I have survived another week.

[rax]

• I have a new stove. It is a gas stove with a real convection oven and it is not the Nicest Best thing I could have gotten but it was a Nice Good thing and I could get it installed on Saturday. While I might have shopped around more if I had been able to cook in the meantime, I knew I was losing the microwave yesterday, too, and so I found a stove I knew I would not regret buying and pulled the trigger. It's wonderful to be able to cook on gas again. So wonderful. Oh my god. <3 <3 <3
• I lost the microwave because Cassandra came to pick her stuff up yesterday, which basically took up the entire day for me. This went as well as my ex-fiancee coming into town with her boyfriend to take all of her stuff and two of the house's three pets could go. I mean that, really, there were times at which all of us were genuinely having fun. There's a weird finality to it, and the missing furniture and such casts a longer shadow than I expected, but it's also good that we got it done, and good that she has all of her stuff back so that she can continue rebuilding her life like I've been rebuilding mine. It's not like you need stuff to do that, at least not as much as either of us has, but it helps, especially when that stuff includes the tools of your trade or tools you can use to support yourself emotionally. So I'm glad for that, and also super glad that Rik was here because oh god despite being the best it could be it was super painful.
• Selene --- my cat, for the new LJ friends I just picked up --- is clearly spooked by the missing stuff and missing other cat. I wish I could ask her whether she wants a new kitty-friend or not; I mean I know I like having multiple meow-machines running around the house, but if she's just as happy on her own, maybe I should get fish or something. Except fish are actually kinda high-maintenance. But you know what I mean. Selene certainly didn't like it when Oolong showed up, at all, but they were getting along really well by the end, including both of them sitting on my lap on the couch yesterday. <3 So I dunno. Decisions I don't have to make right now (and shouldn't make until after I get back from being gone for three weeks, anyway).
• Rik just turned to me across the table and asked "Do you need more Mao in your meow?" This is apparently krdbuni's fault. I laughed. :)
• The fact that I have a stove again means that we can host Thanksgiving after all!! I am super excited. My mother said she would teach me how to bake pies, which is a culinary skill I completely do not have. Between trying to save money for future years of grad school when I might not have a job and picking up a new allergy this summer, I've been cooking a lot, and gaining some new skills and fluency with new ingredients (prickly ash!). But baking, except for my one peanut butter cookie recipe, largely eludes me. Thankfully, there are bread machines.
• All of this brouhaha has me behind on grading and final papers, but two weeks ago I was ahead, so I think I can catch up. Perhaps with judicious application of work vacation days --- but perhaps not! We will see. If I am Ball Of Stress (tm) around, say, December 10-15th, it's because I am cranking on final papers; I read fast and that makes the first half of a graduate semester pretty easy for me, but I write slowly, and when I get up against deadlines, it is a dreadful, tea-slurping slog. But I shall be triumphant!
• It is time to unpack my Winter Clothes box finally! That will be the last box opened, and I will be completely, 100% unpacked and moved in. I was basically 100% unpacked for a couple of months now but Cassandra moved out and so there were still boxes everywhere as I packed her stuff and it is nice to be able to say Now There Are No More Boxes and to have a symbolic action I can take to confirm this. In fact maybe that will be the next thing I do before I go out with Rik and engage in acts of shopping. Hopefully I have enough hangers. But if not I can buy them while I am out shopping! Myahahahahaha.
• Thank you all for all of your support in the last week. I think by tomorrow or Tuesday I will be ready to stand down the whole "do not call me" thing. It's been a very difficult few days and I am very glad I have a limited class schedule this week.
• Oh did I mention that when the fire department came they did something that caused me to have to learn how to reset my furnace and I discovered this two days later because it was 52 in the house? Yeah. It took me an hour, but now I understand how my furnace works! This whole homeowner thing is causing me to learn how appliances operate and how to operate tools --- the stove installation dudes kindly handled the gas hookup for me but I think I could have done it myself if they hadn't! Since Cassandra and I (stupidly, in retrospect) spent hours and hours figuring out how to hook up the gas dryer ourselves. This is certainly a more useful skillset than some I have put time into!

Comments

[bergey]

"Do you need more Mao in your meow?"
I do not understand this joke, but last weekend we decided to name our cats Marx and Trotsky.

I don't think of connecting gas piping as in the standard repertoire of homeowner skills---more in the category of plumbing and electrical wiring. Not that this should stop you from doing any of the above. :)

[lhexa]

This is certainly a more useful skillset than some I have put time into!

Hey! Playing roguelikes is a valuable and meditative skill which will allow you to jump a couple of steps next time you're up for reincarnation.

[gaudior.livejournal.com]

Hugs. Glad that things went as well as they could have gone, under the circumstances.

<3

[sovay]

This went as well as my ex-fiancee coming into town with her boyfriend to take all of her stuff and two of the house's three pets could go.

I'm glad it went as well as it could. *hugs* to everyone.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow, congratulations on unpacking. We still have three boxes lingering in out bedroom that I think are never going to get unpacked; I just quit caring about making this place feel like Permanent Home after my decision a few months ago that living with these people is simply not good for me in the long run...

[rax.livejournal.com]

It is a good feeling! I am totally moved in, although there is still another room to move into maybe if I decide to do something with it.

Hopefully you will get this feeling at some other place in the future...

[greyooze.livejournal.com]

I bought my new house well over a year ago, and I still have boxes I didn't unpack. I ended up sticking some of them in the roofspace and calling it a day. Victory through superior laziness! \o/

[greyooze.livejournal.com]

But baking [...] largely eludes me.

I thought you might be interested in this article (http://myvegrecipes.wordpress.com/2008/08/28/egg-replacement/) of egg replacements. That seems like it'd be the biggest problem for trying to bake vegan stuff. One of the suggestions is mashed banana, which I find surprising and interesting; here's a nice simple recipe for vegan banana cake (http://vegetarian.about.com/od/vegancakerecipes/r/bananacake.htm) (the obvious cake to try first, since you can be assured the extra banana won't interfere with the flavour of the cake!). Apparently puréed unseasoned tofu makes a decent replacement too.

I may try making this myself, actually, it's put me in the mood for banana cake. You should try to make one before your mum arrives! If it fails you can dispose of the evidence and she'll be none the wiser;if it succeeds you can offer her some and be all like "Oh, this old thing? I just threw it together the other day, no big deal.".

Now I'm wondering if I can come up with a vegan pastry for a strawberry tart (one of my favourites). Although I guess strawberries are harder to come by at this time of year. I'll come up with some sort of tart, anyway!

[autumnesquirrel.livejournal.com]

Vegan Yum Yum has a number of recipes for baked goods. (http://veganyumyum.com/category/baked-goods/) And I bet the dough from this apple tart (http://veganyumyum.com/2008/05/easy-tarte-aux-pommes/) would work fine with strawberries.

Replacing eggs depends on what function the eggs are serving. Bananas, apple sauce, or other mushed up vegetables are good for moistness and a little binding. Things like flax seeds and agar agar are better for more binding. Thar said, a banana bread or something similar is a good place to start if you don't bake much.

[greyooze.livejournal.com]

Tartastic, thanks! I'll be doing some shopping on Wednesday, so I'll check out what fruits are in season and have a try. I don't remember seeing any strawberries when I was in last week, think they're probably all gone by now, but there might have been some blueberries? I'll post a photo of the results, good or ill (will be good for a laugh if nothing else).

[autumnesquirrel.livejournal.com]

Jam works as filling too.

This is a recipe for a jam tart (http://smittenkitchen.com/2010/04/easy-jam-tart/). It is not vegan, but taking the vegan tart crust, replacing some of the flour with corn meal, and using that to make this tart would most likely work fine. You might need to fuss with the crust recipe a little bit more? Anyway, depends on how confident you are feeling.

[baniszew.livejournal.com]

I baked a cake yesterday that the recipe called "Crazy Cake" (from the book Bakewise). While trying to figure out what was "crazy" about it, I noticed that it happens to be vegan. It came out very tasty, too. I've generally found that food which is incidentally vegan is tastier than food which is vegan by substitution, so I may have to copy the recipe for you sometime.

[missgreytea.livejournal.com]

I love making peanut butter cookies over the holidays. Mostly because peanut butter is my favorite sweet. :3

How is Dreamwidth now? I'm sad to say I didn't remain very active there because of the lack of initial features, scarce people, and dead communities. D:

[rax.livejournal.com]

Peanut butter is amazing. I love peanut butter. It's kind of dangerous. :) ...in fact I want some peanut butter right now

Dreamwidth is... well, at this point it's technically superior, but most of my friends didn't go there. A few went there and only there, though, so I maintain presence in both places and it seems to work out OK. I get the impression some communities are super active but they do not seem to be the communities that I am interested in. LJ is still home base; 250 friends versus like 30 friends, 20 of whom also read LJ anyway, will do that. :/