Snow

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I mostly like the snow. Growing up we went sledding all the time on the hill in our backyard, so I love that now my house has a small hill, perfect for little kids to sled on.

sled

crash

PB crashed once, and then preferred shoveling snow and making snow angels to sledding. I kinda do too. (I actually love to shovel snow, just being outside working is awesome and in the winter there aren’t as many opportunities, so I’ll shovel nearly every chance I get.)

We went to the art museum after getting cold outside. This is PB making a pie. It was actually a pretty cool museum for how small it was, lots for the kids to do.

pie

Christmas

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It’s snowing! I opened my blog and found the wonderful WordPress surprise of falling snow. I like Christmas time, especially when it follows a mild fall. We got the tree up, and with modifications over a few days it looks beautiful.

peterchrismas

The fake poinsettias are turning out to be a toddler-friendly choice for ornaments.When I started to put the tree up, our hanging light was in the way…or maybe it was just in the perfect spot to top the tree. No need to buy a star.  Now I just need to get all my presents under the tree. We are having a simple Christmas, unless you decide to count the house as a Christmas present. One afternoon on Amazon and $100 later, I finished most of my Christmas shopping–just one present a piece, and a big fun gift from Santa.

Be Gone Shrubs

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We’ve been working on the inside of the house a lot, and I haven’t been worried about much gardening related, except for one essential task:

house 2

No more green meatballs!

To recap, here it is when we first bought the house:

home

And now:

house

With a small chainsaw, and a persistent husband all the horrible hedged evergreens are gone.

I’ve also planted some strawberries, that were slated for demolition at a friend’s house, on the hill. Otherwise, I’ve just been waiting, thinking and observing. And now it is cold and getting colder, so the garden will wait until spring.

Thanksgiving

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I invited all of my family over for Thanksgiving. It was wonderful–all four of my grandparents came, along with all of siblings, spouses and their children. We had a full, happy house.

My brothers organized a Walker Family Decathlon. Joe won. (He is very athletic and doesn’t really try that much. Lucky.) I didn’t do too bad, at least beat out my sisters. We did a flexibility test and I was happy to see that years of yoga are paying off. I’m still not flexible, but I can touch a bit past my toes, which is far better than most of my life. We also did a limbo contest–the only one that the little kids won out.

family

food

dinner

food

Bread Dough

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Basic Breadcraft
MATERIALS
4 cups (1 L) flour
11⁄2 cups (360 ml) warm water
1 cup (250 ml) salt
bowl
baking sheet
board
plastic wrap
foil
wax paper
PROCESS
1. combine flour and salt in bowl
2. make well in center
3. pour in 1 cup (250 ml) water, mixing with hands
4. add more water and continue mixing
note: not crumbly or sticky, but should form a ball
5. knead 5 minutes on floured board, until smooth
6. work with small portion of dough at a time
7. wrap remainder in plastic and put in refrigerator
hint: if dough dries out, add a few drops of water and knead
8. work on foil or wax paper (or just on the counter if you don’t mind a mess)
9. bake 1 hour or until hard at 325°F (160°C)
hint: dough should not “give” when tapped with knife

From Mudworks

Two Fridges

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Joe and I have been working and working some more on our house. We are completely unpacked, most pressing fix-it problems are done, and all the awful meatball shrubs outside are gone. We like having projects to work on, it was one of the reasons we decided to go ahead and buy a house. I’m not as prone to boredom as I once was.

Thought I would share one project that we did together. We had an old fridge that we decided to keep. I wanted to paint it with chalkboard paint, something I’ve seen done many times online.  Here’s the after picture. A before picture would be an old white fridge, and I’m pretty sure you’ve seen one before.

fridge
(And Christmas is coming! I didn’t realize just how close it was until I put this up.)

Many projects like this are a bit of a mystery as to how hard they are going to be. We painted our dining room table (twice) and it was pain and didn’t turn out as good as we hoped. But painting a fridge was easy. Easier than painting a room or a table.

First we sanded the fridge down with sandpaper we had on hand. Just enough to start to see the metal coming through.  Now the hard part: while cleaning the fridge I discovered a bunch of sticky carmel/jam mess under a shelf in the freezer, and under the fridge. It was awful cleaning that up. But it was (I hope) abnormal to come across such a mess.

After cleaning, my Joe took the fridge apart (I wouldn’t have, but I think guys just like to take things apart sometime). We had leftover chalkboard paint from the previous owners we used on the doors. (Actually we have gallons and gallons of leftover paint. If you ever need spare paint I might have some.) It covered pretty well, and we did two coats on everything. We painted the body of the fridge with black high gloss paint, which was of course left over from the previous owner. It only takes less than a quart of paint for the whole fridge. 

The handles were originally painted with normal paint. Not a good idea–I went and bought silver spray paint that was labeled to stick to plastic and it worked much better.

The total cost of the project was $5 for spray paint. And I like having two fridges. Big grocery trips don’t end with a impromptu game of tetris.