i'm gonna be a great dad

i spent all of yesterday doing fun, house-chores type stuff like making a batch of chicken soup for the dotytron, who is capable of psychosomatic-ing/manifest destiny-ing illness at the slightest provocation or in response to any perceived stress. i also prepped and painted the white wall in the dining room, edging and giving it 2 coats. i also puttied up a hole that resulted from us moving a picture, tidied, dusted, and supervised the installation of new shelving in the bathroom. it was IMMENSELY satisfying, even if sunday will go down in infamy as the time the dotytron made his preggos wife paint the dining room by herself. any time i can wear my home depot painting hat:

and walk around with a measuring tape and level and prep a room for painting and otherwise work on the house on the kind of gorgeous, hot, early-summer day that makes everyone else play hooky from house stuff and flock outside in droves, is a good day. i was seriously born to be a dad. i'm totally going to be angry dad sports team coach. or, futzing around the house in overalls dad. the dotytron has generously offered to step up and be the mom, which is kind of awesome.

here are my painting rules for success. the first rule is really, SET YOURSELF UP FOR SUCCESS. which means do all the boring prep work and make sure you have all the tools so that when you're ready to go, you're READY TO GO and all you have to do is paint:

1) USE THE 3M BLUE PAINTERS TAPE. green tape is poo. don't even bother. you're just throwing money away.
2) get one of the paint can plastic lip things:
- you stick it to the edge of the can and then it curves around and lets you get a clean pour
3) get a paint can opener:


4) tape down your drop cloths and do all the boring taping (note: i'm assuming that most people are NOT like me and find taping supremely boring - i am a freak that loves doing this kind of prep work)
5) have all your tools out and ready to go

saturday night was the funnest. we hitched a ride with lolls to kdubs and had a FEAST OF EPIC PROPORTIONS including: grilled sausages, chicken breast, veggie burgers, portobello mushrooms, vegetables, red quinoa salad, asparagus risotto, orzo salad, bacon-wrapped grilled jalepeno poppers, green salad, macaroni salad, chocolate hazelnut mousse cake, and key lime pie. it was so the best. there was also a spirited discussion on the proper use of the semi-colon and hair cuts. lolls also played the marriage ref for me and the dotytron on the way home. it was cute.

however, we got home super-late and i've been battling a low-grade headache and feeling like i need to sleep like, all the time since friday, so i was a bad daughter and bailed on my mum for brunch. i was supposed to take her to the black hoof for breakkie but i knew we'd have to leave the house super-early to get a table and i needed the extra sleep. she was very cute and sweet about it though...even though she woke up at 7AM ON A SUNDAY to make sure she got downtown in time! lol.

this was sunday breakkie:

 

a bacon, egg, avocado, lettuce, tomato, and mayo sammie on a whole wheat kaiser.

later in the afternoon our buddy L came over to help measure our kitchen and help us conceptualize how the redesign might go. then our supper club met for dinner. i suggested queen margherita pizza. the dotytron got the prix fixe and i got just a pizza. the good news is: they've improved on the bread situation. this time the bread came out and it was nicely toasted and was of a better quality than the tuesday night visit. he started with the capicollo appetizer, which had 2 strips of capicollo, a small pile of diced roasted peppers, and a small pile of olives:

 

this appetizer was kind of ill-conceived and poorly executed. the peppers were cold and the portion was kind of small. i much enjoyed the ricotta with honey and the potatoes, sausage, and peppers from last tuesday. i can appreciate that they want to change the apps every day, but i kind of think that they should make sure they have a roster of like, 3 or 4 equally good ones, first.

the dotytron got a pizza that was supposed to have spicy sausage, olives, and tomatoes, but was absent the sausage and with no good reason or explanation:

 

i got the pizza quattro formaggio with funghi, which was curiously absent the funghi:

 

mine was really good though. the four cheeses (ricotta, fior di latte, gorgonzola, and something else) really melded together nicely. the advertised mushrooms would have definitely added to the dish, but they weren't missed. what WAS missed was the complete lack of acknowledgement that they were supposed to be there in the first place!

the dotytron picked an arugala and pomegranate seed salad for his post-pizza salad:
i have to say, the prix fixe is A LOT of food. the pizzas are pretty big (12") and very filling. i ended up getting a nondescript panna cotta for dessert, served with a strawberry water.

tonight i was working the late shift at work which means i packed my dinner. it was the aforementioned chicken vegetable soup and that moroccan potato, pepper and egg sandwich with harissa that i make:



fin.

a night in tunisia

training started in earnest yesterday, with a 20 minute, 2.86km run (a very very slow job, actually), some crunches, weights, push-ups and yoga. it's easy when the weather is all springlike and sunny.

i finally managed to convince the dotytron to go to the castlefield design district so that we could do some research on lighting at union lighting and research some door knobs (i want to replace our brass fittings on all the doors with antique, glass knobs) at the door store. the good news is, union lighting had a pretty decent supply of schoolhouse fixtures that were reasonably priced. we can get stuff that we like for the whole house for about $350, which is way more affordable than i thought it was going to be. the bad news is, antique doorknobs run about $100/knob (minimum...some of them were $285/knob - and the price changes on the knob depending on the finish you want.) because we don't have antique doors but new doors with the new whole drilled in, we have to get these weird converter plates made by a company that allows people with pre-drilled doors to have old knobs fitted. those are a minimum of $30/plate (you need 2 per door) and then to get them darkened is an extra $10 and then to have them re-plated (if you don't like an antiqued bronze look but want pewter or nickle or chrome) is bajillions more.

the long and short of it is: the knobs will be the LAST thing we do. and for all of you homeowners, helping homeowners out there, nice doorknobs are EFFIN' EXPENSIVE!

we had dinner with my friends D and N last night. they're both pretty adventurous eaters so we headed to this tunisian restaurant, djerba ladouce on the danforth. it was SOOOOO GOOD! i couldn't believe it! they don't serve alcohol, so we started our meal off with mint tea. the tea was served hot and poured dramatically from a silver tea pot very high into pretty, tiny, embossed glasses. the tea was tooth-achingly sweet and not particularly my style.

the restaurant is nothing to look at. there are some hand painted murals on the wall and the chairs and tables are standard-issue thrifted from some dated second hand restaurant supply store. you don't go for the decor. the chef proprietor (pictured on the homepage) came and answered our questions about the menu. D asked what the "salad grill mushwa" was and he said it was a pureed salad and that it was fantastic so we ordered that to share. technically, the chef owner said that EVERYTHING was good and recommended the calamari, which, he claimed, was like "no calamari anywhere else." despite that enticing endorsement, we opted to just go with the mushwa instead.

the salad mushwa was DELICIOUS. oh my goodness! according to the online menu it's a puree of garlic, roasted tomato and onion. there are capers and olives strewn about and a bit of hard boiled egg. bits of crunchy pickled cucumbers and a hefty dousing of fresh parsley brighten the rich, smooth flavours of the dish. served with warm pita for scooping it was positively addictive. so freakin' good! it was hard to identify the spicing but alls i know is, it tasted divine.

i ordered the lamb couscous which was a generous, properly braised shank portion on top of impossibly fluffy couscous (every time i make it, the grains clump, but at restaurants, each little bead is always distinct and tender) with a mix of vegetables: tender baby carrots and cabbage predominantly in some gentle spicing. it was delicious and so affordable at $13 for the dish.

the dotytron got the merguez "platter" which featured links of lamb merguez sausage in a hearty, smooth, and intensely flavourful spiced sauce with vegetables and bits of french-fried potato. served with warmed pita for sopping up the delicious sauce.

D got the trout platter which was a huge plate of poached trout covered in a herb sauce that was very rich and creamy but didn't appear to have any cream in it.

everything was amazingly delicious and the bill came to $73 total (incl. tax, without tip, cash only). i'm excited to go back again. the food was unlike any i had ever had before and really satisfying - exciting for the taste buds.

this morning we're doing small futzy things around the house. sunday breakkie will be a BLT with egg on a whole wheat kaiser. we're having goosetang over for an oscar/thanksgiving party. we haven't had an only-goosetang hang since montreal - i'm so excited! it's a slash-thanksgiving party because i got snookered into buying a heritage turkey from the mennonites - i ordered a goose, they convinced me to buy a turkey instead, claiming it was a heritage breed that's like, all dark meat, when i tried to change my order to a duck, they guilt-tripped me saying they had already ordered it and the farmer was weeping silent tears on their doorstep blah blah blah. anyway, i didn't get to cook thanksgiving dinner this year, so i'm doing it now. we're having: roast turkey, sage stuffing, garlic mashed potatoes, gravy, brussel sprout and carrot horseradish casserole, and i'm kicking around the idea of doing another vegetable as well - maybe mashed sweet potatoes with marshmallow topping. but i feel like that already is a lot of food for 5 people, especially with sticky toffee pudding and bourbon caramel sauce for dessert...so i might hold off.

it's going to be a fun/productive day!

fin.

things i didn't know were possible

/ house edition of roll call of awesome:

a) that you could fall in love with a shower curtain:



b) that i would suddenly go apes**t over oilcloth tablecloths and marimekko prints. i could picture any of these providing a jaunty and practical jolt of colour to my dining room table (while protecting it from the dotytron's tendency to becrumb everything and the cats' tendencies to scratch everything up):






so so so lovely!

i also love the look of european high-gloss cabinets in kitchens. i want a blue and white kitchen (the better to show off apple clock!) with cork flooring. that's the dream. i had originally wanted blue high gloss cabinets with a white tile backsplash (words of advice: NEVER GET WHITE CABINETRY!) but then i saw the ikea 2009 catalogue and a whole high gloss kitchen is actually TOO reflective and it would be a fingerprint, smudgy nightmare. exhibit A:

so eighties! so i think now i want light grey or blue cabinets, white backsplash, cork floors.

i can also totally envision the upstairs bathroom worked around that shower curtain as inspiration, too. all soft blues or bright greens with little white hex tiles:

those are marble. that is NOT happening. but you get the drift. like all white hex tile with just the random soft blue one every so often.

that's all a long way off. like, dotytron has a job and all the big stuff has been dealt with long way off. our priorities are probably something like this:

i) electrical
ii) furnace/hvac
iii) roof
iv) plumbing/intake pipe upgrade
v) adjusting the closets/size of upstairs bedrooms a bit
vi) basement finishing/opening up staircases
vii) kitchen
viii) deck/garage
ix) landscaping the front/digging up the back
x) not killing each other

le sigh. it's going to be a long, dirty, slog...IF we get it.

so we've put in an amendment on the price. we'll see if the sellers' take the bait.

--------------------------

edit: later that same evening

so our realtor presented the offer and the sellers went ape shiz. we ended up coming in $8,000 under our existing offer (that has been accepted.) the seller is apparently under the belief that if he put 8 grand in the house he could sell it for $400,000, which actually made our realtor LAUGH OUT LOUD (if you could see the interior, you would too.)

so maybe they'll knock a grand or two off.

tonight i made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. there are few things that spaghetti and meatballs CAN'T fix. and lemme tell you, i needed fixin'

two nights of minimal sleep can get to you. last night the dotytron and i got into a very immature tiff that resulted in me sleeping upside down on the bed (my feet where my head was supposed to be) out of sheer stubbornness. we had gotten into a tussle brought upon by stress and anxiety and overwork and a few too many sleepless nights in a row. i threw his pillow onto the ground. he told me to pick it up. i refused. then it became a battle of the wills. after 20 minutes, he said, "i work with 8th graders, dude, i can wait it out" which is the point at which my resolve solidified into an unyielding, lead obelisk. the short of it is, i didn't pick up the pillow and i successfully proved that i could be more stubborn than an eight grader, even if it means sleeping upside down on the bed with no covers. lol!

'terminator salvation' and book reviews forthcoming! tomorrow night my friend T is arriving by way of a conference in ottawa from vancouver. she was here over the holidays but it's been 8 years since she's been back in toronto during the spring/summer. i'm so excited! she's going to be staying with us for a week and a half. joy!

fin.

oy vey

you remember how when you're growing up your parents were always "working on the house" and complaining about what a burden you, your siblings, the house, the yard, etc. were? and you were always like, "gimme a break mum/dads/grandparents, etc. being a grownup is fun! now fork over an extra $10 so i can buy big league chew and another ride on the perilous, creaky, chiropractor's nightmare of a "ride" sitting outside of the grocery store, coated in lead paint [if you're lucky]!"

being a grownup ISN'T fun. houses are a giant, sucky, wet-wool-blanket-in-the-dead-of-summer albatross around your neck and tied to your shoes (i know exactly what i did with that metaphor and i stand by it.) which is the long way of saying that the home inspection was VERY revealing. in the "bank account hemorrhage" sense of revealing. goodness.

i was pretty proud of me and the dotytron though. we went in armed with tape measures, a note book of handwritten questions, and pages of questions photocopied from mike holmes' "holmes inspection" book which we had both read. we basically took a crash course so that we felt pretty confident and knowledgeable going in. while we may not be experts at soffits and fascia, we have an idea of what they're about and what they do. we took a zillion pictures and went over the place with a fine-toothed comb. the house inspector commended us for being realistic and not starry eyed and totally in love with the place and we both felt really in control of the situation and not afraid to ask questions and get answers when we didn't understand stuff. all in all, it was pretty cool, as far as learning experiences go.

we also get two more visits to the house (if we go ahead with the deal) which is probably when i'll have more work people coming through to give us quotes and whatnot.

the long and short of it is: you're always in for more than you bargained for and the start up costs are EXPENSIVE. land transfer tax, lawyer fees (thankfully - hopefully? - waived for me), moving costs, house insurance, the list goes on and on. you really have to be on top of your shiz unless you buy something brand new and move-in ready. condos are looking pretty amazing right now.

but then...but then you meet your (potential) neighbours (as we did) and you see that they're all young couples with a wee babe or two (also, curiously, on our street, there's THREE couples that are asian wife, white husband - so we kind of fit the profile) and people know each other and the park is right there and it's a lovely, tree-lined, dead end street.

so we've put in a new offer...we'll see how it goes! i'm not holding my breath. if it falls through, we're feeling good that we had a great learning experience and that there's another house around the corner! plus, we don't HAVE to move. not in the least. we can sit on our fat little weirdo butts and maybe wait until the dotytron makes more than $12/year and then get a giant lovely castle that's ACTUALLY move in ready instead of a giant gaping whole that eats your money. we're also pretty okay with the fact that we'd rather do things right and take care of the big things (ie. HVAC, roof, electrical) before focusing on fun things like paint, furniture, trim, lighting fixtures, etc. we want to do it right and give lil' ugmo a fighting chance at being okay.

to that end, i'm no longer looking at any of the home decor blogs in my reader. that way lies madness. the same was true of wedding blogs. JUST DON'T DO IT! you'll drive yourself to distraction if you look at what mimsy and poppy are doing out in the hamptons or what typographer xander is doing in portland. it's redonkulous!

tonight for dinner we had seared salmon with tartar sauce, sweet potato and russet latkes with sour cream, and steamed then sautéed fiddlehead ferns.

we know so much more now that if we have to look at houses again, we won't be like 99% of the other n00b alley first time homebuyers who see something moderately well staged and then go buckwild bidding it up. the words of the day my friend, are: fair market value. that being said, you're ALWAYS getting ripped off. don't ever forget it. also, my final words before i trundle off to bed for some well deserved shut-eye: your realtor is not your friend. BE WARY! it's annoying! it's galling to have to decode every response, emotional nuance, statement, sentence. it's also tiring.

i'm exhausted. to bed i go, says i.

fin.

i'm baaaaaaaaaaaaack

...B****ES! just kidding. i would never say that. in fact, i find it supremely annoying when young people (and it seems to be more of a girl thing) do that. the point is, rory tate (that's my computer's name) is back up and purring like a circle researcher half his age. i LOVE a good reformat! especially when your lovely partner quietly sits downstairs while you're making dinner and loads 'er up so that when you come downstairs faintly exasperated that he hasn't been helping put meal together, you immediately feel like a cad of the highest order when you're greeted with this:

seriously, how amazing is the dotytron? i'll tell you: VERY. QUITE. THE BEST (i know that doesn't properly answer the question just posed.)


first things first, i've updated past posts with the yummy tasty dinnie pics you've been missing out on. tonight we had a little passover goodness in the form of matzoh ball soup (dr. rei: never fret, m'dear, i swapped out the matzoh ball soup for something you're going to enjoy MUCH MUCH MORE for dinner tomorrow.) we all know how much i loves me some matzoh balls. ESPECIALLY green onion and dill matzoh balls, drunkenly drifting in a chicken soup lazy river dotted with carrots, fennel, onions, and celery, butting up against parsley and dill flotsam.


i also cranked out a GIANT batch of chocolate buttercream, with which to frost the 2 dozen cupcakes i made between tonight and last night. i have discovered the secret to flat topped cupcakes. however, the devil's food cake batch i made tonight has flour nuggets in it. oops! ah well, silky, smooth, moussey chocolate buttercream hides a multitude of sins.

in other news...we have a realtor (!!!!!!!!!) we have a couple of high school chums who ended up being real estate agents but we weren't really sure about working with friends. their incentive to hustle isn't as great, plus, if it doesn't work out, you're really not as comfortable saying, "sorry bubs, you're doing a bad job, we want someone else." also, one of them is based out of markham and the other one is on the west side...we wanted someone who knew the east side of town. so we're using this girl who rented the apartment upstairs for a year. it's the perfect balance. we kind of know her, so it's not like she's a stranger (we also have some leverage because the roomie is her midwife), and she knows the east side (based out of here and bought her own house on this side of town.) i'm feeling pretty optimistic. she's already found us 28 places in our price range, which is good! it's still pretty discouraging when you check house prices in waterloo and see what you can get for the same if not less than what you pay for an okay "starter home" in toronto. it's a pretty convincing argument for us to pack up and make a new life in the 'loo with our dear dear kdubsguelph crew.

tomorrow evening me, the dotytron, and the dr. rei are hitting our friend G's 30th birthday social at B & G's house. i've adopted dr. rei for the weekend while hanbo is golfing in myrtle beach. i LOVE my bff! i LOVE my new(ish) computer! i LOVE it when it smells like spring outside and you open the windows and that sweet smell comes and washes away the winter furnace funk! so despite the fact that i've had some setbacks this week the indomitable spirit of k. lagerfeld, esquire perseveres and TRIUMPHS!

i'm aided in my pursuit by the fact that the dotytron comes home and regales me with funny stories of kids being the funny little goons they are. to wit: today in the midst of his after school guitar program, a girl in his class (which is mostly made up of grade 7s and 8s) suddenly interjected with, "what do you think happens when you die?" which spurred a lively debate, where one kid's contribution was, "i see myself climbing a giant set of stairs, and 'eye of the tiger' is playing and you get to the top and then it's heaven" which is BEYOND AWESOME. i really, really, really hope this kid is right and that's what it's like because that's the best possible ushering into the great beyond that anyone could ask for.

fin.