What a busy last few weeks it has been! I won’t bore you with all of my running here and there and then back to here because I forgot something and then back over there because what I forgot here was gone so I had to get it there anyway. (Lost? I sure was which was my problem in the first place!)
I finished something! *does a little jig* But I can’t show you yet ’cause the recipient won’t get it until Sunday. So you’ll have to wait until after then for me to post a picture. Nyah nyah! While I’m in brat mode, I’ll mention that Kat is being so mean not letting us start Chatelaine’s Secret Victorian Garden (MX) yet! *sticks out her bottom lip until it reaches the floor*
So to make me feel better, I’ll leave you with my favorite holiday cartoon…
*giggles*
There are only two kinds of books that I write in: craft books and cookbooks. In this particular case, I neglected to note in my baking book which method I used to make my pie dough. My brain cell thought that I mixed things up in the food processor – so I did. After having eyed this first batch of dough warily, I stuck it in the fridge for a good five hours to let the glutens do their thing and then brought it out for a roll. I can roll cookies so thin that you can see through them. So when this pie dough came out like soft shredded mush before rolling, I knew that something was wrong. But, I’m stubborn, so I tried anyway. It all ended up in the trash and I had to dig out more shortening and stuff it in the fridge to chill.
I promptly grabbed a pencil and wrote in my cookbook, “Don’t use the food processor! Very bad things happen!”
It is now 11pm and I have just finished making a lovely batch of pie dough using my mixer. I’ll roll it out tomorrow morning, stick it back in the fridge and work on the apple compote. Then make some pretty apple slices and put them on top and then caramelize and voila! One French apple tart! (I hope.)
Pictures forthcoming. (I hope.)
For now… I’m off to bed and wish my pie dough happy glutenizing.
There’s the final score. Well, not really as we’re now doing the roofing contractor thing and based on what they say it will determine if we need to do the structural contractor thing. I’m rather sure we’ve got structural damage because no matter how I look at this it just doesn’t look like a nail pop to me!
It also is exactly at the spot where the tree hit, so it’s rather clear that it’s impact damage and that the tree hit hard enough to damage the roof, the gutter, the soffit and any other stuff used to build the house at that particular spot. But for those of you who haven’t seen the pretty purple of my “suite,” you have now! It’s the only two rooms of the house where I had the walls painted something really “girly!”
Having friends who live right across the street who are taking a year off is a totally awesome thing because they can 1: be home when the topic-of-my-week falls on the house and 2: can stand in their second floor hallway and take “Wow!” pictures like this one! (Thanks, Mike!)
Thanks to our next door neighbors, we were able to save our lawn and borrow their driveway onto which what looked like a small truck-like thing was driven. Well, when this thing was unfolded, there was one huge crane there as you can see! There was a guy on our roof who tied the tree to the crane, and then the tree was lifted to a vertical position at which point it was chain-sawed through at it’s base. Then my girls, from within the house, bellowed, “TIMBER!” as the tree was gently set down on our lawn. Then the chainsaws had at the tree and all that was left was a stump. Oh, right… and some holes in my roof. No need to squint, Mike has a great zoom on his camera, too!
What you can’t see clearly of the large hole on the bottom is that it’s actually a gash of sorts, where the tree branch pierced the roof and ripped downwards. OUCH! That had to hurt the house and the tree! What’s even more sad is that there was a second pine tree that was next to the one that fell that also had to be removed. It had a fungal growth at it’s base that had weakened the roots on the side next to the house. So we could have gone through this again during the next wind storm. (That’s a big no thank you!) So what I see when I look outside and down from my sunroom window now is two piles of white pine wood chips which are all that is left of the stumps.
This is actually quite sad. I do have a lovely view, but having a lovely view framed with pine trees was even better. *sigh*
But, enough about my trees. I’ve blogged it out and I’m done talking about it. I got a hug from up north!! *bounces around* Mermaid Thinking arrived in my mailbox yesterday from Sonya! Thank you thank you thank you thank yooooooooooou!! *giggles* I sent Sonya this thank you card that says “You deserve a million thanks!” and it has these two cute little guys talking and saying “thank you” over and over and over in different voices… and I mentioned to her that if she waited for them to say it all 1 million times that she was more blonde than I was! My guess is that between the two of us we did hear all 1 million thank yous because those little guys are cute! Thanks a bunch, Sonya!! *super big HUGS!!* I cut the fabric and printed the chart and then had to de-Nikki and de-Ziggy fur the fabric because the phone rang as I was cutting it and they decided to sprawl on it… but you get the idea… I’m all bouncy!
Hey, it’s CC on 3! Did everyone dig out their Character Creations projects?
I have no idea why my blog went blank. Maybe it’s a reflection of my brain. No, wait, I have picture proof that I really do have one! So maybe the white screen is just a reflection that I have el zippo to blog about.
‘Scuse me… I have to go buy some “violet” poster board, pink glitter glue and pink girly paper that will make nice photo backgrounds… there, that’ll give you something to prod me to blog about next week when the “violet” glittery thing is done!
