Say Good bye.

To all the wall paper on the main floor of our house. With the help of a handy dandy rental steamer it is all officially gone. And getting ready for sale season has begun.

Well this is what the before pictures look like. Yes the wall paper is all stripped out. Now it is time to fill holes and cracks, sand and smooth and get ready for the primer. Up first is the bathroom. We are definitely getting rid of the peach. I am thinking something lighter. Like a really light yellow/white. With white trim around the mirror and window.
The kitchen entry will be tied in with the rest of the house in a light brown or tan. The advice I have received it to stay away from anything with a red tint in it as that always ends up with a pinkish hue. Nice in a cheek, not so good in a living/dining.What you do not see in this next picture is the paper wall boarder that ran around the room transitioning the light green into the dark green. This room will most likely also get the tan/brown treatment. The look we are going for is uniform, clean, and light enough to paint over easily. Have had two realtors through and they were both very friendly. They had very different perspectives through which they saw the house. Differing takes on what should and shouldn't be done to the place. It has been really informative to have the two of them come through. Really hope the third guy gets back to me so that I can put these first two visits into perspective.

For dinner I whipped up a whole mess of pork stir fry. First mistake was listening to the Mrs and chopping up all the pork. Could have really used about half that much and would have been just as good, if not better. Second mistake was using the big fry pan and not the wok. Not as easy to mix and stir. Couldn't do as much with the veggies. Mistakes aside it was a nice dinner. I put a little sweet chili sauce on top of mine but everyone else enjoyed it as was. I had seasoned with salt, garlic powder, basil, vinegar and soy sauce. I also hit it with a little okonomiyaki sauce right before taking it out of the pan.
There was a little debate about the seaweed flakes on the salad this evening. The wife was trying to spice things up but the rest of us just wanted tomatoes and cucumbers with balsamic vinegar. Back to the grind stone tomorrow. Only seven teaching days left in this semester. Yee haw.

Seeking Corporate Sponsorship

So with photos like these we must be eligible for some kind of kickback of government graft program. I mean, come on.
Well we were all pretty happy this evening, as you can tell in the previous pictures. We had all just enjoyed amazing feed, a'la wife. Tonight we started with some chips and the last bit of last years batch of salsa. So good. We definitely need to get on that this weekend.After the chips and salsa the Mrs. set us up with a shepherd's pie type casserole (sliced not mashed potatoes) some rice and a fabulous, home garden sponsored, Greek salad. Everyone cleaned their plate (or had the green peppers and red onion cleaned for them) and left the table satisfied. This didn't preclude some whining for dessert (not on a school night) however it was short lived and not too painful. I was only hit with one "boo" as the battle settled.

Good news, the daughter has managed to secure a small role in the local kids production of "Annie." I was late getting her enrolled but the director happened to make an extra role so there was a spot left over. Another cheque going out tomorrow. Show will happen in late November ( 24th or there abouts) if anyone is interested. Hopefully a Saturday night but I will have more details at a later date. TTFN.

What day is it?

This is the question I was posed as my enlisted help got down to business chopping. Why the day of the week was important I did not know. I puzzled for a second and the realised I should just give up the answer so I replied, "Saturday." To which my daughter replied, "but we are having tofu, its not tofuesday." Talk about starting something without even realising. So Tuesday has officially crossed over. I think that is kind of cool. Anyways I explained how we can have tofu on other nights as well. And then we got down to making dinner. The Mrs. made a greek salad. She went a little light on the cheese and vinegar (her call) but it was still delish and having our own cukes in the mix was nice.

I made a squash and basil soup. The squash was boiled in 4 cups of water with onion, celery, salt and pepper. Then it was pureed in the food processor with some fresh basil. This puree was added back to the remaining water and then we put in some broccoli and frozen corn. Next I added cumin and half a cube of vegetable stock. This was simmered until the broccoli had softened. Finally I threw in another handful of fresh basil leaves. I turned off the heat and let it sit for a bit before serving.

The stir fry was our now classic tofu in peanut sauce number. The vegetables included zuchinni and beans from our garden. It was great. (I used the bowl which held the tofu while the veggies were stir fried, don't tell anyone but you get extra sauce that way)

On a non food note the room was painted today. Tomorrow is for trim and the closet door. Pretty happy with how things have gone so far. Some small touch ups will be necessary but overall I think not a bad job.

Fish: Day 1

Well we did it. Our family now owns a pet. It is a siamese fighting fish, a boy named Hoi-kun. It is already running my life. Every half an hour or so I am implored to go in and see how well he is doing. Not that the daughter is worried, she just thinks he is doing so darn well and wants to share it with the world. Of course we do have some issues. The darn pilot light will not go out on the heater no matter how low I turn it down or how hot the water gets. I have unplugged it for the night. Could it have been the complete submersion that the son decided would be for the best while no one else was looking. It specifically says on the package to not submerge. Right on the side is written large "Maximum water level" this writing is not at the top. Even with explicit instructions I figure he would have done it anyways. So yeah, will our fish die of pneumonia or heat stroke. If it dies does it need to be replaced? Obvious yes. Do I have to go back to the shop the next day and claim that our heater is faulty and ask for a replacement? Only if I can find the receipt. Speaking of which where did I put that receipt.

In the bigger picture I have a knot of dread that is taking over my abdomen about trying to find a fish sitter for while we are out of town. Do you pay a fish sitter? Will one of our retiree neighbours be thrilled at the possibility of coming to our house once a day to feed Hoi? I am telling you there better be great joy had by all because of this fish for me to be putting this level of thought and worry into it. Damn heater. Darn son.

In any case it was a happy "real" birthday for the daughter today. Asides from the heart wrenching decision to buy her a pet I also put in some time with the wife in the kitchen making her a Birthday feast. It consisted of gyoza, rice, greek salad, and a special order of bean soup. I was on soup and salad detail the Mrs. was on gyoza and rice. She really can whip up some gyoza. I will start with the soup which is not pictured here.

Half and onion, three cloves of garlic and six small mushrooms chopped fine and sauteed. Add a cup of water and simmer. Can of broad beans drained and rinsed. Food processed with a cup of water to a porridge like consistency. Porridge aside the sauteed and simmer onions et al are also food processed. Everything added back to the sauteeing pot with another cup of water. Half a head of broccolli and the heart along with a celery stalk chopped up. This is added to the now simmering soup along with salt, pepper, coriander (not really noticeable) dried dill and three bay leaves (we just bought a new package and wow is that a step up from the old bay leaves we had. Who knew fresh bay leaves were that much better). After taking it off the heat I added maybe half a cup of half and half. Mix and serve.

The Greek salad was just my best guess, half a red onion diced and put in the salad bowl, salted and mixed, added equal parts balsamic vinegar and olive oil (nice little pond in the bottom). Mixed and left to sit. Diced two large tomatoes, a whole long english cucumber and one and a half red peppers. This was all poured into the bowl and then mixed. Finally about 3 tablespoons of finely crumbled feta cheese on top and I was done.

This is what the kids looked like once dinner was ready. Now this is hard on the heels of a, "I'm starving when is dinner." Not five minutes later both totally sleepified.

The baby at least had the excuse he was talking to someone and couldn't come to the table.The wife and I had a very pleasant dinner and some adult conversation. Nothing risque, we talked mostly about jogging.