Whew! Summer is here!

As most of you know, I work in the school system (not a teacher, yet, though). This means that I get summers off! It's very nice in the beginning, and gets gradually more lonely as my husband does not get summers off. To keep myself busy, I do projects. Usually nothing huge, but enough to keep my days short! For example, last summer, I recovered a chair that has been in my family for 4 generations! Yes, I am the 4th generation in my family to own this chair. It needed to be recovered though, or I was sure my husband was going to want to be rid of it. Instead of a southwestern print, it is now a chocolate brown which matches our décor nicely. Downside: the material collects dog hair like a magnet. Last summer, I also painted our bathroom, and refinished a couple of chairs for our kitchen.

This summer, I've started out with staining the grout in the guest bathroom. I will be doing our bathroom too, but the guest bathroom has a smaller amount of tile surrounding the shower, and I wanted to see how easy it was. Turns out, it's definitely a one day project.

An Official Snow Day!

What?! A snow day?! Unheard of! Although, I think our amount of snow warrants such a day. I have decided to use this day to catch up on this little blog. We finally finished our house, well, as far as what we had been working on. Floors are done, trim has been cut, painted, and installed, and things are put back together. It just gives me a big sense of accomplishment and relaxation now that it is DONE. I still need to pull out the living room paint color and touch up some spots, but that should be quick and easy, in fact, I should do that today! Now that everything is done, it is amazing how nice our house looks. Before, we had mismatched trim (style AND color-browns, whites, you name it) and dirty carpet in all rooms. Now, we have laminate flooring throughout the living room and bedrooms and completely matching trim everywhere but the kitchen. Hopefully that is next!

Over Easter weekend,

Growing food from sprouting food

So, I'm a Pinterest-aholic. I admit it (that is the first step, right?). I've seen several pins on there saying that new food can be grown from used or sprouting food. Yeah, I know, food is always grown from food, such is the never ending (hopefully) circle of life. Until the other day, I never really thought to do it though. That is, until Jason pointed out that our garlic was sprouting. Beautifully delicate green tendrils were emerging from the clove (ahh...there is the English teacher speaking, no?). I ventured out into the garage, with Jason's comment of, "don't get lost!" in the background. Holding two coffee mugs full of potting soil, I triumphantly returned. The sprouting cloves were then nestled into the awaiting soil, and a stream of water dribbled into the cups only to be slurped up by the soil. Plastic wrap graced the top of the cups which were then placed into the sunniest window of our home. And now we wait! Updates to come, naturally.
**Update 6/3/13** So, I have no idea what went wrong, but the garlic did not grow. I dumped out the small pots recently, and there was no sign of it! How odd...

Home Improvement...

Jason and I are what you would consider DIY'ers. If we think we can do something ourselves, we will get it done. We can thank both sets of parents for this! (Seriously, we are thankful!) Our latest round of DIY was tearing up our carpet (I hate carpet, even more so after ripping it up!) and replacing it with laminate flooring. This is where our tax money went:

Our bedroom after ripping up carpet

Our bedroom after the flooring was in

Living room after flooring was in. This one was awful after the carpet

came up. It looked like they had a wood-burning stove in one

corner, and a perfect 2'x2' square of cement remained. Not fun to scrape

up! Plus, all of the tack strips were rotting or rusting.

This is the spare room (also known as the "dog room") after it was done. This room

already had the carpet removed, since the dogs started ripping it up one day.

The "library" and guest room halfway through. To clear up confusion, we only

went horizontally to the other wall so that we could make sure everything was even.

We did not pound in each plank! This was also the only room where we were injured.

A couple of bruises and blood blisters later it was done!

The next project is to make all of our baseboards and door moldings match. Along with those,

we wanted the doors to match, and I decided to paint my crappy shelves all white. An off white, but still white.

Much better than fake wood black, yes? Before I painted these, this room always seemed dark

even with the light on. Now, it seems so much brighter. Crazy what 3 coats of primer does, huh?

 

 

On that note, I used Zinsser Primecoat2 primer, and had them tint it to Behr's "Swiss Coffee." When purchasing this, the salesperson tried to tell me I would not be able to clean it if I didn't also paint a top coat. Well guess what? Both a damp cloth and Pledge did just fine, no paint residue came off on the cloth. In other words, I am not paying more money for a top coat. I am letting this cure for a couple weeks before restocking these shelves. I can't even count how many times I have gotten books stuck to paint even after waiting a few days. Not okay, I love my books!

 

 

I now have 6 of 12 doors done, plus all 3 of my shelves painted. Thank God for Spring "Break" so I could get some home improvement taken care of. 

 

Oh blog, I haven't abandoned you!

Wow! It certainly has been a long time since I posted on here last! Sorry to all of you! To make it up, here is an awesome recipe just for you! Okay, I made them tonight for Jason when he gets home, but you can make some for yourself, they are pretty darn easy!

No Bake Peanut Butter Chocolate Cookies (who doesn't like these?)

This is a teensy recipe, and only makes 18 (ish) cookies. Feel free to double...or triple! Not so pretty, but I'm not Martha!




1 cup sugar
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup butter
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 1/2 cup oatmeal
1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Mix sugar and cocoa in a saucepan. Stir in milk and butter.
2. Bring the mixture to a boil.
3. While it is hot, add peanut butter and stir until combined.
4. Remove from the heat. Add oatmeal and vanilla.
5. Drop spoonfuls onto waxed paper.
6. Let them cool and set up.
7. Eat them all! Or give them away, if you are feeling generous.

Okay, does this make up for my long absence? I really hope so! Maybe I can create some more delicious things to share with you!

Post Thanksgiving 2012

Whew! What a holiday! This Thanksgiving, my parents and sister came down. Jason and I were really hoping both sides could make it, but it just wasn't possible this year. It was the first Thanksgiving at our house, and the first Thanksgiving that I had cooked the entire dinner (minus the cranberry sauce, because my mom's is the best!). At 5:00 AM, Jason and I woke up to throw the turkey in the smoker. The day before, I brined it using an Apple Spice Brine. The brine smelled like spiced wassail (an orange spiced beverage) and scented the entire house. We used apple wood chips for the smoke. Now, Jason had previously admitted that he was disappointed that we weren't doing a traditional roasted turkey, but as we were eating the turkey, he was thrilled by the result! It was our first smoked turkey, and took from 5 am-5:30 pm, which was about 2 hours longer than the site said it would take. Anyways, we rounded out the meal with garlic roasted sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, homemade rolls, my husband's family's salad, and of course, GRAVY! My mouth is watering just thinking about it. This dinner was followed by lemon meringue pie, pumpkin pie, and cheesecake. Wow! Talk about stuffing yourself.

Of course we went shopping on Black Friday, and unlike so many, we did wait until Friday morning to go. Things aren't worth leaving the men at home on Thanksgiving evening. Although we didn't go crazy, we sure found a few deals, and the time spent with my mom and sister was great! So thankful they were able to come down.

I think that is about all for now, but who knows what will come up between now and Christmas! Can't wait to see more family around that holiday!

2012 Elk Chronicles: Weekend 2

We got them! Yay! It took us a week of butchering after work to get the two of them processed, but it is such an amazing feeling knowing we did this on our own after all of the outdoors education we have gotten our whole lives! So, taking a moment to thank all of those in our lives who kindled this love and knowledge of the outdoors!

 

I really wanted to be "cute" in my first elk picture, because I always thought I looked dorky in my kill pictures. Turned out, I was layered up, freezing cold, and tired (like a real hunter, not some pretty girl who was only out for the morning or evening-HA!). So the cute thing really didn't work out for me. The most important thing is that I now have a lucky hat, and I'm sitting on my first dead elk!

 

 

Then there is my incredibly handsome husband on his elk (much bigger than mine, but contrary to what I said earlier, I was okay with it!). Geeze, I am one lucky girl!