Eats

I basted an egg this morning! I always had a vague idea of what basting means, and I always order my eggs basted, because I like a runny yolk but a cooked white. I finally figured out how to do it at home... and it's ridiculously easy. Here's how it's done:

1. Heat a small fry pan on medium-high heat, and then add a bit of fat. I used bacon fat, which I saved the last time I made bacon, but you can also use butter.

2. Crack an egg into the pan. I included some shell... but that's prolly not the best way to do it.

3. Sprinkle the egg with salt and cracked pepper.

4. Once the white starts to firm up and turn bright, pour in 3 tablespoons of basting liquid. I used water, which is totally fine, but you can also use something more flavorful, like chicken broth.

5. Shake the pan a little to distribute the water, and then clamp a lid over the whole thing. Adding the water to the hot fat will cause the fat to spit like crazy--plus, the water will steam cook the egg.

6. Wait, I don't know, a minute and a half? Two minutes? Take the egg off the heat when it's done how you like it.

7. Eaaaat it.

I made a little breakfast sandwich with the egg and these whole wheat rounds I bought at Costco. And some shredded cheddar. Aaaaand some bacon. Mmm!

Yeaaaahhhh buddy.

For dinner, I used the whole wheat rounds again and made little toaster oven pizzas: pizza sauce, goat cheese (also a Costco purchase), mushrooms, and some chopped-up Kalamata olives I had in my fridge. Before:

After (I added a little more pizza sauce on top between the photos):

Delicious, low-cal dinner that was totally satisfying without making me feel overly full and gross.

Rebel hair

I just pulled a hair out that was gray at the end, brown in the middle, and what at the root. What the?! It just changed its mind?

I hate that I'm getting gray hairs. They're almost too numerous to continue pulling out--I'm going to have to start coloring my hair sometime in the far near future. And... that makes me really sad. I love my natural color (minus the gray), and I want to keep it. I've played around with color many times before, and I've never had anything that I like as much as my natural shade(s).

Some people rock their grays... not me. They look scraggly and unkempt, not distinguished, on me.

Boo aging.

This and that

I'm not doing so great on the whole "I'll blog every day" thing, huh?

I'm still struggling with getting a routine going--which means I'm still struggling with not sleeping in and not watching TV all day... I haven't gotten a war room set up yet, and I think that's a big part of my failures to stay on task. I have all of these bedrooms, and I planned to make one of them into a treadmill/craft room/office, but I realized yesterday that it's in the half of the house that is only 55 degrees, so the likelihood of my spending lots of time back there, doing work, is... nil. The room I'm using as my living room has a big area that's not being used right now, so I'm going to set up my table there so I can be warm (ish--I still only have the heat at 65), be near the dog, have TV on if I want to, and yet still be working. It'll make the living room less homey and cozy, but maybe it'll encourage me to keep the desk neat...

So I have an old, shitty sliding glass door leaning up against my house:

I'm afraid it's going to break in a big storm--plus, it looks so good--so I want to get rid of it, but I don't know what to do with it. I would donate it to Habitat for Humanit, but (a) it really is a shitty door, and (b) I don't have a truck. Any ideas? Craigslist? ???

Peeping

On deck for tomorrow: installing a peephole in my front door.

I'm sitting here on my couch, minding my own business, and suddenly, the doorbell rang. Twice. Now, not a single one of my friends would just stop by my house at night and ring the doorbell, and I sure wasn't expecting someone, sooooo WTF. As I was standing up from the couch, slowly, wondering who the EFF was at my door, the person started jiggling the door knob, trying to open the door. That's when I dialed 911 and poised my lil' finger over "dial".

The person rang the bell again, and, since I don't have a peep hole in my front door, I just yelled through the door, "WHO IS IT?"

"Marcus"

"WHO'S MARCUS?"

Turns out that Marcus is a friend of the shady former residents. But he didn't know they haven't lived here in a year and a half?

So yes. Tomorrow, I install a peephole.

Pro tip: keep your doors locked even when you're inside! This is not the first time strangers have tried to get into my house while I'm five feet away inside.

Managing Monotony

It's remarkable how lonely unemployment is. My mom and grandma left about two hours ago, and already I feel depressed and isolated! Now that they're gone, though, I can set my mind to creating a daily and weekly routine to help me manage these feelings of isolation and aimlessness, be productive, and (fingers crossed!) keep this period of unemployment short and sweet.

My ideas for daily and weekly routines include:

Daily:
- Morning coffee
- Exercise
- Shower and have breakfast
- Check my list of job sites
- Write cover letters, apply for positions, make calls, etc.
- Walk the dog
- Clean and pick up around house
- Blog
- Craft / creativity time
- Social interaction

A few times a week:
- Some sort of education, skills development, and/or volunteering component
- Home improvement tasks
- Couponing

What ideas or suggestions do you have for my daily and weekly routines? What daily activities help keep you focused?

What are your favorite websites to help you with some of these activities? One of my favorite crafting sites is Cathie Filian's blog. She has great ideas and products, and she's a wonderful person, to boot. Working with Cathie and her husband Eddie in Los Angeles was one of the highlights of my life!

Pee Hustler

Now that I'm unemployed, I can do all these crazy things during the day... Like schlep my dog's pee to the vet.

A Bedroom With a Toilet But No Window

Good gravy, I'm behind already and it's only the 4th. My mom and grandma have been here for the last couple of days for our belated Christmas celebration, so I've had my hands full with last-minute present-buying, taking mom's car to the shop, wrapping presents, cooking, opening presents, and falling asleep on the couch.

Puck wanted to help wrap presents.

Slippers for everyone!

This is one of the windows in my master bedroom. It was boarded up when I bought the house in April, and the contractor I hired for my bathrooms assured me that he'd order a window for me and install it. I emphasized that I wanted to have a new window in before cold weather hit, because there was an inch of daylight all around the window, and I didn't want to lose all of that heat. My contractor told me he had ordered the window and that it would be in in a couple weeks. Then, a couple months later, he told me that he was getting some quotes for a window. And that was the last I heard. (Needless to say, I would not hire this contractor again... but that is another story for another post.) Then it got cold. (Which is why there are plastic bags stuffed around the window. Nothing but classy solutions for this girl!)

So in mid-November, my mom ordered a window from Lowe's to replace this one. Of course, it's an odd size, so it was a custom-order window. The sales guy came out to the house, measured the opening, and saw the other bedroom window that should match the new window. Mom paid for the window at that time. At the end of November, the installer came and measured the opening, and then he ordered the window. I spent a week after the window came in in mid-December trying to get ahold of the installer--Mom gave the salesperson her cell phone number, and apparently Lowe's can only enter one phone number into their system, so Lowe's would call her and she would call me and everything was getting messed up and even though four people said they put my number into the system, still no one called me. ANYWAY. Fast-forward to today. The installation was scheduled for yesterday, but one of the installers smashed his thumb yesterday and they got off schedule, so they rescheduled for today. The installer shows up, looks at the bedroom, and... tells me that, even though I ordered a double-hung window, the factory sent a window that slides side to side. Sooooo he'll have to have the correct window re-ordered, and we'll have to schedule another installation. Par for the course with this house, but ok, what can I do except wait another month.

About 10 minutes after the installer left, Lowe's Installation Services calls me. The woman is kinda shitty with me and says that the installer just called and said that I wanted a slider window even though I ordered a double-hung so I'd sent him away. I said, no, I ordered and want a double-hung, but the installer said that the factory sent a slider, so it has to be re-ordered. She argues with me and tells me, no, the installed said I want a slider, but my paperwork says that I ordered a double-hung. I get a little testy and say, LISTEN, I haven't seen the window--all I know is what the installer said, and HE said that the window that arrived is a SLIDER, but I ORDERED and WANT a DOUBLE-HUNG. With an attitude like I am jerking her around, she says, well, I'll just have to send the installer back and we'll see what's going on.

Are you fucking kidding me? You're getting shitty with me? You've had two people out to measure and get this window ordered, and you're getting shitty with ME?

I waited 20 minutes without hearing anything, so I called Installed Sales back and spoke to the woman again. This time she was much nicer. Apparently, the installer flip-flopped the measurements when he ordered the window, so the window IS a double hung window... but it's the wrong size. So it could go into the opening but would then open by sliding. So now I'm waiting to hear back from the Installed Sales manager, who is waiting to hear from the installer, who will be responsible for paying for the window and ordering a new one...

So here it is, early January, and I not only have a toilet sitting in my master bedroom but I still have no window! GRUMBLE.

v2012.365

2011 was an unending shitshow of hassles, disappointments, and minor disasters. I hope that 2012 brings happier days, but either way, I'm going to write about it.

I've realized that I tend to tune out of the details of my life when everything seems fine, until suddenly it's not fine anymore, and I discover that I'm lost and I don't know how I got there. I also know that I find my days more interesting and funny when I'm actually paying attention. Maybe that seems pretty obvious, but it's starting to dawn on me how little attention I think I've been paying, and it's scary.

So today I begin my 365 project. Each day of 2012, I will take at least one photo--which shouldn't be hard, given the 4,024 photos that I've taken in the last 11 months--AND I'll also post the photo and write a blog post. I've been telling myself for years that I need to write more, and somehow I never do. I have some time on my hands since I recently lost my job, and I desperately need to find some shades of me that I lost somewhere along the way, so I hope my project will inspire me to reimagine my present and my future.

I built a fire in my fireplace for the first time tonight. It was beautiful for about 5 minutes, until all of the kindling burned up and the wet firewood I'd just purchased burped out a bunch of smoke and fizzled out. Tomorrow, I will try again.