I'm back...plus A llama in a bar and other tidbits

I'm back! After 60 hours of travel and ten days in China followed by 5 days of crazy jet lag I have returned more or less to my normal routine. I'm looking forward to getting back into the swing of house projects but first I thought I'd do a couple of posts on China.

Later I'll post some "real pictures", you know those rare times you leave the i phone in your pocket in favor for the DSLR??? But since I haven't uploaded the 800 photos from my camera yet I thought I'd start with the random i phone photos that I took. While there may not be any grandiose shots of the Great Wall among them I think they capture a different view of china or at least some of my experience in China this second go around.

Our first real view of China once out of the air port. Just one among a sea of high rises.

Jessie and I riding around the Hutong in Beijing in a traditional Rickshaw 

The liquor shelf in the nearby grocery store = the start to a very interesting night. Major bonus points if you can guess what kind of alcohol one drinks in China

One cannot go to China without appreciating the art sign translations...classic

Jessie and ventured out to the lake district for drinks

We weren't the only seemingly strange things in a bar of only Chinese people, oddly enough the local patrons seemed more surprised by us than the llama

Only in China can you start drinking beer at 2 pm on your tour bus while driving through what was once the most pristine agricultural land in China and is now a smattering of small rice patty fields, large gaudy houses and skyscrapers.

Shanghai by night...just as amazing as I remembered it

Being the transit geek that I am, how could I not jump at the opportunity to ride on the fastest train in the world??!!! Why yes that is how fast we are going, oh and when another train passed us...there was jumping, screaming, squealing. It was freaking amazing!

And finally trying to pack all of my "loot" to take home. Highlights, a fine porcelain Chinese tea service, a little Chinese tea set for Margot, a one year supply of top quality green tea, some art for our house and a silk dress for one Moon pie to open on her birthday.

Procrastinating

So I leave for China (OMG!!!!) in 36 hours. One would assume I would be packing right now. But it seems I'm inclined to do everything but pack. In my kitchen jars and lids are sterilized and ready for chow chow.

While the chow chow drains on the counter awaiting spices and cooking.

Homemade chicken stock is simmering on the stove.

And I've been arranging my new latte bowls on the window seal...

And setting the table for our dinner party tonight...and still not packing.

"mama pumpkin, daddy pumpkin, baby pumpkin"

It is a time honored fall tradition, taking ones child to the pumpkin patch to select their pumpkin. And so it was Sunday afternoon that we set out for the circus otherwise known as Lone Pine Farms. 

 Poor Margot was asleep when we got there and stayed asleep for the first twenty minutes only to wake up to complete chaos. 

Children where running and squealing, there was a cow train ride, a goat sky walk, children's birthday parties and countless first time parents attempting to catch a photo op with their slightly confused infant or toddler and a DSLR. 

But alas we survived, even had fun and came home with several "mama, daddy and baby pumpkins" as Margot says. 

Despite her generally confused expression at the farm she emphatically announced "pumpkin patch fun" once we were in the car. 

 For me, I am glad to have some fall touches scattered throughout my house.

Our fun day ended with a tuckered out Margot and lots of Sunday evening snuggles.

New pipes now the real work begins

With ceiling demo complete we were able to have our plumber remove all the galvanized steel plumbing that was behind it. Coming up the wall from the ground and into the ceiling was the kitchen waste water line.

 There was also plumbing for the kitchen sink, the shop sink and a mystery line that seemed to dead end below the kitchen oven. It appeared to be abandoned during construction of the house. The galvanized was replaced with pex behind the ceiling and onto the the next connection. This way when we are ready to replace another section we can connect to this plumbing without breaking into the ceiling again.

Now that the plumbing has been replaced we will turn our attention to some smaller projects while we save up to have a new plaster ceiling put in this room in this room and a new kitchen floor. We left baseboard stripping mid-project so we will return to that, there is much more painting to do with the sun room, Margot's bathroom and the downstairs next on the list. And we would love to start looking into polishing our concrete floors downstairs. 

The evolution of a bedroom

Have I shared a ridiculously cute photo of my kid in a while??? Well just in case lets start there. Isn't she darling! This is Margot on Saturday walking in downtown Portland with Grandma in one hand and her shopping bag on the other. We had just finished our annual Hannah Anderson birthday dress shopping tradition. Margot, thrilled with her new clothes, was not relinquishing her shopping bag and persisted to carry it 4 blocks back to the car.

It's a fitting way to begin this post because it's all about her, her space and her clothes. After 3 months we finally got her dresser!!! Remember way back on June 21st when Chris' and I went to Portland for our anniversary and while shopping on SE Hawthorne found a great dresser for her room? We had it delivered to Chris' parents house and this weekend we were finally able to go get it.

 Sunday afternoon Margot and I organized her room and clothes. That child has a lot of clothes so lots of organizing was in order. Her room still has a long way to go but getting the dresser was a huge step toward bringing this space together.

For now we are using the top of the dresser as a changing table. Once Margot is potty trained we'll decorate it. These are all iPhone photos (of course) so the color is off in the close up one because of the flash. It was really dark and stormy yesterday and so all the photos are a little dark. The color it the above photo is pretty true to life. 

I love how the walnut finish on the dresser matches the walnut baseboards. While the lighter finish on her rockers match the finish on the closet.

Her wall color looks different in each of these pictures. The actual color is a light almost silvery grey.

Every night more and more of her "friends" make it into her bed.

Here is Margot's new birthday dress. We had so much fun shopping with her this year. After she went around showing us all the ones she liked we selected 4 options and let her choose. This was her choice.

Her closet is nice and organized but I would like to paint the inside and add some smaller shelves for her along the walls. She loves to climb inside and turn the light on and off.

And of course she loves playing with her shoes!

After so much organizing it was time for reading books with Daddy.

We still need to paint the windows in her room, make curtains and hang some pictures. I'm also still debating a rug to tone down the carpet. Soon it will be time for a toddler bed, tear tear, and that will change things a bit too. But it's coming along especially considering where it started.

A happy kitchen

It has been a week! Actually it's been a few...work has been crazy and my work load has been taking a bit of a toll on house projects. Although we do have a completed plumbing project to share tomorrow and hopefully a fun little Margot project to share next week.

Work is crazy but home is wonderful. And nothing is nicer than coming home to my charming kitchen and cooking dinner. Especially right now when the gorgeous fall produce is in such abundance. This was the view in my kitchen last week when I made the BEST dinner.

It had been a rough day but I arrived home with a whole box of fresh produce, a nice bottle of wine, some chicken and a very happy toddler. Margot played with her kitchen toys next to my while I started dinner. Chicken Cacciatore, sauteed fennel and zucchini and Chianti. This is the best sort of dinner because you put everything together and it simmers away happily while you do other things. In this case I made a huge batch of homemade salsa while our chicken simmered and periodically popped my head out the window into the courtyard where Chris and Margot were playing with sidewalk chalk.

Chicken Cacciatore

8 chicken legs

flour

salt 

pepper

Chianti

1.5 cup of marinara sauce (I had some homemade in the freezer, I like the frugal gourmet recipe)

1 bay leaf

2 cups polenta

4 cups chicken stock

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

season chicken with salt and pepper. dust with flour and brown in olive oil over medium heat. Pour in about 1 cup of red wine and 1.5 cup marinara sauce, really should be homemade. Add a bay leaf. Cover and let simmer 1 hour. When almost done bring broth to boil, slowly whisk in polenta and cook stirring frequently for 5 minutes, stir in Parmesan cheese and pepper. Serve chicken over polenta garnished with fresh basil if you have it.

I served this with a simple saute of onion, fennel, garlic and zucchini. Simply saute thinly sliced fennel, onion and zucchini with 3 crushed and roughly chopped garlic cloves in some olive oil with a little salt and pepper.

As for salsa I don't really have a recipe but there are a few critical components

• Lots of fresh tomatoes, a mix of regular red and sun golds are nice
• fresh onion
• garlic
• fresh jalapeno
• fresh cilantro
• lime

I hope you kitchen is just as happy as mine is this fall!

Demo baby

Yeah we did some demo. It was messy and very late at night. 

To briefly recap: we had a plumbing leak and it rained on my head. The emergency plumber had to break into our ceiling to find and repair the leak. Since our ceiling is ceiling tile rather than plaster or drywall it can not be patched and will have to be replaced. Since we are going to be putting a whole new ceiling up we decided to go ahead and have all the galvanized steel plumbing updated.Whew! So that's were we are.

In fact the plumber started replacing plumbing today. But first we had to demo the remainder of the old ceiling so he could access all the plumbing. Knowing it would be a very messy job we got a role of contractors paper and lined the floor and baseboards.

Then we took a crow bar and started pulling down tiles. We broke it into two nights. The first night we mostly took down crown molding which took a lot longer. And we started pulling down tiles to see what we were dealing with. Then the second night we finished up. There was actually a third night of clean up too.

It was a very dirty job. Look at all of that dust, dirt and crud coming down with that tile.

We were left with a very large pile of tiles and a lot of general deb-re.

And a lot of exposed plumbing, ducts and spider webs. This was about 85% through the job.

Finally we loaded all the tiles into large black garbage bags, rolled up the construction paper and swept the room. We definitely need to buy a shop vac soon.

It will take our plummer two days to replace all the exposed plumbing and then we can get some bids for a plaster ceiling. Meanwhile our weekend guests were relegated to the library and an air mattress. Le sigh...