Boo!

Aren't these the cutest??? One of my close friends, Karen made these for Halloween.

I can't believe we've been here for one entire month... so let's see, what have we done so far:

- removed 4 trees in the front, planted 2 fruit trees in the back
- planted new shrubs/plants in the front
- removed kitchen wallpaper
- painted kitchen walls a yummy yellow
- almost done with kitchen cabinets (argh)
- bought a bunch of furniture to refurbish
- bed (check) couch (check) coffee table (check)
- oops almost forgot, living room area rug (check)

I'm working on the house all weekend and all of next week, so hopefully I can add to this list!

A girl can dream

My dream coat this season: Steven Alan Holloway Coat (I think it comes in grey - I would so love that), $645.00
Hey, a girl can dream!

My 2nd dream coat this season - lindsey thornburg, mid length cloak, $928.00! Hey, a girl can dream (even bigger)!

Furniture Refurb #1

I bought this tiny side table for the sitting room part of our living room (aka book room) where we have our bookshelves.




I like it so much better in grey! I'm hoping to find a vintage silver vase or a small tray to put on top. Cute little teal-colored homemade coaster circles would be cute too! So many possibilities so little time!!!

Last Night's Dinner #133: Caesar Salad

A different schedule and a different budget calls for a whole new way of eating/cooking! It's funny how one month you can be whipping up fresh seafood stews and the next you're having tuna sandwiches for dinner - but hey I wouldn't trade it for the world.

It will be interesting to see what sort of dinner menus I can come up with to work with our new food budget. I've budgeted $100 max for our weekly groceries, which is probably significantly less than what we were spending back in nyc. Going to the farmers market every two days was definitely burning a whole in my pocket. We have a Whole Foods near by, but we noticed that we were spending way over our budget so we've decided to shop at our local groceries instead. I've been struggling to come up with dinner ideas lately, it's a whole new world for me but I'm up for the challenge.

Soup and salad dinners have become one of our faves around here. It takes no time to make and it's pretty cost effective and sometimes not that bad for the hips.

Trader Joe's makes my favorite ready-made soups - I love their tomato roasted peppers one and the butternut squash one is yumm.

You'll need:
2 to 3 medium sized Chicken Breast (skinless/boneless)
Romaine lettuce (2-3 mini heads or 1 huge one)
Parmesan Cheese (it's best to get a block and shave it yourself)
4 slices of white bread or any bread you have laying around
oregano, parsley flakes, salt, pepper
olive oil
Your favorite Caesar dressing
butter is optional

Wash and season chicken with salt, pepper, oregano, parsley flakes (you can put whatever spices you want on the chicken) and drizzle in about 2tbs some olive oil. I find it easier to put the washed chicken in a big ziplock bag then I season, add oil then sort of mix it all in the bag.

Heat up your grill pan or if you're lucky enough to have a grill outside - go for it. Grill both sides of the chicken. Didn't take me too long to cook mine, they were fairly thin. If you get ones on the thicker side, just "butterfly" the breasts.


In the meantime, cut the bread into nice chunks for croutons. I didn't, but if you want you could spread some butter on them before cutting. You could also sprinkle some herbs if you'd like. Spread them out on a tray and bake until golden brown. I just put them in my convection oven 400F, turned them and just kept a close eye on them. Once done, allow them to cool and crisp up.


Cut the lettuce into small pieces and put it back in the fridge. The key to all salads is cold lettuce! Shave (cut thin slivers with a knife or peeler) parmesan, you can set these aside or just plop them on top of the lettuce.

Once your chicken is done, let it sit on top of a plate or a cutting board for 5 to 10 minutes. This will allow the chicken to cool down + all the juices can redistribute themselves in the chicken and not in your salad (notice the liquid on the plate or board? you don't want that in your salad).


Cut up the chicken and toss everything together - lettuce, cheese, croutons, chicken.

Top with your favorite dressing and a dash of pepper! Serve with a nice cup of your favorite soup.

You're invited to breakfast...

What do you bring?

My friend Melissa invited us over for pancakes this weekend and I decided to bring fruit. I spotted a tub of Greek yogurt in the fridge so I thought - why not make fruit yogurt parfaits instead.


You'll need:
mixed fruits cut up into bite size pieces
yogurt (I love Fage Greek yogurt)
honey
granola

Spoon in around 2tbs of yogurt and drizzle some honey...

Scoop in some granola and some mixed fruit...

Top with another layer of yogurt, honey, granola and garnish with fruit (I used orange slices).

It's super easy, you basically layer yogurt, granola, honey and fruit. Let it sit for at least 15 minutes before serving so that the granola softens a little bit as it absorbs some of the yogurt.

One Man's Trash is Another Man's Treasure

I LOVE going to yard/garage sales, especially when it comes to furniture shopping. I love finding pieces that I can try to refurbish and somehow make work with what I already have.

A local cafe recently shut down and the owners were having a super sale. The cafe was furnished with lots of lived-in pieces. The basement was filled with random furniture pieces - tons of chairs, sofas, coffee tables, etc. Hillsy and I were practically the first ones there on Saturday (it opened at 10) then I somehow persuaded Melissa to take a stroll down there after breakfast on Sunday - just in case I missed a couple of things (I did!)

I scored a monstrous dining room buffet (the scale is going to be perfect with our future dining table), china cabinet (I don't have any china, but I'm sure I'll figure something out), side tables, two accent chairs, 7 dining room chairs, lamp, a very old school desk/chair, accent table and an ottoman all for $140!! I'll probably spend another $60-100 on paint but that's so worth it, don't you think?

Here's a sneak peek of some of the pieces:

That's not a typo, it really says $2. These will definitely get a fresh coat of paint or two. Just not sure if I'll go with the standard antique white or go for something more unexpected.

This is cute as is, but if I find the right fabric, I'd like to update it and reupholster.

The challenge with these two is how to make them work together in the same space, being that they're completely different in shape and in overall style.

I don't know exactly where this is going to end up, but I just couldn't say no.

Warning: Painting Kitchen Cabinets...

... could be bad for your {mental} health!


I was about to tear my hair out yesterday - this has been the project from hell. And poor Hillsy could attest to it. He came home to one cranky lady :)

I'm not completely done but I couldn't take the cabinets not being attached to the frames so even with 1 more coat of paint to go, I rehung them. I just needed to see some sort of progress before I went completely off the wall.

I'm sure it wouldn't have been so bad had my cabinets been flat doors, but the multiple bevels were a pain in the you know what! This was definitely a project that I dove into head first without realizing it was actually quick sand and not a warm Caribbean sea!

But here they are, up and almost done. I just need to sand a few down and retouch with a coat of rolled-on paint.



Am I happy with the end-result? Yes. Could you get me to do this project ever again? Not in this lifetime.

Front Yard Continued

I spent most of the morning yesterday hauling top soil back and forth. We had about a yard worth of top soil delivered (basically dumped on our driveway). Tom, a really nice kid we met via the town message boards works for the local nursery and he dropped some off so I could prep the planting beds before we plant the new shrubs and trees.

I've been told that all planting beds should ideally be 3 to 4" higher than the lawn. So I basically shoveled as much soil as I could in the wheelbarrow, dumped it within the area then I evened it out using my hands (I didn't have a rake, it wasn't that bad). Here's a pic of the driveway planting bed and I also did the front of the house/windows where that mother tree was!

We're planting today so I should have some pics tomorrow, although they won't really be that exciting since they're no longer in bloom.

Green Day

I completely forgot to share these pics of the local Green Day event. There were loads of stuff to do - learn how to start a compost, organic gardening workshops, anti-car idling lecture, etc.


+ a bunch of cute animals were there to keep the kiddies busy. How cute are they? These two were just munching away on grass and paying no attention to anybody else. The most environmentally friendly lawn mower I guess. I want ponies! Oh wait, but the clean up after all that grass gets digested... not so cute.

We even walked away with a free tree! Well it currently looks like a twig at this point. It's a Spruce and grows about a foot a year. So maybe we'll have a Christmas Tree by 2012!

I'm back

So that didn't go too well! The stupid GEICO card still had our NYC address, so even though records show that we're officially in NJ it would've failed. Countdown begins... will GEICO be able to mail out a new card in time - we have 14 days to get the car inspected before... well, I'm not really sure???

The car gets repossessed, we get exiled from Jersey and we have to move back into our 500sq' apartment and all the effort I put into painting those darn cabinets would've been all for nothing?

Ooooh I hope not :)

Running off...

but before I go - make sure you enter the giveaway over at Heart Handmade today, it's worth $75!!!

Running to get the car inspected (fingers crossed!)

Last Night's Dinner #132: BLT

So here's the quickest way to a man's heart, ooops I mean stomach!

A classic BLT sandwich. MMmmmm bacon.

I had some leftover mashed potatoes from Sunday night's dinner so I decided to heat it up and use it as a spread (instead of mayo).

Spread mashed potatoes or mayo

Bacon

Lettuce & Tomatoes

And because I was feeling so guilty about eating a bacon and mashed potato sandwich... I decided to make a side salad to go with it :)

Thinly sliced fennel with shoestring cut honey crisp apples! Drizzle some good olive oil and fresh lemon juice, season well with salt and pepper. Add some parmesan shavings and you're good to go!

Weekend Projects

I didn't get as much done as I had planned, so the kitchen is still in disarray!

I felt like I was on a Trading Spaces show - we layed out all of the kitchen cabinets on our deck and primed all sides. Unfortunately we ran out of time and couldn't start painting them - so now they're all in the garage and the kitchen looks like this...


We finally had a chance to go to the nursery this weekend and picked out trees, shrubs and new plants for the front yard. We even bought 2 fruit trees for the back. We're so excited about our cherry and apple tree and crossing our fingers that they'll provide some good stuff next year! We supposedly have 3 blueberry shrubs back there but they're not looking so hot right now, so I'm not sure if they're going to bare fruit.

I'm getting old!

I never had a legitimate "when I was young..." or "back in my days..." story until last night. Uh-oh holy shit I think I'm getting old.

My sister MJ sent me this email, looks like my nephew Nathan is participating in a school fundraiser. Back in my days, I had to go around the neighborhood with a catalog and a piece of paper/pen. I'd go door to door and then I would have to fill out the orders on a master sheet. 4 or so weeks later I'd get a huge package from school and I'd have to hand deliver each purchase.

Nice to see that all of this is now done online. Look, each child has a number and a dedicated page/number. A database driven fundraising site!! So there's my first "Back in my day..." story!

Lovin' this Yellow

I RARELY ever get colors right the first time around, but this time - I hit it off the freakin' park!!! Yahoooooo!


Like most colors, yellow is something you can get wrong quite easily. I'm so happy with this one, I can't even tell you. It's a tad darker than the picture above, sort of like when you first cut into a fresh pineapple that's not quite ripe.



And the Patriotic White ceiling - match made in heaven. It has just enough of a tint of grey/blue in it which kind of absorbs the vibrancy of the yellow so you minimize the bouncy/crazy effect that a non-pastel yellow could potentially have . Let's just say Patriotic White is the silent partner, probably does more work than the yellow.

Oh and if you're looking for an edging tool - this one is my fave:


I'm lovin' my sponge brushes - so much easier to control than a brush and makes a perfectly smooth edge (as long as you have a steady hand I guess)!

Today I'm painting the window sills and priming the cabinets so that they'll be ready for paint this weekend. Hopefully I'll have our first room done by the end of the weekend!!!!

Primed Up

I primed the entire kitchen yesterday, except for the space behind the stove. It was too heavy for me to lift out of it's spot so I'll have to do that space separately.

The guy at the paint store recommended that I use an oil based primer since there's a chance that the residue from the wallpaper adhesive could seep through water-based primer/paint. It was supposedly odorless and low VOC blah blah blah but I can still smell it and it was a b*$ch to work with. It's all over my arms, hands, and fingernails. I think I'll stick to water-based primer when I do the cabinets.

Prepping and priming isn't my idea of fun.

Sanding

Spackling

Taping

But just like in cooking, prepping is key in painting. Filling cracks and holes with spackle, sanding it down, wiping it clean, taping, edging, it goes on and on.


Today I'm finally painting! Let you know how that goes.

Last Night's Dinner #131: Filipino Spaghetti

Lifeflix reader Aileen emailed me last week to say hello and to let me know that she was going to give the Sopas recipe a shot. I asked her to take some pics and to let me know how it goes...

She kindly sent in pictures of her sopas + pics of her Filipino Spaghetti (she cooked for her friend's daughter) which totally inspired last night's dinner.

I'm sure it wasn't as good as hers, but you can hardly go wrong when hot dogs, vienna sausages and ketchup are involved. Locavores please shut your eyes.

Thanks Aileen!!