Cozy

I've always had a kind of fantasy about living in a tiny, portable house. I love to browse the floor plans at Tumbleweed Houses; unfortunately, many of the houses there have a sleeping loft, accessible via a ladder. Yeah, that's not going to happen at this point in my life.  And yes, I know some of the bigger models do have stairs, but they aren't portable.

I also think this house is amazing. The sleeping issue is resolved, but it is very much a one person dwelling. Since I'm really planning on retiring with Jeff, this isn't an option.

Then I saw this one, and wow!  Talk about gorgeous!  All that wood, and those windows!  That's really a dream house.

Obviously, any of these small floor plans aren't even remotely feasible while the girls are living with us. It's more of a retirement dream. Actually, the perfect dream would be to have a small house in Michigan for spring, summer, and fall, and tiny house someplace warm for the winter. Dream, remember?

I heard on the news that the average size of the American home has doubled since the 50's, from about 1200 to 2500 square feet. There's a professor in Houston that is living in a (santized) dumpster for the next year for the ultimate living with less experiment.  When I heard that, my first thought was, "He obviously doesn't have kids."

The funny thing is, we actually are talking about moving. When we look on Zillow, all the nicer houses in the areas we like are not only expensive, they're generally at least 500 square feet bigger than what we have now.  Older, smaller houses with smaller windows and smaller kitchens aren't as appealing.

I've also realized that the reality of a tiny house would be very hard. No room for big sewing projects. No room for my stand mixer or half my pots & pans. Not a lot of room for books or even photo albums (I have MANY of both!).  The thought of paring down to the barest of essentials has it's appeal, but I'm not sure how well I would do.

More Books

I finished Cloud Atlas, and in the end, I did enjoy the matroyska analogy and how all the stories fit together, but it's still not enough to make it a permanent addition. Also, being hit over the head with how badly vulnerable people are treated was a downer.  

Next up was Eat, Pray, Love. I didn't know anything about it other than that it was an Oprah book club pick, and I was a little leery of all the accolades. I admit that I had it in my mind that it would be self-indulgent and pretentious.  I was right about the self-indulgent (but really, that could be said for any memoir), but it's definitely not pretentious.  And some of it was interesting, especially the parts set in India. But I couldn't get past my dislike for the narrator personally.  She just seemed to enjoy being a flake. I get self-deprecation, but this is another one that isn't going to get onto the bookshelf.

Right now, I'm reading Eighty Days, which is the story of Nellie Bly's race around the world. I discovered Nellie Bly when I was about 12, and she fascinated me. The idea of this crusader going undercover to expose wrongdoing was very appealing to me (her first New York assignment was to get herself committed to an insane asylum). What I didn't know (or maybe forgot) was that another young female reporter left New York at the same time, going West instead of East, also trying to beat the world record.  I haven't finished it yet, but I'm enjoying it. It's not a novel, and a bit slow at times, but it is interesting.

Recent Books

Currently or recently in my hands:

Grendel
Um. This reminded me of things I would write in college, where I tiresomely endeavored to include all my philosophical musings into my fiction. After reading the multiple rave reviews on Amazon, obviously, I. Don't. Get. It.  This isn't one I'll likely read again.

Gone Girl
Heh.  This one kept me guessing and jumping. Highly recommended, and I'm interested to see how the movie turns out this fall. I might read it again, even though I already know how it turns out.

Cloud Atlas
This one I just started today. The first page was off-putting enough to almost make me put it down, but I kept going. The whole thing didn't really start to grab me until after page 100, and I still have a "what's the point" attitude of moving into and then abruptly out of these characters' lives. I have hope that things will be tied up by the end.  (A Prayer for Owen Meany did such an amazing job of bringing things together at the end that it is still one of my favorite books ever.)

A Tale of Two

Caramel sauces.

I saw this recipe right before Halloween and decided to make it that afternoon for us to have while we watched Linus wait for the Great Pumpkin.  The picture looked so good, like Cracker Jack. I even added some peanuts. I followed the recipe precisely (yes, really!) and poured everything out onto two baking pans lined with parchment paper.

Big disappointment. The syrup was thick and never smoothly coated the popcorn.  The texture was rather grainy, too. This isn't to say the popcorn wasn't rapidly devoured--we're talking butter & brown sugar, after all.

But I remembered another recipe I'd tried a while back, also without complete success.  The main problem there was that I didn't make the sauce far enough in advance, and poured screaming hot sauce over fresh popcorn, "melting" the popcorn. I did remember that the leftover sauce itself was pretty good, especially over pancakes the next day.

So I made that one again this afternoon. I used all butter instead of a combo of "healthy" butter & olive oil, but other than that, I did follow the recipe precisely. At first, I worried. The butter & brown sugar looked exactly like the Halloween debacle. Then I poured in the apple juice & cornstarch, and it magically turned into a sauce.  Yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuummy. 

When I came back to it a few hours later (I left it at room temp in a glass container), it had separated into two layers, but they were easily stirred back together.  I made the popcorn tonight, and poured it over, and it worked really well. It wasn't dry like Cracker Jack, but the taste & texture were great.

I mentioned how much better I liked this one than the Halloween one, and Sarah said she had liked that one better. "It had peanuts." Well, if you don't take the peanuts into account?  "I still liked it better." Maybe next time I'll try baking it after to dry it out a little, like the first recipe, but that Grandbaby Cakes wins this one hands down as far as I'm concerned. 

. . . And the second

I finally got Lauren's costume done last night. The coat was done in time for her party on Sunday, but she was unhappy not to have the hat or boot covers.

The picture that she referenced was this one, Pokemon Trainer Dawn. I decided that a basic double breasted pea coat was the way to go:  Simplicity 2534.

I had hoped to use fleece, because it's easy to work with and pretty warm. And although the vest pattern suggests fleece for the vest, it suggests denim, corduroy, or wool for the coat/jacket. I realized that's because you need to interface the front of the coat/jacket, but not the vest. You can't iron interfacing onto fleece.

When we went to get fabric I realized that there is a dearth of light pink wool/cord/denim at JoAnn's in October. Go figure. Lauren said that the color was the most important part, and I saw her point.  There was some light pink quilted fabric, but I thought it would be too bulky in front, it was $10/yard, and I didn't have any coupons. Finally, I thought, "I'll use that sew-in interfacing I have down in the basement." We grabbed the bolt of anti-pill pink fleece (already 50% off, score!), and were on our way. Since fleece is so wide, I only had to get two yards.

When it came time to put it together, I managed to get most of it done in about three hours. Cut it out, sew the side seams, gather and attach the bottom, put on the front, put in the sleeves. Then I stopped. I decided I wasn't going to line it. I still had to put in the front facing, top  stitch it, and do the buttons & buttonholes.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to that last bit until a few hours before the party. Attaching the front facing was fine, and top stitching was fine. Then I got to the buttonholes. I have an automatic buttonhole foot, and it worked fine for Sarah's coat, although it took me a while to remember how to use it. But when I tried it on two thick layers of fleece, it wasn't working. It wasn't moving smoothly over the fabric, and got stuck.  I hate having to rip out button holes and start over--it's hard on the fabric, and it's hard on me.

Gotta catch 'em all!

I remembered that I had some Velcro left over. I sewed it in, and then sewed the buttons on top. It's not as nice as if it had proper button holes, but it was DONE, and we could go to the party. Of course, then there was the issue of what she would wear under it, and as it turned out, she took it off for most of the party anyway.

Yesterday, I stopped to get some white fleece for the hat and boot covers, I thought. I forgot that the boot covers were supposed to also be pink. It was a very near thing, but I had just barely enough pink scraps left to make rough boot covers. The hat is a simple tube; I hand stitched the designs on the front, and also hand stitched the back closed. I think the back looks a little odd, but Lauren says it's right for the picture. OK, she's happy, so I'm happy. And I'm done with Halloween this year, so I'm VERY happy.

Kitchen Experiment, Week 1

A few weeks ago, I decided that I no longer cared to bear the brunt of Kitchen Duty alone. I realized that the whole family should be taking part in this aspect of our lives.

First, I asked for help with the dishes. Our dishwasher has been out of commission for a while, and I don't have a lot of interest in replacing it in the foreseeable future (unless we win the lotto, in which case I will happily get a beautiful dishwasher for the maid to use). I asked Lauren and Jeff to each pick one night a week to clean up, and Sarah to take two nights. That's still three nights for me, which is fine. 

There are two provisions:

1. If you don't get it done on your night, you will also be responsible for it the next day. So far, I'm the only one who has fallen down on the job there.
2. If you can't or just don't want to do the dishes on your night, it is your responsibility to find someone to cover for you. Negotiate a trade of days or cash payout, but get it done. 

So far, this plan is going quite well. It's verging on pathetic how happy I am at having someone else clean up. The only trade so far was last night, when I asked Jeff if he could help Lauren with her science lesson (kinetic energy, potential energy, energy transfer--I didn't have the energy for it) in return for my taking his night at the sink.

The other part of Kitchen Duty is making dinner. I like cooking, but I get so bored with making the same things over and over. The girls are certainly old enough to pick up the slack in the kitchen.

So in addition to cleaning up, each girl also gets to cook dinner once a week. This isn't as much a time savings for me right now, but I think it will pay off. One difficulty is that I have classes four evenings a week, so timing is challenging.

Last week was the first time I asked what they wanted to make on their respective nights. Sarah said "pancakes & bacon" and Lauren said, "biscuits & gravy."  Hm. Not the healthiest, but for the first week, ok.

Sarah was making her dinner as I ran out the door to work (she's made both pancakes and bacon before, and I supervised the batter ingredients, so I wasn't too concerned); when I got home, there were three very crispy pieces of bacon left. She said that she ate the burned pieces herself. I've noticed that both girls tend to get distracted and forget about the food while it's cooking.

Lauren did her cooking on the weekend, because I knew she'd need substantial guidance making it. We used canned biscuits, because I didn't think we should do more than one recipe at a time. She did a good job with the gravy, but when it came time to eat, she said, "I don't actually like gravy very much."

Um. . .  whose child are you, and why exactly did you ask to make that?

At any rate, I'd call the first week of our Kitchen Experiment a moderate success. Week 2: Potato Skins and Tomato Soup.

Pulled Pork

A couple weeks ago, Jeff requested pulled pork for dinner, with a mustardy sauce instead of a tomatoey one. We'd had something similar a few months ago at Noble Pig, my cousin's BBQ place on the east side, and he really liked it.

I found this recipe, which seemed promising:  dry rub, and a separate mustard sauce.  Aldi didn't have pork shoulder/butt, but they did have the next best thing:  country style ribs.  I cut the recipe in half, which seemed to be about right, and cooked the ribs in the oven. My crockpot seems to get a little too hot sometimes, and I was worried the ribs would turn to mush if I left them in there too long.

It turned out really well. In an interesting turn, everyone else in the family thought it was better than I did. I thought it was good, but not as good as Noble Pig. Jeff said, "Well, if you're going to have unreasonably high standards . . ."  I liked the sauce better than the meat itself. We dipped soft pretzels in it, and I put it on my hash browns under my eggs in the morning.

Everyone liked it so much that when I saw a pork shoulder yesterday, I grabbed it. I've made the rub (I'm now totally out of paprika) and it's in the crockpot in the refrigerator right now. Since it's rather massive, I'm not worried about it going several hours tomorrow. As for the mustard sauce, I got some grainy mustard, and I think that will zip up the sauce even more. This is a recipe that is going in the keeper book.