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We got our house appraisal this week and scheduled the closing for our refinancing for the end of next week. The good news is that we’ve locked in at a low interest rate for our new mortgage (less than 4.7%). The bad news is that our house was appraised at about 15% below what it was appraised at when we redid our kitchen about seven or eight years ago. Since we can only refinance to 80% of the value of the house, we will have enough for the remodel but the budget for furnishings will have to come from elsewhere. We thought briefly about getting a home equity loan (a second mortgage) but the interest rates were a bit higher and we didn’t like the thought of balloon payments and taking on additional debt. We’re not in a rush to fully occupy the space so we don’t need to furnish everything all at once. Fortunately we have enough set aside to handle quite a bit of it though. I guess the upside too is that our taxes should go down since our tax appraisal also dropped (about 10%).
Karen’s been working really hard cleaning out the basement and now that my cough is almost gone and my chest and ribs don’t bother me as much, I can finally help out. I did a major clean up of my stuff in the basement last Spring so hopefully it won’t take me too long to finish up. We hope to have the basement remodel start in a couple of weeks. We;ll be getting a storage Pod next week and should have the basement cleared out by next weekend. With luck the remodeler will get the building permit next week and demolition can begin the following week.
Today is the first day of the New Year, year 4076 in the Chinese calendar. It is the Year of the Ox (niu). The Ox is the sign of prosperity through fortitude and hard work.
People born in the Year of the Ox are patient, speak little, and inspire confidence in others. They tend, however, to be eccentric, and bigoted, and they anger easily. They have fierce tempers and although they speak little, when they do they are quite eloquent. Ox people are mentally and physically alert. Generally easy-going, they can be remarkably stubborn, and they hate to fail or be opposed. They are most compatible with Snake, Rooster, and Rat people.
In celebration of the New year, here’s a recipe for oxtail soup from The New Doubleday Cookbook by Jean Anderson and Elaine Hanna (Doubleday):
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 3 hours, 30 minutes
Ingredients:
2 pounds oxtail, cut in 1 to 1-1/2-inch chunks and trimmed of excess fat
1/2 cup unsifted flour plus 2 tablespoons
2 Tablespoons beef drippings or cooking oil
2 medium-size yellow onions, peeled and minced
2 quarts water, or 6 cups water and 1 pint beef broth or bouillon
2 Tablespoons tomato paste
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon thyme
3 cloves
2 sprigs parsley
2 medium-size carrots, peeled and diced
1 stalk celery, diced
1/3 cup dry sherry or port wine (optional)
Preparation:
Dredge oxtails in 1/2 cup flour, then brown in drippings in a large, heavy kettle over high heat; drain on paper toweling.
Turn heat to moderate and stir-fry onions 8 to 10 minutes until golden; sprinkle in remaining flour, mix well, and brown lightly.
Slowly add water, stir in tomato paste, salt, and pepper, also bay leaf tied in cheesecloth with thyme, cloves, and parsley. Return oxtail to kettle, cover, and simmer 3 hours until meat is fork tender; cool and skim off fat; remove cheesecloth bag.
Separate meat from bones, cut in bite-size pieces, and return to kettle along with carrots and celery. Cover and simmer 10 to 15 minutes until carrots are tender. If you like, mix in sherry or port wine.
Serve as is or strain kettle liquid, serve as a first course, and follow with oxtail and vegetables.
Yield: 6 servings
This is similar to the oxtail soup that my dad would make. It is a family favorite. Whenever I came home from college, my dad always had a pot of soup cooking on the stove. It was a soup that he learned to love living in Shanghai, which had a large Russian population in the 30s. He added cabbage to it, didn’t use cloves and added the carrots and celery at the same time as the onions. It is a non-beet borscht. We typically eat it over rice or noodles. It’s great for cold winter days.
Last night the Chinese American Association of Minnesota (CAAM) had a Chinese New year celebration at O’Shaughnessy Auditorium. A number of different acts performed ranging from dancers to singers to acrobats. Senator Amy Klobuchar made some introductory remarks. One of the performances was by the preschool/daycare center that Hua Mei attends. We learned that they were to be a part of this a few weeks ago. They have been practicing for a couple of weeks and had rehearsals Friday evening and yesterday afternoon. It was pretty much chaos but for the performance it did come together and they were pretty cute. Here are some photos of Hua Mei’s performance.
She did really well. We left at intermission and went out for a treat afterwards at Dairy Queen. It was a fun evening.
For the basement remodel we will be getting an HDTV (or as Karen has repeatedly told me, “If you want a widescreen TV, we have to remodel our basement first”). Given the size of the room that we’ll have for the TV (I just can’t say “home theater”), we’ll probably get a 40″ or 42″ TV. I’ve been looking at both LCD and plasma TVs. I’ve been favoring the LCD models because they use less energy, are brighter, don’t have burn in, and have longer lifetimes. However, after looking at a few different models and doing some research, I am now leaning toward getting a plasma TV.
I’ve noticed that the picture on a plasma screen is much sharper than the 60 hz LCD. The 120 hz LCD is quite nice but almost twice the price of the plasma. Since I like to watch sports, the 60 hz LCD screens are known to blur fast action while plasma TVs do not have this problem (nor do the 120 hz LCD screens). Plasma TVs also have better contrast and darker blacks. With regard to power consumption, recent plasma models have been designed to use less energy and you can purchase Energy Star models. During operation, the power consumption of a plasma TV depends on the scene that is being shown. If the scene is dark, less pixels are charged and so the power usage is less. An LCD always powers all of its pixels all of the time it is on. So, while the plasma TV power usage is rated at about 50% more than the LCD, this may be closer in actual use, depending on what is watched. With regard to lifetime, there are now plasma TVs that have half-lifetimes rated at 100,000 hours (substantially more than CRT TVs). I still have a few months to decide but for now, for the price and the quality of picture, a plasma TV looks like the way to go.
Recently I discovered a Taiwanese jazz singer/songwriter named Joanna Wang. She’s been touted as the Chinese Norah Jones. She was born in Taiwan but raised in Los Angeles and is the daughter of a famous Taiwanese music producer. Last Fall she released her debut album “Start from Here.” The release had an full length CD all sung in English and an EP with songs in Chinese. It’s a strong album. She has recently released her second album. Check out a couple of MVs of songs from her first album here and here.
Just met with Todd from the remodeler and we signed the contract. He also brought over the updated plans. They now need to get the building permit and work could begin in the next week or so. We still need to clean everything out of the basement. It will be a busy weekend. We’ll get one of those Pod storage containers this week and probably need a tub too to throw some things away.
I also faxed some paperwork for the refinancing so that should be going forward this week also. We’ll need to meet with the appraiser next. We should have the financing taken care of within the next 30 days or so.
I visited Ikea today to take a look at the furniture that I’ve been scoping out. Things are looking pretty good. They have doors available for the bookcases and I think we’ll get some to use the parts of the bookcases to store toys and other things. Two doors will enclose the bottom half of the bookcase.
The desk should work just fine but probably is a little small to fit a small file cabinet underneath. Again, I’ll probably get some doors for the bookcase and use the bottom half of the bookcase as a small storage cabinet.
As we continue the paperwork for the refinancing, we have been planning out the design of the remodeled space. Two areas that I have been looking at are the office area and the TV area. It looks like we’ll be outfitting the area with items from Ikea. We like the design and the price fits within the budget we have set for ourselves. In the alcove where my office will be, there is room for a desk table, a bookshelf and a file cabinet (which we already have). The desk will have a corner table top.
Beside it will be a bookshelf and we’ll put an extension on top of it so that it will reach the full height of the wall.
I have a cart to fit under the desk for a scanner and accessories but I will also get a small file cabinet too. (Looks like there won’t be enough room under the desk for the small file cabinet,)
We’ll be getting another bookshelf to serve as a partition between the office area and the stairs leading into the basement.
For the TV area, we plan on purchasing an HDTV and so we’ll need a TV bench for that.
For storage, we’ll be getting a book case that we’ll fit with drawers to hold our dvds. This will stand next to the TV cart in the 6′ wide alcove kitty corner across from the office area.
Above the TV cart, we’ll be installing shelving onto the wall.
For additional storage, we’ll be placing bookshelves along the entire back wall of the TV area.
We’ll be moving the sofa and love seat currently in our living room down into the TV area. Karen found the original sconces from our living room (when the house was built in the 30s) and we are having them rewired. We’ll place them on the wall in the TV area and Karen has found a ceiling light that we’ll get for the area.
That should pretty much take care of the furniture. As the remodel nears completion we’ll return to these plans and see if it still makes sense. Then it will be fun time with allen wrenches and constructing all the furniture. I can now start the fun task of figuring out which TV and sound system to get.
I got a call midday at work today from Karen. Xia Mei had taken her first steps! She stood up and took four steps in her squeaky shoes. This afternoon when I got home, Xia Mei has been standing up a lot now and trying to take steps. It won’t be long before she is running around the house, chasing Hua Mei. Oh, my.
Last week I called our mortgage company to find out about refinancing and current interest rate levels. After getting back some estimates, we decided today to go ahead with the refinancing of our house and proceed with the basement remodel that we were considering last Fall. We are being sent the paperwork for the refinancing and hopefully will get the process going very soon. Karen met with our remodeler this afternoon to go over concepts for the basement. Once we get the financing secured, then work will begin. It is clear that it won’t be long before we will really need the extra space. On the other hand, it’ll also mean more space for the kids to continue their entropy research.
We’ve been pleasantly surprised how little sibling rivalry there has been between Hua Mei and Xia Mei. The three year difference in age seems to be a perfect gap. However, one way in which a sibling rivalry has manifested is in their eating habits. This has been a really good thing.
The two girls eat like birds, but in different ways. Hua Mei eats like a bird in that she does not eat very much. It actually can be an ordeal to get her to eat. She’ll put food in her mouth and then she’ll just sit there with it. We have to watch her and tell her to chew and swallow her food. It can take over an hour to get her to eat a meal. Xia Mei on the other hand will eat almost anything. She has a great appetite. She eats like a bird the way baby birds in the nest take food from their mothers.
She loves rice, noodles, pumpkin, hummus, guacamole, almost anything we put in front of her. Karen likes to say that in the month that we’ve had Xia Mei, she’s eaten more vegetables than Hua Mei has eaten in her entire life. She can be positively voracious and it is fun feeding her. In fact, Hua Mei enjoys feeding Xia Mei. The great benefit of all this is that now Hua Mei is eating better. She follows Xia Mei’s example and eats all of her dinner. In fact she often finishes her meal before the rest of us. It has been a really surprising and happy byproduct of their sibling rivalry.
