For example: When we moved into our new house, the washer that was left here was a bit funky smelling and did not spin correctly. We did try to fix it to no avail. We bought a new one and decided we could install it ourselves (not hard, right. connect hot/cold and plug in) and save $50 in delivery/install fees.
We get the washer home and in the garage, no problem (thanks to the insanely high-tech dolly the store let us borrow! perks of a small town). As we are unloading and setting up, we stumbled across two large boxes in our storage room. We had seen them before and for some reason ignored them, they were there when we moved in and just got covered up by our mound of boxes. We decide to inquire, and lo and behold! They are pedestals for a washer and dryer. BOOM. Those babies are like 100 bucks a piece. This was awesome, because our washer and dryer are in our garage (I dream of a laundry room the size of Texas!) and there is no storage. Anyways...the point to all this is that Ian and I have to somehow now lift this 250 pound washer onto a 1 1/2 foot pedestal with precision so it clips in just right. So we start out pretty confident. He shows me how to squat and put my weight into the washer as he lifts on side. He shows me this 5 or 6 times, because of course I'm not doing it right. Then we try to use the dolly, but it's not designed to lift things. We try all these crazy ways to get it on top of the pedestal. Meanwhile, the kids are doing who-knows-what inside, and I'm running in to check on them every few minutes, which sends Ian into a frenzy (don't interrupt him when he is on a mission). We are to the point where I'm holding one edge as he's is pulling another and the washer is teetering on a third corner. I'm just waiting for it to fall on it's beautiful front loading face, which would of course be my fault because I wasn't holding it at the right vector/angle. I decided, as is the norm -- screw it. Let's call someone, it's impossible. I go inside to see what the kids are doing and just to chill out because we have been lifting this insanely heavy object off and on for about an hour. I go back outside, probably 30 minutes later, and Ian had fashioned this ramp out a stray piece of wood and has gotten the washer all the way up on top of the pedestal, by himself. All I had to do was tilt the washer a bit to the back so he could remove the ramp. Done. I couldn't believe it. I had given up and he remained outside and used his brain hard enough to find a solution.
We think we are out of the woods because we got the damn thing on. We are celebrating and high-fiving and marveling at Ian's wit (much to his enjoyment of course), until we test the thing out. It goes into the spin cycle and starts shaking and wobbling everywhere. Heart attack! We both lunge for the buttons as it almost tumbles off of the small ledge it's on in the garage. I manage to hit cancel and it slowly stops gyrating and stops just as one edge tips over the ledge. Alas! We forgot to level it. Ian starts to level the pedestal and then the washer...this goes on for a while. I'm getting cranky and annoyed and I give up again and go inside. Ian remains out in garage for another hour, painstakingly leveling and re-leveling. One turn here, a half turn there...until it is perfect and sails through the highest spin cycle without moving a centimeter. His patience for perfection marvels me. I wish I had a portion of his patience to perform tasks. He is not put off in the slightest that something he thought would take him 30 minutes actually took him 7 hours. Even then I lose my patience with him because he has been consumed with something for so long. Every where I look I'm losing my patience; with him, with the girls, with the dog, with the 82 year-old walmart checker-outer who literally takes 1 minute per item as I'm standing there and Willow does everything she possibly can to Houdini her way out of the Bjorn and Piper spills her chocolate milk in my purse while simultaneously pooping in her pants for the while store to smell. I'll I can think about is that I still have to pay $1000 for all these groceries, snake the cart through the classic walmart maze bathroom entrance, change piper's diaper on the staphylococcus-ridden changing table and load and unload my cart in 102 degree weather.
Patience. I struggle every day. I don't know if I'll ever be able to drop my jimmy-rigging days, but I do hope to learn how to at least accomplish tasks with more patience and dignity. I'm lucky to have Ian to balance me out in this regard. Just because the wall is painted doesn't mean it looks good!
My original intent in this post was to talk about how I've been jimmy-rigging recipes out the wazoo. For some reason I've been out of eggs for like a week and have needed or wanted to make baked goods more often. Enter google searches for "do I really need eggs in my brownie mix." I never took any bakery science courses, but I do know that in most cases, eggs serve a purpose. Now what purpose in each recipe, that is a little more difficult. What I found out is that there are some instances where a substitute can be used for eggs. I used this the day I woke up and wanted to make buttermilk pancakes. Then I realized I didn't even have buttermilk. So what do you do when you really want buttermilk pancakes but don't have eggs or buttermilk? You jimmy-rig, is what you do. Instead of the egg I found that you can mix 3 Tbsp of warm water with 1 Tbsp of ground flax seed. I just so happened to have such a thing in my pantry! And of course, the age old trick of lemon juice and regular milk will get you by instead of buttermilk. These are not the fluffiest pancakes in the world, but they came out quite nice without two vital ingredients.
Eggless, Buttermilk-less, Squash & Zucchini Pancakes
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 large egg (I put in the substitute)
1 cup buttermilk (again, substitute)
a splash of sugar
whatever you feel like hiding inside the delicious pancakes ( I chose shredded squash and zucchini)
No comments:
Post a Comment