Monday, October 6, 2008

Fun! Watching paint dry fun! Clipping toenails fun! Fun!

Weekend recap, in photos to accommodate my illiterate/ADD readers:

Friday was a perfect Fall day here in St. Paul. The leaves are just starting to turn and the air is crisp. It's just cold enough to confuse people. You see parkas walking down the street next to flip-flops and shorts. Luckily, it's chilly enough that jiggly middle-aged dudes are no longer compelled to take off their shirts in public. Thank you, mother nature.

I walked to work so I could get some air in my lungs that wasn't filled with plaster dust and cat dander.
On my way I stopped and bought a snazzy new green scarf. I had to take this picture myself, which explains the double chin and the dude off-camera that was very confused and amused by me taking a picture of myself while walking down Grand Avenue.

"Operation Fix this Fucking House" is still in full swing. Duh. I finally finished painting the living room, replacing the diamonds on the wall with subtle stripes (sorry, Kate- I know you liked the diamonds, we just got tired of them).
Before:
After:

I finally get to put out my new rug for the entry. I love this rug so much that I made out with it. Unfortunately for me, the wool gave me rugburn on my face.

I made tamales this weekend for dinner. I usually don't follow a recipe, but if you get the urge to make some, I have used this recipe and it was very good.

Step one: make the masa dough. You can get masa flour at any latin grocery, or here in MN the "ethnic" aisle at Cub usually has it. Tamale dough usually calls for a LOT of lard, I substitute butter and use way less and it always works out fine. Even I don't keep lard around.


Corn husks to wrap the tamales- soak them in warm water for a while to soften them up. Again, any latin market or "ethnic" grocery should have these.

I cooked two chicken breasts (tee-hee, breasts) off, then shredded them by hand. I added a bunch of spices (good quality chili powder, cumin, Mexican oregano, a touch of coriander, salt & pepper) and because I was feeling lazy, I just dumped in about 1/4c. of hot salsa and a few healthy dashes of hot sauce.
Mix it all up, make sure it tastes good, then you're ready to go:

Lay out the husk, then use your hands to smoosh out the masa dough into a rectangle.

Add some filling, then roll the dough around the filling. this dough is really easy to work with- it should have the texture of play-doh. I used the recipe off of the bag of masa for the dough and added oregano and ground flax seed to it (fiber, baby- keeps you regular!):

Wrap them up like a little package:


Or, if you're a fancypants snob, make them cute by tying them in bundles with strips of the husks:

Then steam them off for about 35-45 minutes:

We ate them with salsa, sour cream, guacomole, and sauteed peppers and onions.
Yum. Yum.
Yum.

Moving on...

I started working on the hall/stairs to get them ready for painting. Let me tell you- 102 year-old plaster walls are NO FUN to paint.
As you can see, the plaster here has some "issues". All I have left to do here is sand, scrub with toxic cleaners, tape off all of the obstacles, prime with toxic primer, wait and hope the primer doesn't start peeling like the last time, paint the first coat, wait and hope THAT doesn't peel either, paint a second coat, then finally- do a happy dance if it all works out, which it likely won't, if my past experience tells me anything:


The new bathroom finally has walls!!
We are one step closer to being able to pee at the same time as a couple, him in one can and me in the other. Who says I'm not romantic?


Finally, to make your life complete and firmly cement my place in the "cat lady" hall of fame, I give you seventeen uneventful seconds of Pooter:


Untitled from Whiskeymarie VonPartypants on Vimeo.

You're welcome.

Happy Monday, my plaster-coated freshly-painted hot tamales. Happy Monday.

XO

21 comments:

Iheartfashion said...

WOW! Busy weekend, WM.
I LOVE the striped wall: nice job! And that rug is great.
Plus, tamales....mmmmmm. Wish you lived here.

Dr. Monkey Von Monkerstein said...

Sure the rug is noce and so is the scarf, but the really great thing is your singing to your cat.

kilax said...

Ooo, that rug IS great. Where is it from?

WendyB said...

I like that polkadotted rug.

Mel O said...

Ok, my comment is three-fold:
 
1. AWESOME JOB on painting those stripes on the wall!!  It turned out SOOOOO good and I can appreciate how long that takes and what a pain in the ass it is.  Stripe it, sista!

2. Love the rug.  Pooter makes a such a purr-ty model!

C. Thanks for the tamale recipe... yours looked like they turned out really well! YUM! (And thanks for the fancypants tip because that is so something I would do)

4. oops, lookie there! I guess this comment this four-fold...  Pooter is so frickin' cute.

Kate said...

You got me. I love the stripes. More than the diamonds. Very chic, lady!

McGone said...

The tamales look fantastic. Do you deliver?

Dr Zibbs said...

If you ever have a pack (gaggle?) of midgets over your house you can use that rug to play a new age game of Twister. Also, I see everyone using this Vimeo for videos instead of Youtube. Does it have any benefits over Youtube?

domboy said...

I watched the Pooter clip twice. It's strangely arresting.

Kat said...

Mmmmm tamales.

Gwen said...

This post has it all! Self-portraits, tamales, cool decorations, and singing! How, just how, do you mange to be so fabulous all the time?

Now come over here and write tomorrow's post cuz my brain's all backed up.

Moe Wanchuk said...

Are you ManHands....From Seinfeld?

Kim said...

I give you major props. It took me all fucking weekend to paint our TINY bathroom (although I was sad to say good-bye to the 1980's country blue stenciled seashells, they just finally had to go and it took 3 coats of primer just to cover them completely before I even STARTED to paint). And then I played martyr and made my husband cook because I was working so hard. I don't think I'll show him this post.
Your stripes came out awesome and I'd like to make out with that rug too.

Anonymous said...

Great stripes! I have wide eggplant horizonal stripes on one wall in my dining room. I love them. Same color paint but one finish is flat the other satin.

Cute cat and cuter scarf!

Have a good week..........patti

CDP said...

the rug is awesome! I might try making those tamales.

diatribes and dish said...

Rug? Love it.

Tamales? Love them. Never made them before, but my weekend's looking free, so maybe I'll make them instead of the pumpkin soup I was planning.

surviving myself said...

So tell me, is Vimeo the cool thing now? Is this what all the cool kids are doing? And I guess Youtube for is for old people?

Or even worse... Republicans???

Gasp!

Stacy said...

Ooooo. I am in old-lady-who-watches-PBS-while-she-sits-and-knits mode.

Wanna winter scarf? What colour would you like? Fringe or no or pompom? Lemme know!

Aunt Snow said...

Yum, Yum, tamales.....!

Why is it that painting is so easy, except getting prepared to paint is so hard?

John said...

Ummm...I believe the title mentioned something about toenails... well?

John said...

Sorry. I was thinking about your toes and I forgot to leave my more substantive comment: Wicked cool paint job on the wall. Srsly. And it's okay if you have man hands as long as you don't have man feet. Because then your toes wouldn't be wicked sexy like they are. DAMN! Are we talking about your toes again?