The Hankarous

I am making Hank be a Dinosaur for Halloween...well kind of.

He looked really cute for the whole two seconds that the costume lasted...oh well.

"I tried to tell you I didn't want this thing on my head..."

"But did you listen? Nope, you never listen to me."

"I mean I look like a complete dork with my ears flipped back and everything but this is not on my head any more."

"I will now destroy you dinosaur head."

"Or give my an not to happy look when she is trying to take a cute picture of me."

Oh how I love this monster sweet boy. 

Hope every one has a safe and happy Halloween. Hope all is safe and sound from the storm, we have been getting crazy 50 mph winds and we are in Michigan, plus it was snowing yesterday.

Over and out,

A Engineer in the Kitchen

Wordless Wednesday...Kind of

I asked Hank to come help me make the bed the other morning...I guess his way of making the bed means to ball the comforter up. 

Over and out,

A Engineer in the Kitchen

My Next Life I Shall Be An...

I think in my next life I should be an electrician.

Laundry room circuit...done! Works, all outlets read 120ish volts, go me!

Dryer outlet...done. Works, outlet gets 240ish volts, once again go me!

Just have to tack up the wires so they look all nice and pretty then it is inspection time. Hopefully that can be done sometime this week. 

Replaced nine more outlets in the living room, pain in the butt but done. No mom, I will not come and do electrical work for you, I am official done with anything more than replacing a few fans and outlets.

Next step, inspection then water lines are being installed...yay!

Until then I will have to once again do laundry at a place that is not my home, this sucks, like seriously I did it for 2 years and was excited to not have to do it anymore when we got our washer and dryer.  Now we are back to having to do it at my parents for a few weeks and seriously I hate it.

Oh well. (Will post pictures of laundry room soon.)

Over and out,
A Engineer in the Kitchen

Other Happenings Around the House

I feel like a lot has been going on in the house but nothing that is worthy of an entire post.

All of the drywall and insulation was removed from the living room ceiling, click here to see why the ceiling had to be removed.

Oh what a mess cleaning up that was. The white brick in the corner has also been removed (and a massive ants nest was found and destroyed). New insulation has been installed and waiting on drywall. We decided that we would have a professional install the ceiling drywall.

 

The cabinet that goes above the stove was reinstalled and so was the cabinet that goes next to it (in this picture it is still sitting on the floor). It only took like six months for us to get the cabinets back up.

Big-D built the handrails for the back door steps, needed to be done for insurance purposes and we final got around to it. Luckily I have a really cool insurance agent and he understood the fact that there were more important things that needed to be done.

I also, with the help of Big-D who ran the wires in the dark crawlspace, got the new laundry room all wired up and it works...go me! Only managed to electrocute myself once, it was only a little tingle nothing serious.

Big-D put a bigger gate up because someone learned how to jump the old makeshift one that we had. He has is only able to half clear (can't get his hole body) over the new gate, next summer we plan on extending the six foot fencing. Hopefully the cheapest of this gate will keep people from stealing it...we have had two gates stolen, why someone would steal a gate I have no clue.

Lastly, we installed a door for the guest bedroom...guess what? The floors in our house aren't even...go figure. Nothing like a project that should only take a hour taking three right.

Other than that not much really going on around here....well in the house at least.

Over and out,
A Engineer in the Kitchen

Dear People...

Dear Family Member,

It is really not appreciated when you call me up last minute to invite me to an event and then get mad at me because I either have plans, class or work. It's not my fault that you weren't organized enough to give me enough time to plan accordingly.

Thanks,
Lyndsey

Dear Dad,

Why must you call me FIVE times in one hour to inform me you got another deer? I love hearing from you that you got a deer but seriously I do check my voice mail and would call you back.

Love,
Lyndsey

Dear Lady at Petsmart,

Please don't yank on your puppy like that, you are going to hurt the poor little things neck. If you haven't taught it to loose leash walk or to heal screaming heal at it a million times is not going to make it heal.

Thanks,
A Concerned Person

Dear Hank,

Really dude, do you need to sleep on my pillow while I am using it? You have like the rest of the bed to use and you choose my pillow. I mean I love you and all but I do like to use my pillow too.

Love,
Your Mama

Dear Family Member,

Who makes mashed potatoes and then does not provide gravy? Seriously gravy is a must with mashed potatoes. I know its not healthy but do you really think I care? I like my gravy, don't give me mashed potatoes useless you plan on providing the gravy.

Thanks,
A Gravy Lover

Dear State of Michigan,

Seriously Michigan, seriously?!?! You suck, I love you as a state but does your government suck. Thank you for making us wait at least two more weeks.

Sincerely,
A Very Pissed Off Citizen

Okay, done venting. Thank you for letting me use this blog as a place to vent about the people that have annoyed me this week.

Over and out,
A Engineer in the Kitchen

Our First Piece of Furniture

Okay it's not the first piece of furniture that we have ever owned but it is the first piece of furniture that we have bought together. I found it on craigslist and it was pretty much an impulse buy.

We stole the mattress from my parents basement (it was my brothers before he moved out) because after many nights of Big-D, Hank and I sleeping on a double it was finally time to get a slightly larger bed and the new bed frame was just the incentive to do so...

See that cute little cotton ball up there...that is Urban our foster puppy. Big-D told me her first night she wasn't allowed to sleep in bed with us.

Over and out,
A Engineer in the Kitchen

Oatmeal Cherry Cookies

Big-D doesn't like raisins. Even when I try to hide them or not tell him that I used raisins in a recipe he knows that I used raisins.

Then one day my Aunt and Uncle from Traverse City came down for a visit. Since Traverse City is the cherry capital of the United States, they brought down some cherries. The cherries that they brought came in many forms dried, fresh and even salsa (yummy). What do you do with dried cherries? Eat them but I prefer the fresh to dried, so they sat in the cupboard until one day I wanted oatmeal cookies.

Big-D will eat dried cherries and I found out he will eat dried blueberries as well, so I have no idea what it is about raisins. However, I did find a few more people that didn't like raisins as well so maybe he isn't that weird after all.

Mix oats and brown sugar together.

Mix egg whites, salt and almond extract together.

Mix egg mixture into the oats mixture.

Add the dried fruit of your choice and bake at 350° for 10 to 15 minutes.

Then stack several cookies on top of each other before eating.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups instant oats
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 egg whites
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 1/2 cup dried fruit

Directions:

• Mix the oats and brown sugar in a medium sized mixing bowl
• Beat the egg whites, salt and almond extract together until frothy in another bowl
• Mix the two bowls together
• Add dried cherries (or whatever fruit you choose)
• Place about 12 cookies on each greased cookie sheet
• Bake at 350° for 10 to 15 minutes

Enjoy,
A Engineer in the Kitchen

Guest Room: Paint Job

I painted the guest room last weekend and OMG do I love the way it turned out. I wanted something fun but also some what neutral and I needed some type of color on the wall.

Big-D hes a simple man, if he has his way every wall in the house would be white, but don't worry do you think he gets his way all the time...nope.

The guest bedroom out of all the rooms in the house, is the room that needed to least amount of work. Once we fixed the closet (the master bedroom closet and the guest room closet was separated by a sheet of drywall) there was nothing really do but new flooring (some day) and paint the walls.

 

Before: Looking in from the hallway.

Before: Windows

Before: Other corner

Before: Looking from the room to the hallway.

 Before: Closet

I don't always put primer on the wall but being that there was a dark color on the bottom half of the wall and marker all over the wall (grrrr...people that let their kids draw on the wall.) The primer covered the paint but not so much the marker so I ended up having to get the two-in-one paint anyways.

After: Other corner

After: Looking in from the hallway.

After: Windows

The day after I got done painting, I went in to clean the windows and yep kids colored on the windows as well. I really don't know what these parents were thinking but seriously the kids colored on all sorts of stuff, including cabinets.

After: Looking from the room to the hallway.

After: Closet

Now to find two twin size mattresses for the bed frames, I might have a couple of leads.

Over and Out,
A Engineer in the Kitchen

Let's Play A Game...

Every once and a while we have to play a game called "Where's Hank?"

It's similar to "Where's Waldo" but instead of finding Waldo we are finding Hank.

This is where we found him last night...

For some odd reason he loves to sleep on our nice clean clothes...

Over and out,

A Engineer in the Kitchen

PS: Don't judge my closet, if it makes you feel any better it annoys the crap out of me too.

Roof: After

Okay so the new roof has been on for a few weeks now but I have been so crazy busy with life that I haven't posted pictures of the new roof.

Here it is the new beautiful roof!

Now off to finish fixing the ceiling...ugh what a mess.

Over and out,
A Engineer in the Kitchen

Because Sometimes Life Sucks!

Unfortunately, Dennis was one of the many that lost their jobs on Wednesday of last week and it totally sucks. I actually miss him at work, I work third shift and he worked first shift, our desks were 15 feet apart and I got to see him for an hour at work. The worse part is, they never called him to tell him not to come in and he drove into work (wasted 3 gallons of gas that's like $12) and couldn't get through the gate...great way to find out that you no longer have your job. But I guess it could be worse, we both could of lost our jobs.

Anyways, house stuff is going to be slowed for a while...maybe, I asked him to do a couple times around the house but lets be honest deer hunting is way more important then taking down the fake brick crap so we can put in a fireplace. Ironically, to make myself feel better because I am back to being a poor college student, I painted a room and will hopefully have time to go get a new ceiling fan up this weekend. We did a couple of other odd and end jobs around the house but nothing to huge expensive.

Hopefully, I will have a deer hanging in my garage by Saturday night and I hope it's the one I kill. Going deer hunting this weekend, YES I ACTUALLY TOOK A WEEKEND OFF!

Anyways, hope everyone is well and stay tuned I am really hoping I can talk him into doing lots of stuff around the house, crap if I could get him to do the dishes it would be a small victory.

Over and out,
A Engineer in the Kitchen