Tag Archives: home

Project ice cream space

Last night I processed some pictures. Pictures of a certain Lodge, a certain basset hound named Charlie, and a certain woman named Ree Drummond.  I’m thinking either Friday or Monday I will finally face the world with the PW Weekend series, part #1.

Why haven’t I snappity snapped out parts 1-70 already, you ask? Well, see, I have this guy that hangs around my apartment who likes to call himself my ‘husband’, and this man-creature has been requiring my attention for a couple evenings. I know–the nerve! But after all the busyness of the past couple weekends, we were waaaaay behind on our snuggling quota. And that may take priority over, um, blogging? Um, if that’s OK with you? So for today, a story of meat and ice cream and their ongoing battle in our home.

Are you upset that I’m making you wait? OK, fine.

Here’s a completely gratuitous picture of Ree. I snapped it last Friday night.

Happy?

OK, great. And now for something completely different.

I blogged a while ago about how full our freezer was, and conveyed my hopes of freeing up some space so that for the first time in over a year we could fit in some ice cream.

That hasn’t happened yet, but to spur ourselves on towards our goal, we have officially inaugurated the policy of using the food we have until the ice cream fits. I am no longer welcome to shop in the fish or meat section of our grocery store and refill the freezer gaps we create with new frozen delights. And I’ve only broken this rule about 3 times! I consider that a triumph. The only thing I’m truly dreading is having to cook that dang duck. Duck seems like the kind of dish that could go horribly wrong, doesn’t it?

Significant progress was made in Project Ice Cream Space a few Saturdays ago, when the late hour of 10pm found us immersed in a cooking tornado.

The second arm roast from my grandfather Big Jake, an unwieldly hunk of meat responsible for occupying a solid 15% of our freezer, had been defrosting all day. From experience, we knew this arm roast would not fit into one pot. So we did it again–we made two pot roasts out of the one arm roast.

Have you ever cooked late at night? It has a completely different feel to it. It adds a component of madness. And frenzy–a frenzy to get to the relaxing part of Saturday night. Knives, onion skins, and raw meat seemed to be everywhere.

I used the same recipe that I’ve shared before. It has blueberries, it has balsamic vinegar, and if you don’t try this amazing combination, the word ‘friend’ will hold no more meaning betwixt us. That’s right, it’s a pot roast ultimatum.

I just have to draw the line between ‘friends’ and ‘enemies’ somewhere, folks. I hold firm to my values of peace, love, truth, Balsamic Blueberry Pot Roast Delight, and justice.

Just kidding! Please keep being my friend. Thank you.

By the end of all the cookery we were ready to settle in and watch a movie. My dishwasher/sous chef was pretty beat.

I dutifully set my alarm for 6am the next day so that I could pop the roasts in the oven bright and early. . . and then scramble back into bed.

As a result of all this madness, soon our freezer will have room for some French Vanilla. Chocolate Caramel. Peanut Butter Chocolate. Mango Sorbet.

Since the theme of this post is obviously ‘excess,’ tomorrow I will be posting the result of another excessive venture: Mini Pumpkin Muffins. They are delicious. They are addictive. And the recipe made 72 of these little orange guys. That’s for a household of 2 people. I’ve been eating those guys for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and hoping that my metabolism can just pretend they never happened.

Dear Metabolism,

Please do some magical math and make the dozens of mini pumpkin muffins I ate become a smaller number. Please take any excess fat that may have been consumed and churn it into energy as quickly as possible. Do not allow the aforesaid fat to think it’s welcome to stay. It’s not! It must go! EVERYTHING MUST GO!

Anyway, I promise to do some leg lifts or something tomorrow when I have some more time, and we can make ammends with the laws of physics and biology at that point.

Thank you for your consideration,

Jenna

P.S. This is especially urgent since project ice cream space is about to allow more fat-laden foods into my home. Please get back to me with a response at your earliest convenience.

Recipe for mini pumpkin muffies will be up tomorrow! You may want to write advance letters to your own metabolism–or invite over 72 friends so that there is a ratio of only one muffin per person.

The beast of laundry

At this time in my life, doing laundry is a beast.

Almost continuously for the past 9 years, since I left home to go to college, I’ve been carting my laundry all over creation. I live for the day in which I will have an in-unit washer and dryer. Once that happens, I promise never to complain about doing laundry again!

Or at least I promise to try not to complain about doing laundry again.

Hey, I can’t set the standards too high or I’m just setting myself up for failure. I must retain my right to complain . . . not only is it true because it rhymes, but isn’t there an ammendment to the Constitution that says something like that? With an accompanying Normal Rockwell illustration?

Just kidding. Complaining is actually bad for your general health, so my friends: stay away. Stay positive. Say ‘no’ to whining.

Anyway, the last weekend in October, our laundry situation was getting completely out of control. The sheets were due for a wash . . . the blankets . . . the towels and bathmats . . . and at least a month’s worth of clothes.

The hampers in our bedroom were literally overflowing.

The underwear situation was in a state of emergency.

This post is designed to make those of you who have been blessed with a washer and dryer in your apartment/house grateful. Very, very grateful.

Here is the cart we use to transport the hideous pile to its destination.

Our first mission is to get it down a flight and a half of stairs. Journalistic inaccuracy alert: my husband’s first job is to get it down a flight and a half of stairs. My job is to hold the doors open.

Then we walk it down to the laundromat, which is right next to the El stop.

We come armed with waterfalls of silver coins, known to some as ‘quarters’ and known to others as ‘I can’t wash my clothes without ’em.’

Thankfully they have industrial-sized machines.

Then we hang out for about an hour and a half. Sometimes competition for the little hand carts can be fierce. Soap operas in Spanish play out on the TV’s above us. I bring a novel, and my husband brings his schoolwork.

I made some good progress through “World Without End.”

Children play, throw things, chase each other, clamber up on tables and generally make the place into a playground.

Every now and then a lucky child gets a quarter which, inserted into the slot on this little machine, will give them the ride of a lifetime as it plays the first two lines of “The itsy bitsy spider” over and over again: ‘The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout/down came the rain and washed the spider out.’

And then it repeats that same little piece of melody over . . . and over . . . and over again. It never gets to the “Up came the sun and dried out all the rain/And the itsy bitsy spider climbed up the spout again” part, and if you really start thinking about it, that’s just messed up.

Twisted, like.

The person who designed this machine was probably a murderous maniac who just didn’t want the itsy bitsy spider to survive.

I can find no other logical explanation.

The ever-repeating little ditty happens to make me murderous as well, which was probably also in his plan all along: to turn normal, everyday citizens into frantic killing machines. I mean, if the itsy bitsy spider doesn’t make it, what hope is there for the rest of us? Why continue this sham called ‘life’ anyway?

I’ve considered personally disabling this machine, but (if caught) that might mean switching laundromats forever. And I’m not willing to go any further from home than this, not even to save myself from the brainwashing effects of this childrens’ ride.

Oh, the laundromat. How I love it, and how I hate it.

In my desire to document the laundrifying experience for future generations, me and my point and shoot camera did the rounds and captured the sights.

I felt that lugging out my Nikon D5000 might attract unwanted attention from the owners, which is why some of these pictures are not as crisp as I would have liked.

“Why are you taking pictures?” they might demand.

“Well, you see, I’m, uh . . . like, um, a blogger?”

I wonder if they would have understood.

All done! You can see the pile of neatly folded towels on top, proof that our task is complete–for now.

And my husband’s expression–“Um, Jenna, so, why are you taking pictures of me?”

“Well, baby, like, um, . . . I’m a blogger?”

He still seems surprised when I whip out my camera.

A couple more years of ruthless blogging and he’ll be totally used to it. I just have to keep breaking him in.

“But it’s time to eat,” he’ll say–“the food is hot!” “But I have to take a picture of the food first, see?” I try to explain. And that’s how it goes.

Dear future Jenna (now in possession of her own washer and dryer),

One day, Lord willing, you will have a small group of laundry-producing little tykes living with you, otherwise known as children. Especially if you decide to do reusable diapers, you are bound to have lots of laundry. You may be tempted to complain occasionally. Please let this post be a humble reminder that at least you don’t have to cart the laundry outside and inside and outside and inside again. At least you can just walk it across the hall and put it straight into the cleaning machines. At least you never have to listen to ‘the itsy bitsy spider’ song again. So wipe that grimace off your face and start laundrifying with a smile!

Love,

your past self, for whom the transportation of laundry hither and thither is not my most favorite thing to do