Houseworks Holiday Day 1

Posted on Aug 29, 2010 10:50:18 PM in Houseworks Holiday Plan 2010, cleaning, hearthcraft

Today I started the Houseworks Holiday Plan, which had me print out some pages for my Household Notebook – which I started last November and promptly buried under a sea of papers – and begin decluttering my ‘office’ and paperwork zones.

Now, I live in a 2 bedroom condo, and one of those bedrooms is my guest bedroom slash potential foster child bedroom. I don’t have an office. What I do have is a gigantic L shaped desk (except, less of a true L shape than half of an X) in the corner of my living room. Here resides three computers (only two have monitors at the moment), a printer, my Cricut Expression, and everything else known to man. Because it’s here that I live.

Some people live in their kitchen, and they sit at the counter and do bills and watch television, and eat dinner, and read books… I live at my desk. I come home, I sit there, I read there, I /eat/ there for god’s sake, I pay bills there, I do everything here. I don’t even sit on my own couch except like, twice a month. No joke.

So decluttering this zone? Not. Easy.

I had paperwork piled up as high as the monitors. I had dishes and garbage and a million elastic hair bands, and nails and screws (why?) and hard-as-a-rock buttermints, and two socks in progress, and oven mitts, and jewelry and dog bones and so on and so forth. I was drowning.

But I spent the day clearing and decluttering, and I wound up with an entire trashcan full of crap I don’t need, and found some things I need to mail, and generally made this area nicer to look at.

Go me.

It could still use some work, but I’ll save that for small bits later this week.

All in all? Magnificent success!

Three books and a plan!

Posted on Aug 27, 2010 11:09:52 PM in books, cleaning, hearthcraft, holidays, witchcraft

I had a $25 gift card to spend for Amazon, so I spent almost two days whittling down my options to get the most bang for my buck. I finally settled on spending $32, but $7 out of pocket for 3 books is a steal!

Today, I got the package, hidden cleverly under my porch chair so I didn’t even know it was THERE until I took the dog out tonight and he sniffed at it. Inside, three lovely books:

Exciting, eh? Crafting, witchery, and the last in a fantasy trilogy I’ve been dying to have. Not bad at all.

The fantasy, I hope to read this weekend. The embroidery book is for my upcoming christmas gifts – ladies beware, you’re getting embroidered crap linens and such things for Christmas. And the witchery book? Well, I’m always up for a good bit of witching, and this is a book I’ve been wanting for while now, about magic in the home. I tell you, I could use some of that.

I have this dangling charm meant to ward off evil in my house, and while there’s certainly been no evil stepping foot inside since it’s been hanging up (puppies and kitties aside…), what I really need is a charm warding off drama. Anyone know any of those?

I’ll keep searching.

In any case, I’m looking forward to the book because it’s got some good ideas on cleansing and purifying the energies in the home, which goes right along with my grand plan…

The Houseworks Holiday Plan! That’s right. I’m embarking on an 18 week (or so – I didn’t count!) plan to declutter, clean, and prep for my favorite holidays of the year – Solstice and Christmas. Solstice is my ‘spiritual’ holiday, and Christmas… well, I’ll be honest, it’s as secular as it gets for me, although I dig nativity sets like my dog digs his bone.

So there is is. Me and my books and a plan for the Holidaze. I’ll chronicle my successes and/or tumbling failures here for all to see. Aren’t you excited now?

Charity, a game, and twice-drawn cards

Posted on Aug 26, 2010 10:44:47 PM in daily life, tarot

Today I got out of bed at 5:45 so I could be at work at 7 for once. It was…. evil. Let’s just put it that way. A night-owl like me needs lots of carbs and caffeine to get through such early hours in the best of circumstances, let alone on a poor six hours of sleep.

But I managed, and the day went off without a hitch. I attended a special presentation for United Way – of which my employer is a huge sponsor of – during which I was reminded that September is our month of giving, during which we all get to renew the pledges we made last year to donate directly out of our piddly paychecks.

Maybe it’s because I work for this employer and their charitable ways are rubbing off on me, or maybe it’s because I’ve become more aware of the needs in our community, or maybe it’s just that I’ve grown more charitable in general, but I’ve decided to increase my pledge by a dollar each paycheck as they’re challenging us to. Uh, go me. A whopping $2 extra per month – which doesn’t seem like much on the surface. But you know, that adds up to an extra $50 a year. If you’d asked me to write a check for $50 right now and hand it over, I wouldn’t do it.

I feel that charity is important – but I also feel only a paycheck or two away from disaster myself. I think this is why giving is so hard for a lot of us. Most of us don’t have much spare cash in the bank, and the idea of writing a larger check now and then makes our bellies clench in fear and our pens quiver in our hands. Giving small, unnoticable amounts in our paychecks every two weeks is a fantastic way to give without feeling the pain. I urge anyone who has the option to do so. Even $1 a paycheck makes a difference to these charities. Nobody would miss a dollar.

In that light, our employer was most generous and planned for the lot of us to go to a minor leagues baseball game tonight, watching our home team, the Billings Mustangs, crush the Utah Ogden Raptors. This minor league is bizarre, though, I tell you – they’re playing the same team for 3 nights in a row. What is the point in THAT? We lost last night. Tonight we won. Tomorrow we… break the tie? I don’t get it.

In any case, it was the most boring game in the world. No joke. I’m not a sportsman, or a sporting fan, and I didn’t know right up until they announced this that we even HAD a minor league baseball team, or who the Mustangs were, so my opinion might be skewed, but… I didn’t see much interest in anyone else in the stands either except for like, two hits. Everything else was like: “Wait, what happened? Who’s winning? Eh? Eh….”

Seriously, I bet a little league game would’ve been more interesting! In fact, I know it would’ve. That’s sad, isn’t it? In any case, we got free admission and $10 in “Mustang Bucks”, which is a money substitute, which bought me a hot dog, cheesy curly fries, two bottles of water, and a giant pickle on a stick. Not bad! And as a bonus, I got to sit next to my friend’s little girl, who leaned over to me and whispered: “I farted!!”

Yep. Time of my life, man.

So I came home and drew a tarot card, because I was too beat to do so this morning. Again, I got the 7 of Cups. I’m sensing a theme here…. Perhaps I’d better pay attention, hmm?

Time flies…

Posted on Aug 23, 2010 01:16:23 AM in hearthcraft, tarot

Where did the summer go? Where did August go? Has it really been almost twenty days since I’ve posted here? What happened???

I’ve been busy this month, babysitting, and having my best girl come visit for almost an entire week. I’ve been to MontanaFair, which isn’t the Montana State Fair, but may as well be for how popular it is. I’ve spent too much money on food, and I’ve spent a lot of hours laughing. I’ve played a lot of fetch with my dog, and drank a lot of ice water to beat to summertime heat. I embroidered a dishtowel on my embroidery machine after buying a new ‘amazing box’ to write designs to, and I’ve bought the tarot deck I’ve been lusting after for nearly two years.

I’ve harvested a bunch of little tomatoes, even though they’re supposed to be large ones. (What the heck?) My tiny eggplant has at last flowered and has a single tiny fruit on it. My cucumbers have a single tiny cucumber on it. My bell pepper has a sickly looking pepper on it, too. And my pumpkins have flowered and flowered, but so far, no fruits in sight.

I’m afraid my garden this year is a massive bust. I think it was the soil, and my utter lack of experience with growing things in pots. (Well, that and my utter lack of experience in growing things, period.) Perhaps I should have fertilized more, or something.

I’m awaiting a house of my own, with enough land to plant entire packets of seeds. I’m awaiting a fenced yard for my puppy to run free in. I’m awaiting a house where I don’t have to worry about being quiet at 10pm.

Tonight, I drew the Seven of Cups from my new deck.

How fitting – a card about indulging in fantasies, and taking steps to bring them to life. There are so many choices in life, so many dreams – and only a limited amount of time. I want so many opposing things – the conveniences and pleasures of city life vs. the call of the countryside; the freedom of being single and unattached to anyone vs. my desire to become a mother – but sitting on the fence won’t get me anywhere. This card is a call to action, a subtle encouragement to follow one of those dreams to the end.

tarot image ©Stephanie Pui-Mun Law, Shadowscapes.com

Last night’s project…

Posted on Aug 8, 2010 12:54:04 PM in quilting, sewing

I made this last night. The fabric is from Joann’s: Fabric Central Neutral Mediterranean. I used one jelly roll and somewhat shy of a yard of the matching backing fabric, which comes with 20 strips. I just cut the strips in half, and sewed them together, directly onto the backing/batting, so it was quilted as I went. When I went to bind the quilt, I just used plain orange fabric from the solids section.

I’m very pleased! I’m still deciding on whether to keep it or give it away as I’d originally planned. Lucky for me, I have enough fabric left to make a second identical one, so I may get to keep it yet! We’ll see.

Ranch-Parmesan Chicken & Potatoes with Onions

Posted on Aug 2, 2010 08:54:35 AM in chicken, cooking, hearthcraft, main dishes, potatoes, recipes, side dishes

I bought some chicken last night – thin cut breasts at (gasp!) evil Walmart, and needed something to do with them. I was all set to make chicken Parmesan, but I lacked a crucial ingredient – mozzarella. So I fretted and muttered to myself, and finally dug up this recipe from Food.com.

Ranch-Parmesan Chicken Ingredients:

• Boneless, skinless chicken breasts (6)
• 1 cup panko, or dry breadcrumbs
• 1/4 – 1/2 cup parmesan cheese
• 1 tsp seasoning salt
• 1/2 – 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 1/2 – 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 cup bottled ranch dressing
• 1/4 cup melted butter

Notes: I used two chicken breasts, because I am one person. I did not quite measure my ingredients, being lazy, and likely under-seasoned them because I just shook on some seasoning instead of digging out the teaspoons. I still found the seasoning to be a bit much for the dish, considering you’re coating it in ranch to begin with. But maybe I’m just kind of a bland girl, or maybe thicker breasts would’ve made a difference here. Use your discretion.

Additionally, I don’t know how you would ever successfully coat 6 breasts with this amount of panko or ranch – I used close to a cup each and got two done. So again – use your discretion. It’s easy to make more.

1. Preheat over to 400, and set oven rack to lowest position.
2. Lightly grease a baking dish. Kittencal, the recipe’s creator, recommends a very large one, so the juices don’t accumulate and make the bottom soggy. (I used a large one, but flipped them over halfway through. Because I’m like that.)
3. Mix up panko (or breadcrumbs, if you don’t have any), cheese, and seasonings in a shallow dish.
4. Coat chicken in ranch dressing, then dredge in panko mixture. I like to really press down to get it to stick good and thick.
5. Place onto baking sheet and bake for 35-40 minutes. If you’re using thin cut breasts or pounding yours flatter, I’d recommend only baking for 20-25 minutes. That was perfect for mine! Again, I flipped mine halfway through, but you technically shouldn’t need to do this.

Roasted Potatoes and Onions Ingredients:

• 4-5 medium potatoes – any type will do
• 2-3 white fleshed sweet potatoes (see picture below)
• 1-2 giant sweet onions
• 1/4 – 1/2 cup butter
• salt & pepper (or any seasoning blend) to taste

Notes: When I make these, usually try to have an even(ish) mix of white fleshed sweet potatoes and regular potatoes. I have used all kinds of potatoes before, and while I’m always partial to reds and yukons, there’s no reason big ol’ russets won’t do – except you’ll obviously use less of them. For a treat, you can also add in orange fleshed sweet potatoes (yams in some circles). They’d taste great too!

These are lighter skinned, less stringy, and taste somewhat more like regular potatoes than the orange sweet potatoes.

Likewise, there’s no reason you can’t add other veggies (especially other root veggies) to the mix, if that’s the way you roll.

For seasoning, I use a blend called Alpine Touch, which is salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder (and MSG). Using an even blend of those spices is very nice in this dish.

1. Preheat over to 400. (I have baked these at 350 too… just might take a bit longer).
2. Cut up potatoes into large bite-sized chunks (skin on or skin off – your choice) and dump into 13×9 inch pan or large baking dish.
3. Slice onions into rings or half-rings. I prefer to slice my onions in vertically then lay each half flat and cut into slices. Makes nice half-moons of onion. Dump into pan with potatoes.
4. Mix potatoes and onions up some.
5. Plop butter on top in several places. (I probably use more butter than I say in this recipe.)
6. Season well.
7. Pop into the oven for 40-60 minutes, depending on how hot your oven is and how small your potatoes are. Stir at least twice to prevent sticking and to thoroughly coat potatoes in the butter mixture. Usually, I season again after one of the stirrings.

I took a walk….

Posted on Jul 28, 2010 08:47:40 AM in photography

And I found this magical doorway along the way.

A little weekend (in)activity…

Posted on Jul 27, 2010 09:21:49 AM in cleaning, crafts, dog, hearthcraft, home, organizing, quilting, sewing

Lately, you can just call me Lazy Sue. Or lazy Kate, I should say. Lazy Sue was the name of one of my chickens, back when I had them, and she was pretty lazy. Of course, she was blinded by her own feathers, and I have to say, that’d make me lazy too. It wasn’t like she had a seeing eye mouse or anything.

This weekend, I did very little of interest. I visited my aunt and uncle, and brought Bentley, who, at 5 and a half months, is still not the best potty trained dog in the world. Far, far from it. I understand small breeds are harder than others, but I have this nagging feeling that it’s not the dog… it’s the owner… But seriously, how many times (in an hour) can a sixteen pound puppy have to defacate?!

Just when you think it’s safe, it’s not. And he gives no cues that he wants to go outside. None. Because, honestly, he doesn’t want to go outside. He just wants to do it on my floor. That’s good enough for him.

See that innocent face? I didn’t know, man… I didn’t know there was something wrong with pooping on the kitchen floor behind the dining table. Really, it’s not my fault. And it’s hot outside. A hundred degrees. Can you do your business in a hundred degree heat? I didn’t think so.

Yeah. Not so innocent.

So he pooped on my aunt’s carpet, and it was… not pleasant. I’ll spare you the details, but it involved more scrubbing than it should’ve, let me put it that way.

In other news, I put the dog in his kennel and finally got my new (to me) Koala sewing cabinet set up.

The sewing machine can be pushed down into the cabinet, and the door can swing closed, and the table on the left will swing over on top, making a neat little package. But of course, you’re rarely likely to see such a neat little package in my house. Though I guess you never know. Maybe I’ll tidy up for company some day? Behind that open door and under the tabletop is more craft supplies. It’s perfect!

Thank you Mother! I love this thing! Now, I just need to get a cushion for this chair.

I also got some sewing and sorting done on my quilt. Unfortunately, I sewed my block up all wrong, so now I have to create another one. (Because ripping seams out? Not my thing. Not my thing at all. If I can avoid it – and thankfully in this case, I can – I will.) So here’s my strips laid out:

Once this block is sewn correctly, I will have all of the blue blocks done, and I’ll just have to get the four pink ones done! Maybe I’ll get the blue one done tonight. We’ll see where my motivation takes me.

Speaking of a motivation, and neatness… or, in this case, the complete lack of both… look at this mess in my living room:

This has been there for TWO WEEKS. Granted, I have tried to stack the magazines a couple times, but the beasts, they just mess it up again. Don’t you love how there’s a mop sagging against the wall, and some spray cleaner sitting nearby? It’s been there for a while, too. Crying, no doubt, because that spray cleaner has not touched that table except to sit on it like that in over a month.

Shame on me. Maybe now that I’ve posted this for the world to see, I’ll actually go through those magazines and tidy up, eh?

Maybe.

By the way, in case anyone was wondering, the spray cleaner I prefer is Method All Purpose. That’s the right bottle, wrong cleaner. I ran out, and I mixed up some Clorox Greenworks all purpose dilutable (why does my spell check think that isn’t a word?!) stuff in the bottle.

Yeah, I know you were all totally wondering what a slob like me uses for spray cleaner. But I didn’t want anyone who recognized the bottle to be mislead. Right. That’s it.

Tonkatsu & Rice: Yum Yum!

Posted on Jul 21, 2010 11:42:11 PM in cooking, japanese, main dishes, pork, recipes

One of my favorite meals ever is Japanese Tonkatsu. Straight from Japan. (Photo not mine.)

Well, almost. That’s where I fell in love with it, anyway. I spent almost 6 weeks in Japan back in 2003 or so, and it was 6 of the most wonderful weeks of my life. Then I came back, and promptly searched for a good tonkatsu recipe. It took several tries. But I finally hit upon a winner, and I’ll share that with you now!

Ingredients:

• Pork chops – to do it ‘right’ you buy regular ones and pound them thin, but I find it easier and less hassle to just buy thin cut chops
• Flour – about a cup
• A couple (2-3) eggs
• Panko breadcrumbs – they really do have to be panko. It’s not hard to find anymore even in my midwestern town. Progresso makes some, even!
• Lots of oil for frying
• Tonkatsu Sauce – from an asian market. I prefer Bulldog brand, but that’s just me – any brand labeled tonkatsu sauce will work! (Also, you can bastardize some sauce combining ketchup, bbq sauce, and soy sauce… or look up a recipe online for something more authentic.)
• Hot cooked rice – preferably medium grain Japanese rice like Calrose.

To start with, if you didn’t buy thin cut chops, start pounding your regular chops thin, to about a half inch, maybe a little less. Otherwise, heat up some oil. Technically, these are supposed to be deep fried, so if you have a deep fryer, by all means, get it going. Otherwise, cheat like I do and pour a good inch of oil into a big pan and heat it up. I usually heat somewhere between medium and medium-high – but this can vary between stoves.

I always do a ‘bread test’ to see if the oil is hot enough. I tear off a small hunk of sandwich bread and gently drop it into the oil. If it doesn’t sizzle, or only sizzles a tiny bit, it’s not ready. You want a good healthy sizzle that’s obviously cracklin’ along, but that doesn’t try to put your eye out with flying splatters. If it splatters on you, it’s too hot.

While the oil heats, I like to start the rice. If you have a ricemaker, get it out! If you don’t (or it’s sitting there still crusty from the last time you used it a week ago, and you’ve been a lazy witch and haven’t cleaned it…) just follow the instructions on your bag of rice. I recommend rinsing the rice in cold water several times until it runs somewhat clear. Measure out the rice, then the water, and pop it on the stove on high. As soon as it starts to boil, pop a lid on it and turn it to low. It usually takes about 20 minutes, and when it’s about done, the rice in the pot will have formed steam holes all over.

Back to the tonkatsu.

1. While the oil is heating, and after you’ve either unwrapped your perfectly thin cut pork chops, or have pounded the smithereens out of your fat ones, pour your flour into one bowl, beat your eggs into a second bowl, and dump a bunch of panko into the third bowl. Flour. Eggs. Panko. That’s the order we want. Prepare a separate plate for our beauties to rest upon after their dip in the panko.
2. Dredge the chops first into the flour, coating thoroughly…
3. Then into the eggs…
4. Then finally, into the panko. Press panko all over it to make it stick and coat it really well. But try not to crush the crumbs too much.
5. Then set the chops aside to rest while you prepare all the rest and slap a lid on your rice and do the bread test in your oil or whatever.
6. (Also? Eat that deep fried bread piece when it’s all brown and toasty. It’s yummy.)
7. Then add the breaded pork cutlets to the hot oil. In my giant 14″ pan, I usually do 3 at a time. You want lots of room around them so it cooks properly.
8. Fry until golden brown. Thin cut chops, at the right temp, typically take 3-5 minutes per side if you’re doing them in a pan. If you’re deep frying, it should only take a few minutes total. I always cut into the first chop I remove to make sure it’s cooked through.
9. Serve with hot white rice and tonkatsu sauce. To be truly authentic, slice cutlets as shown in the photo, and drizzle with sauce.

The Sims 3: a giant time warp…

Posted on Jul 3, 2010 10:51:48 PM in hearthcraft, home, randomness

The other day, I bought The Sims 3. I haven’t played The Sims since… well, The Sims so I missed all the Sims 2 aging stuff and better graphics and all that. The Sims 3 is basically a hundred billion times better than the original – and I wasted many many hours on that game back in college.

On the original game, I spent most of my time building houses, and very little playing my sims. In The Sims 3, however, I find myself spending most of my time playing my sims, just because of the range of actions they have in this installment. It’s much more fun – though I can’t put my finger on why…

Basically, the sims are people. And they do… people things. They get up. They shower. They pee. They eat. They bitch and moan. They work. They go to school. They skip work, or sleep in class, or get woken up in the middle of the night by a screaming baby. They play with toys. They fish. They build relationships.

It’d sure be nice if I did all the things my sims did. Like, they do dishes. Mine pile up. They mop. I wear shoes to avoid sticky floors… Worse, I’m making them do all these things while I don’t. Isn’t that sad? Instead of doing my own dishes, I click a button and say: “Sim! You do dishes!” And they do. And mine sit there. Funking up.

It says something about me, that my sims are neurotic neat freaks and I make them clean their house, while I’m lucky to break out the mop twice a month.

Something bad.