Weekend Recap-hooray!
The Niece and her mama came over for dinner on Friday night. We made stuffed shells on Thursday night, let them soak up the sauce and flavors overnight in the refrigerator and heated them up for dinner on Friday. When asked if she liked the shells, the Niece replied, “They’re not my favorite”. So it goes.
Saturday we replaced the kitchen faucet. It took all day. Our hats are off to plumbers everywhere. What a pain in the arse.
The better-half finally got to use the blow torch today. He had to cut the kitchen faucet pipes off so that we could install a new and improved kitchen faucet. I stood by with the fire extinguisher. I read the 3-step instructions a dozen times because who wants to freeze up on pulling the pin, standing back 6 feet and then discharging a few ounces of foam or whatever it is that comes out of our little extinguisher. I’d hate to have to explain to the insurance company that yes I was standing right there with the fire extinguisher in my hand but I just couldn’t figure out how to put out the fire. Oops, sorry. Here’s my big whopping claim. Get cracking on cutting me a check.
My apologies to everyone who has ever spent the night at my house on the World’s Lumpiest Mattress™. After sleeping in our guest bedroom for about 5 days due to all the painting in the master bedroom and the smell of the caulk on the new shower door in our bathroom, I’m so happy to report that we have finally moved back into the bedroom. Oh how I’ve missed my firm mattress. My promise to everyone who has slept in that guest bedroom is that we have plans for upgrading the mattress in there. I swear.
Last night the better-half asked me if I ever mentioned here that we’re in the process of preparing our house for sale. I told him sure all that stuff is over in House Proud. He pointed out that some people may never look at House Proud (shocking as that sounds) and that I may sound like a nut because of my rants on Lowe’s (damn them).
Here’s the news. We’re selling our house. Our realtor gave us “home” work to do and we’ve been working like dogs. We’ve seen 3 other houses and made 2 offers both of which fell through. The first offer was for a house I really liked and I was bummed to hear that we didn’t get it. The other one I was on the fence about but I think the better-half was a little more disappointed. Neither of us were that passionate about it though.
I despise Lowe’s. There I’ve said it. I despise them and their total lack of customer service. Why oh why did we buy garage doors from them? Oh yeah, we went there looking for lights since we’ve pretty much exhausted Home Depot’s selection and decided to get the garage doors from them. I called today to see if they were in since they are due in some time this week. I called the number on our order page, got voice response and then pressed the number I was given. The phone rang for more than 2 minutes and 33 seconds and I hung up. I hate them. Come on to Mechanicsville you asshats. I’m not going to shop at your store even if the store plopped down 2 feet from my house. Just give me my garage doors and I’ll try to never ever darken your door again. More than 2 minutes before someone, anyone could take the call?
And, since I’m on a “customer service that sucks” rant, whatever you do, don’t be swayed by any magazine claims of renewing your floor with stuff called Hope’s Floor Renew. I ordered that from a flim-flam company and their customer service has sucked the life right out of me. Finally today I cancelled the order. I’ll drive around until I find the stuff locally. Kiss my big ass.
Ok, if a French firm is offering up an additional 2.6 million shots of the flu vaccine, how many red-blooded Amuricans are going to take those shots? Mmmm, let me see. I’d say 2.6 million. Does that make them un-Amurican? Because if voting for that liberal John Kerry makes me un-Amurican (which according to a few bumper stickers I saw over the weekend is true and it also means I’m stupid…never mind that our country was founded on principles that encouraged free-thinking), then taking that flu shot is nothing if not hypocritical. Yeah, all you freedom fry eating folks, I’m calling you hypocritical.
Yesterday we decided to take advantage of the good weather and rent a stump grinder. We had two old stumps in the back yard that needed grinding and my sister had several that needed grinding so we decided to kill two birds with one stump grinder. We fortified ourselves at Waffle House and then rented the stump grinder from Home Depot. We ground up 3 small stumps and 1 medium stump for my sister and then ground our 2 large stumps to smithereens.
The amount of soreness today is stunning (arms, legs, neck, back). We’ve rented a grinder before and it beat us up so we knew what to expect. The last time we did this I ended up with bruises all over my thighs. I’m happy to report only one bruise and for all I know I could have easily received that bruise before the stump grinder was even rented. I’m famous for running into things.
I’m not sure if it was the exhaustion but I had a series of weird dreams last night. The very unfortunate thing is that I can’t remember any details. I just know I woke up thinking “that was weird” and having that feeling that I didn’t sleep much because of the insanity that is my dream life.
We were at BJ’s this evening stocking up on the essentials. Which, for us, basically means a cart load of meat and Claritin. While looking for an item for my sister, we split up to cover as much of the store as efficiently as possible. While we didn’t find what she wanted, the better-half walked up with a Swiffer and asked if I wanted it. I did. As we were walking to the checkout, I linked my arm in his and told him how sweet it was that he thought of the Swiffer.
Love at BJ’s–a beautiful thing.
Since I haven’t talked about food lately and the only other thing I have to report is work we’ve done on the house–which, really, is a broken record. Here’s what I made for dinner tonight. I’ve made it before and it rocks. Pardon the grammar, I am tired.
Majorcan Tumbet
from: Food & Wine
Makes 5 servings.
1 1/4 pounds Italian eggplant, 2 eggplants
3/4 pound Sweet pepper (I forgot to buy this at the store so we did without)
1 pound roma or round tomatoes, cored and quartered
1/4 cup unpeeled garlic, rinsed
1 garlic clove, minced
1 1/2 pounds small Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and chopped, 1/4 inch thick
2 cans oil packed sardines, boneless and skinless, drained (I only had 1 can and I didn’t drain but used the ‘packed’ in olive oil
2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh parsley (we just chopped a lot of parsley)
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1/3 cup water (didn’t add water to anything other than soaking the eggplant–which was more than 1/3 cup water)
olive oil
coarse salt & pepper
Today for lunch I had to meet with the other consultants and our rep from the contracting company. I had never met the rep and we ended up at tables near each other. It wasn’t until the other consultants showed up did we realize that we’d been practically sitting next to each other. Too funny and it just goes to show you how often I try to get out of those lunches.
Today’s lunch was a much better time than usual. Everyone had something to talk about and we didn’t have to resort to the weather. Thank goodness. Some of these lunches are painful for everyone involved.
