Still infusing...

One of the nice things about a wife with better taste(s) than me is she can imagine things I can't. She really rounds me out, with her cooking she literally rounds me out and with her tastes she mentally and inspirationally rounds me out. I won't say she is my muse but she is a great source of ideas! So we had 1/2 bottle of not so nice Grappa, or Crappa as I think of it, that needed something done with it. I don't drink much anymore but I enjoy infusing liquor. I was thinking of turning it into something akin to a citrus-cello hoping that the zests would mask the smoke of the Crappa. Yes I said smoke. It was aged in an old whiskey barrel. No I don't know why. My bride however thought of infusing it with pear. Now I did not grow up eating pear and I am not a huge fan of it. I will eat it now and even enjoy it if it is a nice one, but if there is a choice between a nice pear or a nice apple well call me Johnny Appleseed. Anyway I took her suggestion and we grabbed some pears that she suggested while out shopping and it has been infusing for about a month now. The smell about a week into the process was fantastic and I started a vodka/pear infusion. I am thinking that a pear liqueur would be nice but I guess time will tell!! This has become a fun little hobby as it lets me create fun things to sip on special occasions and it takes so little of my brain to employ. That is where my sweetie comes into play! If I need a fresh perspective she is there to BAFF me on back of the head and go "Try this!", because husbands need BAFFED from time to time!

Fine art, or the mess we made!

So the walls have been painted and pictures are slowly going back up. The thing is we had a big naked spot over the stairs that needed filling in. I tried to put my Captain America Shield up there but was vetoed when Christmas passed. So The Boss and I discussed colors and it and decided some abstract painting would be the best thing. Red as the major color with the other house colors added too. Yeah it had to be abstract. So my baby, my rock, the wind beneath my wings said that I should paint it. I just started painting and am not any good at it but even I can do something abstract right?! Kinda. So I found a cheap canvas (relatively speaking that is...) and bought some more paints and got to work. It sucked!! Thankfully I have a wife I don't mind going to and saying things like "Wanna see it? It really sucks!". I don't mind saying things like this because I know that there is usually an 85-91% chance that she can fix it! So she made some noises and grabbed a pallet knife and got to work. The result is much better than it was before and is as good as any other abstract stuff I have seen. However I am no art critic (if you are an art critic and are looking at this do not reply unless it is an offer to buy it for a boat load of money) but I like it!!!!!! It is unique and it is OURS! WE made it!! So we get the shared credit and blame! Years from now we will look at it and go "Awwwwww" or "What were we thinking?" or something else but we will be looking at it together.

Yard work aka shared misery...

So last weekend my baby had a swim meet she was working, and I had too much coffee. So I put the dogs in their kennel and let the kids out of theirs. By that I mean I made them come out of their rooms! I was met in the back yard by suspicious looks and glares, as you would expect from teenagers, and informed them of the plan to work on the back yard today. The enthusiasm level was less than I had imagined, and I imagined none. Despite the start everyone was active and, dare I say, more than a bit happy with the results. We picked up dog poo as a group so everyone was miserable together. We paired up to rake and shovel. The boys restacked the rock wall and leveled out the holes (horrible creatures dogs from Crete) and did a nice job with it! The youngest picked up sticks and I raked the yard, then we swapped out. Then A and I took the piles of leaves were put in the back 40 to try and level it out a bit back there, composting takes a while but it works! Then the oldest and youngest broke and gathered the old tree limbs I had cut from the trellis for the hothouse and stacked them for chipping later. Then the spare kennel pipes were stored by the shed. The boys also stacked the pallets we are using for the gardens beds by the hothouse in preparations for that project. Over all it looks pretty good back there now, considering we have dogs of course who love to tear up rock walls and dig when they get bored. The best part of all this was that when we were done all the kids were sitting in the same room, talking, laughing, and having a good time. It is amazing how shared "misery" can be such a bonding event!

The back deck and flower beds...

Now in case my gentle reader thinks that my bride is one of those ladies who sits around and eats bon bons and watches soap operas all day let me inform you of her ongoing projects! While dealing with the attic she has been working as head coach of her swim team, which has started this trend of breaking all of its old records. She has also taken up a board position on the youngest child's roller derby team and working her butt off with various projects including finding a new head coach for the team. She also found time to power wash our back porch so that she and the kids can paint it this summer. This turned into her power washing the front porch, the drive way, cleaning gutters, cleaning out the driveway drain, and cleaning out the garage. All while dealing with Laurel and Hardy who are trying to fall through our ceiling! Meanwhile we had a sunny day so she cleared the yard of the dandelions that snuck into the yard. Lest I forget she spent three days (two with sunshine one without) where she dug up the flower bed in front of the house. This involved moving two plants that weighed about 50 lbs each and relocated them to the back yard. The flower bed was replanted, fertilized, leveled, recovered and mulch added. The final day she had a big obstacle because I was added to the mix! Because of a lack of coordination and oversized initiative I nearly squished every flower she had planted. We all have our crosses to bear, I am hers! Despite that she is already planning the same thing for a planter bed that is about 2-3 times the size of the first one. My baby is the best and it looks FANTASTIC too!!!!

What's been going on...

So it has been a while since I really updated things here which is due to me being a complete slacker! So let's catch up on things a bit. After some troubles with the attic everything is now clean and sealed. This took more than a little work on the part of my wonderful wife who was a Herculean help in keeping everything sane! You see the only company that does this kind of work, where we are, sent Laurel and Hardy to work on our attic. When they disappeared it seems that Jerry Lewis was sent to finish the work, with the help of the manager. We were still waiting on the repairs when my bride gets a call asking when we were going to send in our portion of the money for said "work". Needless to say the poor lady on the phone got an earful. Arrangements were made to first get a bill for the work (we got an e-mail with the breakdown of charges after we asked for it but no bill), next find out when the damages from L&H would be repaired. So while we are waiting for the repair date we get the bill and against my better judgment I pay the bill. What I was thinking I have no idea! So last week my office light began to flicker and I began thinking the worst! I went up into the attic and took a look around to see if L&H may have messed up the wiring while shoveling out insulation. It seems that the work was not completely done. In fact the clean up was garbage! So and after more than a little complaining and sending angry e-mails and phone calls to the company the manager came out and completed the work himself. The one upside was that my angry e-mail arrived before the check did and the company had enough professionalism to not cash the check which saved me the trouble of cancelling the check until the work was complete. Well it is done now and my wonderful wife crawled around the attic and inspected the work with a fine toothed comb. So in the midst of all of this I took on a long overdue project, building the hothouse for starter plants and herbs! We have a nice little herb garden that we started last year and it has put out some really nice herbs to make dinner a nicer event. Don't misread me, my wife is an excellent cook and can make a fantastic dinner using dirt, milk, a half eaten pork chop and a garlic clove! However if you add fresh herbs she is a wizard, and I am almost decent, in the kitchen! We have been discussing that with the cooler weather here a hothouse/greenhouse would add to the productivity and growing time for the herbs and small veg we grow. So about a year...maybe two years ago my bride found some free fiberglass panels for the project. They have done an excellent job of sitting for that time. Finally I got off of my butt and fashioned up the hothouse on the frame of an old trellis. It isn't the most attractive thing I have made but it is pretty OK. The best part is that it works and it is unlikely to fall apart anytime soon! The herbs and starter flowers we have put in there have absolutely loved the warmer temperatures! Success!!!! I even had enough time to weed the herb garden a bit, which thankfully my wife finished properly by cutting back the dead growth on the plants. Now that little herb garden is doing very nicely again and we are going to have yummy fresh herbs again this year!

Happy Birthday B...

So the little one had her birthday and the TARDIS dropped in for the occasion! 

 The cake boss at work!

 Starting to take shape...

 The inside of the time vortex looks like....devils food!

And finally what it looked like when it was all assembled. My baby did a fantastic job especially considering this was the first time she has ever made a fondant cake! 

There and back again.

This weekend we went to Chelan with two of three kids and a Mamie-in-law. The drive was fantastic and very scenic. The up side to going through a ski resort area is they know how to clear the roads.ohh yeah they also have great mountains to look at.

We visited with a childhood friend of my Bride and her family and had a great time getting shot with nerf guns, but I am getting ahead of myself there. So we arrived in Chelan after a short (5 hour) drive and met my Bride's friend at a local pizza parlor where we got 4 wagon wheel pizzas and followed her to her home. The rest of the evening we sat around and ate pizza and the ladies caught up with each other. I think my mother-in-law enjoyed that as much as my wife as she knows all the names and faces they were talking about almost as well as my wife. On a side note it is also interesting to hear people who know my wife and mother-in-law say things like "You look just like your Mom!". I do not see it but others do. Now for my wife to look like my lovely MIL is not a bad thing at all, I just do not see the resemblance. After a few hours of catching up we went to our motel and got some much deserved sleep!
The next morning we met up at a local dinner named the Apple-Something. No, that isn't the actual name but everything in that part of Washington State is named after the Washington Apples that keep the area alive and after a while it just starts running together. The grownups ate a big country breakfast as the "little ones" could not be bothered to leave bed. Next time I am bringing a cattle prod to get them out of bed because they whined the entire time about how hungry they were. The joys of children! LOL! So we went back to the house and visited again and then we took a nice walk to the lake. Our hosts have two Huskies and they are really pretty dogs, so I had puppies to walk and all was well in the world! After a short rest back at the house, some child drama, and more visiting and talking, we went for a pleasant stroll in downtown Chelan before hitting the road again.
We stopped in Wenatchee for some cheap(er) gas and some chili dogs then drove back through the pass toward home. Unfortunately the weather had decided that it's cooperation was no longer necessary and the snow started. Once again the best part about ski lodges, they know how to handle the roads! So after fighting the traffic, more than the snow, we made it through the pass and back to our rainy side of the state. Yes there were one or two oppsies and I had to turn around a time or three but that is all on the pilot (me) and not the navigator (Bride). 
The dogs were overjoyed to see us. The dog sitter (boy 2) was not overjoyed to see us but at his age nothing causes joy! LMAO!! At the end of it all was a warm, happy bed and more nice memories..oh and a picture or two also.

It is going to be an empty world!!!

Party time.

So the Mrs. and I went to my company party last night and had a great time! We were very pleased even if we were a little under dressed for the event. The best part was the raffles that they had. I went  with the understanding that if I brought my wife we may actually win something, but only if I had her handle the money and put her name on everything! So I did, but unfortunately they put my name on the tickets so I figured we were doomed. Not so it seems as we won the biggest of the big prizes. A trip to San Francisco or Vale, Colorado or Moab, Utah. I about crapped myself! So imagine my surprise when our name got called again for a chance to win 2 movie ticket and a dinner gift certificate! All I had to do was roll some marbles...and did I! So in all a very good night! Especially when I got to hang out with my lovely bride!!

Thai? Ohh my.

So last night we went to a cute little Thai/Vietnamese/Chinese restaurant last night while the kiddo was up at the skating rink for a party. I kind of have a rule I follow. If the place offer Pad Thai I get it. Pad Thai is a tasty dish from (Anyone? Anyone?) Thailand! I should say that it is one of my favorite Thai dishes when it is done right. When done right it is spicy and tasty and I love it. When done wrong it is spicy ketchup on noodles. So trying Pad Thai at a new place is always an adventure for me. I liken it to gambling for other people. So last night I rolled the dice! I crapped out unfortunately. This morning was a more literal. Seem that ketchup and sriracha hot sauce cooked, as it was, was pretty rough on the belly. This is odd as I have mixed the two plenty of time, and in much more concentrated batched with no odd effects many times before. OK too much info there but Pad Thai was Bad Thai last night.
However something really kicked in last night that I hadn't really noticed before (no not the pepper sauce!). When I go out to eat with my Bride we usually grab two separate dishes so that we can get a good sample of multiple dishes. However SHE ALWAYS gets the good dish. I have only had the nice dish ONCE! Sure you can chock it up to luck, karma, fate, or her more refined culinary choices but I attribute it to my bad mouthing of Buddha. I have made fun of that fat atheist for years and I am obviously on a blacklist somewhere. All those gold painted idols have to have some kind of receiver in them somewhere that marks me as a target for the bad dish no matter what. Paranoid you say? Ok whatever! I say paranoia is reality on a finer scale (yeah that is from the movie The Crow.the 1st one not the rotten tomato sequels).
So what do I do? Make up with the jolly old gent? Appease him with candy and flowers? !@*&% NO! Forget that! You want a piece of me FAT MAN?! Bring it on! I can handle anything this side of salmonella! I ate the local food in Iraq, Thailand, Korea and Kentucky. Bring your worst tubby.

Winter has dropped and so has the chore list

In case you missed the news winter fell on us like a brick here in the PAC NW. Here is a picture or two to show you how..nice it was. The dogs loved it! They played and frolicked and had a good old time! The kid, not kids but kid loved it as she got to stay home from school. It seems that no matter how much a kid loves school they still enjoy a good snow day or two. The Mrs. And I hated it. We missed two days of work and had to do chores around the house. Ok we didn't have to but with so many kids you have to clean up after them or risk living in a toxic waste dump. I have a long history of hating snow growing up in an area that gets snow nearly every winter. It sucks to drive in. It melts and turns into ice. It melts again and turns into water and mud, which dirties up the house. It shuts down work and interferes with my cash flow. F snow. 
ON THE UP SIDE.I did manage to get the downstairs bathroom completely painted, ceilings and all! It really needed it too as the old mustard color was just too much for my brain to process anymore and it made the room far too dark. It is now a nice (ok clean) oyster color. Oyster means really light beige in case you were wondering and it adds a lot of light and a cleaner feel to the bathroom, which was needed as that is the bathroom dominated by teenage boys! Ugh filthy creatures teenagers. Apparently I was just as bad, or so my wife tells me after a conversation with my mother. THANKS MOM!! I also managed to get a good section of the trim taped off around the house and I am now ready to paint the trim, unless my Bride decides to do it. She did the living room and it immediately cleaned the room up. It was pretty amazing how I paint walls and it looks good but when she finishes up the trim and the whole thing looks REALLY nice! This means she gets the credit for making it look amazing, it is a subsection of the International Rule of Dibs. I don't make the rules I just live by them. 
All this painting was precipitated by the window job. The seams have to be painted in the first X months or it voids the warrantee..ahhhhhh tricky huh!!!? So seams are being painted and since the window blinds are off the hard to paint areas around the window are being painted. That leads to walls getting painting. Which gets the trim being painted. Which leads to heaven knows what wlse getting painted! HAHA!! 
However in the midst of all this work and snow we discovered something really nice. The windows we just had put in do an amazing job and we are very pleased with them! I mean happy, happy, joy, joy pleased! I don't know how the energy savings vs price thing is going yet (that is always the selling point for a window company we know this because we talked to ALL of them) but I know the house feels much warmer and not a bit drafty. So let's hear it for windows! Yay windows keep that cold old white stuff at bay! 

The wonderful trouble with stuff.

So as I muse here I find that I have more aspirations than time and money! That is good because then a person is always improving and growing. It is bad because frustration can set in and cause stress. Stress is made up by the way Google the history of stress. So part of my wife’s dowry (oh I am in for it now) were her homes abroad. We are not rich, and never will be, so don’t start getting mad at the idea of multiple houses. Anyhoo. They are really cute things these village houses and last year I had a really nice time working on them, even if they needed more work than should have been needed. But I had a good time doing stuff to them. I enjoy, mostly, working on our home here too. Home ownership is new to me though. Land was considered a hazard to safe navigation for 20+ years while serving at sea, so it has taken some time to get use to the idea of land=good. However I think that now and have taken an interest in doing stuff to it that is positive. In fact so much I find myself mentally flip-flopping between houses going…”Paint here. Paint there. Bathroom remodel here. Balcony remodel there. Grass seed here. New railings there.” Etc.etc. ad nauseam because in the end this stuff costs money.
Boo hoo no kidding! The very up side to all this is that it really keeps the mind working and turning! I found that it is very good to keep me from “working for the weekend” and getting too lazy. I think we are very fortunate that we are getting along well in this economic nightmare that is happening. No we aren’t rich. We don’t have the savings that I would like to have stocked up (yes, I am a greedy miser). However we eat well, very well, as my wife is a superb cook with an imagination that astounds me not to mention the ability to coupon shop to the extent the managers at the local markets know her by sight when they have to over ride the cash register because she has saved so much. She works hard and has a job that she loves. 
You know what? Maybe we really are rich…

Infusion confusions

Ok so the title is a bit of a misnomer. The only word I could think of to rhyme with infusion was confusion. But infusions have been my latest hobby. It is where you take booze and put something in it to add flavor and fun. Now I am not a big drinker anymore. It seems I prefer a clear mind and steady temper in my dotage. I do enjoy a glass or three of absinthe on a long weekend when I am certain I have nowhere to go and plenty of time to nap, and I enjoy a nice glass of bourbon with my occasional cigar. A nice glass of beer goes well with certain meals and on warm sunny days but other than that I am tea toddling most of the time. So why would I take any interest in infusions? Well because they are fun and it is like cooking without the worry of burning stuff. Sure you can mess it up but the end product is still usually a nice change to an old classic. 
If you have read previously I made and infusion with some of the blackberries growing out back and it turned out nice. As it has aged it has a taste that my wife describes as a nice fortified wine almost. That is because of all the juice I added to it and the fact that I wanted something nice and sweet for the summer. I have already been told that next year’s batch should be much larger so that it will last the entire year. That will be a fun one and I am really looking forward to it! But that will be close to 9 months from now and far too long to wait on just one project! So I am trying other things…

The first, failed attempt was to take some Evan Williams Honey (a flavored Bourbon that was way too sweet) and cut it in half with some Jim Beam. We then added 2 vanilla beans split length wise. It was pretty much what you would expect. Too honey sweet to notice the vanilla properly. So I promptly ignored it and forgot about it. Well I remembered it last week and went to work. The taste had mellowed a bit but not enough. So I took some old clean jam jars and made smaller batches.
The first batch I cut it with more Jim Beam. Then I added both the old vanilla bean as they should be mostly depleted and added ½ of a red apple cubed up to the mix. We shall see what happened.

The second batch I cut it with more Jim Beam. I then added a cinnamon stick and ½ a red apple. The cinnamon is coming out this week.

The first third I cut it with more Jim Beam. Next I added ¾ of an apple. Just to see what the difference will be.

Then honey bourbon was a spur of the moment buy and undrinkable which surprised me as Evan Williams is a good Bourbon and a fantastic White Dog. The honey is just too much though and is actually syrupy rather than nice like Jim Beam’s Red Stag (a Black Cherry flavored Bourbon). Live and learn.


The final thing we are trying is inspired by our Sombrero Diary trip. A tamarind infused tequila. Honey found 400 grams of seeded (HA!) tamarind at the local asian store and we added ½ of it (cut up) to 750ml of Jose Cuervo Silver. It is browning up nicely after the first day. Just 6 more to go!

Infusions are like playing mad scientist and Bob the baker all at once! Next is a cherry infused grappa (which is a really un-nice local one that is brewed up state). Looking back I am amazed at how much bad booze we have. Maybe we are just too picky! Oh well, wish us luck!!

Wow...

So it has been a heck of a week. We got our new windows installed this Thursday and they are making a noticeable difference in the temperature of the house! So now we just have to keep on plugging along pay them off! Next is the bathroom remodel with little bits of household stuff to do along the way like painting, and cabinets, and STUFF! HAHAHAHAHA!! So New Years was a standard boring event, pretty much the same thing we did last year but with a change up of the random girl along the way...but it was low on drama this year so that is a good thing!! (Opps spoke too soon!)


Well this year I am hoping for good things to happen. We are looking at friends coming by and visiting from far flung parts of the country, and the world! So maybe the Mayans got it wrong (OK I know they did...I mean if they knew so much then why are they out of the human sacrifice business? Yeap I went there.) So bring on 2012 I got a positive attitude and a skip in my step! I also have a backup plan involving guns, canned food, and camping gear in case the feathered serpent decides to rear it's ugly head. As far as I am concerned that sucker is always a good kill no matter what hunting season is going on!