our leaky ceiling and lemon blueberry pie!

We had our first (of many) home headaches on August 21. The bath caused a leak in the living room ceiling! We had just returned from a couples massage, and took an epsom salts bath to rid the toxins from our bodies. We were so relaxed. Then, we go downstairs to start dinner and Nick finds the leak in the ceiling...Needless to say, Nick was not quite relaxed anymore. Nick poked a hole in the ceiling to let the water drain. The leak also left other small water spots in very random places on the ceiling.

Yesterday, Nick decided to get to the bottom of this leak. The culprit: the overflow fixture on the bathtub was not secured to the bath, which meant the pipe on the backside of the tub wasn't secured, so the water didn't go down the drain. The water went in between the floor and the ceiling. Nick tightened the fixture and gave it another run. No leaking! PTL b/c if it did leak, we would be cutting a hole in the wall behind the bathtub to fix the problem - but (cross our fingers) we don't have to do that now!!! YAY! Thankfully, we have some extra kilz and ceiling paint from when we overhauled the downstairs. Nick put kilz on the ceiling first to seal the water spots. The kilz had to dry over night which brings us to today! The next step is to spackle the holes in the ceiling, let that dry, and then paint over it all with the ceiling paint! And in the process, we may get a new ceiling fan!! Hopefully, that will be all fixed!!

Also, my parents came over for dinner last night and we made Port Hope stromboli and Nick's fav - lemon blueberry pie with Meringue!!! (and the Meringue actually worked this time!! woooohooo!) (the trick with Meringue, ladies, is to put a glass bowl and beaters from the mixer in the freezer - take out once they are frosty and you are ready to make your meringue!)

Here is the recipe for Lemon Blueberry Pie

1 can of sweeten condensed milk
1 cup of blueberries
1/3 cup of lemon juice
1 deep dish pie crust (frozen)
3 egg whites (must be regular eggs, not the egg whites from the carton!)
1/8 tsp of salt
6 T. of sugar

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Take out frozen deep dish pie crust - let thaw for 10 mins, then prick the crust with a fork. Bake until golden brown, about 10 mins (these are basically the instructions from the pie) Reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees.

Mix sweeten condensed milk and lemon juice. Fold in the blueberries. Once the baked pie shell has cooled, pour in mixture. Add meringue and bake until meringue is golden brown.

to make meringue - place three egg whites in cold bowl. add 1/8 tsp of salt. mix until glossy peaks form. While beating, add the sugar, one tablespoon at a time and mixing in between each tablespoon. The meringue should be fluffy, glossy and form peaks.