Epic fail

Subway art.  It's everywhere, and I've been hankering for a little bit of subway in our new house. (Hah!  You didn't even know we'd moved again, didja?  I figured I'd bored you enough with my previous tales of packing and unpacking ---sorry for the WKRP reference; I'm a child of the '70s---and this time my sainted husband did the hard part while the kiddos and I were at camp.  Thanks, Jess!)
  Right, so I read the tutorial, I drooled over the pins on Pinterest, and I purchased my spray paint and vinyl sticker-letters.  I trakced down some old shelves to upcycle, and I listed all of the places we've lived since Jess and I got married back in 1994.  Four rentals, four of our own homes, from Miami to Rochester, to Des Moines, and now to Milwaukee.  I primed, I measured, I stuck-on, I sprayed, and I peeled.  And I realized I'd forgotten to include a residence.  And that one of the addresses I'd listed was---well, not someplace we'd lived.  There were fuzzy spots where the stickers hadn't adhered entirely.  (Did I mention that I was doing this whole shindig after hours, whilst the wee folk slumbered?  That's my excuse du jour, and I'm stickin' to it.)  I attempted to repair my strokes of idiocy, and blundered once more---the spray paints I'd chosen were flat, and the acrylic "repair-paints" glossy.  So I scrapped it, and started from scratch.

Those of you who know me well realize that I must have really wanted this subway art.  Because I am not a "try, try, again" kind of girl; I'm more of a "what-ever---let's go have some chocolate," kind of girl.  This time, though, I re-primed, re-measured, re-cut,  re-stuck, and re-painted.  (There was a little re-swearing in there, too, but as I said, the wee ones slumbered.)  My diligence was rewarded.

You think I'm going to make this into some kind of cheesy story about how you can always achieve what you put your mind to, don't you?  Or, perhaps, a cautionary tale about the evils of mixing concentrated spray paint fumes with Excedrin and late nights?  Nah, it's just me again, too cheap to shell out cash for something I really, really wanted.  And it's going on the mantel before I unpack my first suitcase.  So there.

Maternity suit?

They've been drilling it into our heads for years: Necessity is the Mother of invention.  Ladies and jellybeans, I respectfully disagree.  The mother of invention, without any question, is Laziness.  Take today's lunch, for example.  I woke up yesterday with a yen for falafel.  (Not unusual.  I'm a bit of a chickpea fiend.) Being the domestic goddess that you know I am, I soaked a bag of chickpeas.  I boiled them up, seasoned the cooked beans with a generous hand, and stuck my immersion blender right into the pot and pulverized every last one.  Since I was having a Domestic Goddess-y kind of day to begin with, I was also making calzones for the kidlets' lunch.  Which meant I had a bowl of homemade pizza dough at the ready. (Can you see where I'm going with this one?)  Fusion cooking at its humblest: the Falafel Calzone.  It was heavenly, I tell you, and it neatly bypassed the dreaded Shape-and-Fry step of falafel production.  It also left me with a half a pot of unused falafel batter, which I stuck in the fridge and vowed to rescue in the morning, when I'd no doubt be feeling more amenable to the Shape-and-Fry.  Alas, this morning dawned clear, crisp, and appointment-laden.  Having weathered the tempest of the dentist's chair with five of my brood, I opened the refrigerator door upon our return searching for something quick, tasty, and easily chewed.  And that's where Chickpea Pot Pie was born---not of necessity, but of something purer, deeper: a mother's laziness.  Chickpea mixture on the bottom, mashed potatoes on the top.  Hot, crazy-delicious, and nutritious to boot, and no shaping and frying in sight.
 

In which I soar to new heights of housewifery, carpentry, and general spazziness

Baked my first kokosh cake.  (You might call it a babka, but, really, the two are vastly different.  Pay attention.)  Really yum.  Really over-the-top fattening.  Really worth it...on occasion.

Built the nest-boxes, which have (sadly, literally) kept me awake nights.  Lots of nights.  I am so not a spatial thinker, and this was an absolute nightmare for the likes of me.  It actually came together fairly well in real-life, but while I was working it out in my head (over and over) it was terrifying.

Still need to add the flap, lock, and paint the whole kit and kaboodle.  But this is big progress, gang.

The coop, from the street, is a sedate coppery color, which blends nicely with the peachy brick of our humble abode.  But on the other side, where the neighbors can't see it, we have...

The Gangplank of Utter Fabulousness!

Makes me giggle just to look at it.

Gigantic plans for the morrow include putting up the roof (!) 

making the laptop sleeve my eldest has requested, 

and cooking and baking for Shavuous.

(Also trolling for nifty birthday ideas for our littlest princess' second birthday!)

Growth spurt, gray skies, and a little ingenuity

The chooks seem to have gone from featherweights to almost-hens  in no time flat.  I went in this morning to feed and water them, and realized that they're fast outgrowing their brooder boxes.  Hence, Yours Truly needed to step up production on Ye Olde Chicken Coope.  And yet, the weather outside has been grizzly and cold for the past few days---certainly not conducive to fun-filled family times in the yard with power tools, but what's a gal to do?  In this particular case, the only tenable solution was to make (yet another) lumber run (making sure to fork over a roll of quarters for the guy in the orange apron to do my dirty work for me) and to shlep all those freshly hewn studs down to the playroom for a good, old-fashioned coop raising.  (I'll leave out the part about running out of gas on the way out of the parking lot.  And the part where the guy who's "been in lumber for 25 years" spent a solid 15 minutes of my afternoon trying to convince me that there was no such thing as a 2x3. )  Anyway, the only hitch in my plan was that the big kids seem to have burned out on the idea of building.  So it was me and the three littles (all noteworthy for their precocious construction skills) assembling the first 2 walls of the hen-house-to-be.  There did seem to be some significant benefits to the "inside construction" plan, though.  I found it much less nerve-wracking to supervise the munchkins whilst I toiled, knowing that there were locked doors between them and passing vehicles, friendly dogs, and curious Child Safety workers.

My Creative Space: A Little Bit Wonky

So, getting the lumber pre-cut was a good idea.  The framework for the run went up pretty durned quick ,to my unabashed delight.  The tricky part (you know, the bit that's consumed the most of two days and will, no doubt, devour my Thursday in huge, hacking gulps?) has been screwing the hardware cloth to the framework.*  We're talking quadrillions of screws and washers here, folks.  (Not to mention more trips to the hardware hop to buy said screws and washers than I really care to recall...) 

And in case you're wondering, you can't just walk into Lowe's and tell the guy that you need some 3" screws.  Because then, he will indubitably give you regular screws, when what you're really after are exterior deck screws.  And obviously, there is a vast and endlessly significant difference between these two sorts of screws, and you should really, really know better.  (If you think for one millisecond that I returned to the hardware store to exchange the inappropriate screws for a box of hardware better suited to the task, you thought very wrong. I'll take the consequences of my recklessness on the chin, thank you very much, but I will not make a  Lowe's run thrice in a 24 hour period.  Nuh-uh.)

Tomorrow is Hinge-the-Fourth-Wall-to-the-Existing-Three Day, and we're all looking forward. 

*  In case, heaven forfend, my little venture in carpentry has inspired you to try building a chicken run of your very own, take heed: 

If your hardware cloth is 3 feet wide, you should not, for the love of all that is holy, skip blithely forward and make your run 3 feet tall.  Read my lips:  2' 8".  How I wish some enlightened soul had shared this single pearl of wisdom with me.

Zip over to Kirsty's and "chick" out this week's Creative Spaces.

A forkful of humble pie

I fully intended to build Ye Olde Chicken Coope out of reclaimed materials.  I planned to do it myself, without any help from the Hubs or our pal Dan, The Handiest Man On Earth.  I was sure I'd spend less on the whole shebang than I would on a single carton of free-range eggs.  I envisioned a whimsical-yet-sturdy home for my little chooks that would  make Rosie the Riveter proud.

I scoured Craigslist, Freecycle, and the occasional Dumpster for free materials.  I visited the local Habitat for Humanity store---and emerged with just enough hardware cloth to cover our existing brooder.  (I did, however, score a trio of vintage windows from our wonderful neighbor---Thanks, EJ!---but have come to terms with the fact that, um, I have nary a clue how to install them.)  

Gentle Reader, mea culpa.  Under cover of darkness, I liberated Jess' pickup and hightailed it to Lowe's.  Well and truly chastened, I blew a chunk of change sufficient to keep my entire neighborhood in organic eggs for the foreseeable future.   Reckless and utterly without shame, I even had the guy in Lumber cut the wood to size; for a quarter a cut, I bought my way out of the inevitable Equation of Carpentry Mortification.

Wendy + reciprocating saw = just plain crooked.

No two ways about it, people.  Worth every penny.

My Creative Space: In Over My Head?

The construction has begun in earnest, and everything else has been left by the wayside.  (Including---but not limited to---regular mealtimes, dishes, laundry, and any semblance of sanity I may once have possessed.)  The two bigs and I spent the better part of the morning assembling the floor of the coop-to-be.

  This ridiculously simple 5'x8' structure nearly bested the lot of us several times over, and I've developed a healthy respect for power tools and the proficient users thereof.  (Who knew it would be such a challenge to cut straight bits off of a bunch of 2x4s?  I was relieved to finish with everyone's extremities intact!) 

After our rigorous morning, we spent a little downtime on the lawn with the chicks.  This was their first venture outside the brooder, and they were understandably befuddled for the initial moments of their backyard debut.

After a while, though, they were having as much fun as we were.  (Well, it seemed that way to the casual observer, anyway.)

We're hoping to knock out a wall a day this week, and have the whole shebang ready to inhabit by the end of the month.  Still a little unsure as to what we're actually cobbling together, here...I seem to build pretty much the same way I sew.  (And the way I do most things, actually...I was less than a hairsbreadth away from naming my blog "A Little Bit Wonky"  at the get-go, and I'm pretty sure it suits.)

Make sure you click through to Kootoyoo to see what Kirsty and the gang are up to this week!

Under construction!

I finally took the plunge: I headed over to our local ReStore and purchased some coop-making paraphernalia.  The chooks are getting pretty big these days, so it won't be long before it's time to move them outside.  With this in mind, and armed with my trusty copy of Chicken Coops: 45 Building plans for Housing Your Flock, I packed the kids in the car and we were off.  We emerged $21 poorer, but bearing all manner of reclaimed goodies: a roll of hardware cloth (for a buck!), some neat-o switchplates (also a buck apiece), a whole lotta 2x4s, and a pair of pallets (for my fancy-shmancy compost enclosure-to-be).  Stay tuned for our progress reports... 

(And, yes, I did fully regret having brought my little creepies to the hardware store.  Some things are just wrong.)

Got culture?

Breakfast chez nous: homemade organic yogurt.  Excuse me while I jump up and down and spit nickels, folks. I made yogurt!  It was like magic, no joke.  (Did I mention I'm a cheap date?  Did I need to mention I'm a cheap date?)  I used Avivah's tutorial and made a GALLON of yogurt for less than $6.  (Compared to the $3.69 32 oz. tubs of Stonyfield Farms that my creepies suck down in one sitting, that's very, very good. )  And, as an added bonus, it's ambrosial---as in, "really, really yummy."  The part of the process that I had to stay awake for  took a little over an hour, which was fine, because it gave me a chance to check out a bunch of creative spaces when I'd normally have been dead to the world.  It was me, a pot, a lid, a candy thermometer, and a gallon of organic milk.  Heat, cool, stir, sleep, eat.  That's it, in a nutshell.  We used it to make Pink Drink this morning, and had lots of happy little breakfasters.  Here's the 'recipe':

Pink Drink:

• yogurt (1 cup per serving)
• frozen strawberries
• flax oil (1 tb. per serving)
• wheat germ
• rice milk (1 cup per serving)

Put all of your ingredients in to a big bowl and use an immersion blender to reach the consistency you prefer.

Enjoy!