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!