Spring Break

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This week in Oregon it’s Spring Break.

So we’ve been getting wild and crazy at the Eating Machine household.

Well, so long as taking out a wall and making a new one falls under “wild and crazy” in your world

My parents were here for a few days, helping with this. Which means the wall will stay up, and my dad has probably given my husband about a dozen new ideas for tools he “needs”.

But there’s more storage in my house now! That’s pretty crazy.

Before my parents got here I got an email with this picture from my mom

The lighter colored things? Whole chickens. That’s an intense amount of meat.

My husband was very sad that we had to have BBQ for dinner

I think it also added “smoker” onto the list of things he needs.

I wasn’t complaining either though

And, in a predictable move, guess what we took my parents out for?

Oh yeah. Pizza and beer.

Jalapenos, smokey bacon, red onion, and spicy chipotle sauce? Yes please.

But because it’s Spring Break I got all sorts of crazy and had wine instead of beer

Sharing wine called dominatrix with your mom. Not awkward.

Did you do wild and crazy things for spring break in college?

Not going to lie, despite the general perception that I was about 2 drinks from rehab I never did.

Unless visiting your grandma in Canada counts. Then I was a party animal!

Questions?

When people ask me questions, I always mean to answer them.  But I also always mean to pay my student loans on time, floss, and shower.

And…. Well, my husband is impressed when I shower 2 days in a row and asks “Didn’t you just do that yesterday?”  So you can see how well I do with my good intentions.  So today I’m answering some recent questions!

Can I move in with you guys?

Yes.  You can rent out our guest room for $1500 a month.  Or our shed for $800 a month.  It has a lawnmower to cuddle.

And astroturf carpet!  Cozy!

Did you just make the macarons out of boredom?

Yes.  Well, boredom and want for cookies.  I once baked a cake from scratch while blind drunk.  In a disposable turkey pan.  Fairly sober macarons are probably less weird than that.

Why did you guys start running?

See above how I make macarons because I can?  I wanted to see if I could.  And we needed things to do together that weren’t judging or drinking.

Plus, it’s good for our marriage.  Exercise gives you endorphins.  Endorphins make you happy.  And happy people just don’t kill their husbands.

What is Hobby Lobby?  Is it like Micheal’s?

Imagine the biggest Micheal’s you can.  Now add a fabric department and a whole lot of crosses.

I’m not kidding about the crosses.

How big is your freezer?

I have a side by side fridge/freezer.  It is organized and stuffed.

Top shelf is fruit and ice cream, then below the ice maker are leftovers frozen to be lunches for the husband, then veggies, stock plus meat and veggie overflow, and the bottom drawer is meat.  The door is fruit at the top, then mostly bread, and veggie scraps being saved for stock at the bottom

How is your pantry if your freezer looks like that?

Secret:  we don’t have a ton of storage space in our kitchen.  This is good as it makes me restrain myself from buying 18 bags of sour cream and cheddar ruffles when they go on sale.  So my “pantry” is this cupboard

plus part of what should be the linen closet

And then random things scattered other places (coffee is in a canister next to the coffee maker, popcorn lives above the spices, flour and sugar are in canisters on the counter, you get the idea)

How did you manage to burn yourself in an ice cream store?

We made waffle cones.  So there was ONE thing you could burn yourself with.  I did it!  I also fell over cutting a tub of ice cream once.  Grace.

You did Miss Spokane?

Oh heck yes friends.

How big is Takeout now?

Huge.  Not a baby cat.  I weighed her today.  People laugh, but here’s what I do:

Food scale + cookie sheet + treats.

It works.  And most of the time I remember to wash the cookie sheet after I do it.

 

If you have more questions ask (or email me!)

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go shower.

It’s been a few days.

You’ve Got Fail*

*someone found my blog googling that.  I’m kinda sad I didn’t think it up.  Ok, really sad.

I’ve been a slacker blogger lately.  I’ve been doing things like working on the yard and teaching children

and drinking.  Let’s be honest here.

Our yard is coming to life.

Which is fantastic.  Since we bought in the fall and it was a foreclosure what would pop up in the spring was a mystery.

The less fun mystery?  Turns out when it rains our yard becomes a swamp.

No, seriously.  We’re working on building a drainage ditch.  The hole isn’t too deep yet and check this out

Yup, it’s a moat!

Oh, and inside our house we’ve been having fun too.  Remember that leak?  Yeah, turns out it’s behind the shower.  Which means that we had to remove some of the tile

We could’ve paid the plumber for this part.  But doing it ourselves cost less.  And also required the fiance to buy a Dremel.

I’m fairly sure getting to buy the dremel was the main factor in him being excited to do it.  His favorite part of owning a home is power tools.

Because I’ve been working a ton, I’ve been going to town in weird weird ways for breakfasts on the days where I am home.

In the past two weeks I’ve made chocolate chip pancakes

(There are chocolate chips both in them and on top.  HEALTH FOOD)

An omelet

(This is actually a super weird breakfast for me.  I hate eggs most days.  But I cook ’em for the fiance’s breakfast sometimes and it just sounded so dang good…)

And yesterday I busted out all this

To make this

Salad.  For breakfast.

Normal eating?  You’ve got fail.

Does anyone else eat non breakfast foods for breakfast?  In high school one of my favorite breakfasts was rice with peas and Parmesan cheese.  Which isn’t weird at all.

We’re good with the wheel

So I’m totally on my lunch right now… but at my house cause I had a 2 hour lunch!  Score.

I was going to blog yesterday, but then I found this.

That weird lump?  On the downstairs bathroom ceiling.  FULL OF FRIGGIN WATER.  You have no idea how long I stared at it.  Then I popped it.  The hose that connects the dishwasher to the sink came lose the other day, and the kitchen sink flooded all over.  This is right below that, so I’m crossing my fingers that this was just weird residual stuff from that.

But seriously, WTF?

Being a homeowner is fun.

On a good news front, I made fantastic bread

I have no idea why I keep doing different bread recipes.  This one is one I used way back when I first started making bread, and it’s fantastic.  Sometimes  I need to remind myself that I don’t need to reinvent the wheel.  Wheels are pretty awesome as is. that’s what this bread is-it’s nothing fancy, but it’s good, tasty sandwich bread.

I used it to make an open faced tuna sandwich yesterday

And then I ate it while watching wayyy too much HGTV.  That channel is oddly addictive.

Allergies have been kicking our butts lately, so we got takeout last night (with a BOGO coupon!  Score!).  This is how my curry was packaged

It’s like a goldfish, but tastier!

I had my curry (no clue what it was-the fiance ordered) plus some pad thai

Ok, better get going back to school!  I’m teaching art today!

And guess who’s coming to Portland tonight?

Total giveaway hint:  I’m mapping out the closest Starbucks and Baskin Robbins for him….

Pie Day

Today, friends, is an important holiday.

Pie Day!

Not Pi day mind you, which is almost two months away.  And also a great time to eat pie.

We hit up Baker & Spice, where they were celebrating both pie day and their fifth birthday.

Turns out most of Hillsdale wanted to join us.

Really, who wouldn’t want to have a case like this to choose from?

And that was just the cold case… There was a whole ‘nother one of fruit pies and pastries.  Mmm.  Health food.

We braved the line and got a chicken pot pie

puff pastry?  Yes please!

And a chocolate cream pielette

Because if it’s miniature, it’s gotta be low cal.  Right? Right?

We also worked on our yard today.

I was working along the side of our front porch

AND HOLY CRAP I FOUND A WINDOW

This is under the far right side of the picture above.

Know where’s its not?  INSIDE.

Seriously-there’s no window there inside.  Crazy!

So that’s been my saturday-pie and crazy windows.  How’s yours going?