Day 27: Homebrewing

As I mentioned in my Hobbies post, Bryann and I have recently taken up brewing our own beer.  Thanks to Annie and Aaron, their gear, and their know-how, we made a successful batch of our very first brew - Apricot Cream Ale.  I wrote a bit about it in my October Month in Review, but we went to the Portland U-Brew & Pub in Sellwood to get grains, malt, yeast, and hops.  They have super reasonable prices and the guy that runs the store was really helpful - he gave us a basic recipe for Cream Ale and walked us around the shop, giving us explanations on what stuff was and how different types of malt affects the taste of the beer.  We added Apricot puree to the cream ale to make it our own.

We started another beer on Sunday - "Hoppy Holidays IPA".  We went back to the U-Brew store, picked up supplies, told the guy what we were thinking of doing, and he gave us a basic IPA recipe that we just tweaked with some different hops and added spices to the boil.  It's currently fermenting in a carboy on our kitchen counter, and will be ready in a few weeks.

As we've discovered with the Apricot Cream Ale, the beer gets better with age.  It's been a few weeks since we started drinking the Cream Ale, and it's noticeably better and more flavorful since it's been aging in the keg.

I'm looking forward to tasting the new brew!  We won't know if it's any good until it's ready, so here's hoping!!

"Hoppy Holidays IPA" fermenting on our kitchen counter

Selection of malts

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Day 26: The Handy-Men in My Life

I wrote about replacing the sinks in our house a few days ago.  Thank goodness for my Dad and for Bryann knowing how to do all of that stuff.  I like to think I'm pretty handy and can figure my way around stuff, but I can't do things that require a lot of strength like pry out sinks from counter tops or lift cast-iron sinks into holes in counter tops.

We also had a gigantic clog in our drain after brewing a batch of beer and Bryann putting the steeped grains down the garbage disposal.  Gross, icky stuff was coming up from our master bathtub and made me gag a little bit when I saw it.  Thank goodness for Bryann who can stomach gross stuff. He snaked the drains, and got the clogs out.  I'm thankful he knows how to do all of that stuff so I don't have to worry about it.  It was nice not to stress about what to do when I realized the pipes were clogged.  I could relax, knowing that Bryann knew how to take care of it.

Day 25: Hobbies and New Hobbies

I need to reiterate how much I love Bryann and how thankful I am for his adventurous spirit.  He's always up trying new things, and he thinks life is too boring if you don't have hobbies to keep you interesting.  His love of trying out new things, developing hobbies and interests motivates me to try new things and develop new hobbies.  He's the reason I joined a choir again, and I'm so thankful for him!  I'm thankful we have things we're interested in and activities we pursue besides watching TV.  Bryann has several board game groups, and plays softball and flag football.  I'm in choir, go to Zumba classes (when I'm motivated enough) and have a book club with friends, sporadic blogging, and sometimes I'll even play board games too!  We both love camping, hiking, backpacking, skiing, theater & musicals, wine tasting, and our new hobby is brewing our own beer!  I'm thankful for this interesting and diverse life I live.

Day 24: ReBuilding Center

Our kitchen and bathroom sinks are pretty used and abused and we've been thinking about replacing them.  We went to Home Depot to look at sinks and faucets - which are fairly expensive, and with our current budget, unaffordable.  So we looked into buying a few used sinks.  Lucky for us there are several recycled goods stores in the Portland area.  There are Tool Libraries where you can borrow practically any household toll you can think of.  There's a ReUse Habitat for Humanity store that was closed this weekend, so we went to the ReBuilding Center.  We found a Kohler cast iron white kitchen sink for $25 that normally retails for $400, and an American Standard faucet for $10, that retails for over $100!  We also found two Kohler cast-iron sinks for both bathrooms, each $10, normally around $100.  In short, we saved a bunch of money.  They required a little elbow grease to get them looking clean and shiny, and some know-how to get them installed, but without places like the ReBuild Center, we wouldn't have been able to do these projects.

Here are some photos from installation day today:

Old, scratched up, shallow stainless steel sink

Ripped up and prepped

New(ish) Kohler cast iron sink with single handle faucet and soap dispenser!

Bathroom sink ripped out and prepped

Men working on man things like installing sinks!

Day 23: Grandma

My Grandma is a fun ol' gal.  She wasn't able to be at our Thanksgiving dinner because she's in a lot of pain right now (related to her back) and is currently resting and seeing a lot of doctors and trying to get the pain under control.  But if she HAD been with us, she'd have been hogging the ice cream and dibs-ing the first serving of pie, claiming that she's too old to wait around for others.

She's got a fascinating history, and if you ask her, she'll tell you all kinds of pre-war and WWII stories, or civil rights, medicine, technology, or spiritual stories.  If you get her talking long enough about spiritual stuff, you'll hear some amazing stuff about intuition and the special properties of our beach house.  If you don't quite believe in the same stuff, you'll probably think she's crazy, but we don't care.  I'm thankful I've always lived near her and could see her often throughout the year, and I get something new every time I visit with her.

Day 22: Thanksgiving

The reason I'm focusing on being thankful.  The reason we registered for wedding china.  :-P The reason we get together as a family every year and gorge ourselves on a giant meal.  I love this holiday, and I am thankful for being given the opportunity to focus on the things I'm thankful for.  It's an extremely helpful exercise for me, and the refocusing has helped tremendously already.

Here are a few photos from the day:

All of us gathered around the table for our T-day Feast

Dad and Poppy in there respective napping positions...  :-P

Thank you mom, dad, Adam, David, and Audy for gathering with us and warming our home with your love.  Reezy and Grandma - we missed you, we love you, and we're glad you had each other for a lovely Thanksgiving at the Mannor!  

Day 21: My Parents

My parents got in tonight and I'm already having fun visiting with them!  They brought delicious wines with them (currently drinking a Castle Rock 2009 Columbia Valley Syrah) and I made Red Curry Chicken over Jasmine Brown Rice for dinner.  It's always nice to play hostess and have them over.  I'm glad I have a good relationship with my parents, and that I actually enjoy spending time with them!