Author Archives: glenderella

Burning Down the Kitchen

Posted on by
3

Another thing I mention in the blog subtitle is “Burning down the kitchen.” So here is the story of that.

I have had a history of very minor kitchen fires. Steaks being broiled, things that had overflowed in the oven, and then cooked and subsequently caught fire on the floor of the oven. There was the incident with the homemade tortilla chips in the toaster oven. That pretty much took care of the toaster oven. Especially since it was full of baking soda, which I used to put out the fire. But I had never had a full blown stove top grease fire, until this year. It was Sunday, October 30, and I was getting ready to go on a business trip, but I thought I would make fried chicken strips for the DH before I went. I poured about an inch of canola oil in the dutch oven, turned it on to medium-high, and went downstairs to finish packing a few things. I honestly have no idea how long I was downstairs, but it was TOOO long. Just as DH was coming back in from looking in the storage shed to try and find the carryon bag, I came upstairs, and it was smoky. I went into the kitchen, and the oil was ON FIRE. I looked at DH, coming in the back door, and said “I think we need the fire extinguisher,” I think he said something in general agreement and I ripped that fire extinguisher out from under the kitchen sink.

Side note: The fire extinguisher is approximately 17 years old, because I believe my parents gave it to us as either a wedding present or a gift very shortly after we were married. I have always been meaning to get it checked out and see if it was still charged. Thank goodness, it was.

Another side note: I think I have to credit my brother with the fact that I knew I had to pull a pin for the fire extinguisher to work. Because he had been telling me elk hunting stories, about how his hunting companion was so nervous about bears that he spent a great deal of time with the pin pulled on his bear grenade. So I knew I had to pull a pin.

CHHHHHHHHHHHHT – OK, fire is out, but pan of hot oil is still on the burner, which is on. I have no desire to reach over the pan to turn it off, so I grab a towel and lift the pan off with that. This causes 1) the towel to ignite, and 2) the pan to re-ignite. So I go after both with the extinguisher again. Finally, all is quiet. Suspiciously quiet, as in “no smoke alarm” going off quiet. More on that in a bit.


Meanwhile, DH has decided that I am handling the situation OK, and he is trying to round up the cats and put them in the bedroom, so we can open every other window and door in the house. Because the upstairs is essentially filled with smoke AND fire extinguisher dust. We get the cats stuffed in the bedroom, and wander around in shock for a bit, bring the fan upstairs to help blow the smoke out. Fortunately, it is not freezing cold outside. And, our neighbors across the street (the ones we are closest to on the block) are not home to witness this spectacle.


Did I mention I had to leave for a business trip? And now DH was going to get to clean up this huge mess? Alone? Of course he wasn’t mad at me, he knew it was an accident, but I still felt guilty.

Him saying “Honey, that’s the biggest fire you’ve ever set!” didn’t help either.

We checked it out and determined that things weren’t really probably destroyed (well, except for the dutch oven pot and the thermometer that was in it), but that everything was dirty and we probably needed to call our insurance company. The plan was for him to clean up things as much as possible so the cats could be let out of the bedroom and not traipse through too much fire extinguisher dust.


Meanwhile, I had to finish packing. I read through my usual packing list about 3 times, and had him read it out loud to me because I was so rattled. I headed out to the airport with a story to tell to all of my companions on my trip (along with the admonition, “Get a fire extinguisher!”) and left him with the mess, and instructions to box up the chicken that hadn’t even come out of the refrigerator, (but was still dipped and battered and ready to go) and put it in the freezer.

And when I came home and went to get something out of the chest freezer, I see the package, labeled “Halloween Fire Chicken.”

So, I now give you the recipe for Chicken Fried Chicken Fingers, henceforth known as “Halloween Fire Chicken.” http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1739,152185-224194,00.html

Make sure you have a fire extinguisher! Make sure it works! Make sure your smoke detector is properly hooked up! (We checked ours, feeling that it should have gone off, and it appears that while it was connected to the electricity, it was not connected to something else????) and probably hadn’t been for 10 years since we bought the house. I don’t remember it ever going off. And I burn things fairly often……

Actual Knitting and Crocheting

Posted on by
2

How about an actual post with knitting and crocheting content? Since I mention them in my blog title? Well, how about….

I learned to do the knit stitch when I was relatively young, I suppose 9 or 10. But my mom only knew how to do the knit stitch, and I couldn’t figure out how to do the purl stitch from looking at the Readers Digest Guide to Needlework.*  So I diligently knitted my mom horrible misshapen dish cloths our of who knows what kind of yarn (whatever was in her yarn bag) and continued to develop my skills in hand embroidery, latch hook, and sewing.

About 20 years later, living in Utah, that seemed to be a fine place to learn to crochet. I learned I was going to be an aunt for the first time, and I wanted to make stuff. I couldn’t get any further than the chain stitch by looking in books, so I took a class at a local store. All I really needed was to see someone do stitches with their hands, rather than from a picture in a book, and I took off. So, if you have been trying to learn, I encourage you to either take a class from a live person, OR look at the many YouTube videos which are now available.  I made many, many double sided pot holders, which had been a specialty of my Grandma, and crocheted edges around baby blankets, and then eventually did the whole baby blanket. I still prefer to make baby blankets by crocheting rather than by knitting, because it is much faster.

In 2005, after we had moved to Colorado, I took a knitting class. This was both good and bad, because I did learn to do the purl stitch, but the the other students in the class didn’t even know how to make a slip knot, so the teacher was busy working with them and not noticing that I twisted my purls. It took another class with a different teacher to find that out. Since then I have moved on to continental knittting (FASTER!) and twisting my purls is no longer a problem. I have other problems, like widely variable gauge, a cat who bites through my yarn, too many projects to do and too little time, etc. etc.

Here is a picture of my first real knitting project – a hat and scarf. I am keeping them, because, you know, 1st knitting project.

Crocheting – I know we had to make a doily for that class. I DON’T know where it is currently located. It was a small doily, but it was not a simple pattern. This teacher expected you to learn and learn fast, and get your projects done.

Here is a knitting project I keep on my wall to keep myself humble: And to remind myself to check gauge. And to proceed with extreme caution when using vintage knitting instructions.

Doesn’t look too bad, does it?

How about a hand for scale?

* There are probably many, many more up-to-date needlework books out there, but I still pull this on out quite often. So often that it lives in the living room bookcase instead of in the craft room. Mom and dad got it for me at an auction – best gift ever! Still available on Amazon, although I think now you can get a “classic” one with the dated looking cover, or a newer one. I haven’t seen the newer one to see if they updated the 1970s type patterns inside.

In Which Yet Another Appliance Attempts to Take a Dive

Posted on by
3

Well, an eventful-enough weekend. Woke up to snow, snow, and more snow again Saturday morning.  And MaryAnne, sitting on the window sill, looking out at it, licking the window, how festive. The newspaper in its plastic orange wrapper was barely poking out of the snow. And I, with my fabulous razor-like memory and organization, had left my snow boots at work. Eventually I put on DH’s snow boots and trekked outside to retrieve said paper, so I could continue my a.m. tradition of Diet Coke and newspaper, the breakfast of champions.

About enough snow, already, OK?

I needed to go out to the store to get additional potatoes and some other things for Thanksgiving Part II, but I wasn’t about to go out until the snow settled down a bit. So I worked on cutting out pants for DN 12 (birthday pants about 2 months late)  (with the help of the cats, of course),

Leo, helping. Big time.

sewed a little on my color class project (taking a quilting class based all on color theory), sorted clothes for DH to wash, looked out at the snow and complained, and did some family phone calling that needed to be done. Made beefy harvest soup for me for lunch http://www.txbeef.org/recipe_book/soups_stews_and_chilis/beefy_harvest_soup and Oriental Beef and Noodle Toss for DH (a recipe which he inexplicably likes, I sometimes hit on the oddest things that he actually enjoys. Unfortunately, I do not enjoy it much (not spicy enough)).(Recipe I have scanned in from a cookbook and saved to the computer in an effort to narrow down the cookbook collection.)

So that was a kitchen disaster, making two things at once with multiple ingredients, stuff all over the place, but that is kind of the way I cook. Thinking about things, I came to the conclusion that I needed to cook the turkey that night, because Sunday we were going to be going to a Christmas party, and I didn’t want all that hassle and clean up and being exhausted and too full before the party. So, when the snow quit (about another 6 inches, thank you very much, 2nd snow storm in 3 days), I struck out to the store, which was busy with everybody else who had the same idea.

Of course, just going to the store has to be eventful, so I locked myself out of the house. I had run back upstairs to grab my reusable bags, but did not grab the keys off the hook like I meant to. I shook my coat to see if the keys were in it, and the zipper jingled, so I thought I was good. When I got to the car, I discovered I was NOT good. In a combination of events that only seems to happen in my entertaining life, the husband had announced that he was going to take a LONG hot shower after shoveling the walk/driveway. So of course, him getting in the shower coincided with me locking myself out of the house. Oh hey, I have a brilliant idea, I will go to our neighbors across the street who have a spare key. Well, none of them are home, except for Lucy the cocker spaniel, who looked a good deal like she would enjoy giving me a good ankle bite, but she wasn’t going to get any key for me.

So I stood on our porch, peering in the door window, hoping to see some sign of DH emerging from the bathroom, and pounded on the door/rang the doorbell approximately every 60 seconds. I am sure the cats were freaking out, because they always panic and hide when the doorbell rings.

After about 10 minutes of this (fortunately I was dressed warmly, and the sun had come out and it wasn’t CURRENTLY snowing), our neighbor did come home and I retreived the spare key, zipped into the house for my key, yelled to DH that I had been locked out, and headed off to the store. Fortunately, I only had 4 things I wanted to get, and I managed to remember all of them. Unfortunately I forgot to even think about getting that throat anaesthetic spray to deaden my sore throat, but I seem to be getting over the evil cold/sinus thing slowly.

Stopped at Starbucks to get hot cocoa for DH and I because I am such a nice wife, but what I really needed at this point was a shot of Baileys or Jagermeister in mine.

By the time I got home, it was time to get the turkey started if I wanted that to get done, so I wrestled it out of the bag. I have a nice roasting pan but if I use that for the turkey, I can’t fit any other pans in the oven, so I stuff the 12 pound turkey into a 9 X 13 cake pan. It fits nicely. http://www.cooking.com/Recipes-and-More/recipes/Herbed-Turkey-Breast-recipe-6775.aspx I do remember to remove the neck and giblets, because I have plans for the giblets. I throw the neck in the pan to roast along w/the turkey, it will get boiled along w/the carcass to make broth.

Later I peeled the potatoes and got them boiling, blenderized the raw giblets for the stuffing (that is the way my Grandma used to make it, I am trying to re-create it, it is a different taste but it grows on you.) I wonder if she always used the gizzard, that doesn’t seem to blenderize very well. Mmmmm, delicious giblet smoothy. (Not really, I didn’t taste it, I was trying to not even smell it….) With a couple of eggs, added to the usual bread crumbs, onions, celery, and seasoning, this is the traditional family recipe. Potatoes get mashed, along with cream cheese and I show great restraint and only use 1/2 stick of butter. There is butter in the stuffing too, and I basted the bird with butter, so I tried to be frugal in the mashed potatoes.

So I am whomping up the potatoes in the KitchenAid stand mixer, and they are about done, but then I start to hear really bad noises from the trusty KitchenAid, like the beater is whacking into the side of the bowl. I stop and look and think *(&()*&*&^(* this will be the 3rd kitchen appliance to die in a month, bloody hell, and try to adjust it. Still whomping. Oh well, figure it out later. So when DH goes to dish up his potatoes, he gets a big chunk of white metal on his plate, the cover to the place where the attachments can go on the front of the mixer has fallen off and that is what is making the noise, thank goodness. Now I just need a new Crock Pot (handle disintegrated) and food processor (broke the lid). Although I am going to try to order a new food processor lid, their website says “not available online, please call us,” I consider that to be a really bad sign. As in, we don’t have parts for that bloody thing, it is so old (about 10 years old, I think…) go buy a new one.

The adventurous part of the turkey was getting it from one pan into another so I could easily get the pan juices to make gravy. I have a baster, and could have retrieved the juices w/that, but it isn’t really that functional, I have had it forever, maybe there is a better design out there now……So I grabbed my nice new tongs from IKEA a few weeks ago, and my giant grilling tongs, and I manhandled that baby over. No disaster, surprisingly. The only treat the cats got was when I dropped the basting brush onto the (relatively clean, before that) floor and spattered butter and herbs everywhere.

The proper tools for turkey transfer.

Altogether a good meal, although I accidentally opened up creamed corn instead of regular. Didn’t get around to making sweet potato casserole, can make that some other weekend, or scalloped corn, but DH won’t eat either of those anyway, so I will make them some weekend and take them for breakfast at work all week.

I knew I wanted to get up Sunday morning and clean up the kitchen (did you think I cleaned it up Sunday night after dinner? Ha ha ha ha ha.) So I did that, alternating cleaning with reading the paper. Made a new ranch chicken recipe http://www.food.com/recipe/crock-pot-cream-cheese-ranch-chicken-147494 in the mangled crock pot for lunch, didn’t want to eat too heavy as we were going to a Christmas party this afternoon and I knew there would be good appetizer-y food there. Ran out to look for new jeans and found a fleece top that will be good to wear this winter if it is going to snow 3 times every &*^(&*^^%$^ week, and my throat spray that I forgot the day before. And I did a little sewing, and we (mostly DH) watched the Broncos, and I tried to nap, and MaryAnne work me up, scratching on the carpet, playing with a hair elastic, I have no idea where she got that. Little brat. Scritch scritch scritch scritch, on the carpet, and she has been digging up the carpet by the bedroom door so I assumed that was what she was doing, and I stomped up to check, and NO, she had the hair elastic, and we don’t really need for her to be eating that. And then she demonstrated to me how she can jump up ALL the way on TOP of the entertainment center, I didn’t want to know that….

We went to the Christmas party, and it was lovely, but I really think I did too much this weekend and I probably should have spent more time trying to recover from being sick so I am OK at our work convention this week, I may be paying the price by Thursday. And the weekend ended like it began, snowing like crazy, oh the joy.

Christmas Shopping

Posted on by
Reply

Four posts into my wordpress experience, and I have lost my 1st post. I thought, I hit “publish,” I have no idea what I really clicked on.

I informed my brother that unless I got some ideas for Christmas presents from his daughters, DN 12 and DN 10, they were going to get this:

They have a 6 year old brother, I am sure they all need to be more hopped up on sugar. Plus, DN 10 already has a Sno Cone maker, this way they could corner the market on sweet treats being sold by cute children from sidewalk stands.

DN 12 send me PICTURES of 5 books she would like. I find that highly ironic. One of them is “Git-R-Done” by Larry the Cable Guy. I am not sure what to think of that. Apparently she has eclectic taste like I did as a kid, which makes me both happy and concerned. No one tried to censor my voracious reading as a kid, and I turned out fine. Mostly.

Airing of Grievances

Posted on by
2

Still sick. Was only barely human this morning by virtue of Aleve and Nyquil. Didn’t want to go to work and contaminate my co-workers any more than I probably already did yesterday. And, it was also snowing and the wind was blowing, so that was extra incentive to stay home. Of course, I ended up working from home a couple of hours, after the new IT guy got the server at work fixed so we were finally getting our email after 2 days, and fixed the firewall so I was ALLOWED to log on from home.

About noon I thought I was feeling pretty good and then I totally crashed from 12:30 to 1:30 so I guess not.

Was working on the Christmas afghan for DN (Dear Niece) #4, thought it would be safe from the cat monster if I put it all back in my work bag with the yarn on the bottom, oh no, that rotten cat knocked the bag over, dragged the whole afghan out to get to the yarn, and bit the yarn in half. Brat. That took me out of the crocheting mood pretty fast, but I did measure and discover I am on the last row I have to do before I do the edging. Of course, it wants me to put 82 stitch markers in the last row, I don’t have 82 stitch markers, let alone the nice clippy ones you would need to get it out of the crochet later. Don’t they understand the Glenderella “guestimating” technique?

There was no way I was going out to the freezer in the garage to get anything for dinner, so that meant leftover ham from the freezer in the house. Did make steak fries in the oven because that is what my somewhat still weirded out, slightly nauseated stomach wanted.

Meanwhile, we are watching some show on the Cooking Channel about a food truck that makes cupcakes, and DH says, “Why are we watching this, it is making me hungry?” And I promptly went upstairs to make a cake. Hot fudge cake, the kind that makes its own hot fudge sauce on the bottom. With vanilla ice cream over it, that is just what my sore throat needs. I attempted the “cake in a mug-microwave” version of this last week, and let me tell you, you want to stay away from that. Could not be called a cake in any sense of the word.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/hot-fudge-cake/detail.aspx

Although this recipe is not written for people who do not read ahead, and someone may have dumped in 6 T. of cocoa in the batter, rather than 2 T. in the batter and 4 T. in the hot water mixture, so we will see how that turns out. It can’t possibly be worse that the ‘sludge in a mug.’

As I mentioned in my post the other night, I would love to re-do the guest bathroom in “retro kitsch sea shell.” My DH is less than enthused about this idea. So as we were flipping through channels trying to find something on TV, I asked him, “Would you rather watch ‘Dial M for Murder’ or let me redecorate the bathroom in shells?” And his answer was “Do you have a gun?”, which isn’t exactly an answer but I guess I get his point.

My ideas for the bathroom include:

I am pretty sure I could get a shell lamp like that back from my sister-in-law, since I gave her one just like that when we were exchanging “ugly gifts” each Christmas. Maybe I shouldn’t tell her how much they are going for on Ebay……And then maybe one of those shell wind chimes, hmmmmm. This could be a really memorable bathroom, I am just saying. Although I am generally against adding things that I would have to dust, so that may not be in favor of the wind chimes.

Random photo of my life:

This is not what happens when you try to hide someone you have stabbed in your suitcase, this is what happens when you have a bottle of cough syrup that comes open in your suitcase. Needless to say, that was the last of that suitcase.

 

What Was In That Bucket

Posted on by
Reply

This pretty much sums up today:

DH: What did you have in this bucket?

ME: Nothing.

DH: Well, MaryAnne is sitting in it now. Oh….is that a barf bucket?

ME: Yeah….

So, I came home from work early feeling nauseous. Don’t know if it is what DH had the other night, or the leftover Mexican food for lunch. But I am watching TV and carefully avoiding all food commercials. I will NOT be watching Man Vs. Food tonight. Also seem to be catching a cold, took Mucinex before I went to bed last night and consequently was awake from 3:30 to 4:30, need to remember not to do that again. MaryAnne assumed I was awake for the sole purpose of throwing her little pink ball for her.

Adding to the productivity at work was the fact that we had no internet or email all day, preventing me from sending things out that should have gone out.

Along with the antiques I brought home, my mother-in-law gave me some makeup bags and Clinique things she got through “gift with purchase.” I will always accept makeup bags because they make good knitting bags. I will always accept cleansers and moisturizers because I am cheap. So I got up this morning to find one of the smaller makeup bags in the hallway, and when I saw it later, Leo was all snuggled up to it. He occasionally adopts an object (usually small but sometimes a bath towel) and drags it around the house. We refer to them as his “babies.” Slightly incongrous because he is a large 16 pound Maine Coon cat, but he is also afraid of visitors.

Gratuitous cat pictures:

Leo and MaryAnne. MA might be a little bigger than that now, but not much.

Glenderella.com goes live

Posted on by
Reply

This will be a blog about my life: cats, knitting, quilting, crocheting, cooking, and other random crafting. I almost named it “Angel of Destruction” after a friend called me that on Facebook after I nearly burned down my kitchen, and also had my Crockpot AND my food processor die within a few weeks of each other. Well, the Crockpot’s handle disintegrated on its own. The food processor, I may have had something to do with. But that was because of a design flaw, because it stuck when I tried to open it and consequently broke off the little thingy that tells it it that it is safe to operate.

Another hobby I enjoy is thrifting and antiquing. An update on recent antiquing: We returned to my husband’s hometown near Sioux Falls, SD, for Thanksgiving, and instead of going to the mall and Target with my sisters-in-law, of course I went to yarn stores and antique stores. After the two “nice” antique stores, I told the owner at the the 2nd store that her store was very nice but that I wanted to go to a junky antique store, one that had piles, one that would have glow in the dark Virgin Marys that I collect (the lady at the first, VERY nice antique store burst out into hysterical laughter when I told her what I was looking for.) She recommended I drive out to Hartford and go to Aunt-T’s-Ques Wayside Shoppe. And let me tell you, it was a junkatorium. Well, he had nice stuff, but also a lot of random stuff, and very closely packed together. Just my kind of place. He had a lineup of about 10 meat grinders all attached to one shelf that were very impressive. Only one glow in the dark Virgin Mary, however, but they are hard to find, that is why I enjoy collecting them. He was pretty sure he had another one but couldn’t find it. I gave him my card with instructions to email me if he found it, we will see if he can hold onto the card.

At the first antique store in Sioux Falls, Belsnickel, I got some vintage jewelry for my niece’s Christmas present (she likes to play dress up with jewelry) – 3 necklaces and 3 pairs of clip on earrings, and than at the junkatorium, I found a small jewelry box for them. I showed great willpower and DID not purchase the truly frightening Poodle/Bulldog TV lamp that I immediately was attracted to, or the lovely shell bouquet (thinking of re-doing the guest bathroom in “shell” decorations, haven’t shared that idea with the husband yet….wait, I just did, I showed him a nice shell lamp on Ebay and he says “absolutely not.”). The lamp was similar to this one, only I do believe it was a bulldog rather than a pug. (Thanks to http://www.tvlamps.net/index.html for the picture)  thanks to http://www.tvlamps.net

If you think this is scary you should see it with the eyes glowing.

I have no pictures of the jewelry and box because I boxed them up and left them with my mother in law. (She likes to wrap, is going to wrap them for me, that way we won’t have to mail them back and forth…)

This is the very fine wooden purse I got at Lost Marbles Antiques in Sioux Falls, which is a very nice shop. I also got a nice gold and black rhinestone necklace there (next pic.)

And there is the glow in the dark Virgin Mary (looks like she used to be part of a larger plaque), swizzle sticks (I had something I needed to swizzle the other day) and necklace. Close up of the Virgin Mary:

After seeing a large glow in the dark Virgin of Guadalupe at a cool little tchotchke shop in Austin (which a co-worker TALKED ME OUT OF BUYING, I still can’t believe it), I decided I should collect them. I have one Lady of Guadalupe (smaller, about 9 inches, the big one was about 14 inches) and one very modern looking one. And I am on the hunt for more. My husband thinks this is kind of weird (he is the one that is Catholic) but he has learned to not be surprised by any of my hobbies.

And the very cool picture I got to hang on the wall. I am on a poppies kick lately, probably because there is a lot of poppy fabric out there right now. When I saw this print from the 40s, (and still bright as the day it was made), I decided if I didn’t buy it I would regret it and end up driving back out the Hartford to get it anyway. Plus, this is the exact color of the poppies that grew in front of my Grandma’s house as I was growing up. Buying this picture caused us to have to pay to check another piece of luggage.

We didn’t HAVE another piece of luggage along, so we created one.

Nice, huh? We used up all of DH’s parents’ duct tape. And a couple of other kinds of tape. But it made it through the flight just fine. AND it was searched by the TSA, even after the guy asked me what was in it, and I said “A poppy picture, a glow in the dark Virgin Mary, swizzle sticks, a wooden purse, a necklace, popcorn (a story for another day) and a pair of shoes.” You would think that would be enough of an explanation. They did tape it back together quite satisfactorily.