we have doors!

We have eave closet doors! Which you can't see yet! Because we still need to paint them! But still! DOORS!

Six years, you guys. Six years we've had big gaping holes uncovered closet openings in our attic eave walls. To say that we are overjoyed to finally have doors for those damn closets would be an understatement so gigantic it has its own gravitational field.

Of course, given our track record, it'll probably take another six years to get them painted, but let us hope for all our sakes that it does not. Let us hope that the preliminary plan of attack we came up with for getting them painted in a reasonable and timely manner actually, you know, works.

We also, also got doors for the kitchen shelf space that is actually the back side of the dining room buffet. Those doors also need to be painted, and we need to get glass for the inserts, but the frames, at least, are done. And even unfinished, they look wonderful. I can totally see why some people prefer to renovate with a checkbook instead of a table saw.

We didn't get started on the painting this weekend, however. Sal had to work for a bit yesterday in preparation for the big James Beard Award event taking place at OCI today and he was also fighting off a nasty cold. And I...well, I just played around in the studio all weekend.

Which means I have no good excuse for my sad little bento today, nor for not having a dinner bento for tonight. I am not proud of this bento. This is a bento composed entirely of laziness, sloth, and procrastination, with a side sauce of not-giving-a-crap. But, I figure I should post the bad with the good, so here, let me inflict it upon you.

lunch, pink natural lunch:

• orange ginger chicken
• Thai sticky rice with green onion for garnish
• orange ginger chicken sauce

All items are courtesy of last night's takeout leftovers from the neighborhood Thai place. Which is delicious. And is probably the main reason I have a lunch today. Clearly, it's time for a vacation.

insert clever title here

this has nothing to do with today's post, I was just fondly remembering our trip to the tulip festival awhile back with The Albino and Mr. T.It's a busy week ahead, including a Wednesday-Work-From-Home-Day in the office instead. I actually have a presentation that morning (hence the reason I have to go to the office) as part of an office-wide meeting. Tomorrow is an off-site executive work retreat, and I took next Friday and Monday off. In other words, some added disruption to my already cracktastic schedule. I'd say that the change in routine keeps things interesting, but I don't actually have a routine so it's quite interesting enough as it is. At least "boring" isn't a word that in any way applies to my job.

We spent the weekend generally avoiding responsibility and opting instead to do things we wanted to do. I spent most of my time in the studio, working on revisions and later, doing some collage work, while Sal bottled his latest batch of beer and started a second batch of sauerkraut. Oh, it's a fermenting frenzy over here at Hall House. I know he's a qualified chef and everything, but there are days when I suspect he's just randomly sticking stuff in a jar to see what happens.

Now that the studio is finished (I know, I still need to get those pictures up), we're ready to get the attic eave closet doors done. Finally! And in fact the only reason they're getting done is because we won't be doing them, but rather, hiring someone to do them. Otherwise, we'd both be drawing Social Security before they'd get done. We got a personal recommend for a local carpenter who specializes in cabinetry. We've given him some leeway on the design so I'm excited to see how they turn out.

lunch, Ms. Bento:

• Sal's Whatever's In The Fridge Soup -- chicken, Swiss chard, potatoes, carrots, onion, golden chiogga beets, celery, garlic, mushroom broth, oregano, thyme
• homemade ciabata and a Babybel cheese
• pineapple with pomegranate seeds as gap fillers
• cashews, dried cherries, and yogurt covered raisins

progress on this work in progress

one of the eave closet openings before the trim was up; there are FIVE of theseWe've gotten the quote on getting the doors done for the attic closets and it's...not too scary, actually. We'll have to hold off until after the first of the year since we have the Sooper Sekrit Project coming up in December, but it looks like we'll have doors on those damn eave closets by the end of January, just like a real house! If you had told me ten years ago that the prospect of having closet doors would fill me with the kind of excitement most women reserve for large expensive jewelry (or in my case, large gift cards to Powell's), I would have scoffed openly at such hilarity.

these built-in shelves in the kitchen are actually the back side of the built-in buffet in the dining roomThe estimate also includes cabinet doors for the open shelving in our kitchen. We think it originally had doors similar to the rest of the kitchen, and in fact we did find a cabinet door in the basement that seems to fit one of the openings, but they were removed at some point. It's a pretty nice use of an otherwise unusable space, and perfect for all of Sal's cookbooks, but because our kitchen doesn't have hood for the stove, it's hard to keep them clean. So we'd like to have doors with glass inset to protect the books, but still display. We'll paint the interior something rich and spicy -- the color of saffron or paprika, maybe. Should look pretty neat when it's all done. (Of course, it'll make the rest of the kitchen look even more in need of a makeover than it already does, but baby steps, baby steps....)

lunch, Laptop Lunch:

• PB&J, using peanut butter and red currant jam on buttermilk bread
• peas and carrots
• half a Fuji apple with a carrot shape garnish and a few raisins at the corner as gap fillers
• red grapes and a bit of ranch dip in the condiment container for the carrots

A kind of American-style lunch box theme today with the PB&J. (No chips or juice box, though!) I'm famished today so it was nicely filling lunch. But I must say that with the cooler weather, I'm craving soups and casseroles. And chili, lots and lots of chili.

Hmmm...we do have a ridiculous amount of peppers from the CSA to eat up, and some onions...oh, and nice bag of mixed greens from our latest share that would make a delicious salad with some cut up rainbow carrots that were also in our share...yes, I do believe a big batch of chili is in my future....

know when to fold 'em

We had a guy come yesterday to take measurements for doors to the attic eave closets so he can give us an estimate. There comes a time during renovation when you just have to call in the professionals, whether it's because you don't have the time for a particular project or you don't have the expertise. In this case, it's a combination of both. It's been five years since we finished the attic and we simply aren't going to get those damn doors done ourselves.

Of course, the danger with calling in the professionals is if they do a good job, it's tempting to just hand over your entire To Do list and a blank check....

breakfast, cute animals sidecar:

• oatmeal
• raisins
• pears cooked with brown sugar and cinnamon in the mini sidecar (to be mixed in with the oatmeal and raisins)

lunch, black strawberry:

• sushi using carrot and cucumber strips
• shrimp sauteed with a bit of butter, sea salt, and fresh garlic on a bed of wilted kale salad (After the shrimp was done, I deglazed the pan with a little clam juice and then tossed some fresh kale in there to soak up the flavors for a nice little wilted salad.)
• grapes and green string beans with a fan of leftover carrot strips for a little garnish
• half a molded (and purple dyed) egg -- it came out lopsided when I molded it, and it was a tad too small so it didn't mold very well...c'est la vie