A lot is going on in the attic

As you may have heard, there are a couple of rats in the attic, and we need heat ducting installed in the attic. The house needs to be rewired, and I'd like to drop down ethernet cables. Not too long ago we had our old asbestos-y insulated ducting removed from the attic. We have all kinds of reasons for needing access to our attic as of late. There are a couple of ways in to the attic. I think you could climb up there if you could make your way around the false ceiling in the garage. (I'm going to tear that bullshit down someday.) There's a tiny attic entrance in the closet of the 4th bedroom (the add-on room). This thing is probably 12" x 12". You couldn't really get in through there. I don't know what's up with that thing. Finally there is a door in the siding of the house outside of the 4th bedroom.

See the outline in the upper portion of the siding above the window? That's the attic door. Real handy, huh? Observant readers will have noticed that the roof wasn't installed properly on the add-on. There isn't any overhang or gutter. Water seems to have found its way into the attic door. It's not too bad, but there is enough water damage that the hinges are useless. There is at least a small amount of water damage to the door frame, but it mostly seems to be to the door itself. The siding seems to be okay mostly. The attic door frame is made of 2" x 4" pieces, and it's decently damaged.


So, to recap, the hinges are useless. To get in to the attic, you need to climb a ladder, pull the door out of the wall like it's a plug, and either hand it to a nice person standing by on the ground, or walk yourself back down the ladder with it. This is a dangerous and difficult situation. So, before we have ducting work under way, I'm going to rebuild this door. This is a very simple project, but I'm excited because it's my first woodworking project. So, the door is simply a 2x4 rectangular frame with a diagonal crosspiece. The hinges are mounted on the frame. The siding is nailed to the front face, and there's a latch attached to one side of the siding. I purchased a circular saw to cut my wood. I have a large heavy desk in the garage that I used as a workbench. It worked so well that I'll probably keep it out there for that purpose. Here's my new door frame:

My grandfather used to build furniture as a hobby. He would make us little wooden toys for Christmas. He made such beautiful pieces. A part of me has always wanted to be like him and be able to make woodwork. So here's my first small step. I'm mostly finished with my door. I just need to install the hinges and nail on the siding and the latch (I'm reusing the siding from the old frame). My next woodworking project will be to build raised redwood garden beds. After that, I'm going for something a little more ambitious. Marth and I want to get chickens, so I'm going to build a chicken coop for them. Now that will be quite a project! I intend to post many pictures as I progress through that endeavor. I'll be sure to post some before and after pictures of the planter boxes. I don't think there are any garden pictures up yet.

On traveling

When I'm traveling...

Cats don't follow me into the bathroom and jump on my lap. Sometimes there are dogs instead!

I'm always surprised at how everyone arranges stuff in their refrigerator.

I'm amused at how other people's towels match.

Every morning I wake up and wonder where the hell I am.

It's so easy to get dressed because all my clothes are all together and there are so few options.

I like doing everyday things with people like going to the grocery store.

I never know how other people's stoves work so it's easier to make mistakes when cooking.

I get to sit on full-sized couches! We don't have one in the house yet, so it's a novelty.

Rats

We've all heard the rats. I've seen one. It was dead. I found it when I was investigating our attic. I need to retrieve it at some point.

We hear them in the walls. It's time for them to go.

I think we're going to get some traps for them instead of poison. I read some message boards about getting rid of rats, and traps seem better than poison since they die at the trap instead of wherever they choose, so disposing of the bodies is easier.

I'm not looking forward to checking on the traps, but we don't want our new insulation being disturbed, and we don't need any more rat droppings in our attic. Ew.

I know what 4 is

In the two apartments we lived in from 2008-2011, we had gas stoves. Each of them had dials for the burners that had at most 45 degrees of useful flame-adjustment range. In the house, our stove has dials that go from Lo to Hi, with six numbers in between them. The whole range stretches around probably 270 degrees of the dial. The numbers actually mean something. If I want to cook something quickly without burning it, I cook it on 4. It means something. And it makes cooking sooooooo much easier.

Quesadillas with black beans and avocado

Yield: Two dinner portions and some leftover quesadilla filling for one or two smaller quesadillas

Quesadillas
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 sweet onion, sliced
1/4 red onion, sliced
Juice of 1/2 of a lime
1/2 medium green pepper, chopped or diced
~2 cups fresh mushrooms, cut into chunks
1 can ready-cut tomatoes, thoroughly drained
Cumin, to taste
Red pepper flakes, to taste
Black pepper, to taste
Flour tortillas
Shredded cheese (we like to use mozzarella or Monterrey Jack)

Pour a bit of oil into a medium nonstick frying pan, and saute the garlic and onions until the onions start to look translucent. Add the lime juice. Throw in the green pepper and saute until they start getting tender. Then add the mushrooms, and finally add the tomatoes. There might be a lot of liquid by this point. If you haven't already added your spices, stir them in and taste if things are spicy enough/balanced well. When things are hot, transfer the veggies into a glass container so you can store the leftovers (or just into a bowl if everything will be eaten in one serving). Turn off the eye. Add a bit of oil to the pan and add two flour tortillas, so that they make a sort of upside down T shape with the inside halves sticking up vertically from the pan. Add cheese to the horizontal halves, scoop some veggies onto the cheese, then add more cheese on top. Fold down the tortilla halves and turn the heat up to medium and fry to your desired shade of gold/brown. Gently smoosh the ends down with a spatula so the cheese acts as a glue. Then flip the quesadillas over (I like going side-over-side, not open-over-closed) and fry the other side.

Black beans
We use canned black beans, but this recipe should work fine with dry black beans if you hydrate/soak them first. Drain the canned black beans and pour them into a colander. Rinse water over them until all of that salty soupy stuff is gone. Add a bit of oil to a small saucepan/pot, then pour in the beans. Add the juice from the other half of the lime. Add garlic powder, onion powder, red pepper flakes, and parsley (or cilantro if you prefer). Stir and let sit until you're frying the quesadillas. The beans hardly take any time at all to heat up and it's best if you don't overcook them. Turn the heat on medium low and stir occasionally until they're hot enough for you.

Avocado
While quesadillas and beans are cooking, wash and halve a ripe, medium avocado. Remove the pit with a sharp knife or a spoon, then use a butter knife or spoon to take out the avocado flesh in big chunks. Divide the chunks into two portions.

Serve and enjoy!

Talking with heating service companies

I call a nearby heating supply/service company to ask if they sell heating system parts. I explain that I need a supply plenum for my gas furnace and he says they make them there. Then he's all:

"And are you going to install this yourself?"

The emphasis on the yourself was priceless. I could almost feel his eyebrows raising through the phone.

I love being talked to like I'm clueless. And (this was later) it's always professional to call someone "lady" over the phone when you're in a business conversation. /sarcasm

Luckily the guy wasn't all bad, and explained that plenums are manufactured and that he needed dimensions for it. And now it makes sense why we couldn't find them at Lowe's. Whoops. And the guy referred me to another heating parts maker/retailer that was closer to me, which was nice of him.

Unfortunately, when I called the place he referred me to, I was told that they don't sell parts; they only do installations and repairs. I asked if I could send them an email but I didn't get to finish my sentence because the woman interrupts me with, "WE DON'T SELL PARTS, MA'AM."

*blink*

What I was going to say was, hey, can I send you an email explaining the situation and ask how much it'd be for you to install the parts we need? But, you know, no need to let me finish. I couldn't have been asking about how to use your services. You wouldn't want my money, right?

After that awkward moment, she tells me how much it'd cost for them to send someone to our house to look at our setup and give us a quote. I told her to have a nice day and I sincerely meant it since anyone with a stick up their butt needs a nice day once in a while.

So now I'm off to read more about heat ducting design. Wheeee...

Wired connection: Complete!

Ahhhh...my own private sanctuary in the fourth bedroom. Today I finished the ethernet wiring project. My sides hurt (from working with zip ties above my head), and I'm sure they'll hurt more tomorrow, but for now, I am a happy panda. I ended up with less CAT 6 left over than I prefer, but I figure I can slap on an extension if it really gets out of hand. For now, my desk is where I want it to be, and everything is working swimmingly.

We bought a masonry bit so I could drill through the stucco, but the bit turned out to be too big for my drill. So I resorted to chipping away at the stucco to widen the hole so both the CAT 6 and coaxial cable could fit through. Who knew a crow bar could fill in for a chisel? I guess it's not that far of a stretch, but it was my first time using a crow bar for that application. After I'd fixed the hole, I found my drill bit set. As it turns out, I already had some masonry bits in my set. *facepalm* Well, at least I know for next time. Ike's been wanting to install a hose holder on the side of the house, so now there's nothing holding him back.

In the middle of all the wrongs

When we moved into this house a couple months ago, I put my desk and computer in the living room. The modem and router were stationed there because that's where the cable line comes in and all the Xfinity magic happens. So I set up camp and figured I'd move my station to the fourth bedroom in a week or so once we got the network cables sorted out.

Well, October passed and November came and went, and I was still in the living room. I'm still in the living room, right now, actually. But that's about to change.

For the past few days, I've been thinking about how I could move my desk and computer into the fourth bedroom and still keep my wired internet connection. As lovely as a wireless network can be, I've become spoiled on my wired connection. I have a desktop station, so the portability advantage of wireless isn't appealing. The fourth bedroom is the furthest room from the living room, if you walk it inside. There's a shorter path to it outside, though, and I wanted to capitalize on it. While I have a 50-ft ethernet cable, I'd still rather have some slack on both ends when I'm connected.

Today I decided to see what I could do to make that connection happen. I started looking around the fourth bedroom walls and floors for outlets or other outdoor access ports. I found one outlet in the room that had a mirrored outlet on the outside of the house. I thought I'd see if I could somehow run the ethernet cable in that space without obstructing the electrical outlet.

I don't know much about electrical outlets, but from what I learned today, they're pretty simple. There's a faceplate, which comes off easily. The actual outlets themselves are connected by metal and are housed in a metal casing. Those pieces all come loose when the screws are removed, but they can't just be pulled out of the wall because there are electrical cords running out the back of them. I know that totally makes sense, but I expected way more give from the casings and was sorely disappointed. I'd gotten into the meat of both outlets with a bit of hope, but had to replace everything and start over.

As I was reassembling the parts on the outdoor outlet, I noticed a cable that was running along the ground right up against the house. I brushed some leaves to the side and saw that there were two cables parallel, sort of stuck to each other. Nails pierced through the center and held the cables on the ground. I'm not sure what the cable used to do because it didn't seem to go anywhere. One end was cut and laying in the brush nearby. I pulled that end up and tried to see where the other end led.

I pulled and followed the cord around the corner of the house. After just a few inches it went into the house! At this point, there was a good bit of searching and measuring, which would all be pretty boring to describe. I guess the most fun part was that a shrub was in the way and I had to do some pruning and sawing to get it out, which was a nice stress reliever.

At the end of my searching, I'd discovered a hole in the fourth bedroom wall behind the baseboard that led to the hole outside. After that happy verification, I yanked the cables out and started planning how I'd run the cable along the house.

I haven't set up the ethernet cable yet because I'm working on another hole where the cable will go back into the living room from the outside. But that's not the point here.

I didn't have a realistic idea about how to accomplish this task until I got up and started working on it. I wasn't even headed down the right path, but that wrong path let me see one of the paths that would let me solve the problem. Sitting and contemplating is useful for planning, but getting out there and trying things was so much more helpful. Sometimes the right thing is in the middle of all the wrongs, and I have to fail before I can be successful.

Post-Tipsygiving

Well, it's been a little over a week since Tipsygiving, which really wasn't that tipsy after about noon, and I've got a couple pictures for you.

Here is the turkey with my hand in it, because that turkey rub needed to get on the actual meat, not just on the skin:

And here's the glorious bird before it went into the oven:

Note the tucked-under wings! I struggled to get them under the bird, but the effort was worthwhile; the wings didn't dry out like they usually do. I think we let the thing cook for about five hours, which might seem excessive, but it didn't come with one of the meat thermometers, and I sure don't know where ours are. I mean, I know they're on the property somewhere, but we haven't found them yet.

The turkey turned out pretty well. The flavors really got into the flesh, which surprised me. It's the first time I've put a rub on a turkey before, and now I'm motivated to do it again next year.

The turkey giblets were awesome this year. I think we got more meat from them than usual, so the stuffing was even more loaded with little giblet bits. Mmm...and that heart was delicious. Ike was sweet and let me have most of it. I feel so barbaric eating it, but it's so yummy.

Our other side dishes were mashed potatoes, steamed green beans (!!!), a yam and oatmeal bake, and cranberry sauce, as you saw earlier. There's still a lot of the turkey and some cranberry sauce left, but everything else is gone. Overall, the dinner was a success and I'm glad we tried a couple new things this year.