Starting Tuesday we’ve had a lot of rain - well over 2.5 inches - due to a nor’easter that was blowing through. Thankfully, the rain has pretty much stopped this morning, and the system has moved north. Here are some pics from Wednesday.

A view of the front yard from the house. In fact, the leaves hide a lot of standing water - some sections were several inches deep, which you would not know till you stepped into it.

A view of the driveway from the house.

This is normally a dry creek, and during most rainstorms water trickles under the leaves. We need a good deal of rain to see this level of waterflow on the surface.

I was unemployed for four months after we moved to North Carolina, giving me plenty of time to not only get a load of scrapbooking done, but also attempt a lot of new recipes. There would always be a warm meal cooking when Eric got home from work. One of my favorite recipes from this time was an apple cider brined turkey. I first tried it with a small whole chicken, and the results were so good, even though it’s time consuming, I’ve made it several times.

For Thanksgiving this year, we purchased an all-natural fresh turkey breast from Weaver Street Market that should be made extra delicious by the brining process. I have two options…

Cooking Light version
1 (12-pound) fresh or frozen turkey, thawed
Brine:
8 cups apple cider
2/3 cup kosher salt
2/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon black peppercorns, coarsely crushed
1 tablespoon whole allspice, coarsely crushed
8 (1/8-inch-thick) slices peeled fresh ginger
6 whole cloves
2 bay leaves
6 cups ice

To prepare brine, combine first 8 ingredients in a large saucepan; bring to a boil. Cook 5 minutes or until sugar and salt dissolve. Cool completely.

Remove giblets and neck from turkey; rinse turkey with cold water; pat dry. Trim excess fat. Place a turkey-sized oven bag inside a second bag to form a double thickness. Place bags in a large stockpot. Place turkey inside inner bag. Add cider mixture and ice. Secure bags with several twist ties. Refrigerate for 12 to 24 hours, turning occasionally.

OR I could go with a different recipe from a TV personality I trust (and, ok, have a tiny crush on)…

Alton Brown version
1 (14 to 16 pound) frozen young turkey
Brine:
1 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 gallon vegetable stock
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
1/2 tablespoon allspice berries
1/2 tablespoon candied ginger
1 gallon iced water

Combine all brine ingredients, except ice water, in a stockpot, and bring to a boil. Stir to dissolve solids, then remove from heat, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.

Early on the day of cooking, (or late the night before) combine the brine and ice water in a clean 5-gallon bucket. Place thawed turkey breast side down in brine, cover, and refrigerate or set in cool area (like a basement) for 6 hours. Turn turkey over once, half way through brining.

I’m still deciding…

We are lucky enough to be members of one of only three museums in the country that will be hosting this massive international exhibit. And while Monet isn’t my favorite painter of all time, I certainly will not turn down an opportunity to see over 50 of his works in one place, so we attended the members-only viewing last night.

The first thing that struck me was how large the canvases were for all the plein air paintings he completed. I have this mental image of a bearded old man lugging giant canvases and paint down cliffs and through fields. It’s no wonder the largest of the paintings were done in the comfort of his own garden at the end of his life!

Here are two of my favorites from the show, Water Lilies (1914) and Rock Arch West of Etretat (1883):

And in some personal art news, one of my paintings (Center of Attention) was accepted to the juried exhibition I entered last month!

To say I am thrilled would be a gross understatement. :)

Boy am I freckly!

Eric ordered this necklace from a lady in Singapore several weeks ago and after the first version was lost in the mail, this one arrived today! I love it!

Riesling is all ready for Christmas, as her garland necklace testifies:

High on her Christmas list this year is a stuffed squirrel (well, her true wish is a real squirrel, but it’d be rather messy, and quite frankly, I don’t think she would take care of it).

*update - it seems “Santa” is processing Riesling’s request…

Hooray for football!

You may have noticed that a new category popped up in our sidebar several weeks ago. I have been a football fan for as long as I can remember which includes fond memories of watching the Bears win the Superbowl in 1985.

Does that date me?

I’ve lived in several different places over the years and added a few more teams to root for along the way, but the Bears will always be my favorite professional team.

When it comes to college football, I grew up in the heart of Big Ten country. Most of my family (dad, sister, brother) went to the University of Illinois, but I just enjoy watching those teams play in general. After college (my school was too small for football), Eric and I moved to Georgia, where my love affair with SEC football began. This is by far the best conference in college football (despite the #1 vs. #2 game today), and although Georgia has had a lackluster year, I see a lot of potential in Matt Stafford.

Now that we live in NC, I have an entirely new conference to get used to, the ACC. Not much to say here beyond the fact that the two closest teams are infinitely better at basketball. :)

This brings us to the big game today. I’m thrilled the Big Ten has two undefeated teams this year, but I don’t think the loser of this game should be given another chance in the national title game. The BCS should give another team a shot at beating number one.

Off to watch Chris, Lee, and Kirk!

Tuesday morning
When we bought our house, it was clear that all the appliances were probably original. We replaced the stove last year because it was small and ugly but we’ve already decided that the washer/dryer are staying until they absolutely quit working (so far, so good).

Our fridge, however, has been a bit wonky from the start. The ice maker stopped working regularly about six months into our home ownership, then the kitchen experienced a minor flood because the internal water line broke back in August (while we were out of town, of course). I looked for the manual to get the specs on our current fridge and saw a notation from the previous owners for $155.77.

Wait a minute, when did they buy this fridge?!?

Sears was having a special sale on Sunday night, which included an extra 10% off all appliances as well as a free delivery rebate. In all the promotion saved us about $150.

Tuesday evening
I had this whole post written about how great our new fridge looked compared to the old one, blah blah blah, and then… the fridge was never delivered.

I got home from work about an hour after the delivery window ended (Eric was home waiting for the people), and I called to see what was up. Instead of my lovely (and expensive) new fridge, I got lousy customer service telling me my delivery had been cancelled. The rep answered the phone and proceeded to talk to her co-worker for several moments before even addressing me and she sounded like she was drunk.

The worst part though, is that it didn’t sound like anyone ever intended on telling us about this little development, like we wouldn’t notice that our refrigerator never showed up. Apparently there was a manufacturers delay. The delivery has been moved to Friday, and I am writing an e-mail to their customer service department tomorrow.

Thursday evening
It was after dinner and I still hadn’t heard from the automated system about a delivery time on Friday, so I called to get my time window. Thankfully, the assigned time would work fine for us and because I was transferred to a real person, I calmly inquired about their policy for contacting people when there have been warehouse delivery delays.

Honestly, I was still pretty steamed about the whole experience, which was further exacerbated by the canned, automated response I got back from my e-mail complaint earlier in the day. This woman was very nice, however, and after apologizing for the non-communication, she gave us an extra year of warranty on our new refrigerator. Sweet! Now, if I actually get my fridge tomorrow, all will be well.

Friday evening
Hooray! Photos!

Aaaaand once we switch the hinges, everything will be perfect! Grrr!

Supposedly, someone will be dropping by on Sunday to fix the wrong-side-hinge mistake, but I’m tempted to just take care of it myself at this point.

We opened up this bottle of white wine tonight—a tasty blend of nine varietals. We particularly liked the message on the cork. Sounds like a good recipe for a relaxing evening.

It rained a ton last night and when I left for work my car looked like this:

We just had our gutters cleaned last Friday and they are full again, the driveway and grass boundaries are indiscernible, but it was a humid 68 degrees for pup’s morning walk and Thanksgiving is next week.

(happy sigh.)

Ever since I cut all my hair off a few weeks after I turned 21, it’s been one short hairstyle after another. Since then, I’ve never had it longer than it was for our wedding and even then I only made it as far as a longish bob. Eric teases me when I say I’m going to grow it out again, because I always get fed up and chop it off.

I always thought having short hair meant fewer styling options, but remember this is coming from someone who had plain un-layered long hair (bor-ing!) for most of her teens. I find that I am much more open to experimenting and change now because, what the heck, it’ll grow out!

I love my current hairdresser (my third try in NC)—who is currently four months pregnant and what the heck am I going to do when she goes on maternity leave, ack!—and I think I’ve finally found a style that really works for me. The trick is going to be having it grow out gracefully as we will be on vacation for a few weeks in December. I’ll do my best not to look homeless by the time we return.

And just for fun (and to freak Eric out*), here’s a shot of me in college with long hair.

*Eric will provide the asterisk commentary in the comments section. :)