Joyful Abode

On Friday, the man and I squeezed into our tiny kitchen to make dinner together. He made his fantastic spaghetti sauce, full of good stuff like (very cooked) onions, garlic, mushrooms, and meat. He also adds a green pepper, which I could do without, because I think the flavor permeates everything, which is fine if you’re in the mood for green pepper, but I’m not always in that mood.

While he was manning his giant pot of bubbling tomato sauce, I whipped up a batch of the Pioneer Woman’s Olive Cheese Bread. Except that I used Colby jack instead of just Monterey jack, and I left out the green onions, because, well, yuck.

The cheese bread mixture was amazingly tasty, and it was fantastic all melted on the bread, but I’m going to try something different next time. Why? Because there was so much melty cheese all over the place that I was cursing like a sailor (except my sailor-husband doesn’t curse TOO much) while I was trying to cut the bread… burning-hot cheese sticking to fingers isn’t the nicest feeling in the world.

Next time, I’ll slice the bread and lay the pieces flat on the cookie sheet. I will push the cheesy olive mixture into a Tupperware and refrigerate it for a bit so it becomes sort of like a block of olive-cheese. Then, I’ll turn out the cheese and slice it, placing a slice on each piece of bread. This will eliminate the need for burning-finger-type slicing, and will also allow better control of topping placement.

In any case, the olive cheese bread was fantastic. You should hop over to the Pioneer Womans’ website and try out the recipe.

Lately, I’ve been getting dozens of spam-comments a day here at Joyful Abode. It’s pretty irritating to say the least.

I just downloaded and installed the “Did you pass math?” plugin for wordpress, but I’m not sure if it’s working. Can you please help me test it by making a comment in this entry? Thanks!

This apron is one of the most meticulously, yet simply, embellished aprons I’ve seen. Just to show you some of the amazing work that went into it, take a look at the tiny pleats at the top created with careful cross-stitching. Wow.

And if you think that’s gorgeous, wait till you see the details at the bottom of the apron. Take a look at Joyful Abode @ Etsy.

There’s a new apron on the block!

Her name is Karen and she’s completely reversible, with a pocket on each side. Take a drool, and hop over to the shop to see her. I absolutely love the smock-style of this one, and the fact that half of the side ties are the same as one side’s fabric, and the other half are the same as the opposing side. It is quite groovy.

Edited to add: I wrote this entry last night to post today to let you all know about this apron, but she’s already been sold! This lovely little number will be on her way to Jen in Michigan soon.

Someone commented on this picture a while ago (picture taken in SC) that I needed to write instructions for how to get men to wash dishes.

Well I can’t give instructions, but I can say that it is NICE… and research in other countries (Australia and Japan were the ones I read about) shows that for every hour men spend helping with housework type things (not just mowing the lawn, guys), the rate of divorce goes down significantly. Of course, this is a correlation, not necessarily causal.

So, I was going to tell Topher this, but I only got to, “For every hour men spend helping with housework,” before he interrupted me with an excited, “more sex?”
Which is funny because the research showed that the fertility rate (children per couple) went up with every hour men helped too. Again, that’s a correlation. Still interesting though.

I just asked him if it would be ok to tell that little story on here, and he said it was fine, but added that probably the real reason the correlating fertility rate was higher is that guys who are more likely to help out are the family-oriented ones. I got a smart one, didn’t I?

So basically, you have to get a guy who WANTS to help by washing dishes, vacuuming, or doing laundry. And then? I think you’re good to go.

We’ve been settling in to our new house here in sunny Florida, after *insert long story* finally getting all of our things from South Carolina. We’re mostly unpacked, and we have been using our new pots for some yummy home-cooked dinners.

The first night we were here, we went to Wal-Mart and got cereal, which we ate for dinner on our living room floor. The first full day though, I worked hard to get the kitchen stuff unpacked, washed, and put away, and I made some very tender baked chicken and fresh green beans. The husband remarked, “It’s so nice that after only 2 days here, we can have a real dinner out of our kitchen.” It sure is, babe.

We’ve also made hamburgers and chicken and dumplings (so good). Tonight, I made a variation on a pasta dish I watched Rachael Ray make on her show. The “sauce” is basically made of cooked, mashed cauliflower; garlic; and sauteed onions and garlic… all boiled down in chicken broth and some starchy pasta water. Toss the pasta in it, then top with steamed carrots and zucchini and some cheese.

So the kitchen is up and running.

I still need a table to use for crafts and sewing, before I can start working on any more aprons. I’m trying to find one on freecycle or craigslist before jumping into buying a new one. We just bought a new computer desk and a ton of little stuff, and it adds up pretty quickly.

Let me tell you though… Dyson Animal? Totally worth it. Vacuuming is so disgusting now because you can see all the crap that this thing sucks out. It’s sort of like those Biore strips for your nose, where you can see all the nasty stuff that came out of your pores, and it’s revolting, but you just. can’t. stop. staring.

I’m gonna go spend time with my husband now! We missed our after-dinner walk tonight because we had a pretty late dinner and it was dark when we finished.

I’m going to try to get back on the Joyful Abode posting routine. Encourage me by telling me how much you missed me, kay?! And tell a friend about Joyful Abode!

And pssst… new aprons up soon (I took pictures of them yesterday).