Is it just me?

It's been over a month now since my family and I have been in New York state, taking a break from The House of Goodwill project, and staying in a little cottage on a campground on Lake Ontario.  

We haven't been in here in three years, due to foster care responsibilities and Covid restrictions.  It's been an enjoyable break from the usual scenery and responsibilities.

So, of course when I've had opportunities I've taken them to explore my favorite local thrift shops and flea markets.  The other day I visited a city an hour away (Auburn, NY) that I haven't been to in years.  I found three thrift stores; a small but great one (that was actually an antique store, but cheap), a huge, good one (that was a flea market) and a small one that was a real dump.  (It reeked of cigarette smoke and was just gross.)  It was an interesting day.

My first stop was the big flea market:

I always find interesting things thrifting.  In an enormous room of books, I found a cookbook who's title seemed appropriate for right now:

1973 (the publication year) or 2021?

Another trend that is unfortunately returning.

I'd prefer the return of bell bottoms or a Brady Brunch reboot.

The subtitle: "Good Food for Hard Times"

Of course I had to check out the 1973 recipes for inflation!  It wasn't exactly what I expected.  What did I expect?  Well, probably a lot of recipes with cheap ingredients.  Like variations of spaghetti, beans or food from cans.  But a lot of the recipes seemed kind of "normal," like below:

Lamb casserole?

In my experience, lamb is one of the most expensive meats in the grocery store.

There were several pages of lamb recipes, so that was surprising.

This seemed like another odd one.  Deviled oysters?  Halibut steak?

Not ingredients that would be the usual suspects if money is an issue, or so I imagine.

(Click on the photo to enlarge it, if you want to read the fine print of the recipes.)

I HAD to read the recipe for "Kentucky Fish Pudding."  Is it just me, or does that sound a little unusual?  Fish and pudding are not two words I've ever heard put together before, and reading the recipe, I still can't quite imagine what this tastes like.

So of course there is a part of me that really, really wants to try it.  But this is what's fun about reading cookbooks, and especially the oddball ones.

I kept paging through, and I DID finally stumble upon some recipes that were more along the lines of what I thought I'd find in the cookbook.

Ah, here were the expected riffs on pasta - the cheap ingredients I thought the cookbook would be full of.

But macaroni and cheese with peanuts?

That's a new one...

And more peanuts!

Apparently peanuts are an inflationary staple in this book...

Another interesting recipe.

I'm curious how this one tastes, too.

And finally, for the last cheap and odd recipe for inflationary times:

Here we have "bean loaf," and I find myself wondering again, does this only seem strange to me?

Are vegetarians familiar with this?

Does this actually taste surprisingly delicious or is there a reason I've never heard of it?

Again, I kind of really want to try this!

Maybe I will and report back...

So after paging through the cookbook, I'm not sure I identified a pattern for what qualified recipes to be good for times of inflation.

But it was a killer title.  It did make me stop and pick it up.

Maybe it's time to republish it.

When you buy a hardback cookbook, and pay MUCH less for it than you do for one gallon of gas for your car, something's off.  

An odd cookbook appropriate for times stranger than Kentucky Fish Pudding.

Or is it just me?

A summer break

I'm back!  You may have noticed, posts at The House of Goodwill have been a bit sporadic the last few weeks.  There's a reason; we're not there!

When we bought the house in March of 2020, we thought we'd have it rentable by this point.  But as you may recall, the interior work has moved slower than we expected, but more importantly, we still have no dock area down by the lake.  (This is my absolute must have before we rent it out.)

Why is the dock area so important to me?  Well, the house will be a lake house rental, and as it is, the shoreline area is currently not very useful.  The shoreline consists of old, crumbling railroad ties, and the ground is full of small holes that are invitations to a twisted ankle.

Aside from that, Tennessee heats up to a billion degrees most summer days.  Without a covered area by the water, it's just too unpleasant down by the water, even though it's by the water.  We are planning to put in a covered dock with a ceiling fan, which should make it wonderful!  We also want to add a little sandy beach area.  And since this house will be a BYOB (bring your own boat), somewhere to park the boat is important too.

When we are there we slide our kayaks in over the decaying railroad ties, and tie our jets skis to the neighbor's dock.  (Our neighbors are wonderful!)  But we look forward to the day we have our dock in place, for our own purposes too!

At this point we don't know when we will have the dock built.  We met with our builder a few months ago (who told us he could fit us in "soon"); we haven't heard a word from him since.  Because of shortages, inflation and post-Covid weirdness, I know construction projects are not proceeding as usual, so I'm too concerned yet.  Honestly, I don't want to have to build a dock and pay 30% more.  But we sure hope it can be built before next summer!

So anyway, with the house improvements on indefinite pause, we are taking a break for the summer.  (Since my interior work is not what's holding the project up, I don't feel guilty taking some time off.  It will be waiting for me in the fall.)

Where are we right now?  In New York state, where both my husband and I are from.  More on that in the next post.  Traveling from Tennessee to New York (and all the work that entails) is the reason this blog has been quiet, now that I'm here I look forward to posting more again.

So what was the status of the interior of the house when we left?

Remember these holes in the walls in the hallway and bathroom, that we discovered after removing wallpaper?

Well, after two months of trying to find someone who could do the wall repair (and finally finding someone who gave us an estimate and then never showed up), my husband determined to reface the walls himself.

He watched hours of Youtube videos, bought all the materials, and then spent a week patching holes, skim coating the walls, and sanding.

Here are the walls in process, after he put the first two coats of plaster.

And here is how we left it:

Holes??  What holes?!

This bathroom wall is smooth as a baby's skin.

All the entryway walls got skim coated and sanded.

Remember when my husband initially offered to try to fix the walls and I balked, because I wanted them done perfectly?  Well, he made me eat my words!  I'm pretty sure at this point that my husband can do anything.  I told him so.  "Oh no," was his response.  

So while this week long project was underway, and we were simultaneously having a fence installed outside, what was I up to?

Well, while my painting upstairs was held up (due to my waiting on the bathroom and entryway walls to be ready), I was going to paint the one downstairs wall that needed to be done, in the downstairs kitchen.

But when I gave it a really good inspection, I realized that the cabinets were looking really, really rough and I made a decision to paint them, which necessitated my LEAST favorite home improvement activity: sanding.  I spent the next week sanding kitchen cabinets (all 27 of them) indoors and out.  My son went between helping me and his dad, getting a good education at refacing walls in the process.

Here's a look at the downstairs kitchen, with it's dark wall and cabinets, when we bought the house:

This is how the kitchen currently looks.

So to recap: our last two weeks in The House of Goodwill in June were spent in a dusty, chaotic mess.  Between the daily sanding of the walls upstairs, and the sanding of the cabinets downstairs, it seemed there was dust everywhere - in every room, and dusty footprints leading all over the house.

Ironically, as the house is closer than ever to being finished on the inside, it's also in the most chaotic state it's ever been in.  And after a year of working on the house steadily - painting, sanding, doing yardwork - I was ready to take a break for a few months.  (And my last week there was spent covered in poison ivy, so there was that too.)

While I can honestly say I've really enjoyed working on the house and watching it progress, after a year of getting up almost every day and putting on painting clothes, and then painting alone all day, I'm enjoying this time off.

We met our goal of reaching a certain point before the break: the walls upstairs in the entryway and bathroom are completely done, and ready to be painted.  The kitchen cabinets are completely sanded and ready to be painted.  Now that the cabinets have been sanded, the kitchen walls can be painted too.

So all the dirty work is done.  All that is left of the major work when we return is painting a lot of walls, which after completing all the sanding and tedious molding painting, doesn't seem like a big deal at all.  I know after a few months off I'll return excited to get started again.

And once the walls are FINALLY all painted, I can finish the setting up and furnishing of the house to make it airbnb ready.  And oh boy, will it be hard to let this baby go when the time comes!  When we finally have the house in perfect shape so we can just arrive there and relax (and NOT work) - that's when we'll be moving out and others will be moving in.

We truly, truly love this house.  We keep saying that maybe we'll just rent it for a few years...we'll see.

Little by little

A couple of months ago, I scored a great craigslist find that was pretty transformational to life at the House of Goodwill, and I want to share.

Last year, after we bought the house, I spent the summer on the porch sitting in one of those low, tri-folding beach chairs that we got in the carload of stuff from Denise's basement for $55.

I sat on that chair for hours, scouring for used patio furniture online, only to come up empty.

Because the porch is small, I decided to opt for a four-person bar table with chairs (because the table top would be smaller in diameter than the usual patio table), that would take up less space.

Anyway, here is how the porch looked last summer:

I bet I sat in his chair for hundreds of hours last summer!

We also had this little bistro set that someone gave us for free.

It was really cute, and it took up the perfect amount of space.

But was it comfortable?  No!

Did you want to spend more than 10 minutes in the chairs?  No!

Also, only two people could sit at it.

I'll find somewhere else to use it; where it's not the main dining table.

Finally, I found the outdoor furniture I was looking for, after a year of searching.  Here is the table and chair set I found on craigslist, for $250:

The chairs swivel, and are very comfortable.

The tabletop is beautiful; it's wooden, with a metal decorative strip.

This was definitely a great find!  I bought it from a guy who had been using it as a poker table in his basement.  The guy was selling off all of his worldly possessions to move to the Caribbean.  I bought it from the right person, he was kind enough (and strong enough and knowledgeable enough) to be able to tie the one last chair (that wouldn't fit in my vehicle) to the roof of my SUV, so that I could safely get it home in one trip.  A small, lightweight set this is not.

The wooden table is so nice I kind of hate to use it outside, but at least the porch is covered.

We've already put it to good use, using it a lot to eat, but have yet to play a game on it.  We will!

I liken the House of Goodwill to a college student who's graduated, and is slowly replacing all his makeshift college furniture (and free donations) with upgraded stuff.

And I think if I didn't tell anyone - no one would ever know it was all purchased secondhand!