Angela Law

animal lover, gardener, knitter, and gourmet cook
 
household stuff

crap

Early last week, we discovered that the toilet in our basement was clogged in a major way (using a plunger on it caused water to shoot out the base). We weren’t too concerned because we have other toilets and our main sewer line was still working, so it appeared that the problem was contained. A few days later, Brian removed the toilet so he could check out the sewer pipe and found that it was clogged beyond his plumbing abilities.

This week, he called one of the plumbers we deal with and he recommended calling Roto-Rooter. Evidently they are best equipped to deal with situations such as this. They came today and 2 hours (and $200) later everything is working again. Apparently the pipes had a bunch of roots in them. Why the rest of our plumbing still worked is somewhat of a mystery (there must be two separate lines that connect to the main line), but I’ll take it. Luckily for us, they are testing the sewer lines in the township and we will almost certainly be required to replace ours, so this problem will not be a recurring one once that happens.

holidays

preparations

I’m a little behind on Christmas this year, but I’m glad to say that I’m done with shopping. I did 90% of it on Black Friday (from the comfort of my living room, thanks to Amazon). But, in an uncharacteristic move, my Christmas cards aren’t done yet. I briefly considered not making cards this year, but then someone told me how much they like my cards so I was kind of guilted into it. They are in progress.

I’m not making cookies again this year, but Jake and I are going to make some Christmas-y treats next weekend. I’m not sure at this point if I’m going to be making dog treats. I didn’t last year and that was kind of nice, but I haven’t made treats in a while, so it might be fun to do. We’ll see how I’m doing for time.

We never decorate the house until mid-December, so I’m not behind on that yet. I think we’re going to get a real tree this year. We’ve been putting up an artificial one for quite a few years and I miss having a real one (or do I? I guess we’ll find out). The fact that real trees drop needles is kind of annoying, but our artificial one does that, too, so we’ll see which one I like better.

I’m taking a half day later this month to wrap presents–that’s probably my favorite Christmas preparation of all.

movies

pulp fiction

We’re making Jake watch our top 13 films with us. We started with Pulp Fiction. It was as good as I remembered it. Jake saw parts of the movie in the past, but never in its entirety. Needless to say, he liked it.

My rating: 4/5

holidays

thanksgiving 2015

Another Thanksgiving has come and gone. We hosted dinner this year, so I had a busy day and a half preparing. I took off work yesterday and did most of the prep work then so today was a breeze.

My family (parents, grandmother and brother and his family) were in attendance. Despite the relatively small numbers, it was requested that I make a double batch of mashed potatoes (evidently we didn’t have enough left over the last time we had Thanksgiving here). I also took it upon myself to make a double batch of stuffing as we had none left last time and stuffing is my very favorite Thanksgiving food.

Anyway, it was a nice afternoon and the three of us have already done a round of leftovers. I’m already looking forward to lunch.

books

there was a little girl

This book was written by Ed McBain. The main characters in it were part of a circus. Coincidentally, Jake and I are currently watching season 4 of American Horror Story, the theme of which is a carnival/freak show. It was a little confusing to be concentrating on two similar stories at once.

At any rate, all Ed McBain books are good and this one was no different. It ended with a cliffhanger, which is unfortunate, because I don’t read the books in order (the book was part of the Matthew Hope series). Who knows? Maybe I already read the next one in the series.

This always seems to happen, but I received the newest Stephen King book right after I started reading this one, so I’m looking forward to starting that one tonight.

My rating: 3.5/5