lemons I'd been loving and treasuring my entire life were just a sad parody of the real thing. (If you will, "lemons" vs. "LEMONS!!!!") I was standing in the sunshine picking fruit off its tree in January and my hands were sticky with lemon oil - the world was warm and smelled wonderful. I was in heaven.

Needless to say, within about 20 minutes, I had picked five or six grocery bags full - far more than would fit in our flat rate shipping boxes. Luckily, my aunt offered us a spare suitcase and, after some careful packing, weighing and stashing extra citrus in our other bags, we were able to check our bounty in with our other luggage. All in all, I think we had 60 pounds of citrus. (navel oranges and tangelos too, but mostly lemons) Dreams of all that lemonade made the blizzard we came home to a little bit easier to bear.

A few days later, Mom and I realized that the lemons were going to go a lot further than we thought. Just how much frozen lemon juice and dried zest would someone need, right? Mom made limoncello, which used 12 lemons...but we still had bags left over. What to do, what to do. Suddenly, I had an idea.

Marmalade.

All that sunshine, preserved. Gorgeous, isn't it?

(here's the recipe)

Smokin'!

Who says it's just for summer?


Two pounds of sockeye and at least 3 times that of beef, slowly becoming oh-so-delectable out in the cold. I added some clean snow to the water pan, just for good measure.

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vocal local yokels

A Hallelujah Chorus flash mob descended upon one of my most favorite places in Cleveland.

TLNC*

Ugh, yesterday was just...ugh. That's about all I can say.

However, I will never again doubt the power of free internet. The usual suspects braved below zero wind chills just to get their fix.

The library was the slowest I've ever seen. In 8 hours, I had 4 reference questions. We're between billing cycles, so I couldn't place an audiobook order and because it's the end of the year and all available storage space is taken, I couldn't weed the fantasy fiction. I was bored. Painfully, tragically bored. And lonely. I would have even been happy to see the creeper who, when he's not ogling my coworker, offers us Hershey's chocolates along with a sly, "How's about a kiss?"

And somewhere in in those hours of backlogged blog reading I saw just what I needed**.

9:20 PM and I was there. Home.


*too long, no cats
** this is my favorite "smiles guaranteed" blog. Enjoy.

local bumblebee

Around 3:30 in the afternoon, Monday through Friday, this girl walks home alone from school and passes in front of my house. Kind of chubby, hair in braids and carrying a backpack, she'd be completely unremarkable - except for her voice. She sings her way down the sidewalk, sometimes pausing to try a few tentative dance steps, completely lost in her own world.

I think she's awesome.

sweet & simple

Remember the baking craze that happened in the blogosphere because of Kevin Baker's beer bread recipe? Well, get ready to buy some more self-rising flour - and a pint of ice cream - because those are the only ingredients for this recipe. (yes, really.)

You can experiment with flavors, but I thought it'd be best to start with something simple. I chose Ben & Jerry's Pistachio Pistachio.


Ice Cream Bread

1 pint of melted ice cream
1.5 cups of sifted self-rising flour

Butter and flour a standard size loaf pan. Heat your oven to 350ºF. Mix your ingredients until smooth. Pour the batter into the pan. Bake for 40-45 minutes.

That's it. (yes, really.)

Enjoy!

turkey time

Why, yes, that is a 12-pound turkey floating in brine in my vegetable bin or, as Mike called it, "the turkey aquarium." I like to refer to it as the first stage of what will forever be known as The Best Turkey I Ever Ate.

After a day of bathing in an apple juice (and garlic and sage and peppercorn and...) brine, I have stuffed it with onions, apples and rosemary and massaged it with butter. It is now being slowly smoked over applewood.

You all may now drool and be very, very jealous.

p.s. (isn't the vegetable bin idea terrific? Found at notmartha, the home of the bacon bowl.)

UPDATE: Turkey Time, pt. II

Hello, gorgeous...

hahahallowe'en

me, pre-coffee, mid-the usual morning braindump: "Oh, I just had the best idea for a Halloween costume! It could win contests!"

Mike, who has learned that sometimes my morning braindump can be somewhat disjointed and nonsensical: "Okay..."

me, giggling: "Well, I'd go as an Elmer Fudd-esque hunter, but on crutches because I'd have my leg all wrapped up in bloody bandages. With maybe a toy rifle. And you could go dressed as a grizzly, carrying a bear trap with a fake bloody partial leg caught in it."

Mike, incredulous: "......"

me: "What? It'd be funny!"

Mike, pouring me coffee: "If you say so..."

I think he's just upset that he has to be the bear.

___________________

And proving that I'm not the only monopod with a weird sense of humor...author, motivational speaker, paralympian, and funny guy Josh Sundquist showed off his Halloween costume on Facebook:

Herbert the pervert

Mike and me, discussing the 92-year old Florida man who got banned from public libraries for sexually harrassing librarians.

Mike: "Yeah, but...92 years old? What the hell."

Me: "Viagra, probably." Shrug.

Mike: "How bad could those notes have been, though? Wow."

Me: "Listen. The other day, a filthy dirty smelly homeless guy in a wheelchair rolled up to my desk, grinned, and asked for books - with lots of pictures, mind you - about sexual positions. And I didn't even bat an eye. So, to make a public librarian actually report you to the cops? It had to have been pretty bad."

Mike: "You're so young to be so jaded."

Me: "Yup."