June Goals

Well, it's been a month.  Things happened.  I did stuff. 

• Farmers market.  I went to…three?!  And picked out a favorite.  But there are also some pretty great roadside stands around here.
• Go house shopping.  Ugh.  We’ve been looking at an average of 2.25 houses per week.  Typically the good ones are off the market within four days of being posted, so even if we move fast it’s still not fast enough. Very frustrating.
• Make a meal plan for clean, healthy eating.  I did not do this BUT I have been more intentional about food and not counting several restaurant excursions due to visitors, I think I’ve been eating a lot better.  I even skipped the free doughnuts at work today.  Feel free to applaud my willpower.
• Compile some photos to print out for our families.  Photos taken, yes.  Photos printed, no.  So that needs to get done.
• First visitors!  My parents flew down, Kyle’s mom and uncle drove down on their motorcycles.  Both were great visits and helped us explore the area and get acquainted with our new locale.
• Avoid getting sunburnt.  Done!  There was one unfortunate day where I forgot to ‘screen up, but we spent most of our time in the shade so it worked out.  We’ve got a beach day planned for tomorrow though, so there’s still time left in the month for me to fail at this goal!
• Activities with new friends?  Without getting too specific, goal = achieved.  That being said, making friends is really difficult and talking to strangers – no, scratch that, making conversation with strangers is mentally tiring.  But they will always be strangers unless you have those conversations and become acquaintances and then become friends.

So that was June.  There were strong ups and downs this month, which has become a pattern lately – I don’t think I will ever say that this process (moving, making friends) has been easy, I can definitely say it has been very rewarding.  I am really starting to miss the people that used to be constant presences in my life, but I don’t take for granted the massive amounts of sunshine or the way the wind smells blowing in off the ocean.

Enter July.  It starts with a holiday and ends with prohibitive heat and humidity (or so I’m told).  Here’s my list:

• Drinks with friends!  You know how some people leave a huge impact on your life with a small gesture?  Well those people are passing through town next week and we’ve got plans to meet up.
• 4^th of July road trip.  Details are being finalized so look forward to hearing more about this at the end of the month.
• Get photos printed to finish off last month’s goal.  
• Keep the plants alive!  One of the first things my HR person said to me was “Oh honey, your plants are all going to die – they can’t live in this heat!”  A real positive experience.  Not that I needed extra reason to keep them alive, but now that I’ve been challenged, IT’S ON.
• More summer clothing!  I picked up a couple things at Goodwill but I definitely need to stock up on some hot weather clothing.     

It's the end of a frustrating week that ended with an equally frustrating trip to the bank where they refused to let me open an account because they couldn't verify my address despite me bringing in a check addressed to my new apartment, plus I've got the lease, water and electric in my name, etc, etc.  And of course they're going to run a credit check on me before I can open an account; I've been handing out my SSN left and right lately, which is going to make financing a house a lot of fun.  Anyone want my social security number?  I'm sure there's very little about it that's "secure" at this point.  Rant over, back to the fun stuff:

Garden exploded!  It's getting so big.  Look at this tomato!

And look at these baby tomatoes!

When our visitors were here, we hit up a ton of tourist attractions, including the only tea farm in North America.

Here's the parents, taking their tea facts very seriously.

And tea, of course.  We tried a few different flavors, the sweetened peach iced tea was my fav.

In addition to tea, we also tried some local spirits and wine.

A week later, our second set of visitors arrived via motorcycle.

We started out at a local brewery.

In addition to bev, we also tried some really good eats!

Shem Creek:  "you're pretty much guaranteed to see dolphins."

So yeah.  That's a ton of photos, but we did SO much while the families were in town.  More photos on facebook!

Fried Cinnamon Bananas with Honey

Let me lay it out for you.  This is a dessert.  It is simple, it is fast, and it is easy.  And if you regularly have bananas, cinnamon and honey in your kitchen, it will make a great oh-no-I-forgot-dessert-but-I-have-people-over-and-I-have-to-serve-something dessert.  And bananas!  You can pretend it's a healthy dessert.  If you're not yet convinced, then maybe a photo of fried bananas laying in a pool of honey will change your mind.

Bananas: slice.

Cinnamon:  sprinkle (I had a minor cinnamon mishap here, you REALLY don't need this much cinnamon).

Pan: fry.

Bananas flip!

Honey: drizzle.

Fried Cinnamon Bananas with Honey
Serves: 2
Ingredients:

• Two bananas
• 2-3 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tsp coconut oil or butter
• 2 tbs honey

Instructions:
1.  Slice the bananas to about 3/4" thick (slice on the diagonal to be kind of fancy).
2.  Sprinkle bananas with cinnamon.
3.  Heat oil in pan.  Fry bananas on medium heat until browned.  Flip and fry until the other side is browned.
4.  Place on serving plate.  Drizzle with honey.

So simple and yet surprisingly delicious.  I wish I had bananas right now so I could make this again.

Crunchy Black Bean Chicken Salad

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Molasses Crinkles

Cookies have sounded really good lately, and in particular, I couldn't stop thinking about the molasses crinkles I used to make when I was young.

So I made some!  And you should too.  I made waaaaay too many, so I brought the extras to my office and got rid of them there.  From the comments, it sounds like not everyone has heard of molasses crinkles, which I found somewhat astounding.  It's a pretty basic cookie, isn't it?  But despite that, they were very well received.  They are so soft!  Like little cookie pillows. 

The recipe starts the way any cookie does - mix butter, sugar and egg.  My butter was a little firm so that's why the batter looks so thick.

Then add the molasses.  This is what gives to cookies their deep, rich color.

Pro-tip:  you can make brown sugar by mixing white sugar with molasses.

Next is the dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and ginger.

Mix it all together.  This dough was not nearly as stiff as the molasses crinkles of my youth, maybe I should have asked Mom for that recipe.

I was going to refrigerate it for a while to see if that helped, but I was impatient.  Cookie time!  Form 1.5-in. balls of dough, dip them in sugar, and place them on a cookie sheet.

Bake to perfection.  Eat immediately.  With milk.

Caution: recipe makes a pile.

Molasses Crinkles 
Yield:  30ish cookies
Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 sticks butter, softened (3/4 cup)
• 1 c. brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/3 c. molasses
• 2 1/2 c. flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 c. granulated sugar

Instructions:
1.  Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
2.  Mix the butter, brown sugar and egg together.  Stir in the molasses.
3.  In a separate bowl (or large measuring cup) mix the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger and salt.  Combine dry ingredients with wet until well incorporated.
4.  Form 1.5-in. dough balls with the cookie dough.  Roll them in the granulated sugar then place on a cookie sheet.
5.  Bake cookies for 8 to 9 minutes.  Let cool on a cooling rack.

Eat cookies.  Enjoy cookies.  Ponder the name "crinkles."  My guess:  bakers were trying to explain the cracks in the cookie as a designed-in feature, and not just a happy accident.

What in the What June

I was just editing some recipe photos and about to start a new blog post when I looked at the date - holy crap, another month has passed.  You know what that means:  time to recap my month and my goals.

So here's the list:

• Lived without A/C until Kyle moved down.  I did turn it on when the movers were bringing stuff in, but they left the door open and were running so late that it had already cooled off so I turned it right back off again. 
• Get my plants into bigger pots.  I did this, but now the peppers need to be put in bigger pots again.
• Move all the furniture down here.  Bleh.  Done.  The entire apartment was full of boxes, with barely space to squeeze through.  It was awful.  I survived.
• Ship the bus down here.  Bus is shipped!  And hardly worse for wear.  Looks like there were some minor scratches where the bumper hit the pavement.
• Move Kyle down here! After a 2.5-week (more-like-forever) separation, my husband moved in with me, two days before our first anniversary.  Life is good.
• Find a good place to get coffee.  After trying several options, I have determined there's no coffee like home coffee.  The best substitute is popping some hazelnut into my reusable k-cup and using the machine at work, but that was barely more than flavored water.  At least it didn't taste burnt and bitter.

I feel like I have been living this list day in and day out, unlike most months when I need to look back at the previous goals post just to remember what I had planned for myself.  I honestly have no idea what the next month will bring, but my to-do list never seems to shrink so that's a good place to start.

• Farmers market - I still haven't been to one and that's. not. okay.  I meant to fix that this week but it didn't happen.
• Go house shopping.  We still debate buy vs. rent, but it can't hurt to look, right?
• Make a meal plan for clean, healthy eating.  It seems like pretty frequently we'll find ourselves out exploring and suddenly it's two hours past mealtime and we're both hungry...and that's when the bad choices get made.  Planning ahead will prevent that.
• Compile some photos to print out for our families so that they can get a glimpse of our lives here.
• First visitors!  We've got visitors coming this month and I'm so thrilled.  I'm already planning out potential activities in my head...beach, downtown, flea market, farmers market, everything! 
• Avoid getting sunburnt.  I've learned that the car must always be stocked with ice water and sunscreen before I go anywhere, because it's so hot and sunny.  I love it.  I love every minute of it.  So does my garden.
• Activities with new friends?   I recently read some excellent advice about making friends as an adult.  Step 1:  invite people to things.  Repeatedly.  Corollary:  if you're invited to things, go.  Nobody likes rejection, so after the first or second 'no' they might stop asking.  Step 2: treat people like your friends, even if they aren't yet - be friendly with people, it will open them up to being friendly back to you.

I took a ton of photos this month, so I'm debating whether to be choosy or just post a little of everything.  First off, here's how the garden is progressing.  Remember when they were just baby seedlings in paper cup pots?  I do...they grow so fast!  I just noticed the first buds on the tomatoes today.

Here's my horror story - boxes upon boxes upon boxes.  Our space has downsized, and it shows.

The bus arrived at the same time, and it was a pretty nerve-wracking experience.  Mr. Ear Buds thought my reaction was pretty funny, but the bumper was really close to the pavement.  How do you think they learned they needed to reduce the angle on the ramp with those blankets?  There were some new scratch marks on the bumper.

I've been a tad obsessed with cookies lately, so on the morning of our anniversary Kyle made me some chocolate chip cookies.  He claims he'd never made cookies before, which explains why a pan of cookies turned into one giant cookie.  He was so disappointed!  I am not picky about cookie shape however; they were delicious.

 

In between cleaning, we managed to go on a couple field trips last weekend.  A coworker told me about this enormous flea market with the strong claim "You can find just about anything there - cheap, too."  She was not wrong.  I picked up these adorable earrings for a dollar.  We found a couple other things that were on our list and stocked up on some fresh veggies.

I did a lot this month.  There's just so much to do and so much to explore.  We've still only been to one brewery so far, which is partially due to the fleeting hours they all keep.  Oh yeah, I have a photo of that too.

Anyway, my point is that I'm really excited for all the opportunities here.  I keep getting warnings that July and August are pretty miserable, so June will be my month!

Bus Discoveries: Windshield Install Tutorial

To preface, a little back story. After finally getting Sixer on the road, she sat in our apartment complex’s parking lot, instead of a garage. After a few rain showers, we started noticing a little water settling in near the doors in the front floor mats. 

The most likely culprit was the vent (wing) windows, as their seals are fairly old and cracked. Unfortunately, this was not to be the case… Sixer received a paint job just prior to our purchasing her. Evidently, the painter and cohorts were slightly less than detail oriented, at least when it comes to the functional parts of the vehicle. The paint itself is quite nice, smooth, and glossy. The issues become apparent where the painter had to remove and reinstall functional items like headlights, license plate brackets, and yes, the windshield.

                
I was sitting in the bus one afternoon in the rain, looking to deduce where the water intrusion was coming from. As the rain came down, I started probing around the suspected are of leakage, when I felt a cold draft. Searching for the source of this irritation, I noticed a ¼” gap at the lower passenger side corner of the windshield. My survey complete, I was astonished to find that through several weeks, a four hundred mile trip on a trailer, and a number of local drives, our windshield was being held in by the force of the wind against it and the pressure of the wiper blades. It was simply setting in the opening of the body, with a few dabs of weatherstrip adhesive in the corners. Oh, and they managed to crack the windshield in the process of not installing it. Needless to say, this had to be rectified.

So, on to a short picture tutorial on how to install a windshield into a ’76 VW bus…

First, gather your tools:

- Windshield (I reinstalled the one the painter cracked here, as Sixer needed to be on a car carrier before I could get my hands on a new one. Plus, practice is always nice.)

- Windshield seal

- Spray bottle with straight Simple Green

- More Simple Green

- Small Tupperware container

-  ~23’ of paracord (enough to go around the windshield twice, plus two feet)

- Beer of your choice. I recommend a session IPA for this job.

- A friend. You’ll probably need a beer for them as well.

Next, remove the windshield and sponge out the standing water on your dash.

While that dries, fill the Tupperware with Simple Green, and soak the cord in it. The Simple Green acts as a lubricant that will neither absorb water, which you don’t want under the seal, nor will it attack the rubber of the seal. As the cord is soaking, find a caulk tube topper thing (the little white thing in my hand in these pictures). Spray everything with Simple Green. Cut it so the cord passes through easily. Thread a cord end through the caulk tube thing and into the seal. Using the caulk topper to spread the rubber lips of the seal, run the cord in the lip around the entire windshield twice, ending about a foot past the center of the top of the windshield on both sides. Leave about six inches of cord hanging out of the lip on either side of the center.

 

Spray the rubber seal and the sealing surface of the bus body with Simple Green, and help your friend set and position the windshield in the hole. Once in place, get inside the bus (you’re pulling the seal lip from the outside of the bus across the lip into the inside of the bus), start pulling the cord ends evenly, a few inches each side at a time, 90 degrees to the seal. If everything is set correctly, when you pull the cord out, the seal will be forced to the inside sealing surface of the body lip, securing the windshield. In certain places, it might help to have your friend put a small amount of pressure on the windshield from the outside. Too much pressure will make it more difficult, however.

 

And that’s it. Our windshield went in the first time around with the cord. I had the second wrap of cord in the seal as a backup, but it was not needed.
 
Summary of steps to install a windshield in a 1976 VW Bus:

1.       Gather materials

2.       Lube seal with Simple Green, install on windshield

3.       Soak cord in Simple Green, use caulk tube top to insert cord into seal where it will interface with the bus body.

4.       Spray everything with Simple Green again

5.       Position windshield in body opening

6.       Pull string out of seal from inside the bus, rolling the seal lip to the inside of the bus.

7.       Test drive and marvel at how dry and quiet everything is now…

Also, choose a nice sunny day to do this job, and you won't have to sit in the bus and drink your installation beers while it rains like we did.