Breakfast Bacon

It has been a month since I've posted last, and I'm really sorry! I have started commuting every week for work and with all the flying, work, and just overall tiredness I have been slacking on my very important blogging responsibilities. It's almost like going to the gym. When you stop going it's so easy to not go... but then when you realize you really need to get back to the gym it takes extra effort to motivate yourself to do it... that's how I feel about my blog right now. I LOVE the idea of it and it all looks and sounds so good, but now that its time to actually step up and get physical, I am just complaining and whining a little... this really is reminiscent of my gym life.

I have been snapping pics of things that have been going on in my attempt to be domestic. One big thing is that Emer has moved into the house!! It has been great, even though we're both working outside of the cities... but it's really nice to share a space! This is where my breakfast bacon story starts.

One morning I decided to be a great girlfriend and make breakfast. I poached eggs, made toast, and had bought this low sodium bacon that I was excited to try out! Emer and I are meant to be and one of the many reasons that reminds me of this is our shared love for slightly under done bacon. That's right, fatty, chewy, delicious bacon! I thought to save some of the calories or extra greasiness I would do the bacon in the oven on a roasting pan. It was great at first, it smelled good and I walked away from it for just a minute.

I went upstairs to grab something quick and may have gotten side tracked with something on tv (I dont really remember, but I think that its probably safe to assume) and then suddenly I heard the smoke alarms going off. I ran downstairs and opened the oven, which was smoking, and in there were little strips of char which used to be bacon. My kitchen and basically the whole main floor of the house was filled with smoke. The smoke alarms were still going off even after I had opened all the windows, so I did what anyone should do and pulled all the batteries out. I was pissed... my favourite part of breakfast was totally ruined.

The Bacon in the roasting pan...

Emer told me it didn't matter that we could eat and enjoy without the bacon, but I was truly disappointed. During breakfast I'm pretty sure I listed all possible reasons how is was not my fault that the bacon was burnt including:
1. There is no light in the oven, making it VERY difficult to see in and check on the bacon.
2. There is no buzzer or timer on the oven, so how was I supposed to remember when I put it in?
3. Low Sodium bacon must burn way easier because of the lower salt content... right?
4. God doesn't want us to get fat, so he burned the 1 lbs of bacon I wanted us to eat... no?

Well, it was hard for me to forget my little bacon burning blunder because for the next 48 hours the wonderful sent of burning bacon lingered in the kitchen and made your eyes water. It was wonderful.

Lesson 10: The Garage Door Bites!

Fall is here and it's wonderful! I love all the colours and the warm temperatures it's so great! What's not so great is the fall cleaning that is beginning including all the leaves, the box elder bugs that are hanging out all over my house, and the fact that soon I'll have to take down my gazebo roof because of the coming snow.

To start the fall blogging I thought I'd share something that happened to me last night. Emerson is working up north during the week which leaves the requirement that I act as domestic as possible. What I mean by that is, although I am quite capable, when my wonderful boyfriend is out of town, I have to be very focused on not doing too many stupid things because I can't just call him to come and help manage whatever it is I may have done. This story is a great example of that...

This past weekend, Emerson went to close the garage door and it wouldn't go. I have an electronic garage door (no man door on my garage) so all I have to do is punch in a code or push a button and the door goes up and down. So, Emerson went to close it and it wouldn't go but because we were in a hurry he just pulled the garage door closed manually and fixed it the next day. He then left for the work week. Enter me.

Yesterday, I opened up the garage door electronically to get my garbage cans out (it was garbage day today). I pulled them out of the garage, put them at the end of the driveway and walked back up to punch in my garage code and be done. Well, just my luck, the code went in but the garage door didn't move. I tried everything which included:
1. Punched in the code 3 or 4 more times with the same result... nothing.
2. Reached in and pushed the button a few times... nothing.

I think figured that the only thing left to do was to pull it down manually like Emerson did this past weekend. I realized very quickly that the garage door doesn't have a handle on the outside of the door making it very difficult to pull down on the door and get enough momentum to get it to the ground. I was trying to get the door down and it came down a little bit but I could not get it to budge when it reached about half way down.

Now, I want you to look at the picture below:

You'll notice that my garage door has little spaces throughout it so it can bend and fold up into the roof of my garage, etc. I thought it would be a great idea to put my fingers between two of the panels in one of these spaces and quickly pull straight down getting enough momentum to make the door go all the way down but yet pull my fingers out of the space as quickly as possible which would ensure my fingers wouldn't get caught. I thought this was a great idea. Well, turns out I don't have the fastest reflexes around and as soon as I pulled down my fingers instantly were squished between the closed space and it was like having 8 of my fingers slammed in a car door, not kidding.

I didn't want my neighbours to think I was helpless and uncool, so I started to panic in A LOT of pain, but quietly screamed and tears fell down my face as I lifted the door up enough to get my fingers out and I quickly ran in the house and put them under cold water. Being the massive wimp that I am I obviously didn't look at my fingers right away, I just started panicking that I was going to lose all 8 of my finger nails. The most frightening part about that is that I'm in a wedding next week, and I was so worried that I'd be the fingernail-less bridesmaid. Ugh!

Turns out my fingers are okay (obviously since I'm typing this out right now). They are still a little numb to the touch and I have purple flecks in my nails, I am not going to lose them and I won't have to spend this weekend gluing fake nails to my nail-less fingers. The garage door stayed propped half open as I refused to go back out and give it another go. My dear friend Scott came over today before a meeting and got it down... he laughed at what I did... I deserved it.

Things I learned from Lesson #11: 
1. All garages should have a man door so that I dont have to rely on the electronic garage door to work.
2. Don't stick your fingers in the spaces of your garage door. It will bite you and it will hurt.
3. Wine is a great medicine - after a couple glasses last night my whole body was numb, not just my fingers!

My Inner-Farm Girl Emerges!

Well, again, I apologize for the time between posts but it's been very difficult to keep up the last two months with all of the travel I've been doing (mostly personal travel, thank goodness) it's hard to think of witty and ultimately hilarious posts about me and my house when I haven't been there technically! Now that summer is coming to and end (I know, I'm sad too) things will get back on schedule and I'll have more posts for you... promise!

As most of my current readers know, my boyfriend Emerson is a farm boy. Even though he's spent time in the big city of Boston and is working in a non-farm related field, he spent all of his life on the farm. I always knew this and was always very curious about it because he never struck me as the farm boys I had met in the past. We decided to make the trip to New England, ND to visit his family and are now here over Labour Day weekend having a great time. Now, most of you are thinking, "Katie + Farm = A Hilarious Mental Picture"... and I wouldn't have disagreed with you at first, but let me tell you, I AM becoming a farm girl (partially).

The farm here is great!! It's large and got lot's of machines, and I haven't been able to stop talking about how amazing it all is since I got here!! I said to Emer and his family that I felt like a six year old that was taken to Disney World. You take them and they run around all day saying, "Look at that! Let's ride that!" and then by 7pm they are sound asleep in the stroller and you have to take them home and tuck them in. That was me (without the stroller part). I was so excited to actually see everything in action and more so ask questions about how things work, how its stored, how it's cut and collected, and how they overall just work together out in the fields. It's something that takes a lot of planning and hard work, and a part of me felt for a moment that what I do doesn't even compare to the hard work that his family does. For a moment, I thought about quitting my computer-staring focused job and getting my hands dirty and become a farm girl. It was only for a moment... but I thought about it!

So, I have told you about where I am and how I feel about it, but you probably want to know what Katie's Inner Farm Girl actually looks like. Well, here's what I've done so far:

1. Stared at the great open fields here and have commented multiple times on how big the sky is here. The size of the sky hasn't changed... I realize that... but it does look SO much bigger out here!

2. Rode passenger in a transport truck that carries grain from the fields to the big bins they store it in. I was a good passenger and constantly commented on how fast Emer was taking corners, and I worried silently about the grain spilling out.

3. Rode passenger in the tractor that pulled the grain cart. This thing drives up alongside the combines (which is the machine that actually goes through the fields and cuts the wheat) and let's the combines dump their collected grain into it. I steered the wheel for a little bit while Emer drove... but mainly I watched out the window as thousands of pounds of grain were poured in.

4. Rode passenger in a combine! This was very cool to watch all the wheat actually be cut! I rode with Emer's brother and asked silly questions for the few hours we spent together! I talked about how the combine's computer sounded like a video game and other very important farming topics.

5. I moved some cart thingy under a transport by pulling a lever. It was hard work and cool.

6. I climbed up the bins (the tall silos where the grain is stored) and looked inside. Then I realized how high up I was and got really sweaty palms.

7. I stood inside an empty silo to see how big it actually was. I also did some serious echo testing by saying "Helloooooo", "Whoooooooooo", "I'm on a farrrrrmmmmmmmmm" loudly and ensuring it was super echoey (it was).

8. I actually got dirty and dusty. This is a huge surprise for a lot of you, but it was actually fantastic and I enjoyed it!

There has been a lot of cool things so far that I've done here and it makes me appreciate so much more where Emer comes from and the unbelievable work ethic he and his family have! All in all, it's just been such a fantastic first farm experience!

I got to have a long bath after my long day of farming! haha! It was fantastic! Then, we thought about going out and seeing the one bar in New England... but decided that it was time for bed because they had to farm all day the next day. Now, I actually decided to stay with Emer's mom all day today and shop, have lunch, and see some of the sights... but that was hard work too!

The view from on top of the Buttes looking down on some of the farm land.

Looking at the combines working cutting wheat.

Watching Emer fill a transport with grain from the fields.

Me on top of the buttes!

Lesson 9: The Multiple Uses of a Rubbermaid Bin!

My house is slowly but surely coming together. I had my housewarming party a couple Saturday's ago and it was a big success! It was so nice to have so many people out to celebrate! Throwing a party is so much fun and I like to think that I'm a natural hostess, but I think if you were to ask Emerson I basically run around my house like a crazy person till people arrive and try to pull it together last minute. This post was inspired by a moment I had when I was cleaning and setting up for my party.

For a long time my basement had no furniture. Well, that's not exactly true... I had my 50" tv, a tv stand, and a rubbermaid bin. That's it. I know you're probably thinking, "Why didn't you go buy couches?" Good question. Most normal people would solve my problem in a second, BUT the issue at hand was finding ones that I actually liked and didn't mind sharing with roommates, etc. See, now that I have been spending lots of gold bars on things for my house (my collection of gold is depleting by the way... quickly) I thought about my couch situation and realized I'm way too much of a control freak to buy brand new couches and then let others ruin them by mistake. Not going to happen. I'm going to end up being like most of our grandma's out there who cover all their furniture in that plastic stuff so that if someone does drop diet coke or coffee I can just act all cool, grab a cloth, and say, "don't worry about it!"

Back to my story though... so I had a large Rubbermaid bin down there because I was going to store it in the back room. It is full of books, odds and ends, cords, whatever! Well, when I had no furniture down there and was DYING to watch the new Bethanny Getting Married on Bravo, I decided that this bin was the perfect size for me to lean up against. So that's how it started and it continued like this:

Day 1: Leaned up against the bin while I watched tv.
Day 2: Put a pillow between my back and the bin to make it a bit more comfy.
Day 3: Draped a blanket over the bin and pillow so it held the pillow in place (slowly starting to look like a couch).
Day 4: Put a large book on the top of the bin to hold the blanket steady and to act as a flat spot to put my drinks (now the bin is working as a coffee table and couch).
Day 5: Moved the bin to the direct centre of the room to showcase it as the most important fixture in that room.

My favourite bin ever!

As you have noticed, this bin became a huge part of my life. It made me not feel the rush to get couches until I wanted to have the girls over to watch a movie... then I realized my bin wasn't big enough for more than one person to lean up against it. I also couldn't risk the situation of having two people lean against my bin and it slowly sliding backwards as we try to watch tv... it would upset me. So, I cancelled tv night and decided to dedicate my time to couch finding.

My luck, my dear friend Laura was moving and asked me to take her couches.. so I did. You'll notice though in the picture below that I've become quite attached to my Rubbermaid Bin furniture as it still sits next to the couch acting as a side table. I didn't want it to feel left out.

My current couches (notice the bin still peeking in there).

Things I learned from Lesson 9: 
1. Rubbermaid bins aren't just good for storing crap, it's a way to justify keeping that crap in big bins because it makes it heavy enough for a person to lean against.
2. Next time you have party and need extra seating, take out some bins and drape them in blankets...it'll be trendy, I promise.
3. When people ask you constantly why you haven't bought houses and why you're using that awful bin, just tell them you hate having people over, so having no furniture will keep people away. It'll create an awkward situation and hopefully no one will ask you again.
4. Couches are MUCH comfier than the Rubbermaid bin, I know its obvious, but I feel like I almost forgot how comfy couches actually are and how necessary they are when watching tv!

Lesson 8: Beware of Charlie... He's a Creep!

There is definitely a theme of yard and garden lately but when you own a house it's such a big part of it all! The lawn is looking pretty sad in general. The only person who seems to care and help me with it is Emerson! He's been doing a lot of work for me such as cutting the grass and weeding and I am very appreciative of it! A couple weeks back we were looking at my back yard and trying to draw up a plan for making it much better. Honestly, there is so much that can be done.. it's like a blank canvass.. the only problem is I'm too lazy of an artist to paint a beautiful picture if you know what I mean!

While Emer and I were looking at my back yard I pointed out this clover type weed that seemed to slowly be eating up my lawn. I mean it's kind of pretty if you like clovers. It's really green and.. well... it looks like clovers which are supposed to be lucky, so LUCKY ME! Not quite. Emer decided to investigate and found out that it's something called Creeping Charlie and it is not cute nor lucky. It made me start to think... who names plants? Why would they look at this clover type weed and name it Charlie? I mean, I get the whole creeping gig because it's literally creeping around my backyard making a home for itself. But why Charlie? Does the plant-namer just have a thing for alliteration? I'm going to google this. Sorry, I digress.

 Creeping Charlie creeping in my wood chip area... 

More of Charlie creeping up my nice tree!

It's pretty easy to rip out with your hands because it's all connected. It's arms are long and lanky and it wraps around everything on your lawn. The more I think about Creeping Charlie, the more it makes me think of it in a personified manner. I can't help it, I'm imaginative. I think of myself standing at my kitchen window looking out into my backyard and here's this sketchy man laying on my grass, rolling around, and covering my grass. I picture myself yelling at him through the glass, "Hey! Who are you??" and he looks at me still rolling around on my grass and calls back, "My name is charlie" and then he gives out a creepy laugh. Creeping Charlie scares the crap out of me.

There is a way to get rid of him or it. Emer discovered from my neighbour that you can spray it and it will die. Back to my imaginative world, I picture myself walking outside and standing at Creeping Charlie's feet and spray his face with a Windex bottle full of whatever it is I'm supposed to spray Creeping Charlie with. He then gives out a scary scream and disappears.... I don't think getting rid of the real Creeping Charlie is going to be that dramatic although it'd be way more entertaining.

Things I learned from Lesson #8:
- Once again, lawn and garden are the neediest parts of owning a home.
- Take time to identify if you have Creeping Charlie. Don't assume, like me, that my back yard is slowly becoming the luckiest place on earth!
- Look into getting a job as a plant-namer... it could be a LOT of fun.

Lesson 7: The Death of My Potted Plants

I know I already wrote below on lawn and garden care, but this honestly is a never ending topic! I'm not kidding. As you all know I was out of town all of the last week for work and I'm going to blame that one week away on the horrendous condition my potted plants are. In all honesty though, my potted plants were doomed from the start. The day I brought home my very first two potted plants I feel like 10 minutes after I hung them they started dying. They rebelled against my potted plant regimen and to show me, they began acting up in a very ugly way!

The pictures below show you the current condition of my three potted plants:

Plant #1: I honestly did not plant that stick there... it was there when I took the picture!

Plant #2: Well, it speaks for itself. 

Plant #3: This is how I found it this morning, NOT kidding!

Okay, so those pictures are a tad horrifying! I know! Plant #1 has never been a friend as the day I brought it home it refused to bloom right away and then it started growing it's arms and legs in every which way. I like to tell people when they come over that Plant #1 is very reminiscent of Einstein's hair.
Plant #2 bloomed so beautifully when I first brought it home. I even liked this plant so I would feed it miracle grow from time to time (it was my favourite so I gave her a special tonic to show her) but lately all it wants to do is die and shrivel up and turn brown. It's like she's turned into an ugly person who can't live without the special tonic. I haven't given it to her in days so maybe she's in with drawl??
Plant #3... well, as you can see it committed suicide yesterday or last night. I don't blame it. It was mint and it started to look pretty funky. I felt like it was trying to grow out of the pot so it could run away and re-plant itself in my neighbours gardens (which are so nice). Instead, she just decided it wasn't worth continuing and plunged off of the ledge of my gazebo tent.

People keep telling me the following: 
1. You can't over water.
2. You have to make sure it's getting the right sunlight.
3. Make sure you're giving them plant food.
4. Make sure the soil is damp but not too damp.
5. You may have to prune them (hair cut).

Honestly, potted plants are like having children except they don't talk back to you and ask you to buy them pretty things! I did not sign up for this. You're probably wondering what I'm going to do right? Well, I think that Plant #1 and #2 are going to survive and since I refuse to give in to their neediness they will hopefully bloom for a bit longer till the fall hits. Plant #3 I'm going to let lay on the ground for a bit as it's way too hot for me to go outside and clean it up (it's over 90 degrees here today), but when I do clean it up I'm going to tell it that it should have been grateful for what it had.

Things I learned from Lesson #7:
1. If you don't want the responsibility of children, don't get potted plants. You're just setting yourself up for disappointment.
2. Cactus and fern type plants apparently are impossible to kill. I recommend those.
3. Don't spend a lot of money on pretty pots because your plants just may rebel and not only ruin themselves but shatter the nice home I gave them. I could have reused that pot for something else!

Lesson 6: Don't Fly Off the Handle!

To all my readers out there, sorry I have taken some days off! There are so many disappointed people (I'm sure) that have been awaiting my next blog post, but my most recent trip to India had me a little tired and I had to get my life back in order! Don't worry though because today I'm going to try to catch up on some blog posts I've been meaning to do for awhile.

When I bought the house my parents had very nicely offered to give me my grandparents old bedroom furniture for my master bedroom. I was excited because my mom refinished it so it was a beautiful black*. Tip for all of you readers out there; all he did was sand and spray paint it black! You'd never think spray paint was something you could use to refinish furniture (and wood furniture) but it looks fantastic! My parents came down to help me move and brought the "new" furniture with them for me. The only issue was that the old handles didn't match the face lift that the furniture had underwent so my one task was to find new handles for both my large dresser and two night stands. In total I had to get 13 handles.

My large refinished black dresser

I had decided that I would put it off for a few days because I was so busy doing other things like facebooking. Then one morning as I went to open my new dresser with the screwdriver I had been using for the past week to open all of the drawers I realized that I was really tired of using a stupid screwdriver, so I went to Home Depot. I grabbed one of the old handles to take with me so I would get the right size... see, I was being proactive! A little more domestic everyday!

I went to Home Depot with my handle in hand and found a really nice pewter coloured handle that would match perfectly. Another tip for all you people out there... handles are NOT cheap! Wow! Each handle was $8 which meant I was going to spend... (sorry I had to open my calculator and do the math)... $104 on stupid handles! Ugh. I was happy though that I now had handles and I was going to install them all on my own!

As I worked to install all of the handles I started with the night stands and then began on the dresser. I started to get a little upset though when I realized 6 of the 9 drawers on my larger dresser were NOT the same size handle as the others. Who builds a dresser and decides that the handles on more than half of the drawers should have different size fittings than the rest? It makes no sense! Instantly I picked up my receipt and the handles that didn't fit and went back to Home Depot to return them. I took a handle from the different size drawer to hopefully find the same handle in the different size.

Well, long story short Home Depot, Menards, Walmart, Target, and Ikea did not have ANY handles that matched the size of these remaining 6 drawers. Then it hit me.... I was going to make my own handles! I went to the nearest Fabric Store (which I had to google and map out directions because I've never been inside a fabric store here before) and bought yards of black laced ribbon, little crystal beads, black thread, and a needle. In my head, I envisioned these beautiful handles that would look very elegant and graceful like that in a Country Home magazine. I could hear my phone ringing and Martha Stewart asking me where this brilliant idea came from and I'd reply, "Oh Martha, sometimes you just have to use your creative side" and I'd chuckle and ask her if she's read my blog. I got home and got to work right away. I turned on Bravo and began working on my handles.


Steps to Making My Own Handles: 
1. Cut ribbon into lengths that look about the right length to thread through the drawers.
2. Thread ribbon through the drawer holes and tie a knot on the inside of the drawer.
3. Use the black thread to attach a bead or two to the end of he ribbon (on the outside of the drawer)
4. Take a moment to admire your amazing work!

Now, my dresser is complete. I have 6 drawers with self-proclaimed pretty ribbon handles and 3 drawers with the handles I bought from Home Depot. Should I probably remove the other handles and do ribbon everywhere? Yes. Will I? Maybe... I'm busy facebooking.

My ribbon handles!

A close up shot of my beads.. barely hanging on!

Things I learned from Lesson #6: 
1. A screwdriver works well to open a dresser with no handles. It may even be a great idea to create some sort of modern design dresser with screwdriver handles built in.
2. When looking for an odd size handle, it won't get you anywhere when you ask the people that work at these stores (that sell handles) who their handle vendor is and how you get in contact with them. They don't know nor do they care.
3. Also, don't threaten to write a letter to the handle vendors because again, it won't get you anywhere.
4. When deciding to put beading on your ribbon handles, ensure you actually sew the beads on tight. You'll notice in my pictures some of these ribbon handles only have one bead as a lot of them fell off after the first day.
5. Be prepared to take criticism and back up your creative approach to handles... it seems many people think it's a silly idea. Ugh.

*After I published this post, my mom reminded me that not only did she refinish (and do a fabulous job) my bedroom furniture but she did it while in a cast and had to move around using a wheely computer chair. Thank You Mom!