it's a metaphor

the sea, the sun & my moon

i am sitting here adrift in the sea
sometime there are waves crashing down and i think i may drown
     sometimes i don't fight it and i wish the sea would take me
     sometimes i try to fight back which usually just leads me dripping wet and tired
     but most times i just hold on.. knowing...
that i have a beautiful friend, the sun
     she has a beautiful blond almost white light.
     she shows me that there is light even though it seems so far away at times
     she helps me want to hold on
     she tells me i am strong
     she is beautiful and i would be lost without her
sometimes the sea is dead still and i move neither forward or backward
     it makes me feel lost
     i try to push myself forward but i go nowhere
     sometimes i lay there and cry and ask why..
         i try so hard, i push, i paddle, i wear myself out trying but yet i go nowhere
         i don't understand
     but i know there is someone i can count on..
my rock, my moon
     he is my strength when i have none
     he follows me wherever i go watching over me
     he quietly helps me carry my burdens
     seeing him i know i will be alright.  he will always be there
at times the wind pushes me in directions i don't want to go
and at other times there is a soft breeze at my back pushing me slowly forward
on soft waves that rock me and make me feel content

a few random thoughts for the end of the year

- i miss working in the same company/office as my big brother.
- it's been 10 years.. but i still miss my dad as much as i did 9 years ago.
- even though it seems rather impossible i do love my husband more every day.
- to steal a quote from my friend terra: i am thankful for friends that are family and family that are friends
- though the past couple months of this year have been both beautiful and painful, i come out of it with a smile and more hope and belief than years past.
- i like writing cryptic sentences..
- there were so many times i wanted to blog about something very specific that i was going through at that moment and didn't.. i wish i had.. maybe i still will.. new goal; Write More!
- i wish i could work part-time and then volunteer with animal rescue or animal shelters
- while i do like all the owl shirts and jewelry..  i'd prefer sloths
- i love my momma so much
- i hope to be a better friend in the new year
- being positive about life and work and friends has been hard the past few months.. going to strive to be more positive and supportive.. if i'm not please slap some sense into me!

to my friends that are my family and to my beautiful family that are my best friends
stay safe, wear your seatbelts, slow down and enjoy life and above all know this..

I love you all.

Here's to a better and "productive" new year!!!
(and by "productive" i mean babies..  and by babies i mean i want a baby! wish me luck ya'll, we need it!!)

dH Cakes

i opened a tumblr account.. !
I will be posting pics and such about my baking over there.
There is a quick link at the top of my blog to take you there.

or.. just go here:  dHCakes

you should eat this

I made this soup:

Acorn Squash & Sweet Potato Soup

And so should you.. it was fantastic..


i made only a slight change.. 


Omit the 1 tablespoon of oil
Instead chop up a couple pieces of bacon.  
Cook in pot.
Remove cooked bacon, drain on paper towels.
Then add onion and curry to the bacon grease and follow the rest of the directions.


After it was done I added a dollop of creme fraiche, a little extra salt and pepper and a small bit of the cooked bacon (which I crushed in my hand first)


Soooooo goooood!


Try it.. you won't be disappointed.
(or.. you know.. follow the recipe as it's written.. i'm sure it is delish even without bacon)

A little afternoon sun at work

< demo > complete < /demo >

we finished taking down the walls!  demo is complete!



Here is eric preparing to take down the last of the remaining wall..



not exactly sure what we were listening to.. but apparently it had some awesome air guitar





As we were taking down the last bit we found another relic on the wall..



Perhaps this one isn't as old as the other...  :)

Here we go!





And it's done!!







HI RUDY!


Now we need to do some electrical work as we need to add a couple of outlets.

I will also be calling about some windows for the room.

And then there is this...



Not sure what this is from.. but i will need to call a plumber to have them check it out and see if it can be cut and put back together below the floor.

after admiring our work.. if you stand in the corner by the two outside walls and look down it feels like you are standing on a floating floor..



Just a bit freaky....

maybe i'm weird.. but lathe & plaster can be pretty at times..



we got all this done on saturday.. sunday we worked on cleaning up the dust trail from carrying all the mess out of the house.   It was such a beautiful day so we also spent some time with erics lovely mom and jerry and had funhouse pizza for dinner.  This evening eric and I and all 5 of our pet kids climbed onto the couch and watched a couple of episodes of Dr. Who.. wish i had a picture of that.  Eric, me, 2 dogs & 3 cats on the couch.  This weekend was a success.

once we get more done on the room i'll give you an update!

now off to bed for me and the fam..

signing off..   -d

Annihilation

We were in demo mode again tonight.  However tonight we started on the real messy stuff.. Lathe & Plaster.  Otherwise known as dusty.as.shit.and.a.pain.in.my.ass.

But i think it went well.  It really isn't all that hard to take down and Eric can take down large sections of the walls really fast.. but i can't clean it up faster then he can take it down. So i gave up and left a mess for this weekend when we can bring the lawnmower with the trailer to haul down to the dumpster.

Some photos of the progress...

Assessing the job at hand..  otherwise known as taking a break


Eric Smash!


The mess


Where we left it for the night


rubble..


I mentioned in the last post about the ceiling being wallpapered.. but what i didn't mention was the weird placement of the light fixture in there..


Never mind the wires hanging from the ceiling.. i think that went to the motion sensors that used to be in the living room directly beneath the room.  We didn't use them (we have cats and dogs) so we removed them from downstairs but never took the awkward wiring out from this room.

At this point i think i'm going to leave the ceiling in place and i might just leave the electrical in the ceiling where it is too.  I have a chandelier i am putting in this room so i might just do the decorative chain/cord and hook in order to get the light in the middle of the room.  Only time will tell.

We got the most part of 1 1/2 walls done.  We should have the room completely gutted by this weekend!!  And we can thank tonights fast work of ripping down the walls to THE ANNIHILATOR by Dead on Tools.



This tool is pretty awesome..
And it has a skull on it!  So you know.. that makes it work better.



Your parting gift for this evening isn't a picture of one of my pets.. but of my fantastic face:



Hot!

meaning it's time to go take a Hot! shower and go the heck to bed.
over and out...

Demolition (wo)Man!

Here we go again!  Another project to add to the list.. 

Remember that front porch project?

  You can read about it here:  Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3.

umm.. yeah.. that still isn't done..

I never even wrote about the bathroom!  Which we have mostly done but the front of the tub is still unfinished.. window needs to be painted, along with the shelving unit and doors.  Not to mention we already have repairs that need to be done..  faucet needs replacing already and breaker blew on the light fixtures above the sink.. Oh Joy!

Anyway.. i can spend all day listing all the stuff that we have and have not started yet.. but i'm not going to as that makes my head and my wallet hurt.

What i do want to talk about is the little bedroom off the office.  I call it the dressing room.

This room will become a very large closet!  I'm super excited about it as we have a 4 bedroom house 1 1/2 bath, eat in kitchen, formal dining room (we use as a library), living room and entry way and 2... wait... lets do that again..  ONE.. TWO.. closets!!  

One in the office which is for Erics stuff.. 

The other in the room we are currently using as our bedroom which we use for our clothes and other storage.  I have a rubbermaid tub with my shoes in it.. not fun finding shoes when you are in a hurry which is me 99.999% of the time.

So we are now working on the Spare Oom..  (tell me you got that reference?) (wait.. who am i talking to.. does anyone read this blog??   .....   ..)

Isn't she lovely

a little passive agressive are we?  

An old relic from the days when Eric's family lived here.  His uncle wrote that on the wall.

Can you see the light?  that is the front porch you can see through that hole.

So tonight we began working on it.  I took one wall down to the studs and Eric removed the molding around the windows.  The wall i worked on tonight was particle board which was easy to remove.  The other three walls are lathe and plaster.. it's gonna get messy!

After looking at the windows once the molding was removed I think i'm going to look into vinyl windows.  Yeah they won't match the rest of the house.. but i figure one room at a time is better than leaving these since i can't afford to do them all at once!

If you look closely at the window you can see the old pulley mechanism.

Isn't the wallpaper devine!  What you probably can't tell by these photos is that the ceiling is papered also.  We haven't decided if we are taking the ceiling down yet.  only time will tell.

The list for tomorrow is removal of the trash we now have all over the floor.. or i should say.. figuring out how we are going to remove all this down our steep narrow stairs.  

Fortunately we rented a dumpster for Erics rental 2 houses down so we have a place to put this trash but getting it there might be an adventure on it's own.

Then we work on the lathe & plaster walls!

I'll try and keep you posted on the progress!

On a side note..   I still need to write a post about T & B's wedding cake that i made!  I'm pretty darn proud of myself for that one so i'll try and get something done soon.  

Also.. apparently it's time to upgrade my flickr account to pro..  granted it's not really expensive but i was hoping to wait it out a bit longer.. no such luck.  

One more pic for the road:

Happy Birthday to my sweet little girl.  She turned 12 today!

I think she's not interested...

losing hope

i'm losing hope with this.

every time i turn around something else happens that makes me feel like i'm constantly walking backwards away from my goal.. not toward it.

insurance - won't pay
bad count - sad day
insurance - can't get what i need when i need it
dr. office - wrong info
dr. office - not enough info
myself - just not working right..

i'm beginning to wonder if all this misery is worth it.. the pain, the money, the crying, the constant 2 steps forward 15 steps backward.  of course it will be if the goal is reached.. but there is no way to determine how long it will take.  there is no mile markers to show i'm closer.. i'm in the dark and will continue to be until it just happens.. if it happens.

how much more can i take before i just throw my hands up and say screw it.  i'm done.


today i'm just pissed and angry and wants to just be at home.

Go Big and Eat Doughnuts!

You've heard the saying "Go big or go home".. well that seems to be my motto for a few things..
Well mostly tattoos and baking/cooking.. and now frying.

Recently my good great most wonderful friend Terra (she has a blog.. ahoy!.. i like her and i like her blog.. you should check it out) had a birthday.  On this occasion a few of her close friends (what.. something like 20.. maybe 30 people.. maybe more.. she is a pretty awesome person to have that many close friends) threw her a birthday party.  It was my job to make her birthday dessert. With a quick chat with our mutual friend Nick it was decided that doughnuts would be a fantastic idea....

.. well i've never made doughnuts before...

But I HAD recently seen a post by Joy the Baker about them.. and i figured sure.. why not give it a go.

Next was deciding on what flavors and how many to make..

I came up with 4 different flavors..
Cinnamon doughnuts with a dark chocolate and cinnamon frosting
Caramel with sea salt
Classic Glazed
and a Baked Strawberry Doughnut with a Strawberry icing.

It was decided to make 1 dozen of each..  easy right!.. right?

So off i went.. looked up all my ingredients.. purchased what i didn't have at home and me and my friend Shaun got to making doughnuts the night before the party!!

Make dough, let it rise, roll out dough, cut out doughnuts, let them rise, fry, glaze or ice, done!
Easypeasey!.. well it really isn't too hard other than all the space making 4 dozen doughnuts takes up and the frying.. and well if you read the directions all the way through before starting that is..  <--  that last bit is crucial!

Look at me!  Making Doughnuts!


Me placing my freshly cut out doughnuts on my silpat lined baking sheet to rise...


or so i thought..  see here is where i made a crucial mistake.. If i had read the instructions fully.. I would have seen the part about placing the doughnuts on a lightly floured tray and to make sure i give the doughnuts plenty of space between each other cause they will spread when rising.  oops
You will notice that the tray above is neither lightly floured nor are the doughnuts spaced out enough..
I made 3 dozen doughnuts, let them rise.. and then failed miserably at trying to remove them from the tray.  They were completely stuck together and to the silpat.  I got 1 dozen off and into the fryer.. thankfully there are no pictures of those.. they turned out completely flat.. like really tasty frisbees.  I had to start over but it was so late in the night that i decided that i would make the dough and let it rise overnight in the fridge and start again in the morning.

The following morning i woke up bright and early thinking of the doughnuts.. must make doughnuts.  I believe i was up around 7 and pulled the dough out of the fridge to warm up a bit and turn on the oven and got the oil warming up.  I waited about an hour and a half before i started again.. very carefully cutting them out and placing them on a Lightly Floured baking tray letting them rise in a slightly warmed oven then my other good great wonderful friend Shaun showed back up at my house just in time to fry.

The next morning.. notice the now floured tray!


frying to a lovely golden brown


making the caramel sauce


The Cinnamon doughnuts with a dark chocolate & cinnamon frosting


The Caramel with Sea Salt..

You will notice they aren't perfect.. picking up soft dough is nearly impossible.

But the more i fried the better i got..

The beautiful.. and i must say my favorite doughnuts of them all..
Classic Glazed.. These were FANTASTIC.. if i do say so myself.


I don't have any pictures of the Strawberry doughnuts.. but the recipe that i used can be found at a lovely site called Salad-in-a-Jar.  Just picture my doughnuts looking like those.. or close to it anyway.

All the doughnut holes we tossed in cinnamon and sugar and i packaged it all up in boxes..  which i couldn't resist stamping with an "H".. the initial of my last name.  I think it turned out pretty awesome.


We ended up with 5 dozen doughnuts and LOTS of doughnut holes..


They were a hit at the party.  I put a candle in one and presented it to Terra as we all sang happy birthday to her.  Then i stood back and smiled as i saw everyone eating my doughnuts with big smiles and them all telling me how great they were..   It was totally worth it.. to stay up till the wee hours of the morning after messing up 3 batches of dough and then to get up early in the morning and try all over again.  Great Success!  I'd do it all again in a heartbeat.. but this time I will lightly flour all the trays!

I think Odin is upset he didn't get a doughnut..


Oh.. and a HUGE, GREAT BIG THANKS to Shaun. She was on icing/frosting duty and if it wasn't for her my kitchen would have been in ruins..  You are the best!

Day 3: Front Porch Project

Well it has been a long time since we have been able to work on the Front Porch Project.  Last time we worked on it was in November!  Way too long!
You can see day 1 here and day 2 here.

Here it is almost 7 months later are we are only now just getting back to it.  We have had many excuses to not be working on it.. I say excuses because it's mostly because we are lazy and haven't done it.. but other reasons include the weather and money.. but really.. we were just lazy.  So now we are getting back to it and our goal is to have it done soon so that we can actually enjoy it this summer/fall.   Let's hope we can pull it off!

So back to it.. This weekend we worked on fixing the roof line.  It had fallen/sagged/drooped.. a few inches on the right side of the peak.
You can kind of see it here


Here it is from the outside


The roof line on the right side dropped about almost 4 inches..

Now i don't have any pictures of the process of jacking it back into place as it was a bit nerve-racking.

We used a 2x6 and a 2x4 screwed together to reach the top of the peak to about 5 inches above the floor.  We then placed a car jack under the boards and slowly jacked up the roof line.  Eric then secured the right side of the roof up with more screws and then i placed the 2x4 which you see below under the right  side of the peak.  We then released the jack and removed the long board and i then screwed in the new 2x4 to help hold the roof line up in place.





You can really see the difference in that last picture.

I had really hoped for rain on Sunday to see if we had any leaking. You would figure the one time I really want rain and it doesn't. A day or two before we had an 80% chance.. well.. i'll just have to wait.

We did buy some roofing caulk and as soon as I can I will climb up on the roof and put new caulking along the edge where the roof meets the house and hopefully seal it up real tight.

Next we need to bring in a header to go along the top of the brick wall and we are thinking we will add another board at the peak to make it a bit stronger. Then we will replace some of the joists and add a few more to support the new ceiling.

Previously:
$7 (spray paint)

adding:
$39 New battery for the cordless drill
$12 Caulking

Total: $58

Hopefully I'll have more to update you on sooner rather than later!

I'll leave you with a picture of my Poe dog.. he'll be turning 1 soon!!