Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Ewww.... Who Would Eat Lentils???

I hate lentils. I mean, I REALLY hate lentils. And amazingly enough, somehow I found myself eating them yesterday.

Part of taking control of my home has been taking control of my kitchen. And I don't cook, so this was a challenge. I decided to have a friend give me some lessons. It ended up being only one lesson. But that lesson, surprisingly gave me enough confidence to not be afraid of my kitchen. A huge step....

Another friend of mine, has taken pity on us. Being that I was totally overwhelmed in our house, and totally stressed out by the fact that we had less than two weeks to move, she started inviting us over for meals. Many meals. It was at her house that I started eating weird things.

I've always been one to try everything. But I wasn't one to cook everything.  But after my cooking lesson, I learned a valuable lesson. Kids learn to eat and to enjoy the foods that you put in front of them. I definitely noticed this to be true with my six year old daughter who now likes onions, mushrooms and broccoli. So if it works with kids, why not try with adults as well.

So I made a lentil salad yesterday. And while I wasn't so daring to put all the cumin in it that the recipe called for, and instead I added a drop of orange juice and some sugar, it was actually good.

So while lentils may never be my favorite thing, I've learned that with the right flavors, ANYTHING can be yummy.

And I can't wait to try something new.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Surveying the Damage

I'd been successfully "Flying" (read: picking up after my kids and husband) for about 6 weeks when I got the phone call that completely disrupted my life. My landlord had decided that since we couldn't agree over the terms of the lease renewal, he wanted to evict us. The catch? He wanted us out in 24 hours.

Well being more rational than him, we decided to see a lawyer. We knew that not having a renewed lease we could be in deep trouble, and who knew, maybe he did have the right to kick us out that quickly. Thankfully, he couldn't kick us out without a court order and that could take months. However, with this guy's violent history with us, we didn't want to take any chances and wanted to get out ASAP. So we decided that getting out by December 31st (i.e. the last day we had already paid for) would be a good move for us.

Our community truly was incredible -- they came through for us when we needed it the most and a house was available to us. Getting the key to that house on the hand, proved to be a bit trickier. We were told on Friday the 24th that the house was available for us and that we'd get the keys on Sunday. Sunday came and went. No keys. Monday, and Tuesday passed with no keys. I started getting nervous. On Wednesday, I decided to start making a big fuss over the fact that we were expected to move but how can we do that without keys???? A fuss was made. And I burst into tears in the office where we had to sign our new lease. Then I found out what the holdup was.

Apparently what goes around, comes around. And not always in the best way... The company we were to rent the new house from had heard little snippets of what happened with our previous landlord. The story they were told was "They've been living in their house for six months with no contract." WHAT????? That is SOOOO not how it happened!!! So now they were afraid to lease to us as part of their conditions were that we had to be out in six months! They were afraid that if they let us move in, that we would never move out!!!!

My week really could not get any worse... I was depressed. I felt rejected, I stopped eating, I stopped answering the phone... Thank G-d for my husband. He really came through for us. He spoke to the bearer of the keys and even though he was already gone for the day, and would be out the following day, my hubby begged and said he would go anywhere at anytime to get this key. After many phone calls, the guy finally agreed to give us the key on Thursday morning at..... 4:30 AM.

Yes, you read that correctly.

But at least now we had the key. Because we hadn't known when exactly we were moving (and by the way, we didn't even know what house we were moving to until we got the key!) We couldn't get movers. So we rallied, and our friends and family came out in droves to help us move all our belongings over those two days.

Our friends and new neighbors prepared meals for us and generally helped us as we settled into our new home.

We've got a lot of unpacking to do. But I have a goal now. Knowing that we'll be moving again in six months time, I'll be able to focus on decluttering and the next time I move, instead of just throwing everything into boxes and dealing with the aftermath of a hurricane in our new home, I'll only be bringing the stuff I love.