Why does moving have to be such a pain?

I’ve known that we were going to be moving this summer since mid-May, but do you think I’ve packed yet?  Nope!  I took a few things over to the big house during that first week (pictures, dustables, books, etc.) but I probably could have packed some other things by now.  There have been a couple times that I’ve actually picked up an empty box and went into a room with good intenetions, but then I think “what if I need this before we get moved in?”  I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a professional procrastinator.  I’ve been working at it my entire life and I think that I may be better at procrastinating than I am at any other single thing.  Hmmm, is there a market for that by chance?  I could be on Oprah!

“…and how did you make your first million?”

“Oh thank you Oprah.  I just put it off and put it off unitl I had a million dollars!”

I keep thinking that there isn’t anything that can be packed right now because we don’t have a definite move in date yet, but if I’m honest with myself, we haven’t used the Wii, DVDs, anything in the buffet or china cabinet, my sewing machine, or even taken a book out of the bookcase in months and months.  I probably could go ahead and pack up those things without disrupting our lives much.

Another downfall is that my husband is even more of a procrastinator than I am!  How anything ever gets done around this place is beyond me!!   Apparently I’m not the only one.  If you google “procrastinate” you’ll find 1.42 million results!  I don’t feel so bad anymore!

Lazy Sunday

Why is it that morning smacks you in the face when you’re least expecting it?  I stayed up way too late writing and then fell asleep on the sofa watching TV Land.  Just 4 hours later my sister called to ask if I’d check on my dad.  He wasn’t answering his phone and that was very unusual.  Luckily hubby was already out and about town so I asked him to stop at dad’s in his ventures.  Thank goodness all was well, he’d just decided to sleep in this morning.

I had so many plans for things to do “tomorrow” when the sun went down last night, yet all I have done today is go to my sister’s softball game.  My list was long.  Finish clearing the junk out of the parlor and then give it a good spring cleaning, shop for paint or wallpaper for the upstairs bedrooms, get everything out of our bedroom so that we can pull the carpet up and fix the floor underneath and hopefully get a few more boxes packed and moved to the house.  The best part about living in a house that big is that you can remodel parts of it while living there, and not feel like you’re in a construction zone!

There is still time though, it’s only 3 o’clock.  I think I’ll go find something for lunch and take a nap!

Weekend Gardening

I was planning to take a break from research and work on the house today.  My plans were foiled once again!  I started on the parlor (turned bar room) this morning but it was hot in there and even my ipod didn’t keep me company, so I found myself on the porch instead.  I really love that porch!  Soon my dad saw me outside and asked if I wanted to ride with him to the farm and see what the garden had produced since yesterday.  It is really looking good! 

 

We found some nice cucumbers that were ready, a few snow peas that were leftover from yesterday’s harvest and then thinned the carrots, onions and turnips.  I like to keep the baby vegetables that we get from thinning.  They are so tender and flavorful!  I grabbed a couple green tomatoes also because hubby loves them fried.  This was today’s haul.

 

Oh!  I forgot all about the peppers!  We have banana peppers galore!  Dad and I were trying to think of something to do with them so we sliced them up and put them in a solution of 1:1 vinegar and water and added canning salt.  After a few days in the fridge they were okay but missing something.  Dad dug through the refrigerator and came out with a jar of pickled jalapenos!  So we sliced a fresh jalapeno and added it along with the few pepper rings left in the jar and about half the remaining juice!  Here we are three days later and OH MY!!!  They are wonderful!!! 

Tonight we are having roasted baby root vegetables, fried green tomatoes, and angel hair pasta with grated parmesan cheese for dinner!  I love summertime food!

My Friday 5!

Well, technically I missed Friday by 24 minutes, but I was on an impromptu road trip today so I couldn’t do much blogging.  Anyway, are you familiar with the Friday 5?  If not I think it’s a brilliant idea worth the couple minutes it takes to check it out!

Without further ado…My Friday 5.

1.  Where can you go for a really good bagel, and how do you like yours?

Bagels are just wonderful no matter where you get them as long as they’re fresh!  My favorite though is a Veggie bagel with plain cream cheese from The Bagel Station on State in Ft. Wayne.  Did you know that students get breakfast for half price??

2.  What is your favorite style of doughnut?

This one’s easy, I’m a regular glazed from Krispy Kreme kind of girl!

3.  What’s your favorite flavor of Lifesavers?

Creme Savers??  Are they still considered lifesavers??  If so I like the orange kind.

4.  What O-shaped breakfast cereals do you like?

I like lots of them.  Froot Loops are probably my favorite “O-shaped” followed closely by Apple Jacks.  However all of the Cheerios other than those fruit ones are pretty good too!  Frosted Cheerios rock!

5.  How do you feel about onion rings, and where can you get some good ones?

Ohhhhh….the onion ring.  All hail the onion ring.  Such a beautiful creation bestowed upon us by the gods.  Mmmmm.  These must be lightly beer battered, never breaded, and my favorite place to get them used to be a tiny little restaurant in Ossian, IN (don’t blink, you’ll miss it) called The Sawmill.  They were battered when you order and so crispy and just wonderful.  ~drooling~  Unfortunately that place closed and I have no idea what is in the building now, but I bet their onion rings aren’t nearly as good!

So that’s my five for this Friday!  Can hardly wait til next week…I’ll let you know if I find some decent onion rings this week!

What we’ve done so far.

Funny how we say we’ve “made progress” when in actuality we’ve actually demolished someone else’s vision.  A previous owner envisioned a runner on the grand staircase, then had carpet installed.  We took it off.

Our plan here is to sand that horrible paint off to reveal the cherry wood, fill in the many holes from the way they stapled the carpet to the floor and then put a new runner on, only this will be held in place with brass bars instead of compromising the integrity of the staircase.

Next we have the ceilings.  Someone had lowered them years ago and as much as we’d love to have the original ceiling height, we do have to be able to afford to heat this enormous house, so we will have lowered ceilings also – at least for now.  The old dropped ceilings were in horrible shape and starting to fall in places so we removed those and are putting new up.  When I saw the beautiful crown molding, I almost changed my mind, but it must be done.

Floors and ceilings first and then we’ll work on the walls and woodwork.  We are going to use gallons of paint stripper!  Any ideas for an eco-friendly brand that you know works would be greatly appreciated.  I have tried one kind, but I wasn’t at all impressed.

What kind of day are you having?

Do you ever just have a great day?  Nothing special or really exciting happens, you just wake up in a good mood and keep it all day.  That’s the kind of day I’m having.  I was meeting Jayla at the alterations shop this morning to have her bridesmaid’s dress fitted at 9:30, so after a shower and quick brush of the fangs, I jumped in the car and went to meet her.  The sky was a bit cloudy and it was the perfect temperature out to open the windows and the sunroof and crank the music up, so my 5 minute drive wasn’t nearly long enough.   After the fitting the sky had cleared and I went back to enjoying my drive.

Trying to extend my time in the car without feeling like I was wasting gas and needlessly polluting the planet,  I drove by the big house and thought maybe dad would be home (he lives next door to it).  He wasn’t so I turned toward home.  As I rounded the corner I saw my friend Charlie and we stopped on the road to chat a minute.  Soon a car came and since we were blocking an entire city street, we drove back to the big house and enjoyed some porch sittin’.  He had his one year old niece with him so we chatted while chasing her and keeping her from falling down the steps.  Dad came home then and we all visited for awhile before it was time for the child’s nap and our guests had to leave.

After that I went to the drive-thru at Wendy’s.  I don’t normally eat fast food at all but I was curious about the Asian Chicken they’ve been advertising.  There were 5 cars ahead of me (the most impatient person on the planet) and it didn’t even bother me today!  I just waited patiently for my turn.  Unfortunately the little guy that lives inside the drive-thru speaker wasn’t nearly as patient while I was trying to decide what kind of salad dressing I wanted today.  Oh well, he was awfully busy so I’m sure he was in a hurry.  The chicken wasn’t bad (though all I could think about is how many calories and how much fat I was putting into my body as I ate) and my salad came with Italian dressing (I ordered Oriental Sesame). That would have usually ticked me off, but I just put it on the salad and ate it.  It was good dressing, didn’t go well with the chicken though, so I just ate them separately!

Since lunch I’ve just been enjoying the company of friends via google talk and the telephone and updating my Facebook, Twitter, and SheWrites page.  What kind of day are you having?

More interesting tidbits.

For years now I’ve been wondering about the servants that worked inside the Niblick home.  Since I’m very interested in Helen, the youngest child, I figured that she had a close relationship with them, especially since they lived in the home.  I can’t say that I was actively searching for names, but I’ve always wondered.  Today I found a name!  Barbara was her name and she was born in 1874.  She was living with the family from the time Helen was an infant until Helen was at least 11 years old.  I’m still hunting to see if I can get a better idea of when she left.  I was thinking that the relationship with an upper-class child and her live in nanny would make a good short story.

I also found that Helen and her husband were first class passengers on the Queen Elizabeth in 1947.  I couldn’t help but picture scenes from the movie Titanic when I read that.

Something else that I wanted to share:  A few years ago when I visited the family’s moselium at the cemetary I noticed a John H. Stoner who only aged 21 years.  Logic told me that this was the son of Helen Niblick Stoner and her husband Herbert, but I couldn’t find a single thing that proved he ever existed, until today!  A 1930 census showed a 6 year old John living with Herbert and Helen, but that was from when they lived in Ohio, not in my house.  I can’t help but wonder if I’ll ever find out if this boy ever lived here.  If I can just figure out what year they moved back to the house, I’ll have my answer.

I did find a few more tidbits that I thought were interesting, but they were about people I haven’t mentioned here yet, so I’ll save them until I have time to explain who those people are.

Until tomorrow…