Valentine's Day

Three years ago today, I sat on the edge of my Mom's bed in Montreal as Dave held out a diamond ring and asked me if I would marry him.

I said "duh!"

And the rest is history.

I'm a lucky lady.

Thing a Day 2012, tiny envelopes

I love the excuse to hang out and make stuff. I think if I didn't have a job and laundry to worry about, I'd waste a ton of time on crafty things, because it's fun and the results are usually worth it. And if they're not, they're at least something to learn from for the next time.

Thanks to the popular time-sucking website, Pinterest, I have a whole pile of crafts I want to try, and one of them was making tiny gift-card envelopes out of pretty paper. This one did not necessitate a trip to Michael's, because I have some wrapping paper and scrapbook paper, and plenty of glue, making this a very cheap activity!

While I was able to find free envelope templates online, my printer refused to print, so I was stuck making my own by tracing a gift card and trying to copy the template off my computer screen. Here's my result:

I traced it onto cardboard to make it easier to use, and then I cut my shape out of a page of pretty scrapbook paper, folded it up, and stuck it together after swiping a glue stick across the essential parts.

I tested it with a gift card, and it's a little tight - I can get the card in, but can barely get it back out, so the recipient will need to rip the envelope. That's fine with me, since it's not meant to be a keepsake or anything, but I'll probably remake my template and give it a little more space before I try making any more. I don't want people to have to wrestle with their presents!

Thing a Day 2012, Valentine's Day Card

Last year, I made a Valentine's Day card for my 96-year-old grandmother as one of my Thing-A-Day crafts. She's now my 97-year-old grandmother, and still loves getting cards, so I did it again.

It's a plain card from Michael's, with some cutouts from scrapbook paper. Inside, I glued a fuzzy purple heart and stamped "love you". I'm planning on writing her a long letter to go with this card, and I'll also send her my origami sea creatures, because I think she'd get a kick out of them. I'll have to send this card to my mom, who will bring it to Grandmaman, because she's in a hospital room these days and doesn't really have a mailing address. It's complicated, but it'll get there.

Thing a Day 2012, Origami things

I'm getting a slow start compared to some of my online friends who are really talented artists, but my first things for Thing-A-Day 2012 are some origami sea creatures.

I remember, back in Grade 5, having to make hundreds of paper cranes to decorate the stage for our Christmas pageant, because our theme was "peace" and we'd just read Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes in English class. I got so good at it I could make them with my eyes closed, and every now and then when I come across a square of paper, I start folding it into a crane. Sadly, cranes are all I know how to make.

Luckily for me, there are hundreds of websites with detailed origami diagrams - some even have videos - and with their help I was able to make some things that are definitely not cranes. I don't know these new folds by heart yet, but they were both pretty easy.

What's for Dinner - Stuffed Pork Chops

I cheated on the use-it-up challenge. I bought pork chops at Costco because I had a coupon, they looked delicious, and it was an incredible price. I also cheated last week when I bought Goldfish crackers, but let's ignore that.

These were the biggest, thickest pork chops I've ever seen. An inch and a half thick! the package was 6.75 pounds, and there were 11 pieces in it, so if you do the pork chop math, it comes out to over half a pound per delicious chop. Are you drooling yet?

I knew exactly what I wanted to do with them. Stuff them! The pork chops I get at the grocery store aren't usually fat enough to stuff, so I was really excited about the wonderful opportunity in my fridge. Thank you, Costco, for making a recipe dream come true.

This recipe isn't really a recipe, because I threw it together and didn't take notes, but you can do the same thing and get a great result, I promise! This is the best kind of recipe, because you don't really need to measure or pay attention.

I cut a pocket in two pork chops and sprinkled the inside and outside with some salt and pepper. I made about a cup of Stovetop stuffing, but with less water than the instructions say, because I figured the pork chop juice would add a lot of squishiness and I didn't want watery stuffing. I crammed as much as I could fit into those pork chops and tried to pinch them closed so it wouldn't fall out. I heated some butter in a pan, rubbed the pork chops with a little ground sage, and dropped them in to brown well on both sides.

I moved the chops to a baking dish and put in a splash of chicken broth to help prevent them from drying out, and I cooked them at 350F for about 30 minutes, until my meat thermometer told me it was safe. Depending how fat your chops are and how long you browned them, your cook time can vary a lot. Use a thermometer, check after 20 minutes, and keep going from there.

When they were done, I put the original pan back on the stove with more butter and whisked in some flour over medium heat. I added chicken broth and simmered and whisked until it looked right to me, then I added some sauteed mushrooms and onions that I pulled out of the freezer (I thawed them first in the microwave).

I am glad that I have nine giant pork chops left, because that means I get to do this again.

Thing-A-Day 2012

Just one more sleep until February gets here (barring a nap, of course), which means it's time to register for Thing-A-Day 2012! It's a fun way to push yourself into creativity mode by creating one thing every day for the month of February. Anything counts: crafts, recipes, painting, poetry, photography, even some good doodles on a Post-it note. All you have to do is spend a few minutes each day creating something new, and share it with the other participants (or not, but seeing everyone's creations is so much fun). The goal is to create a little time for yourself every day where you can be creative and use your imagination and make something interesting.

I'm going to try very hard to do as many days as possible, but I'm going to be forgiving of myself if I get too busy. The idea is for the creations to be little things, not days-long artistic endeavors, but I don't want to spend a bunch of money at Michael's so I can make crafty crap just for the sake of making crafty crap, and then have to find a place for it or throw it out. This challenge isn't supposed to be stressful, so if it becomes a burden, I will let it go.

I will share my Things on my blog, so stay tuned...

Flowers in January

I found a crocus in my yard today. A beautiful, sunny, yellow crocus, poking up out of the grass by the mailbox.

I'm very happy to see it, and it makes me smile, but for crying out loud, it's January 29th! Apparently crocus bulbs are triggered to flower when they encounter a warm spell after a long enough cold dormant period, so the strange weather we've had all winter confused this little guy into waking up early.

My tulips and daffodils are sprouting up too, and I hope they don't get killed off by the frosts that are coming, because there's a way to go before spring actually gets here, and I'd like to have some flowers in March and April!

Project update: living and dining room

Finally, I get to report back about the walls in the living and dining rooms, from which we tore wallpaper many, many months ago. To refresh your memory, here's my original post about removing the wallpaper. The date? April 2011. Almost a year ago. I blame other projects getting in the way, not enough weekends in a year, and a bad case of procrastination. I love how at the end of that post, I say I'll have an update in a couple of weeks. Optimistic!

Here's the "before" picture again, but be careful - looking at it may cause side effects such as nausea and cross-eyes.

Baby blue with Barbie pink, and a dingy grey trim. Not exactly visually appealing, to say the least. The pink part was originally covered in a silvery blue wallpaper:

I guess it was less offensive with the wallpaper hiding the pink stuff, but we're not really the wallpaper type, and it was old, dirty, and full of nicks and tears.

It took us a while to find the right colors for these rooms. The main consideration was for them not to be blue. Or pink. And especially not both (so purple was right out). For a while I toyed with the idea of using white beadboard for the bottom half of the room, but it would have been a lot of work to cut it for all the outlets and baseboard heaters, so we stuck with paint. Here's how it looks now:

Don't worry, Donald approves. He just hates having his picture taken.

We chose to do the trim in bright white, both because it looks nice, and because it's going to be easier to deal with the trim in the house if we do everything in white. With baseboard heaters and crown molding in most rooms, and a chair rail, bay window, and built-in shelves in the living room and dining room, we have a lot of trim, so this way we always just need to buy plain white paint to touch up damaged areas, instead of figuring out which almost-white color we used for which room.

The top half is called "Churchill Hotel Ecru", and in reality it's not quite as pinkish as the Donald photo makes it out to be. The picture of the built-in shelves is more accurate. The bottom half is "Churchill Hotel Maple", and the fact that they're both from the same historic building reassures me that they go well together. They're both from Valspar's National Trust for Historic Preservation collection. Yes, we like neutrals, and most of the house is painted in calm neutral colors, but I'm ok with that. As much as I admire the bright colors on home decorating shows, I don't think I'd be happy with them in my own home for very long. Nice to look at, but not to live in, at least for me.

Within a month or two, after we paint the family room downstairs, we'll also be checking "new floors" off our to-do list, and I'm excited to see how different and wonderful this place will look once we replace the nasty old stained carpets with fluffy new ones (and some hardwood)!

What's for Dinner - Broccoli Cheddar Quiche

Often, when accosted by a head of floppy broccoli, I sentence the limp vegetable to a soupy demise, with delicious results. Broccoli cheddar soup is a wonderful way to use up less-than-stellar broccoli, or an excess of broccoli stems (for those of you who, like me, prefer to eat only the florets), but it's nice to have other options. Enter the alternative user-upper of vegetables in their decline: quiche.

It's an omelet in a pie - what's not to love? You barely even need a recipe for a quiche! Just eggs, some cream (or milk), a frozen pie crust, and whatever you want to throw in. My basic recipe for a quiche is as easy as:

6 eggs
3/4 cup light cream, or milk (skim milk makes it watery, I'd stick to 2% or more)
1/2 cup or so of grated cheese (cheddar, swiss, monterey jack, whatever you've got)
1 cup or so of veggies
1/2 cup of ham or browned and crumbled sausage (optional), or a handful of bacon bits
One refrigerated or frozen pie crust, pre-baked

Bake the crust according to directions for a one-crust pie - mine needed 10 minutes at 425F. If you don't have pie weights to keep the crust down, poking some holes in the bottom with a fork works pretty well to prevent the crust from bubbling up while it bakes.

Cut the veggies pretty small and pre-cook them either by sauteeing (good for mushrooms, onions, spinach, and peppers) or by steaming (best for broccoli). Whisk the eggs and cream together, then add in the other ingredients until you have a thick eggy soup, then pour it into your pre-baked pie shell. Easy as that. If you want to get fancy, you can keep some of the prettiest mushroom slices and arrange them in a pattern across the top, or use thin tomato slices. I never add any seasoning other than salt and pepper, because I like to taste just the egg and veggies. Note: if you're using a salty meat in your quiche, don't add salt!

Cooking time is a little fuzzy, because it will be different depending on how deep the pie plate is, and what kind of cream or milk you used (in my experience, thinner dairy makes a slightly longer cooking time). I usually start checking it at 25 minutes, and then poking it every 5 minutes thereafter until the middle part is set nicely. Nobody likes a runny quiche. Just poke a thin knife into the center of the pie and see if it feels closer to soup or quiche. when you hit quiche, it`s ready.
 

For the quiche I made, I used about a cup of steamed broccoli, chopped small, along with half an onion and half a package of white mushrooms, cooked in a pat of butter. I added some sharp cheddar cheese, and since I didn't have any ham or bacon handy, I kept it meatless. Quiche is always an easy, cheap meal. Also, it's not too far removed from the eternal favorite fun meal: breakfast-for-dinner.


Edited Feb 3 2013 to add cooking time. Thanks to Tasha for spotting that I missed it the first time around.

Mojo Update Part 3

The amitryptiline may have eventually helped Mojo to be less anxious and stop peeing outside of the litter box, but trying to get those pills into him was a very trying experience for everyone, especially him. No matter how quiet I was about it, if he heard the rattle of the pills, he would bolt and hide under furniture, and we'd have to drag him out, pin him in our arms, and wedge half a bitter pill into his mouth. And then, at least half the time, I'd chase the cat-spit-soaked pink pill across the floor for a second try. A counterproductive way to administer an anti-anxiety medication, wouldn't you say?

I called the vet back after a few weeks of this, hoping for another way. Someone at work mentioned using antianxiety meds in a topical gel for his cat - just rub it onto the ears instead of trying to make him swallow it - and I asked the vet whether we could try it. He told me the medication didn't come in a topical form, so if the pills weren't working well, there wasn't much else he could offer us. When I pressed again for an alternative treatment, he suggested that rehoming Mojo might help him calm down, and some of his clients decide they can't deal with the soiled carpet problem and have their pets put down for incontinence.

Needless to say, I was shocked. I understand that not everyone sees pets as members of the family, but to end a little furry life because of some spots on the carpet? And that a vet, of all people, would suggest it as a solution, instead of looking for more ways to help?

Mojo saw a new vet a week ago, and the first thing she asked, after hearing his symptoms and his age, was "didn't your other vet run a thyroid test?" Thyroid problems are common in older cats, and a lot of Mojo's symptoms could fit hyperthyroidism. And, no, the old vet didn't run that test. All he did was a metabolic panel, looking for kidney and liver problems, and diabetes. No blood count, no thyroid panel, and no urinalysis (that last part pissed me off, because if you're telling me my cat has a UTI, and the antibiotics don't help, maybe you should check to confirm the UTI).

She drew the lab work and finished her examination, discovering some bad abscesses in Mojo's mouth. She was surprised to hear he'd had his teeth cleaned in October, because his mouth looked so bad. It just broke my heart to see how bad his gums looked - he must have been in so much pain. I came home with a strong antibiotic (Flagyl), and instructions to bring him back in a couple of weeks for a checkup (and bring a urine sample). But she called two days later to tell me his thyroid levels are elevated - little Mojo has hyperthyroidism.

We're going to start with medication, to see if it will help. The peeing, the licking, and the increased appetite can all be signs of hyperthyroidism, so hopefully once we fix that, he'll be back to his old self. If we get the thyroid hormones under control and he's still having issues, the vet recommended a topical antianxiety medication, which, despite what the first vet said, very much exists.

I wish I'd ditched the old vet sooner. I feel like maybe we could have saved him a few months of discomfort.