Kitchen Refresh Part 3: Be Prepared For Anything
I didn’t make as much progress on the kitchen last week as I wanted to. Apparently real life can’t stop for labor-intensive DIY projects. Say what? Plus, the labor-intensive part of this project multiplied a little this week. Haha! Joke’s on me! If I haven’t said it before, I will say it now. (And I will use some all-caps typing to drive home my point.) When you are doing ANYTHING to an older home be prepared for ANYTHING to happen. Seriously. There are all sorts of crazy things hiding behind the walls of your home just waiting for you to open them up. Then they jump out and yell “GOTCHA.” So,…
I’m Food Trendy and I Didn’t Know It
Is anyone else a huge fan of The Pioneer Woman? *raises hand higher* Every recipe I’ve tried of hers has been fantastic. Plus, her writing is pretty entertaining. Since I grew up in the country on a ranch, I can relate to some of the antics of country life. I, however, cannot relate to the antics of famous blogger/Food Network star/author life. Eh, you win some, you lose some. On Monday I was eating my breakfast while checking out her blog when I about fell off my chair from what I read. Do you know what her food post on Monday was about? Eating TOAST in Los Angeles. Yes, toast. I about choked…
Coatrack from a Wine Bar
Before we had kids we spent money on things like furniture instead of nerf guns and Pokemon. It was so long ago, I barely remember. At least we purchased some long-lasting pieces that I still love like this wine bar cabinet from Pier 1. We use the piece, but not to hold wine. That goes in the wine fridge. 😉 The back of the cabinet had a wood ledge on hinges that you could push up to act like a real “bar” area if people wanted to sit there while you poured a drink from the other side. That never happened. The wine cabinet has always been pushed up against the wall and…
Kitchen Refresh – Part 2
I made a little bit of progress on the kitchen project this weekend. I always seem to invite friends over when I’m smack-dab in the middle of a project. “Hey! I ripped my kitchen apart! Come over for a BBQ!” Good friends don’t judge. They just bring wine. So, that meant there was more fun, but less work happening! Not really a bad thing, in my opinion! If you recall, I said we were going to try a few different methods of getting our cabinets ready to paint. We started on the bottom half of the cabinetry because I had a plan in place for that section. The plan for…
Kitchen Refresh – The Beginning
I considered calling this post “Putting Lipstick on a Pig,” but I thought that would confuse the Google search algorithm. Our kitchen needs a major gut job. What it’s going to get is a little glamour session. Is it warped that I’m slightly more excited to see how little or much we can transform a space with just elbow grease and minimal dollars spent? Probably. #noapologies So, this is the disaster I’m working with: I’ve actually seen worse. I’m sure I’ve lived with worse. At a minimum, the plan is to paint the cabinets and figure out some sort of backsplash, since there is no backsplash to speak of. I’ve already…
Banana Blackberry Muffins with Vanilla Orange Glaze
They say necessity is the mother of invention. I say two black bananas sitting on your counter mocking you is the mother of invention. Tomato, ta-mah-toh. And, really, I just adapted a recipe from good ol’ Betty Crocker, so it’s not like I’ve gone out on an extreme culinary limb here. It was a delicious limb though. So, here’s the deal with me and muffins. If I’m going to add fruit to them, then I prefer for them to be mainly fruit with some muffin dough to hold the fruit together. Anyone else with me? *crickets* I used frozen blackberries that we picked last summer, but frozen blueberries or raspberries…
Dave’s Killer Bread – Updated CopyCat Recipe
I’ve been making a copycat version of Dave’s Killer Bread at least once a week for about a year now. Holy smokes. My 20-something self would never believe I’ve become so handy in the kitchen. My 30-something self hardly believes it either! I am in no way an expert on all things related to bread making. I’m learning as I go and sharing the journey. Case in point: this bread incident. A few months ago, I had the opportunity to get my fix of the real Dave’s Killer Bread while visiting the Pacific Northwest. Since then, I’ve been tweaking the recipe ever so slightly to try and get it even closer…
Foyer – How it is Today
As a married couple we’ve lived in 4 states and moved 9 times. I have ALWAYS wanted a real foyer. You know what I’m talking about? One where you have to take more than half a step inside before you’re in the living room. Well, be careful what you wish for! Our two homes in Georgia have both had large, wonderful foyers. And guess what? I struggle with how to decorate this type of space. Go figure. Magazines and blogs make it look so effortless. It’s not. To clarify, I’m not whining. I’m ecstatic! I get a new challenge and having an actual foyer is so, so, so worth it! I may…
Bird Nest in a Shoe
Last weekend my husband hopped on the riding lawn mower and set out to tackle the beast of a lawn we are now tasked with maintaining. Fast forward to the next day and I was using the shop vac to tackle the beast of a mess that had become my car after all of our moving. From there, I moved on to vacuuming the rug outside our back door and then I realized that the shoes my husband was wearing while mowing the day before were FILLED with yard debris. Leaves, moss, twigs, grass. I had no idea how he had even worn those shoes with so much crud in them.…
Clean Out the Fridge Pasta Salad
My son plays t-ball on Monday evenings from 5:30 – 6:30, which is smack-dab in the middle of all things dinner-related for that evening. It really throws a wrench in the evening routine, but it’s only for 8 weeks. Plus, there are enormous amounts of cuteness and hilarity when you try to teach 4 and 5-year-olds how to play baseball. So we will deal because it is totally worth a belly laugh or two every Monday…and the boy enjoys it! To work around this scheduling hiccup, I’ve been feeding the kids a very early dinner, at 4:30 or 4:45 p.m. Last week I was trying to figure out what I could bring…
