Happy stove!!
That is chili in the crockpot, and veal stock reducing in my other pan. Yay!
The chili was for dinner tonight. Hey, it's football season! Gotta have chili!!! The veal stock is the correctly executed brown veal stock from the French Laundry cookbook. I remembered the tomato paste this time... and boy was this a different animal. Much more complex. The other one I made seemed more like a really good chicken broth (which is kinda how hubby described it). This one has a bit more body and I can really see doing some nice pan sauce for beef with this one in the near future.
It was a Sunday for staying in... rainy and many flooded out streets around here. The Chicago area actually got more rain on Saturday than any other one day total. I know those down in the gulf coast are dealing with an entirely different thing, but this meant some headaches to us.
We got off pretty easy. A little leaking in the basement, no more than usual and not as bad as we have had to deal with at other times in the past. Some others we know... not so lucky.
My cousin (who is married to the hubby's ex-college roommate - it's a long story about how their hookup happened, but we had no involvement in setting them up, but they are great together) lives right next to a creek, and their basement was getting water. Looked like it was going to threaten her hubby's comic book collection, but he managed to get everything up higher just before more water came in. My brother in law and sister in law didn't get anything in their basement, but my sis in law went to check on her parent's house (they were out of town) and they got some water in their basement due to a water-filled window well. The hubby's aunt got some water in her basement, also due to a water-filled window well. When we ventured out yesterday, we turned in to a parking-lot-turned-lake and I was thankful we were in the truck and NOT either the Cougar or Camero or we'd have gotten water in the car.
The other big thing happening 'round these parts is some house desconstruction. Yes, we are FINALLY getting to the upstairs bathroom. It seriously needs a non-hidiously colored coat of paint, and we wanted to put in an new vanity (other one is all covered with paint from previous owner's attempts to paint..... I don't think they knew what painters tape was even though the dude worked for a house builder), and some new fixtures. Now, if I have a fixer upper task I like to approach it kinda like meal planning for the week... figure out a menu/what needs to be done, make a shopping list, do the shopping, then start when you think you have everything. The hubby? Nope. Jump in and start the deconstruction and..... oh. Uh-oh.
The uh-oh right now is that we have a 36 inch vanity crammed into the space for the sink/vanity. And the sink top is also 36 inches. They don't make off-the-shelf vanity tops that are 36 inches, they're all designed to have some overhang. No biggie... we came from Vegas with money, were all ready to go about just getting some countertop granite put there... then looked under the sink. From what I can guess, the upstairs bath was designed to offere the upgrade option of his & hers sinks (removing the stupid ass linen closet) that the original owner did not go for. The connections to the water line don't come from the back wall, they come outta the right wall. PROBLEM. You basically have to cut out a section of vanity and slide it in so you can connect to the water lines. And, well, biggest problem is that all the off-the-shelf vanities have drawers on that side. No 36 inch vanities that are just doors or whatever.
So, even though I was all happy that the hubby said "do what you want!" with the bathroom, it is not going to be that. We suspect they tiled around the vanity but there is some extra tile in the basement (or, seriously, we could just go Menards and say "point us to the cheapest 12 inch tile, and it would be this stuff) so we may just pull out the vanity, lay down a little more tile, and put in a 30 inch vanity. Yeah, there will be a gap and some exposed pipe... but we don't have many options right now. :( Stupid builders. Stupid first owner, for not going for the his & hers sinks! I'd frigging love that, but that is a task beyond what we're willing to do on our own. I understand the hubby's point.... it's not like we're going to be here forever, we're just trying to fix this place up a bit. Seriously... when we moved here... if they'd have done something as simple as painting the living/dining area white (rather than the ugly blue-grey that it was) we'd have thought this place was outta our price range. It was UGLY before we threw up some paint, and I never saw paint make such a difference.
So, no dream bathroom in my future. But as long as the horrid blue is gone, I'll be happier.
And, we've had a fly in the house pretty much since we got back from Vegas. And I FINALLY just killed it. I am Queen of the World right now.
No comments:
Post a Comment