Jenyfer Matthews

Sorry for the late post today, but it’s been a crazy busy weekend:

* I froze my butt off watching each child play a soccer match on Saturday morning. It was about 50F but the wind was whipping across the flat fields at about 30mph! FYI – I was not the only parent out there all bundled up like this:

(I got this coat at a church rummage sale for $2 )

* I hosted a slumber party for my son’s upcoming birthday with three little boy guests;

* As part of the party, I ate a Happy Meal at McDonald’s so that my daughter, not allowed to attend the party with the boys, could have the Halloween bucket the meal was served in;

* I stayed up later than I wanted to so that the boys could have their fun and I bit my tongue when one of them dropped his smore on my recently cleaned carpet;

(Incidentally, I am thinking of cutting off friend birthday parties at age 10!)

* I drove 2 1/2 hours one way to Toledo to meet a friend who had a BMX bike to donate to my son.

And I did all of the above while on the verge of having a major muscle spasm in my lower back from all the furniture sanding I did on Friday. Thank goodness for heated car seats…

Tomorrow is little man’s actual birthday. I’ll be making a cake and wrapping presents before I lay on the floor for a while for some back therapy.

I’ve been having a lot of fun unpacking boxes – so many things I’d pretty much forgotten I still had!

We moved fairly frequently when I was growing up, so there are a lot of things that I got rid of that I sort of wish I’d kept. I did keep some things though. Like this:

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Remember these? The records might be worth something (to someone) if I still had the sleeves they came in. Who knows – I haven’t opened all the boxes yet!

I went through a phase where I went to the TG&Y every week and bought several hits off their top 10 display for the week, which means there are some pretty questionable choices in this stack! There are also quite a few Elvis singles included – both mine and also some that my mother bought when she was a teen.

I haven’t even opened this box yet, but the label made me laugh. “Fragile” indeed! Remember when stereos came in single, stackable components?

I do still have cassettes to play in my dual cassette player too. What a mix of genres! There are cassette singles in the box as well – the music industries answer to 45rpm’s before iTunes was invented

I could always fire up one of these more portable puppies too! They look so giant now compared to ipods!

Yes, I have vinyl albums (and a turntable) too. Don’t you just love the “limited edition” albums with the picture printed right on the vinyl? My daughter asked to hold one because she had never touched an album before – then she asked if handling it would “smudge” the lines. Young whippersnapper! Vinyl is making a comeback because it’s actually more durable than digital.

This really is a treasure – from my husband’s childhood. I had never seen the schoolhouse before. I love the metal bell on top!

None of these little people have a cell phone to call home if they fall off the dangerous merry-go-round, but never fear – there is a phone booth nearby!

I would have thought that the children were too old for the Fisher Price toys but they asked me if I could buy them more. Only on ebay…

I’ve been asked many times the secret to my slim figure. It is in large part due to metabolism. The other two things that have worked wonders for me at times when my weight has crept up higher than I’ve liked is breastfeeding and manual labor.

I’ve been done with breastfeeding for years now, but manual labor just keeps presenting itself. There are still boxes to be unpacked and furniture to be moved around but at present my biggest chore is the yard. It’s autumn in the Northern Hemisphere and it is called “fall” here for a reason.

The leaves are currently falling like snow and I’ve already decided that I like “fall” more when it happens out in the woods, away from my house. (Isn’t the above picture gorgeous?) I have no less than ELEVEN large trees in the backyard of this house – which seems like a lot for a suburban house! – and most of them still have the majority of their leaves. That is scary to me because I spent two hours raking and moving leaves on Sunday afternoon and by the time I was done the yard looked as if it had never been touched.

My next house is going to either be surrounded by concrete or evergreens.

I wouldn’t bother raking the leaves, but what else can I do? I know well enough that if I don’t move what is already down, the leaves will only get deeper and heavier. And wet. Moving dry leaves is a pain but moving wet leaves is a real PITA. Also, this is a rental house. If I kill the lawn by leaving the leaves to sit around, I’ll just have to fix it later anyway. (Been there, done that – learned my lesson!)

I should have taken the hint when I found that the landlord left a nearly new, pretty snazzy leaf vacuum in the garage.

I bought a lawnmower on clearance yesterday, one that also mulches and has a bag. Not much grows in a yard with so many trees except ivy and moss, which is how I have gotten away so long without mowing. I only bought a mower now because I am desperate. I thought I could use it as a lawn vacuum of sorts. In addition to the trees, the yard is full of paving stone paths and irregularly shaped flower beds which are alternately covered in mulch or lake stones – all of which is concealed at present by ankle deep leaves. A leaf vacuum doesn’t work so well on mulch or rocks and all the irregular beds certainly does make mowing something of a challenge.

If this were MY yard to do with what I pleased, I’d take out at least half of the trees and knock out all of the wonky flower beds. Simplify. You can’t grow veggies in a shady yard and if I am going to have beds, I’d rather they were full of food producing plants.

You might wonder what I am doing with all the leaves anyway. Apparently the city will send around a truck a couple of times a season to clean up so people just dump the leaves in the street. With everyone doing that at the moment, the streets are all lined with so many leaves that driving is a bit hazardous (I surely wouldn’t want to be the mailman right now!) There is a wooded area behind the house that the neighbor invited me to dump leaves and grass clippings in. OKAY.

The backyard also has a fire pit… hmmm… a cold front is supposed to be coming through…

My creativity to date has run in quilts, writing, and some dabbling in pottery. My father’s creativity has pretty consistently come out in woodwork. One of the items I had in my time capsule storage room was a carving he had done, inspired by M. C. Escher. He gave me this wall hanging on my 21st birthday and though I packed it away carefully, I was very afraid that it would have warped all those long years in a not-climate-controlled storage room!

It’s as lovely today as it was when I packed it, and hardly dusty at all since I wrapped it in a towel, sandwiched it between two boards, and put it in a box!

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Believe it or not, he carved this from ONE piece of wood. See for yourself:

He even made me matching magnets.

He does sell some of his work, but he couldn’t sell these because they aren’t his design. He does have some of his own lovely designs, like this one. Once I am all settled in, I would love to start an Etsy site for my quilts and some of his smaller pieces. Just look how lovely his more recent work is:

Right now I wish that I could apprentice under him to learn more about wood and refinishing because I acquired a couple of projects this week.

We need a couple of dressers for the children’s rooms and I’ve been keeping a lookout at garage sales. It’s amazing how many ugly and badly constructed dressers are out there – and how much people want for them! We got lucky today though. Just look what I found for $20/each. They need some love but they have good bones.

This one currently has a pretty bad paint job but is well made. I can see it painted pale green, perhaps with ceramic knobs. Someone painted the insides of the drawers too, unfortunately, in alternating royal blue and brown no less! It means a bit more work for me to paint over that to make them all white, but I think it will be worth it.

The second one has one loose board and one missing board on the back. Otherwise, I want to strip the odd paint off the top (why??) and see what is under the not-so-attractive mocha colored paint. If the wood it is okay, I might just strip the whole thing and then stain/varnish it. If the top is a mess, I’ll leave the bottom as is and repaint the top a bit nicer. Either way, what a find for $20!

I’d love for them to come out beautifully but at the price we got them I won’t even feel too bad if I mess them up

(What am I saying – of course I will!)

This weekend is the city-wide garage sale. I’m all a-tingle just thinking about it! Though I’m not even sure why the city bothers to have a “day” because it seems like every day is garage sale day here…

I never did get back to the blog on Friday because I was having way too much fun opening boxes and remembering all the wonderful things that we put in our storage unit way back in June of 1999.

When the movers called to tell me when they were scheduled to arrive, first thing Friday morning, I was a bit miffed because their timing meant that I was going to have to skip my usual Friday garage sale cruise. It ended up not mattering though because not only was it a cold and drippy day, not the best garage sale weather, but I pretty much had my dream garage sale delivered to my door!

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Here they come! So exciting

The friend who supervised the movers while they were loading the truck told me that other than dust, things looked to be in good shape. She was right – about both things. It’s a big job ahead of us to clean everything before putting it away, but what fun to look at each and every item!

Many many times over the years people suggested to us that we were insane to continue paying $$$ to keep that storage unit. I wavered a few times but held firm: yes, it was true that there were things packed away that we would not want / need again but a lot of the stuff was worth keeping. We can probably afford to recycle the assorted glass condiment jars that we once kept spices in, but just look at those brown Ovaltine jars on the shelf. Those are practically antiques by now, LOL.

I love these chairs, from my husband’s grandparents (there is a fourth chair, not yet unloaded as of this picture) These are much better than the plastic lawn furniture we were making-do with. Add the oak kitchen table that I refinished myself and we have a very nice solid wood set for “free”.

This lamp belonged to my grandparents and it is my favorite floor lamp ever. Can’t wait to polish the crystal on the post.

This chair was one of the “casualties” – it did not age well. The upholstery is at least 3 shades darker than it was originally and the stuffing no longer gives. It needs to be totally redone. However, it wasn’t in such hot shape when we put it into storage so it isn’t a huge surprise to me. Given the expense and general poor quality of “new” furniture, I do think this chair is worth re-doing. My husband and I bought this chair for $15 at a garage sale in about 1997 because it had good bones. That much is still true. I’m thinking of having it reupholstered in leather. What do you think? More expensive initially but it would certainly last a long time!

Even my linens survived – they all smell of cedar from the wood blocks I put in everything but that is better than the alternative. Pictures of quilts coming Wednesday…

No garage sale-ing for me today: The moving truck is actually here – on time – bringing us our things from a storage unit we packed up and locked away nearly 12 YEARS AGO! According to my friend who watched the movers load up, the room was dusty and full of cobwebs but the stuff mostly seemed to be in good shape and even the movers were impressed how well it had all been packed originally.

It’s a blast to see all this stuff arriving – some of which I remember and some of which I don’t! It’s a bit like having a garage sale delivered to my house

I’ll update later today or tomorrow with some pictures. I think I have a few reupholstering projects ahead of me!

My sister likes to tell me that I have a horseshoe stuck up my butt because to her I seem so lucky. I prefer to think we make our own luck.

If I could have picked a town to come back to as a family, I’d have picked one that was big enough for every day needs, but not big enough for traffic jams, had good public schools, nice family oriented neighborhoods, sports facilities, good thrift stores, and a short commute to work for my husband. Other than the commute and the thrift stores, we are doing pretty good where we landed otherwise.

I may not have thrift stores (or at least any good ones that I’ve FOUND yet!) but there have been plenty of wonderful garage sales to keep me entertained. If you haven’t noticed, I love a good bargain. (Even my kids know – my 8 year old son told my neighbor that my shoes were from a thrift store!) I especially love a good, useful bargain with some character to it. With us camping in a mostly empty house, I have the perfect excuse to go to garage sales.

I think I must be in garage sale heaven. The first week I was here, I saw a sign so I followed it to the sale. Then I saw another, and another, and another… it wasn’t long before I’d lost THREE HOURS driving around from sale to sale to sale. I don’t buy things every place I go, but I love the thrill you get just wondering what treasure you might find when you pull up!

So far, I’ve been really happy with the bargains I’ve found. Among the many I’ve found are:

Toaster oven $2
Iron wine rack $2
(Cheapo) full length mirror $2
Milk glass bedside lamps 2 for $1/each
pizza stone, in box $2
3 1/2 quart crock pot $2
cookie sheet $1
assorted cooking utensils $1
bag of cutlery $1
3 Pfaltzgraff dinner plates, 4 side plates FREE

I happened to stumble on a mid-week sale last week tucked down a cul-de-sac near my son’s school. I stopped by at 4pm and saw a full-sized bed frame with headboard, a solid pecan wood coffee table, and a (cheap) computer desk. I told the man I wanted them all, but that I was driving a hatchback VW Golf which made taking things difficult. He offered to deliver them in his Expedition. He ended up not only delivering the items, but he brought the bed frame inside as well as the box spring from my garage and set up my daughter’s bed for me! Also, when he picked up the coffee table, I saw that it was stamped Lane underneath. What a find! I have a very nice cedar hope chest by Lane coming from storage… someday…

The head board has a shelf (with a hole for wires) and a cupboard on either end. It was almost worth the purchase just for the interaction with the people who were selling the things. They were so so so nice! They were an older couple and the wife told me that the bed had been her first and favorite bed and that she was so happy to have someone come along who would really appreciate it. I certainly do appreciate it and it absolutely made my day to make hers

I found another fantastic sale this week. It happened to be on the way to my daughter’s school and they were setting up at 7am. I spotted a headboard and some other furniture as I was passing so I decided to stop after dropping her off. I found an absolutely lovely metal head and footboard set for $5. Yes, FIVE DOLLARS. Not only that, but once again, they delivered it for me.

I had to go out and get the proper sort of bedframe and supply my own mattresses and bedding, but is this a gorgeous bed or what? (Please ignore the wallpaper – it came with the house!) The quilt is one I made for my mother in 2004.

I still can’t believe I got it for $5. Having gone to the bed shop to get the frame and having had a look around at what bedroom furniture costs I’m nearly ecstatic (because frankly, most of the furniture I saw was expensive but cheap, if you know what I mean). My son is really jealous that my daughter and my husband and I have proper beds and he doesn’t, but you just can’t predict what you will find a garage sale.

There is, however, a CITY-WIDE GARAGE SALE scheduled October 8th!!!!!!

I think I might have died and gone to heaven!

I do believe that the city wide sale might mark the last gasp of garage sales for the season and in a way I’m glad. It takes up a lot of time and energy driving around looking!

If you thought that I must have too much to occupy me here in Michigan to fret about what is going on with my stuff in Cairo, you’d be wrong.

Normally when we move, I sort things in to keep, sell, and purge. I have a house sale and lighten our load as much as possible before starting to pack. I know what things are easy to replace and what things are sentimental and precious. I know what clothes the kids will get more wear out of and which can be donated.

My husband is a very capable guy, but he has never been left in charge of one of our moves before. He’s never gone through the process of purging and sorting for packing and doesn’t know off the top of his head what things stay and what things go. I created a pretty exhaustive list from my memory of what items are stowed in which cupboards, nooks, and crannies but we’ve still been exchanging frequent one line emails with admonitions to “don’t forget!” and questions about this or that. He’s sold a few of our bigger items, but hasn’t had the time for a proper sale.

There is however another complication.

When we were preparing to move to Egypt, we were told that we needed to create an inventory of all of our things for customs purposes. Basically, the university supplies a letter of guarantee to the government that all of our possessions are personal and therefore tax exempt. The catch? We are supposed to take everything we arrived with back out again.

That doesn’t sound so very bad until you get into the nitty gritty of it. We were told for instance that with things like DVDs, CDs, and expensive or “special” books we needed to list them by title – this was also to protect us from sticky fingered inspectors. Have you got any idea how many books two avid readers and writers can collect?? Because of this stupid rule, we are going to be exporting a set of Wiggles VHS tapes that my children outgrew almost immediately after our arrival in Cairo five years ago!

The books and DVDs I can live with, but how this rule applies to electronics bugs me. Before Egypt we’d lived in the United Arab Emirates for six years. Both countries use 220v electricity and electronics are way cheaper in the UAE than in Egypt so we brought many items we already had along with us when we moved. However, since these items appear on our inventory, now we also have to take them out again – whether they work or not. Even if they do still work, they won’t be much good to me here in the US where the current is 110v. Using them with a converter is an option I suppose but I suspect they will end up being donated to someplace like this for children to tinker with.

Whatever – not much I can do about it now.

In short, I told my husband when in doubt, pack it. I’ll sort it out when it gets here…

I’ve cleaned the stove top and wiped out the oven, I’ve cleaned all the cupboards in the kitchen and laid new shelf paper (Is it wrong how much I like the smell of shelf paper?). Overall, the kitchen is ready for action. The problem?

I have very limited tools with which to work.

My things in Cairo have not even been packed up yet, and as yet I have no firm date for when my storage items will be delivered either. All I have is what I came with: an enameled cast iron pot I bought in a thrift store (too beautiful to pass up!), a nonstick pan donated by a friend, and a small cast iron skillet that used to belong to my mother.

As you can see from the mug of tea in the orange pot and the butter knife laid across the cast iron pan, none of these pots is very large. Since I tend to do a lot of one-pot type cooking, it has been a bit of a challenge to produce anything decent for dinner around here lately.

Did someone say challenge?

I admit that I have bought some prepared food here and there. I can hardly help it when I’m always exhausted and crunched for time lately. I have also managed to make some fairly decent dinners. One thing I made earlier this week that was a hit was sauteed onions, garlic, zucchini, and yellow peppers over pasta, topped with a bit of Parmesan cheese. No leftovers that night. Split pea soup was also a hit. I improvised one night and made a pizza using a square boboli crust on the top of the broiler pan (it did at least have bell peppers on it). I also have a small Pyrex dish with a cover that I used to make broccoli in the microwave. Broccoli is my fall-back, make-a-meal-healthier vegetable. I want to make a new recipe I got from a friend for pumpkin chili, but I’ll have to wait until I have a bigger pot!

(Confession: If it were just me, I’d probably eat more like this.)

I miss my gas stove top from Cairo, but that is another topic all together!

Other accomplishments this week include getting phone / internet / TV service. Hmmm… maybe I could just call out for dinner…

All I ever seem to do anymore is clean.

I know, I know – B-O-R-I-N-G!! You don’t want to hear about how I had to dust the ceilings and walls because they were furry. (Boring!) You don’t want to read a description of the toxic brown sludge the steam cleaner pulled out of the carpet downstairs. (Boring – and gross!!) You probably could care less that I shed blood when I cut myself several times scrubbing baked on goo from under the burners on the stove. (Boring – and painful!)

What can I say? It’s kind of what I do these days.

My husband has movers scheduled to come and pack our things in Cairo next week, and I have a moving company working on getting our things out of (long term) storage for us. That’s kind of why I’m working so hard at the moment to get things in shape : it’s much easier to clean things when the house is mostly empty!

I hope that soon I can turn my attention to other, more interesting topics. For instance: what is up with Michigan and biscuits and white gravy for breakfast??