Really Awesome Baked Chicken

I have this thing for fried chicken and since I wanted to have some tonight, I decided to try baking it. And well, yum.
I marinated thighs in buttermilk overnight. Then seasoned with salt, pepper, onion, garlic powder, paprika and a bit of cayenne. Coated in Italian bread crumbs. I then baked in a 375 degree oven for about 50 minutes or so. Till the juices ran clear. They turned out moist and delicious. I served with mashed potatoes and made from scratch country gravy. (Make a roux with equal parts butter and flour, cook for a bit, add milk, salt, pepper, paprika to taste. Heat while stirring until thick.)
I do love a good meal.

In kitteh news, they are doing fabulously well. I am starting to think Punk likes Alex better than she ever liked Gabby. I know but she totally mothers Alex and watches over him. She's even sleeping on the bed with us now. There's a difference.
Alex caught a lizard today. Punk wanted some of it too but he was not sharing. Oh no. He growled every time she came near. It was just too funny. After he did his thing with it, Alex did eventually share and they both finished playing it to death. So cute.
And yes, I have more pics. There are more in the kitty post below at the end- updated with links to picasa and photobucket. (carimwc for photobucket but the pics are the same in both.) I also have more coming. I'm taking a bunch to make an album for my Aunt so there will be tons more. My aunt is about 5 mentally, so the kitty pics will bring at least a week's worth of bragging and talk for her. She asks about them all the time. I don't know why I never thought about this before!

Central Texas Gets Cold Sometimes

When it rains it pours. It's cold at night here. Like 30s cold. We came home and started up the heater. It stoppped running after 2 minutes. Something fried. Looked like a fuse. It was but it wasn't the only thing wrong. The circuit board is fried. This happens with old age (unit is only 10 years old) or dirt and dust buildup. As some of you may recall, our unit ended up clogged up and disgusting earlier this year. We had it cleaned but it was too late for our heater. Argh.
These boards aren't cheap either. It sucks.
Last month was the civic's tune-up in order to keep it running and inspected. And Alex and his vet visits. Oh and Gabby and her cremation. And the boy dropped his phone in coffee. That was just last month. We've been having a series of mini-disasters. Anytime we bring up the S-word and think we're doing ok, something happens. Like clockwork.
I'm tired of this crap. We need a little bit of good luck. Just a little. Anything.
Looks like another night of sleeping in the cold.

Update- yeah I know

I know I’ve been really lax in updating this thing in the past few months. I just haven’t had the time or energy. Mostly the energy. I’ve had a super case of insomnia. I’ve been falling asleep fine- I’m exhausted by the end of the day, but I can’t stay asleep. I’ve been waking up any time between 2:30 and 4:30 in the morning and not falling back asleep. And when I mean wake up, I mean I wake with a jump. It’s not good.
It’s gotten a bit better this past week but it’s still not there. At least I’m not feeling too zombie like. There were days when it was all I could do to make it home. Forget about cooking dinner or something. I didn’t trust myself near a stove those days. I shouldn’t even have been driving. (Case in point: one zombie morning, while backing the truck out of the driveway, my sideview mirror hit our brick mailbox. Thankfully the mirror is just cracked and I can order new glass but still. Not so good.)
Alex is a love. He and Punk are getting along. They’ll lie near each other and joyfully chase each other around the house. Alex actually starts a lot of it. He’ll attack Punk and then run away, forcing her to chase him. It’s really cute.
He is a super snuggler. He forces his way onto my lap or shoulder and then makes himself comfortable so he can snooze. He loves to rub his face under my chin and give kisses. It’s all cute until it’s 4am on a Saturday and he starts whacking me with his paw because I’m not making any effort for him. Yeah, that was fun. But he’s a doll and a really great addition.
Punk is dealing quite well with this newcomer. We’ve been letting her run on the weekends but not during the week as Alex is not outside material just yet. Plus we wanted to make sure that they got along and as she would have spent most of her time hiding outside, we felt the forced interaction was best.
She is also keeping her super hunting skills up to par as Friday night she caught a rat. A lovely, furry, largish, rat. I was just sitting on the couch with a sleeping Alex half in my lap, when in walks Pumpkin meowing like crazy. She dropped her present on the floor at the entrance to the living room and stood proudly, waiting for me to come inspect her catch. She got lots of praise and petting while I hurridly ran for the broom and the camera. Upon further inspection, the rodent was still alive. Yikes. I quickly swept it onto the dustpan and brought it outside where I hope it either escaped or died. Either way, Punk got locked inside for the rest of the night as she has a tendency to re-capture things. (She caught the same field mouse 3 times before playing it to death.)
Our Thanksgiving plans have just changed. We were going to drive out to Louisiana to spend time with the boy’s relatives but we’re most likely going to stay around here now. We were only going to be there for a day or so anyway. Staying home makes so much more sense with gas prices the way they are. So I have to go find a turkey today. Joy. At least I have most of the fixins I need to make dinner. I was already going to make the pies. I plan to brine the turkey but I don’t know if we’ll smoke, roast, or fry it. We’ll see. I’m making an herbed pecan stuffing to go with it. We have tons and tons of pecans from the trees around the La Vernia house. Either way, we won’t be lacking in food.

UPDATED: More kitty pics here

The new boy in town

This is Alex. I know it's only been a few weeks but a new kitten was somewhat of a necessity. First, I needed a new little one, and Punk couldn't get too used to being alone. She was already becoming the diva of the house again.
So last Saturday I went to PetSmart to check out the rescue organizations and their adoptable kittens. I was looking for a tabby, preferably orange but then Alex poked his nose at me. I took him out and we snuggled. That was all it took. He was so lovable and playful I couldn't resist. So I took him home.
It was great timing as about 5 minutes before I walked in the door, Punk caught her first mouse. I had called the boy to warn him so he could prep the Punk but of course she had other ideas. She was all wild and proud. She scared the little one and he hid under a dresser for about 7 hours or so. (Punk spent the rest of the day outside.) During those 7 hours of hiding we could pet him and discovered he loves having his paws played with. I took him from his spot every once in a while and as long as I had a hand on him, he would snuggle and purr and be happy. But move that hand and bye bye!
But after about 7 hours it was like a light switch went on. He came out and started playing and generally going crazy. He also started meowing. Yes, I have another talker. He's not nearly as loud or as constant as Gabby but he loves to meow. He's a chirper actually. It's cute for now. We'll see.
He's a love. He loves to snuggle and curl up with you. He loves everyone. He likes to perch on your shoulder and then stretches out upside down. Strange little thing.
Punk is less than thrilled but she's coming around. She doesn't hiss and growl constantly and can stand to be in the same room as Alex now. They're due for a fight soon. I'm not worried though. They're making progress every day. I don't expect best buds immediately. He's got big shoes to fill.
I will always miss Gabby and she will always be my little baby. But Alex is here to stay and will help fill the hole that was left.

RIP Gabby

She's gone. My kitten, my shadow, my baby. She was hit by a car this morning.
She wasn't waiting for me to get up, she wasn't begging for tuna, and didn't come when I called. I knew something was wrong. I opened the front door because sometimes she got stuck out front and there she was in the road. I screamed but there was nothing to be done. She had been dead for a few hours it seemed.
I'm heartbroken. She was my loud, curious kitten. She was afraid of cars and the road so I have no idea why she was out there. Pumpkin is waiting for her pal to come play. She's looking for her friend.
It all happened this morning. We took her to the vet to get cremated. It's only been a few hours. I can't stop crying right now. This was my baby. She was MY cat. She followed me around and not the boy.
I miss her so much. I just want my loud, crazy kitten to come running up to me now.

ACL Rant Part 1

I know i haven't updated in a while. It's been a bit crazy.
Anyway, Austin City Limits Music Festival is this weekend. It's my 30th birthday 3 day weekend bash. I was looking forward to it. Especially Saturday, my birthday, when I was going to hit the trifecta of Amy Winehouse, Indigo Girls, and the White Stripes. Not so anymore.
As the world knows, Amy Winehouse is not touring for the foreseable future. Le sigh. Yesterday it was announce that the Striples are canceling tour dates for the next few weeks. Argh. Now, I understand that Meg White had a nervous breakdown and all but sigh. That stinks. The Stripes were the Saturday headliner. Now Muse is going to fill that spot and well, eh. I'm not a huge Arcade Fire fan either. So it looks like we'll be leaving after the Indigo Girls. Ah well. Still not so good.
People are not happy about the way things are happening. Bob Dylan was not a happy choice to close and now the Stripes with no other real big headliner? Not so good.
Ah well. More to come when the festival actually starts. I did get my wristbands today.

Food updated: sauteed onions and garlic in olive oil, added chicken, salt, pepper, italian seasoning, some smoked paprika. Let cook. Added bacon, a can of drained chickpeas, grape tomatoes, and basil. Let cook until the tomatoes are warmish. Serve over greek seasoned roasted potatoes. Top with parm if desired. Total yum.

Icky Sicky

Short and sweet. I managed to come down with bronchitis at the beginning of the week. At first I thought it was a head cold that was doing it's normal thing of winding down to my chest but no, the head part all but went away and this thing has taken hold of my lungs. All I do is cough and feel rotten. I went to work on Monday and made it through half of Tuesday before giving up and going home to sleep.
On Wednesday I dragged myself to the doctor only to have them tell me that well, yes, you are sick but we can't do anything for you. I don't have a fever and they don't want to give me antibiotics. I have to get worse first. Awesome.
So it's been fun. OTC meds, the good kind that you have to ask the pharmacist for and prove that you don't have a meth lab, and lots of tea. I still feel crummy but there's not much I can do about it.
And then there's work. I swear the position of the head of my department is cursed. This makes boss #4 in a little over 2 years. Yeah. It was supposedly a mutual decision but I'm pretty sure it wasn't. And of course this all happened on Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday, while I was gone. Argh.

Firefly in da house!

Somehow a firefly, or lightening bugs as they seem to be known around these parts, managed to get into my house last night. Punk had a blast trying to catch it. I had just blissed her out by brushing her (seriously that cat LURVS her brush) when all of a sudden she jumped and started digging through everything on the floor. She went nuts. She climbed over everything and jumped as high as she could, but she never did quite catch it. Ah cats.

I think I've managed to fix my sleeping issues. Well, mostly. I've been taking melatonin, extended release caplets. They've actually helped me to sleep through the night and I only wake up around 5:30 now, which is much better than a few times a night. It's been really nice. I do like feeling rested more often than not. Yay.

I made more salsa this weekend. The roasted garlic and roasted red pepper salsa came out excellent. I've tweaked the recipe a little, decided to use a lot less lime. My only problem is that I seem to filling up the jars too much. I've left plenty of room at the top for expansion, but it doesn't seem enough. The jars don't explode per se but they leak and when you open them, well, it's best to have a bowl underneath and do it in the sink. And open slowly. I haven't lost much, which is good. I did lose a jar while sealing. It just broke and let out all the salsa into the water. A whole quart! And it was my hot stuff too! Oh well. I've got lots more to make for the next few weekends.

Happy Left Hander's Day!

I hope you smiled at your fellow left-handed people today. (Ahem.) We are not all evil as the origins may presume. We face obstacles daily, living in a blatantly right handed world. (Ever try to pour from a ladle with your left hand? Can't since the spout is on the side made for right handed ease. Don't even get me started on can openers.)
I could rant on and on about the whole left handed thing but I won't.
I'll just leave you with the neat fact that my immediate family, all four of us, is all left-handed. Right handers who came to dinner were truly the odd people out for a change. Ha!

Pickles, pickles everywhere

In the past 3 weeks, I have made 19 quarts of pickles. My neighbor had an overflow of cucumbers and kept leaving bags at my front door. (I had given him permission so it was ok.) I wanted to make pickles. And man I made pickles. They’re spicy and garlicky. I don’t like sweet pickles, although sugar is a required ingredient in any pickle recipe. I made spears and slices and 2 jars of small, whole pickles. I had fun.
I don’t have a set recipe as of yet. I’ve made 3 different brines but the basic ingredients are the same.

Mason jars
Vinegar- I used cider for most of it and a combo of white and cider for one time. Use any kind you like.
Water
2 T sugar
Salt
Pepper
Red pepper flakes*
Cumin*
Bell peppers, red and green
Onion
Garlic powder*
Onion powder*
Hot sauce*
Garlic cloves- Use however many you want.
Thyme
Dill
Jalepenos*
Cucumbers- sliced, speared, or whole if small enough.

Put water and vinegar in a pot, a 3-2 vinegar/water ratio works best. Add seasoning. Use whatever you like to taste. This is just what I used. Sugar is a must though, to help the cucumbers stay together. Bring brine to a boil and let simmer for about 10 minutes. Let cool.
While the brine is cooling, sterilize the mason jars by boiling just the jars for 10 minutes. Place dill, whole garlic cloves, onion slices or pearl onions, diced jalepenos, thyme, whatever other flavoring you like, in the bottom of the jar. Place cucumbers in jar, leaving at least ½ inch at the top. Pour the brine in, along with any other pieces like the bell peppers or garlic. Leave room at the top. Repeat for each jar. 8 cups of liquid makes about 4-5 quarts.
Seal the jars by placing the lids on them, and tighten but not all the way. Place in about 3-4 inches of boiling water, about halfway up the jar, and cover. You will hear a pop and the jar is sealed.
You can also use a pressure cooker to do this but as I don’t have one, this also works.
I made 4 quarts of salsa this weekend too. I need to make lots of sauce and more salsa next weekend. All this fresh, fun produce!* And it’s so easy to do!

*Sadly, I’ve had to buy tomatoes. All the rain we’ve had is not making our tomatoes do well- they’re just not getting enough sun. Plus we now have leaf-footed bugs which suck all the sweet goodness out of the ‘maters and prevent them from growing really big. It’s been hard to deal with because it’s always freakin’ raining and it just washes away anything you try to do. I’m using a soap and water spray to combat them but I don’t know if I can really save them. We’ll see. We did just get some baby plants so that might save the day.

DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT FINSHED HP7! MAJOR SPOILERS

Spoilers about book 7 below.



I warned you.



They’re coming.



Here it comes.




Ok, Harry Potter Book 7 info below.



I went to one of the midnight release parties to get my book. I am a big dork. I had a good time though. There were lots of kids and adults in costume. At the Barnes and Noble that I was at, there had to be at least 5-600 people there. At least. They gave out tickets in groups of 50 from A-Z and they were on P for the reserved copies and were on C for the unreserved. It was madness but in a good way. I was in group J and got my copy around 12:45am. The line moved quickly and I was home around 1am. I was originally going to read until I feel asleep but I stayed awake until I finished the book around 5-5:30am. I think it was the combination of coffee and adrenaline that kept me awake. Plus I didn’t want to put it down for the last 200 pages or so.
Overall, I am happy with the book. All my questions were answered and then some. I laughed but I also cried. It was well thought out and very detailed, too detailed at times. The beginning flew by but the middle sort of got bogged down a bit. I really didn’t like the last chapter but I understand the need for it. It just didn’t seem to fit in for me, plus it gave me so many more questions like what does Harry do? What are the jobs? Who’s the headmaster or mistress of Hogwarts now? But that’s ok. There are supposed to be questions. I think that’s the mark of a good book. Plus it leaves things open for more.
There was no real wait to get to the meat of the story. The first chapter dived in right away to reveal Voldemort and his Death Eaters planning their overthrow of the wizarding world and the attempts to finally get Harry Potter. Voldemort wants his revenge and wants his one failure to be gone. But of course that doesn’t happen.
This was not a peaceful book. It’s dark and there is a lot of violence and quite a bit of death. Some you expected (Snape, and the big V, yes he dies.) but there were quite a lot of unexpected. I totally did not see Dobby dying. Poor little house-elf. And Hedwig! When Hedwig and Dobby died, I figured that anyone was fair game. I would have been ok if one of the core three had been killed but it wouldn’t have felt right. I had predicted that Neville, Hagrid, or McGonagall would die, but that was not the case. I’m still not sure how I feel about both Tonks and Lupin dying but I can see it to make Harry be the godfather that he never got to have. And what is George, holey George, going to do without his brother? I wished we had seen his reaction, though it may have been too much for readers to take. I did get some comfort out of the fact that Fred went out with a joke.
Dumbledore is not perfect after all, he is fallible. I had always suspected that he was up to something that belied his stature and grandeur but I never suspected the family story nor his long-ago friendship with a Dark Master who was very anti-Muggle. The quest for the Deathly Hallows, that makes sense to me. That fits Dumbledore’s personality. But the story behind his family was a bit of a surprise. Dumbledore had been rather full of himself but he also gave off the air that he understood it too. He made mistakes, quite a few of them, but didn’t always admit them to everyone. He did know his limits. (Never accepting the post of head of Ministry.) I think this realization and discovery did help Harry become a better person. Everyone does make mistakes and keep secrets.
I always knew Snape had some good in him and that Harry’s mother played some part in that, but it was still a nice revelation that he did end up caring for Harry because of Lily and her kindness, even though she did separate herself from him because of his dark tendencies. She was one of the few people to like Snape for himself. Snape’s capacity to love is what made him different. He loved Lily and was able to love her son. I loved how his Patronus was a doe and not something else. Snape really was an old softie.
Love, of course, was a big theme in this book. The ability to love and feel will conquer all. Snape could love, Dumbledore could love, the Malfoys loved their son, Harry loved and was loved, etc. We all know that Voldemort’s biggest downfall was his inability to love, to feel remorse, really to feel anything. He was all hate and pride, and that ultimately destroyed him. He couldn’t imagine that anything could be stronger than his supreme talent and power. I think that was a great theme for the kids to believe in, love is always there and always important, no matter what happens. If you can love, you can do anything.
There were a lot of other underlying themes- a lot of racial implications. The whole purity of the wizarding race just reeks of Nazism. They hunted Muggle-born wizards and forced them to give up their wands. They had no guilt in just killing off Muggle families. Half-blood wizards were seen as of lesser status. It’s all so reminiscent of the Holocaust. There’s a take off of a well known about how they came for the jews and I did nothing and they came for these people and I did nothing, etc. Lupin makes that point on Potterwatch about how first it’s the Muggle-borns, and then the half-bloods, and then the purebloods, and then it will be just the Death-Eaters. You can see the progression. The undercurrent was just there.
You can see it even more with the talk of Grindewald’s camp for non-followers, Nurmengard, and the slogan over the gate. (Wish I could remember it but it’s very reminiscent of “Work Makes You Free”.) It’s very World War II-like. (Even to the little details of no tv and just a wireless radio. Potterwatch and the Order= the resistance.) And it all stems from the fact that Voldemort was more or less screwed over by Muggles in his childhood, even though he is half-blood himself. (Sound familiar to anyone else?) Younger kids might not pick up on it, but anyone who has studied history most likely will. It’s not that subtle.
All in all it was a satisfying end to the story. The battle scene at Hogwarts was fantastic. Neville rocked as I always believed that he would. (And his gran? Awesome lady.) The little details were well thought out and interesting. (Loved the use of the Room of Requirement and McGonagall leading a battalion of desks was priceless!) The last chapter seemed a bit of out of place to me, but I can see where it would be necessary. It is nice knowing what happened afterward and it does leave an opening for more books featuring the kids.
I have so much more to talk about but this will have to do for now.
The books may be done but the phenomenon lives on. Long live Harry Potter.

Holy Harry Potter (36 hours and counting)

The world isn’t ending but Harry Potter is.(And if you haven’t figured that out yet, what rock are you living under? Seriously.) That great book phenomenon comes to an end this Friday at midnight when the world finds out whether Snape is good or evil, which 2 major characters die, and most importantly, whether Harry lives or dies. Will good vanquish evil like it usually does? There will be unanswered questions, there always are, but I hope that most are satisfied. I just want to read a good book.
Yes, I have read the news reports about all the spoilers but I’ve tried to keep myself from reading them. I accidentally heard something on the radio but I don’t know if it was one of the real or fake spoilers and I don’t care to find out. Whoever posted them has way too much time on their hands anyway. I know people pay big money for something like this and there are the few that will do anything to find out what happens, but part of the hype is waiting and finding out with everyone else what happens. Boo and hiss on those people who are trying to spoil it for everyone. Most people don’t really want to know right now. Really. We can wait.
I am a Harry Potter fan. I really just fell into it in college when I was home on break and a neighbor said here, read this book. (I baby-sat for them and we exchanged books once they realized what a book nerd I was. The dad introduced me to Douglas Adams too, something for which I will be eternally grateful.) I don’t care if these books were meant for kids. They are very well written and draw you into the story. You can imagine yourself as part of their world. I think that’s one of the biggest draws of the story. Plus the attention to detail is incredible. Yes, it’s a trendy thing in some ways but it really is a worthwhile series. I’d read it if it weren’t popular.
I will be at the midnight release party at my local Barnes and Noble. (The closest store to minimize time not reading.) I want my copy as soon as possible so I can start reading. (Yes, I am one of those fans. I don’t care.) I probably won’t stay up all night reading but I do plan to spend all Saturday reading. I won’t go immediately to last page. I’ve never done that and don’t plan to. Plus the last page doesn’t always completely give away the ending anyway. I’ll probably end up posting something about it this weekend, so if you are a slow reader or waiting, I’d watch out. I’ll note major spoilers and all that but if you are in any way connected to the world, you’ll probably know by then anyway.
It’s nice that this series has promoted reading and has sold record numbers of books, but literacy is still down. People just aren’t reading like they used to. Library hours have declined and their use is really now more for computers than books. It’s sad. I got special permission to start checking out more adult books when I was 9 or 10 because I had already gone through the children’s area. I feel sad for those kids who will never understand the thrill of reading and imagination. It’s about creating a fantasy world with your own pictures, not one that someone else has given you. (The movies about books do spoil that somewhat, though I will say that the movie HP looks a lot like how I imagined him.) I hope that the kids reading Harry Potter continue reading in any way possible.

Mondays are just not so fun

I, like pretty much everyone else, really don’t like Mondays so much. It’s hard having to get up and go back to work after the weekend, especially when you realize that you didn’t do everything you wanted to do, mostly because you just wanted to relax on the weekend. Ah, the vicious circle of having a job. It does pay those bills though.
Our AC is now running better than ever. It’s been nice. We can actually feel the air coming out of the vents upstairs now. We just thought it was old ductwork but that obviously wasn’t the case. The AC guys said it was one of the worst cases they had ever seen, it was that bad. But there’s definitely no way we could have got it that bad, having only been here a year. Bad previous owners!
We went to a friend’s going away party this weekend. They are moving to Atlanta for grad school. We volunteered to do the food for the party as it’s easy for us to do. We scaled back from what we would have normally done (stuffed pork tenderloin, homemade coleslaw, hummus and pita, and stuff like that) and just did fajitas and a lovely watermelon spiked with vodka. I made salsa and pico de gallo from the tomatoes in our garden and the peppers that I bought at the farmer’s market. It turned out excellent. Recipes follow.

Salsa
4-5 tomatoes, chopped to fit in processor
1 onion, quartered
3 cloves garlic, peeled
2 cayenne peppers*
1 serrano pepper*
2 anaheim peppers*
2-3 jalepeno peppers*
1 red bell pepper
1 purple bell (green also works)
1 small bunch cilantro
1 ½ limes
couple tablespoons olive oil
salt
pepper

Roughly chop and put all ingredients into food processor and pulse. You may have to puree some of the tomatoes down at first in order to fit everything in. When done, you should have a semi-chunky but smooth mixture. Almost but not quite a puree. Let sit for one hour or more for the flavors to mix. It gets better as it sits.
For extra spice add Tabasco or siracha sauce. Extra peppers work too. A scotch bonnet would be a great addition or maybe instead of the anaheims. For a slightly different flavor, roast some of the peppers.
Remember, all of this is to taste. Add/delete what you want. This is a bit spicy- it creeps up on you. Leave out the * peppers for less spice. There’s so much you can do with it to make it your own. Cumin and chili powder work. Maybe some paprika.

Pico de gallo

2-3 tomatoes, diced
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 jalepeno, minced (optional)
1 small bunch cilantro, rough chopped
1 lime, juiced
salt
pepper

Mix all ingredients in a bowl. Let sit for one hour to let the flavors mix. Sometimes I add garlic powder for a little extra flavor.

Damn those previous owners!!

You know it’s hot when Gabby, the whiner and talker, doesn’t say a thing. She was just looking at us, flopped on the tiles. Every once in a while, you’d hear a very weak mrow from her. Punk just lay there. It was too hot for her to say anything and there was nothing I could do about it.
The stupid AC decided to not work properly. It would blow cold air but it just wasn’t blowing enough. You could turn the AC on and in 4 hours it might go down 4 degrees. That’s not right, especially when your house is 89 F. Plus the humidity. It was nasty.
Thankfully we have tile floors in the kitchen and hallways downstairs, so that was something cool for the girls to lie on in the heat of the day. Gabby positioned herself in front of the one blower that is near the floor. Smart cat that one.
Other than that, they just lounged on the floor and gave us piteous looks as if to say- It’s awful. Please do something! So we did- we let them outside at night. We normally don’t do that during the week but it was cooler outside than inside. (If we had a hammock and mosquito netting we would have been there too… or a tent.) They thought it was the greatest thing ever. Of course I woke up to a few dead lizards and bugs, but that’s a small price to pay for the kitties comfort.
AC repairman #1 came yesterday. He found the problem within minutes and basically knew what the problem was as I described it. Unfortunately, it’s going to cost us to repair and it’s not even our fault. The coil and duct are completely gunked up and blocked. So while we could feel cold air coming from the unit and it was working really well, there was no air distribution whatsoever. Apparently, the people who owned the house before us, which I’m now convinced was an elderly couple, never changed their air filters or never even had them. It’s that icky. The guy opened up the heating unit and just grabbed a handful of stuff to show me. He said that the people who installed the BRAND NEW unit should have noticed this or at least the guy who was here, not even a month ago, to fix our clog should have checked it. Heck, our house inspector should have noticed it. Argh.
But at least he said that our unit is really good and even our heating unit is pretty good. It just hadn’t been maintained properly. It definitely wasn’t our fault on this one. He could tell that our house is relatively clean (mostly clutter) and that we changed our filters. He even gave us really good tips on how to service it ourselves and help keep our cooling costs down. I think we found our HVAC/AC company.
It all makes sense now. It hasn’t been cooling right at times, there has been a dank, musty smell every once in a while that we could never figure out. The clog in the condensation pipe makes sense now. So fun. At least the company gives discounts to us home warranty people so it’s not as bad as it could be, but still. It was still awful in the house last night but at least we knew we could run the air all night.
The people will be coming later on this afternoon to clean everything up. I can’t wait to have a cool house again.
Lesson(s) learned: CHANGE THOSE AIR FILTERS!! (We change ours every 60 days.) Check every little thing if you are buying an older house. There are so many details we should have looked at that we know about now.

Ah Reality

Vacation is so nice. Since the 4th of July holiday was in the middle of the
week, I decided to take the rest of the week off also. We didn't have any plans really, we just needed to unwind. And unwind we did. We didn't really do much of anything. Tuesday night we drove down to the La Vernia house and just hung around there. We played cards and darts, smoked some ribs and chicken, and that's about it. We would have done more but it rained most of the time. Like it has been doing for the past month. Just rain and lots of it.
We came back early Friday and didn't do much more around the house. The boy managed to mow the lawn before it started pouring again and played with some plants. I didn't feel like mustering much energy to do anything so I didn't. I cleaned a bit and did laundry and stuff but that's about it. We didn't even cook, that's how off we were.
The girls were way happy to be outside again. Punk had caught and killed a bird on Tuesday. I came home to lots of feathers but didn't see a bird. I had to hunt for the pieces. Yes, pieces. Ugh. Then on Friday, the two if them maimed a bird and spent the better part of the afternoon stalking it. They weren't doing much to it, just following it around and cornering it. Every once in a while, Gabby would take a swat or two, but that was about it. They broke its wing and all the poor bird could do was walk around.
The boy put the bird on the other side of the fence when we went inside, in the hope that it would waddle away. We brought the girls in with us and shut the door as it had decided to storm. Again. He thought the bird might have escaped to safety somehow. That was not to be. After the storm, we let the girls back out. It was either that or a night of constant meowing, begging, and craziness. (Plus the weekends are their special nights out.) About an hour later we hear a thunk at the front door and a muffled Gabby meow. I open the front door, and there is Gabby, sitting on the windowsill, waiting to be let in. Apparently, she had jumped the fence but couldn't get back over. She came right in and Punk came in through the back door. Not long after, the boy went around the corner of the house
to check on something, and discovered the dead bird. Punk must have jumped the fence to attack the bird and Gabby followed, as she always does. Punk however, can jump back over the fence. Gabby was stuck. This is the third time it has happened. Someday she'll learn.
Today is the boy's birthday. So Happy Birthday!! (His fam doesn't really do birthdays or anything but I made sure the guys at his work knew so they could make him a special meal.)

A Rat in the Kitchen and more

No, there wasn’t one in mine, but I wouldn’t be shocked to find a dead one there someday. No, I’m talking about that cute rat movie, Ratatouille. We saw it last weekend through a website that streams videos and things and happened upon a screening that had been uploaded. We didn’t even realize that it wasn’t out yet. Ooops. But we hooked up the S-video to our tv and watched the film. Pixar has done well.
The movie is about a rat, Remy, who isn’t satisfied with just garbage to eat and becomes infatuated with the chef du jour, Chef Gasteau, whose philosophy is “Anyone can cook.” Remy’s ability to taste and smell wonderful foods are not wholly appreciated by his rat clan, yet they are his family. He ends up traveling to Paris and ends up in the kitchen of Gasteau’s restaurant, helps a hapless boy become a talented chef by pulling on his hair and well, any more and I would spoil the rest of the story.
It’s well voiced and a cute story but the real star, for me anyway, is the food and the restaurant. They really hit the nose with the set-up of the restaurant and the food presentation. It’s a really great showcase of a restaurant kitchen. The attention to detail is impressive. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to have Thomas Keller as a consultant, but still. It’s a great food film and it will leave you hungry. Plus the animation ain’t so bad either. It’s very old-style, which is nice.
If you like to cook, go see this movie. Don’t be squicked out by the idea of rats in the kitchen. It’s really not that bad. (They get cleaned.)

With all that, I felt like cooking this past weekend. I made a pork loin stuffed with goat cheese and mango, wrapped in bacon. To go with it, I made an Asian-flavored slaw.
Ingredients:
Red cabbage, shredded
Green cabbage, shredded
Shaved carrot
Scallions, diced
Bell peppers, all colors, diced
Sesame seeds, toasted preferably
Sesame oil
Rice wine vinegar
A little bit of sugar
Lime juice
Salt
Pepper

Mix all ingredients together, to taste. I have no idea how much I used. I just added stuff until it tasted ok to me. Let sit for a few hours, it will get better the longer it sits. Really. Mix every time you walk by the bowl. Enjoy.

I also made pickles this weekend. Recipe to come as they came out really yummy and spicy-garlicky. Good stuff.

Insomnia, Rain, and the Other Cat on the Roof

I still can’t sleep. Well, I can get to sleep, and I pass out around 9-9:30 pm. The problem is that I wake up around 3am – 4am and I can’t get back to sleep. My body acts as if it’s gotten a shot of adrenaline and it won’t calm down. In the past two days, I’ve woken up at 12:30am. That’s not fun.
I have no idea how to fix it, other than going and asking for a sleeping pill. Nothing else has worked and believe me, I’ve tried. I can’t do the warm milk due to the lactose intolerance thing, and drinking chamomile tea before bed just makes me have to wake up and pee. I hate the pills as I’ve tried a version before and it made me feel groggy the next day, but maybe there’s another I can try. I just don’t want to keep waking up and not being able to get back to sleep. I just can’t calm my body and mind down. I want to go back to sleep, oh how I want to, but I can’t. (Plus there’s the two furry lumps at the foot of the bed. And yes, they’re on MY side. Gabby still doesn’t like the boy all that much.)
Yesterday, I ended up going home sick from work because a) I could barely keep my eyes open and b) my stomach was really upset. I think the stomach issues have to do with not getting nearly enough sleep. I did the same thing this morning, but I actually got up feeling sort of ok. I felt as if I had slept, when in reality, I tossed and turned all night. My stomach is feeling somewhat better but it’s still eh.
It also keeps raining. Last year we were in a drought. This year, the rain won’t stop and we are under a flash flood warning every time it rains, which seems to be 3-4 days a week. Our lawn is insanely green and long. We’d like to mow it more often, but when it rains all the time, that doesn’t help. Plus cutting it wet is not so good.
Today there is an 80% chance of rain and storms. I’d rather be in bed, attempting to sleep but I don’t want to waste a sick day for not being that sick. It doesn’t help that I haven’t been to the gym since last Wednesday. (There was a small fire on Thurs and everything got soggy.)
Then, this morning, as I was leaving for work, I glanced up to the roof and lo and behold, there was a cat up there. At first I thought it was Pumpkin but then she meowed and I realized that it was Gabby. Lovely. (God that cat has a loud meow.)I hope she’s ok and got down. But great. Now both of the cats can get up on the roof.

Tonight’s dinner (if I can deal with it): Fresh pasta with garden tomatoes, fresh basil, mozzarella, sautéed garlic and onions, and olive oil. Yum! I love produce time! Our neighbor has given us tons of cucumbers so I think I need to pickle. And I bought a head of red cabbage at the farmer’s market so I think there’s a slaw there too. Plus, we’re about to have a tomato explosion. (The bell peppers are coming slower. 2 plants were attacked by caterpillars and we weren’t sure if they were going to make it but they have recovered and are budding. One of the plants just got decimated by a big, fat, green, caterpillar. One day it was fine, the next morning- just stems, and the ‘pillar just hanging there.) We’ve got jalepenos too, so I’ll be making lots of pico and salsas too.
The boy is going to try to sell some at the restaurant- getting his name out there. They want him to write a proposal for a garden that will produce most of the produce for the restaurant. If it works, he’ll be in charge of it. He’s definitely ok with that…
We made potstickers (deep fried of course) on Saturday night and I’ll post the recipe I used later. I’ll also post about the butternut squash, leek, and lemongrass soup I’m making. Yay for the farmer’s market.

Food

I know the food part of this blog has been rather remiss. I can't do much surfing on the net at work anymore, so scouting for recipes every day has become more of a once weekly thing. Plus there's been so much going on lately, I've only been doing new stuff on the weekends. It's hard when I'm exhausted every day due to the fact that I just can't freakin' sleep properly.
I'm going to try to get in some weekly food-type posts. I do have some good stuff planned for tonight. I've got some London Broil marinating in balsamic vinegar, olive oil, lemon juice and other assorted herbs. I have fresh corn from the farmer's market this morning (it was picked by headlight- hee) and I plan to make some potato salad with the fresh potatoes and leek I bought there too.
I do love my farmer's market. For less than $20 today I got 6 ears of corn, 1 leek, 3 red onions, 1 bunch carrots, 1 pint blackberries, 1 dozen fresh eggs (pullet so they're smaller but oh so tasty), and 1 pint of tomatoes. It was the 10th anniversary of the market today so it was crazy. They had tastings from local restaurants but that was mostly meh. Not the best ones in town. But oh the produce. It's peach season so I have to get me some Fredericksburg peaches next week. There are also fresh raspberries too. I don't even want to get into the meats and cheeses that you can find there too. It's amazing. And it's all Organic and is reasonably priced. It's happy food. I do most of my produce shopping there, and round out that shopping with a trip to the grocery store.
I've started to plan out my meals for each week. I've realized that I have so much stuff already but I never use half of it. So I'm trying to use what I have. The problem is that I love to buy food and I tend to like to eat the same type of things. Oh well.
I must stop and go soak my dried beans so I can prep and freeze them. Plus I have pasta dough to make and freeze and all sorts of other food planning to do. I love having an extra freezer. We just need another fridge!

Chicken Parmesan and Whole Wheat Pasta (plus a crime scene!)

Chicken Parmesan and Whole Wheat Pasta

Pasta
1 c all-purpose flour
1 c whole wheat flour
2 eggs
1 T olive oil
1-2 T water
salt

Place flour in food processor or bowl. Add eggs and oil. Pulse until combined. Add water and pulse. The dough should be very fine but it will stick together when pressed. Pour onto plastic wrap and mold into a ball, kneading for about a minute. Let rest for at least half an hour or more. Keep in fridge for up to a week and may be frozen if well wrapped. When ready to use, let come to room temperature, roll out either with rolling pin or pasta machine and cut to size. Fresh pasta cooks in boiling water within 2-4 minutes.
Makes about 2-4 servings.

Chicken Parm

2 chicken breasts
1-2 c milk
1 egg
1 c. seasoned bread crumbs or season your own plain ones with garlic powder, salt, pepper, and Italian Seasoning.
½ grated parmesan cheese
Marinara sauce (homemade is best, keep it simple though)
Mozzarella cheese
Provolone cheese

Preheat oven to 375.
Pound the breads into thinner pieces if desired. Beat the egg and mix with the milk. In a separate dish, combine parmesan cheese and bread crumbs. Dip the chicken into the milk mixture and then coat with the bread crumbs. Place in a hot pan, lightly coated in olive oil, and cook until the bread crumbs turn a golden brown, about 3-5 minutes per side.
Meanwhile, heat the marinara sauce.
If your pan is oven-safe, keep chicken in pan. If not place in a baking dish, placing a thin layer of sauce on the bottom first. Top chicken with mozzarella, provolone, and any extra parmesan cheese. Add sauce to pan and chicken. Bake for about 20 minutes, until juices run clear and chicken is cooked through.
Serve with pasta and a salad. Garlic bread is also welcome.

Interesting note: just got a call from the boy. One of our neighborhood streets is closed down and there are police cars and yellow tape everywhere. There appears to have been a shooting. Yay crime scene! From what we can gather, it’s at what we call the “crack house”, the one duplex that is trashed and run down. There was a DEA raid about 6 months ago that the boy witnessed, so we’re pretty sure there were drugs involved. Our friends, who live a few blocks away said that there was a police chase a few nights ago.
This is a rarity for our neighborhood. Crime is rather low, and stuff like this normally doesn’t happen, and when it does, it’s always the same house. It’s a very kid-friendly neighborhood. I hope that this solves the “crack house” problem for now.

Pink Laundry and Feathers

One bright red slipcover + 1 load of light colored clothing= pink clothes. No, I didn’t do the laundry, this was the boy’s fault, and it happened to be all his clothing too. We bought a new-to-us couch that came with a red slipcover. (Couch is white with black stripes and well, that doesn’t fit our décor.) The boy washed it but also threw in a partial load of some of his dirty clothes which included several t-shirts, socks, and 3-4 button down shirts for work. Not long after he did this, I got a call asking how could he remove pink stains? Once I found out what happened, I laughed. And laughed. (I mean that’s one of the absolute rules of doing laundry. He knows better.) Two of the button down shirts are ruined as is one of the t-shirts. I was able to salvage most of the t-shirts, the socks, and surprisingly the khaki shorts, by washing them with bleach several times. Some of the button downs actually look ok with a little bit of a pink undertone. The black items escaped unscathed. So lesson learned for the boy: do not EVER, EVER, wash anything bright red with anything else unless you know it is not going to bleed, and then you really can’t ever be sure.
I’m going to dye the slipcover a darker red, more of a wine color this weekend. The red is a little faded, plus the wine color is more our style. Fabric dye is pretty cheap so I can get some more if needed. It will be a fun experiment to see how it goes.
The “new” couch is pretty comfy too. It’s bigger than our old one and doesn’t feel like it’s breaking every time we sit down. It’s nice. The cats love it. We’ve kept the old couch in the living room as well, as we just don’t know where to put it yet, so we have two couches. It works for now.
We also had some fun air-conditioning problems too. We live in Texas. It can hit 90 in April. AC is practically mandatory for comfort. On Friday, before the long weekend and before we were supposed to go out of town, we discovered that the condensation pipe for our AC was overflowing. Fun. I placed a call to our home-warranty company and we turned off the AC. It was supposed to rain most of the weekend so it wasn’t going to be too hot. When we got back, the water level had gone down so we turned the AC back on. The pipe overflowed again. So, for the rest of the week, until the service tech could get to our house on FRIDAY, we could only turn the AC on for about 2 hours at a time. Yeah, that was not fun. The weather was humid and in the high 80s. It was disgusting.
The problem turned out to be a blockage of sorts and was a really easy fix. We now know where the drain for the AC pipe is and how to solve any further blockages. (A bit of bleach and an air compressor.) These things happen and I’m glad it’s not a major problem like the one that one of my co-workers has. (Prev. owners never cleaned out filters and thus all pipes are filled with gunk. It’s bad. And an expensive fix.) Replace those air filters at least every few months if not monthly folks. It’ll save a lot of money in the long run.
On Wednesday I came home to feathers, feathers everywhere, along with little bits of dried corn. There was no bird, just a whole lot of evidence that it had been there. Yes, it was another case of cat catching bird.
Our ever skillful Pumpkin brought in yet another live, squawking bird to play with. That cat is a smart one. She knows that if she tries to completely mess with the bird outside, there’s a very good chance that it will escape and fly away, so she brings it inside. The downfall to this is that if one of us is home, the bird will be captured and let outside, which is no easy task but has to be done. That’s what happened yesterday. (The boy is the only one to have dealt with this twice so far. My bird finds have been dead.)
The boy was home and getting ready for work. Right before he was supposed to leave, Punk brought the bird inside. He heard the squawking and the fun cat noises that our little ones make and went to attempt to capture the bird. Punk had cornered it behind our large freezer and the bird had managed to squeeze itself into the motor area. Thankfully, the boy was able to shoo Punk away long enough with the broom to get the bird out from behind the freezer and out the door. Unfortunately, he was not quick enough in shutting Pumpkin inside and she zoomed out and caught the bird again. This time she didn’t bring it in.
The boy didn’t have time to clean up the mess as he was now late for work. Ever so kindly, he called me to let me know what had happened. And so, I came home to lots of feathers and a very loving Punk. (She’s become quite cuddly lately.)
This was bird number 2 this week. Pumpkin came trotting in Tuesday afternoon with a bird and laid it at my feet, all proud. This bird was barely alive and not really moving. Punk had mutilated one of its wings and it was just not doing well. I quickly wrapped it in a bag and threw it in the outside trash can before the girls could do any more damage to it. I say girls, because Gabby was sniffing around. She’s always following Punk around but just doesn’t have the patience to do anything.
This makes bird #5. Three dead birds inside and two “rescued” birds. (In quotes because Pumpkin is quick to recapture.) I’ve lost count of the lizards. (Only the top half of those too. Never the tail.) They’ve only been out for a few months too. The funny thing is, they really just play with the birds and lizards. Their play is just a little rougher than the animals can handle.
Oh, and to whomever is messing with my trash cans (not animals): PLEASE STOP!I don’t like having to go search for my trash can only to find it across the street in the cul-de-sac. Nor does the boy like coming home and having to move the can from the middle of the driveway so he can park. (I put it out the night before) I also did not appreciate having to move my neighbor’s can and recycling bin back to his driveway and moving my can back to its spot on the curb next to my driveway, not in front of it. I don’t know why it got moved there and it was put out early this morning so please stop it. Thanks assholes..

Don't Play Frogger on the Freeway

Or you just might die. In a horrible way. We got to witness a man try to cross I 35 this evening and pay with it with his life. He had no chance. His body was so twisted and broken. His side was a huge, gaping gash. It was not pretty.
A major highway, people going 65-70, moderate traffic, and the guy decides to cross the highway. It's not like there wasn't an overpass a few hundred yards down the street. It would have been maybe a few minutes extra. It was not far away at all. But he decided to cross the highway. And we got to see what happened. Ugh.
We were driving home from the country, after having finished with some greenhouse stuff. We had stopped at Home Depot to get landscape timbers as they were on sale and we saved $45. We only got 20 the first time and went back for the last 10 because we hadn't been sure if it would fit. If we had got them all at once we would have missed it. Except we didn't. We were on the access road and were coming to the stoplight where we were going to turn. Traffic was a little backed up and we were slowing down. Next thing we know, we hear this THUD and see a car careening to the side of the road, debris flying everywhere. I thought he had blown a tire or something as stuff was just flying from the car. Out of the corner of my eye I see this mass flying through the air and watch the body splat on the pavement. The car who hit him stopped a little ahead, along with 2 other cars that were nearby. Before we even realized it, the boy had pulled over and was out of the truck while I called 911. The truck behind us did the same exact thing. He saw more. An 18 Wheeler narrowly missed hitting the guy again but thankfully the guy knew how to drive his rig and just missed him, otherwise it would have been so much worse. The skid marks are still there. The guy behind us made it to the guy hit first and was on the phone with EMS. The guy wasn't moving and was lying facedown on the pavement.
The boy and a woman on a motorcyle started to direct traffic, diverting it to one lane and giving the cops enough room to work with when they came. He had pretty much stopped traffic as the guy was in the center lane. That part of the highway was pretty much shut down. I talked to dispatch and got disconnected because people were on the way. I did some crowd control on the side of the road, trying to keep those who just wanted to gawk out of the way. Amazingly, everyone was calm and collected and managed to deal with the situation before the cops came. They said we made their job a bit easier. They ended up diverting all traffic to the exit before the accident scene. It wasn't a good idea to have traffic flowing right by the scene.
The guy never had a chance and was pronounced dead on the scene. He had actually made it across the Southbound side but only made it to the center lane of the Northbound. We had to stay around and give statements and all that fun stuff. It would have been a little faster if the guy hadn't died. That just made it vehicular manslaughter so things took longer. We had to wait for forensics and the detectives to come. Plus the crisis unit to talk to all who saw it go down to help us all deal.
The guy who was driving the car that hit him was still there as we left. I don't know what's going to happen to him but this was most definitely an accident. I feel badly for him. There was no way he could have avoided him without causing more issues.
Way to spend a Saturday evening. I got to see a man die. How was your holiday weekend?

Help Me

I am so ashamed. But I admit that I need help. I, *whispers* LIKE the Avril Lavigne song "Girlfriend". *whispers. There, it's out. I don't know why, don't know how, but I like it. It's catchy and easy to listen to. Oh well. I've liked worse. Tiffany anyone??

So ACL. I've got mixed feelings about it. I'm really excited about Bjork and the White Stripes. Bob Dylan- I don't know. He's a legend and I'm happy to actually be seeing him, but I don't know what kind of show he'll be able to put on. I've heard he's very hit or miss and there are days that he can barely speak. So who knows. I hope that the closing day of the festival is not one of them or there will be MANY upset fans. I had a feeling it was going to be Dylan closing the festival. He was posted as a very accurate rumor (was him, Eddie Vedder or Stevie Wonder. Stevie got ruled out rather quickly.)
The organizers of the fest try to keep most of the bands under wraps and usually nothing leaks out about the lineup. But this year was different, so I wasn't too surprised about who's playing. I know it will be a good time- all that music and people will make it so. Plus I am excited to be seeing certain bands, some for the first some, some for the second or third time. (I've seen Robert Earl Keen 4 times in the past year as he's ALWAYS playing around here.) I just hope the schedule cooperates with my desires.
It will be a fun birthday weekend though. I plan to get rather drunk and happy. We know how the festival works now, so we have better ideas of how to sneak in forbidden items like outside food. We still haven't decided about chairs though. They were nice but a pain the ASS to carry around. So we'll see. A 3 day parking pass for the garage is a must. We had a 2 day last year because we waited too long to decide about it last year. Getting home that first night was not so fun.
But the festival is 4 months away, Sept 14-16. There's still plenty of time to figure things out.

Bob Dylan

Dylan, the White Stripes, and Bjork. That's going to make for a really interesting birthday weekend!
Stay tuned for a longer post when I have time later on about ACL.

Rosemary and Garlic Roasted Potatoes

Easy and delicious. I rarely have any leftovers. Add more or less depending on how many you serve or to taste. I like lots of garlic so I add more.

3-4 potatoes, whatever kind you wish, red is best but russet or Yukon are ok, chopped into even sized pieces, about 1-2 inches
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
2-3 stalks fresh rosemary, de-stemmed and roughly chopped
½ red onion, diced
salt
pepper
garlic power (optional)
olive oil to coat

Heat oven to 425-450. 450 makes for a little crispier.

Dump the potatoes into a baking dish. Add all of the ingredients in order, saving the olive oil for last to coat the potatoes. Mix well, making sure the potatoes are evenly coated in everything.
Place in oven for 30 minutes. Stir halfway through to ensure even cooking. Use a fork to see if the potatoes are done. The fork will slide right through. There is no really set time on this. Roast the potatoes to your liking. I usually go about 40 minutes or so, until most of the potatoes are brownish. This gets the insides all nice and soft while the outside is slightly crispy and wonderful.
These go with about anything but I like to service with roast chicken or pork. It’s a very Mediterranean side dish.

Add parmesan cheese for an additional kick.

I got lucky!

I never win things. I never get this lucky. I never pick the right stuff but this time I did. Friends of ours had a Kentucky Derby party and we all put in $5 each and picked our Win, Place, or Show. Somehow, my picks were the most accurate and I won the $70 pot! Yay me!
I picked Street Sense to win, Curlin to place, amd Imawildandcrazyguy for Show. (Who could not love that name?!!) I was a horse off and missed Hard Spun for placing but not too bad. One other person picked Street Sense to win but her pick for place was Cowton Cat and well, that was dead last. So I got the pot!
Of course, I already spent it today, on 4 chairs for our patio. I'd been wanting them for a while and now I have them.
The Derby party was tons of fun. We ladies were in our frocks and hats, and 2 of the men showed up in matching seersucker suits. There was tons of food. Tons. This guy Russell was the chef of the day and he made Burgoo (hog, frog, cow, pig, gator, rabbit, among others.) It was amazing. Plus there were garlic-cheese-poblano grits and fried chicken. And Derby pie for dessert. The Mint Juleps were flowing, as was the Tecate (Cinco de Mayo influence there.) It was mostly a restaurant crowd so we were all focused on the food really, and it didn't disappoint.
We took some Burgoo home and it'se even better the next day.
All in all a good weekend.
On Thursday I get to find out who I'll be seeing for my birthday weekend when the ACL list comes out. A few bands have been leaked. I get to see Bjork, the White Stripes, Robert Earl Keen, and the Indigo Girls for my birthday. I can't wait to see who else!

Stuff I want to talk about but can't

Oh hell. It's been a rough few days. Work has imploded. I would love to say so much more but I can't. It's awful though. I nearly quit on Monday, that's how awful. I just can't deal with it anymore.
Insurance companies should pay their medical claims and not wait, oh 8 months until it goes to collections. It still hasn't been paid. People shouldn't have to fight and complain to get it paid. I've filed reports with many different places to get this done. I can't go into more specifics though. I wish I could.
And then on Monday I went for the state's safety and emissions inspection. Sigh. That was fun. The tires were apparently bad enough to fail the inspection so I had to buy 4 new tires. For a truck. Ugh. I didn't need that. On a Monday morning no less. That sucked. Four hours at the garage. (I drive the truck so I had to get the stuff done.) We were going to do it out at the house in La Vernia but they couldn't do it because they don't do emissions testing and it's $5000 fine if you get caught without it. So yeah. Didn't help that I came home to the collections notice that afternoon.
Anyway, in good news, the Greenhouse is up and running for the most part. We just have to finish and seal the door and we can move plants in. The back wall is up and finished. The water wall is working which means when you walk in, you can breathe. It's pretty cool. Our camera batter ran out so I don't have pics but I will.

5 Questions

Mle aka Pantalonesdelfuego posted five questions from Abby and invited others to be questioned and in turn invite questions back.
So she sent me her list of questions and here are my answers.

1. What do you like best about yourself?
That's a tough one. My nerdiness I think. I love learning and reading and all that trivia fun stuff. (I kick ASS in most trivia games. People usually don't like playing against me.) I'm very proud of the fact that I can read anywhere. I carry reading material wherever I go. It's really who I am and I really like being a nerd.

2. If you could go anywhere in the world, all expenses paid, where would you go and why?
Australia. I've always wanted to go and all expenses paid would make it all the better. The boy and I have talked and talked about it, and if the plumeria thing ever gets going it could even be a business trip. But Australia is the dream trip right now.


3. Are you more likely to vote for a candidate becauseof party affiliation or because of the candidate's stand on particular issues (and why)?
Issues are always first and foremost. They are what's important. I don't care whether they are Democrat or Republican, thought I tend to vote Democrat mostly because I agree with them a bit more but party affiliation really shouldn't matter. Voting usually comes down to who I dislike the least anyway.

4. If you could have dinner with any historical figure, living or dead, who would it be and what wouldyou ask him/her?
It would be my two favorite authors, Laura Ingalls Wilder and LM Mongomery. I know, I'm such a freakin' book nerd. But that's always been my answer. I have no idea exactly what we'd talk about, but I'd even be happy just to sit and listen. I don't have a set of questions to ask as I can never think of good ones. Conversation would just flow.

5. What's your favorite TV show?
Well, it's not on tv anymore but it's Alias. I have never loved a show more. I was devastated when it was cancelled but understood that it had run it's course and was really dying/dead. But sigh. It was so fantastic while it lasted. And Jennifer Garner and Michael Vartan are soooo hot. Period. And I miss Agent Sean.

Ok, so if anyone wants me to ask some rather lame questions, (I suck at question asking but I'll try) let me know and all that.

Pork and Birds

It was a good weekend for food. It was not a good weekend for birds. But first the food part.
Since The Boy is now working Sundays and has Friday and Saturday off, we are now doing Saturday Dinners instead of Sunday. Plus we usually feeding some of the boy’s male friends, as sadly, it’s one of the best meals they get all week.
I decided on a Greekish theme for this weekend, so I marinated a pork loin in a yogurt mixture and served it with olive oil and rosemary potatoes, and a vaguely greek salad.
Recipe for pork loin:
1 pork loin, defrosted and butterflied. To butterfly- slice down the middle lengthwise, only going about halfway into the loin. Then carefully slice the sides to open up. Take a meat cleaver and pound the hell out of it to flatten it out enough to stuff it.
Marinade:
2/3 of a large container of yogurt
½ cucumber, peeled
4 cloves garlic
½ lemon, juiced
greek seasoning (I had this in my cabinet so if you don’t salt and pepper will work.)
fresh dill
roasted red peppers* (optional but they really added a nice flavor)

Puree the above in your food processor or blender.
Place the pork loin in the marinade and let sit for at least 6 hours, if not more.

Stuffing:
½ of a large red onion
feta cheese
1 tomato
red wine vinegar

Dice the above ingredients and douse in the vinegar. Let sit for at least ½ an hour.

When ready to cook, pre heat your oven to 350.
Take the pork loin out and lay flat on the cutting board. Place the mixture on the pork and roll. You can seal with toothpicks or use twine to hold it together. I recommend twine as toothpicks can be hazardous to eat with. (I couldn’t find my twine so I used the toothpicks and well, that was not so fun.)
Spray your pan with non-stick spray or a thin coating of olive oil.
Place the loin in the pan and cover the top with leftover marinade.
Bake for about an hour, 30 minutes per pound, or until pork hits 145. Take out of the oven and let rest for 10 minutes. The carryover heat will cook the pork further.
Slice and eat.

You can take the leftover marinade and bring it to just under a boil and let cook for a few minutes. This can be used as a sauce for the pork if desired. The cooking kills of any harmful pork juices left in there and it doesn’t change the flavor at all, just the color.

This was totally something I just threw together but the flavors worked well. There weren’t any leftovers either. So it was good for pork.

As for the birds, well, for one of them it was not a good Saturday evening/Sunday morning. We let the girls out to run on the weekend nights. They don’t go very far, in fact they rarely, if ever leave the yard. Gabby is a hunter, something even the neighbor has noticed, and Punk is a lounger and sometimes stalker. But they love to chase bugs and things around the yard.
Earlier this week, Gabby had brought in the head of a lizard that they had apparently been torturing for days. That was lovely. Sunday morning it got even better. I came downstairs only to discover a dead bird on the rug in the kitchen and some bloodstains around it. There was no blood trail from the door, so I can only assume that the final kill occurred inside. It was definitely dead though.
I ran upstairs to let the boy know and his reaction was “Is it all in one piece?” “Yes.” “Easy clean up then.” And with that he went back to sleep. So I had the fun job of picking up the bird and disposing of it and then cleaning up the blood and feathers.
We still don’t know who did it, as neither one claimed it nor did they come looking for validation, but I suspect Gabby. They did bring it inside though.
Ah well. That’s the price you pay for having cats and letting them outside, especially with Gabby, master tree climber and carrier of things in her mouth.

UPDATE: Bird #2 today was in the hallway to our guest bedroom. This one was lying there with guts exposed and feathers all over the guest bedroom. Sigh. It was disgusting. I have a feeling that I may come home to a LIVE bird one day. They do seem to have been alive when they come inside.

Cat on a (Hot Tin) Roof

Yes, that is a cat on my roof. That’s Pumpkin actually. I apologize for the darkness of the photos as it was dusk and the night camera thing wasn’t working well yet. But Pumpkin climbed onto the roof Saturday night while we were outside grilling some ribs. I think she got confidence from the fact that we were both outside with the girls, especially as they were both pretty bold that night.
The girls had been running around the yard and enjoying themselves, as they love to do at night. Gabby had wandered through a hole in the chain-link fence and into our neighbors yard, the forbidden territory as they have 2 dogs. She couldn’t remember where the hole was though and nearly got stuck coming back over. Hopefully this won’t happen when the dogs are out in the yard but as she loves to antagonize the dogs from the other side of the fence, who knows. She’s trouble, that one.

Pumpkin, on the other hand, decided to climb the fence. There is a tree next to it and she hopped into the tree and the next thing we knew, she was climbing the branches and had stepped onto the roof. She was strutting her stuff along the ridgepole and walked over to the flat part of the roof, where she plopped down and rested for a bit. She was up there for at least 20 minutes. Then she decided to come down, which was a slow process. She almost didn’t want to try it, so we think this was her first time. She tried 3 times before she got the confidence to come down. We were also giving her a bit of encouragement which may have helped. She was extremely cautious and you could hear her claws sticking in the shingles, but she made it down in one piece, and then came running over to us for love and validation. I have a feeling this won’t be the last time that she does this. Gabby was watching closely and worrying (as evidenced by her semi-panicky meows) but wasn’t up to trying it herself.

As for our dinner, well the ribs were FABULOUS. We had a rack of baby back pork ribs and I gave them a dry rub of chili powder, paprika, cayenne, brown sugar, Tony Chacherie’s Cajun seasoning, garlic powder, and fresh ground black pepper. We let that cook for 1.5 hours, occasionally turning and pouring beer over it. We then glazed it with Stubb’s BBQ sauce, which is actually rather good. Not too sweet, with a really nice tartness. That cooked for another 1.5 hours. We served it with corn, ranch style beans, and baked potatoes. There were no complaints.

Two Years

Our friend’s kid turned 2 yesterday. It’s weird to think that he’s already 2. It doesn’t seem as if it was that long ago. 2 years ago I broke my rib and we were living in La Vernia and getting ready to move to Austin. Strange how time moves like that.

We’ve been getting the “so when are you two going to have kids?” thing all weekend. First it was the boy’s dad asking him. Then his mom asking me, then we got it from his aunt and grandmother. (It was a family thing in Louisiana, and there were lots of other cousins with their kids.) At least we’re on the same page as to someday, if it happens, but definitely not now. We’d be ok if it does happen sooner than later, but we would like to feel a little more financially secure, even though you never really are.

Then, while we had dropped by our friend’s house to give the little boy birthday wishes, the kid’s grandparents asked us the question. We just can’t avoid it lately. But maybe this will get the boy thinking about some other question he needs to get around to asking. (I know it’s going to happen, and I’m pretty sure I know how/where he wants to do it, but I’m not sure when/if we’re going to get to Europe any time soon. He does keep talking about flying there for a weekend but it’s hard to justify spending $1000 for a weekend when we’re still dealing with house fun. And that’s just plane tix. But maybe he’ll do it one day. If we win big at the casino next month…)

All this kid talk gets us to talking about it as usual. It’s nice how we can talk about it and joke about it and know that we area truly on the same page about everything. I mean we even had a conversation about breastfeeding. Well, at least we agree on the important stuff. You can’t agree on everything.

Boots at Target!

Yay! Boots has finally made it to my Target! Happiness! There's going to be a consultant there every weekend to help out and test stuff. Plus there's samples. Oh yeah. Happy fun!

It's freakin' gorgeous out today. Green trees. Flowers. Happy cats. Once the batteries charge up I'll have pictures. Good stuff. We sat outside and drank beer and just watched the world enjoy the pretty day too.

Fluff n Stuff

I haven’t been sleeping very well lately, but that’s no surprise. I can’t figure it out. I can fall asleep easily but I can’t stay that way. I tend to wake up at least once or twice a night and if it’s around 3am, I can’t get back to sleep. My body just won’t calm back down. It really sucks. I exercise regularly so that’s not it. I’ve been trying to eat well and I don’t eat after 7:30-8 pm if I can help it. I’ve tried a sleeping pill before, but that just made me feel horrible and it still didn’t stop me from waking up in the middle of the night. So I guess I just need to get used to this not sleeping feeling. I wish I could fix it but I don’t know how.

We went out this weekend so that didn’t help. Friends came up from Houston and we partied Saturday night down on Sixth St. We started out in the Warehouse district on 4th St, which I like, but of course we eventually migrated over to 6th with all the college students and the crowds of crazy, drunk people, with which we blended right in. I haven’t been drunk in a while so that was interesting. We were up until 6am and I only slept till about 9:30. Between my body saying it’s my wake-up time and the girls (well Gabby) standing on top of me and meowing in my face, I had to get up. I felt awful all day long, and it really wasn’t even a hangover. It was a tired-over.

The girls are now officially indoor-outdoor cats. We bought a screen door and installed it on the back laundry room door and the Boy installed the pet flap. They are so happy about the ability to go outside. Right now, they tend to stay in the back yard. Plus there are dogs at the house behind us and next to us, and they are terrified of them, even though the barks are WAY worse than their bites. Every time a dog comes out they run back inside. It’s pretty comical.

For some reason, they both like to stand half in, half out of the flap, as if they can’t decide whether they want in or out. They usually do this when there are birds strutting around the yard and they don’t know quite what to do about it. It’s crazy. They run right back in when one of us comes home or opens the fridge. Actually, they are usually lounging around inside when I come home but when I shut the door (don’t do nights during the week, it’s now a weekend privilege) they go beserk. If I open the door again, they go out, only to come back in and stay in 5 minutes later. They just want the option of being able to go out. Little brats. And they still have to come in to use the litter box. No going outside for them, which is actually good for us.

Gabby is a tree climber though. We have a lowquat (like a kumquat) tree in our yard and it’s not very tall. The first time that we let Gabby out, she headed right for the tree. Next thing I know, the tree was moving and I saw a tail hanging out and Pumpkin was underneath looking up. She didn’t go very high that time and managed to get down pretty easily. The next time she went up, she went a little too high for her comfort and started crying a bit. She didn’t want me grabbing her though, she just needed to be talked down. Silly kitten.

It’s pouring outside right now and the roof leaks at work. One of the ceiling tiles over my desk got too wet and collapsed so I have a hole over my desk. At night I have to cover my computer in plastic and there’s a bucket on my desk behind my computer to catch the drips. The roof is being fixed but it hasn’t been dry enough to do anything, much less the quick tar fix. So there are leaks all around the building. It’s pretty bad. I just can’t get away from structural problems.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss and give a kid a book!

A recent study concluded that the average child these days has 13 books to call their own. Tragic. (I think I had at least 50, if not tons more. Plus the library at which the librarians knew me by name.)
Go to www.firstbook.org to read more about the study, and if you send the Cat in the Hat a 50th birthday card from the site, a book will be given to a child in need. It literally only takes a minute, so check it out. Or you can get all arty and color for a bit. Skip the surveys today and help a kid learn to read, and hopefully LOVE to read instead.
Repost this so we can get the word around.

Seriously. I went to the site and it's sponsored by Random House. Go give a kid a book!

Yo Monks!

I need to read your blog!!! It's an addiction! Help a fellow Masshole out!

One problem solved

The leak is fixed. Yay. There was a nail put through during the remodeling of the house. Apparently it just set and rusted a bit until poof, one day it let loose.
I called the Homevestors people and he came out today. They are going to fix up the wall and restore it to it's original condition. (No more hole!) They are going to reimburse us for the plumber and they will pay for half of the drying out stuff. (It was pricey and could have been done cheaper. I know that now, but oh well. We're eating what would be our deductible.)
So yay! That got resolved! After all, it wasn't our mistake.

These people have been so great in everything. I have nothing bad to say about them. I would recommend them to anyone.

NOTE: Woohoo! Big ol' check in the mail for us! Yay Homevestors! The Austin Branch of the We Buy Ugly Houses people are truly good peeps. As for Centex foundation, we'll see. We made our complaints. We'll see what happens with them. I'm ready to do what it takes to get them to fix their mistake. I WILL go to the media if needed. I know people who know people. So they better fix their problem. Or I will be a big one.

Oh hell

Looks like I'm not going to the gym tonight. We have a true plumbing leak. Water seeping up through the tiles and the drywall has water spots at the bottom. It's a slow leak and it's the ONLY sign. The water meter isn't running and there's no sounds or anything. Just water on the floor. If this, in any way, is tied to the foundation issue, heads will roll. I'm calling the foundation people tomorrow morning to get the ball rolling on that. They WILL fix the drywall.
I love my house yet I hate it too.

EDIT: So it's fixed. I'm not posting more until homeowner's insurance has taken care of it all but let's just say I'm calling the fuckin' contractors who remodeled. Someone messed up this time for reals. At least it wasn't a slab leak and all but it's still a mess. This is really just a trouble house.

Book Meme

This is totally up my alley, thanks to A Girl and A Boy (someday I'll link, the few who read this know who I mean though.)

In the list of books below, bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones you want to read, red the ones you won’t touch with a ten-foot pole, put a cross (+) in front of the ones on your book shelf, and asterisk (*) the ones you’ve never heard of. In the comments, let me know if you're up for it; I'd love to see if y'all have been puttin your book-learnin' to good use.

1. +The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. +Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. +Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)--
5. +The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. +The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. +The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. +Anne of Green Gables (L. M. Montgomery)- I am obsessed and own every book the author has ever written, including those out of print
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. *A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. +Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. +Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. +Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. +Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. *Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King) HATE King
19. +Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban(Rowling)
20. +Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. +The Hobbit (Tolkien)--tried it as a kid, never got into it, tried again, still not interested
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J. D. Salinger)
23. +Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)--And all her other books. I go through author phases.
24. +The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)-I have this, just haven't gotten around to reading it
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)-This should be #42
27. +Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. +1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. *The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)--I tried but never finished
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43.+ Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. +Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)--
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)--I HATED Dumas.
48. +Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)--
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)--
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)--I would prefer not to read Dickens
53. +Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)- Thanks MLE!
54. +Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. +The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)--
56. *The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. +Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. +The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60.* The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)6
2. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)--
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview with the Vampire (Anne Rice)--Never interested
65. *Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. +One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)69. +Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. +The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)--En Francais of course
71. +Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)--
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)--
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)--Couldn't bring myself to read it after the movie
75. +The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. *The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. *The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. *Not Wanted On the Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. +Of Mice And Men (Steinbecck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)--Put me into a HUGE DuMaurier phase. I've read most of her books
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. +Emma (Jane Austen)--Jane Austen can do no wrong
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)--Simon insists this is awesome
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. *Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. *Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. *In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. +Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)--
94. *The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S. E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)- UGH
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)--Had to read it in high school

House Update

Ok, so the house thing isn’t a plumbing leak. 3 Plumbers and only one understood our need to have it tested to make sure it wasn’t. We had to make sure before we start going after the foundation people. So that wasn’t the problem. Yay, except not. Turns out that the foundation just sunk on the other side of the house because we got rain. Yep. And it’s not covered by homeowner’s insurance because they don’t do that in Texas anymore. Yeah.
But we think it’s the fault of the foundation company. When we first did everything, we had one side fixed because it was sloping by 2 inches. The guy who came to our house told us (and our realtor) that we just needed to stabilize it because the house was fine as it is and we just needed to make sure it didn’t sink anymore. There were no obvious huge cracks, just some little ones. Fine. We agreed and the seller agreed to pay for it.
They come out and put the pier thingies underneath and leave in 2 days. We notice a few days later that the cracks in the drywall are horrendous but are told that it is normal. We don’t really think about it and put the paperwork away without really looking at it. (BIG MISTAKE).
Three months later, on December 28, after a weekend of rain, the tiles in our kitchen pop up and our door starts sticking and other things happen. Carpet pulls away from the wall. Drywall gets worse and has issues in new places. This mostly on the side of the house not stabilized. We call the original contractors and that story is in the archives somewhere. When the foundation guy comes out, he tells us that yes, the house was only supposed to be stabilized but it was LEVELED instead. Not what we had been told. Yes, that one side of the house was raised 2 inches to be level with the other side of the house, and not stabilized like we had been told. We were also told that it shouldn’t have caused the other side to go, but we had been told previously that it was an eventual possibility and that was why we opted for just stabilization. Makes sense.
So we are PISSED. We’ve taken some time since the plumbers came to calm down and try to form some sort of plan. We want them to fix the drywall issues on the side that was fixed. There was also some grout that has come away from the wall and cabinets on the floor. We want that fixed. Since our house was NOT supposed to be leveled, this was not supposed to happen. So we should not be responsible for fixing it. We would like the other side of the house to be fixed and the damage that it has caused fixed. We do plan to have a structural engineer come out to look at the house and determine if we truly have a case for that. If the house had been stabilized on one side, the sinking of the house on the other would not have been as much of a problem as it would just end up leveling out. It sucks.
The house seems to have leveled out now that we’ve gotten tons more rain and the ground has adjusted. We plan to water the ground when it stops raining to keep the equilibrium up. The doors and locks don’t stick but there’s still damage to our roof, tiles, and walls. It needs to be fixed. We were told if we stabilized the house, the other side would be fine. If we leveled, the other side would potentially have problems. That’s why we chose stabilization. That’s why the foundation company needs to fix the problem they caused.
Grrgh. I don’t want to hire a lawyer but it looks like we’re going to have to. It’s going to be a fight. I have to call the foundation guy this week or next and get this started. He DID admit to us that there was a communication mistake made so we have that. We need to get him to admit it again though because I want it on tape. I need to research some more, but I think it’s legal to record in Texas and my phone has some nifty features. So it’s going to be fun. I don’t expect them to cave but since it was a pretty big mistake made, who knows. I just want my house fixed.

A scream

YARGHGHGHGHGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
FUCKITY FUCK FUCK FUCKFUCK FUCK FUCK!
GODDAMN INCOMPETENT PLUMBER. FUCKING DAY SHOT TO HELL!

That is all for now.

So it might be a clog

The tiles have heaved up. The roof has crumples in it (not hard fix but urgh.) Cracks in the drywall. Door not locking or opening properly. Countertops coming away from the wall. All this could be a result of a clogged pipe underneath the floor. Our washer pipe has had a clog and we thought we blasted it away with the blow bag (pressurized water) but we may have just moved it along, causing this lovely problem. Yay.
That was the plumber's opinion today. They tore up the two broken tiles to see if the cement was wet. It was bone dry. We thought it was a leak, but a leak would be wetter. Plus if we had a regular leak, our water consumption would have gone up. It hasn't. In fact it has gone down. By 1000 gallons. That's a lot. So a clog is plausible.
The plumber is returning on Wednesday with a camera to see if there's a clog. Going down the washer drain and the sink drain. They did a lot of testing on the washer and it DID start to back up a bit again. So something is there. The big question is how it's going to be fixed.
At least we have a maybe solution. Better than what we've had before.

Oh hell

So the foundation guy came by yesterday. He was really nice and lives down the street so it wasn't bad for him to get here in the cold and potential ice and all. He came in and took one look at it and said it could be a plumbing leak. He said there's no way the foundation should have moved like that. In fact he's pretty sure it's one from looking at the fun roof. (I'll post pics when the weather lets me take them.) He had the same problem at his house too. Plus his house has had the foundation repaired and all. So ugh.
It does make sense, now that we think of it. The bubbling up of the floor. Our washer drain has been clogged and the clog COULD be a broken pipe and the surrounding dirt and all. So I called our home warranty company and requested a plumber. It does cover leaks and all. I'm just waiting for the call back but I'm not expecting one anytime soon as the weather here means that no one is really at work. So we'll see. I just want to know for sure what is fucking wrong with my floor.
UPDATE: Edited for a major typo. still waiting on the plumber. Austin is pretty much shut down. I'm on day 2 of Ice Day. I'm going crazy at home and may venture out soon just to see what's open.

Blergh

Sigh. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. There’s the small stuff: broke my cell phone last night. I dropped it on the tile floor and it split open. It’s cracked and now ghetto taped so it stays together. It works but only if it stays together. The thing that connects the top part (earpiece and display) got disconnected when it smashed last night. We managed to get the display on the inside and the earpiece working, but that’s it. The front display is gone. Plus it cracks open a bit when you use it. So I need a new phone. Thing is, with the whole wireless industry, unless I’m a brand new customer, I get to pay up the ass for a new phone. I think this phone is under a year old, so still under warranty, so we’ll see. (of course we don’t have insurance, which I think we’ll get now…) Arggh. Not what we need right now. (I really want a razor and all but unless I’m new… What the hell happened to keeping your original customers happy? I mean really.)
There’s the fact that we found out that the hard drive on our old computer is truly corrupted. We bought a USB case that you can put an interior hard drive in to make it an exterior. (Only $50 so it was worth the small amount to find it out than to pay a tech more to find out the same thing.) Then we tried a data retrieval program. That failed. Miserably. I’m going to try to see what I can get before the errors start happening again, but I’m not counting on anything. All those pictures and music gone. It died the week before I was going to back it up. Really. It sucks.
At work, we still can’t eat at our desks, which really doesn’t help the myriad things I have to do during lunch. Since we can’t really do internet stuff during the workday, I have to do it all at lunch, and now in a reduced time frame as I have to go downstairs, wolf down my lunch in 10-15 min. and rush back up to get things done. And I have a lot to do. No one likes the rule, no one can actually see the purpose of it. But yet it stays. The roof leaks and has gigantic holes and other parts of the office building need a complete overhaul but the real reason we have rats and things is that we keep food at our desks. Yes, that’s the real problem.
As for the house, I really don’t want to talk about it. It’s messed up. I think the foundation repair company screwed up when they made the initial repair. It’s awful. I don’t even want to go into detail right now as it makes me cry. Let’s just say that my house is literally falling apart right now, and I have this horrible feeling that we will have to pay for the repairs with money that we simply don’t have right now. It’s bad. Really bad.
I will say that I do not in any way blame the people who sold us the house. They are house flippers but know jack shit about foundations. They listened to the experts like we did and based their decisions on that. They made the same decision we did. They even paid for it all. They’ve actually been extremely helpful in all of this. I just got a phone call from them yesterday wanting to know if we had an update for them. They spent 2 hours at our house a few weeks ago, because we didn’t realize at first it was a foundation issue. I just wanted the name of the contractor that worked on the house. I got so much more. They came and took pictures and pointed out things and really helped us figure out what to do. They’ve told me that we’ve been doing everything right so far. It’s what they would do. This was their baby for a while so they want to know and will help in any way possible. Unfortunately, we’re doing everything that we can and it’s not enough. It’s really a nightmare. We’ve barely lived here for 4 months.