Chickens and bathrooms

Today I tried something that has scared me for years (both because it's kinda gross and looks hard)... cutting up a whole chicken!  On a random sidenote, I kinda like the smell of raw chicken.  It makes me want to sink my teeth into a steak (yeah I don't understand me, either).

This is my second chicken (out of three).  Normally, I would throw this little guy into our crockpot with some seasonings and in the evening have a fall-off-the-bone roasted chicken.  This time, I'm performing surgery.

I've already found I like starting with the legs, the bigger bones are easier to find versus the wings.  The video I watched advised breaking the legs and cutting the skin, then cutting between the two bones (kind of like a ball and cup) to separate the legs.  One of the worst parts about doing this is the sound of bones breaking and shifting around inside the flesh (seriously).  In this photo I've broken both legs and cut through the skin so all I have to do is find where the ball joints meet and cut through that (I love these knives)

 No legs!  The process is essentially repeated for the wings (find the ball joint, which I totally misjudged the first time and ended up with a super short wing).  I'm planning to use the thighs and drumsticks for fried chicken and the chicken breasts for sweet and sour chicken, but have no plans for the wings... maybe we could make some impromptu buffalo wings?

 Now we're left with just the chicken carcass.

I flipped the bird over (breast side down) and broke through a ribcage with the scissors, then split the breasts apart and deboned them.  Nice and easy (mostly).  This photo looks like something out of Resident Evil.

 Now this looks more like chicken I'm used to seeing!  I'm thrilled - I've never been brave enough to try deboning a chicken (always afraid I'd mess it up or chop off my hand somehow), but it's actually not too terrible and by the third one I was slicing pretty quick.

I have realized that while I always thought I'd have an edge if a zombie apocalypse ever occurred (because I spent so much of my youth playing zombie videogames); this dismembered chicken has made me realize that all I would do if confronted with a zombie would be to run for the hills screaming like a small child.


Sooo... since I don't have access to the internet on Monday but I don't want to miss a day writing, I'm going to just start double posting on Tuesday (writing on normal like Monday then uploading it the next day).

Jump for the post from Monday, 7/23/12

I primed our bathroom (remember that?) I'd originally planned to just paint without priming (we bought Sherwin Williams which is a pretty good brand from what I can tell, plus the type we bought has primer built into the paint itself), but at the last moment decided since it's a bathroom and will see high moisture content (whenever we get around to fixing our shower...) maybe I should prime... just in case.  I'm glad I did, since I'd apparently forgotten how light the color we'd selected was (very light green, which will be very pretty whenever we get around to actually using it).

Here's the before shot, where we just cleaned the wall (see, no more mildew!)  Our ultimate goal is to put in a new bathtub (that one is on its last legs); replace the shower diverter (which is totally 100% broken), replace the showerhead with the one we have in our master bathroom, put in a new toilet, possibly replace that light (jury's still out on that), tile the shower and the splash guard on the counter and either put in a pedestal sink or a new vanity.  And some new flooring.  You know, nothing too big. :)

The bathroom primed.  This took me the better part of Friday afternoon, which was crazy because I wasn't expecting it to take that long at all (though I was just using a brush).