Wordless Wednesday

Dear Spring...get here soon.

Still dealing with a dying computer, but now most of my important data is backed up, so I can use my mac without fear.   But if I disappear for a little while, you know why.

I'm reading some books at the moment, in preparation for Spring and Gardening.  I actually picked the first one up in the Fall.  The Vegetable Gardener's Bible is pretty decent.  It covers a bunch of gardening basics, using the "W-O-R-D" system- Wide rows, Organic methods, Raised beds, Deep soil.  It also has a pretty wide reference section for plants, which is what I've been primarily looking at.  It's all pretty simple, aimed at the Beginner Gardener.  I don't have any qualms about the book, although it's not like I'm doing a ton of gardening at the moment.  A foot or so of snow and frozen earth sort of prevent me from getting to that point.  Hurry and get here Spring! I do think that I probably will not be using the "W-O-R-D" system, at least not yet.  Instead, I found another method I'm much more interested in.

Starter Vegetable Gardens: 24 No-Fail Plans for Small Organic Gardens is really nice.  I immediately took to the book, for many reasons.  One of my big worries for this Spring is that I didn't prepare my Garden beds in advance.  The other was the fact that at this point in time, I can't afford a tiller, and while I know I can borrow one from a friend, it's not something I want to do.  The techniques in this book helped eliminate that need, at least for now.  The author, Barbara Pleasant, uses bags of soil, IN the bags, to help establish garden beds.  I love it!  Just put down the bags of soil, cut them open, create drainage holes and watch your garden grow.  By the following year, you've got an established bed, ready for more use.

The book is really simple too- with step by step instructions that make it really hard to go wrong.  There is enough variety in plans, from Beginner to Advance to make it interesting, yet all the plans seem sensible and flexible enough for personal variety.  And all of the plans have a 3 year expansion plan, which I love.  Starting off (somewhat) small, and seeing what I find to be manageable is such a brilliant idea.  I'm usually pretty impulsive on these things, so having a set basic plan, with room for some ambition (and maybe some over-zealousness...) is a good thing.

The final book I got was Your Backyard Herb Garden: A Gardener's Guide to Growing Over 50 Herbs Plus How to Use Them in Cooking, Crafts, Companion Planting and More.  I've only paged a bit through it, but it looks pretty good- it lists shade preference, soil preference, cultivating tips and even basic uses.  I'm totally dumb when it comes to Herbs, so this will hopefully help me not kill them when I use them.  Which I have a bad habit of doing.  You know you can only use parsley once, and it never grows back?  That's my assumption based on experience.  It could be I just don't know how to cut it right.  That's actually probably the case...


So, until Spring gets here, I get to read and plan.  I'm looking into some indoor greenhouse options so I can start some seedlings soon.  It seems like such a long time before I can get started because the frost date here is so late. 

The attempt to salvage a lousy day.

We drove to Syracuse today so to get this fixed.  It's not fixed, nor will it be until we can back up my pictures, documents and music.

Before we left Syracuse, we stopped at Tim Hortons.  But these were horrible tasting and it was so disappointing.

We had to drive home in this...only worse...think huge flakes.

This evening has been accompanied by these two things.

So in an attempt to salvage the night, I'm making this.

And we shall enjoy a few of these.

Confession!

I think I'm going to start making Friday's my confession day, like the good Catholic girl I am.  (Please refrain from snickering.)

Today was the first day since we moved in that I thought to myself "WTF were you thinking, buying such a small house and something that needs so much work".  Yesterday I removed two panels of wall paper from the living room, and let's just say, underneath was BAD.  Worse than the bedroom, the entire wall is pasted with dried wall paper glue, and spackle.  Today, I tried scrubbing said areas, and it was just awful.  The glue needed several hard scrubs to remove, and of course, some of the spackle came off, making an even bigger mess.  Maybe the winter has made me even lazier than I normally am, but I wanted to sledgehammer the entire wall.  Luckily I didn't, and the little section I DID do, felt smooth and ready for some primer, but man...maybe it was the mood, but I hated the house, just for a few moments.

In all honesty, I do love my house, and I do love making it my home.  I went into it, knowing it needed a lot of work.  It is doing what I hoped- forcing me to rethink my organization and way of living.  Getting rid of stuff I don't need, stopping me from buying silly things like knick knacks and collectibles I don't need.  I did delude myself a little, thinking we could get a good chunk of it done right away.  I just have to keep doing what I'm doing.  Being patient, doing it a little at a time, and always always remember...a sledgehammer is going to make more work for myself.


Unless I hire someone...Just kidding, of course.

新年快樂

Xin Nian Kuai Le!  Happy Chinese New Year.  It's the year of the Rabbit.

Every year, I think Chinese New Year comes up on me far faster than I anticipate.  I know because sometime early January I tell myself that I'll do something with the kids, like make a big Chinese dinner, or even had a small party!  And then about a day or two before the actual date, I'll realize that it's Chinese New Year and I'll have no time to plan.

This year was no different.  I didn't dress the kids in traditional Chinese clothes.  In fact, I think Lilia out grew hers, and we need a new one.  Liam might fit his...somehow I doubt it.  I didn't make a big Chinese dinner, or throw a party.  What I did do was put on the Happy Chinese New Year, Kai-Lan episode of Ni Hao Kai-Lan, and make coconut cream buns.  And since I had more dough, I also made hot dog buns, which may sound silly, but we used to eat them at Bao in Buffalo.  I miss that place, I was so sad when they shut down.

Not a bad way to celebrate.  I mean, we're not Chinese, but it's something fun to do with kids.  Maybe next year I'll remember.  Someone remind me, Okay?

Somethings are just too pho-king good...

Today, I made Pho.  (pronounced Fuh.)  We used to eat Pho a lot in Buffalo, at 99 Fast Food mostly.  Not a great part of town, but the Pho there...Delicious stuff.  There's a little place in Utica we found, though we've only been there once, and another, called PhoShizzle, opened, then closed rather quickly.  I've been wanting some.  Badly.  Enough to make me find that link I booked marked so long ago, and read through it several times, and even enough to go to the store and find all the ingredients, including bones.

I'm an American girl, I admit it.  Buying bones made me a little weirded out.  Not that I could tell you why- maybe because they were, you know...bones, and not meat.  Of course, when I went shopping for them, I couldn't find them, and in the end, John found them and bought them.  But the point is...buying bones is just not something I ever did before, and it was just really odd.  For like 5 minutes.  And then I made Pho and I will be buying bones again.  And trust me, it was not as bad as having to cut the feet off my own semi frozen fresh turkey, complete with more than a handful of feathers and gizzards still intact. That's a story for another day I suppose.

Cooking all day baby

It was a sort of nice way to combat the cold and snow that hit today.  our area was hardly hit at all, thankfully, but it was cold!  I figured today of all days would be a good day to make something so warm and delicious.

The recipe was easy.  I followed it pretty precisely, only lacking a cardamon pod.  I parboiled the bones, and charred the ginger and onions, and a bag of spices (which I really liked using.)  Within minutes of the bones, meat, and spices boiling, my entire house smelled like a Pho restaurant.  It goes without saying that I was very excited, and very hungry all day.

In the end, the Pho broth was REALY good.  A little greasy, but according to that blog, I can reduce the amount of marrow I use, and it won't be as greasy.  My mistake was grabbing the wrong type of noodle, and canned bean sprouts.  Before you ask "What??!!", let me tell you...I couldn't find fresh bean sprouts, and forgot how soggy the canned ones were. And sadly, the only rice noodle product at the store was the uber thin "rice stick" (mifun) style and I really needed the thicker style. 

My bowl of pho!

However, in the end, it was really good.  Pho-king good.  And I still have a ton of broth left, happily sitting in my freezer, for another cold day to be combated with a bowl of steaming hot Pho.

Who needs HGTv? (Me!)

Updating the house is a slow process, with two kids under 5, a working husband and winter.  Particularly, it's hard to do the living room, since that's the main area we all hang out in.  However, that's going to change, mainly because it's starting to all get under my skin.  Usually I just do something than show, but I figured...hey it's kind of fun to share my planning process.

Needs: New door, No wall paper.

 You can see the first changes needed here.  It's a small living room, with only two windows.  It's not very bright at all.  I'd like to add a new door, with a bigger glass section, one that allows more light into the room.  The wall between the window and door needs some sort of art work.  Our giant framed map of Middle Earth is still in need of a home on our walls.

Of course, you can also see the biggest change to make is getting rid of that wall paper, and painting the room.  Since our sofa is a dark chocolate brown, I'm going to go with a very light brown, maybe a nutmeg, with a darker trim.  Probably not very original, but most definitely very me, and nice.

Maybe some lighting, and definitely some new curtains.

This isn't the best picture, but you would just see more of that ugly wall paper, and some very old curtains and drapes.  New ones will be put in, along with some Roman shades.  To make more room, we plan on getting rid of that particular TV stand, which is old and broken, and getting something smaller, and maybe taller

I can't wait to do everything, and have this be my before picture.

You can see the ugly paneling wall in the next picture.  I don't know why I hate it so much, but I do.  It's got to go.  I'm afraid that it's going to be brick behind it though, so my plan is to spackle the ridges, and paint over paneling.  It's going to be a dark brown, because instead of keep those walls bare, we're going to add shelves, most likely in a contrasting color, for books, DVD's and games..

I'm also going to paint the fireplace, (Twilight Taupe) and add a lovely hearth rug for in front of the fireplace.  The DVD rack thing will be moved, as well as the light.  I think above the mantle also needs some art work, as well as some plants on the mantle, and by the fireplace.  Small orange trees, anyone?

Do your eyes burn looking at that wall paper?

It's hard to see in the next picture, but the very corner of the room, where the couch is against the wall, sticks out immensely.  It's actually a linen closet on the other side of the house.  I'm so tempted to knock that down...  More of the same plan here.  Remove wall paper, paint, add some wall art.  I'd also like to add some wall sconces.

Because I live here, and it makes my eyes burn.

A part of me wouldn't mind taking out the wall near the stairs, on both sides, opening the room to the Dining room.  I love our banister, but it's only on one side.  I've have to find a matching one, though I'm sure it's not too hard.  If not, some smaller corner shelves would be really nice, along with some wall vases.

So I guess in the end, the one thing that doesn't need changing is the carpet.  it has nice carpet, although it's hard to tell at times, as my living room is usually covered in kids toys...

I think the first step is going to be to slowly remove all the wall paper, scrubbing section by section until it's read for the first coat of paint.  Then we'll paint, add the bookshelves, and change the curtains.  After that, it'll be a "one piece at a time" change, maybe starting with the TV stand, and ending with the door.

Talking about this has made me totally psyched, and I'm so tempted to just tear off one panel of wall paper, just because it would feel so good.