It was nice, in some ways. Hard, in many ways. Nice to get home. Not nice to get home.

Home is static. Flooring waiting to be installed. Stuff waiting to get sorted through. Never enough energy for the latter. Never enough help to gain such energy (by shared effort.)

My kitchen is a sore point. My living room is a sore point. My basement “family room” is anything but nice. Junky couch (really a partial couch) and not enough seating for my family unless bringing in kitchen chairs if we watch a movie together.

Anyhow, I’m just tired thinking of it all. Same old, same old. There are other things to do, always. So we live with it all. Going away just makes it more painful to live with again when returning. It’s like a wound, scabbed over, the wound is there, but covered with scab. Going away it seems like the scab falls off, wound healed. Coming back it’s just like the scab was just masquerading as healed, and it’s split wide open with the effort of going back realized.

It helps to write about it. Hopefully my hubby and I can get some things done in the house now that we have no “trip” that’s coming up. If only he’d be able to be motivated. Oh, then there is the long summer grass. It’s getting longer every day. That takes up so much time. I hate grass. It’s the enemy of household renovation, of weekend fun. It’s a slave driver. I’m full of cheerful thoughts today, aren’t I?

I was out of Capellini though one night in the past couple of months and went looking for ideas online about something besides my normal meat sauce & what to do with Penne.

I found this: simplyrecipes.com/recipes/penne_pasta_with_meat_sauce/

That is similar to what I now make sometimes, using Penne, and my nearly 3 year old loves it the best on anything I make.

I don’t make that recipe, just use it for inspiration. I nearly make my regular sauce, but I leave out olives & put less basil & in it, and put Thyme in it (something I don’t put in my regular sauce ever) and it is good.

I serve my “spaghetti” meals with meat sauce in a separate dish from the pasta. The Penne though, I mix them in the dish.

There is another dish I make using medium noodles. I got the idea from a Cambell’s cook book I have. I’ve been making that more since Winter. Never before that. In the last month I took that idea and pared it with the Penne idea and made a third dish.

I know I don’t have any recipes written out in this post. My recipes are not cook book sort. I cook this kind of thing with my feelings (don’t know that that is the right way to say it.)

When I cook it’s for a larger than many households crowd. Hubby isn’t always here, but the rest of us are: 14 year old boy (eats more than anyone here), 11 year old girl (usually eats way more than me), 9 year old boy (spotty eating habits, getting more sometimes though), Toddler (eats a lot sometimes, not much others) then me and hubby.

I like to cook so that there is some left-over for snacks and lunches, at least 1 or 2 or 3 servings. Sometimes I sort of plan that and make a lot, and often in such a case there are no left-overs at all.

I’ve been stuck in the “what to make” rut a lot the last few years, so this post has progress showing for me. Less “hamburger crap” [ground beef stroganoff) –which is great. That nick name for the dish shows my feeling about it. It’s what I’ve called it for a long time around here, something that doesn’t sound very nice indeed.

pastoralfarms.us/2008/04/21/lg-fl-washer-2277-oe-error/

Not that my washer is throwing an error, it’s just that I think I need to “spin only” cycle after not having done that for a long time. It would get things more in order with the washer, if that makes any sense. We are getting to the end of washing diapers, just not yet, soon we hope. That will down lots of stuff in filter when my dear baby from 2007 finally converts to underwear (he’s not wanting too though close to being able … just can’t get him to want it.)

It’s a very long time in coming and if it pans out I’ll be thrilled.

This is the 2nd post I’ve written (tho 1st on this blog) using Poster for WordPress, an App in the Palm Catalog for WebOS phone, like my Palm Pre. 

We went to Ikea and that is a one-thing for me. I mean, it’s like walking a million miles for me, so a one-thing-trip, nothing else should be done. That was not all we did though. Walking, walking, going more. [I'm still an introvert, of course. Like that would ever change ]

We ate at Fox Sports Grill in Atlantic Station (Atlanta, GA) which was nice. I had a Blue Cheese Burger, very messy, but very, very good. I also had a “Grand Stand Lemonade” which is a drink with Amaretto, Jack Daniels, Pineapple Juice, and Sweet & Sour in a tall glass over ice. The drink was nice, not heavy, but got more “thick” nearer to the bottom and was over tangy, not as nice as the rest of it. I was done eating, and hubby ready to go anyhow, so I didn’t finish the last inch or two of the drink.

We also went to Whole Foods Market (we try to get there at least 1 time a month, it’s an adventure in it’s own right) which was more than I could muster up energy to think about what to get by the time we were there for very long. I did see the plants outside before we went in, and I took the time to look at the herbs and tomatoes and choose a few to get. Nice organic plants, good prices.

I had finally gotten a hanging tomato thing, the topsy tuvy that does tomatoes & herbs. I’d never had one before. I didn’t thing well of it when I saw the first commercials for it sometime ago. But last year I saw more value in it, and this year I decided to go with it since I now have a cottage shed in the backyard which I’m building my gardening things around. I’m hanging it off the side of the cottage. I previously had several plants to put into it, but wanted more and the Whole Foods plants help a lot to get me nearer to having enough to fill the topsy turvy with. Looking at the instructions for it I noted that I could get more than 9 plants into it since it says you can get two plant into every port …

Hubby helped me set it up this afternoon. I thought I might need to get a few more things for it, I don’t have quite all the herbs I want. Home Depot had some that I got earlier, so to get something else it probably won’t be “Organic” since I picked through stuff like that there already last couple of weeks.

At Ikea we got a bunch of little things: Magazine holders (now I need more for the Magazine that will be coming from Maghound in the next months [just for the ones I keep, Organic Gardening, Hobby Farms, Hobby Farms Home, Martha Stewart, Southern Living, Mary Janes Farm, Scrapbooks Etc., as well as my subscription to Creating Keepsakes mag.] hooks, little kitchen things, of course more wooden hangers too.

We saw a cabinet there that I immediately thought of as perfect for my scrapbooking space. I then went online once home and found a few pictures of it on Flickr, in a MA Ikea store setup as a ‘craft room’ … there sat my desired red cabinet filled with craft stuff.

For “Mother’s Day” my hubby took me back to Ikea yesterday and we bought the cabinet and a few other things.

I put half of the cabinet together yesterday in the basement before giving up feeling overworked/overheated … which makes me quite ill and only rest and hours of sleep every restores me from that state.

This morning I was able to get more of it done. It’s in place, just the hardware for door hinges needs to be finished, and get the doors on. I have the shelves in, and some things inside already. I bought a package of light that will go into the top of the cabinet, but I’ll need to work on that to get them installed, not a “plug ‘n’ play” thing at all.

I need to make sure my Topsy-Turvy planter is still hanging well. It rained the past couple of days, very hard yesterday, so it’ll be very heavy. FWIW

We also put the stove where I had put it before, which is exactly opposite from it’s original position in the house. Well not thoroughly exactly, but opposite and in the configuration of cabinets it is over some inches to feet/foots, being somewhat centered on the 10 foot wall, which on the other side of the house, opposite, there is a door into the garage which hogs much space. Moving the kitchen down to the other end of the 20 foot long room enables 10 feet of kitchen space on one side, and 10-to-12 feet on the long side, with the island nestled into the area.

We had tried to come up with a double-L layout, but it was just a bit too tight in how it felt. We like the L with island much better now, but there is more work to do. We do have decent counters on the whole way around (didn’t for awhile) and it looks nicer. We still have to get the flooring that we want put in. It’s horrible vinyl tiles right now, and they are cracking and awful where the floor is uneven, it’s a mess to me, looks OK if you don’t look hard.

Once we install the wood flooring we can hook everything in completely and see about getting the final counters when $$$$$ allows. All in all though it’ll mean the cabinets are locked in, level, the floor level, the island ready to be finished, everything much better.

We do have a new sink/faucet installed, but no dishwasher for now. We were using a portable dishwasher, but can’t use it with the setup we have now … so it’s handwashing everything until we get a dishwasher in. But the sink is so enjoyable. It’s a Kohler white castiron smart divide “Langlade” style. The faucet is brushed nickel, very nice. We are having some water dripping down from the spray connection, and will have to figure that out soon. We have to keep a bowl under the faucet to catch that mess, it’s alot, but not much, if that makes any sense. It’s purely an annoyance at any rate since it’s part of the faucet that comes pre-connected, it’s not something we tightened on or anything. It’s not going to be easy figuring it out by getting under the sink, it’s really back there, up there …

So we have progress. We have more sitting in the garage. A very nice glass/stainless steel hood for the stove, and a sliding glass door. The door has been there for years now. The hood just for weeks. I wonder how long it’ll be for either at the end.

It was very mild in December & January, cold enough for a fire in the fireplace, but we ran out of wood, and then it was warm enough out to run the heat a little and get by. Why fix a leaky roof when it’s not raining, right? Same thing with wood. Wood runs out, it’s warmer though, don’t need to go get more wood, right? Suffer later for such thoughts and lack of action.

It’s been colder the last fews day/week. Cold enough to wish to go to bed and stay in bed longer than usual. Cold enough to not get out of bed to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Our system has something wrong with it. Our master bathroom only gets warm if the day is warm and sunny. The heat doesn’t go in there even though there is a fully open vent in there. The bedroom does get hot at night if we leave the hallway door shut. Go to bed cold, wake up at 2am suffocating from the heat. Have to open the door to let the heat out, and that regulates it a bit, but still, the bathroom, left shut or open, remains cold. This house has always been quirky anyhow, this is just a bit different.

We have many house projects to tackle still, and I’m hoping we’ll actually get some of them accomplished this year. Sliding door in kitchen, deck redone, window in kitchen, floors in kitchen/livingroom. Just that stuff need done terribly bad. Then also the cabinets finalized, really truly installed and counters, island created with downdraft and bar.

Things are in such a nothing-ever-changes mode it’s depressing.

I wanted to get a family snapshot taken on Monday or Tuesday, but it didn’t happen, now hubby isn’t here until Friday night, so it’s a no-go … I could take a picture of just the children, but that’s not really what I wanted to do. Then on to printing it, I have an Epson picture printer, 4×6 size. It hasn’t worked well for me always, really wastes ink IMO and it’s only worth printing at all if you are printing a lot at once. I did have something installed on a computer once that allowed me to manually control “what it thought the ink levels were” but that’s long since gone since I mostly used it with my Epson All-in-One that was crazier than my Picture printer and I got sick of it and threw it away. Upgrading and new computers … it was either on my Desktop which is re-invented since, or my old laptop which was re-Clean-Installed since as well.

My picture printer has been sitting around for many, many months so I have no idea if it can be counted on or not. So not is my guess, since it’s a crap shoot as to how many photos it will print.

The other option is to print onto cardstock or vellum with my HP Laserjet … which does make a good looking black and white image on regular paper and such just fine, it’s just not “photo-ish” it’s more “newspaper photo-ish” which is good, but different than usually used in cards.

I used vellum to print a large photo for my youngest’s first baby scrapbook page with the HP Laserjet. It’s kind of cool, very, in fact. It’s just not a full fleshed image like is expected, it’s very subtle, soft, gentle. Therefore interesting, so now I have convinced myself it’s not so bad to use such for my Christmas card either, probably.

A 3rd option is to get a picture taken and upload it to Costco to have printed, or another place. Since it’s so late in the season though, it’s not a good idea necessarily, plus it’s something I’d best do at home since Friday night or Saturday late morning is the first time to get a full family picture taken, so it’s just something I need to figure out here, children or entire family, & then print it how.

Meantime I do have to come up with a Christmas list. I have no address book available. I’m Out-of-Touch with most everyone, not sending Christmas cards for a long time, though I have attempted, but I don’t know where a list is right now. As the years have gone by most people have stopped sending me Christmas cards, which makes it impossible for me to send THEM Christmas cards. I am still here where I’ve been since 1997. Actually, the cards coming to me dropped off before I stopped sending them. So it’s not fully my fault at how I feel about it. I don’t know what’s the what, guess my generation just doesn’t do much. I don’t write Christmas letters, feel weird doing so, like I have to have something spectacular happen to write one, like in 2007 I had a baby, but then I had trouble getting birth announcements out, finally did 3 months later, not in a mode with 3 other children & a baby again to do anything for a Christmas letter/card anyhow.

My sisters don’t always send something, my in-law relatives either. I mean cards or letters.

I have good intentions. I do, always have. I just haven’t functioned well enough to follow-through. It’s easier to make a blah card and send it out, or to make a great one custom for one person for no good reason any other time of the year.

I love my Cricut & new Gypsy. I have many ideas I can implement, but it’s really the thing about why: I don’t have a good place to work on these things. My scrap stuff is in my bedroom piled up, and also in an old computer armoire, all piled up. No desk or table for crafting available. It’s frustrating to use the kitchen table, can’t leave a project out. Worse to use the bed, way worse, but better in a way, but still NO PLACE TO LEAVE A PROJECT OUT, something that is in stages of putting together. No place in this house. This house is too small in regular living in fact. I’m stir crazy from that, and not productive therefore. I try, and fail. I’m trying, finding it hard to get anything done in this realm.

I did get a new thing at Costco this year, recently too, that makes wrapping presents much more pleasant. It’s a SnapWare Gift Wrapping station. It’s plastic with metal folding legs. It holds several rolls of wrapping paper, ribbon, tape, scissors, etc. Neat thing to hold stuff while working on wrapping, channels in surface to follow with scissors to cut paper. I wrapped daughters birthday presents this Nov. with a happy heart the whole time. It went smoothly. Christmas wrapping has been great too. I’ve wrapped a lot in the last few weeks, a ton, but it’s not as bad past years using the bed, the floor, or the kitchen table. None of them work because they aren’t like the new wrapping station I got. It’s wonderful.

The wrapping station is something that shows what a good crafting area, a dedicated area, would do for me. It’s a wonderful template to apply to life in every area, what works best is a good kitchen, good bathroom, good living room, good vehicle. The right size & tools for the job, the right space, all works together with a human to do their best and enjoy doing it more than if they had to do it with lesser.

So I hope I can manage to send something out. I am trying.

I’ve noted while looking out the window that wind is actually starting to build more in the last 10 minutes than before all morning, so the event has started. The sun is out a bit, but has been rather blah looking, until just recently, the sky is all blue and sunny with some stretched-out clouds on the skyline North-ish to the horizon there.

I’m trying to get more into the holiday mood. Already have any presents that we’ve bought wrapped up for several days. We’ve done more ahead of time than usual. We have more to get, but have to wait for Dec. 15 pay day to do more. Also, now that the septic tank was a forced issue we will be behind more than we anticipated and so my main Christmas present will probably not happen.

Hubby would say I got mine early anyhow, but it’s a different one than was planned (yes, I know what it’s supposed to have been, nothing is a surprise some years, such as this year is.) I got a Cricut “Gypsy” on Black Friday, with Michael’s having the best price “239.99″ plus a $100 rebate to use on cricut.com. AThey also gave a car-charger and lanyard as a gift after purchase. (car-charger was $24.99 alone FWIW)

Besides the septic thing we also have something extra from a problem hubby is having with his a former contract he had, the which is suing the former head of that company and added my hubby to the suit for no good reason but thus far haven’t been able to get out of it, so $$$ to lawyer for working on it …. no Christmas cheer for me due to that. I am able to do some things, but there is the “decide what we need in the kitchen (food) for the rest of the year. Then it’s Pick One from: get a Christmas tree, or firewood, or get the milk we usually buy from the farm in SC. But, it’s all “in the future” as we are pretty much out of money until payday, then not much to use for what needs done, so it’s a picking game. ;

A chart online about septic tanks says for 6 people using a 1000g septic system it should be pumped every 1.5 years. For 5 people, every 2.0 years.

We lived in the house from Nov. 1997 to Aug. 2003 … with 2 adults & a toddler, then a baby in late 1998, then another baby in 2000. By the time we finally had the system pumped we had a 7yo, 4yo, & an almost 3yo, plus us adults, the parents.

From then to now, over 6 years ago, it’s the 2 adults, plus a now 13yo, 11yo, 9yo, & 2yo. It makes sense that we have filled it up, maybe others would have done so sooner, as we don’t all take showers every day like many do. I’m believe in conservation and try to keep consumption of water down where I can. That does help with a septic system.

So the next pumping should occur: August 2011. Before or after a bit would work.