Wednesday, November 10, 2010

The Kitchen.

Last weekend I awoke at 6am, Saturday. I drove D to Two Medicine (East side, Glacier) and drove home.

I'd been trying to figure out what to do with the kitchen. The evil, dark, gloomy, cave-like, dungeon of a kitchen. I don't have any photos of the kitchen as it was, as D had the only camera in the house I can currently get to work, but it sort of looked like the kitchen to the right. The other problem - we have so much kitchen stuff, fun, happy kitchen stuff, that we had to have a lot of stuff sitting out. On the counter, on top of the cupboards, everywhere. And because the horrible dark, dungeon cupboards were this horrible medium to dark streaked wood laminate, it created a very busy looking kitchen. We had to put a warning sign up as epileptics were likely to have seizures upon entry.

We had bought a couple gallons of paint from, essentially, a Home Improvement thrift store (amazing) for really cheap to cover up the creepy 70's childrens wallpaper in the room we were going to use as our bedroom. And the owner of our new house had a couple of gallons of paint in the basement. When I returned from driving D I started in on the sink full of dirty dishes, giving me time to dwell on everything that was wrong with our kitchen... dishes are good for stewing. And it occured to me that what I needed to do in the next 28 hours before I had to go fetch D - was repaint the entire kitchen.

The walls. The cabinets. Heck I considered painting the countertops (only for .2 seconds, but still).

So I hopped downstairs and pulled out all the paint in the house and started looking around. Well, actually, I pulled everything out of, down from, and off of, the cabinets first. The Bike Box (the downstairs bedroom that serves as bike storage) became the kitchen overflow room (told you we have a lot of kitchen stuff). Then I removed all the cabinet fronts and drawers, pulled off the hardware, and sat down on the floor of the now empty kitchen to figure out step two.

There was an almost full gallon of the most ridiculous green paint I'd ever seen, presumably because our landlord had considered painting something that color. As a favor to her, and anyone else who ever occupies our house, and really, to the world at large, I dumped a bunch of off-white paint of a slightly pinkish/peachish persuasion into the green. It made a previously fluorescent and acidic green, into a very acceptable vibrant moss color. And that's what ended up on the walls.

I then pulled over another can of paint already in residence in the house, pleased that the streaks down the side of the can looked like a promising off-white in the yellow realm, which would work well with the counter tops. Popped the top to find an inch of light blue liquid on top, grabbed a stirring stick and hit a very hard, sticky layer of paint. There was no stirring. Absolutely nothing was moving in the bottom of that paint can. The Off-white color that I'd mixed with the green was much too peachish, and looked atrocious against the yellow counters. So I grabbed my purse and headed for Josey. With $12 worth of paint and some more painter's tape in my hand I was back at the house painting cabinets.

Sunday involved second coats for most things and a third coat for some of the larger cabinet doors where I had lost my patience and not done the most even and effecient job the first time :)

I didn't quite manage to get all the painting done by the time I picked D up, and that was even with the extra hour from Daylight Savings Time :( This is what he saw when he got home... note the refrigerator pulled away from the wall and covering most of the entry way into the kitchen.

But the painting was done on Monday, and I moved the last few things back into the kitchen today.

I was a little worried about the hardware, but in the end, I wasn't going to pay for new stuff myself, and D says he actually likes it... hmm.

Three notes -

- No I don't approve of painting wood. This was horrible wood laminate over pressed wood product, so I felt no qualms.

- No I didn't get permission from our landlord. The property management company gave me a pretty unconcerned answer when I asked about painting walls, so I decided to run with it.

I believe they said "as long as it looks better than it did before". Check.

- The older I get the less I cherish my perfectionistic tendencies. I worry this is the truist sign of cynicism I have yet shown. Though D may argue.

Friday, June 11, 2010

Quote of the Day.

D - That wasn't funny.
M - Oh, no. In my head it was.
D - It wasn't funny primarily because the metaphor was nonsensical.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Quote of the Day.

(D accidently put the sauce on the pizza crust before baking it, I scraped it off, he put it in the oven and then went to pull it out, top it, and put it back in, he got back into the living room)

M - How is the pizza crust??? Did it pre-bake alright???
D - Yay, it's fine, it just has a tan...
M - A tan???
D - A weird coloration... a little orange tint... a John Bahner tan.

Friday, April 2, 2010

Quote of the Day.

D - Don't even think about getting sprinkles on my keyboard.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Quote of the Day.

M - I'm worried.
D - Worried about what, that god will bring back the dinosaurs and you won't be able to run fast enough to get away from them???

Per This...

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Quote of the Day.

D - "K taught me how to use commas yesterday at lunch."
M - "What do you mean, what did she say about how to use commas???"
D - "Wait... commas... or apostrophes... which ones are up high???"
M - "Apostrophes??? You didn't know how to use Apostrophes???"
D - "I just sort of put them where they seemed right. But now I know the rule."


(D says we can't have children till I eat at least three different vegetables that are green... I say we can't have children till we can afford to send them to private schools... where they'll learn the difference between commas and apostrophes before they're 30).

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Quote of the Day.

D- "Yeah - well that's because while they were listening to Gilbert and Sullivan they couldn't think beyond whether to stab out their left eye, or their right eye."

In reference to a study referenced in This.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Quote of the Day.

D - You're really someone to cast aspersions on others for sounding obnoxious.

Half a minute later -

D - They do really sound like Marmots or something...

(while watching the Russian Ladies' Curling Team)

Quote of the Day. Midnight Special.

D - Stop asking questions that make me think you're a bad person.

Friday, February 19, 2010

Quote of the Day. K 2.0

From tonight.

K - Don't ruin my life, M. Don't ruin my life.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Quote of the Day.

D - You smell funny, were you drinking???
M- I had a beer at work... actually, it's probably Beer, potato salad and ice cream...
Snad - That is Disgusting!!!

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Quote of the Yesterday.

K was over for dinner last night with D and I. D pulled out the camera - the products of which will never surface. Anyway... after K realized that D wasn't just taking photos, but had actually taken a video she innocently pleaded -

Don't embarrass me on the internet D, don't embarrass me on the internet.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Chunky Chewies.

I'm torn... torn between calling these little darlings (and little is not a descriptor of their caloric presence) Chunky Chewies... which has a certain sickening sound to it, an onomatopoetic harbinger of how your stomach will feel after eating them, or BacoMallow Blast! which gives a slight indication of how oddly giddy I felt making them...

point being, there's this website. It's called This is why you're fat. And it has had a great impact on my life recently. The following is a recipe fpr the first of two creations (the second will come to life for an event, presumably next weekend) I'll be submitting to this awe-inspiring web site. I hope you enjoy.

Take a bit less than 1 pound of thick sliced, peppered bacon. Quarter the slices and bake at 350 degrees F on a cooling rack placed over an aluminum foil lined baking sheet (I don't normally employ aluminum foil solely to ease clean up, but I made an exception here, and I think you should too... just wait). As you flip the bacon, make sure to add extra pepper... pepper all over...

Cook them till they're about 70% of the way to crispy, crispy goodness...

meanwhile, get a small bowl and mix 1/4 cup Maple Syrup, 1/4 cup Balsamic Vinegar and 1/2 cup brown sugar... stir vigorously.

Now. Coat those babies with Maple/Balsamic goodness. Brush some on one side, put back in oven for 5 minutes, pull out, flip over, coat other side, repeat till out of syrup!

Right about now the kitchen smells like God really does love Man.


You'll need to let them cool just a tidge, while you melt about a cup of chocolate in a double boiler. Once the syrup on the bacon has cooled enough to be stickily solid and not so liquid that it slides around, you dip each piece of bacon in the melted chocolate.

While the chocolate dries - you make Marshmallows!!! Instead of adding vanilla extract, I used a bit more maple syrup to flavor the marshmallows :)

I also may have left it mixing in the Kitchen-Aid too long... I think you're suppose to be able to pour it out at this stage...
P.S. Homemade marshmallow creme is excessively sticky. Coat the entire kitchen in scalding hot water before trying to work with it.



P.P.S. When trying to scrape the last bits of marshmallow out... don't drop your mixing bowl upside down on the floor.

P.P.P.S. If you do drop your mixing bowl upside down on the floor don't mention it to your husband who will mock you and photograph the result.

Now chop up all the chocolate covered, candied bacon, into little pieces...

and sprinkle it over one half of the marshmallow, which you've flattened out onto a well powdered-sugared baking sheet. (I originally planned on using sugar crystals instead of powdered, for that Peep look... but somewhere around trying to wrangle the marshmallow out of the mixing bowl I forgot about that great intention and just started throwing powdered sugar at everything in sight.)


Then layer the second half of the marshmallow on top.

Cover the top layer of marshmallow with sugar to prevent sticking, then wrap it up and let sit for about 12 hours. Then... cut.


I re-coated my knife in powdered sugar between each row.


Look at the cute little, bitty, bacon, peeking out of the marshmallow... who's a cute bacon??? Who's a cute little, bitty, bacon??? Yes you are!!!

Whoops...

as you cut the squares, you typically dust the edges in powdered sugar to keep them from sticking to everything, as well as themselves. I chose to dust one side of each marshmallow with cocoa powder... I could say I did it because it tempers the sweetness of the marshmallow... but really it's because I can't leave anything well enough alone.

You grab one of this kiddos and tear the thing apart...


and find chocolate covered, candied, peppered bacon inside. It warms my heart.

P.P.P.P.S. Photo and patience credits to D, who graciously cut off whatever the heck he was doing and ran over with his Macro-Happy new camera every time I yelled - "Photo... photo, I need a photo... now, photo!!!" That's Love.

Friday, January 29, 2010

Quote of the Day.

M - I hate it when you do that.

D - I hate it when You do that.

M - Do what???

D - Anything.