Yesterday was our Houseaversary–the anniversary of first discovering this house. I posted about it here last year and remembered to post on Facebook about it, but I failed to post anything actually on Purgatory as yesterday was a long day.
I thought I had to be up in Sausalito for a class in the evening, so I spent the morning working with Agent Smith to get a bunch of stuff done, from washing cars to painting trees on a couple of walls inside the house. Around noon we headed out to do a bit of serious work, with Agent Smith taking Dino out and me learning to drive Giggles–which reminded me that I need to update our About section to add in the vehicles and machinery. Sadly, when I came in to get ready to head north for my class, I found out it was cancelled at the last minute. So I grabbed a big pillow, my iPhone and headphones, and went back out to Giggles, where I spent several hours moving some of the spoil pile left from the driveway repaving while catching up on “The Archers”–which I had planned to do on the 4+ hours driving to/from Sausalito.
The pillow is necessary because I don’t fit very well in Giggles; even with the seat as far forward as possible, skidsteers are made to fit people much bigger than me. Even with the pillow, I woke up this morning quite stiff and sore, as sitting in Giggles for a few hours is like riding an amusement park ride that tosses you about as it spins in multiple directions with no scary ride attendant pulling levers and smoking a cigarette. Still, I got about 1/4 of one of the spoil piles moved and laid out in the floor of the stables, and today I should be able to get another 1/4 moved and perhaps more, as we’ve decided instead of using Giggles to spread things, Tony is a better option.
So that was the bulk of yesterday–our houseaversary. After playing with large machinery we came in, showered, I set about reconfiguring Agent Smith’s closet (as I did mine last weekend, but more on that later) and we then headed down the mountain for some food. Sadly, the place we wanted to try said they closed at 8pm, but when we got there at twenty-’til, they had already packed it in, so we went to our tried and true standby: The Olive Garden, where we sat side-by-side at the bar and did last week’s NYTimes Sunday crossword puzzle. Decent dining out is one of the few things we miss about living in San Francisco; pickings are slim on this edge of the valley unless you want fast food, Pho or Mexican. On one hand this forces us to explore other areas like Campbell and Morgan Hill, and on the other hand it means I’ve been cooking quite a bit more than when we lived in SF–although rather simple stuff like French Onion Soup in the slow cooker. The problem with cooking for two when it’s the two of us is that Agent Smith doesn’t like anything from the sea and I don’t like most land animals; for him it’s a question of smell and for me it’s a question of texture. Compounding this was learning to work with an electric stove with glass cooktop. Remember, everything in our house runs off electrons except for the diesel fuel that powers those jet engines–errrr, I mean our furnaces.
After some experimentation that involved more than just boiling water or scrambling eggs, we’ve adapted and I now foresee some stir-fry adventures in our future. And while we now like our glass stovetop, we do need to eventually replace the oven with one that is actually capable of maintaining a constant temperature throughout. Then I can finally try my hand and some new baked goods–although the little Breville we’ve had since living in SF can do tiny batches of cookies, scones and muffins nicely enough. Makes me think it’s time to be brave and try out this recipe for croissants.
Perhaps this week after I finish painting the boys’ space, get the flooring and blinds installed, and their new cages (hopefully) finally arrive, and after the folks resurfacing our pool resolve the bottom drain issue left by the previous owners and the spoil pile is moved, I can get a couple of dumpsters and a crew of day laborers in to clear the last of the wall debris and start on the last pile of garbage left behind the stables by the POs, while at the same time working with the landscape architects, then maybe I will try to…what was it? Oh, right, bake some fluffy croissants.
So if you’re wondering why this post reads like a giant, convoluted series of run-on sentences, that kind of sums up life here at Purgatory, so the “art” is just imitating that–and if you told me two years ago we’d own a small ranch and do everything we’ve done over the last two years, I would have thought you were crazy, but that just goes to show how much you can accomplish thanks to the Interwebs and very hardy search skills.