Two momentous events

Two things happened today of import.

First, I started cooking again after several weeks hiatus. I'm not sure why I haven't been cooking, other then the fact that it was too hot, and with traveling and the fair I wasn't home much, and I have these nasty moths in my pantry (I can't believe I'm really sharing this part) that I need to vacuum or more to their doom, and because I've been emotionally overwhelmed by the escrow decisionmaking process.

I'm not sure how I got away with it. Usually after a few nights my husband starts making comments about how we have a kitchen and the stove works and everything and maybe he'd even help if I'd just set foot in there. But he didn't say anything. If you opened my refrigerator lately you'd have seen the ebb and flow of those little white styrofoam take home containers. And a couple of cardboard ones with the little handles that are specific to chinese food places.

But today I cooked. I tried to talk myself into going out to eat but I just couldn't work up any enthusiasm. I was sick of eating any kind of food I could find offered in our mountain hamlet. And the refrigerator was full of lots of things - milk, jars of pickled onions and jam and ranch dressing, moldy mounds of what I assume used to be vegetables or possibly fruits, and bowls and containers shoved to the back of the shelves that I certainly was not going to try to look into on an empty stomach. So instead I took a two hour nap. When I woke up in the late afternoon, no one had fed my slumbering body anything, and I was still without any nourishment all day. Unless you count a Starbucks Iced Caramel Coffee which sometimes I count, since it has 300 calories and makes a fine breakfast, but I wasn't in the mood to count it as anything but caffeine today.

Here's how it happened. First I convinced myself to simply boil some water, the idea being I'd dump some frozen tortellini in it and call it dinner. Once I'd managed that task, I found myself saying what-the-hell, and dug out the only two edible vegetables left in in the veggie bins, some mushrooms and a half an onion. I sauteed those and went back in search of any more survivors, found some peas I'd picked from the garden. Eventually I added some frozen shrimp and half a jar of marinara sauce and spooned the whole thing over the tortellini and topped it with a dusting of parmesan cheese.

Now, THAT wasn't so hard, was it!?

The second exciting thing that happened today is we closed escrow on our property in Oregon. Actually, it was the first exciting thing to happen, chronologically. Dinner was second. Also, I don't think we've technically closed escrow until the money and original papers make it back to the Title company some time tomorrow afternoon or Friday morning. But as far as what needs to be done on our side, we've done it. Let's just all pretend that it happened today, magically and instantaneously, because I'm sooooo ready to let go of the whole thing and move on to things like moth extermination.

Most difficult of all, at least for me - Jeff was calm as a cucumber, this is because I worry BEFORE a decision and he saves his worrying for AFTER - was deciding to go through with it, especially since I felt really pissy about the way the seller insisted on keeping his family farm fingers in the pot and adding a deed restriction to the deal. A REDUNDANT deed restriction I might add, that doesn't say anything that the zoning ordinances don't already say, which is that we are required to build a stick built home only. But it just rubbed me the wrong way that he had to have that last little say and forever more HIS rule will be on OUR deed. After spending another eight or ten hours wandering the country by way of the internet last night and this morning, trying to find any other options, I realized I would have to be an adult about it and sign on the dotted line because I couldn't find any other properties I liked closer then Minnesota, which is a wee bit farther away from my Pacific Coast kids then I'm comfortable with. The line wasn't truly dotted it turns out, and I did pause with my hand above it, frozen, cussing and fudgeting for several minutes, but eventually sign it I did, several times, and I initialed it a dozen times more.

Jeff also signed it and it's a done deal. We've faxed the papers, mailed the originals overnight (well, 2-day - it turns out we don't have overnight service in the Podunk of Susanville), and wired the monies. Barring an impossibly strange turn of events, knock on wood, we now own a tiny piece of Oregon. I feel better already. A bit panicked about the new loan, but satisfied and certain of my decision. One of the advantages of getting most of my worrying done prior to the decision, it's now a thing of the past. It probably has something to do with me managing to cook dinner tonight. Well, duh, I was feeling suddenly poor and hungry at the same time.

I didn't take a picture of the dinner I made, but I'm gonna try to figure out how to add a photo of property below.