Freddie's Dead. That's what I said.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCbogJVKyo8


Hey, hey
Love, love
Yeah, yeah
Ah, ha
Freddies dead
That's what I said
Let the rap a plan
Said he'd see him home
But his hope was a rope
And he should've known
It's hard to understand
That there's love in this man
I'm sure all would agree
That his misery was his
Woman and things
Now Freddie's dead
That's what I said

Everybody's misused him
Ripped him up and abused him
Another junkie plan
Pushin' dope for the man
A terrible blow
But that's how it goes
A freddies on the corner now
If you wanna be a junkie, wow
Remember freddies dead

We're all built up with progress
But sometimes I must confess
We can deal with rockets and dreams
But reality, what does it mean
Ain't nothing said
'Cause freddies dead

Hey, hey
Love, love
Hey, hey
Yeah, yeah
Ha, ha
Love, love
Yeah, yeah
Ha, ha
Yeah, yeah
Freddies dead

All I want is some peace of mind
With a little love I'm trying to find
This could be such a beautiful world
With a wonderful girl
Why I need a woman child
Don't wanna be like freddie now
'Cause freddies dead
Hey, hey
Yeah, yeah
If you don't try
You're gonna die

Why can't we brothers
Protect one another
No one's serious
And it makes me furious
Don't be misled
Just think of Fred

Everybody's misused him
Ripped him up and abused him
Another junkie plan
Pushin' dope for the man
A freddies on the corner now
If you wanna be a junkie, why
Remember freddies dead
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha
Freddies dead
Hey, hey
Ha, ha
Love, love
Ha, ha...

SUPERFLY

That's me. Super Fly.

UPDATE: My Fears now include ALL MONKEYS, not just ones that can fly.

I would not say that I am deathly afraid of monkeys, but honestly they do creep me out. I mean, they have like fingers, alright? that is not normal. And then they kind of grab stuff and wear clothing and ride bicycles, What is that about? Its just wrong. Monkeys are bad, even if they cannot fly. Yeah, they do scare me and it takes a confident person to admit that.

I feel much better.

This is just wrong in so many ways.

FIRE FIGHTER SPENCER!!!!!!

Here he is, Firefighter Spencer. I got the coat, hat and Axe at Walgreens and it was all only 10 bucks. I made the boots myself. I added the Dalmation too.

PICTURES!!!

Bill found my Data Cord for my camera, buried in a box in the garage. So, now I can post all the pictures!

Here are the homemade fireman boots I made out of dinosaur boots. Yeah they are covered with black duct tape, but honestly? At night, in the dark, who will know? Later he can wear them as dino boots again.

Here is part of the rest of his costume. Every fireman needs an axe and a hat.

Here are the yellow peppers I got from the corn lady, and a bunch of carrots. All these were steamed and then pureed, and then frozen. They will later be hidden in Spencer's food where he will not know he is eating vegetables. Things like sloppy joes, mac n cheese, muffins and soup.

I really knew we were home when my stained glass thing, which remarkable survived the blast, (well, this one did, the other one blew across two yards...) was re hung in the same spot it had always been in. It actually looks happy to be there!

At our house we like to support young artists... The one on the right I think is from his blue period...

Moscow, we have a problem. You can see from this picture that the big center fixture known as "SPUTNIK" has blue stained glass, and yet the sconces were ordered in yellow. We continue to have problems with this lighting place. I think they may all be smoking stuff in the back or something. I mean, with no one in this city building ANYTHING we are like their ONLY CUSTOMERS, yet they continue to mess everything up.

Have a million pictures to post but I cannot find the datat cord to my camera.

It is not the one to my Black Berry too big. it is in a box somewhere. ARRRGH. Stay Tuned.

Lights, Fights, and Halloween Nights.

Today the lights guy came and installed one set of lights that we are missing Apparently all of them are back ordered. Today the Dining Room Sconces came in, and the guy put them up we turned them on and the shades ( the stained glass part) do NOT match the color of Sputnik. Sputnik is blue these shares are yellow. NICE. SO now back to the drawing board with that. We called the owner of this lighting place and he said he is going to make everything right, but so far I swear this supplier is like the flakiest place I have ever dealt with. They promise to call you back over and over, and I never get calls. I call there and a different person answers the phone each time, and I have to go through it all again with them, and they end up saying that the guy I want to talk to is not there.... I finally talked to that guy today and he said that he would make everything right, and that he would come over and take a picture of the lights that he could send to the manufacturer, so they know and can see how they do not match. He said he would be here in the afternoon and of course, he did not show up and did not call. We still have no lights in the master bath, wrong color lights in the other two baths, and the garage lights are on back order too. We told them we had wanted all the bathrooms to be in a chrome color They ordered us ANTIQUE SILVER which as it turns out, is brown. HOW could they not know this??? These are very very plain fixtures. They can be found in like millions of bathrooms around the world. I wish sometimes we could have just gone to Home Depot and bought all the crap ourselves and had them install it.

I have an entirely new house and these problems are minor but I would like to be DONE DONE DONE with all of these stupid little details I understand no one is building houses right now and these guys are having trouble getting parts. Shipping costs have risen and its prohibitive so they like to pool their orders to get a better deal forcing their customers to wait. However we ordered these lights when, in JULY?????????? It is OCTOBER. Enough already. And because I have had to wait sooo long for everything then I might as well get what we wanted and so NOW I am pissed off and I am just going to INSIST they give us the chrome lights which is the CORRECT color for the bathroom. Its not tragic but the faucets , shelf, TP holder, towel racks, door handles, etc in all of our bathrooms are CHROME..... SHINY CHROME. Is this some weird unusual color that does not exist in plumbing???? I don't think so.... HOW DEMANDING IS IT to insist that the light fixtures are not BROWN???? Its really starting to annoy us. I feel terrible returning anything too because I know this lighting business is suffering, just like all the building people are in town. I also don't want to get the ten year old in China who probably made those fixtures for 14 hours a day to be executed because I returned them because some doofus ordered the wrong color. However, we paid retail for this stuff and after all this time I am now just pissed off. We were initially so happy to be back we were just gonna deal with it but now after this horrible horrible customer service and flakiness I am DONE being tolerant.

Builder Nick is coming to install the new storm door if it EVER arrives to Canby Builder's Supply. It is also on back order. I mean its a Larson, same as we had before and very plain. Its not like some wacky thing... It s just a normal storm door.

Then as soon as and if we EVER do get the garage cleared we can have the coating guy come and do the final coat. Why he could not do it BEFORE WE MOVED IN I don't know.

I just really thought that a month later all this stuff would have been taken care of.

Today I also called the Dylan Moms and invited them and their two kids over for Halloween to go Trick or Treating with us. They don't live in a traditional neighborhood, and Spencer gets along very well with Dylan and his little brother Alex. I love my neighborhood, but there can be a lot of drama and politics and gossip around this street, and I am just done with it. I would rather this year we do our own Halloween thing. Spencer will have a ton of fun with those kids and I love the moms.. I even invited the Grandma over, since Grandmas seem to like Halloween too. I don't want her sitting home alone...

I usually stay in and give out the candy because I like to see what all the kids are wearing. I love the Trick or Treaters. Bill ususally takes Spencer and goes witht he neighborhood group. This year we can go with them also but he will mostly go with the Dylan Moms and our kids. I will put out little halloween themeed things to snack on before they go, bnut not a huge deal, just little things in case they are hungry because all kids are just hyper on Halloween.. A LOT of people miss dinner... Then after they get back we can have cider. I think it will be fun.

Today I ran around like a maniac.... Firepersons....

Meet Spencer's dinosaur boots.
Somehow these have to turn into Fireman Boots by Halloween.



However I do have an advantage when it comes to a reference for the authenticity of Spencer's costume this year.... I have no shortage of pictures of fire personnel.....

Good times.....
One of these guys actually flew 15 feet in the air and landed on the windshield of my minvan.

This morning Bill worked at preschool and Spencer went as usual. I went all over Canby looking for Fireman boots.
No, I am not enlisting or whatever. Spencer wants to be a fireman for Halloween this year. We have the hat the fake axe, and we are borrowing the raincoat thing from Teacher Gina's dress up collection. All we need are the pants (sweats) and the boots.

Well I tried Fred Meyer and of course the only boots they have are these goofy ones for kids.. and he already has one pair of those, but he has outgrown them. They were on sale so I bought a pair of them, but they are like dinosaur boots. SO I mean they are the base of the boots and then I have to fix them to look like fireman boots.

I then looked for some black painter or duct tape to use to turn them temporarily black. Fun. So I went ALLLLL over Fred Meyer looking for that. Then, I needed glow in the dark tape. or orange or something. I found it and got that. I also went to Ace Hardware thinking that they would have better prices on the tape and stuff but they did not. I did get a roil of orange tape there and I thought it would look great on the boots and it would have I even had the Ace guy help me find it. Only problem was, I got it home and it was tape, yes but NOT STICKY!!!!!! HELLO?"????? I mean I TOLD HIM what I needed it for.. DUH. And I cannot return it, because I opened it.

That is one of the FEW THINGS I miss about California In San Jose they had this AMAZING INCREDIBLE store called OSH Orchard Supply Hardware. You could find EVERYTHING there and the staff was not brain dead.

I miss OSH. But also some restaurants... Una Mas, and Mandarin Gourmet Chinese and Giorgio's

Then when I got home, who was waiting for me??? AMY THE DAWG!!! I left her in the house, and not only did she escape the house, she also escaped the back yard as well. She was siting on the porch as I drove up. I am sure everyone loved that.... I did not want to take her with me though because Bill took the Toyota to preschool and I had the van and when she is in the van Bill has all kinds of guitar crap in there and she likes to chew it up so I left her. What a brat.

I thought I could relax somehow in the afternoon, but then We all went to Accountant Dave's house in Beaverton to work on Tax Stuff. Excitement. Then we had to go to Saul the Luthier's house for something, and then on to Trader Joe's since we were in the neighborhood, to get more sauce to make Indian food. By the time we got home I was exhausted and I still had to figure out Fireman boots. Bill just made dinner for us which was nice of him. He loves to cook and he is way better at it than I will ever be.

But at least the chalkboard wall is done, and we can use it on Thursday. Also, I am out of apples, thank GAWD. Also, I found my camera my good Camera but the battery is dead but i will get another one and then I can post better pics. I will post a pic of the boots I did. They really do look like fireman boots!

APPLED OUT

Yeah, I had about three less apples than this pile here...
The Corn Lady had better start sleeping with the lights on....

Ina Garten, AKA "The Barefoot Contessa:" She is just Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

I cannot even LOOK AT another apple.

This morning I woke up and made Applesauce Bread with the homemade applesauce I had made days earlier that my family did NOT eat. The recipe was from Paula Deen, and I did not think it was that great. I would not make it again.

Then I made Butternut Squash soup which was very good and it had apples in it. I added not only the Butternut squash puree to it, but also some roasted carrots pureed, garlic and some roasted apples. it was pretty great and I had ton left over. I gave Spencer some and he ate most of it, which was good because it was pretty healthy and nutrient rich, and then I froze the rest.
That recipe was from Sara Moulton here it is... I like her a lot... She used to have a show on the Food Network called Sara's Secrets.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/sara-moulton/butternut-squash-soup-recipe/index.html
She has a newer show on PBS called something like weekday meals or something like this...

Then we went to Fir Point Farms to get another gallon of apple cider. Then to Fred Meyer.

Then I made the apple pear cranberry crisp from the Ina recipe. Honestly I used the wrong sized pan. It called for a 9 x 12 I had a 9x 13 but it seemed too shallow for a crisp, so I used an oval baking dish.

Big mistake. I mean it was okay it was good but there was WAYYY too much topping and some of the apples were less cooked than others. ANd it was SOOOO huge. We each had a serving, and honestly Bill had three.... he loved it but I actually took the rest over to my next door neighbors Joel and Rebecca. They have four kids and are really nice people and always receptive to my hideous experimental cooking. Event they could not eat it all Bill liked it so he kept the rest but I cannot look at it. I hate apples now... And I love Ina Garten, and I will always still watch The Barefoot Contessa, but I am convinced she is crazy.

My soup turned out great though and the purees are working out! Spencer likes Sloppy Joes and we had them for dinner, but what he did not know was there there was a cup of carrot puree in there, and some corn and garlic. I mean, he WILL eat carrots, but its a struggle. I have to tell him that they are "magic carrots" grown especially for swimmers, to make them strong.

This way I don't have to make up stupid stories...

Also I put the final coat on the chalkboard Wall tonight, and it will be dry by about Wed Night I guess, and then we can use it. Takes Three days to dry and cure.

Then I cleaned the entire kitchen, washed every dish, and made all of Spencer's lunches for the week at preschool.

OH and for those of you playing at home, Bill found my wallet.

Tomorrow I have to start figuring out Spencer's Halloween Costume. He wants to be a Fireman. Teacher Gina is going to lend us the raincoat, and we have the hat and fake Axe. He needs pants, boots and some reflective tape to make like those lines on their outfits...
ALso across the street is Steve the Cop and I am going to ask him for one of those fake badge stickers he gives out to kids.

But for now I am gonna wash the apples out of my hair, put away my peeler and go watch Entourage.

Chalk Day.... but not Inside..... OUTSIDE!!!! More Apples, Groupies

Here is the town with all of the little cars on it.

I am thinking this might be the Mall?

Spencer's friend Tyler, his sister Allie, Spencer's other friend Austin and Spencer all were on our driveway today drawing with sidewalk chalk. They made like a little town, and then they took all of Spencer's little cars and stuff and drive them all over it. It was pretty fun and I was JUST AMAZED that they all got along so well for so long and no fights, no drama. In the middle of it, two of The Groupies showed up for about an hour and told me all about their Halloween costumes. The other two Groupies were at a gymnastics meet.

This morning I got up and baked two apple, pear and cranberry Crostatas. One was for Tyler and and Allie's mom who just had minor surgery. I wanted to cheer her up by giving her something nice, but instead I gave her the crostata which turned out to be the oddest pastry ever. The fruit inside was crunchy still ( be cause the recipe was for peaches and plums not apples and pears..opps! ) and the crust was good but it was all just very very odd.
Anyway. We each had one piece of the one I made for us. Also weird. BUT the crust WAS excellent and I will post the recipe for it here.

Here is a link to the recipe. This is for the apple pie, but scroll down and you will see the "Perfect Pie Crust recipe at the bottom it is awesome. Bill even LOVED the crust today I made for the crostata, and he hates just about everything I make...
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/deep-dish-apple-pie-recipe/index.html

Sometimes life is like this: you work really hard at something and peel apples for two hours and spill sugar on the floor and it ends up everywhere including in your shoes and yet the thing still turns out weird. But I gave it 100% effort.

Tonight we went to Office Depot to get some chalk for the new chalkboard, even though we cannot write on it until Tuesday. I learned that you cannot use sidewalk chalk on chalkboard for some reason, which is a drag because we must have a thousand pieces of sidewalk chalk.

Also, for those of you playing along at home, I did find my wallet today which had been missing for about ten days. It was rather embarassing because I had to call Costco, Fred Meyer, Safeway, and Quiznos all to ask them if anyone had turned in a wallet with BOB THE BUILDER on it. .... Turns out it was in the livingroom closet UNDERNEATH like the vaccuum cleaner and the broom and tons of crap and no one knows how it got there.... I mean I have never even been in that closet. I don't even know what was kept in there. We think maybe it had a little "help" getting in there.

Tomorrow I will make the apple crisp, also have some more purees to do, and also make Spencer's lunches for next week. And figure out what to do with all the applesauce I made that no one liked. maybe muffins?

Chalkboard Wall, Astounding Amount of Apples

No, this box does not look THAT huge, But it was FULL!!!!!! And there are still WAY more than these left.

Today I started my very first "crafty Project thing" in the new house. I am basically creating a chalkboard wall just off the kitchen. I made it high enough where I could have it as like a family message board, etc, and shopping lists and things to remember but also I made it low enough where Spencer could draw pictures or practice his letters on it.

So far it is not going well.

I masked off the part where I want the board to be with a roll of blue painter's masking tape that cost me FOUR DOLLARS What is THAT about????? Then now before painting the chalkboard paint on there, I realized that the surface of this newly minted wall is kind of bumpy. The entire house has that bumpy kind of little bumps on the walls. SO in order to have a smooth chalkboard to write on, you have to sand them out. That sucks.. My husband Bill, who makes guitars right out of wood, who sands crap ALLL DAY said that A I had to go buy my own sand paper to do this, and B he was NOT going to help me. He seems to think we don't NEED a stupid chalkboard. Thanks a LOT. He probably thought this would deter me but it has not.

However, sanding is hard. I probably would not have de3dicated such a LARGE area for the chalkboard if I had known that my arm would practically fall off sanding this thing. I don't like it, and I wish Bill would lend me his power tool thingy that sands stuff but he will not. SO this project may take a looooong time. This afternoon I promised Spencer he could help me make applesauce. SO I will probably be doing that.


At the end of my street as you may know there is a Farm Stand where the some of the best fruit I have EVER encountered is sold. it is runb by the Corn lady and she is a farmer. Part of her farm used to be where our subdivision is now. About 8 years ago she sold part of her land but she still grows stuff and sells it. She certainly does NOT need the money, I guess she just loves it. She has AMAZING fruits and veggies for the lowest prices, and most of it is locally grown.. I mean its all excellent. In season you can get these Ranier Cherries the size of golf balls for like 99c a pound. Great corn, every veggie, every fruit... she even sells garlic....

That Corn Lady is sooo nice, but........ She does have a real name and it is Betty. Yesterday, I went to Betty's to get some Butternut Squash, Pears and Apples. I got two big bags of apples, and I put them on the counter and went to get the rest of my stuff. After I got my stuff she had weighed them She said " You know Liz, you have 14 lbs of apples right here and I am going to charge you 6 dollars for them. For 8 dollars you could buy a big box like over there."

I thought about this and I said, "OKAY, sounds like a good deal to me!" Shoulda looked over there, but I did not.....

SO I put my apples back, I paid her for the stuff, and took my other stuff out to the car. I told her I would be right back for my box of apples, which I had not even look at. I come back in and I said "Okay Betty, where is that box of apples I just bought?" and she said, "You are standing right in front of it."

"THIS?????????"

At my feet was this HUGE HUUUUUUGE box of Jonagolds. Delicious for eating, great for pies and sauce and lots of things but HOLY CRAP!!!! What the HELL am I supposed to do with all of these apples?????? I did not want Betty to think I was an idiot, so I smiled, struggled to pick it up and dragged it out to my Toyota. Now I am the owner of 69 thousand million apples... so if anyone has any good apple recipes now is the time to send them!!!!!


UPDATE:
1. Could not get camera to work to post pics of Chalkboard wall but it turned out GREAT!!! BILL ACTUALLY HELPED A TON!!! He not only sanded the entire thing with his like machine thing but then he also painted it!!! TWO COATS!!!! Will post them when I get my camera to work. Now we have to let it dry for like three days. I made it low enough so Spencer could write stuff and parctice his letters, but also it will be a place to chart his height, and also make grocery lists. and reminders etc. message board that kind of thing.

CHALK WALL TURNED OUT GREAT!!!!

2. Nick the Builder came over today to fix soemthing at the house and he ended up also hanging up my old stained glass thing!!!!! it looks perfect and it has a new home, exactly where it used to hang in the old house. It even looks happy to be there. iI swear it does. I ll also post a pic of that.

3. Tonight for dinner I made Pastitsio, a Greek and not at all low fat dish I got the recipe for on that EVERYDAY FOOD show. http://www.pbs.org/everydayfood/recipes/pastitsio.html It turned out pretty well, but I used ground beef instead of lamb. Bill will not eat lamb here in the US he says the lamb here tastes weird and the only lamb he will eat is if he ever gets back to the UK where he loved for a couple of years. Whatever... but it was good I can post that recipe too but warning it is fattening as heck. I think I actually have a link to the recipe or I can cut and paste it.

4. with all of the apples, of course I made Nick the builder take like 10 of them. I also spent like alllll after noon making home made apple sauce, which my family insisted that they love. Then no one would eat it. Well I ate it, but that is typical in this house.. I do a LOT of gourmet cooking for the dog.


5. Spencer did his half day at preschool today. he is home for the entire weekend of course, and we plan to read books and do inside stuff, as Monsoon Season has officially started. However, since i have 8945 apples to use up I plan to make an apple crisp for my family, an apple pie for a neighbor who is having surgery, and also puree some apples to later hide in Spencer's food a la the jessica Seinfeld cookbook. http://www.deceptivelydelicious.com/site/ ALso I have a bunch of carrots yet to puree and freeze, and one more butternut squash to roast and puree. I did three of them yesterday but that was all that would fit in my oven.

I hope to post pics of all this hideous experimental cooking asap as soon as my camera comes back from the dead.

Here are two of the recipes I plan to make tomorrow:

I am excited to try yet another Pie Crust recipe. I have seen Ina do this one on TV. SO maybe it will work? The last one turned out pretty scary. Kind of CRUNCHEWY.

INA GARTEN'S (AKA The Barefoot Contessa) DEEP DISH APPLE PIE
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/deep-dish-apple-pie-recipe/index.html

AND:

INA's PEAR, APPLE and CRANBERRY CRISP
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/pear-apple-and-cranberry-crisp-recipe/index.html