The Eyes Don't Have It: Fly on the Wall

 

Welcome to our monthly Fly on the Wall, a blog post written in snippets. Marcia, Diane, and I invite you to catch a glimpse of what you’d see if you were a fly on the wall in our homes, at our writing desks, and in our worlds. Come on in, buzz around, see what we've been up to. Bet you laugh! 

We were watching the Red Sox, who have a pitching issue. Again, this year.

They were ahead by 2 runs, but given the pitching later in the game, that's just not enough. But they broke the game open in the 4th inning, and were ahead by six runs.

Hubs: Well that's better, now we have enough runs to not have to worry about the pitching.

Me: Yeah, don't put all your chickens in a hatch.

Hubs? What?

Me: You know what I mean.

Hubs: I know what you mean, but do you know what you said?

Sorta.

 

OMG sometimes I really worry about . . . well . . . me.

I knew the Sox were playing at 5:40, so I planned dinner for 5:30. 

I finish cooking and call Hubs up from the man cave.

Hubs: Why are we eating so early?

Me: The Sox are on at 5:40.

Hubs: Yeah, and . . .

Me: And what?
Hubs: It doesn't take us over an hour to eat, why are we eating at 4:30.

I looked at the clock on the microwave and yes, it's 4:30.

So, I went to the microwave (that has a clock) to set the timer for when I wanted to start dinner. I shut the microwave (that has a clock) timer off and started preheating the lower oven (that has a clock) and the upper oven (that has a clock). I set the timer on the microwave (that has a clock) for when I have to flip the food. I shut the microwave (that has a clock) timer off, took the food out of the lower oven (that has a clock), flipped the food, stuck it back in the oven (that has a clock), reset the microwave (that has a clock) timer for when the food would be done. When it was done, I shut the microwave (that has a clock) timer off, and took the food out of both ovens (that, has a clock).

That's quite a few chances I had to . . . you know . . . look at a clock.

And yes, my glasses were on.

Me: I think the Sox game is in a rain delay.

Hubs: Why do you think that?
Me: It's supposed to start in 2 minutes and they haven't switched to the game.

Hubs (squinting at the TV from the kitchen: They don't have the tarps out on the field.

Me: How do you know?
Hubs (pointing to the TV): I don't see it on the ground. Me: That's because you're looking at the studio.

And who needs his eyes checked now?

Sitting on the couch watching TV with Hubs:

Me: Oh, look at that, it's clear

Hubs (turns to look at me): What's clear?
Me: Everything.

Hubs: Everything? You're going to have to give me more information. 

Me: I was squinting at the TV, but I just put my glasses on and now it's clear. Everything.

Hubs: Well, there you go!

So, maybe both of us?

Back when PurDude had first moved into his house and his furniture hadn't arrived yet, I moved a lot of furniture, rugs, lights, and accessories from our house to his. I set up both bathrooms and his guest bedroom for him, moved a lamp into his sunroom and a small table and stools into his kitchen. I also put some leftovers in his freezer, and put a few things like peanut butter in his pantry and bread, bagels and butter in his fridge. He'd be able to live there comfortably until the movers brought his furniture.

His first day living there, he had come to dinner and mentioned that he wasn't eating the bagels yet (Aldi Maple French Toast bagels, btw, delish!) because he didn't have a toaster oven. I gave him ours out of our pantry, as we now have an air fryer and don't need it.

As he was walking out the door:

Me (speaking softly to Hubs): Quick, can you think of any more stuff we want to get rid of?
PurDude (from the door): I hear you!

Oops.

A few weeks later we were at his house helping him out as the movers delivered his furniture.

PurDude (holding my toaster oven): Thanks mom, I don't need this any more.

Me (moving backwards away from him): Sorry, no givsies backsies!

Chocolate Raspberry Swirl Donuts

After PurDude had moved in, but before his furniture came, we had one last worker coming in. PurDude would be there to let him in, but not necessarily be there when he left.

The doors in his house have 2 locks, an original on the doorknob, and a deadlock PurDude put above it.

Since the deadbolt needs a key, I told the contractor to just have his worker lock the doorknob and pull the door shut when he leaves, this would lock the door. Well, that's what I thought I told him.

Me (via text): Just have him lick the doorknob and pull the door shut when he leaves.

Good thing the guy can't see just how red my face is.

 

I heard a noise, so I went to look out the window.

Me (texting to Hubs at work): There's a plane landing in the neighbor's back yard.

Hubs: That's it! Are you going to the eye doctor on your own, or do I need to drag you there?

Me: Really. There's a plane landing in the neighbor's back yard.

Not actually landing, it came all the way down almost to the lawn, hovered, and left. It looked like a blow-up balloon airplane.

It was an Amazon drone, and it dropped a package on the back lawn. First time I'd seen that.

I had some Mahi Mahi marinating in an Italian salad dressing mixture. I put it on the grill, and when I went back into the house, I realized that I'd dripped salad dressing all over the deck. I wiped it up with a wet paper towel which, of course, did nothing. 

The next morning, Hubs brought the hose up onto the deck to spray it down.

Me: You know, the deck looks really good where the salad dressing is. 

Hubs: It does, the oil brings out the color of the planks.

Me: So, another option to hosing this down is that we could just smear salad dressing over the rest of the deck.

Hubs: Then we could play slip and slide right to the hospital.

Me: But the deck would look great.

Hubs (pointing the hose at me: Go in the house!

I went. Just in case . . .

 .

We had new neighbors move in next door last month. A younger couple, a baby, and an older couple. The older man is often outside with the baby. He is such a pleasant man, but we really couldn't communicate with him well, he not only speaks almost no English, but is close to deaf. No one else in the family has come anywhere near us.

I saw the young father outside with his lawn mower. His lawn was really long, and I figured he was taking care of it.

Maybe he's new to home ownership, I don't know. But I'm thinking he doesn't quite get how this mowing your lawn thing works.

You're supposed to do the whole thing, right? Or are my eyes deceiving me?

And one final nudge towards an eye exam:

When they are advertising a show called Bodies in the Water, and you read it as boobies in the water, it's time to . . . you know.

 

Now click on the links below and see what my friends have to share:

Menopausal Mother 

On the Border

Chocolate Raspberry Swirl Donuts (baked)

                                                                       ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

1/2 stick butter, melted

2 cups flour

3/4 cup sugar

2 TBSP baking powder

1 tsp powdered french vanilla creamer

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup milk

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup chocolate chips

2 TBSP raspberry jam

1 tsp baking cocoa

1/3 cup sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

Directions:

*Set the melted butter aside to cool a bit.

*Preheat oven to 350 degrees, grease the wells of a (12 well) donut pan.

*Whisk together the flour, 3/4 cup of sugar, baking powder, powdered creamer, salt, and milk.

*Melt the chocolate chips in the microwave at 20 second intervals until smooth. Add the raspberry jam, microwave another 15 seconds, stir, add the baking cocoa, and set aside.

*In a separate bowl, whisk the milk, egg, and vanilla together, then add to the flour mixture. Mix just until it forms a dough.

*Mix together the remaining sugar with the cinnamon. Spread onto a piece of parchment paper to form a rectangle about 12 inches long by 10 inches high.

*With floured hands, form the dough into about a 12 inch long in the center of the cinnamon sugar mixture on the parchment paper.

*Using a floured rolling pin, gently roll the dough to a 12 X 10 rectangle. Gently spread the chocolate raspberry mixture onto the dough, leaving about 1/4 inch margin at the top and bottom. Vertically, cut into 12 slices.

*Starting at the bottom, fold each in half. Gently twist the center, then each end. Press the ends together to seal and form a circle. Put each one into a donut well.

*Bake for 12 - 14 minutes until the center springs back to the touch. Allow to cool for 10 minutes in the pans.

*To remove, run a knife along the edges of each donut, gently pulling towards the center. Remove and allow to cool completely.

Reno Humor: Fly on the Wall

 

Welcome to our monthly Fly on the Wall, a blog post written in snippets. Marcia, Diane, and I invite you to catch a glimpse of what you’d see if you were a fly on the wall in our homes, at our writing desks, and in our worlds. Come on in, buzz around, see what we've been up to. Bet you laugh! 

In July's blog post, Exciting and Exhausting, I talked about my son's company moving him back here and the whirlwind purchase of his first house. Last month's post, More Diamond, Less Rough, was about the 7 weeks I spent as the general contractor for my son's home while he was back in Boulder finishing up work there and waiting for the movers. It was completely exhausting and often frustrating day after day, but worth every minute.

In today's post, I'm going to share a few stories about some of what happened along the way. Last house renovation post, I swear!

In those 7 weeks as general contractor, I spoke to 27 tradespeople, took estimates, and hired 13 of them. Each had a crew, some small, some large. I had to have met and worked with 35 - 40 people. I thoroughly enjoyed working with and getting to know all of them except one. One guy was an absolute nightmare, but everyone else, from business owners to workers, were friendly, patient as I learned from them, hard-working, interesting, professional, and some just fun to be around.

I got to know some of them so well, we'd text fairly regularly, I was comfortable enough to joke with them.

I was waiting for the floor guy to come, I'd been told he's just be there an hour or two so I intended to just stay until he was done to lock up after him, as I didn't yet have a key for him. When he arrived, he told me he'd be there the rest of the day.

The front and back doors have both a locking door knob, and an upper deadbolt that PurDude had added. I told Raul that when he left he should lock the deadbolt on the front door, then the lower lock on the back door, he could then just pull the back door closed to lock it, and I'd be able to get in the front door.

The next day, Saturday, I went to the house and Raul had locked both front door locks. I was locked out.

I called the owner, who sent and paid for a locksmith to pick the lower front lock so I could get in.

I texted PurDude the story that night, then texted the owner the next day:

Me: I hope you find this funny (I didn't). There is a side door to the house that only unlocks from the inside. There is only one key and I have it. PurDude just told me that it also unlocks the lower front and back door locks. Bottom line: I'm paying you back for the locksmith. Please let me know what I owe you.

Him: Funny, not funny. Don't worry, it's all good.

Speaking of locks, here's a lesson learned. If a doorknob is loose, don't close the door all the way.

We had to get down to the basement to empty the dehumidifier. I was in the living room when I heard:

Hubs: Oh, no.

Me: What?
Hubs (standing by the closed door to the basement holding the doorknob): This isn't good.

Me: Great. You broke your kid's house.

And that's how we learned to take a doorknob apart, jimmy our way in, and reattach the knob.

looks kinda sad, doesn't he?

Much better.

BTW, back at home another lesson learned:

Cinnamon and curry powder may look similar in the spice rack (first thing in the morning and without my glasses on, in my defense), but they taste very different in an Apple Harvest Cake.

'nough said.

Apple Harvest Cake

I talk a lot in these posts about autocorrect and the crazy (but funny) way it changes my texts.

While I was there, I was also getting Pudude's mail. One letter was from his mortgage company, his first mortgage payment would be due and they were listing the ways he could pay.

I sent a text to PurDude telling him about the letter. I should have learned by now to read before sending, but this time I didn't. So this is what I went:

Me: You got a letter from your mortgage company. Your mother is due on the first, there are multiple option for how to pay . . .

In the upstairs hall, there's a door to the attic. Runniing from the front of the house with 3 windows to the back of the house with 2 windows, it is an amazing, beautiful, huge space, perfect for finishing as a future project. Just inside that door is a laundry chute straight down to the laundry room in the basement.

On one of our trips to the house, we saw in the laundry room, a pile of rags. There were multiple trades working in the house at the time, so they could have belonged to any of them, but still, a pile of rags on the floor seemed odd.

I had shown the laundry chute to the floor guys. They were using the washing machine outlet for their sander, and for the upper floors, I told them they could just send their cord down the laundry chute to the basement.

I came in the next day while they were sanding, and they told me they couldn't get the cord down the laundry chute. They stuck a stick into the bottom and found there was a blockage. Pushing harder, the blockage came out. 

It wasn't rags, it was an entire load of laundry: sheets, clothes, underwear and socks.

I gotta wonder . . . who is in such a rush to move away that they leave their underwear behind?

 

I tried to play a joke on PurDude. He has a side door that goes up to the kitchen, or down to the basement. I sent him a picture of crime scene tape the concrete guy had put up at his side door and told him someone had tried to break in the night before.

He wasn't fooled. Not for a second. Of course, I might have had a better chance of fooling him if he hadn't known that Jim was replacing the concrete there the day before.

Or maybe not.

Speaking of that side door, this isn't real terrazzo, right?

And speaking of the basement, it's a large, mostly unfinished space broken up into rooms. There are cabinets for storage all around the space, a work room, a laundry room, a wet bar, lots of space (but not continuous, broken up). 

The former owners left him a free standing freezer, plugged in and working. A wet bar, plumbed and working. A washer and dryer, plugged in and working. A dehumidifier, plugged in and working. 

And a toilet. 

In a box.

We had a kind of a good news/bad news situation with the carpet/tile company. These were more people I thoroughly enjoyed working with. 

Emilie was our contact at the company, and she just had a great, bubbly personality. Horacio was in charge of our project. We were putting ceramic tile in the front entrance and carpet in 3 bedrooms.

The carpet guy didn't put the trim on the carpet at the doorway because he knew the hall floors were being refinished and this would make it easier on the wood floor guys.

The ceramic tile went in on the porch and I was dismayed, the grout was the wrong color. 

I called Emilie, and she said she'd send Horacio over to fix it. She called me later in the day, apologetic. She said it was her fault, she'd ordered the wrong grout color. I told her I appreciated the call but it was no problem since it would be fixed.

The next day I tried to call Emilie and the business phone gave me a message that they were not accepting calls from my number and that I should hang up. Huh?

I called Emilie's personal phone, she didn't pick up, so I left a message, and texted also. I even called from Hubs' phone and asked to have Emilie call me. Nothing.

The next day I saw Horacio at the house. He claimed to know nothing about the message I was getting or Emilie not getting back to me, but at least the tile was now grouted correctly.

Over the next month, I heard not one word from them. 

So . . .

Bad news: Doorway trim was missing on the carpet in those 3 bedrooms.

Good news: Also missing was their entire bill.

Update: more good news, the day before PurDude came to town Horacio trimmed the carpet.

And even more good news, still haven't seen a bill.

On the day the floors were finished, I needed to go in the house. I texted the floor guy, who made it clear that I had to wait 6 hours and . . .

Erik: My team just finished the final coating to the floor. Please wait until 4:00. Socks only today, shoes starting tomorrow.

Me: Thank you so much. I'll be there today at 4:00 with my socks on. By socks only, I assume you mean I can still wear my pants and shirt, right? 

Phew, he left it up to me.

 

Now click on the links below and see what my friends have to share:

Menopausal Mother 

On the Border

Apple Harvest Cake

                                                                       ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

5 apples, cored, peeled, and chopped

5 TBSP butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

2 TBSP caramel sauce

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup honey

1/3 cup maple syrup

1 1/4 cups oil

3 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

3 cups flour

1 1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

Directions: 

*In a large sauté pan, heat the butter over medium heat until melted. Add the chopped apples and cook, stirring for about 3 minutes, until they just start to soften. Mix in 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, and the caramel sauce, just until the apples are coated. Set aside.

*Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a bundt pan.

*Whisk together the sugar, remaining brown sugar, honey, maple syrup, oil, eggs, and vanilla until smooth.

*Mix in the flour, baking soda, salt, and remaining cinnamon until completely incorporated.

*Spread about 1/3 of the apple mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan. Mix the rest of the apple mixture into the dough and pour evenly over the apples at the bottom of the pan.

*Bake for 35 - 45 minutes, until the center of the top springs back to the touch. Run a knife around the edges.

*Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then invert onto a serving plate. NOTE: some of the apples may stick to the bottom of the pan, removed them with a knife and place onto the top of the cake. 

*Cool completely before slicing.