HJ Waxing Moon

When we were moving in, the landlord did a walkthrough with us. He assured is the bathroom tub/shower area had been thoroughly scrubbed, and the faint brownish color on the one wall of the shower was staining from over the years. You probably already know where this is going, but we're going to take a detour first. The previous tenant also apparently had a fruit fly problem. Not having proper refuse disposal or cleaning supplies, Mr. Moon being here for a week before these systems were in place only made the fruit fly issue worse. IT WAS BAD. There are no pictures. Just me freaking out for weeks. We ended up putting out bowls of vinegar with a drop of soap, and after a few days of less-than-entirely-proper cleaning and refreshing the vinegar, the fruit flies seem to have died off. Thank goodness. We did scrub the cabinets in the kitchen. The area around the handles was nasty, and the shelves were dusty and dirty. We also wiped out the fridge, though that had pretty clearly be...

The Living Room - 0% done -  View from the door View from that hallway doorway  Damage on the door from previous tenant. :( Damage in the carpet from previous tenant :( The nice thing about this living room is that it is BIG. South-facing windows let in a lot of natural light, but also a lot of heat. I will be surprised if we ever have to turn the heat on in here or the kitchen. That doorway you can see on the left of the top picture is the hall that leads to the bedroom and bathroom and closets. The doorway at the right of the bottom picture is toward the kitchen and dining room. To Do: EVERYTHING--This room has all the boxes, and most of the furniture. It will be the last thing finished. But that's OK! The Kitchen/Dining room - 60% done -   Dining room   Kitchen with gross-orange-wood cabinets.  Aren't these liners just to DIE for?   At least the cabinets don't waste any space. All the headsp...

Mr. Moon and I have been working for over a year on a project to turn the garage into a lounge area, second living room, game room, whatever you want to call it. We have a name all picked out, which will be revealed when we have AFTER pictures. We agreed to take a futon from one of his aunts who is moving out of the area, and somehow we ended up getting obligated to take a second couch. Not sure where the misunderstanding was, or if that was the couch Mum was going to use to replace the one in the living room she doesn't want, or what exactly happened that we have more furniture than I'd originally planned in there. All I know is that with the couch we found on the side of the road in the subdivision, and the futon and couch from the Aunt, we were supposed to be fitting three couches in this garage. Which would be fine, without the chair that Mr. Moon insists on keeping, and the massage chair that will not be gotten rid of so long as it works because the thing is delightful. ...

I made it 14 days which is admittedly the longest I've ever made on these kinds of challenges. I'd love to say there were lame excuses like the ones Nony blogged about all month for why I fell off the face of the planet and didn't post my menu plan or any of my dinners for two to three weeks. Really I was struggling with a major bout of depression, the weather changes plays havoc on my joints, and I had doctor's appointments two to three times a week for the whole month. Whew! For once I'm not beating myself up about having made a goal and failing at it. There were days I COULD have taken a picture of my dinner and posted it, but I decided that I needed to be gentle on myself, give myself some time and space to just be in the moment, to accept the situation. It was oddly clarifying. Mr. Moon and I took a trip to Seattle for Halloween to see some friends. We'd been squirreling away our date-night money for a few months in anticipation of this trip, and we mana...

What We're Eating: Made a nice yogurt parfait for breakfast yesterday. 2 big dollops of plain, full-fat* Greek yogurt homemade granola another dollop of yogurt homemade granola diced peaches  * I haven't found any low-fat/non-fat yogurt or sour cream that's not filled with extra starches. At least the fat is naturally-occurring! I ate this sitting in the backyard on the patio, on a nice warm summer morning right before we attacked the garden. It was nice to take a moment to appreciate the work we've done already, that I could just wake up, head out there and eat my breakfast. Also, fresh and yummy!  Monday was so warm, we just wanted something refreshing for dinner. Enter: Cucumber-Watermelon soup! Cucumber Watermelon Greek yogurt Fresh mint Fresh rosemary Salt & Pepper This is really supposed to be a "savory" soup despite the sweet ingredients, so the pepper is essential. We used the immersion blender, but a regular blender would...