What a Crock: One Year, One Crockpot and One Reno Wreck

Reno Ridiculouso: No One Cares Right Now...For Reals Food Mood:Hot Chocolate… you can make it with a kettle Once we decide that a Christmas tree is not happening, we all are jumping on pinterest and searching design magazines for “Christmas in small spaces”   (pause.   Acknowledging privilege of owning a house that was pretty large to begin with, and small is all relative. I know.   Unpause) This turns out to be quite a lot of fun.   A few days into this, the Hubby tells us that in his house they always used the great big fluffy strands of tinsel, strung across the centre of the room in a crisscross.   And then we find a picture of a Christmas tree on a front porch, visible from inside via the big front window.   And now we’re getting somewhere!    The tree goes on the front porch, decorated with lights and balls and strings of beads that we don’t care if they break or get stolen. We buy great big sections of tinsel, string th...

Reno Ridiculouso: Mudding and Taping forever.   Boring but true Food Mood: cookies from a tube. Shut up!   No one asked you. When the calendar rolls over into December I have this sudden horrible realization. We have no space for a Christmas tree.   To be clear: I love Christmas!   Like capital L LOVE it.   I love baking cookies and wrapping gifts. I’m one of those jerks who starts shopping in June so never feels stressed about what to get people.   I cut my Christmas boughs to decorate outside at my parents house… at Thanksgiving!   That’s how much I preplan and love it.   But what I love most is sitting with a book on the couch by the Christmas tree, dreaming and reading. I have an ornament from every year of my life and my daughters and each one means something to me.   Some memorialize people who died that year, some are about beloved hobbies (figure skates, violins), and some just are sooo ugly and make no sense at all. ...

Food Mood: winters’ coming kinda panicking, need some comfort food Reno Ridiculouso: electrical inspection passed.   Plumbing inspection conditionally passed (more work to be done, more on that later), hvac hell So, it’s December.   In Canada.   Cold, yes?   Well, ok fortunately (thank you global warming, umm.   Well.   Whatever) it’s quite warm.   It veers wildly between 18 degrees Celsius and 2 degrees, but mostly on the side of 18 degrees. Alright so it turns out that the hvac (heating, ventilation and air conditioning ya newbies) company never submitted for a permit, they just went at it like a bunch of cowboys.   Because, really, that’s how we roll now in this city. We madly build shit, not doing the work that should be done, take the money and move onto the next project. Anyways, so Hubby calls the city inspector to come and do an hvac inspection but he won’t come because there’s no permit.   Ok, so he applies...

Food Mood - Conciliatory towards the Hubby (ie, buttering up) Reno Ridiculouso: Son of a #$%? The Doors again!!!!    Yeah. Hubby chose the wrong door. Just… I can’t even.   Yeah. We needed a left inward opening and he chose a right inward opening.   Now, to be fair, in order to even write that correctly I had to stand up, pretend that I was approaching our door and reinact the way that it would open to remember the correct version.   But for some odd reason I’ve always been able to do this and get it correct.   And, even more strangely, the Hubby who has impeccable spatial sense, years of experience and wicked instincts, just can not get this one through his head. So the first time that I open the door I pause.   I note that it’s opening in such a way that you to go in and close it you end up with your back to a open staircase to the basement, and to go out you end up standing on the heating vent.   Yep.   Instead of the d...