Cluck the Cluckers...

What do you give the neighbors as an "I am so sorry my chickens at the "hens and chicks" plants that belonged to your parents" gift?  And what are the odds that the chickens would eat a plant called "hens and chicks?" 

Would a stew chicken be out of line?

Question

What removes the smell of scotch from a wooden tea set?

A.  Baking Soda

B.  White Vinegar

C.  Lemon and Kosher Salt

D. Baking Soda, followed by White Vinegar, with a Lemon and Kosher Salt chaser

E.  Nothing, it will smell boozy forever

Note:  No small childern were harmed during the production of this post. 

Leak-A-Thon Part Duex

Words seem... inadequate.

The shoelace is not to stop the leak... that appears to need divine intervention.  The shoelace is to stop the Plop. Plop. Plop. sound the water makes while dripping into a bucket.  Who knew?

Late Night Leak-A-Thon

So remember the blue bidet?  This one? Yeah, we are in full swing on that remodel project.  Bidet out.  Blue out.  Bathtub out.  It is a do-it-yourself orgasma.  And last night?  I plumbed until 3 AM.  Sounds dirty, doesn't it?  A late night sweating copper pipes with the lusty red-hot flames of a blow torch...  I know you wish you were there. 


Leaky pipes

 Why were we up until 3 AM? Well, my husband was determined to get the water restored so we could have showers.  It was a stupid manly idea.  Did I mention the part about having to turn off the water to the house in order to re-plumb the bathroom?  Oh yeah, no running water.  With a potty-training toddler.  Why would a potty-training toddler mean you need water?  The following statements actually came out of my mouth in the past 24 hours:

"Ava.  We do NOT use toothbrushes and toothbrush holders to bail water out of the toilet."

"Good job telling Mommy you need to use the potty!  Do you need help getting on the potty?  No? Okay.... Ava, take your foot out of the toilet please."

See?  Water (and antibacterial soap) is a necessity.

We did our first leak test around 9 PM (after I returned from drinking wine bathing Ava at Rachel's house).  And discovered that we had a lot of leaks.  Irritating, plop plop plop leaks.  Leaks that meant no water to the house.  After midnight, I wished Aaron a happy Father's Day and offered to buy him a plumber as a present.  He didn't think it was funny (who was joking?) At 2:30 AM, when we were down to two leaks, we through in the towel.  Not literally, as throwing in the towel does imply bathing, and there was none of that. 

The only way these leaks would have been fun was if it were a drinking game.  Every time you hear or see a leak, take a shot!  Not good.  I have high hopes we will have water again momentarily.  Just in time for us to consider the next "oh &^%$" moment.

While Aaron was plumbing away (you didn't think it was me sweating pipes with the blow torch did you?), I was happily ripping out sheet rock.  I went witching for screws with a magnet and started the demo.  The first side came off great - no problem.  The second wall, where we are going to put a pocket door (replacing the hinge door that cut into half of the vanity), well... that was where we hit a pipe problem.   One sewer pipe and one drain pipe.  Who knew?

Problem (but not leaky) Pipes (note blue carpet in background)

So now we have a problem.  Well, depending on your perspective and your affection for running water, we have lots of problems.  The problem I am referring to is that *#$(^ door.  Hey, I am remodeling on four hours of sleep.  It is a *#$(^ door. 

Do we:

A) put the old door back (losing 4-6 inches of valuable vanity space)
B) put in a smaller pocket door (24-25 inches, depending on the estimate)
C) build a false wall (losing 3ish inches of bathroom width, but not having to move pipes, and getting a full size pocket door)
D) put in an exterior "barn door" type door (and lose wall space for towel racks etc)
E) hang a bead curtain

Wait!  I have to go!  I hear water!  Wish me luck!

FEVER

Well kids, here it is. The story that brought the blog back from the dead. Or the vast void of cyperspace. I have been reading this blog lately, and dying of home improvement lust. I REALLY want a farm. But since I can't have a farm at the moment (more on that in the coming weeks), I am nesting like crazy in my non-farm. Hence the home improvement lust. Anyway...

The folks over at Young House Love are young, hip, totally balls out home improvers. They also like a good deal. And they scored some totally rad dining chairs on Craigslist for an amazing price. And then shrunk and dyed cheap slipcovers to look amazing, but I am letting my lust get ahead of me. Again.

So. We need chairs. And a table. Desperately. We have a pub table that seats four that my fantastic hubby Aaron built (he is pretty balls out too). It is a great pub bachelor table, but it is small. We can have exactly 1 person over before we have to start nervously shifting from one foot to the other while trying not to spill wine and drop food standing and eating. It has been like this for ages and now, thanks to the damn talented Young House Lust people, I get the FEVER for chairs.

You know the FEVER don't you? The "have to have it now or I will just DIE" fever? Yeah, I had that. So I have been haunting Craigslist for cool chairs just like my new internet idols. The only problem is that our local Craigslist is small town pond and the chairs are pretty... uhm... well... bad (no offense Wenatchee). So I was trolling the big town Craigslist (Seattle) looking for better chairs when I saw a random ad and clicked on it.

Words like "mid-century" and "modern" and "available TODAY" danced in front of my eyes. Oh! And the price! Perfect! I called at 4:00 PM on a Sunday. A very nice lady answered and explained that she was going back to Portland the next day and we had to pick up the items that night if we wanted them. I asked her "are they solid wood?" and she said "yes" so we were sold. This was the kind of Craigslist deal I had been dreaming about. Nevermind the fact that we had to drive 3 HOURS each way to pick them up... and it was already 4:15 PM... and the fact that we had a roast on the grill at that very instant... and the fact that Aaron had to work the next day... nope, we both had the FEVER now and the only cure is PURCHASE.

So off we went. Roast into the crock-pot, kid into the car, and we began our adventure. Since this is already embarassingly long, I will skip past the part where we got lost in Cle Elum (no, I don't know how that happens either) and straight to the part where we arrived and laid eyes on our treasures.

"WTF?!?" you say? "Those aren't chairs!? That ad lady LIED to you." Well... yes and no. See, we knew they weren't chairs. We just liked the look and it seemed like a fun, spontaneous adventure. And a good deal. Which it was, until we layed eyes on our charming, veneer-over-particle board sideboard and cabinet. In hindsight, the ad said something about "walnut" and the picture was clearly teak... which makes sense now that I know the top of both pieces is veneered with walnut laminate and the rest is covered in teak veneer. Shudder.

"Hey Annie, that photo looks like it was taken in your living room. How weird that someone else would have ugly blue carpet too." Uhmm... yeah. We bought them. Hey! Don't judge. It was 8:00PM, we were 3 hours from home and we already had the $80 in our pocket. Driving an empty trailer home really didn't seem like fun...

... but neither was a 3 hour return trip without the "cool purchase" high that accompanies a good bargain. We had 3 hours to marvel at our particle board disaster. Then we got home (at 11:30), where the delicious smell of roast mocked us as we came in the door. Since they were already here, in our garage no less, we figured we might as well haul them into our living room. No, I really don't know what we were thinking. I don't have any good excuses. All I can say is that we were sick. Really ill, running a FEVER and not thinking clearly. And for the sake of your home decor, do not ingest Craigslist immediately after devouring Young House Love.

You aren't going to believe this...

So this morning, I walk outside to check on my peppers. They had finally started to dry! I was so very excited. But then, a little nagging voice in my head started to talk. It said "I thought chipotle peppers were red when they dried. I wonder when my peppers will turn that lovely shade of red?" Hmm....

I came inside and did what any self-respecting person would do. I googled "chipotle pepper picture." Yup. Definitely red. Interesting. So then I read a couple of articles that came up in my search. Cue ominous music now.

Turns out that chipotle peppers are made out of red jalapenos. Not green ones. Red ones at the start. I have been smoking, for 3 days, green jalapeno peppers. 3 days. My house smells, my hair smells, I scrubbed a filthy fishy smoker, and now I find out I AM NOT SMOKING THE RIGHT COLOR PEPPER?!??! Seriously? Seriously.

Apparently, I am making "jalapenos chicos" - smoked green jalapenos. Otherwise known as "stupid gringas." My recipe didn't say anything about red vs. green jalapenos - not one little peep about this whole color business. Evidently they assume you will know what color pepper to use. Ug.

So. Where do I go from here? I am going to take the peppers out of the smoker in an hour or so when the last of the wood chips is all smoked out. I will rotate them and stick them back in (I am invested now people). When they are done, sometime in 2025, I will make some adobo sauce and can them. Why not? Red, green, whatever. Those damn peppers are going to dry and I am going to eat them and I am going to like it.

So there.