Been Painting

We bought the paint months ago. At least 2 or 3.  And the places where I tried out the colours on the wall have been there for that long. But today was the day.  Yesterday Joe got the furniture moved to the middle of the room and took down all the pictures.

This morning I had breakfast at an insanely early hour (I was still really tired from yesterday), and the incomparable Izzybella came home from the restaurant with me and we got to work. The living room curtains, which I utterly loathe, came down and got thrown into the washer. And we got to work. Joe primed the wall where I’d made the paint samples while Izzy and I cut and painted the mint green accent walls. And we kept on working. As of now (6:30ish), all the walls are painted, much of the trim is done, I think Joe just finished the doors in the living room. I had to stop just now because I got major back spasms, which Joe attributes to being dehydrated and he made me drink nasty Gatorade, and which I attribute to my muscles asking me what the hell I think I’m doing. Izzy went home around 2 so she could get her laundry done. She was on a crazy road trip this week, and it’s her last free weekend before school starts back up again, so it was just incredibly awesome of her to come help out.

It’s so pretty. The two short walls in the living room and the wall at the end of our hall are a very serene shade of light green, and the other walls are cream coloured. We both really like it, and we’ve decided to do the kitchen/dining area as well. We’ll use a slightly darker shade of green as the accent walls, and the same shade of cream on the other walls. (Note–we’re not doing it in the immediate future, though.)

Joe said we can get a new tv armoire, so I’m going to look and see if I can find one that matches the picture in my mind.

I made the marinade for the seitan this afternoon, and it’s in the refrigerator. Tomorrow I’ll get it cooked up and see how it tastes. And tomorrow afternoon I get to go do yoga with jehara and izzy! yay!

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Heavy Metal Vegan Cooking

Yeah, it’s 9:56 and I’m still awake, but I think the sleep is coming soon.

Here, for your amusement while I snooze, is a fun video about how to cook seitan. It’s not the recipe I used, but there’s only one Spiral Diner in the world.

All right, all right. There are TWO Spiral Diners in the world, but the one in Fort Worth is the true Spiral Diner.

(yeah, I took an amb*en tonight. I’ve gone back and fixed every typo I could find. So if there are still any, blame it on the drugs.)

(or the whole no sleep thing. That would be a good excuse too, right?)

(I noticed the last time I was up all night was on 1/30, 4 months ago. Is this going to be a quarterly event to which I should look forward with eager anticipation? Or was it just a coincidence and maybe 4 months ago I ran out of the antidepressant and didn’t get it refilled until I had bainzaps and starting withdrawl? Only the Shadow knows.)

Hey!  I wrote withdrawl! That’s Texan!

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News

Good news: EllaDee’s father is doing well–the doctors didn’t find any blockages, and were able to get his blood pressure and heart rate stabilized. He’ll be in the hospital for a few days under close monitoring, but things are looking a lot better. Thank you for your prayers–EllaDee and her family have expressed their thanks as well.

Sad news: Charlie Brown’s mother passed away last night. He was able to spend some time with her before she died, and I know that’ll be a great comfort to him. If you could keep their family in your prayers, I’d be very grateful.

Unfun news: Lunatic Writer’s having fun and games with kidney stones. Yep, prayers would be most appreciated.

Pi$$y news: There’s someone with whom I thought I had reconnected, thinking we were going to build a new good friendship. I was wrong. She didn’t have the decency to let me know. I’m better off without her in my life, and I’m through trying. Thank you, though, for showing me how unimportant you find the love that I’ve had for you since I’ve known you. And thank you for being so cold-hearted about it. That made it easier for me to accept that we don’t need to be a part of each other’s lives.

Awesome news: I’ve got the best family and friends that anyone could ever hope to have. You guys mean the world to me.  Thank you–and you’re in my prayers.

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Not one minute

Jehara can attest to the fact that when they left last  night, I was so sleepy that I could barely stand up.

It’s 6:21, and I got no sleep last night. None. Zip, zilch, nada. My head’s all buzzy feeling–probably from cutting back on some of my meeds–and my sinuses are throbbing. When I get this tired, I also get really nauseated.

this should be a fun day

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A sunshine-y evening

Sometimes when I make plans they go agley, but sometimes they go even better than planned. Tonight was one of those nights.

Jehara and I decided to get together tonight to make seitan, and I’d mentioned it to Joe this morning. So he calls me in the early afternoon, asking if Pastaman were coming too. I said no, that we were just planning to hang out for a while. He then insisted that I ask Jehara to bring Pastaman too, and we’d have a nice evening of things. I did, and she said she would.

I got stuck at work a little longer than expected, and was later getting home than usual. But I walked in to find that Joe had spent his day cleaning and cooking. Dude! You’ve gotta love a man like that! He made salt potatoes, corn on the cob, sliced up some watermelon, got some organic cherries and strawberries, a baguette, salad, my favourite organic tortilla chips–I’m sure I’m forgetting something. It was a really nice spread.  When I told him that Jehara and Pastaman are vegetarian, but not vegan, he was really happy. See, we don’t keep cheese around the house anymore. He went out to pick up some cheese & butter, but called to let me know that he left his wallet at home. It’s okay, love, it was a seriously great dinner.

Jehara and I made the seitan according to the Spiral Diner recipe. Let me tell you, that’s some seriously gross feeling stuff. You mix the dry ingredients together thoroughly, and then pour in the liquid and knead it all together. It soaks up the liquid like nobody’s business, and after less than 30 seconds of kneading it’s got this funky texture that just feels nasty on the hands. Jehara took over the kneading while I got the broth ready. You have to put the seitan balls into the broth and then bring it to a boil; apparently if you try to put it into hot broth, it gets all yuckified. Our directions said to bring the broth to a boil, and then simmer for an hour.  Everything smelled really good. It now gets to spend the night in the refrigerator, and I’ll make the marinade tomorrow night and then cook it on Saturday. I’m going to see if I can come close to Spiral’s bbq sandwiches. It’ll be fun to see what all I can do with the seitan. It’s funny to think of how intimidating I found the thought of making it, because the reality was so different. Of course, starting with vital wheat gluten instead of flour definitely makes a difference in raising the confidence level. I think I will try making it the long way too, just to see how that works.

When I was clearing off the table before coming to bed, I just had to eat one more piece of broccoli with some hummus, and managed to inhale a bit of the broccoli. Have you ever been choking so badly you thought you’d have to do the Heimlich maneuver on yourself?  I was about ready to start waving my arms at Joe when the broccoli came back up and shot across the room.  My throat’s still sore, and I’m still coughing from it.

It was just a lovely evening, though. I always enjoy getting to be with Jehara, and since she’s moving in another couple of weeks, I’m trying to grab all the time I can. And Pastaman is seriously cool. They are such a perfect match.

Please continue keeping my friend EllaDee and her family in your prayers. Her father’s still in the hospital, having a fairly rough go of things. They’re doing a couple of procedures tomorrow to see if there are any blockages, and he’s not reacting well to the medications that have been prescribed in an effort to get him stabilized.

I’m going to try to get to sleep without taking my sleeping pill tonight. I was practically asleep on my feet when Jehara and Pastaman left, but that choking fit sort of woke me back up. Wishing you all sweet sleep & pleasant dreams—

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Sorry honey

Some nights I remember my dreams. Some nights I don’t.

I have no clue what I was dreaming about last night, but this morning Joe told me that I’d punched and kicked him while I was asleep. It wasn’t a break-your-nose kind of punch, obviously, but let’s just say he wasn’t too sad when I had to get out of bed this morning.

I’m really sorry, babe.

One of my friends, who’s already going through a lot of crap in her life, had to leave work when she got the call that her father was at the E/R with heart attack symptoms.  I stopped by the hospital on my way home, and told her that everyone was praying for them. So, if you don’t mind, please remember her family in your prayers (or send some white light their way).  Thanks!

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Angry songs

I like angry songs–loud, noisy. They don’t necessarily have to be angry in lyrics, if they’re angry in sound. But both is better. They let me get out a lot of excess energy and frustration. Here are a couple of my favourites. Hope you enjoy them.

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I should never make plans

They always seem to go agley.

Today I was going to do some cleaning/clearing out, make some seitan with the sunshiney jehara, maybe see a movie with Joe tonight.

Instead I did the tiniest bit of clearing, saw the movie this morning, and when i left the movie planning to go home and buckle down, Joe called to tell me that we were going over to Clover’s for a cookout this afternoon. No complaints there–I love Clover’s family as much as I love Jehara’s family. I raced home and made my spiral dust & italian stallion seasonings and have my tofu soaking up yummy herby goodness (i’m the only vegan/vegetarian in the lot) so I’ll have something to eat. Hopefully I’ll have time to get a little bit of cleaning done tonight and tomorrow night, and then Jehara can come over and visit and make seitan with me.

 

gotta run–the dogs just told me joe’s here. enjoy your day, go see terminator, and check with me later.

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She’s Done It Again!

Congratulations, Susan Boyle–I can’t wait to see what you do next!

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If you read the previous post…

please accept my hearty apologies. I have no earthly idea what I was talking about beyond the fact that Joe woke me up by plugging in his guitar and playing at 1 a.m. or whatever time it was. Clearly I had fallen asleep briefly whilst writing the post, and it’s entirely possible I drooled, although fortunately not on the computer.

Yesterday was a really lovely day. I woke Joe up and insisted we leave around 9ish to go pick up Tater Tot. The little guy had called before we got up, and since we didn’t answer decided Joe wasn’t home and we weren’t coming to get him. He’d elaborated some detailed thing about how Joe hadn’t gotten home from the airport, and told his parents. So they were a little startled to see us at the door.  While we were in the car, he said that he had set his alarm for 5 a.m.!!!  We went first to Cracker Barrel (may I just say that hungry vegans who don’t really like cooked oatmeal probably shouldn’t go out for breakfast very often), and he ate more food at one sitting than I’ve ever seen him eat. The really fun part, of course, was the store itself. He picked out one of those toy hamsters in a ball, and we filled up his basket with candy. He does weigh slightly more than his bag of candy (I know, because I picked him up to see), but only just.  Then we went to the mall, where he asked for clothes, please. He’s just the cutest little guy, seriously. We went to Earthbound Trading Company and got him a badass straw hat and some shades, and then went to JCPenney’s and loaded him up on clothes. Tater Tot got a serious case of hiccups, so we stopped in the food court for a welcome rest. Joe got him a bottle of water and one of those ghastly sweet cookie sandwiches filled with fluff from the cookie place. Next we went to Hot Topic where Joe got a few shirts and Tater Tot picked out a tee shirt and a wallet. And then Joe had to make a detour, so it was back to the food court for us. While Joe was busy detouring, Tater Tot and I wandered into the candy store. You may think that he’d gotten enough candy already, but you’d be wrong. They had rock candy in 8 different flavours and colours, so we got one of each.

Then we made the trek to Old Navy. I will categorically state that had I known they were having a crazy big sale, we would not have gone. That sounds odd, but I’ll elaborate: the entire parking lot was full of cars, and there were people everywhere. I don’t like crowds, so I got a mild case of wiggins. Joe and Tater Tot picked out a hoodie and a pair of pants, and I got a tee shirt and a couple of tank tops for doing yoga. Afterward we met Clover & the rest of the family at the Dollar Movie (Witch Mountain).

That made for a very tiring day. Joe still hasn’t caught up on his sleep, so he took a nap and I read the archives of vegan.com. Then I put in an episode of Buffy and went to sleep. Apparently Joe went to Sundance Square and ate lots of meat and caught some music.

It’s been a lovely day today, if only because I know I don’t have to get up in the morning and go to work. Yay for paid holidays! I’m going to do a little clearing out, and will attempt to make seitan for the first time. I found the epazote the recipe called for in the Mexican foods section at Whole Foods, as opposed to the spice section where I thought it would be. And they had Lara bars on sale, so I got some of those. I have a serious thing for Lara bars. Mmmm.

I have spoken with Joe, and he said he won’t play loudly tonight, so I’m hoping to spare you any other posts like the one I did last night/this morning. Have a great holiday!!

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