potty party

Do you remember back in January or so when we were without water for like a year or something?  I think it was three weeks, but sometimes a year can fit in three weeks, ok?

Well, i remember the moment the water mysteriously stopped coming in our house because i was, at that moment, in the midst of using a pitcher to get water from the bathtub faucet to pour in the back of my toilet.  Our poor commode had all but stopped filling up at all.  Every once in a while, it would give a little extra effort and fool us, but for the most part, it wasn't really working.

Then we got our water back, remember?  OH HAPPY DAY!

It turns out that when the well gets fixed (get your pencils out; you might need to know this) the toilet does not mysteriously fix itself just to be cooperative.

My husband thought it was fixed momentarily.  He had given something in there a jiggle, which inspired the mechanics in there to work, but then i made the horrifying mistake of putting the lid back on the back of the toilet, and it never worked again.  I have no idea how those are related, but that's my story, and i'm sticking to it.

Since then, we have been filling up the toilet from the bathtub with our trusty pitcher that waits there for us.  Our toilet doesn't get a LOT of use, so it's not a big deal, right?  It's a little embarrassing when we have company, but we usually let only those people who love us in spite of our faults - use our non-working toilet.  So it's o.k.  People who have unkind opinions of us don't usually ask to use the restroom.  Everything works out.

I guess, in other circumstances, i might have purchased a book that would tell me how to fix the toilet, but .... I have a hand dandy jack-of-all-trades husband, who already knows how.  Therefore, i leave nasty plumbing chores to him whenever possible.

Why am i blathering on about a broken toilet?

OH, i'll tell you.

The day before yesterday, my husband made an unprecedented announcement:  he declared, "Tomorrow is toilet fixing day."

"REally?"  my heart danced a little.

Then yesterday, true to his word, my husband fixed the toilet.

Do you know what it does now?

You'll never guess.

It flushes.

All you have to do is push that little silver lever/button thingy, and it just works!  And when you're done, you can do it again without the aid of the bathtub or the trusty pitcher.  Poor pitcher - he's out of work now.

I'm giddy.  I get all excited when i have to "go" now because i'll get to use the button.  And it works every time!

Anyone want to come over and use my bathroom?

P.S.  There are rumors of plans for the repair of the leaky bathroom sink plumbing this weekend.  When we get that taken care of, i might just have a party IN the bathroom!  You're all invited!

I'm never especially stressed out by these small inconveniences, but i sure do get happy when they're fixed!

pictures pictures pictures

O.k.  i know you've been waiting for pictures of Babypalooza day.  I just got them, and i am in awe.  In fact, i am so in awe that i'm not showing you all of them right now.  And also, DeAnna, please know that if i am ever a famous blogger making lots of money for blathering on about myself, i will pay you a LOT of money if you will be my personal photographer.  Seriously.  I should probably let DeAnna put these in some more coherent order for you, but since she isn't yet on the payroll, i'll do it myself, and you'll be happy whatever order they arrive in.

Oh yeah, and then on Tuesday (yesterday) east Texas had a late February snow storm.

!!!

Ridiculous.

Anyway, here are some pictures of my snow-accented yard.

I also attempted to take this video for you before the snow actually started sticking.  The snow flakes were really big, and that's what i'm attempting (probably unsuccessfully) to zoom in on.  And then i uploaded it to youtube - which took forever - and now i can't find it, so i'm not going to show it to you right now.  It's not very exciting anyway.

Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Fancy on the Fly

Today, i was reading Pioneer Woman's blog, and found her latest recipe here.  It sounded interesting and inspired me to do something else, which i'll tell you about here.  I used ingredients that i actually had in my house at the time.  That's the main difference.

The Pioneer Woman was making a pasta dish with thin spaghetti, the makings for a thin alfredo sauce, for some reason diluted with chicken broth and white wine.  The sauce also included (to my delight) mushrooms and bacon.  Yum!

Here's my version.  You're going to need mushrooms, cloves from two garlic bulbs peeled, butter, bacon, angel hair spaghetti, dill, salmon, and alfredo sauce.

I started early working on the garlic.  Then i used my Quick Chop.  Yes, i own a Quick Chop, and yes, i use it.

See how nice that is?

Next i cut a whole package of bacon into pieces and heated on medium heat.  Pioneer Woman uses what looks like an aluminum pan for this, but around here, we dig some cast iron.

Then i went outside to pick flowers and burnt the bacon.  Don't do that.  You'll have to start over.

Here, this is better.  I cooked the bacon pieces until they were just crispy, then scooped them out of the grease and drained on a paper towel.

Then i put a heaping tablespoon or so of the diced garlic into the bacon grease and heated until the garlic started to turn brown.

Then i added mushroom slices.

I used my Wildtree Alfredo Extraordinaire sauce mix.  I drained the mushrooms and garlic on a paper towel and added them with 1/2 the bacon bits to the alfredo sauce.

Next is the salmon.  I cut an entire salmon filet into 4 pieces and rubbed the flesh side with butter, the remaining garlic, and a lot of dill.  In retrospect, i should have rubbed it with salt too, but at the time, i was concerned that the bacon grease would add too much saltiness.  It didn't.  I put the salmon pieces skin side down in the bacon grease and heated on low heat with the lid on until the butter started to melt.  Then i turned it up to medium heat and took the lid off.  I was trying to get the skin side to crisp up, which it did.  Then i flipped the pieces over.

Like this.  After i was convinced the fish was done, i turned off the heat and put the lid back on while i prepared the pasta.

I used angel hair pasta because it's what i like the best.  It cooks really fast, so don't let it get soggy.  When it's done, drain the water and add the alfredo sauce and toss around a little with some tongs to mix it up good.

Here's the finished product.  Isn't that nice?

I served it with a salad, and it was perfect.  I put half the mushrooms and the remaining bacon pieces on the salad.  It was super scrumptious. We have enough left to do it all over again.  How exciting.

Hubby especially loved the pasta, which he was surprised about because the sauce appears sparing - but tastes really really mouth-wateringly-ireallywannagogetsomemorerightnow-good.

There's my fancy Monday night meal on the fly.

Here are flowers that cost me a whole package of bacon.  They just bloomed in my yard, and i wanted to rescue them before the snows come tomorrow and kill them all away.  At least i can enjoy them on my table for a little bit.  Aren't they nice?  Surely spring really will come soon.

boredom and perspectives on embarrassing laundry

What happened to pictures from babypalooza?  I am waiting to find out.  I didn't really take any.  Correction:  i definitely didn't take any.  Sometimes it's silly for me to take pictures when the great photographic eye of DeAnna is present....and also, i was spending a lot of time in the kitchen.  When i was done being in the kitchen, i was too tired to think about taking pictures.  So there you go.  I have no doubt that there are some great ones though.  7 or 8 hours of puppy adoration cannot have happened without great pictures.

Oh, and let me tell you about the food.  My hungry man planned the menu.  And i (silly me) thought that meant that he was preparing the meal.  I was so wrong.  He ran the grill.  I did the rest, except for the part where the chip bowl ran out of chips, and he refilled it.  Here's the menu for 5 adults and 2 bird-stomached children:  Shishkabobs with shrimp, steak, mushrooms, and onions; steak; grilled asparagus; extra shrimp that was grilled in foil and eaten by only the men; 7 giant baked potatoes; sausage; baked beans; and corn on the cob.  Most of it is filling up my fridge.  And what a great score 'cause i don't think i'll have to cook again all week!  Oh yeah, there's also 4 pounds of pork ribs, which were prepared for an evening men-yelling-at-other-men-on-the-tv event scheduled to take place at someone else's house, but our men lost their gusto, and we still have the ribs.  Yay us!

I have been resting today.  Not so much because i'm tired but because i'm in pain.  For some reason i can't seem to pinpoint, my ankle started wailing at me as though it had been pounded on by something very unkind.  I promise, there was no pounding.  And frankly, pain wears me out.  So, i got up, lazed around, went to church, found some egg customers (in addition to the normal church things like worship, prayer, teaching, and so forth, of course), came home, and lazed some more.  Somehow, in the midst of all that hobbling, the chickens were fed, and one of the baby chicks got a bath, and the dog and cat remain un-abused.  The kitchen, however, is quite a nightmare.

Exciting, right?  I know.  Stimulating blog post.

Here i will tell you a little story.  I blog to you all the time in my head, but most of my stories never actually makes it to this page.  This one, i sort of remember.

I was sitting in the laundromat/washateria on Friday evening, watching my clothes go round and round in the dryer, when i noticed that i could recognize my underwear near the forefront of the twirling.  This was embarrassing to me.  I'm not sure why it's embarrassing to reveal to others that you wash your underwear, but apparently it is.  The other reason this was silly is that there was no one else in the room.

To console myself, i wondered if anyone besides me could tell that that was my underwear (in case they just happen to be staring at MY laundry instead of their own and analyzing what embarrassing clothing items might twirl within).  Maybe it's a wash rag or a sock or.....who knows?  Who can tell?

So i tested my consolation theory by staring deep into the dryer being used by some other washateria customer, and do you know what?  I couldn't tell what was twirling in their dryer.

Then i felt better.

Aren't you glad you read my blog today?

Haiku Palooza

Today's palooza

was fun and wore us all out

even the puppies.

There was so much food!

Refrigerator is full.

No shopping this week.

Hubby is sleeping

and snoring on the couch now,

me too very soon.

It's good to visit

with family and friends too.

We need each other.

Thanks for coming here

and getting worn out with us!

Again very soon?

Maybe next time we'll

play with dominoes like we

said we would today.

Writing a story

in haiku form is fun and

pretty easy too.

Tomorrow is church

I must go to bed or i

will sleep through my class.

Good night faithful friends

God bless you and keep you and

give you peace and joy.

Prelude to babypalooza

Today, i acquired 7, two-day-old baby chicks.

These are added to my one week old puppies.

So tomorrow, hubby's brother and family are coming for Babypalooza....in which small children will be very excited about very tiny helpless animals, and grown women will take lots of pictures while grown men ..... i don't know  - they'll do whatever they're doing.

And then we'll eat.

But while it's today, i have recently been chastised because there are not enough current pictures of the tiny creatures at my house published on the world wide web for the world to see and adore..

So here you go.  Prelude to babypalooza.

 

Hope that makes you giddy!  Have a great weekend!

Every good thing given and every perfect gift is [John 3:3; James 3:15, 17] from above, coming down from [Ps 136:7; 1 John 1:5] the Father of lights, [Mal 3:6] with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. ~James 1:17

Bean Blog

O.k. peeps, here is the scoop on beans.  Or at least what i do with beans.

Start with fatty meat.  Beans are always better with some fatty meat.  I used a third of a package of maple flavored bacon.  I just cut it up with kitchen shears (which i was sure to wash thoroughly afterwards) and heat on medium lowish.

While that's going, i grabbed a half of an onion.  Here's one of you don't know what they look like.  And i chopped it up.  No special pattern...just in smaller pieces.

When the bacon looks like this....

...add the onions and stir it up.

When the onions and the bacon look like this - ten minutes or so later...

...add beans and water.  For this pot, i used 32 ounces of pinto beans, which is about all you can make in a 6 quart stock pot like this one.

Do you remember my rule?  Low and slow is the way to go.  It goes for beans especially.  I keep it at a simmer at as low a temperature as possible, usually low to medium low.  Keeping the lid on helps it not to run dry but isn't entirely necessary.  Two hours or so later, it looks like this.  The other key to a good pot of country beans is frequent stirring.  Frequent stirring helps build up that good beany gravy, not pictured here.  I let these cook for about 2 1/2 MORE hours (adding water as needed - do NOT let these run dry).  Sorry i don't have a picture of the actual finished product.  I think i was distracted by overachieving children at the time.

Then i made cornbread.  In fact, i forgot about the very forgiving cornbread, baking it about 30 minutes longer than necessary.

And it still turned out great.

That was beans and cornbread.

I have to go to bed now because tomorrow i have friends coming over to eat some of these very beans - they're just that famous.

But before i go, here's a puppy.

Don't you feel better now?