Heard it again

The running joke around here is we're slowly rebuilding the entire house because of the shortcuts the general contractor who lived here before took. Every time we have a repair person over to fix something we hear "Wow, I've never seen anything like this before." The plumber was shocked to see the toilet had been grouted into the tile floor, the heater installer was shocked to see the heater in our attic wasn't secured to the platform it was sitting on, the guy reinstalling a fan had never seen wiring like ours, the pool people had never seen a pool pump like ours, the list goes on and on and on. Hubs and I actually informally bet on how far into the repair job the person is going to go before we hear the dreaded statement.

Well we heard it again right after Christmas. Our water dispenser on our refrigerator was leaking inconsistently but when it did it dripped at a rate of one drip per second, which can flood a kitchen pretty quickly we learned. So water dispenser fix it guy comes out and tries the easy fix. It just makes it drip more often (thus flooding my kitchen more often, it was awesome the week of Christmas. Cause life isn't stressful enough that week) so he comes back out to do the more expensive sure thing fix. He drags the refrigerator out, disconnects the water source, is intrigued by the tubing and decides to follow it to find the water source for the refrigerator.

And the phrase is uttered. "I've never seen this before." By that he means, I've never seen a refrigerator get its water from the HOT WATER HEATER.

I'll give that a moment to sink in.

Yep. Our refrigerator gets it's water from the hot water heater. Except the water that comes out isn't even warm, it's very cold, so we all decided it must be drawing the water from the pipe right before it goes into the hot water heater. Which lessens the blow a little I guess. At least we aren't powering up the hot water heater every time we get a drink.

Silly me, all these years I thought when the general contractor owner remodeled the kitchen he had a pipe put in under the floor, running from the sink piping to the refrigerator. Nope. He drilled through the wall and hooked up to the hot water heater instead.

Awesome.

It all grows on a stalk

I had polenta for the first time at the fancy pants restaurant we went to for Hubs' birthday. It was billed as a creamy polenta and it was delicious and creamy and just a small side of yum. So yummy, in fact, that I forget what I had as my main dish.

So imagine my delight when, a few days later, I come across a recipe for creamy polenta! It looks easy enough, I add polenta to my grocery list, and don't give it another thought. Until I'm at the grocery store, faced with a bag labeled "corn grits/ polenta".

What? I turn the bag around and the ingredients are "yellow corn" but the recipe is for Italian Polenta. Huh, I think, how is this different from white corn grits?

See, I know grits. I grew up eating them with a fried egg and lots of salt. I love them and usually have a box of grits in my pantry. And as far as I could tell in the store, the only difference was the polenta was yellow and grits were white. But it's all still corn.

Feeling like I'm falling for the greatest corn product scam ever, I buy the bag of "corn grits/ polenta", curious to see what the difference is when I cook it. Beside the obvious corn color.

So tonight, I cook up some creamy polenta. And it's divine. Not quite as creamy or divine as the fancy pants restaurant, which is good I guess since conceivably the person who cooked the fancy pants polenta has attended chef school. And I've only taken a few classes from the co-op and watched a few Rachel Ray episodes. None of which covered polenta.

Anyway. As far as I can tell, the polenta is yellow, and ground a little finer, and is eaten with tomato sauce or cooked with milk and cheese. And grits, when cooked the Southern way I know and love, is white, and served with a fried egg and salt. Other than that, it all tastes like corn.

But it's probably kind of tacky to list "grits" as a side at a fancy pants restaurant in California.

Full Sprint

Days 3-5 of the year have been at a full sprint. Instead of leisurely cups of coffee with a biscotti, I've been throwing a mug of coffee back while sprinting out the door. Instead of plenty of time for arts and crafts with the kids, Emma and I have spent every free moment finishing her Ancestor report. Then finding out this afternoon they've extended the deadline. My feet haven't seen my slippers in days, my book hasn't been open in days, the Tivo shows I haven't watched much TV.

Which is all to say, vacation is over.

2012. Day 2.

Resolutions. Let's reflect back on last year's. Well, I didn't run one single 10k. In fact, running is also getting back on track in 2012. Running around and around and around the neighborhood became painfully boring, so I tried running my same route backward. That wasn't any more interesting. So I stopped running. Well that, and the time changed so it was dark in the morning and I abhor running in the dark. But alas, yoga once a week isn't cutting it. Since our neighborhood hasn't changed, I headed over to the local nature preserve and let me say, running around that is waaaaay more interesting.

We did try a new campground this year as a family, and the kids and Hubs took ski lessons for the first time, and we tried out a few new hiking trails. But backpacking didn't work out.

The kids both met their resolutions. Hubs didn't. And no one wanted fondue this year but me, so I think I'm pretty much giving up on that traditionish.

So on that less than successful note, let's chat about this year.

Since no one wanted fondue, the kids and I haven't chatted about resolutions yet. So here's mine:

1)back to running, but not around the neighborhood all the time. So I guess I need a 1a that's along the lines of find fun places to run near my house.

2) Learn to play the guitar. For real this time, not like the fake time I tried in Sept. 2011. And my brother gave me a guitar for Christmas, and we still have the one from my father in law that we "borrowed" so I'm trying to recruit Hubs to learn with me. Nothing like making resolutions for him!

3) Learn to make pasta, which will hopefully lead to getting the fancy pants Kitchen Aid attachment I've had my eye on. But we'll see on that one.

Family Resolutions sound a lot like last years - something new, something old. I got a great deal on a backpacking pack right before Christmas so maybe this year's new thing will actually be backpacking. I'll also take this moment to mention that my pack is bigger than Hubs. Just saying.

So welcome 2012. I'm ready for you. Day 2 has been great. Looking forward to Day 3.

Choo choo

After a year off, the blog is back on track. It won't be daily, and there still won't be pictures of the faces of the little Reds, but the blog is back. Let the hilarity and drama begin.

Let's have a quick review of 2011 first. Highs - I started teaching preschool, started taking yoga, started ticking things off my 40x40 list, the kids learned to ride bikes without training wheels, Hubs did some great things at work. Lows - I had pneumonia, Emma broke her arm on Christmas, I never blogged, and our house in drowning in dry rot.