My New Least Favorite Thing to Do

So in my last post regarding painting in the dining room I mentioned that the paint was actually peeling up on the trim work we were trying to repaint.  Sigh... That was only the beginning.  The square boxes on the lower half of the wall were easy to clean up by comparison to the actual chair rail.  The paint did not want to peel at all but would still come up if we sanded it.  What a loosing situation.

I spent the better part of 6 hours yesterday doing what the picture above shows.  That's right, brute force removing the crappy paint that was there.  This so far has been the worst painting task I have had.  I would rather paint 20 ceilings than repeat this task even once more.  Curse the people that painted this trim like this!

So this was the finished product after all my work yesterday.  Not only did I remove the crappy paint, I sanded to smooth out the bumps and scuff up the base paint some so the new layer would stick.

 Today's task was finally added paint back to the trim.  Thank the heavens.  I could actually see progress!

Meanwhile, Rob tackled painting the new bi-fold door we got in the kitchen.  We replaced the metal door that was there.  It was starting to rust and had to go.  Rob's dad helped install the replacement one.  They did a great job!

So finally after two coats on the trim and a touch up of "Pecan Sandie", this was our final product.  So far so good.  I just have one more wall to do.  (Not shown here).

Dilbert Appreciation

When I was co-oping in college my boss tried to tell me how funny Dilbert was, but I just didn't see the humor in it.  I mean I sort of did, but clearly not to the level that he was getting it.  Now, 7 years into the work place, I completely understand Dilbert and think I have some catching up to do. 

In the hallways around my workplace I see many of the strips tapped to peoples doors or in their offices.  There was one guy that had about 25 of them outside his office and I stopped to read them after hours one day.  Holy cow, a few too many were a bit close to home, which I suspect is why they made his wall. Many people at my company often wonder if Scott Adams actually works for us or has an inside scoop on what's going on because the strips are all too relevant to what's going on in the office.

Speaking of too close to home, this week I was in a Program Management class learning how to manage programs (should I have any in the future).  During all the various topics, our presenter had Dilbert cartoons linked in appropriate spots to poke fun of a topic he was trying to teach us.  The class would knowingly chuckle along with them like, been there, done that.  Especially ones involving the pointy-hair boss.

This is one that I have taped up on my office to express how I currently feel about getting a masters degree:

This is one that expresses an exact conversation I had with someone in a previous job (me being the one with the question in this situation).  

I equate it to having a new appreciation for Office Space which I acquired in Georgia when the team I was on gathered around a birthday cake to sing to saddest version of Happy Birthday I had ever heard.  This was followed by one person cutting said cake and saying, "Pass it around".  I immediately left to keep myself from having a mental break down.  The only thing different is I have always liked Office Space.

So, I might have to browse the Dilbert website or see if there are any books at the library.  I feel like I am missing out on a lot of laughs.

Salmon on the Grill

Now that we finally own a grill, we are getting to try all sorts of new recipes.  Some are ones we had to adapt to cook in an oven and are getting a new life in the way they were intended to be cooked.  My sister gave me this recipe, Grilled Salmon Marinade.  We have had it prepared on the grill, but we have had to cook it in the oven for a long time.  We were super excited to grill it for the first time ourselves. 

Grilled Salmon Marinade
1/4 cup olive oil
3 T. Reduced Sodium Soy Sauce
2 Green Onions, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
2 t. fresh ginger, grated

Mix oil, soy sauce, onions, garlic, and ginger to make marinade.  Place salmon in a plastic bag and pour in marinade.  Marinate for 1 to 6 hours (or more, to your preference), rotating the bag every 1/2 hour or so.

To grill on a cedar plank - soak plank at least 30 minutes before grilling.  Place salmon on board, pour marinade over salmon and grill 10-20 minutes.  Check for doneness with a thermometer.  Rare is 140, medium is 160, well is 180.

We also have found we like corn on the grill as well.  Easy method for preparing corn (without fancy add ins), soak in water with the husks on for 30 minutes.  To cook, place on the upper rack of your grill for about 20 minutes.  Some people will tell you to peel back the husks and remove the stringy hair, add butter, salt, pepper and other things, but we are perfectly happy with just cooking it and dressing it afterward like normal.

It was good food for a summer cookout.

Accidental Gardening

Last year I bought an amazing petunia hanging planter from the Farmers Market in Syracuse.  It became my kind of zen garden I took to pruning and watering every day when I got home from work.  I would pick all the dead heads off the plant and prune back the dead branches.  Since I had one flowering plant at the time, I could manage it to this level.  When the fall came, we brought all the plants inside, including the dead carcass of what was my petunia plant.  It spent the winter inside with all it's dead branches hanging around above a bookcase.  Why do you ask?  Well because I was lazy, forgot about it and then it became scenery and I stopped noticing.

Fast forward to this spring, around May/June.  When we moved, we set almost all of the plants outside on the back deck immediately.  We really had to place to put them inside and sunshine would be good for all of them.  This included my hanging basket of dead petunia parts.  I had gotten it in my head that I would finally deal with the dead plant here because I had room and a yard.  Let's just say that didn't happen.  The spring rains came and dowsed all the plants and they began to thrive.

Then I noticed the hanging basket started to get all kinds of little green dots on it.  It wasn't mold, but growth of some sort.  I thought, well that's odd, I wonder what kind of weeds I am going to get.  In the spirit of letting nature take it's course, I would throw water on it while I was out watering the other plants and then one day, I saw the most remarkable thing.  A petunia bud!  What in the world?!  Apparently when I brought them inside last fall, it prevented them from freezing, so they basically re-seeded themselves and began anew this year!  How delightful lazy gardening can be!

Peeling Paint

We decided we should spend another day trying to wrap up the dining room.  Rob painted the second coat of color on the walls while I started prepping the trim for new paint.  What a crappy task.

We knew they hired painters to come in a "neutralize" the place before putting it on the market.  From the little bits of "what used to be there" paint and wall paper we have seen, it was worth their money to do this.  No one in their right mind would have bought this home otherwise.  We also knew from accidentally bumping the chair rail that it used to be red.  And that it was glossy paint which was painted over with another glossy paint.  For those of you who don't know what this means, essentially the last paint you put on will peel.  Glossy on glossy means it has nothing to stick to.  The good news?  If you catch it right, you can peel long strips at a time.

Here's progress with one stripped and the other waiting.  I am sure when this is done no one is going to be able to tell from a picture, but we will know the white we are painting it much brighter than this dull cream that's on there now.  The other thing is, even if we didn't want to paint and liked the color as it, eventually, with wear and tear, the red would eventually show through because it's not on there well.  

All I can say is sitting on the hardwood made my back hurt and my finger nails are in pretty awful shape.  At least Sparky was checking up on me on a regular basis. 

Dining Room in Stages

The dining room was the next room on the list to be tackled in our home renovation/repaint list.  We had decided we wanted to go with a blue, but not sure what what shade.  That actually proved a little challenging, but in the end we got the color we wanted.  We actually took a vote over the fourth of July with the in-laws.

The paint samples are shown left.  We ended up going with the top color, Pale Sky and had planned to do a deep blue (shown on bottom) for the base.  That plan sort of changed along the way.

Rob decided to pick up the Home Depot 1-2-3 Book over that weekend and read that walls should be sanded for a "velvety smooth finish".  We figured what the hell.   We had to patch holes anyway, so off sanding we went.

Of course our ever present supervisors had to oversee this event as well.  One Rob finished up with that portion, I started cutting in the walls.  It's surprising how fast you can paint a room when you are only painting the top two thirds of a wall and have only 3 to paint.

Rob does pretty good at coloring inside the lines.

After the paint went up on the walls, we knew we had really nailed the color.  It also showed us that our initial selection of dark blue on the bottom may have been a little premature.  We decided we actually liked the idea of having a sand color on the bottom half.  We wanted something darker than what was there however to give it some contrast.  After another round of voting we decided on "Pecan  Sandie" for the bottom third.  (As a random aside, I want to work for Behr naming colors)

This picture shows the difference in the colors pretty well.  It also shows ME painting in my lovely hobo clothes.  You got to love your paint outfit.  There's giant holes in the armpits and I have made it a point to get some of every color I paint on that shirt.  You can't see if from this side, but it's quite a grubby looking shirt now.
 

This is the latest picture of the dining room (minus the updated plugs).  Our final step will be to do the trim work.  We bought Ultra Bright White to make the rails pop.  Right now they are some weird version of cream and look kind of crappy.  We also need to scuff up the edges because they painted them in a high gloss of a high glass and it's peeling up in some places to show the awful prior colors beneath it.

Eventually when it's not 3,000 degrees outside, we are going to take down the chandelier and spray it another color.  I hate brass (it reminds me of cheap hotels) so we were thinking to try either a silver or white.  If it looks like crap, we'll be out $15 for spray paint.  We were going to straight up replace the thing, but in the interest of saving $150-$200 we thought spray paint might be a fun experiment first.  There's nothing functionally wrong with it (aside from a bulb being out) so it's hard to justify tossing it because "I don't like the color".  Stay tuned as the next phases come to fruition!

Huli Huli BBQ

We tried another recipe for the grill last week.  This was a Hawaiian inspired recipe which was published in 2008 in the Cuisine at Home August edition.  Its the first time we used the indirect cooking on the grill which was kind of nifty.  Of course, this made the cook time a bit longer, but I think it was worth it.

Huli Huli BBQ
Makes 2 servings, Total time: 1 hour + marinating

Whisk Together:
1/4 cup pineapple juice
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
2 T. ketchup
2 T. dark soy sauce
1 T. garlic, minced
1 T. fresh ginger, minced
1 T. vegetable oil
Salt and pepper to taste.

Marinate; Grill;
4 chicken drumsticks

Whisk all ingredients (except chicken) in a bowl.  Marinate drumsticks in half the pineapple juice mixture in a large reseable plastic bag for 1 hour, refrigerate.  Reduce remaining mixture in a saucepan over medium-high heat until thickened, 5 minutes; set aside for basting.

Preheat grill to high.  When hot, turn off 1 burner, leaving the other lit.  Remove drumsticks from marinade and arrange on the unlit portion of the grill.  Cook chicken to an internal temperature 165*, about 40 minutes.  Baste with reserved glaze every 10 minutes and turn after 20 minutes.

There were a couple of sides they offered up to make with it.  I would recommend the Coconut-Lime Rice, and I was only so so on the Hawaiian Salad. 

Coconut Lime Rice
Makes 2 cups, Total time: 30 minutes

1 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup water
2 T. fresh lime juice
1 T. sugar
pinch of salt
3/4 cup basmati rice
1/4 cup chopped cilantro

Bring coconut milk, water, lime juice, and sugar to a boil.  Stir in rice, cover, reduce heat to low and simmer until liquid is absorbed, about 20 minutes.  Remove from heat, let stand 5 minutes, then fluff with a for and stir
in cilantro.

Hawaiian Salad
Makes 2 cups, Total time 15 minutes

Whisk together:
1 T. pineapple juice
1 T. olive oil
2 t. fresh ginger
1 t. lime zet, minced
1 t. lime juice
1/2 t. hot sauce or Tabasco
1/2 t. brown sugar
Salt and Pepper to taste (you'll need to, it's bland otherwise)

Add:
1/2 an avacodo, pitted, peeled, and sliced
1/2 cup jicama, cut into sticks
1/2 cup pineapple, diced
1/3 cup red bell pepper, sliced
1/3 cup frozen shelled edamae, thawed
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro (personally, I am not a fan of the spice and thought this was entirely too much.  I would do like 2 Tablespoons instead)

Toss everything together and serve immediately.

I would do this recipe again without the Hawaiian Salad portion and I would probably do chicken legs and thighs.  Nice change of pace from the normal options we have for dinner.