Happy Thanksgiving!

I made a turkey yesterday. I made a fresh herb butter rub with butter, fresh garlic, fresh sage, fresh rosemary, dried thyme, dried sage, salt and pepper. I saved the sage stems and an extra sprig of rosemary to put inside the bird. I chopped up 1 large onion, 2 sticks of celery with leaves, 3 medium carrots, and 3 crushed peeled garlic cloves.

I stuffed the bird with onions, celery and herbs, and put the carrots, garlic and remaining veggies around the bird in the pan. I smeared the butter rub under the skin over the breasts and over the entire bird and added a bit of water:

And put it in the oven at 325 for 20 minutes per pound of turkey. Mine was 22 pounds.

At this point, I laughed and thought how on earth am I going to baste this thing? The secret was very carefully with a ladle but I still made a mess in the oven. I had to keep an eye on the juices coming out because it overflowed once! I had to keep removing broth as it baked! I have lots of delicious broth!

That's what I get for not using a real turkey roasting pan! And I got to clean out the oven before I went to bed last night!

But the turkey was sooooo good! I filled up 5 freezer bags with turkey meat and another bag with 5 large chunks from the breasts. 

I saved the carcass and will be making bone broth tomorrow.

 

I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!

 

 

 

 

Cruizer

 

This picture of Cruizer makes me laugh.  

He looks so old and frumpy. His hair sticks up all fuzzy like because he'd just had a bath.

 

I'm still trying to figure out how to use our new computer so bear with me while I figure out how to find the pictures I upload to it. I will put updates of my new house when I get it all figured out. 

We Moved In!

After waiting and waiting and waiting, we moved in. And it felt like a dream! It still doesn't feel like I'm here. It's starting to feel more like home now, but I think that after so long of knowing we were going to be moving in and it not happening for so long, I find it hard to believe that we are here finally!

We had all the appliances installed, and bought a washer and dryer. I also have a wash tub in my laundry room! I have never had one but I've always wanted one!

 

I'm going to have a busy baking weekend. I hope yours will be fun!

Fixtures and Counters!

I didn't take a picture of the bathroom vanity, toilet and bathtub, but you will eventually see a picture of them in future posts, but when we had the kitchen counter tops put in, they also installed the same in the bathroom!

Before:

After:

We had these 2 cupboards switched so it would be easier to get into them because that door in the middle gets in the way otherwise.

Then we had handles installed on the kitchen cabinets

We picked out a bathroom fixture set style but aren't installing every piece from that set:

After the counters were in, we had a plumber install the faucets and get the tub and toilet working. After all that cured, we had an inspection and didn't pass so the electrician had to come back out and trade out every outlet in the house to tamper resistant plugs because it's code now even if we don't have kids. We are now the only house in the entire neighborhood up to code. It didn't seem fair that any other house around us has the normal plug outlets but ours had to be tamper resistant. But that's code and we wanted to move in, so we fixed it up, and passed the next time!

Paint and Appliances

After all the windows, doors and trim were installed, we went on to painting.

This is before:

This is after:

We picked a grey color called surreal blue. I wanted to go for the greys this time. I was getting so sick and tired of the neutral tans and beige's that we have painted every past house we have lived in just because they sell a house well. So we went for fresh and bold. What I found quite hilarious and entertaining is after we painted, every construction worker who came in after said that greys are the new thing and are coming in style! I had to try not harrumph in their face! I didn't paint my house grey because everybody else is going to start to do it, I painted it grey because I wanted a relaxing calming house that wasn't tan any longer and a color I knew would look like the kind of house I wanted to live in and to set it apart from all the other houses! This house is one we will be living in for a long time! This is a new chapter in our life starting off with a fresh color! I had no clue we would accidentally be in style! Go figure! :-D

 

Next, we picked out appliances and had them delivered:

At this point, we had moved some of our furniture into the house also.

It's always fun after the paint is up to get a feeling of how the house will feel living in it! It brings life into it.

 



Windows, Trim And Doors

Before we could paint, we had to have the windows, doors and trim installed. They delivered the doors and trim one morning and made stacks and piles all over the living room.

This is a picture of our master closets. Mine is the one on the right. They installed sliding doors after. I just realized I didn't take many pictures of the interior doors and trim, but if you look at the closet floor along the bottom of the wall, the trim is there. This picture was actually taken right before they painted the inside of the house.

Then the windows were installed! This made me extremely happy because not only were the old windows all replaced, but the 2 holes on the back of the house were finally closed in! Here is the new slider door, and kitchen window. They fit so well in the openings!

At this point, I wanted to move in even more. It was secure, but it still didn't have a toilet or a sink so it would have been difficult. But I still wanted to move in!

Cabinets And Tile!

In go the kitchen cabinets!

 The opening on the island is the place for the microwave.

It was so weird to see the kitchen come together where there was nothing for the longest time! And fun to imagine the appliances that would fill the gaps in the cabinetry.

 The installer was still installing them when I took this picture.

 

In goes the tile!

See the microwave? That was the only appliance for a long time!

At this point, I could hardly wait to move in! In the above picture, you can see thin boards holding up the security screen covering the window :-D While it looked horrible having them held up with boards, they served a purpose because we had to remove the pulley systems inside the house to drywall so if they fell, we would be in complete darkness inside until they were removed because we would have no way to roll them up again. So ghetto house it was for a while!