Looking at the freezer in the store you would not guess that 15 cubic feet is big, but when you start loading it up you feel like it is as big as a house. I think we got just the right size. It’s big enough for us to freeze a lot of food as well as buy in bulk at the Chinese store. 10% savings when buying wholesale isn’t much, but it is something. Having ingredients on hand when it comes time to cook is great.

Thankfully the one we bought came with a lock. I didn’t think of looking for a freezer with a lock, but after seeing it I can see how that would be helpful. I can easily imagine the two little ones opening it up and trying to “hide” in there or simply play in there. Having the lock on the freezer is at least some security. Keeping them out of the basement unless we are there with them is also key.

The freezer fits nicely between our stockpile shelving and oddly enough the circuit that is closest to the freezer is marked “deep freeze”. Somebody must have had a freezer there at that some point. I’m looking forward to filling it with food. Anything to help keep us sane and eating well during the week is welcomed.

The night before the big day we got everything ready. The kids were doing there part.

The tomatoes were collected and washed. It doesn’t look like much, but there is just over 40 pounds of tomatoes here ready to go. Three large platters, one small platter and a large bowl full of fruit.

The next morning we started off the day by coring and quartering the entire batch. Mixed with seasoning it was all put on the stove in the biggest pots we have.  On the stove the tomatoes quickly broke down.

With all the juice and gel from the tomatoes it looked more like soup than anything. The orange tint comes from the handful of yellow tomatoes that were in the batch.

Shortly later everything was broken down and ready for the blender.

Blending and straining the mixture seemed simple at first, but it was also a learning experience. I learned quickly that blending hot tomatoes releases steam, which makes for a hot messy spray coming out of the top of the blender. We also learned that we didn’t have the proper equipment to strain the mixture. Sue make a quick trip to get some pieces and we settled on using an OXO strainer that happened to have holes large enough to trap tomato seeds, but large enough to let through the puree. Where complete we ended up with two large pots of puree.

The pictures don’t do them justice, but they are both quite large. The puree was quite soupy. You only noticed the meat of the tomatoes if you coated a spoon with the puree.

After a number of  hours of simmering we were able to reduce the puree down enough to fill the large of the two pots. This was taken just shortly before we started to can (jar actually) the sauce.

Almost ready to get started.

The finished product: 14 pints of goodness

The girls were still doing their part.

Seeing we are winding up gardening for the 2011 season we are making plans to grow some paste tomatoes. We are trying to sow some San Marzano tomatoes. We’ll see how that goes.

One of the coldest days we’ve had in recent memory.

We’ve been hit with more snow this year already than we had in the passed few years combined. From what I heard there looks to be another foot or so coming on Wednesday. Gotta love it. This is winter, not the crap we’ve been dealt with for years. We’re ready for it though.

I’m very proud to say (patting self on back) that the hard work done in the attic has paid off. With the off and on cold weather lately and all the snow every house and building in the area is covered with icicles. Some of the icicles are close to 5 feet long. The only exception is our humble abode. Our house has absolutely zero icicles.

Understanding how and why icicles form explains why I’m so happy (read this). The short story is that icicles form when the snow on a roof melts and then refreezes when running off a building. Every house in our area leaks warm air from the living area into the attic, which warms the roof and melts the snow, which causes the icicles to form. Our house has no icicles because our roof doesn’t get hot enough to melt snow. A couple of accurately applied cans of Great Stuff and 18 inches of cellulose keeps the heat in the house and not in the attic.

I still have to properly insulate the basement, but that is another story and another project for another year. For now I’ll just relish the fact that hard work and a few extra bucks (cellulose is cheap) keeps our house warm and safe.

It was a neighborhood yard sale, so we were guaranteed plenty of traffic and much like two years ago when we first did this it was busy as expected. Sue took Emelia to swimming class, while Caitlin and I setup and tended our table. Later one Sue took both girls out for the day leaving me home to continue with social engineering and research. We ended up getting rid of plenty of junk that was lying around the house, made a few bucks, had a few good conversations, made some people happy and learned more about the dirty side of people.

We didn’t have much to sell and what we had wasn’t worth much. Some of it was left over from our yard sale two years ago. I’m happy to say almost all of that even went this time. The big ticket item was the dryer. I’ve procrastinated for nearly seven months and decided to drag it out for the yard sale just in case. The rest of the stuff were various household stuff and small electronics (15+ years old).

Thankfully Sue stayed up with me the night before to help price each item. We also filled a few “free” boxes, which did very well. We even sold a few things that Amy had to get rid of. We started off later that most, which means we were out setting up by 8am. The vultures were already out and circling the neighborhood around 6:30. And by vultures I mean the “early birds”. One guy even had the guts enough to stop and dig through my boxes before I had them all out of the house. I knew what he wanted, but asked him anyway. I prompted replied that I have no jewelry, rare coins, military paraphernalia or anything of the sort. Having done this before I knew his type and what he was looking for.

The other vultures stopped by after Caitlin helped setup and they were rude as usual. A couple said hi, but most took a gander, ignored my greeting then hopped back in their cars and took off. The spinster crowd usually are second to arrive as usual. Next up were the normals. People that follow instructions and arrive when the yard sale starts at 9am.

For the most part most people didn’t haggle. The prices were too low to negotiate, although some did try. One guy haggled over 25 cents and ended up paying 2.75 for something. He payed with a $20. Idiot. I had some other characters show up and had a few decent conversations. I was in good spirits and chatty so it was a nice day to deal with people.

The dryer was definitely the biggest draw, but nobody wanted to pay more than $75 for it. We had some dirt bags yelling down the street prices. No deal. In the end Sue ended up selling it for $100 to and older couple that were buying it for their daughter, who I believe was out of work. They were nice people and I’m happy that the dryer went to them. I would have been upset if the dirt bags ended up paying me what I asked. This felt like more of a good deed than a sale.

By 3pm I was sunburned and most of the stuff was sold. I kept the free boxes full as I learned what people didn’t even look at. I packed up the remaining items actually worth money into one box and put the rest out to the corner of the driveway.

The real vultures come out after 3pm when the sale ends and the free stuff is out. We had plenty of pickers stop by. One guy drove his nasty looking truck over, opened the door, picked out things and littler threw them into the cab of the truck. I figure he was doing some early Christmas shopping.

The prize goes to the car that arrived shortly after. Picture a mini van with both sliding doors open, slowly driving around the circle. They stopped not too far from our stuff and a kid jumped out. The girl picked up the first box, brought it over to each car door so that the people in the van could dig through it. Then she returned the box to the curb. She did this for each box. In the end they took a bunch of stuff and then slowly moved on their way. It was a sight to see.

In the end, if you ignore the money we got for the dryer we did pretty well for ourselves. In fact we made the exact same amount of money on our stuff as I did selling Amy’s stuff. A total of $23.25 each. At about 7 hours of work that means I earned $3.33 and hour. I think I could have made more money collecting cans and returning them, but the real goal wasn’t to make money. I’m doing what I can to purge the house of crap we don’t need. We followed the yard sale up with a trip to the library to donate books.

And for now, goodnight.

My initial goal was to seal of a vent that was added to the duct work. Even closed the vent leaked so much that it is downright chilly in the basement when the a/c is running and quite warm in the winter. Some caulk, flashing and screws later it’s all sealed up. Very nice. And having that box gone I can actually walk in my basement without having to hunch over.

Removing the box revealed some more dampers I didn’t realize existed and would have no chance reaching had I know of them. I made some adjustments to the dampers, but it didn’t make much difference.

Next up is hoofing out the all the crap I tore down. I may have to take a day off just to get rid of it. Not to mention all that work made me sore. Yes, I’m out of shape, but that isn’t the problem. Working on a computer at a desk in a nice comfy chair doesn’t really lead to tough, calloused hands. Working on the computer leads to soft, dainty hands. Not good for real work. Oh well.

I’m still baffled as to why this happened, but the pattern indicates a design flaw to me. This happened when I went to open the window. It didn’t stick and I didn’t hit it, but the window immediately shattered when I touched it. There are plenty of little glass shards to clean up, not to mention a window sash that needs replacing. Now I just hope this doesn’t happen to any other of my windows.

Now that it is Sunday night and everybody is asleep except me I can say that tomorrow is looking to be better. Caitlin was a little less unruly before bed and went to sleep without much fuss. Emelia crashed without putting up a fight and Sue is getting some needed rest.

On both Saturday and Sunday we did something we never did before and that was to take Caitlin out for a ride to get her to take a nap. She was out of control and absolutely nothing we did made a difference. I took her out for about an hour on Saturday and for about 1.5 hours on Sunday. After 10 minutes of screaming she fell asleep and woke up much happier.

During her naps I got a chance to check out some of the “towns” not too far from where we live. All I have to say is “wow”. Seeing some of these places was surreal. I always said I like being able to drive 20 minutes and feel like I’m in the middle of nowhere. I have to change that to driving 10 minutes and feeling like I’m in the middle of nowhere. I don’t even know how to put it into words, but 30 minutes out I was driving along long, straight, empty stretches of highway with random houses and tiny villages along the way. All of it just wasting away. Amazing. There are plenty more areas to explore, but I don’t expect to find much.

When I wasn’t driving around I did get a chance to take care of some things around the house. The lawn got mowed, raked and watered. I put down a full yard of mulch (I still need more). I even got a chance to work in the garden. It’s coming along nicely this year. The asparagus is all but done and the chives are thriving. The strawberries are growing like mad and already flowering. I can’t wait to harvest them.

I’m trying broccoli this year and trying cauliflower again. I’m hoping that by planting them early that I actually get to harvest them. I also put down a pack of Chinese cabbage. In a couple weeks when the weather is consistently warm I’ll start planting tomatoes, peppers and eggplants.

I’m thinking of trying out potatoes this year. The local farm has seed potatoes for a decent price. I’m also trying out onions this year. My scallions came back from last year, I had just cut them off at the ground. They’ve flowered and now are growing seeds. Besides those I planted a couple dozen red onions. Still have a few more dozen to plant (75 bulbs total). Other than those and cucumbers I think that just about covers all that we’ll plant this year. With the two kids and work to take care of spending hours each week in the garden just isn’t going to happen.

One of our recent additions to the yard from last year. Lowes has great deals on trees at the end of the season. This one is going to be even more beautiful when it gets bigger. The Japanese maple we have is not doing too well. I’m hoping that it hasn’t died yet.

The first dishwasher came in damaged. I didn’t find this out until I got it home and was tearing apart packaging in anticipation of installing it. I suddenly noticed the huge scratch across the handle that went right down to the metal. There was no hiding it. After spending 30 minutes on the phone trying to get a hold of somebody working in Sears that could help or a manager, I ended up bringing it back and demanding a new one. It took a while to take care of since we bought it online during a great sale. They had to override things to get the price down to what I paid.

Three weeks later the second LG dishwasher arrived. I inspected it at the store, all was good and I brought it home. I had it installed in no time and started it up. The counter vibrated loudly while the drain pump ran. Then it started it’s wash cycle. A two hour was cycle. Amazingly long for a new dishwasher. I decided it was livable, but the loud, high pitch whine that came out of the for the next two hours was unbearable. I turned it off before it finished the cycle. That was when Sue (whose nose works better than mine) noticed a burning smell. I angrily uninstalled the thing, packed it back up and returned it to the store, again.

This time we did our homework. We were not going to get another LG. That was clearly a mistake. After checking online reviews and friends we decided to get a Bosch. It is a little more money, but from the sound of things worth every penny. I was ready for a fight when we returned to the store. I was expecting to have to fight to exchange it for something that was a different brand without having to pay a restocking fee. In a perfect world I would also be able to get the Bosch for the same deal I would have gotten had I bought a Bosch during my original purpose.

This is where both Sears and the salesperson astounded me. The guy took back the second faulty dishwasher and let me exchange it for a Bosch and on top of that he was able to give the same sale price from over a month earlier and there was no restocking fee. I’m still surprised that I didn’t have to fight for it. Some places would not care and would have given me crap about at least one of those things. I guess some places still have customer satisfaction in mind.

It took a few weeks to come in, but the Bosch arrived undamaged and nice packaged in styrofoam and shrinkwrap. I installed it tonight without any trouble and ran the first cycle. All I have to say is that Bosch makes a damn nice dishwasher. It is sturdy (not flimsy like the LG), well made, logically setup and simple to install. The first cycle was quiet and took less than two hours. My fingers are still crossed that this one will work out, but it looks like it will.

I’m not totally against LG, but don’t buy their dishwashers. They suck big time. I have a front load washer and dryer made by LG and they’re wonderful. I don’t know how many years they’ll last, but they are holding up well and performing great. I also have a LG manufactured fridge, which is also great. Well designed and easy to use. No complaints there either. My friend from work had bought an LG microwave and the magnetron blew up while using it. Maybe it was a fluke, but then again maybe they can’t make a decent microwave either. In time they’ll probably hopefully improve.