Life with the Three Crazy Dogs

DB got super busy last weekend. The land lord brought over the shelving for our pantry on Friday. Remember how we stuff all the pantry boxes into the pantry when we first moved it?  Here’s a picture of it, the total mess of a pantry:

We took everything out to a super bright, clean pantry.

And the man got to business, putting up the first shelf and he then told me to go do whatever I needed to do.

In other words, he kicked me out of his territory! Good deal to me coz I got to write reviews on safe diet pills and not forgetting FB games in between.

Man hard at work

Of course I have to come downstairs to busybody a little….mainly to take pictures for blogging material!  Here it is, almost done.

And all shelves put up.

He said he can now cross ”putting up pantry shelves” off his to-do list.

My job now is to put these onto the shelves!!! 

I pushed all the boxes back into the pantry and whatever on the counter onto the shelvings.  I am taking Wednesday and Friday off this week, hopefully I can unpack most of all these boxes and make the pantry, a real PANTRY! :)

It sure looks like we are clutter freaks! :) I know I am. DB was not, see the word “was”? Yep, when I first moved to this country, living in his clutter free apartment, he was always picking up all the time. That aptment was really well organized and totally no clutter. But after I came and not too long, the clutter started and he too picked up my super bad trade, slowly but surely.

That’s our garage right now. At least we moved more then enough to get my car in. His truck is parked outside for now till we can clear up the other side of the garage.

Our mission hopefully this June is to sell the riding and push mower, weed wackers. The riding mover comes with the fertilizer spreader and don’t know what else. Man’s toys, I have no idea what they are called. Next, we also need to sell the washer and dryer that are sitting all the way back against the wall along the refrigerator. That refrigerator has been with him forever and it works damn good. So that we are keeping. Now, I can’t make up my mind if I want to sell the  NordiacTrac elliptical machine.  It’s also sitting all the way behind, covered up by boxes!  I know I want to get rid of the Bowflex and a heavy oak desk.  That sucker is definitely going!  There are still some stuff left in the old house’s garage.  I think there are more of his tools and a dozen fishing poles and his tackle boxes.  Yeah, that man sure loves to fish and cannot part with his fishing poles.  Also there are some boxes of ammos for his guns in the old garage. 

Oh, you see the two blocks of wood on the lower left coner?  We have more in the old house.  They are all oak wood, great for fire places but since no one wants them and we don’t have a wood fireplace, we are going to still bring them over to this new garage….the man said, “just in case we buy a fire pit.”  o.O  I wanted to just leave them in the old house but the realtor said everything that belongs to us has to go!  So, we have to haul them over today.

Here are a few pictures of the inside of the house. Just to remind you, I didn’t pick up the house or put things away when I took these pictures…clutter galore!

The entryway…..stairs facing the front door. I think according to fung shui, it’s not good. All the chi will flow right out the door!

Another view of the entryway. (Ranger taking a siesta.)

The fireplace in the living room. The big hole above the fireplace is meant for a TV, but the old fashion big screen TV is damn big as you can see on the right, can’t fit into that hole. The fireplace is run by gas/electric.  We will put up Igor (the deer head) to fill up the hole instead of what we have up there now!  The clock is for the kitchen.

The living room. Our furniture is too darn big for the room!  Igor sitting on top of the TV for now.

Here is the dining room. The one and only TV in the house now that is digital. It is now hooked to a digital antenna. No satelite or cable yet.

The kitchen. First door next to refrigerator is the bathroom (just the toilet and sink) and the door next to it is the utility room (furnace, water heater and softener).

The pantry without the shelves is under the stairs.

The spot for coffee and toast. Underneath that table is where the water bowl for the dogs. We feed the dogs against the wall where the recycle can is (with black bag).

The room to the left is the storm shelter/room. Door across it is the 1/4 bathroom, then the utility room and then the door to the garage (not shown). We put a rug and a stool to put on and take off our shoes.

The storm shelter is now a storage area for dog chow, vacuum cleaner, shampooer, paper towels, coolers, etc.

The kitchen sink area and picture below is where the pantry is.

As you can see, pretty much everything in the house is white in color and we have already dirtied some of the walls, cabinets and doors.

Pictures of upstairs will come later… :)

OK I will post pictures of the house later. I want to talk about this first.

This is a brand new stove.  Call me old fashion, I simply hate this modern, electric, flat glass surface stove top.

There are so many DON’TS for using this stove. One of them is cannot use ceramic or glass ware on this type of stove coz it will scratch the glass. Die lah, cannot make clay pot rice! :) Yeah right, like I make them a lot of times but just want to add salt to the wound only :)

Another one is do no slide the pots/pans….well, sometimes I do that just on flat surfaces. With this brand spanking new range top, I dare not even cook with it. There are more: cannot use soap water to clean the surface. It may dull the surface which I’m guessing will take the shininess away! Next, cannot use any 409 or Windex to clean the range top. 409 I use all the time to cut grease. Now I can’t, i dare not even do much frying. What can i use to clean the top is water!!! And buy this special cleaner, Cerema Bryte.  These stuff is not cheap.  Till today almost 1.5 weeks in the new hut, I still have not bought one.  Will have to wait on that.  If spilled food on the stove dried out, need to buy a special utensil to scrape the bugger.  Damn, sam, I just use water and papertowels and used my nails as the scraper with the help of the wet papertowel. 

Next is using the burners.  The instruction manual says to use the correct burner size for the pot/pan I’m using and every pot has to have a flat bottom.  Wok with round bottom and place a wok stand on the range top is a NO NO.  if the pot/pan is smaller than the ring, it will burn very fast.  I have some very very small pots/pans which they don’t fit any of the the rings.  So damn mar-farn.

The one on the right with the smaller ring in the bigger ring.  The smaller ring is for smaller pot/pans and just turn the knob the opposite for the small burner but then when I place my wok on the small ring which fits exactly on the ring but then it takes forever to heat up the let alone cook.  And if I turn the knob for the bigger ring (burner) the temperature changes all the time because the wok is way smaller than the big ring.  Totally hate it.  So I use the burner on the left and have been using that burner ever since. 

On the back the middle ring is a “warming station”.  Place your food there to keep warm.  I have not try the oven yet.  wanted to yesterday to bake a cake but could not find the mixer and the parts….all are still in boxes since the pantry is not ready.

Honestly, give me the old fashion gas or regular electric stove (gas is better).  They work better and it’s easier to control the “fire” and most importantly, they are easier to clean – soap and water, all kau tim.  DB only used it once, he does not like it either especially what  a klutz he is when it comes to cooking – food spillage all over the stove and counters. 

OK, enough whining….I will go look for my cheese to go with my “wine” now. :D