First real batch of outgoing from the new house

First Baking Adventure at the Maple Maison

Right off the bat, you should know that this did not end well. So don't get too excited.

The first thing I tried to make when we were first moved in to our new house was a Quiche Lorraine from my Julia Child cookbook.

For a while I thought that all quiches had cheese in them, and since Clay hates cheese I never made them. But a Quiche Lorraine is basically just bacon, eggs, and cream.

 It has these weird directions where it suggests soaking the bacon to get rid of all the flavor. I skipped that step.

I decided to brown some onions to put in it too... YUM.

So. The catastrophe was that whoever lived in this house last had the baking rack in the oven put in in the wrong direction. So when I pulled the quiche out to check it, the back of the rack just plummeted down and the pan slid back and fell, dumping liquidy quiche all over the oven.

There was some swearing and crying, but Clay and Anna heard me scream and were terrified that I had been horribly burnt. So there's that. No horrible burns. And we went out for sushi instead which made me happy. In the past 2 or 3 months I've discovered that I like sushi! The first time I really got it, was just amazed at how delicious it was, was when I got a spider roll. Delish.

So... even though it didn't work out, the quiche smelled amazing and I'm definitely going to try it again.

Ephemera at the bookstore

There's a really nice used bookstore downtown that also has an amazing ephemera room upstairs. There was a whole box of letters, most of them from a single family. I bought one, but here are photos of two that I didn't buy.

Most of the letters were written by the father of the family to his parents, the grandparents that Gerrit is writing to.

The letter that I bought is from the father to Gerrit about his behavior. Certainly seems like a letter that would never get written today. I'll post it tomorrow!

Artistamps

Before the move I was doing more with artistamps than I've done in a while. I had some more of mine printed and I also printed out some of the free downloads at the LWA.

I received some beautiful Year of the Ram artistamps from Juana, a member of IUOMA.

These dingo stamps are some that I had printed out. My artistamps are drawings I've done, scanned and printed. I've seen other people print out some sort of base and then use rubber stamps to finish the work. I think I'd like to try that soon.

This inkling Year of the Horse stamp is one of the LWA free downloads. I love it (of course)!

New House

 So we finally moved into our new house! The packing/moving process was a monster this time around as we have a lot more stuff than when we moved from Boston to Illinois.

Here's poor Hubble in a little nest on one of the last days before moving.

 The week after we moved in we went on a week long trip to Maryland to see family. While we were gone our landlords repainted the whole house which was awesome!

It was a great trip, and we got to eat a lot of crabs. Much cheaper on the Eastern Shore where I grew up than on the mainland- we heard $375 a bushel in Annapolis!

It was a relief to come back home and start getting our house together.

For sure, our favorite thing about the house has been the fenced in yard and front porch. It's been perfect for sitting with coffee while Hubble does his thing. Not having to put him on a leash and wait every time he needs to go to the bathroom is incredible.

 

He seems really really happy about it too.

Ms. Bea, our cat, has become a ghost. She loves the bannister railing staircase and basically stays upstairs all the time. I hardly see her!


The office is one of the rooms that is very much still in progress, and I haven't been doing much letter writing, but as the semester starts and Clay has work to do at home I think I'll fall into a better routine. Speaking of fall, we seem to be coming to an end of a week long period of delicious fall weather. It's been in the 70s every day this week. It's got me in such a fall mood. I can't wait for it to really come.

New Address!

New address coming soon!

Hi there,
We just moved to a new house in town. I'll be posting the new address soon, and get back to blogging and writing letters once we're well unpacked.
Happy mailing in the meantime!