POWER to the McCullouchs!

Houston we have electric! Or at least we will by tomorrow morning! John came on Saturday to help pull the wire from the road to the house. I have to say I was very skeptical about it working, but it did. Phew, we won't have to dig up the conduit and redo it where it's cemented in.

And guess what. Stinky internet again means no pictures. But as soon as I'm back to full capacity, I'll post pictures of the ledge out back that I cleared off and the firepit that I built.

This weekend the shingles go up - and Matt can work on the wiring. It's coming!

Looking Ahead

I think this might be the third possible "big" house plan I've posted but this is the one we keep coming back to lately. The garage opens in the back - which would make it easy to put the house in front of the garage/shop/cottage thing like Matt wants. The colors here are ugly, the siding would be green painted Hardie Plank with a brown roof.

The Barrett from www.eplans.com

Front View

First Floor

Second Floor

I suppose that whichever plan we could always open the garage to the back - or at least with the colonial style plan we liked. But this makes it easier and the footprint is smaller. I like it! The Master would overlook the yard and I like the galley kitchen. We would probably switch it around so that the breakfast area was in the front and the dining room in the back to take advantage of the morning sun.

Adventures in Home Improvement Warehouse Shopping.

Today Shannon and I hopped into Matt's new truck and set off on a mission to buy a sink and toilet. I've never driven the truck into the city so I was very nervous.

Stop 1: Target
Made it there in one piece and I love riding above the crowd rather than below everyone in the civic. We went perimeter perusing - Shan found a TP holder for $2.50 - woot! I printed off some pictures of the world's cutest 1 year old and picked up some new method aroma pills in citrus cilantro. They make the house smell so clean, I love it! Actually I love pretty much anything method makes, good for the environment and it smells good. Check it out. www.methodhome.comStop 2: Home Depot

I knew I wanted to pick up the sink today and thought I was going to buy the toilet and I wanted to use my free $50 gift card I got for test driving a Toyota Tundra. Adventure #1 finding a cart. Apparently they horde the big flat bed carts and you have to hunt for them.

off, they wouldn't match it. So the mean lady left us and we went to look at toilets. I agonized over which to buy. Shh...don't tell, but I actually looked at reviews of the two that I liked online to make sure they flushed well. I decided not to buy it now and went off in search of the rest of the list Matt gave us, which included 12 - 10' sections of pvc conduit and 2 giant bags of cement. So we hunted down the cement - I used my brawn to heave the 94 pound bags onto our cart (no strong men around at that point) then went off in search of conduit. Found a cute sales boy whoWe finally hunted down the cart and headed back to the fixture section. I found the sink I wanted (see picture a few posts down) and the base was on sale! Sweet - I didn't have to make them price match Lowes. But the sink was $20 more than Lowes and because one number was pointed us in the rightish direction and we piled the conduit on. The question became how do we maneuver the cart because I decided that I did want to buy the toilet after all. So I straddled the 4' pipe overhang and the handle end. Sure straddle the pipe and 2 men come running over asking if I needed help. I think they had pipe envy, because mine definitely won :) They asked what we were building...A dollhouse? Um, no buddy. I'm old, building a house, that's why I'm carting around cement and piping. Anyway he let me leave my cart with him while we went on another hunt for gold...er a flat cart. Found one, and had one of our pipe envy guys call ahead to have someone lift my potty.

Uh oh. It's the same lady who got annoyed when I wanted her to price match for me. Um, I just had a strong man, why can't he do the lifting? Whatever. I make up my mind to get the one with better reviews and she loads it onto my cart. Just as she got it loaded on, she noticed a scratch on the bowl. She made to take it off and get another...so I asked if I could have a discount if I took it! She rolled her eyes at me but I scored 10% off! Woot.



Made it to the checkout and even managed to back the truck to the loading area without hitting anything (score!) and helped a little kid load the truck. Find that the conduit does not fit in the truck bed and I didn't bring the straps. Crap. Good thing I had the Cheese with me, who suggested opening the back window and shoving them through. Crisis averted.

Stop 3: Lowes

I left Shannon in the car to guard my pooper while I ran in to grab the sink basin. I had to wait for a guy to pick it up for me (holy heavy batman!) and I ran up front. Then I felt the ominous buzzing in my pocket, it was Shannon, someone had hit the truck! Oh crap, Matt's going to kill me. Sounds like someone pulled in too close and bumped it, gave Shannon quite the shock, but everything was fine. Phew. Get off the phone and realize that hey! I'll be Lowes will match HD's price on the base. So I went back and had the guy load on the base. Go back up front to find that yeppers, they can price match, so I saved another 10%.

Stop 4. Home Depot
Get back into the truck and decide that since we're already in town, we should go to HD to return the sink base. Drive over there, figure out which base came from them, and leave Shan to guard the goods again. Wait 10 minutes for someone to take care of the guy in front of me, and return the sink that I bought there 45 minutes ago. I should have told the girl that lowes had it cheaper to see if they would undercut themselves. Oh well not that smart.

Finally made it home 4 hours after I left but I have bathroom fixtures that I love. Life is good.

Homemade French Fries

I baked up some fries tonight, they were AMAZING! Again, no pictures, I couldn't keep the boys out of them long enough to snap some shots.

6 potatoes, unpeeled and cut into wedges length wise
butter
Sea Salt
Fresh cracked pepper
Garlic Powder
Chili Powder
McCormick's Garlic and Herb Grillmates

Heat oven to 350. Melt 2 Tbs butter in the oven on a foil covered baking sheet. Lay potato wedges on pan. Season with salt, pepper, garlic powder, chili powder, and grill mates seasoning. Bake until tender about 35 minutes.

Good Eats part deux

This morning I told Matt to sleep in so I could make him breakfast, since he's been so occupied...oh I don't know...building our house.

Melt in Your Mouth French Toast

I didn't measure so these are estimations.

4 eggs
1/2 - 3/4 cup Half and Half
2 T Cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp maple syrup
salt and pepper
5 slices Texas Toast bread (the thick cut stuff!)

Mix ingredients together in a shallow dish. Dip bread in to coat. Fry on a nonstick skillet until golden brown (more or less how you like it).

Today I topped it with a generous portion of butter and some fresh maple syrup. So good.

Good Eats

I'm finding more and more that I really enjoy cooking. Here are my latest creations (no pics, I forgot to take them!)

The first is a Fettuccine Alfredo that I found on WC Nestie Jolene's blog http://joelens.blogspot.com/ check it out, I can't wait to make more of her recipes.

Fettuccine Alfredo
Cooking at Home With America's Test Kitchen
page 177

1 1/2 cups heavy cream
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
salt to taste
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
9 ounces fresh fettuccine
1 1/2 ounces Parmigiano-Reggiano, grated (about 3/4 cup)
1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1. Bring 1 cup of the heavy cream and the butter to a simmer in a 3- to 4- quart saucepan over medium heat; reduce the heat to low and simmer gently until the mixture reduces to 2/3 cup, 12 to 15 minutes. Off the heat, stir in the remaining 1/2 cup cream, 1/2 teaspoon salt and pepper.

2. While the cream reduces, bring 4 1/2 quarts water to a rolling boil. covered, in a large stockpot or Dutch oven. Using a ladle or heatproof measuring cup, scoop about 1/2 cup boiling water into each serving bowl; set the bowls aside to warm. Add 1 tablespoon salt and the pasta to the pot of boiling water; cook the pasta until just shy of al dente. Reserve 1/4 cup pasta cooking water, then drain the pasta.

3. Meanwhile, return the cream mixture to a simmer over medium-high heat; reduce the heat to low and add the pasta, Parmesan, and nutmeg to the cream mixture. Cook over low heat, tossing the pasta with tongs to combine, until the cheese is melted, the sauce coats the pasta, and the pasta is just al dente, 1 to 2 minutes. Stir in the reserved pasta cooking water; the sauce may look rather thin but will gradually thicken as the pasta is served and eaten. Working quickly, empty the serving bowls of the water; divide the pasta among the bowls, tossing the pasta to coat well with the sauce. Serve immediately.

I added about a cup of steamed broccoli and topped it with rotisserie chicken

Amazing

So on wednesday, I'm going to head to Syracuse to meet up with a girl who I met and talk to daily through a website. How weird is that, totally not something I ever thought I'd do, but hey sometimes God works in mysterious ways. If only I could meet all of my nestie friends IRL. We're going to check out Pottery Barn and I'm going to get my first ever Cold Stone Creamery ice cream. Woot!

Amazing that a website could bring together people who grow to truly care about each other.

Bathroom

My color scheme. Green walls, white trim, and brown accents (shower curtain and such)

I am in love with this sink. It's kind of sad and pathetic actually, just how in love I am.
Kohler Memoir Collection

I bought this faucet to put on it on Ebay.

And this tub/shower faucet, again ebay.

In case you were wondering

I see I have posted NO pictures of what the place actually looks like. Might help you figure out where those lights will go.

We rented this thing to take care of the stumps and level out the spot.

Stone is down and tamped. All level and ready for concrete.
Pad is down and Matt is working on laying the brick for the walls.
Here you can see that it will indeed later be a garage.

Trusses in a pile. We had to drag them down the long tree lined driveway. Not fun.

Each truss had to be hand lifted.
Glad all I had to do was take pictures!

From a distance...See the new truck. Don't ask why we still have the Toyota.A while later - ice and water shield on the roof and the front boxed in.

Tyvek up.

Windows make it look like home.

Not loving the ugly brown trim on the door but that can be painted. Love the hardware however, thanks ebay!

Back of the house. Same door is now on as the front.

Side view

The stairs inside.

Bright lights

Matt gave me the go ahead to make some purchases for the house. So immediately I jumped online to start ordering. I was going to wait until spring break and go shopping, but hey I want what I want, so I did what I'm good at. I ordered online.

Let me take a few minutes to say that if you don't already have ebates you should definitely get it. You get a percentage of what you spend back a few times a year. Last quarter I made $30. If you want a referral let me know, we'll both get $5.

Where was I, oh yeah, lights.

Check these out! The little ones (13 1/2") will go on either end of the front (think garage lights put in early) and the hanger will go in the entry way. It's a bit bigger (19") but it's a 10' ceiling so it needs it.I got them from lampsplus.com with a coupon code found on retailmenot.com ($30 off) plus the cash back from ebates (6%) I've saved about $40 on these! Woot.

Is this for real?

When did I become a grown up? Was it when I received my college acceptance letters? The day I graduated from high school? Perhaps the day that Matt asked me to marry him? Was it the day that we walked down the aisle? How about moving in together? Could it have been when we packed up and left for Houghton? The day we moved home forever? Perhaps the day we bought our land, or the day we took out a mortgage? Weird. After all that and I still don't feel like a grown up. It's weird. I have a husband, I have a couple of degrees, I have a dog, I have bills, and yet deep down, I wonder when I turned into a grown up.

Today, as alway I was amazed when I walked into my old high school; as an employee not a student and said hello to the other teachers, greeting them by their first names. You know, I think that's when I became an adult. I was teaching summer school when one of my colleagues said "you know Vicki, the world will not end if you don't call me Mrs. Smith." And you know what, I called her Carol and the world didn't end.