What can you do with a yard of concrete, some melamine, a few sticks of lumber and a couple of great friends?

Make an ofuro, aka a Japanese soaking tub:




Huge thanks to my pal Knit-Whit and her fab boy for helping us. Fortunately they're used to us asking for help with all kinds of crazy stuff, so they didn't bat an eyelash at the prospect of playing around with 3000 lbs of wet concrete on a Saturday.

BOY IS COOKING!!!!!!!!!!
That is just crazy.

Ok then. (I'm eating...)

It was delicious. He made Chicken Caesar Pita Wraps, like they used to have and Wendy's, except without the soggy wetness that came from letting the brocolli slaw sit in the dressing too long.

Chicken Caesar Pita Wraps
3 Grilled chicken breasts, cut into strips or diced
1 bag broccoli slaw (julienned brocolli stems, carrot and purple cabbage in a bag where you find the bagged lettuce)
1/2 head romaine lettuce, chopped
1/3 c. Grated parmesan cheese
Caesar dressing of your choice. We like Cardini's brand
6 Fresh Pita breads

Warm pita breads in oven or skillet. Toss broccoli slaw, lettuce and parmesan cheese with dressing. If you prefer the broccoli slaw a little softer, toss this alone with dressing and let sit a few minutes before adding the lettuce and parmesan. Combine with chicken, put onto hot pita, fold and wrap with foil. Peel back foil from one end to eat. YUM!
Makes six.

Great job boy!

I was thinking about:

The delicious ham, swiss and mushroom sandwiches made for our most recent CraftyCHIX get together. 2006 update: I think I've made this recipe only once since then, but it's still on my list of favorites. I can't wait to be able to cook with some regularity again.

Knitting on my Color on Color Scarf. 2006 update: I finished this scarf sometime late last winter and it's one of my favorite FO's. I get tons of comments on it whenever I wear it and it was really fun to knit.

Messin' with my new laptop, given to me by boy as a Valentine's Day gift. 2006 update: Still plunking away on the same laptop, still running Gentoo Linux, although I do tolerate the occasional Winblows adventure for I Tunes purposes. I should add that this Valentine's Day I got a very nice card but no fabulous new gadget. Sigh. I should also add that I heart boy more than ever, gifts or no.

Making an inagural post about our house project. 2006 update: What was just lines on paper and a couple of cold, lonely walls then is now an actual thing. Warm, dry and pretty darn neato, IMO. It's the project I'm most proud of. Now, if we could just get it finished and move in!

Generally carrying on about food, bikes , Project Runway and creative stuff. 2006 update: I miss cooking on a regular basis more than I ever thought I would, so getting back in this groove will be high on the to-do list post move-in. I miss bikes, but it's easy to put that on the back burner when it's like -20 outside and I plenty of indoor stuff to keep me busy. I also miss creative crafty stuff, despite the fact that my creativity, ingenuity and can-do-it-ness are being challenged on a daily basis. I long for the days of the short term project. Another item for the post move-in list. I no longer have Bravo, nor the time to watch it, so I've been listening to this season's Project Runway updates via podcast while I wait for the DVD.

Off to bed. Tomorrow has lots of promise and should make for some good pics. Stay tuned.

I almost forgot.
I can officially state that the first meal has been "cooked" in the new house, a Valentine treat of grilled ham and cheese sandwiches and reheated deli-purchased grilled veggies. Sadly, I was unable to manage a photo but it was delish. Safe to say that the insanely cool new range toasts a decent sandwich, although I do miss my friend the pannini press that's still squirreled away in the POD with the rest of my life.

It was a lot like camping...a little dirty and slightly improvised, but cooking in my new kitchen, be it a still sinkless, faucetless, countertopless kitchen, is till eighty bajillion times better than that crazyness that was my old kitchen.

It was the strangest thing smelling something other than the usual dust and construction weirdness in there...

I've gotten a good start on grouting the master bath shower and I thought I'd share a pic because I am absolutely LOVING it!

I should have the walls wrapped up and be able to move on to the floor soon so hopefully I'll have more coolness to share in a day or two.
Yay for DIY!

Today marks my one year blogaversary! Yay for us!
I've celebrated the day by turning on the water at our new house. Exciting, huh? So this means that we now have working sinks and toilets, and I got the honor of taking the first official pee. I guess if I would have been thinking I would have taken a picture to post, but that would have been gross.
Anyway, the whole toilet thing is big, really, as we've spent the last fourteen and a half months making potty runs to the gas station, the coffee shop or my personal favorite, the grocery store, and now we can pee at our convenience, at home, like normal people. I'm also oddly excited about getting to buy toilet paper and soap...

Months and months since I last got to blog. How boo.
I've found some time to peruse my favorite food blogs today for the first time in months an I'm hearwrenchingly reminded of how much I miss my old life.
My pre-housebuilding life, that is. In case you forgot, that's also the life where I get to blog about things I love to do (and do them), workout, ride my motorcycles, call and email my friends once in a while (aka being a friend), go buy magazines, enjoy dinner and a movie and dress in real people clothes, among other things.
I had almost forgotten that's what my life was like once. Certainly there are lots of other things I've forgotten to remember at all, and that makes me sad.
On the other hand, there ought to be room for some new parts of my life sometime soon, and that is exciting.

We're just a few weeks away from being "done" with the house project. By "done" I mean done enough that we can move in and live there, but certainly not "done" in the done sense.
I'm not sure we'll ever be to that level of "done".
Here's a peek at what I've been up to:
Lots and lots of tile in the master bath shower. I'm pretty pleased with how this is looking and, although it took FOREVER, it was an interesting study in cross-crafting. Much more coolness to come for this room...


The near seizure-inducing Orange Juice colored powder room. It's growing on me, and I think with the addition of a mirror and some chrome accessories it might end up cool. How it's going to coordinate with the rest of the house is TBD.


I'm going to restrain myself from showing off my insanely fabulous new kitchen until it's a little closer to finished. I'm just finishing up the formwork for the poured concrete countertops and then the magic of putting all the bright, shiny bits...those things like faucets and sinks that I have a strange obsession with...can begin. Anyway, it's pretty darn near my dream kitchen and I absolutely cannot wait to get in there and start making yummy messes and sharing them with y'all.

Somewhere in all of this, someone got married and I managed to crank out this in my spare time (spare time. yea. right.) The comedy of this cake is that it was fabricated in the tiniest most akward kitchen ever, home of the carrot peeler from hell (more on that another day), using a decrepit mixer with psycho beaters and some seriously wrong-ass equipment that belongs nowhere other than the trash. But hey, I'm all about finding a way, right?

They always end up looking so amazing once the fresh flowers are added. The bride and groom loved it, I'm told.

So, it may be anothe month or two before I post again but the goods will be delivered...eventually. I promise.