A lot of randomness

Thought I'd write a quick post before taking a walk. Which I can do because it's a gorgeous day! In fact, here's what it is right now:

And this is equivalent to December 27 in the northern hemisphere! Gotta love our mild winters :) I'm sure there were days we took walks in December when we lived in Michigan, but I'm equally sure we were bundled up in winter coats, scarves, hats, gloves and boots.

I prefer to take walks with Ivan, but Charlie had a day off school so is Ivan is working with him at the lot today. They're getting ready to pour a new floor in the bedroom of the casita. Earlier this month we figured out that the floor was EXCESSIVELY uneven. To the tune of up to 7 cm in spots. Here's the bedroom a week ago, when they started making level "lines" of cement in the bedroom:

Before this they'd gone through the whole house putting small piles of cement with tiles on top, marking the level line. Here's a shot of the piles in the hall/going into the bath:

As you can see, the bathroom is going to have to have a new floor. We briefly considered leaving it as is, but when Ivan saw that the step down would be about 8 cm (once the tile was laid in the hallway), he decided it was better to just make it all level.

Here's a close-up of a pile in the kitchen, with the tape measure beside it:

That's 5 cm (or 2 inches) off. It's even worse by the kitchen sink, but I couldn't take a photo of that one because there was too much stuff stacked in that end of the room. It's clear that once they finish pouring the new floor, the kitchen sink will come to about the top of my legs. Not good!

I wasn't a fan of what's in there anyway. The counter is a poured cement slab with tiles on top -- and ugly tiles at that. Plus the sink is rather small. What I'm saying is that it won't break my heart when Ivan yanks it out of there.

Last Friday Ivan saw an ad in our little weekly paper for some used kitchen cabinets with a sink, and he jumped on it. We've learned things like that tend to go quickly. The cabinets aren't in the best shape, and the counter top is a mess, but I plan to sand and paint the cabinets white anyway, and we can at least salvage the sink and faucet.

The man also had some other used appliances for sale and we ended up getting the whole shebang for a good price. There's a stove we'll use in the casita, a hot water heater we plan to take and install at the house in Sta. Rosa, and even a dish washer for my future house! I thought it would be years before I got one (if at all) so I'm pretty pumped about that :)

The pressure is really on to get the casita ready to move into, and finish the garage so we can store all our junk stuff prized possessions in it. We have to move in TWO MONTHS. Yikes! I've already been packing and re-packing in preparation for the move. I don't want to wait until the end and then be going crazy trying to get organized.

I've put a lot of thought into (and made multiple lists) of what we will need/can fit into the casita. And everything else has to be packed. BUT... I'll need to be able to easily get to things like seasonal clothes, extra dishes (when we're hosting group activities), etc. So I'm also thinking about where we'll store things in the garage; i.e., what can go in the back because we won't need it until we move into the house, and what will need to be right up front for easy access.

In the midst of all the building/repairing/packing/preparation for the move, there are other things going on too. And I'm trying to carve out time to be creative once in a while. Lately I've had NO time for sewing, but I have had some fun in the kitchen. I finally got around to trying one of the (many) recipes I'd pinned. It was SOOOOO good! Definitely a keeper. In fact, just thinking about that chicken tikka masala makes my mouth water. I did do it a little differently than the recipe, in that I didn't have boneless chicken to work with, but used leg and thigh sections, so when it came time to cook them, I baked them for about 35-40 minutes.

What's funny is that I meant to make the butter chicken but accidentally clicked on the tikka masala recipe instead, and didn't realize it until I was almost done! So the butter chicken is the next new thing I want to try, once I get another good deal on chicken.

A couple weeks ago I ran into the grocery store to pick up a few things and noticed they had pata/muslo (leg and thigh sections) on sale for $7.99 pesos per kilo. Now that's a deal! I picked up what I could fit in my teeny tiny little freezer. We've used it all and I'm hoping they run another special like that soon! For comparison, pata/muslo usually sells for about $24 pesos per kilo, and boneless chicken breast is a whopping $45 pesos per kilo. Normally I buy whole chickens when they go on sale for around $12 pesos per kilo, but it's nice to have smaller pieces on hand too.

Enough about chicken. I'm anxious to get out and enjoy the beautiful day! Hope you're having one too!

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P.S. Thanks to all those who are praying for my friend -- please keep praying!