Another Non-Sewing Day

Vince seems to have made it his mission to be sure I don’t sew on weekends.  This morning he was chomping at the bit to go look at a house he’d found for sale.  When we left Owensboro, I swore we’d never again have two houses.  There, it was a small house in town and a larger house out in the country.  The country house had been home til Chad started high school and then it was too far to drive so we bought the house in town and didn’t sell the other house because we always planned to sell the house in town after Chad finished high school.  But, before we got around to doing that (mostly because I loved that little house!), we moved here and sold them both.

So, this morning, I figured I’d again be a good wife (stop snickering!) and humor him and go look.  Oh, my . . I fell in love with this little house.

It’s only about 6 or 7 miles from our house and not way out off the beaten path at all.  Yes, it would be goofy to have our “get away” almost walking distance from home but it has almost 10 acres.  The views are gorgeous!  There’s a creek and a little pond and a huge rock formation way out back.  I could function in the kitchen for weekends or lunches but I couldn’t live with it as my only kitchen.

The family room sold me on the house right off the bat.

And, the views outside:

Can you imagine what these trees will look like in a couple of weeks when the colors have really begun to change?

There are some negatives.  There’s a detached 2-1/2 car garage with an upstairs that really needs to be torn down; the basement was finished (and I use that term very loosely!) by someone who was a worse sheetrock finisher than I would be.  That all needs to come out and better lighting needs to be installed in the basement.  It’s really more of a camp type house than a living type house but . . I would put the longarm, fabric, etc. there and reclaim my current basement family room as a family room instead of a sewing room.  I’d just keep a small cutting table and a sewing machine or two here at this house.  And, there’s an almost new 16′ x 26′ building that Vince could use for his shop and he could take all his woodworking tools over there.

Because of the amount of work the house needs, if we were to make an offer, it wouldn’t be anywhere near what they’re asking.  Vince knows the people who own it but they’ve gone and the house is now empty, but we still don’t want to make an offer in the range that we think is fair, considering what the house needs to have done to it.  SIRVA should take it over in a month or less and if it’s still on the market and, if we haven’t come to our senses about needing/wanting a second house, we’ll deal with them.

Since it’s Sunday, I came home and began my cooking for the week.

Here’s the menu for this coming week:

Here you see the chickens all seasoned that I’ll smoke on Tuesday, black beans soaking that will be cooked on Tuesday, stuffed peppers ready to go into the freezer to flash freeze.  Some will be cooked on Wednesday, some will be saved for another day.  In the sealed bags are chopped green peppers and leftover browned ground beef that will be used for pizza.  No, the epi-pen isn’t part of our family meals.  I had it with me when we went to look at the house and dropped it on the counter and didn’t notice til after taking this picture.

The gumbo base is all made.  I made the roux and added just a little water.  I’ll adjust the seasonings and add smoked chicken and sausage.  In the back bowl is wheat salad.  Leftover red bell pepper is chopped and sealed for another day.  I hate throwing things away and if I just stick half a pepper in a bag in the fridge, next time I see it, it will be mushy and oozing and get thrown out.  So, I chop everything that’s left over, stick it in the freezer and use it as needed.  And, check out that pie crust!  What kind of pie do you think I made?

Ahhh, one of my favorites — sweet potato pie.

Think we’ll get tired of sweet potatoes befor that whole box is gone?  Doubtful!  Here’s a sweet potato casserole for Tuesday.  All I have to do is add the topping and bake it.  And, there’s spaghetti squash which was actually for dinner tonight, along with Round Steak Parmesan.

The biggest part of my cooking for the week is done.  Tomorrow I leave to go out of town.  Real life resumes around here on Tuesday!