Boomer’s enemy

We often say that our cat, Boomer, has no fear.  As in, she is not afraid of many things that really should scare her.

In our summer apartment we have this nifty little washer-dryer.  It’s an LG with both a wash and a dry cycle.  Combined they take about 6 hours so we usually just hang our laundry, but still, nice to know someone figured out how to do this.

Boomer is terrified of this machine and all the noises it makes.  However, in true fearless fashion, she tends to keep staring at it in horror.

I can’t look away!

Growing my collection as I move around the midwest

I purchased my 10th shot glass in my BigTen collection, which as many of you know means I actually still have two to go.  I’ve been working at this for about 9 years, and at this rate, when I finish, my dwindling interest in this collection will be completely gone.  I hope they don’t let anyone else in to the conference!

party animal

le weekend

You, lucky reader, are about to see what a typical weekend is like for us here across the sea.

Nick and Rachel visited us last weekend on their journey across the country.  For 20 hours, our house was home to five humans, one dog, and three cats.  Everyone got along pretty well.  On Friday, this little one discovered this fabulous noise machine we have in our living room.

We all got to enjoy a fire in the stone fire pit out back.  The weather here has been sublime!

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The visiting cats decided they really did not want to get back in the car.  Ever wonder how to extract a cat from a boxspring? Wonder no more:

You use a broom.

We found his brother inside the wall behind the bathtub pipes…sorry, no pictures of that.

After our guests hit the road, we decided to do a little home science project.  We inherited from our neighbor a cast iron dutch oven which needed a little attention.

Dave found directions for setting up an electrolysis bath to remove rust and dirt from cast iron.  We had to collect some washing soda, which we learned is different from baking soda, and find some “sacrificial metal.”  Here was our setup:

science!!!

Here is a photo after the first of two baths, about 5 hours each:

And here it is in action (on Tuesday) after two seasonings.  Yum!  This one will join Dave’s growing army of cast iron pans.

This may be overkill for a 3lb. roast.

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You could say our landlord at this place is…hands-off.  We’ve done the usual move-in maintenance stuff, and dabbled in woodworking (fixed our dining table), cabinetry (put a kitchen drawer on a new track), and wiring (changed two light switches).  On Sunday we learned how to install a washing machine.  Bye bye, super old washer!

I learned how to use a pipe wrench (Don’t laugh!  Apparently direction matters.) and we managed with only one trip to the hardware store.

Well, we went about our Sunday evening as usual, each getting a little work done.  We were about to head to bed when at around midnight we found evidence of mice in our kitchen.  Ug!  We said we’d tackle that first thing in the morning, but I think we were both so grossed out that we went ahead and emptied the cabinets, put all the food in plastic bins, and scrubbed all surfaces with bleach water.  Exhausted, but with plenty of adrenaline from our battle with the mice, we rewarded ourselves with some late night tacos.

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P.S.  The mice were taken care of by Monday, with the help of our landlord, actually.  But I was harshly judged by an Ace employee when I went to get sticky traps (the only kind that would not kill or maim Boomer if she came across them) who told me that the mice caught on them would get stuck there and “scream for their friends for help” before they die later…sorry lady, I guess I have different priorities when buying mouse traps.  And anyway, we have not caught a single mouse because we got the holes plugged, so everyone’s happy.