This Old House...minus Bob Villa

Here are the "before" pictures of the project going on in my backyard. It's not pretty now, folks, but just wait! We have big plans for this little shack. Kevin and Charlie have been putting in lots of work into this the past week, but they are excited about it, and it's fun to see their ideas and work come together. They have been removing paneling, taking out walls and trying to get a pesky door to open. If anyone has any experience with remodeling an old structure, let us know!

The "kitchen"...The original (I think) sink is sitting over to the left. I told Charlie to hang on to it and we'll reuse it. All the cupboards are coming out, and we'll replace with new, but old looking, cupboards. We'll be putting in an electric cookstove in there too but so far, we've decided against putting in a refrigerator. We'll see....

The living area....Notice that the walls are not framed. We're amazed that this building has held together all these years! Charlie and Kevin are framing it and replacing broken boards. Then, they'll line the inside with black paper and insulation. There's a big debate about what to put on the inside walls; old wood from other structures that will be torn down or something more modern and "clean looking." What do you think? I was leaning more toward clean, but now I am not so sure.

Another view of the living area....We're putting a toilet in the corner, next to the kitchen area! Yeah! No more trapsing through my house.

Here's the view from the pool, and below is the view from my side yard. There will be "porches" on both sides. They haven't been brought over yet. I've heard they are coming today.

Grace was ambling through the house this afternoon, finding all kinds of scary stuff to get into. I know I am biased, but she's such a cute kid! We love her curls!

After watching Daddy and Kevin do a little work and a few pushes on the swing, we went into the back yard and picked this bucket of lemons from our tree. Lily and I juiced every single one of them, and there are probably about 2 more buckets full left on the tree yet. Kevin and Brooke came over with their kids and we had yummy lemon drops with cheese and bread. The kids ate mac and cheese. It was a fun, impromptu party.

I was inspired last week with menu planning, and we ate very well! On Friday night, I entertained a great group of friends after doing some local winetasting. We had roasted eggplant dip with various cheeses, beef bourguignon, and potatoes (with some great wine, of course!). I turned to my new magazine from The Food Network this week for inspiration, so here's my meal plan:

Monday: Feta and cauliflower frittata (Brooke's chickens are laying 15-20 eggs a day, and this recipe calls for 10... a good way to use up the eggs!)


Tuesday: Sausage and vegetable stew


Wednesday: Peppercorn chicken with spinach


Thursday: Steak, potatoes and carrots (Basic and not from the magazine...my family can't tolerate 4 days in a row of my "creativeness.")


Friday: eat out!


Saturday: Sloppy Joes with Maui onions and maybe a few more lemon drops! :)

Gardening

We have had beautiful weather lately, so Sunday afternoon I got the bug to work in the yard. Lily and I headed to Lowes to pick up a few supplies. We bought cyclamen, pansies, snapdragons, seeds for lettuce and cucumbers and a lot of potting soil. The garden is now planted with butter and Romaine lettuce, cucumbers, and red and white onions. My pots finally look beautiful, and now it's raining! (That's a good thing!) We're hoping for some great produce in a couple of months.

Lily picked out a Morning Glory to plant in her container. She also made the garden stakes in the plant! Yesterday, she received her preschool report card, and it is fantastic! She has learned so much the last few months.

Moving a house

We own a piece of property with some older structures on it from the early 1900's. Cal Trans is going to buy a portion of that property to widen the Highway, so we decided to move the original home that's been on that property for 70+ years. (We bought the land from the original family that worked that farm.) It's a 20x20 shack that is now sitting in my back yard! We're going to fix it up so that it can be used as a pool house. It needs a lot of work, but Charlie's up for the task and is excited about his new hobby!

Getting the house ready to move. Charlie and Kevin put I beams through the foundation, attached chains to them, and they lifted the house with two loaders on to a trailer. This all took place on Tuesday afternoon. They waited until Wednesday to move the house.

Lifting the house on to the trailer. At one point, Charlie was UNDER the house, which I wasn't too happy about!

It took about an hour to move it 1/2 a mile to our house. They are pulling it through the alfalfa field behind our house.

It only took Kevin a try or two to back the house into the space Charlie had prepared. Stay tuned for some before and after pictures.

Nothing too exciting is happening around here!

Honestly, January has to be my least favorite month of the year. The letdown after the holidays settles in and life returns to a routine. Thankfully, we have had beautiful weather the last week (except for the foggy mornings!), so we've gotten outside almost every day. To get me out of my dinner making funk, I've decided to plan some fabulous meals for this week and wanted to share my meal plan with you:

Sunday: Chinese Take Out - I've been craving this for a week!

Monday: Pork Chops with country gravy, corn and salad. The pork chop recipe is "lightened" up and found on the Myrecipes website, via Sunset Magazine's (my favorite regional magazine!) website.

Tuesday: We joined a great wine club when we were in Paso Robles last October: Cass Winery! They have a cafe in their tasting room and encourage people to sit and taste at tables, which is apparently the way they taste wine in South Africa. In our wine shipment last November we received 7 bottles of wine, non-perishables, and recipes for wine and food pairing. I am making cornish game hens with stuffing bites and a wedge salad. Never made cornish game hens before so this will be interesting. Anyone want to come over for dinner?

Wednesday: Meatloaf from the tried and true Salem Cookbook (It's about as old as I am!). I was thumbing through that cook book a couple of weeks ago and marveling how somethings never change! We'll also be having some type of vegetable and rice with the meatloaf.

Thursday: BBQ ribs, roasted cauliflower and baked potatoes

My mouth is watering already!

A few other things....I am in the thick of planning for the Farm Show Ice Cream booth fundraiser for Lily's school. It's been a big committment, but I've enjoyed all the work so far. The Farm Show starts 3 weeks from Tuesday! If anyone that reads this wants to volunteer to work in a booth one day, please let me know! I am short about 17 volunteers. (Leave a comment after this post.)

I've started listening to country music again (blame it on the XM radio in my car). My current favorites are "International Harvester" by Craig T. Morgan and "Waitin' on Obama" by Cletus T. Judd. Both are hilarious and do much to lift my spirits during the drive to preschool!

Sorry, no pictures. I honestly haven't taken a picture in about a week!

Redneck fun

We spent New Year's Day in the deJong's cow pasture at the annual Skillmaster (part Enduro race and part Derby). I went with a bit of a skeptical attitude (thinking that this was a bit too Redneck for my taste), but we had such a great time! Brooke, Rhonda, the kids and I sat in the back of the truck watching Kevin race his car with Karl as the co-pilot. It was a riot! There were 5 heats (5 laps each) with 6 cars in each heat. Kevin didn't win his heat, but he did win the Hooligan (all the last place cars from each heat race in all out craziness), so he was able to race in the final heat. He didn't take first place, but he was one of only 5 cars that was actually able to finish! There were crashed up, smoking cars all over the track by the end! His car is now "running like a champ" and ready for next year! We'll all be back to cheer him on! (With a bit more preparation this time)

Karl and Kevin suiting up for their heat race

This was one of the more disturbing cars in the race. Every time we saw it go by, we thought it was a kid on the back!

That is a kid in the passenger seat of this car! (His dad was just giving him a ride...he didn't ride in the actual race.) There were kids running all over the place, a taco truck available for lunch and ladies serving olliebollen

The "grandstand" Most of the people up there were the workers from the dairy.

Rob and Kevin

Here's this year's winner. He was asked to not use this car in next year's race, however. Apparently, he spent too much money fixing it up. You're only allowed to spend $400 max, and you have to sign a release before you race. Those are the only rules!

Do you see Karl's video camera hanging out the window? If we get the edited version, I'll post it here.

On a different note, we shot skeet at the back of the dairy this afternoon. Brooke, Melissa and I played "Annie Oakley" and Brooke won, decisively!