The X-Mas of Housework

Christmas eve was pretty low-key around here. In fact, several weeks ago, we decided we’d call off Christmas this year. With a new house, there’s not much money for presents and not even a lot of time for the things that don’t require much money, like cards and such.

For not having a special meal planned, Kim sure can whip up a tasty last-minute dinner, improvising based on what’s in the fridge. Immediately before our formal Christmas dinner, I brushed the majority of the basement dust off of my pants. That’s how formal we were. We ended up having some kind of spicy asian noodles with roasted vegetables. That was partnered with a nice 2001 bottle of Edgefield’s Black Rabbit Red that we picked up last time we were there–two Thanksgivings ago, at a dinner with my family, if I remember correctly. Dinner as a whole was mighty tasty, with no hint that it was improvisational. Kim is able to, as she says, “keep adding stuff until it tastes good.” This is great if you can do it. For me, it would be more like, add stuff until it tastes bad, then add more stuff until it tastes worse, then add more until it’s even worse than that. I have no nose (or tongue?) for seat-of-the-pants cooking and always need to start with a clearly written recipe. And even then, the kitchen disasters are more frequent than I would like to admit.

Oh, and the cats got a special side of bonito flakes with their Christmas dinner. Ebenezer, being the vacuum cleaner he is, simply could not get enough and licked all of the bowls until they were shiny and spotless.

Today’s tasks: finish removing the basement wall, assemble Kim’s cutting table, and perhaps even get to the wiring if I have time. Oh, the wiring. More on that in a future post. It’s sort of a cross between looking at the internal organs of the house and performing an archaeological dig to piece together how the infrastructure evolved over time.

Posted in: Dear Diary

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