A little inspiration

Today, my block had a big yard sale (a yearly event organized by our Block Watch Association, intended to help us get to know our neighbours), and in our classic style, Chris and I made a profit of -$3.75.  Our landlady, Joyce, already knew this was going to happen.  When we got outside this morning, she shouted across the yard, "I'll keep an eye on Chris! He always spends more than he makes at these things. Then you just have more junk to sell next year."

He was behaving himself remarkably well this year (meanwhile, I was trying to unload whatever I could at 25 or 50 cents apiece).  While I was getting to pack up the rest of our stuff and get it ready to haul to the thrift store, Chris came over and said, "I need to consult with you about something I found. It only costs $5, but it's big."  I may have rolled my eyes a little, because you have no idea how many pieces of archaic technology and how many semi-broken telescopes he has brought into our home.  I should have noticed how proud of himself he looked.

Our next-door neighbour had offered him their 1926 electric Singer cabinet sewing machine for $5.  (Which works!)  Both of our moms have Singer cabinet sewing machines, although both of theirs are treadle-style.  It's surprising how many women in my family have Singer sewing machines as side tables.  It feels like home, having one in my home.  It even smells like home.

It turns out that the only place in our apartment where it fits is next to my (new!) desk. I'm leaving it open for now, because what better inspiration for writing about working women in the late 1920s than this view:    

I was proud of myself and had to share

I've been doing more cleaning (thanks, Hoarders!).  Yesterday, I reorganized the kitchen cupboards so that they don't annoy me anymore.  Also, now there's room so that, should I magically obtain more cookware, I have room for more cookware. 

And then this morning, I was looking at our built-in shelving, dissatisfied with how I'd organized it this weekend.  Yes, it was much better than before.  (I wish I had a picture of how messy it was before.  There were stacks of VHS and cassette tapes, and cords everywhere.  It was so messy that, when I started excavating the whole thing, I discovered the fondue pot that I lost.  How do you lose a fondue pot in such a small space?)  But I didn't like how the basket was sitting on top of my record collection, and I also didn't like how close the two baskets were, because then you could tell that they were different colours.  And that hurt my brain.  (And yes, that shelve really is devoted to Old Media, especially now that the cords have been relegated to The Basket Under the TV, Near the Router.)

So, after sitting under my SAD lamp this morning, I did this:

It looks better, right?  I know it doesn't look like I did much, but I got rid of a bunch of records, so that the basket would fit beside my record collection.  I also reorganized my collection so that I can find things again.  Now, the records to the left of the big Sloan boxed set are from the 1960s and 70s (arranged by artist and somewhat by year and genre), and the records to the right are soundtracks (except for The Graduate soundtrack, which belongs with my Simon & Garfunkel records), classical, kids' music and Christmas music. 

Now I need to write some dissertation, and limit the housecleaning to actually washing the dishes.  Because the dishes are gross.  Because I'd rather organize records than wash dishes.

I think this post will only really be of interest to my mother, but that's okay.

What happened after I watched a few episodes of Hoarders yesterday

I now have an empty cupboard where all the tea used to be.  Also, since that tea basket is full, I can't buy any more tea without getting rid of some first.

Chris has set our DVR to record every episode of Hoarders possible now.

 (Also, I called my mom to thank her for not being like the moms I saw on the show.  And asked my sister to hug Mom for me.)

Chris love bubbles

This has been an unusual week. We've both gotten a lot of work done (I on my old-timey German reading, he on his prep), but we've also kept ourselves busy with hobby-like activities.  I've been blackberry-picking and fruit-preserving, so much so that I'm covered in cuts and bruises and have a freezer full of peaches and blackberries. 

Chris's hobby this week has been a little bit more entertaining for our neighbours:

I'll leave the explanation and videos for Chris at his own blog.

The nicest kind of afternoon

I decided that I needed to work from home today.  I'd been putting off laundry and bread-baking, both of which are tasks that I do during weekdays while I'm dissertating.  They're the two household tasks that are exclusively mine, because they can be done in little bursts of time through the day, forcing me to take breaks.  They also give me little pockets of time in which it's easy to get a lot of work done: there's nothing quite like "Let's see how much typing I can do in the next forty-five minutes while this bread rises."  And it means that I'm not sitting around checking my email during my breaks: I'm up kneading dough or hauling baskets.  

I don't have much of substance to say.  I just am feeling happy because I managed to scan through a difficult German-language book quickly, and then I got to knead some bread dough, and rewarded myself by sitting down in a sunbeam with a good cup of tea.  A sense of accomplishment, a little physical work, some sunshine and some tea.  That's all I need in a day. 

Five small reflections on my week

These could have five small blog posts, but I kept procrastinating. And so you get them all at once.

One

We took the KitchenAid mixer to the repair guy today. We pulled up to a 1950s-or-earlier house, and went up to the little door under the carport. And I mean "little": it was probably only about five feet tall and we had to crouch to get into the shop; the door had a laminated sign, stuck on with thumbtacks. We were greeted by a grey-haired man and ushered into a low-ceilinged shop full of tools and little boxes with hand-written labels that said things like "ball bearings". The repair man (who calls himself "Tom," but is called "Tommy" by everyone I've met) was straightforward and helpful, and said that he'd phone first if it turned out to be an expensive part that needed replacing.

As we walked to the car, Chris said, "He was the friendliest of the hobbits." And then said that he would love to have a shop like that (albeit with higher ceilings).

Two

I went to a Christian-graduate-student small group this week, and there I met a fellow PhD student from my department, whom I'd never met before. And he's in his second year. Everyone was all, "Oh well of course you both probably know each other, considering the fact that you share an office..." I've heard his name before, and he knows a few of my friends, but I've somehow gone for a year and a half without meeting one of our PhDs. I should probably show up on campus a little more often.

(It was really funny, because we were all talking about how easy it is to become completely isolated on campus, and how most of us have only met people in our own department since we've moved here. But apparently I haven't even met everyone who shares my office!)

Three

I find myself fascinated by the Microsoft OneNote website, and all the information about the newest version of Office being released this year. I seriously love that program; I spend more time using it than I do Word, because it works as if I had a stack of notebooks for my research and my comps reading notes, but also all my recipes and notes-to-self, but searchable and not a complete mess (as my life was when I was relying on physical notebooks).

I find it strange that I am rhapsodizing about a Microsoft product, while all my friends and family seem to be going full-out Apple. (I was amused when I found a Lifehacker review saying the same thing, but in more detail.)

Four

I went a little overboard on the "but if we buy four it's cheaper!" school of grocery shopping today. Does anyone have a good recipe that calls for chickpeas? (Other than hummus? I already have a good one of those.) I find myself with five cans of chickpeas. And so very many cans of whole tomatoes.

Five

I went to a talk given by a huge name in my field (seriously: he changed everything). It's nice to find out that someone who is your hero is also a nice person. (I also found out from a friend that another Big Name has a "prickly" personality, and this I find funny.)

It was also good to take off the "Writing My Dissertation" cardigan and put on my "Going to a Conference" blazer, and think of myself as a little bit ambitious for a while. (And stop mentally putting the word "just" in front of my description of my research.)

Taking a break while I can

Tomorrow's going to be crazy and my house is going to be in upheaval.

But it's all because of good things: for one, my landlords have bought a new washer and dryer for our suite! We kept telling them that they didn't have to worry about it (even though our washer was sounding distinctly like a train was coming through our apartment), but then they got a good deal on a set on Boxing Day. (I think they were also eager to make that noise stop, considering the fact that they live right above us.) Today, Chris and Derek helped our landlord move out the old pair, and it turns out that the washer was leaking oil all over the floor.

(I confess that the laundry's been piling up this week in anticipation of the new washer and dryer.)

While we're waiting for the delivery guys to arrive with the washer and dryer tomorrow, we'll also be waiting for people to show up and take away our Christmas tree. (They'll do it in exchange for a donation to some children's charity. This is good, because I wasn't sure how we'd get the tree to the chipper, using our car.)

The tree guys could show up anytime between 8am and 4pm. The appliance delivery guys will be here between noon and 6pm. (And then we rush away to Derek's Saskatchewan-Themed birthday party immediately after that.) I guess this limits my options for how I occupy my day tomorrow.

One more picture from Robot Birthday

I decided to let our visitors help decorate Chris's cupcakes, as they stopped by to help him build robots.

Now for something completely different...

(I'm pretty sure this is only exciting for myself, I warn you.)

My birthday/Christmas present from my in-laws arrived this week: a food processor, to replace the broken-down third-hand Cuisinart that's older than I am. (I now have an at-least-thirty-years-newer version of the processor that I already had, which is nice because the old blades and base fit the new stuff, and so if anything breaks after the warranty's up, I can just mix and match.)

So, we decided to give this new food processor a try on Monday night, to see how it works compared to our old one. (My hope: "Hooray! It works the same, except that we don't need to use popsicle sticks to hold the work bowl together.") We made my borscht, because I always use the food processor to chop up all the beets, carrots and onions before I start cooking them. I let the thing run until it was all chopped evenly, expecting that it would do the same as the old one, and give me a whole bunch of small pieces of vegetables.

The thing pureed it all. It pureed raw beets and carrots. Without any liquid added. Turned it all into a thick purple paste. What the what?! How is that even possible?

I feel mad with power now. I have the ability to puree raw carrots: the world had better watch out.

Confession

I... I may have gone overboard with the Christmas crafts and decorating, folks. It started so innocently, with the tree and the wreath. And then with the windstorm last weekend that gave me so much extra greenery. But then I got too many ornaments for the tree, and I decided to do whatever I wanted on my birthday, and I was so excited about my pretty Christmas tree...

I spent part of my birthday making a Christmas centrepiece for my dining room table.


And I covered my dining room window with greenery. Well, you should see for yourself what my dining room looks like now:

You should click to make this one bigger, to get the full effect of my Crazy.
And yes, I know that we need to get the electronic cables under control again.

I know that a big part of this decorating mania is an attempt to ward off any potential holiday-related homesickness. I guess it's also because I'm tired of doing things on a small scale just because we have a small apartment: the giant tree and the nice decorations feel like the sorts of things I would do in a "grown-up" home, rather than a temporary-ish residence. It's an attempt at laying down some roots where I am.

This decorating binge is also the result of my excitement that the infamous LynnieC is flying in to Victoria on Saturday and staying at Ky's for Christmas. Lyn loves Christmas more than anyone else I know, in spite (or, dare I ask, because?) of several years working in retail. I've spent many Christmases with her and her family, and the idea of spending this one with her and Ky makes me feel a little bit like I'm home.

Okay, fine. I'm also procrastinating. You know how much I love using domesticity for procrastinatory purposes.

Crafty News

As Ky has already announced (and I have been talking about on Twitter), Chris has taken up knitting. Ky's now taught him how to cast on and do the basic knitting stitch, and he's starting off by making a Möbius strip scarf. Discover Magazine is to blame for his new knitting mania; he's convinced that he'll be able to make the dissected frog project in no time. (Well, he knew how to crochet when he was a kid, and he's decided that these sorts of handicrafts are exactly right for him these days: just mindless enough, but doing something useful, and combining his spacial awareness and manual dexterity with his love of knots.)

But seriously: isn't he precious?

I was starting to claim that I don't have a crafty bone in my body, but then I went to a Girls' Night with church, and we made Christmas decorations for our doors out of evergreen branches that had fallen during last Tuesday's wind storm. It was the perfect project: instant gratification, lots of floral wire (I love using floral wire), and both free and environmentally sustainable. Everything we used had been scavenged by Barb from our church (fallen branches, pine cones, and also cloth ribbons from off of presents and past decorations).

And look how Christmas-y my front door is now; can you believe I actually made this thing?

And then when Christmas is over, anything that's not compostable can be collected and used again next year! Completely brilliant.

Also also: they make super-fierce hats. Ky will demonstrate this fact:

********************

In other news, Christopher will be off to the Grey Cup this weekend! This will mark the first time that he gets to see the Roughriders play in the Grey Cup, and he is more than a little excited right now. And he'll get to see his parents and his brother! He's pretty well so excited, he could run all the way to Calgary right now.

Christina more than earned herself a thesis defense cake yesterday

(And wow, am I ever pleased with how it turned out! We still have a whole bunch of it left, and are planning on having some for breakfast.)

Late-night cake baking

It's 11:00 on a Sunday evening, and yet my house is still buzzing with activity. The washer and dryer have been going for most of the day. Christina and I just went over her plans for her MA thesis defense tomorrow morning, and now she's blow-drying her hair and getting all the last details ready. Chris is in our room, finishing up unit review hand-outs for his students, in anticipation of their approaching final exams. And I'm sitting here on the couch, getting a little sleepy, but waiting for a white chocolate cake to finish baking. It's going to be Christina's "Hooray! You're finished your Master's Degree!" cake; when I posted my picture of Meg's birthday cake, Christina asked if I'd make the very same cake for her thesis defense, and now I'm living up to my promise. (Well, the only difference is that this time I'm making my own frosting.)

I think that's a pretty good illustration of all the busyness of the past week or so. I can't believe that it's been less than a week since all the bloggers and conference-goers left town. The time since then has been a whirlwind of German novels and preparations for Christina's defense. It's been pleasant. (And everyone wish Christina luck! She defends tomorrow morning.)

(Remind me to post pictures of the placemats, cloth napkins and pot holder that Christina sewed us as a thank you present. I have so many talented friends, and I'm continually reaping the benefits. I'm useless with sewing, knitting, crocheting, and all that. But I do bake cakes pretty well.)

Or maybe he just discovered a new Taste Sensation

Remember how I made my own chicken stock last week? I experimented with freezing some of it in ice cube trays, with the intention that I would then put the frozen stock cubes into freezer bags and be able to measure them out easily whenever I was cooking. The problem was that I had forgotten to buy large freezer bags and had just left the trays of frozen chicken broth cubes in my fridge freezer, on top of the tray of regular ice cubes.

So, on Saturday afternoon Ariann and Derek were over here visiting with Karl and the wee Andrew while I was supervising a final. They brought along snacks, and while Chris was picking me up from the university, Derek poured himself a glass of Coke. He looked in our freezer for ice cubes, and instead of using the regular ones, decided to help himself to a couple of the yellow ice cubes in the top tray. He assumed that I was being fancy and had made lemon juice cubes for drinks. (I am not that fancy.)

Well, at least Derek only got a glass full of Chicken Coke, and it wasn't any of Chris's weird science experiment stuff that also sometimes ends up in our freezer.

Adventures in Domesticity

We have our church's Christmas dinner this afternoon, and I'm roasting one of the turkeys for it! I'm still experimenting with ways of roasting turkeys, and so here's the method I'm trying this time: the brine and the timing from Alton Brown's Good Eats Roast Turkey, with Elise from Simply Recipe's method of roasting the turkey breast-side-down (it turns out juicier that way), and then I'm altering both of those recipes by stuffing the turkey with lemons and onions. I've only done the lemons in chicken before this, and so I'll tell you how it turns out. (I also have never done a turkey in this tiny oven before, either, and so that's also my big challenge!)

So far, I've had my house fill with smoke, because Alton Brown has you start the turkey at 500F for half an hour, after you've coated the turkey in canola oil. (I only did it for 20 minutes, because my turkey's only 10 lbs. -- I get to do the smaller turkey because I have the smaller oven.) But it looks gorgeous!

Update: It worked wonderfully! People loved it! It got the stamp of approval from the old lady who has always made the turkey for the Christmas dinner! I selfishly kept all the leftovers, so that I can make turkey pot pie tomorrow for dinner.

It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas

This here blog's going to be even more domestic than usual this month: I'm going to be spending my spare time baking and freezing all of our favourite Christmas food. Chris and I sat down last night to come up with our master list of everything home-y that we want to make sure we have this month (seeing as we don't get to go home to have these things baked for us).

And I don't know how I ever became this person, but the prospect of trying out a bunch of new (to me) recipes for a month is thrilling. I may have to blog some of the results (and experimenting).

Here's what we're cooking:

From Chris's list of "things that Mom usually makes":

• shortbread (he will make this one)
  
• caramel squares (I believe this one is my MIL's recipe)
• "nutchos" (not the brand name, but another MIL recipe)
• fruit pizza (for Chris's birthday cake)
• butter tarts
• mini quiches
• mini cheesecakes
  
• a gingerbread house
• (he also put in a request that we buy those cream puffs that come from Wal-Mart, since that's what his Mom does)

From my list of "everything I love that Grandma makes, except I can't make krumkake (which we call "krum kaga") since we don't have the iron to make it -- to be consumed on December 23rd, aka 'Little Christmas Eve'":

• rice porridge, done properly and not terribly like last time
• kumla (potato dumplings)
• lefse (potato pancakes) (I've made this one before, but it was a long time ago)

We'll also be doing two turkeys (one for the church Christmas dinner and one for home), a cheeseball, and a chicken (for back-up food on "Little Christmas Eve," so that my guests don't only have to eat Norwegian food). And Chris is apparently baking me a birthday cake this year, so that I don't bake my own again.

Expect that I'll find plenty of blogging material from this list, especially since in several of these recipes I'll have to try to recreate how either my mother-in-law or my grandmother cooks. And my mother hasn't even attempted making kumla before: I'm just going from a recipe that a relative wrote out, on the understanding that it looks pretty reasonably simple to make. (I'm going to have to call Grandma and talk these recipes through.) My other challenge will be making sure that these items (other than the Norwegian food, which will be cooked closer to the event) make it to the freezer immediately, or else we'll be eating them up before Christmas even arrives.

(We should also be stepping up our exercise routine this month, or else we're each gaining a thousand pounds, by the look of this list. It's shocking how many of these recipes use whipping cream.)

I had to share

We had Meg's birthday party last night, and I was so proud of the cake I made that I had to share a picture of it with you guys (ignore the fact that it's on my washing machine):

It also had a layer of raspberries in the middle. I'm finding that I like making birthday cakes.

Today's food-blogging

White chocolate birthday cake! I'll try to remember to post a picture once I'm done. (The cakes are cooled and perfect, and it sounds like I'm going to do a dark chocolate frosting on top of it.)

I also think I'm going to make more braised chicken for supper, to serve to Chris, Meg and Karl (and maybe mash up some of the carrots for wee Andrew). Seriously: it becomes October and all I want to do is cook. (I sure wish I had the same motivation to wash dishes.)

Home Alone Cooking

Why is it that I get so domestic when Thanksgiving rolls around? It gets to be October and all I want to do is bake, and cook (and sometimes paint clay pots).

I'm home alone for part of this week; Chris and Derek are on the mainland at a teachers' convention until tomorrow. I haven't been particularly productive with my homework, and the house is still a little gross (okay, at least I've done laundry today, but no dishes), but I've been experimenting in the kitchen.

It was the inaugural usage of my vintage le Creuset dutch oven! Well, "inaugural" as in "first time I used it properly as a dutch oven after I found out what it was, and didn't just use it as servingware because I didn't know it was valuable, useful enamelled cast iron".* And so I attempted braised chicken! And succeeded! And didn't use a recipe! And I used beef broth (and a touch of balsamic vinegar) because I didn't have chicken broth, and it turned out perfectly. Amazingly. I did roasted potatoes in the accompanying au gratin pan (it looks like this), and threw carrots and zucchini in the pot with the chicken, and it was all perfect with the rich gravy and everything.

So I'm all pleased with myself. I just had better write down how I made that, because I have a habit of making something good once, and then forgetting how I made it and then it's gross every time after that. I should just make new things all the time and not try to make the same thing twice. Except for banana cream pie: cornstarch puddings are clearly my white whale.


* My mother-in-law bought the dutch oven and au gratin pan as a set from a garage sale, back when Chris first started university.

Lesson of the week

If I'm trying out a recipe that's vastly different from anything I've ever tried before (such as, say, a banana cream pie from scratch, using a crumb crust, when I've never made pudding from scratch before), I should save those experiments for just Chris and me and not for when I'm trying to make something impressive for Chris's co-workers and students (such as for the school's kick-off barbecue tonight). Because when the filling never sets, and dissolves the crumb crust, and ends up looking like watery vomit with floating bananas (...sorry Dad), I end up having a meltdown.

At least I made that attempt at pie-filling-from-scratch last night, and so I still had today to make a dessert. I ended up swallowing my pride and making another banana cream pie, but this time I used pudding from a box, because I don't have the egg yolks, the time, or the sanity to figure this out today.