Presto Chango

Do you want to know what I love about New England?

Aside from a beautiful (though rainy) autumn day with adorable teenagers and a quaint apple/pumpkin picking farm.

I like plasterers. Not drywall mudders. Plasterers. They are amazing! These are not grizzled old men who learned this skill in the old country. These are young guys who have learned a rare trade.
Remember when my house looked like this? No? Well, I do. It was Monday.

Then Paul and his crew put up blue board and it looked like this.

Then the plasterers came with their stilts and mad skills. They are amazing. They cover the entire surface with a thin layer of plaster. The end result is perfection! No sanding, no coming back for a second coat. Suddenly, you have an amazing wall that looks like this! Magic!






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Location:Nantasket Rd,Hull,United States

FYI

I just thought I'd share this picture of my gas fireplace chimney.

I say chimney because I don't want to say flue because I'm not sure how to spell it and I'm too lazy to look it up.

By closing this app and opening my dictionary app.

Which I don't actually have although there are doubtless 927 of them, at least.





I took this picture as part of my GC job.

Because of this:




Do you see how they cut into that 2 x 4 to install this pipe?

Yes, that 2 x 4 carefully designed and installed as part of the recessed area above the fireplace that will allow me to hide our embarrassingly large television with something beautiful but as yet unknown.

That's the 2x4 they cut into all right. So they could put the pipe in the tv place.

But don't worry, it's fixed now.

Because that's what GCs do. They take iPhone pictures of mistakes so they can prove it!

They also arrive at home and wonder why the front door is locked, and the door leading from the garage-doorless garage into the house is standing open.

That's just how we GCs roll.








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Location:Nantasket Rd,Hull,United States

Notable beach sightings

Last week Dave and I took advantage of a beautiful warm evening to walk on the beach.

This is what I learned (apart from the fact that I desperately want it to stay light until 7 all winter)




Also apart from the fact that I am a horrible photographer that has no editing skills

#1. Frisbee is alive and well in the 50+ crowd. My imaginary life history of this couple includes many competitions in the 70's. They also passed the time at Woodstock by practicing.

Also, the man is more passionate about the sport, but the woman has some mad skills.



#2. Sometimes you have to carry a shoulder bag at the beach.

Even though you are wearing your running shorts and shoes.

I don't know why.



#3. Many, many people, none of which are me, have well behaved beach dogs who walk beside them completely ignoring the many seagulls who clearly need to be chased.

Milo, take note.

Location:Nantasket Beach

I'm dreaming of a white kitchen

I am a baker. Really. I owned a bakery, and baked every day. I enjoy baking. I think it is fun, fun, fun! Especially when there is no pressure to create maximum product in minimum time.

But, I currently have no kitchen. I may have mentioned that a time or two hundred. I am a baker without a kitchen.

I can dream though. And, this is what I would bake if I were able.

Pumpkin Praline Biscuits.

I would welcome the cool, prematurely dark days with pumpkin.

I love these delicious sweet biscuits. I found them in Better Homes and Gardens years ago, when I still liked Better Homes and Gardens. Make them please, and tell me how delicious they are so I can enjoy them vicariously.

Pumpkin Praline Biscuits:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/8 tsp. salt
1/2 cup butter or margarine, cold and cut into 1 inch pieces
1/2 cup pecans, toasted and chopped
3/4 cup canned pumpkin
2/3 cup milk
1/3 cup packed brown sugar

1 tbsp. butter or margarine
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup half-and-half or light cream
1/4 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
2/3 cup sifted powdered sugar

1/4 cup pecans, toasted and finely chopped

1. Toast pecans, separate and chop. The pecans for the top should be more finely chopped than those in the biscuits.
2. Combine flour, baking powder, 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice, baking soda, and 1/8 teaspoon salt. Using a pastry blender or two knives, cut in the 1/2 cup cold butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in the 1/2 cup pecans. Make a well in the center of the dry mixture.
2. In another bowl combine canned pumpkin, milk, and 1/2 cup brown sugar; whisk together and add all at once to dry mixture. Using a fork, stir just until moistened. Drop dough onto greased baking sheet, forming 16 mounds. Bake in a 400 F oven for 12 to 15 minutes or till golden.
3. Melt 1 tablespoon butter or margarine over medium heat. Stir in 1/3 cup brown sugar, half-and-half, and 1/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice. Bring mixture just to boiling; reduce heat and boil gently for 2 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in powdered sugar. Beat until smooth. If it seems a little runny, let it sit a few minutes. If it seems thick, you can thin it with a little more half and half while still bubbling, but keep in mind it should set up like a praline.
4. Spoon the topping over the biscuits and quickly sprinkle with the finely chopped pecans before the topping sets.

Yum! Please love this!

Location:Hull, Ma

Oh, the places you'll go

I don't know where Oconnell Way, Boston is. But it sounds awesome, so I won't correct my location finder. Or turn it off, which is what paranoid, conspiracy theory type people do.

I will just commence in my original mission which is to enlighten all 6 followers of my blog, who I recognize are hoping for bakery recipes and not boring histories of my life, where the last 26 mostly fabulous years of marriage have taken me.

I will start at the end, because that is what prompted this post in the first place. Last weekend Dave and I took Milo, the only dependent currently living at home, to A Fox and Hounds to board for the weekend (why has no one invented weekend boarding for children?) and celebrated our anniversary (which was August 14) by shopping for home building supplies.

That sounds bad, but it wasn't. It was the fun kind of shopping. For cool antique pieces, which it turns out do not exist in our price range, at Brimfield and in New York City. It was a fun weekend. One of probably 15 which have occurred in New York in the last 26 years. Half of them since McKay and Annie moved there 17 months ago. They might be getting tired of us.

In the early years most of our vacations involved all night driving to Spokane, LA, or Seattle from Utah where we were students. I am no longer capable of working all day, packing a carload of small children and stuff, driving all night, and then going straight into a full day of vacation fun. I'm too old and tired for that stuff!

Later, we graduated to flying vacations, although I have driven cross country from Boston to Washington State a time or two. Or 5. And back again, of course.

Some of our favorite family vacations have been to Disney World. I love Disney. I am a true fan. I suggest going the second week of December, when it is decorated for Christmas, but responsible parents are making their children go to school. It is beautiful, and relatively quiet.

We also had a wonderful family trip to Puerto Rico. We do love a vacation that involves sunshine and sand. We definitely recommend Puerto Rico over Cabo, although we have decided that the vacation activities offered tend to be very similar regardless of the tropical location you choose. Parasailing, glass bottom boat rides, jet skis and ATVs, and those crazy individual submarine numbers where you just stick your head in a bubble and go investigate life under the sea. Who came up with that idea?Yes, I have done all these things although they all fall into categories of things that tend to frighten me. I even rode the roller coaster at the top of the Stratosphere in Las Vegas, although I drew the line at the Big Shot and let the rest of the family go without me. To be honest, I won't even ride those things when they start at ground level.

It turns out family vacations often involve things I find frightening. Like our hike to the top of Angel's Landing at Zion's. People die there, semi regularly. I, fortunately, did not. Nor did my family, for which I am grateful.

Ah, good memories of good times. I can't wait to see where the next 26 years take us!

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Location:Oconnell Way,Boston,United States

The education of a self declared GC

This is the house the day before the storm. They hauled off the dumpster as a safety measure so I took advantage of the opportunity to see the front of the house.


I am learning so many important things building this house.

For example: 2 x 4 construction can hold R 15 insulation. We need R 19. Thank you to the 'expert' who recommended that as a way to save money :).

You can buy 'prison series' sinks online. Ummm, why?

I have a wonderful imagination which the design industry has not kept up with.

No matter how you time it, things you do not yet need will be sitting in the way of the plumber and electrician, and things you need now will not.


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Location:Hull, MA

Life under construction

And after children.

The kids are gone. Off to college, leaving Mom home alone all day.

Oh, wait. Home with Milo all day.

Milo is the only member of the family who is currently unable to stay home alone.

Because he believes that all contractors are here to visit him.

They could not possibly have anything more important to do than play with the homeowners dog.

And so, this is our schedule:

6:00 am.: prepare for 1st walk.

7:00 am: contractors show up, greeted by a dog, or a dog barking from behind the barricade I've erected on the 2nd floor.

7:10 am: noise commences. Don't get me wrong. Noise is a good thing. Noise = Progress = :-).

8:30 am: 2nd walk.

9:30 am: Milo naps, Carol captive in 3 room living space doing 'stuff'

11:30 am: we go somewhere, which invariably involves 3rd walk.

3:00 pm: Milo naps, Carol pulls hair out and wonders why she has a dog. She does more 'stuff', which is important but not especially fun and dreams of the day she will be laying floor, painting or tiling.

4:00 pm: contractors go home, and noise ceases.

4:15 pm: 4th walk.

5:00 pm: Carol goes to run errands since Milo can now be left home alone. I also wonder WHY every hardware store I need to visit closes at 6:00 pm. Really????

7:00 pm. Contemplate what to fix for dinner in our kitchenless house. It usually involves the salad bar at the Hingham Fruit Market.

7:30 pm: Dave gets home from work and we eat dinner. When we're lucky this occurs on the back deck and coincides with the sun setting over Bumpkin Island. It used to set over Boston. Anyone know why that is?

We also contemplate the fact that if Dave could get off work at noon in the winter we could continue the sunset dinner tradition by eating at 3:00 pm.

8:00 pm: 5th walk and family tour of progress on the house.

The End.

Please come over and entertain me. Please.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Hull, MA