Stupid Cats

... somebody dumped a glass of water into my laptop. when i discovered the damp carpet next to my computer, i turned on the laptop and all seemed to be fine .... however the next morning was another story....
stupid cats. they are lucky they are so damn cute. and one of them is very lucky i don't know who to blame.

The Front Door Saga Continues

This is what the front door to our house has looked like since we have moved in (in JANUARY!).



Yes the barricade was already in place, we didn't do that! When Andy tried to change out the locks right after we moved in, we discovered the old door was not very secure, had probably been kicked in at some time in it's past, and new locks weren't going to make much of a difference.

Since we were still making two mortgage payments, we decided to wait until the old house sold before investing in a new door. That finally happened in June .... so we had sucessfully avoided this front door issue until then .....

Andy and I pretty much agreed on the style of door we wanted .... fast forward through more time and space .... we finally got some quotes .... cool, let's double check the size of the opening we are going to fill with this new door ....

o.O

Rough opening too small for any of the standard 36 inch door with sidelights that we had picked out ..... fast forward through more time and space .... we were back at square one .... and busy with life .... frustrated with the door ... but have happily been coming and going through the garage for how many months now?!?

We finally ended up going with a custom door from Simpson which we ordered through Home Depot. We finally got the thing ordered in Sept ..... custom door = 6+ weeks for delivery .... that is delivery to Home Depot ..... then we had to find a dry Saturday in October to go collect it .....

Simpson wanted another $1000 to finish the door, so we ordered it unfinished. For a thousand bucks, I can figure out how to stain and finish the door.


I finally started working on the sanding, staining, sealing this week. It's really not been difficult or challenging work ..... it's just sort of a timing nightmare of do one side let it dry, flip it over, do the second side, let it dry .... blah blah blah

here's the door, side one, which has been sanded, pre-conditioned, stained, allowed to dry, then sealed, allowed to dry 4-6 hours, then sealed again .....


Now this has to dry for 24+ hours ..... then repeat sealing on side 2 .....

ah, yes, when the "door itself" is done, i get to repeat all of this on the frame containing the 2 sidelights .....

then we'll have to figure out how to install it .....
maybe some day, i'll be able to let company in the front door.

gluten free!

i've been eating gluten free for several months now. i still have much to learn, but i'm getting more brave in my gluten free cooking. i've also been trying to eat more of the in-season harvest, which this time of year has been more squash and pumpkins. :)

i baked 2 sugar pumpkins last week. the first one was my inspiration to make a Three Sisters Stew.
http://www.care2.com/greenliving/three-sisters-stew-recipe.html
i didn't have pinto beans in the pantry and used 1 can of black beans and 1 can of a 3 bean mix. and i used the can of diced green chiles.
i wasn't overly impressed with it the night i made it, but the leftovers were incredible! the 1-2 hours of rest time suggested just wasn't enough to let all the flavors do all their flavor things.

the second pumpkin was converted to cookies!!



i modified a squash cookie recipe that i had loved last fall. i used bob's red mill gluten free baking mix. actually the whole measuring process became a nightmare of a math test covering fractions. my recipe called for 1.5 cups of squash and i had 2.5 cups of pumpkin i wanted to use .....
i most certainly would have flunked the math test, but the cookies turned out awesome! i added dried blueberries, dried cranberries and white chocolate chips. they have almost a muffin top texture. mmmmmm!

hide and seek!

no one will ever find me under here!

Link has never been the sharpest crayon in the box, but what he lacks in brains, he makes up for in looks....such a pretty kitty ....

Happy (belated) Halloween!

This is the first pumpkin i really remember carving myself. i remember painting pumpkins as a kid, but i couldn't pull back any memories of actual carvings.... so we deceided we needed to carve pumpkins this weekend. so i started out nice and simple. :)



Lynn and I were designated as pumpkin gutters. Look at us smile as we do the dirty work! :)



Andy carved a tractor!

Tia's bicycle pumpkin, Lynn's cat pumpkin, and Barbara was the only one who could create a normal pumpkin.

pumpkins all lit up!

Welcome to the Family!

Meet Murray!
We adopted him in October. Murray is 14, which is like an insane 72 in cat years. I hope i'm as flexible, playful, witty, and lovey when i'm 72. (yes, this makes 5 cats. but i'm not a crazy cat lady!)