Food without a stove

Our new stove arrived last week. The man from the propane company came yesterday and hooked it up. Now all I need to do is to wait until I can open the windows to cook off the new oven smell. We have gotten the indoor humidity down, so I am loathe to open the windows until it stops threatening rain.

In the meantime, we have eaten decently. Between the move and no stove, we did eat out more often in the last month than we did all last year, or at least so it seems; I didn't actually keep track. Many of our meals were uncooked - that is to say, we had a lot of sandwiches and a few salads. I grilled twice, once on a little indoor electric grill, once on our big outside grill. But my electric frying pan was our main cooking device. 

Eggs in a basket (eggs fried in toast) were not a big hit, hot dogs given by the church were a welcome change from PB&J for the boys, but the biggest hit was the Sante Fe Skillet from Betty Crocker. I served it like a taco salad, with tortilla chips and lettuce, and there was barely enough left over for a tortilla wrap for lunch. In the past, I have served it over rice or with Zatarain's red beans and rice as a side. When I do that, we have enough leftovers to have it again. But rice requires a stove or a rice cooker, which I don't have.

I am also thankful for the night mother let us cook rice and heat up leftover crockpot creamed chicken at her house. (Chicken breasts, one can of cream of mushroom soup, one cup of sour cream; cook for 6-8 hours on low; shred and serve over rice, on a roll, or how-so-ever-you-please.) We are also thankful for the homemade cookies our neighbor gave us.

Now that our stove is hooked up, the next few nights we are having dinner with various friends and family, and I don't need to use it. At the same time, a fresh cup of camomile tea will be nice this evening after a busy day. However, the best part about getting the stove hooked up, is having a clock in the kitchen.

Three chapters on our house

In which we buy a house and the water doesn’t work.

After looking and praying, we found a house. It is the perfect location, 1.5 acres, approximately 10 minutes from my parents and two of my siblings. It is smaller than our current house, but we were expecting that. The previous owner did a lot of very nice work to the inside, completely redoing the kitchen and opening up the down stairs living area. There is a beautiful kitchen window that looks across the lawn, over a grave yard, out toward a farming valley. There are three big climbing trees on the property and we own a small section of the woods. On one side is big field; the other is a grave yard, so we are sure to have quiet neighbors there.

The buying process felt like it lasted forever, with many up and downs and waiting and more praying. However, finally, we signed all the papers, and we had our own house. After signing the papers, we went back out to the house to show my parents and the boys. We used the bathroom, washed our hands, walked around and then turned on the outside faucet to put out a smoldering pile of trash that the previous owner had burned before our walk-through.

The water stopped. No water came from any of our faucets. The tank would not fill. Everything seemed to be in working order, but the water did not work. We called the realtor just to see if the previous owner new anything about it, and he knew nothing except that he had just checked the tank that morning to make sure it was working correctly.

We went home and did not celebrate buying a house. Thomas got a migraine. I researched water tanks and well pumps. In that research, I learned that to check a certain part of the water tank, you were supposed to turn off the power. The next morning, we went back out to the house, found a breaker that was turned off (and labeled incorrectly), turned it on, and immediately the tank began to fill.

That night we had ice cream to celebrate buying a new house.

In which we discover other creatures inhabiting our house.

Every day that we go out to the house is beautiful and stressful. Standing at the kitchen window or walking through the back yard is relaxing as a deep breath. But there is so much to be done before we can move in. Identifying and solving those problems is sometimes rather stressful. Thomas, with the help of a removal service, my father and my brothers, replaced the insulation in the attic with was contaminated with asbestos. We decided to wait on painting anything inside, because the outside needs more urgent work. Then the oven began squeaking.

It was not completely unforeseen. It is a house in the country, that had not been inhabited for several months, except by the man doing construction work, who also left wrappings and fast food paper cups laying around. And Thomas did notice the remains of those small, beady-eyed rodents. But after discovering and taking care of two dying mice, he did a more thorough search which eventually led to the oven. Not only were there two more dead mice in the drawer underneath the oven, a squeaking sound came from under the stove top surface.

Much annoyed, he came home. When we both returned after the long weekend, there was no new evidence and the oven no longer squeaked. However, it stunk. We had debated and researched for hours over that long weekend, and decided the best idea was to get the stove out of the house as soon as possible. Unable to unscrew the propane hook-up, Thomas hacksawed the flexible wire pipe, after turning off the propane, rest assured. Thomas and I could get it out of the house, but I was not strong enough to lift it over a ledge. The boys were delighted to help us carry it to the garage, where it sits to this day, stinking worse and worse. We are planning to get the people who deliver the new stove to take it away for us.

We then wiped down the floors and counters wherever we saw evidence. Since then, although some raisins were accidentally left on the floor, we have discovered no new rodent occupants. The carpenter bee was comparatively easy to evict, and the stink-bugs may have to be co-inhabitants, though I wish they pay us rent for sharing our space.

In which we begin to meet our neighbors.

Now that the moving day was rapidly approaching and the more urgent issues of asbestos and rodents were taken care of, the exterior of the house became the most urgent project. The home insurance office made sure we knew how urgent this was with a discouraging phone call. However, we continued as we had planned and scraped the side of the house that was most urgent for the home insurance people. We worked with our respirators and protective gear because of the possibility of lead paint underneath the more recent repainting. It was miserably hot.

The next day, we left the boys with my parents so we could finish sanding and paint before the predicted rain came. Before we got started, the neighbor across the street came and introduced himself to me. He had met Thomas earlier. He worked outside all day and played his music nice and loudly. Fortunately, he had nice music, and though it wasn’t my listening preference, it definitely was not unpleasant, and gave us something to think about besides the incredible heat and brightness of the white paint.

As I was waiting for the boys to be dropped off, another neighbor from across the street introduced herself to us. She is the pastor of the church beyond the graveyard, and has a dog named Jed. I was weeding and put the pulled weeds in a bare patch in the hedge between our yard and the graveyard. I was thinking of moving them once they are dried, but after painting all day, I was rather exhausted and walking them all the way to the woods seemed too far for that night. As the pastor walked off, I hoped that the hedge is part of our property and that I wasn't doing anything offensive.

The next day, the first neighbor’s mother stopped by to introduce herself. She helps him, or tends to the huge garden in his field next to our house. Her grandmother, who shared my name, lived in our house years and years ago.

So it seems we have nice neighbors. Hopefully, they think the same thing about us.