T-38 Days

T-38 days until the onset of our move. I can't wait, we're 5 and a half weeks away. We've gotten through another two weeks of waiting. In the meantime I'm planning and plotting on what we'll need for the place since we're planning on getting rid of just about everything. The only furniture we'll have left is the futon frame and Tadd's artdesk. Been spending a lot of time on Portland's Craigslist looking at furniture for sale, even though it's way too early, but I'm on night three of being home sick, and that leaves me with a lot of free time and boredom on my hands. I've also been scouring through Bed, Bath, and Beyond's online catalog and price-checking against other companies since we're getting rid of most of our dinnerware, cookware, and bakeware. We're going to have to buy a lot of stuff, yard sales here we come. I'm hoping I can get a 9-5 job so I can have my weekends free (for the first time in my life!) and have time to cook, but we'll see, keeping my fingers crossed.

I'm planning on having my camera out and ready for the road trip, although I doubt we'll have much time to stop and take pictures. We'll be passing through New Jersey (obviously), Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, and finally Washington. 12 states total. When we first came out East, we went through Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illionois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. So between those two cross country trips, I'll have been to 16 different states, and including places I've lived and vacationed in the total comes to 22 states. Not bad at the age of 24, even though most of those states I've only driven through. Hopefully once we get our careers on their ways, we'll be able to travel a bit more and actually take the time to explore the places we pass through. As for Squatch, since this blog is titled The Chronicles of Squatch, he will have traveled through 17 lovely states at the tender age of 5. He's just our travelin' mutt that kills with love.

Baking and Scrapbooking Fun

Well I've been having fun looking through magazines and cutting out recipes and decorating ideas while being sick for the past 6 days. I was feeling more upbeat yesterday so I actually got some stuff done. Did a lot of cleaning and while I was out and about doing laundry I figured I'd try some of those recipes I cut out during this past week. So off to the grocery store I went while my laundry was drying and picked up some ingredients. I decided to try the Argula, Bacon, and Cheese bread budding recipe for dinner and the Orange Cake Pudding for dessert. In retrospect that's a lot of pudding, but hey I'm sick I have weird cravings.

The Argula, Bacon, and Cheese bread pudding actually turned out decent, you need to be in the right mood to eat it though I think. And it does not keep well to the next day, I tried reheating some leftovers this morning, but the bread absorbed too much of the custard overnight and it's now way too mushy. So note to self, next time you feel like eating it, halve the recipe so it's just the right amount for two. No pictures of this one sorry, bread pudding just really does not look appetizing, and toss in argula and bacon and it looks really weird, so I opted not to take a picture.

The Orange Cake Pudding, however, was awesome. I altered the recipe a little bit, with a little less orange juice and a tablespoon more of lemon juice with a little extra orange zest. It wasn't that hard to make, I have just always hated grating for zest. Oh what am I saying, I hate grating in general. I think vanilla ice cream would have tasted amazing with this, but I didn't feel like making a second trip to the grocery store.

Orange Pudding Cake

2 large navel oranges

1/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 large eggs - separated

1 cup whole milk

1/2 stick unsalted butter - melted and cooled

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Method

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Butter 2 quart shallow baking pan.
• Finely grate 3 tablespoons orange zest from the oranges.
• Squeeze 1/2 cup juice from oranges over strainer to separate juice from pulp.
• Whisk together flour, sugar, and salt in a large bowl.
• Whisk together yolks, milk, butter, zest, orange juice, and lemon juice in small bowl and add to flour mixture, whisking until just combined.
• Beat egg whites in another large bowl with an electric mixer until they hold soft peaks.
• Stir about 1/4 of egg whites into batter to lighten.
• Fold in remaining egg whites gently but thoroughly.
• Pour into buttered baking dish, and place in larger pan filled with water for a hot water bath.
• Bake until puffed and golden, about 45-55 minutes.
• Serve warm or at room temperature.

Well I'm Bored

I'm bored, I'm sick, and I'm supposed to be sleeping instead of being on the internet. So being that I've exhausted my usual haunts on the Internet (Facebook and Hotmail, they don't take that long to exhaust) I've decided to create a blog. And no, it's not really the Chronicles of Squatch, although I'm sure Squatch will be frequently making appearances here, but I really couldn't think of a name, I'm just so damned original. But now that we're making another cross continental move, with plans on hopefully getting married in a year, and a trip to Alaska in August, I figured that there is enough stuff going on in my life to randomly blab about it.

So first things first, The Move. Capital M. We're talking close to 3000 miles here, or 2950.17 miles to be exact. Over 45 hours driving in the car, in a 4 day period. Hell on earth, at least going through the Midwest will be, if I recall correctly the Midwest wasn't all that fun to drive through last night, I highly doubt that much has changed. I also recall a particular trollish McDonald's in Wisconsin that did not take credit cards or debit cards, they didn't even take their own damn gift cards which I had. I hope we don't wind up at that same McDonald's again. Good thing we're taking a different route huh? From New Jersey, to Illinois, to Nebraska, to Utah, and FINALLY to our new home in Vancouver, WA. I'm becoming more OCD with age, after cleaning the house and doing laundry yesterday I spent several hours mapping out different courses, digging up the addresses and phone numbers we needed, finding motels in Salt Lake City, all for the nice beautiful itinerary I completed in the end. I'm becoming more like my dad the older I get. So lets see:

1. Find a place to live. Check


2. Pinpoint a time to move. Check


3. Map out our course. Check


4. Find a pet friendly motel to stay in. Check


5. Create an itinerary. Check.


6. Find a job. Big empty box with NO Check.

So that shall be my next task. Finding a job. Ugh. I have one set up to go and be sent, but I've been too lazy to scan it in and mail it, I need to do that soon. I even have all my references lined up. So lets keep our fingers crossed I get one of these positions I'm applying for. Oh wait, that's right, I have to actually send in my application first.

The move shall be chronicled in every state. The countdown has begun, T-52 days!