simply steinberger

Yesterday...

2012-01-13T07:17:00.000-08:00

... was a frustrating one. I am looking forward to this weekend and 7 events. In one weekend. Sort of crazy, especially considering the fact that, that is not all that I am responsible for.

My morning started off so wonderfully. Jeremy went to yoga with me and followed yoga with coffee that we were able to sit down and enjoy together. That and this sun rise:

I took that with my phone, out of the window of the coffee shop. The live show was so much more brilliant. Great start, yes? Through a series of events throughout the day, my mood was drastically changed and came home with a full on pout. Not a great thing for Jeremy to come home to after his long day at work. This was also the first time in weeks that I have been able to greet him as he got home. I have been getting home much later than he does. That's not really ok with me either. More pouting. I decided to try to take a nap. Couldn't fall asleep. Naps are weird. Sort of in a worse mood, now. Then, I tried to be productive. On a normal mood day, this would totally cheer me up but since this was a very abnormal mood day, it didn't. I just kept thinking about all of the things that I didn't have time to get done and how things have been neglected. For example, I noticed that the top of a hung picture wasn't dusted and literally rolled my eyes. Ouch. I could drag this on, but you get it . Terrible. Mood.

So, what changed my mood? Here was my brilliant plan: as soon as Jeremy walks through the door, him and I are going to clean like there's nothing in the world we'd rather do, for one solid hour (we CLEANed the entire house, shampooed carpets and all), go for a walk to chat and de-stress, then relax/watch a movie/eat in bed for the rest of our night. He went for the plan (thank goodness) and it was wonderful.

And that is why our guest bedroom looked like this, this morning. We camped out in there last night until we went to bed! It was so fun. I never even go in there unless I'm hanging laundry or cleaning it. Also, we have a strict no tv in our bedroom rule and Jeremy has a strict "no eating in bed" rule. I'm definitely going to keep the guest bedroom in mind for the next "Toni's in desperate need of relaxation" night. In addition, I realized how much Jeremy has been spoiling me this week, so tonight it's my turn. Don't take your hubby for granted, ladies! Most likely, he is loving you in the way that he would also like to be loved. Return the favor and count it all joy!

No sew and Knitting

2012-01-09T08:42:00.000-08:00

I saw this knitted scarf on Pinterest a month or so ago and fell in love. I love to knit (an art taught to me by my hubby :) when I can so instead of trying to find where to buy it, I figured out a way to make it. So much better!

This next project is for one of my best friends in the world, Kimmie. Kimmie is a beauty queen, a wonderful friend, hilarious, jack of all trades, Godly, committed and engaged to a handsome Navy man named James. I was asked to be her maid of honor for her February wedding. Of course, I shrilled an excited "YES!" As a maid of honor duty I am planning the bachelorette party and bridal shower. Her and I are equally un-thrilled with the selection of trashy bachelorette party gear that is sold on shelves these days, so away with the home made I go! Here's my first project:A Navy themed bachelorette party sash! She's a pageant girl so, rocking a cheesy/trashy sash would be below par. The best part about this project was it was all done with Liquid Stitch and Fray Check. A no sew project makes this girl a happy camper!
Here's how I did the anchor:

I drew an anchor on paper and cut it out. I then, traced around the anchor with a Sharpie and cut it out.
Then, I did the same tracing technique (but larger) in white lace. Next, I used Fray Check around the edges of both anchor and used Liquid Stitch to glue them together to then glue on to the sash.
DONE!

I can't wait for her to try it on!

KIMMER!!
I love you so much and am so happy for all of your successes in life and for your happiness. You have had an amazing journey of ups and downs that were so worth what you've been blessed with in the end. I'm rooting for you and will always be on your team. You are like a sister and I promise to not cry the ENTIRE day of your wedding. maybe.

House Update

2012-01-03T18:21:00.000-08:00

My mom came to visit us in August (wow, has it really been that long ago??) and we had a massive to-do list that we basically tackled. We took a serious break from house projects after we waved good-bye to my mom. But, as any other obsessive, compulsive person would, the one remaining item on the list has been driving me crazy! I've been silently going crazy, don't go thinking I'm a slave driver with my amazingly talented husband, now. Speaking of Jeremy, he finally checked that item off of the list.

The entertainment center:

Can you believe that he made that thing? Pretty awesome.

Here are some other new projects:

This one was fun and basically free. The picture was hung all by itself until I rummaged through my mother-in-laws storage furniture and found the shelf, made the wire elephant, swapped the the potted greenery from the bathroom to the shelf and found this old hard back book about African animals at St. Vincent.

All of the movies are now in the entertainment center so I used the shelf to decorate! With a couple of more thrift store book finds that were theme appropriate and some decor swapping, presto!

Some exciting purchases:
I know that 24 is way too young to be this excited about these but boy o boy am I excited!

Our old fireplace doors were glass and super old and weren't functional at all. That and the glass blew out one night... Kind of scary!ACK! The new toilet is our most recent addition to the house. Imagine: a toilet that you don't have to squat over and that flushes without holding the flusher down for 10 minutes. Incredible!

Merry Christmas!

2012-01-03T17:40:00.000-08:00

This year, Christmas was full of vacation, fun, family, love, traditions and catching up on zzzz's. Here are some highlights:

I hope that your Christmas was incredible and full of love and reminders of why we celebrate Christmas in the first place.

Love,

The Steinbergers

Hello Again..

2012-01-03T17:07:00.000-08:00

It has been an abnormally long time since I've last blogged. For those of you who follow my blog, hello again! Let's get you updated!

We celebrated Thanksgiving in Jeremy's grandfathers nearly 100 year old barn that Jeremy has finished phase one of renovations on. A barn Thanksgiving? Why not. With Jeremy on the construction and me and his Aunt and Grandma on the decor.. I'm just going to say that it was the most Pottery Barn moment of my life.(This picture was taken the day that Grandpa Chuck died. His cows were a ::huge::huge:: part of the family's lives. It was enlarged and framed and presented to Grandma on Thanksgiving.)

Gorgeous, right?

And the family shots:

And what's a barn holiday without a little line dancing?

Juice

2011-11-16T13:10:00.000-08:00

I need to look back at how long this health kick has lasted but much longer than ever before! I can't believe how motivated I am to continue with a consistently healthy lifestyle.

Lately, I've been making all of our own juice (minus orange, home made is a gigantic pain in the rear!). I could really use a juicer but for now my blender and a straining sifter work just fine. My most recent and favorite juice is apple, strawberry and lemon. I don't add anything but fruit, coconut water and purified water. It's so yummy and a great way to control the amount of sugar you ingest.

My first wreath

2011-11-16T12:58:00.000-08:00

I feel like I have completely given in! I deliberately do without wreaths at our house. I'm not sure what it is, but they look cluttery and cliche to me. I've seen them in just about every shape/style/size and I just can't help it! Fake flowers and junk glued to a base and thrown up on a wall is just not my favorite.

Even though I'm not in love with my wreath, I am excited to have it hanging from our door! Wreaths are fun because they're very easy to make and add so much to a festive house! I'm all about the holiday decorating.

Creepy reflection!

{hi guys! don't you craft in your robe?}

Stay-cation

2011-11-16T12:38:00.000-08:00

Are you thinking what I was thinking? Time for one? No?? Well, let me tell you as someone who loves a long weekend vacay somewhere atleast 2 hours away from my zip code, stay-cations are a force to be reckoned with. Consider the fact that when in vacation preparation mode there is a level of stress that goes hand in hand with the trying not to forget your tooth brush or enough socks, lists, planning, research, price matching, weather watching, direction finding...etc. Things that you undoubtedly need a vacation from.. on top of why you started the planning in the first place. Now you're limbo-ing under two heavy bars of reason for a vacation. Consideration for a vacation from your vacation start to enter your mind... Dramatic much? Maybe. But here's my point: when you plan to go on a stay-cation, your planning basically stops there.

My friend and I were in desperate need of a break. We considered going to Portland (a short 2 hour drive but still drive time that ate into our weekend), maybe the coast, maybe Central Oregon... All destinations came complete with 2 or more hours of drive time. We just didn't have time for that. In comes our stay-cation. We rented a room at The Hilton... downtown. The downtown of our town. Now what? Well, the easiest part of a stay-cation is planning where to go. We got foot massages at my favorite massage place, Footloose, saw a movie, checked in to our hotel, gave ourselves facials, went out to dinner, came back, slept in, went out for breakfast and came home! We knew where everything was and were able to just go wherever we wanted. It truly felt like time was on our side and like we were seeing our city in a whole different light. I came home so rested and restored. I'm a huge fan of this whole stay-cation idea!

Christmas Pictures

2011-11-16T11:40:00.000-08:00

Jeremy and I had some Christmas card photos taken recently on his Grandmother's farm. I love this farm for so many reasons. It's a very special and enchanting place to be. His family (whom I adore with all of my heart) grew up there-we're talking multiple generations, Jeremy learned a lot of his hard work ethic through numerous projects with his fabulously missed Grandfather (who passed away after fighting cancer for 13 or so years), I first met his family over dinner here, every nook and corner houses a special memory. As a side note, it's been very special for Grandma to have Jeremy there working on numerous projects including a kitchen/master bath reno and a complete barn restoration on the 90+ year old barn, which he has finished phase 1 of. Lots of love on this farm. Lots.

Without further ado, some of my favorites:

What's Cookin'

2011-10-31T19:33:00.000-07:00

I have been in a season of trying to be a better steward of my home. I'm trying to cut my work days a little short and pick up the slack around the house, like I used to. I threw together a dinner made up of mostly left overs, tonight that ended up being delish!

I've had some ginger in my fridge for some time now and we got a bag full of lemons that we've been trying to use before they go bad. I also cooked an entire chicken the other day to use throughout the week and have some carrots left in our garden. Add all of those up plus some other ingredients and what do you get? A seriously yummy stir fry.

Ingredients:

Sauce:
2 inch piece of ginger
3 stalks of celery
1/4 of a white onion
2 cloves of garlic
2 tbsp peanut oil
2 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
2 tsp red pepper flakes
Juice of 2 lemons/zest of one lemon

Stir fry:
Chicken
3 carrots
1 portobello mushroom
1/4 pound edamame
1/4 Jasmine Rice
2 cups Orzo
1 cup chopped raw/unsalted peanuts

Throw rice and edamame in steamer
Once the steamed ingredients are done set it aside
Put the rest of the ingredients in wok with 1/4 cup of water and a splash of olive oil
Once the veggies are softened throw in the rest of the ingredients, turn the heat down to low and let flavors infuse for about 15-20 mins

These portions are estimated, I don't normally measure when I'm cooking.

Enjoy!
I'm going to have seconds :)

Hard Core Yoga

2011-10-31T17:18:00.000-07:00

It's seriously hard core. My good friend, Chelsea, recently opened her yoga studio and it has transformed me in more ways than one. For one, I'm able to use the studio as a multi-purpose good excuse to see her more often. Two: I am forever changed on my mindset of yoga and its use in my life. She instructs a very different kind of yoga that will kick your butt, in mind and body. I would describe it as a fast-paced, boot camp, using yoga poses. We practice, using beginner poses that you're in and out of quickly so you get the cardio aspect and staying true to the name, her core exercises are super intense. I have never loved my body more since doing Hard Core Yoga. That's a powerful thing!!Hard Core Yoga

In addition to all of the physical and mental changes that she has contributed to us (yea, J takes yoga with me and Mr. Big Bad Macho Contractor is super challenged by it and loves it) we have had the opportunity to contribute to her! J built her reception desk for the studio and I've helped with promotion and data entry.

Chels, if you're reading this, I am so proud of you. Thank you for being a woman. A real one. You're the best!
-T

A Grant wedding project train

2011-10-31T16:13:00.000-07:00

When Nic and Alli were beginning their wedding plans, I was asked to be a part of the decorations committee which consisted of me and another bridesmaid (another one of 10 I might add :). We planned and plotted and schemed up the best way to make her idea of the perfect wedding come to life in an economical way... I think we pulled it off:

There was a mixture of natural, store bought, crafted, painted, glued, dyed, sewed, pinned and chopped all done in beautiful Fall colors (orange, green and brown).

Here's a little bit of the process:

I went to Grandma's farm to pick some pine cones out of her pine trees. We painted them brown and added a little bit of metallic.
Next, I dyed some doilies with coffee (I put ground coffee into a pouch I made out of a coffee filter) and dark plain lipton tea and boiled it altogether until the doilies started changing color.
I also made the boys' boutonnieres. Here's what I started with:
Make sure the flowers you choose are small and gather-able. Glue the ends with hot glue (you will burn your fingers... sorry)
It's easiest if you have something to bind or wind them with. I used a leaf from the flower bundle
Use floral wire to bind the stems.
I made the place settings for the head table and also for the family tables. I just printed their names on colored card stock and matted them, cut them out and hot glued them onto skewers cut in half. I stabbed the skewers into fruit once they were on the tables
Since every table had a similar but not identical center piece, I was able to do some random decorations just in case there was space to fill.
I also decorated hurricane vases with ribbon, left over flowers, wooden G's, had J cut some tree limbs into tea light candle holders to place around the hurricane center pieces. I brought lots of mason jars, candles, moss, limes, tangerines and extra vases.

I love, love me a wedding project!

Nic + Alli

2011-10-31T15:49:00.000-07:00

Recently, my husband and I were both a part of our wonderful and dearest friends' wedding. What makes for a whirlwind weekend? Add several components: being a pretty large part of the set up/tear down/decoration element of a wedding, being in the bridal party/grooms party, traveling from out of town to said wedding and watching two of your best friends marry each other. It's a pretty amazing thing to be a part of a person's journey. It's extremely special to have had a good friend in Alli and for her to start dating a man who became my husbands good friend and for them to eventually have a family, get married and build a life together. They are such a large part of Jeremy and I's lives. We are so blessed to have such radiantly beautiful people in our lives. We love you more than we can ever say, Mr & Mrs Grant!

Rules I live by:

2011-10-10T09:58:00.000-07:00

It is often that I am asked how it's possible that I have my hand in so many different things without losing my mind. I am the office manager for 2 restaurants and for one of those restaurants I am the events coordinator, I help with administration/promotion/database entry for my friends' yoga studio, my husband and I own a construction business, I am finishing my business degree, I am on the committee for the Young Professionals Network through the Chamber of Commerce and I tend to wind up helping with various events for family and friends. Why do I do all of this? I love it. I love all of it. But, sometimes I get exhausted. I don't claim to be any type of guru on how to manage the busy beast but here are some rules I live by:

1. Learn to say no. seriously. It took me years to say that word and accept that I wasn't mentally capable to take on what I wanted to.

2. If you want to do something, understand that you must also want the sacrifices.

3. Work is not number one. Whoever lives under your roof and those related to them or you, are. Make sure your actions reflect that you truly believe that.

4. Aside from the regular/daily/monotonous chores, do something irregular around the house. ie: once the laundry/dishes/floors/whatever it is you do on a daily basis is done do something extra like scrub the tub or organize the linen closet. It'll make you feel truly accomplished.

5. Feeling stressed? Busy day? Wear pretty underwear. No one will know why you have a little extra pep in your step, but you will, and now you're super woman.

6. Commit to doing something that you've never done before. It can be extreme like base jumping or sky diving but also something small like taking an extra long lunch or trying out a new restaurant. New experiences tend to revitalize.

7. Have a sense of humor. Life is way too short to be tightly wound. Look like a fool, laugh (hard) every day. Seriously, the only one who cares that you look poised every day is you. Lighten up!

8. Communicate throughout a stressful situation, instead of at the end of one. Don't let stress or frustrations build up until you blow. Use your brain before you use your mouth and take a break if you need to.

9. Sometimes you doesn't matter. This is a humbling one. If you're able to go on and on about yourself, learn to shush. Put yourself aside more often than you put yourself as numero uno.

10. Exercise. I know, it's terrible. So awful to exert yourself but in the words of Elle Woods "exercise gives you endorphins, endorphins make you happy, happy people don't just kill their husbands, they just don't." This is a good one for yourself and your husband. Get off the couch, you'll be happy and won't kill your husband. And make it fun! Jog around your neighborhood with your ipod as loud as it'll go and sing your heart out. Take a class that kicks your butt without you knowing it.

11. Fill your life with positive input. Friends, family, tv shows, music, faith, experiences. What you input, you output. You reap what you sow. You are the company you keep. You know the quotes, .. basically your attitude and words are a direct reflection of the things that you choose to surround yourself with. So choose and weed out wisely.

12. Plan ahead. Doing things last minute is stressful and expensive. Make lists, be organized (or try to) and don't worry if you forgot something. You may be able to do without it.

13. God. This should be number one but I'm going to be honest in saying that it generally takes a whole lot of me to get out of the way until I fully rely on Him. There is not any one person in this world that is capable of all that I need. But He is. I don't try to trick myself into thinking that being busy is fulfilling or that my husband is capable of filling all of my needs. Jeremy is off the hook but God is happy to be on it. I'm only able because He is through me. I am whole because He is in me and I have joy because He gave it to me. And I am beautiful in my incompletion and imperfection because I am His creation.

There's my list of rules. Pretty standard. But now you know :))

I'm just so...

2011-09-15T18:27:00.000-07:00

I've not used my blog to vent or pour out my feelings or ramble in the 3 or so years that I've had this blog. Well, today changes all of that! Lucky you! I just feel that I have to get out there the kinds of wonderful changes that have been going on in Jeremy and I's lives. I feel so content and humbled lately. The kind of feeling that can only be explained as warmth in my heart as I'm fortunate enough to observe the fruit of obedience to my Father. My Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Jeremy and I have gone through a lot in the past 6 1/2 years. And when I say a lot I'm talking some pretty terrible, self-inflicting, digging deep holes, make or breaking, trying, testing, nearly impossible to overcome... that kind of a lot. From being homeless, to overcoming drug addiction, to losing a child, we have been put through the ringer. I don't say that with resentment, but joy. Weird, huh? There are times that I look back at our past in disbelief. Never, did I envision my life going the way that it has. Interesting how that works, huh? Jeremy and I both grew up in Christian homes but veered into some years onto the road less traveled. We are both people that, apparently, needed to find what else was out there before we found our way back to our chosen path. God has done some amazing things in us. In the past year or so, Jeremy and I have both recommitted our lives to Christ and have not looked back for a second. I am so thankful that we hit rock bottom. Also weird, huh? I know there's a saying out there that says something about not knowing or appreciating where you are now until you can see where you've come from... something like that. It basically sums up how I feel about being grateful for the mud in my life and in my past. There is no room for pride because I can see where my life ends up when I place it in my own hands. I see now how precious my life is and how I don't trust it to anyone but my Creator. I'm so encouraged by the character challenge that Faith in Christ is. It's so wonderful to feel weight lifted off of my shoulders because of the freedom I have in God. I don't have to own all of the negative stuff that this world throws my way! How crazy. Can you imagine a life, where, because of a sequence of events turning a good day into a bad day turns good again because Christ already died for all of that bad stuff? How freeing is that?? I can literally, see the amazing changes in my life when I'm walking in Faith. My reactions to things are tamed and in control, I treat a negative turn of events as a challenge and a faith tester making me not only closer to God but so appreciative that He can bring me out of it, I love people, I'm such a better wife and friend, and even in the midst of a trial, I can smile and be still in what God is to me, knowing that He is strong when I am weak. How do I know this for sure?? GREAT question. Simple answer: I've been in God's presence and I've been out of it. My life in it, is full of abundance. I'm not talking diamonds, business deals and an exploding bank account. I'm talking about REAL abundance. The kind that overflows from your heart and onto the people around you. Abundance of love. Love that's shown in the most real and purest way. I hope that one day my actions explain this better than I can with words. I feel so blessed in trials and humbled in victories. I love with all of my heart. I am so moved by what He has done in my life and in J's and in our marriage and relationships. I'm not even going to edit this because it's basically just rambling and jumbled.. I'm just so..

blessed.

Green Juice: does a body good

2011-08-31T07:32:00.000-07:00

My good friend, Chelsea Knight (also owner of Hard Core Yoga in Eugene... more on that later), introduced me to this yummy green juice. I made it for the first time this morning. I love it and could definitely see myself making it on a regular basis. I'm officially on my annual health kick.. It'll last another couple of months so stay tuned for more healthy ventures that I'll be on my way to exploring.

Green Juice:

1" piece of ginger - promotes energy and positively increases the body's metabolic rate

3 handfuls of spinach - low in calories, very high in vitamins (about 10)

1 head of romaine - heart healthy green, low in calories, high in vitamins (especially C and A), high in water volume

1-2 whole lemons - the ultimate super food! Cleanses the digestive track and allows food to digest correctly, aids in the production of antibodies, high in potassium, anti-carcinogenic, acts as an internal antiseptic...etc

1 sm apple - several micro nutrients, moisture, pectin, vitamins.. plus one a day keeps the doctor away :)

Throw the ingredients and about 6 cups of water into a blender or juicer. If using a blender, make sure you strain the juice coming out of the mixer into your pitcher. You don't want stored smoothie. Yuck. Make sure it's the consistency of thin juice.

Enjoy!

We're Three!

2011-08-29T19:55:00.000-07:00

August 17th was our third anniversary. We decided to go back to where we said "I do" for the first time in 3 years. Gold Beach. It's the furthest Oregon southern coast you can travel to before hitting the California border and one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. It's so surreal to walk around the same beach, same walk way, same ocean that we did 3 years ago with butterflies in our tummies and chaos going on around us! Here's some pictures from the beach (I could one-hundred-percent live there full time):

Easy to see why we chose GB, yes?

We relaxed a ton but also went to West Coast Game Park and on Jerry's Rogue Jets.

We have been so blessed and are so thankful for each other. I completely realize how cheese ball we are, and I apologize, but secretly I love it.

You CAN can!

2011-08-29T19:31:00.000-07:00

My mom sent me a book as a gift before she came to visit us. You can can is a fantastic canning book with about 100 water bath recipes! Pressure cookers scare the poo out of me! We made pear-cherry chutney, tomato-basil jam and pear butter. They are all delish and so easy. Time consuming, of course but worth every minute!

For example, tomato-basil jam-Prep: 30 minutes
Cook: 12 minutes
Process: 5 minutes
Makes: 5 half-pints (70 servings)

INGREDIENTS

2 1/2 lbs fully ripe tomatoes (5 large red, yellow or mix)
1/4 cup bottled lemon juice
3 tbsp snipped fresh basil
1 1.75-oz package powdered fruit pectin for lower sugar recipes

1. wash tomatoes. remove skins, stem ends, cores and seeds. finely chop tomatoes. measure 3 1/2 cups. place chopped tomatoes in a 6 or 8 quart kettle or pot. heat to boiling: reduce heat. simmer covered for 10 minutes. measure 3 1/3 cups, return to kettle

2. add lemon juice and basil. combine 1/4 cup of the sugar with pectin (my mom taught me to mix the sugar and the pectin together before you add it to your mixture), heat to a full rolling boil, stirring constantly. stir in the remaining 2 3/4 cups of sugar. return mixture to a full rolling boil. boil hard for 1 minute, stirring constantly. remove from heat. quickly skim off foam with a metal spoon.

3. Immediately ladle hot jam into hot, sterilized half-pint canning jars, leaving a 1/4-inch headspace. wipe jar rims; adjust lids.

4. Process filled jars in a boiling water canner for 5 minutes (start timing when water returns to boil). remove jars from canner; cool on wire racks.

We've tried it on white meat, scones, salami and crackers... It's seriously delicious!

My Momma's Visit

2011-08-29T18:53:00.000-07:00

Our long awaited house guest came on August 10th. We spent the following 8 days together. It's been 3 years since I've seen her in person. You can bet your button that we spent every moment possible together!

Aug. 10- Day one - Mom flies in to PDX and we stayed up until 2 am chatting
Aug. 11- Day two - Pedi's and dinner out at my restaurant
Aug. 12 - Day three - Drive to Central Oregon to visit with my brother and his family/Momma cooks for us for the first time in YEARS!
Aug. 13 - Day four - Entire day at Sun Mountain Fun Center (we did go-karts, mini golf, batting cages, arcades, bowling and bumper cars... the whole enchilada)
Aug. 14 - Day five - My brother, momma and Jeremy went shooting (I don't do guns) and we headed to pit stop in Sunriver to visit with an Aunt of Jeremy's and also at Jeremy's Grandmother's farm in Pleasant Hill
Aug. 15 - Day six - My mom and I canned about 4 jars/3 different recipes and had Jeremy's family over for dinner and to visit.
Aug. 16 - Day seven - Dinner at Grandma's. We gave my mom a full tour of the entire farm
Aug. 17 - Day Eight - Dinner at my Father-in-law and his wife's house/church
Aug. 18 - Day Nine - My mom and I drove to the airport... I bawled.

And some pic-chas:
Dear Mom,

We love you and were so so blessed by your visit. You are such an incredible woman and a great example to me in so many ways. I'm so lucky to be half you!

I LOVE YOU!

Pond and Fountain

2011-08-02T21:34:00.000-07:00

Our pond, fountain and surrounding flower gardens have been a several year project. We started with a heavy black tarp in the pond because it wasn't holding water, the problem with that was that it was ugly and as soon as we filled it with rocks the tarp was punctured and ruined. Then emptied the rocks, tore out the tarp and we mortared the whole thing. Which, completely solved the holding water issue but as soon as we put the rocks in, the all settled to the bottom. SO, we finally took all of the rocks out, had the bamboo torn out and mortared the rocks to the mortared pond. We, then, mortared rocks on the brim all the way around the pond to keep the dirt and bark out. After treating the area where the bamboo was, we were finally okay'd to plant a flower garden. Next, the fountain. We scored with rocks that were already on our property and also rocks that were on the property of one of Jeremy's job sites in Washington. We've moved it several times and into all shapes and sizes. Finally we placed the fountain rocks in the position that we loved. Lastly we drilled a hole through the top rock of the fountain for the pump to run through and put some pond lights out there. With a ton of work and a serious process we are so thrilled with the FINAL product:

This isn't the "before" before but it was several years ago after adjusting several things:
Vent well:

More pond:

Final Pond Product:You can tell here that Jeremy has also edged the back lawn
Above you can see the hole that we drilled into the top fountain rock for the pump hose to pour out of. Below is my attempt with my terrible camera at showing you the pond at night with the cool pond lights:PHEW! We are so happy to be able to enjoy our pond area now!

Guest bedroom closet

2011-08-02T17:32:00.000-07:00

ie: my mom's closet

Here is the closet before:

After:We took out the carpet and built a new closet system and I got some baskets for storage. We'll paint it after my mom leaves, more than likely. We have way too much to do, to paint it!

We are getting so close to getting everything done, I can't believe my mom will be here in about a week! We may be inhaling paint fumes once her plain lands, though...

Home made shutters

2011-08-02T17:01:00.000-07:00

I was inspired to do these shutters after a scenic drive around Eugene and its surrounding areas. I saw similar shutters on a house that didn't match the style, but knew they would look incredible on our ranch-ish style house.

Here's a poorly documented how to:

You can see the brace's in that we attached the cedar boards to:
(extremely important for strength, you know, to withstand elements and natural disasters, etc)
Kidding. Also, for strength we used nails and wood glue.

Using 1x4 cedar fence boards we went to work:
The size of your shutters will wholly depend on how big your windows are. We measured ours to fit our window (shutter dimensions: 15x36) Each individual shutter measured 4 fence boards across with a 1/4" gap in between.

Once the diagonal piece was assembled onto the shutters, I waited for the glue to dry, primed and painted them the color that our trim will be when we re-paint the house.Office window before: After:Kitchen window before:

After:
These shutters bring excitement for so many reasons! 1. We are able to cross another thing off of our list, 2. they make the house look stinking rad and 3. by choosing the color for the shutters, we have also chosen our trim color...

KACHING!

Driftwood Sconces

2011-07-30T06:07:00.000-07:00

When I posted our house list last, I noted something about staying tuned for the sconces for the bathroom. We just finished them last night and I am thrilled with how they turned out!!

The idea started on a sunny 1/2 day off. Jeremy and I decided to work no later than 2 o'clock and spend the rest of the day at the beach.We were enjoying each other, the weather, the ocean... when we happily stumbled upon this piece of driftwood:Immediately my wheels started spinning and I knew that we had to take this puppy home to repurpose into something awesome... And what's more awesome than finding something awesome and turning it into something awesomer, for free?? And so began it's final trek to becoming sconces for our bathroom:

First, we chopped the driftwood in half and squared off the back so it would fit flush to the wall:

Then, we cut out an approximate 90 degree angle, just enough for a tea light candle to rest on:
(sorry for such dark pictures, it was a little late when we were finishing this project!)

Then, Jeremy drilled a hole big enough for the tea light to rest in and I lacquered them:

EEk! And now look! I absolutely love them!

Crops!

2011-07-28T19:45:00.000-07:00

I harvested our first crops of the year today

and I'm thrilled!

You're looking at jalapenos, some mint sprigs, onions, squash,
beans, brussel sprouts, 3 different kinds of lettuce and cauliflower!

Summer fun trip numero uno

2011-07-25T14:21:00.000-07:00

Jeremy turned 29 on the 23rd, so we had planned our first summer outing this past weekend. We went camping with a fun filled itinerary complete with canoeing, boating, hiking around a waterfall, quading and horse back riding. We had a blast and left with so many memories and I left with a serious sun burn and 124 (we counted, twice) mosquito bites... But still had fun, I swear :)

Here's some fun pictures from our weekend:

Happy Summer!!

Kitchen stools, doors and a little craft

2011-07-21T19:49:00.001-07:00

Kitchen stools:

These were my mother-in-law's kitchen stools that we have used for years. I knew that I wanted a much more simple tall stool for our bar in our kitchen. Stools that will also go well in our kitchen-to-be, not so much our kitchen now.

And then I stumbled upon these while Jeremy and I were thrift store hopping one day for fun. (is that a strange thing to do for fun??) So at 6 dollars a piece I snatched them up! They were rough and beat up but solid wood and the simple, country look I wanted for our kitchen.

And with a lot of sanding and even more paint: viola!

They take up so much less room and I love them!

Doors:
Our guest bedroom now has a door and a door handle!

And for my craft:

I was looking for some theme appropriate decorations online to fill what is now our corner DVD shelf. After Jeremy came home with his giant tv, our corner shelf that is full of DVD's looks so cluttery. So we'll eventually be making an entertainment center for under our tv to hide the DVD's and lightly decorate the corner shelf. I found some cute african safari type animals made out of wire on the Pier 1 site with a steep price tag. I wasn't willing to pay a high price for something that I could make for free... in comes my craft:

Sooo, they are obviously not professionally done, but they're fun and will be a great addition to what I'm envisioning the shelf holding.

Jeremy's shop and our chimney

2011-07-21T19:04:00.000-07:00

As Jeremy's work trips have become extended and more frequent, his shop has become more and more of a nightmare. Finding a paint brush became impossible without a phone call in order for him to help navigate me through the mess and arrive at where he hopefully left one last. In addition and most importantly, the lack of organization was increasing the amount of time it took for him to get out the door and start his day. So, organizing the mess and sorting through his shop went on our list. I'm kicking myself for not taking some before pictures but I'm also glad to not possibly embarrass ourselves with how bad it got!

So here's his shop completely organized with our camping gear/hiking/floating gear on the left and stacks of lumber on the right. Everything is super easy to get to and he's now able to see what lumber he has on hand so he's not buying doubles (I've said this before but lack of organization can seriously get expensive if you're constantly buying doubles of something you already had but couldn't find)

We got these shelves to stack his plumbing bins/painting/electrical/grout and tile work bins, his many bags of different colored grout and mortar, tools, etc so he's able to clearly see what he has and where it is and grab it and go. There is plenty of shelf space left for any tools that are typically kept in his truck to be stored in the shop instead.

This was my biggest contribution. Jeremy had bags of screws and nails and bolts, you name it all over. Not to mention the loose nails/etc that were scattered on the floor and in every nook and cranny of his work truck and shop. I will eventually label everything. But for now, row by row, he has organized hardware.

Our poor ceilings have taken a serious beating. Partly due to a desperately needed new roof, which we thankfully took care of last fall. Also partly due to a poorly sealed chimney. So, before we repaired the ceilings, we had to take care of the root of the problem on the roof. Again, no before picture, but I'm happy to say that our chimney is now sealed and mortared.

CHECK, CHECK!

Revised and updated "my mom is coming" house to-do list...

2011-07-21T09:15:00.000-07:00

...and probably the last list for awhile.

For those of you who don't know, Jeremy has been gone all but 8 days a month for the past 7 months and is just now home for good as of a week ago. It's been so hard for him to catch up on sleep and bids for customers while working and trying to knock some of these to-do items off of our list. I'm a big help but not when he takes off with all of the tools and when the heavy lifting is too much for my girly muscles to bear. In any normal circumstance I would be one-hundred-percent ok with casually getting these small things done, but in three weeks my mom is coming from Woodstock, GA. A visit that hasn't happened in three years. Yup, I haven't seen my Southern momma in three years! Since we got married, actually. It's a little unbelievable, however exciting and I'm anxious to get everything done with haste. I have promised Jeremy that we will be putting any future lists on the back burner if we're able to get everything done before August 10th.

Without further ado, here's our new and final list:

Weight Room:
-texture/paint/new light fixture
-fit all baby items in baby closet (they are accumulating elsewhere and it's driving me nuts)

Living Room:
-Touch up grout
-Build new entertainment center (seem unnecessary? Sort of, but J brought home a giant new tv and it is throwing the whole living room off!)
-Re-finish globe stand

Master:
-Trim around big window
-Matching table lamps for bed side tables

Office:
-Finish slate

Bathroom:
-Make sconces (stay tuned, these are going to be awesome!)
-Shelf
-Bathroom hardware accessories

Kitchen:
-Finish stools

J's Shop:
-Put up shelves/organize

Guest Bedroom:
-Door/door handle
-New closet built
-Wood blinds installed

Outside:
-Pressure wash/yard maintenance
-Mother-in-laws tarp building emptied and moved to the back yard
-Burn piles (I'm not sure if we can legally knock this one off of the list, we are way past burning season)
-Vent well and walk way by fountain
-Shutters
-Pond/Rocks
-Fountain
-Plants by fountain
-Edge back lawn
-Seal/refinish chimney

So, there you have it. Our massive list. I have thoughtfully -insert cheeky grin here- planned several fun outings for us this summer to reward our hard working bodies. Hopefully we can get these things done and I'm able to relax and enjoy my mom's company when she's here. Hurray for lists!!

The Laboratory

2011-07-12T22:03:00.000-07:00

I know I told you about my exciting job as the office manager at Agate alley Bistro. I am now the office manager at both the bistro and our new big sister restaurant Agate alley's Laboratory. We specialize in experimenting with culinary excellence serving Northwest cuisine with some Latin and Asian flair. I'm also the assistant event coordinator for our catering events. The space that we've turned into our home was a Shoji's for years and we've totally renovated it. The Lab just opened for lunch today and I did the sandwich board to advertise for it. Much like the method I used for the family sign I made.

And for a quick tour of the restaurant:

We'll start upstairs:Downstairs:
And behind these doors is our banquet room

My office:
Now that we've been open for about a month and the renovations are complete we are looking forward to theming out the restaurant a little bit more. I love coming here everyday! We're pretty proud!

Garden

2011-07-12T21:51:00.000-07:00

I was looking back at my previous blog posts to print out our to-do list before my mom gets here in August and saw the pictures of our garden from when we first planted everything. I cannot believe how full our planters are now! I thought I would update you on how well everything is doing.
Can you believe that? Terrible picture aside, the veggies are clearly taking over!

YUM!

Birthday Celebrations!

2011-05-30T19:12:00.000-07:00

I turned 24 on the 22nd of May! I am most definitely one of those girls who loves birthdays. I feel just as excited when it's your birthday as when it's mine. Truly. My husband had an entire 3 day weekend birthday celebration planned and it was wonderful. He's so good to me!

When you are a hard working woman, providing for her family, take little time out for yourself, you deserve to be treated like a princess on your birthday. I am a firm believer of that! Ok, it's not really a belief of mine but I certainly agree with it!

When it's your birthday...

HOME...

...is where you hang your tiara.

Jesse was very cooperative in the making of this picture.

Jesse's Tutu Dance

2011-05-18T18:00:00.000-07:00

Before I start this blog entry I want to add a disclaimer in here. I am not one of those people who dresses up their dog. Not on a regular basis, not for "necessity", not because it's darling... I find all of that ridiculous! BUT, we do have one outfit for Jesse and I decided to make a tutu for her so we can have matching tutu's for my birthday coming up on Sunday. Need? NO. Hilarious? Uhhmmm, ya. I am, however, one of those people who ADORES her dog. She is wonderful and I love her so much. Ok, before I continue to justify the doggone tutu, why don't I show you how to make one... for your human or canine friends/children.

First start with some elastic and measure how wide it needs to be to fit whoever you're putting it on. Sew the ends together. Next, cut some tulle into strips. I also used ribbon.

Wrap the tulle around the elastic and loop it through.

Keep doing that until the loop of elastic is full of tulle.
Here's Jesse's tutu and here is her happy dance to thank me for such a thoughtful gesture:

Benches and Pillows

2011-05-18T16:56:00.000-07:00

I have read about 3 or 4 new blog entries today from different people, all of which had to do with pillows in some form or another. I am aware that I'm not original in the idea of making my own pillows (my last adventure in pillow making was basically completely done by Jeremy's grandmother, bless her heart!). However, I am very happy with how mine turned out. For another great idea for home made pillows check out my friend, Dawn's blog. She's wonderful.

Firstly, (is that a word?) I had Jeremy build 2 benches. They're identically built but the one that goes in our room was painted black and the entry way bench was painted cream (the same cream as the letters on the wooden family sign) and aged with sand paper and stain.

Secondly (which I know is a word!) I got some great baskets for the hallway bench off of amazon (still looking for baskets for the bedroom bench, I've looked everywhere... hook a sister up if you have ideas)

Thirdly, I ordered some burlap from the Online Fabric Store. I got a couple of sacks (primarily got the sacks for the two finished sides that will eliminate just that much more sewing) in the natural color and a couple of yards of dark brown burlap.

Here's my pillow sewing journey:
:::by hand I might add:::
(I don't own a sewing machine... I also don't know how to use one!)

1. I got pillow forms from the craft store and put one inside the sack, measured and cut around it. Since the sack had sides that were finished I decided to take advantage of them! Also, I found when sewing fabric like burlap you must use a thick and sturdy thread. For the pillows in the entry way I used thread that was almost yarn, the ones in the bedroom I used black upholstery thread.

2. I sewed up the third side (yes this isn't the sack burlap, I wasn't the best documenter of this project) When I sew by hand like this, I do one run with the stitches as similar in width and as straight as possible and then back stitch (I literally just googled that term).

3. Don't be afraid to ask for help

4. After the third side is sewn up, shove your pillow form inside what you've sewn5. Fold the remaining fabric inside the pillow, can you tell what I mean by looking at the picture?
6. Here's a finished side
7. From there you can add whatever "accessories" you'd like to jazz up your pillows. For some of my pillows, I added buttons and I also added an "S" to one of our bedroom pillows. Here's how I did that part.
8. I printed and cut out an "s" and placed it on the burlap. I used fabric paint and traced around the letter. Once the paint was fairly dry, I pried the "s" from the fabric and filled it in with more fabric paint.
Fabric paint takes about 4 hours to dry, so after waiting about 2 of those 4 I got impatient and used a blow dryer. Worked like a charm! Then, I cut the letter out and stitched it onto the pillow, and for pure decoration I stitched around the letter. I clearly have a quality camera, the clarity in the picture is the tell tale sign.. try to not let your jealousy show... ha!

Grand Finale!

Bedroom:

Entry way:

Besides the fact that my fingers are in pain from a lack of using a thimble I am stoked about the way they turned out!

Spring Cleaning...

2011-05-18T16:20:00.000-07:00

...that I didn't have time to post about until summer. Well, it's sort of summer. Who am I kidding, especially if you live in Oregon it is certainly NOT quite summer! It seems to be closer to summer than it is when most people consider their cleaning/organizing sprees to be "spring cleaning" , yes? Anyway... I had a few items on my list that have been crossed off that I was able to do completely on my own and am very proud of function and neatness of the outcome. It was fun for Jeremy to come home from being out of town to a considerably more organized bedroom and bathroom.

Exhibit A:

Before

I found this jewelry organizer at Bed Bath & Beyond. It only stores my costume type jewelry, which took up a significant amount of space behind my bathroom cupboard door. The organizer is on a closet hanger and hangs very nicely with my dresses. An added perk: I don't have to carefully peel open my cupboard door in caution of the clanking the jewelry did before.

Exhibit B:

Before:

I got these belt organizers at Bed Bath & Beyond

I can't tell you how good that blank wall makes me feel!

Lord, Change My Attitude... Before it's too late!

2011-04-21T23:19:00.000-07:00

I just finished this book today and I was so impressed with the entire thing. From the forward to the epilogue. James MacDonald is the author and a Pastor. His author voice is so relate-able. He talks about changing your wilderness attitude into a promised land attitude (referencing the Old Testament story about Moses bringing the Isrealites out of Egypt and into the Promised Land). How do you do this, you ask? Well, I'm glad you asked because he creatively ties every chapter into the next. For example: chapter one-replace a complaining attitude...chapter two-with a thankful attitude, 3/4- replace a covetous attitude with an attitude of contentment, 5/6- replace a critical attitude with an attitude of love, 7/8- replace a doubting attitude with an attitude of faith, 9/10- replace a rebellious attitude with an attitude of submission. Pretty great stuff, huh? It's longer than the books I've been reading, but totally worth reading again. If you flipped through my copy you would find lots of high lighting and underlining. I'm sure once I read it again I will have more to mark. It was truly an eye opening book that just totally called me out! We all struggle with attitude problems and can find things to assign fault or blame, but why? Why, when something so much greater is waiting for us once we get over our attitudes? My eyes are opened! A must read!

Our very first garden

2011-04-20T20:52:00.000-07:00

Jeremy built and we planted our very first garden this weekend. We spent a lot of time at our local home improvement garden center probing the poor staff. I'm pretty sure we've got all of our questions answered.. if not we can certainly call and pester them some more. It was a rough venture trying to choose one fruit/herb/veggie over another but we narrowed it down to:

Eggplant, beans, 3 different kinds of lettuce, cucumber, brussell sprouts and garlic...
...which is why we had to build a second planter

so we could plant some squash, carrots, potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower and onions. There's also some dill, mint, chives, dwarf curry, cilantro, lemon balm and basil in the pots and we'll add some peppers to the middle pot.

We added a little walk way in between the two beds with bricks we already had, and this is all made out of material that we already had too by the way. I'm starting to learn that it's completely ok to have a somewhat of a pack rat of a husband. Sometimes tolerance doesn't mean that you're a push over! GO FIGURE.

It truly didn't look like we had nearly this much produce to raise when it was in our cart. But we are so so excited to see the fruits... er veggies of our labor in a couple of short months!

Windows and a bamboozled yard

2011-04-20T19:53:00.000-07:00

We've been planning to get rid of our bamboo in the back yard for the two years we've been here. Wanna see why?

And this is with serious grooming. True story.
Here are some during photos. I didn't snap very many because I was in absolute awe and amazement at every transforming movement of the tractor. Kind of awesome.
Here's some afters. We rototilled the area and very meticulously sorted dirt from root. We need to treat the area and baby it for the next month before we can think about planting anything, landscapers orders. We drained out the pond, also. We basically need to redo everything we've done to our yard. It's fine though. I'm still on a post-bamboo high. It's like magic, what the lack of bamboo has done for our yard. Our yard has been bamboozled!

We also knocked the trim in the living room off of our list.
It's hard to tell in a picture what all needed to be done. We needed to sand/caulk/fill in holes/prime and paint...
This is what a hard working husband looks like when it's late at night and he's determined to finish a lingering project.

And viola! It's finally finished.

Check and check!

I saw the sign... And then I hung it on the wall

2011-04-12T19:08:00.000-07:00

My family sign has finally been hung on the wall and the coat hooks have also graced the wall with their presence. Here's the grand finale (minus the bench):

Here's a shot of the sign on the wall with the slate entry.

And the bench, once it's made, will go right under the sign. It'll measure about 18 inches high and will be the length of the sign I made. I'm pretty stoked about it!

More Organization

2011-04-12T14:22:00.000-07:00

These two things were not on my list, but certainly needed to be done. I saw the closet organization on a new blog I'm following and was inspired to also do my spice cupboard.

This is the mess I had to tackle. Storage? Yes, more from the dollar store.

After:

The spice cupboard was a request from my husband to tackle. He said it's the only place in the kitchen that drives him crazy. No problem, dear... I got it! With a little help from a -gasp- lazy susan and a napkin holder for my yeast/seasoning packets.

Before:
After:
No, the cupboards aren't pretty and yes they are going to be ripped out. I just thought I would throw that out there :) But for now I have much more room in both the linen closet and my cupboards!

Moments

2011-04-09T23:04:00.000-07:00

Today, I had an ADD moment -could NOT wait to hang my decoration mural thingy.. followed by an OCD moment while trying to take a quick nap. I took most of what I put up, down and NOW I'm able to walk away happy with the whole thing. Here's the updated before and afters.

Before:After:
You can see the difference, right? I sure hope so. Because I am much more pleased with this after than the before after. I'm a lunatic. I know... I know

Bedroom Decor, Check!

2011-04-09T11:18:00.000-07:00

My poor bedroom has been the object of neglect for two years. We've painted it, built a closet in it, half-heartedly hung some below parr decorations in it, along with some wood blinds to replace the drapes that came with the house. Beyond that, nothing. How sad! Thankfully I included our bedroom in our checklist and went to work to decorate the poor thing. Here's the transformation process in action:

We started with this... (don't judge)

I designed an eclectic wall mural, of sorts, collection of things-whatever you want to call it- that included things we loved. I designed it to wrap from that window on the left to a window on the right. I started by repurposing some things, painting things, assembling, making from scratch, etc. to get a large pool of things to pull from in the making of this design.

Here are the letters l-o-v-e that I stenciled onto wood from our scrap wood pile. Jeremy cut them out and I painted them

I painted frames that were for art that used to go in our old office. They were actually pictures that were in our "Goodwill pile." I took out the old pictures, painted the frames and popped in some unframed wedding pictures that have been stored for years.

Here is the start of my collection of things I had planned to paint and use in the design

Here are some of the decorations getting their either black or gold spray paint bath

Once everything was painted/repurposed/tinkered with, I arranged them on the floor to make sure everything would fit in the space I had planned for them on the wall. To make the hanging easy I just measured and drew guidelines on the wall so I knew exactly how high and how low the design could go.

And here's what it looks like on the wall:

Other gold/black decorations in the room:
Before:After:I was also able to check the "add height to the corner" item off of our list by moving those candle sticks from our living room into our room.

This whole project grand total: free.

We used things that we had and painted them with paint that we had. Gotta love that!

Cielings and Signs

2011-04-05T19:59:00.001-07:00

Remember this?

I set myself up to fix this mess, this morning
After:
Check!

Next I made the sign for this hall/entry way. The wall on the right is where it will go.

I started with 3 pieces of wood that were the same width and cut them all to the same length and sanded them down.
I painted them all the same color of blue, a color I found in our extra paint collection and also was a perfect blue that picked up the blue in our slate entry. Once the paint was dry, I flipped the boards over to tape them together. I did that so when I painted letters on them they wouldn't slip around.
Next, I picked a font/size I loved and printed them out. I cut, roughly, (no need to be perfect here) around them and taped them in order to the painted boards. Once they are secured, I traced on the letters which caused an imprint in the wood once I removed the paper.
Next, I picked a creamy color to paint in the letters and went to work. Here's the almost finished product. I'm not completely sure how I want to hang it yet.

Check!!

Candle Project

2011-04-04T19:36:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to take the credit for the idea (I read it on a fellow bloggers post) but I will take the credit for how great they turned out!

I am in the process of putting together wall decorations for our master bedroom. Among a very eclectic collection of things is this candle holder mini-project. I bought some square, cheapo, glass containers and some equally cheap, glass candle holders (4 dollars, at some point, free to me now because I've had them for awhile). Next I spray painted them with the closest color I had to gold (our master is all black and gold). And got some glass glue to stick the top to the bottom and there you have it!

The first of many checks

2011-04-04T18:09:00.000-07:00

In true Toni form, as soon as a list is made I am ambitious to cross things off.
The day after I made the list Jeremy and I went to work... on the easy things. But in my eyes a check mark is a check mark!

We'll start with the wood blinds, Jeremy took all of the excess blind-age off. 10 months after putting them up.

Check!

The next item we crossed off of our list was under the sinks. A quick trip to the dollar store and about half an hour later we've got some clean and organized sink under bellies on our hands. Total: $4

Bathroom
Before:
After:

Kitchen
Before:

After:

Check, check!

My Mom-Is-Coming-Checklist

2011-04-01T19:17:00.000-07:00

I recently had a conversation with my mom about her making a long flight from Woodstock, GA to Pleasant Hill, OR to visit me and my family (who are also spread out to Central Oregon). I cannot wait!! I haven't seen her since our wedding in 2008! I also am excited to have a deadline for some little, and frankly embarrassing, things that need to be done around the house. (Mom, if you're reading this, don't feel bad that we're doing all of this in your honor, it's just a fabulous excuse and a reasonable deadline to get all of these things done)

Here's my incredibly revealing and un-edited list:
(for those of you who know me, this disorganization may be a shock, I would remove any children from the room, I wouldn't want to be a bad example. YA it's that bad)

Weight Room:- Texture/Paint/New light fixture

Guest Bedroom:

- New custom closet built/painted/installed (carpet in closet ripped out)
-New wood blinds

Master Bedroom:-Build a bench/make cushions/find baskets for under storage
-Wall decorations
-Hooks for behind door
-Matching table lamps
-Trim out big window
-Shorten blinds (wayyy too much excess)
-Add height to far corner

Office:

-Finish slate/grout/seal
-Wall decorations above desk

Bathroom:

-Organize/clean under sink

Kitchen:
-Clean/organize under sink
(i think even my camera was a little shocked at this one)

Entry hall way:
-Repair ceiling (it's hard to get a house roofed when your husband is the one doing it, and he also has a job...unfortunately Eugene weather isn't consistent and we had a leak mid project)
-Prime/paint ceiling
-Build Bench
-Hang coat hooks
-Make and hang decorative sign

Living Room:

-Fill holes in trim around sliders/windows
-Prime/paint trim
-Touch up grout

Outside:
-Seal/pressure wash chimney
-Build/plant garden
-take out bamboo
-pressure wash/weed/yard maintenance/burn piles burnt
-Empty tarp building (my mother in law has some things of hers that she stores in a tarp building in our front yard, we're in the process of emptying it out and getting rid of the tarp building)

Cannot wait to get these things started and more importantly cannot wait for the arrival of my mom!!

Save that money honey

2011-04-01T16:26:00.000-07:00

In the past months, I've significantly added to my list of blogs that I've been following, and have found a trend of money-saver lifestyle choice tips in multiple blog entries by multiple bloggers. I thought I would add to that trend with our own frugal abilities. Now, I am by no means a poster child for being frugal in all things. I have a tendency to throw an occasional tantrum when I can't get something I want (imagine a grown woman in the middle of Banana Republic, picking out a dress, trying it on, and her husband admiring what he sees but with a stern voice of reason says "honey, we can't spend what that costs right now" and that same grown woman refusing to take the dress off until she gets what she wants. Yea, that happened. And yea, bless his heart, he gave in.) But times are tough and we are ready for the challenge of spending less, putting our heads together and doing a little for the environment while we're at it.

First thing's first:
Buy. in. bulk

We buy a ton of our non perishable items in bulk. The only beef I have with this is the waste of the wrappers. Which leads me to my next money saver tip..garbage.

We used to spend 50-100 dollars on garbage/recycle curb side pick up per month. We live in the country so we can get away with this, but we now have about 8 or so garbage cans that we take to the dump when they're full. The dump is about 10 minutes away and the cans get full every couple of months or so. When it's time for the dump trip, we load up our hound dog and leave within 15 minutes only spending about 14 dollars to dump our garbage. Yup. 14 bucks. How?

We compost all of our "food garbage" and we also are very good recyclers. So all of our plastic/paper/card board/bottles/glass garbage is free. Everything else amounts to 14 dollars bi-monthly.
Next, always store food in plastic containers. It keeps your food fresher and they are much more visible so you know what you have. We also rarely use ziplocs or disposable storage. When we do use them it's for travel and they are always reused.This is our travel drawer in our bathroom. It's not pretty. But it is sure useful. We keep our travel toiletries and ziplocs in here. We often throw our face wash/astringent/whatever else we think will leak on our luggage in a ziploc. Also, we rarely use paper towels for cleaning. We more often than not will use cleaning towels that we can just wash and reuse. I also hang dry almost all of my clothes. I've never considered the money I save in electricity sans dryer for my portion of our laundry but I'm sure it helps in a little way. It's also MUCH better for your clothes.We also buy things that are recycled as much as possible. For example, for school I use notebooks-duh-. Non-recycled notebooks can cost up to 10 or 15 dollars! Crazy, right? These recycled notebooks were .79 cents. Reused items are also a definite money saver. We often will cruise our local recycling center for material for new projects.Another tip is to keep your things neatly organized. Yes I do this in part to satisfy my OCD tendencies but it's also a money saver. I find that if my things are neat and visible that I'm less likely to buy doubles of things. There are certainly things in the house that I do not need multiples of.
This is my bare and fairly unorganized and tiny pantry. It's bare because we are undergoing a challenge. A weird one but nevertheless we're taking it on. We are cooking until we don't have any more food to cook. We are literally using every ingredient we have in our house before we buy anything else. A world traveling friend of mine said that she would often empty her house of basically every ingredient before she would grocery shop. I was shocked when she brought that up, thinking how impossible this would be. Now, I'm challenged to do it. It's a great way to get rid of things that may be nearing their expiration date. But it's also (remember I'm a teence OCD) a great opportunity to get things CLEANED! The little nook and crannies of my pantry, spice cupboards and refrigerator are getting emptier and emptier therefore nearing a cleaning spree! Excuse my odd excitement.Another tip is to eliminate as many monthly expenses as possible. One expense that Jeremy and I have eliminated is our gym membership. Our membership was somewhere in neighborhood of 100 dollars a month. Now, we have our own gym-granted it's not state of the art, nor do we have the luxury of a trainer. But this set sure get's the job done! We have the machine that can be switched around to do just about any workout, the ab bench to the left, a giant mirror for squats/lunges/cleans, free weights and a few yoga odds and ends.

The next tip is something that my husband is much better at than I am. Keep-Everything. I'm trying to reign in the hoarder side of this money saving tip and meet in the middle by keeping only things that have a purpose in the near future. This wood for example is a great thing to add to the keeper pile. In fact, most of our "left over" wood is what we make a lot of our DIY projects with.

All of these furniture pieces at our house were made with "scrap" wood

These are our bed side tables for our guest bedroom.
Our pet python ( i know, but he's cool) benefited from a corner kitchen cabinet that Jeremy tore out of a house he was working on and built the book shelf under neath.
This is one of 2 bed side tables in our master bedroom.
This is our corner DVD shelf.
Obviously it's often times not as economical to build your own furniture. But in this case, since we were using left over material which had already paid for itself, we ended up with twice the project with one set of material. On that note though, cruise the second hand stores or craigslist for used things that simply need some updating or re-purposing to get just look you want for the purpose you need it for.

Ok, that's all I have for you for now. I hope some of this gave you a few ideas on how to save where the saving is easy. Feel free to fill me in on any money saving ideas you use!

Dippin' Dough

2011-03-22T09:35:00.001-07:00

I had a dream. A sweet dream. A dream about sweets. I'm willing to share it with you because I'm both brilliant and a lune. I am more or less trying to limit myself when it comes to dessert items. But I also have this side of me that is borderline obsessed with them.
In comes the dream:

Imagine:
A donut shop. Not just any donut shop. Dippin' Dough Donut Shop. Follow along with the picture above. Genius right? It's like Cold Stone in the way that you can build your own treat, choosing from a plethora of options... but with DONUTS! Choose your type of donut (donut holes or donuts), choose your icing and then choose your topping. The pretty dessert dancers will put it together for you and you leave with exactly what you want and a smile on your face!

Thank you for visiting me in my dream!

Before you throw that away...

2011-03-20T19:03:00.001-07:00

...make muffins with it!

I just created my very first baking recipe and I'm thrilled to say that the end result was de-lish!

These, are sort of the casserole equivalent to a muffin. You know what I mean, there are always those meals that you try to use as many fresh ingredients that are about to sache their way into the trash or compost until you snag them mid jive rapido and make something with them and call it a "casserole." How on earth can you do that with muffins? Well, since you asked...

1 cup milled flaxseed/soy (either/or will work too)
1 cup whole wheat flour (either flour will work)
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup raw sugar (any kind of sugar will work-minus brown-raw sugar is not as sweet and has much less calories than white, also I had a ton of it that I'm trying to use in as many recipes as possible)
-Here's the fun part-
(I used these ingredients, you can use whatever you want)
-about 2 medium carrots (grated)
1 small pear (peeled, cored and chopped)
1 small apple (peeled, cored and chopped)
1/2 c soy milk
1/4 c oil (whatever you have)
1 tsp hazelnut extract (or vanilla or whatever extract you have)
1/2 cup nuts (I used almonds, you can use whatever you want or don't use them at all!)

Throw all of the ingredients in the mixer, no need to do dry first then wet ingredients. Just mix them all at the same time.

400 degrees and 20 minutes later you wind up with a yummy smelling house and about 18 muffins. If it's still cold at your house like it is at ours, these muffins are sure to warm you up!

enjoy.

Bathroom Mirror

2011-03-20T09:36:00.000-07:00

Here is our bathroom mirror before:

And here is the work that went on inbetween that and the after photo.

We found some awesome trim pieces at our local recycling center, Bring. Places like this are a great resource for ideas, cheap material and a way to do a little for our environment.

We sanded them down and cut them to fit our mirror. Slapped some glue on the corners, filled in the old nail holes with nail filler, sanded the thing down and clamped the corners together.

After the glue was dry and the corners were tough as nails, we sanded and planed the corner. This is an unusual step (the sanding and planing corners part), but because these trim pieces were being reused they weren't identical pieces, thickness on each were very different. No problem here though, just a little bit of planing/sanding/filling the corners with nail filler created a seamless look.

We also beveled the inside of the frame so that the mirror had a place to sit (middle picture). Then we primed, painted, added the mirror and some hardware...

And viola! We've got a much better looking mirror.

So, imagine the mirror coupled
with slate floors/shower walls,
concrete counter tops, white
cupboards and storage
and that sconce light (bottom
right) but with 3 sconce lights instead of 2. Also
the texture and wall color will be the same as what's behind that sconce fixture. I'm loving the mirror and all of the pieces that I know will complete this puzzle, eventually.

Disciplines of a Godly Woman

2011-03-19T08:45:00.000-07:00

For the past couple of months or so, our church has been selling (what they call) the "book of the month." I have never been a person who considers reading a recreational enjoyment. I've basically been in the habit of reading for educational purposes. Ways of saving money, parenting tips, house renovations, textbooks for class, etc. For the past couple of months or so I have become increasingly interested in coupling my bible reading with my school books and adding one one more book for enjoyment.

I just finished "Disciplines of a Godly Woman" by Barbara Hughes, this morning. I have never been so convicted yet encouraged by a stranger through the words on a page.

In a very brief summary of the life changing principles written in between the title page and the reference page, she touches on the soul, character, relationships, ministry and grace. She goes into detail about the disciplines of the gospel, submission, prayer, worship, mind, contentment, propriety, perseverance, church, singleness, marriage, nurturing, good deeds, witness, giving and discipline. Sounds like a long list, huh? She carefully and gently lists the things we are called to do and be like according to God's Word.

She closes with this quote pertaining to God's never ending grace:

When we have exhausted our store of endurance.
When our strength has failed ere the day is half done;
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources,

His love has no limits, His grace has no measure,
His power has no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus,
He giveth, and giveth and giveth again

-ANNIE JOHNSON FLINT

Keep workin' that hiney off

2011-03-17T17:04:00.000-07:00

I had the opportunity to have a fairly lazy morning with no guilt this morning, so my husband was up earlier than I was (which is rarity I can assure you). As I layed in bed with my eyes open I couldn't help but stare at the stack of jeans in my husbands' closet (no, we absolutely do not share closets, it's a serious luxury that I am never giving up). He had a large stack of work jeans and a large stack of off-the-job jeans.

I only wished that this is what the stack looked like when I woke up this morning! (This is the after shot.) I totally jumped at the opportunity to turn on some talk shows and go through his jean collection. Who on earth needs that many jeans?? Actually, I had him go through the stacks before he left for work. Most of them he couldn't wear. Unsalvageable, did not fit (not worth tailoring), unprofessional (yes, I know they're carhardts-not meant for giving off a professional persona-but they are his construction site wear and as the owner of the business he shouldn't be wearing jeans that are saggy or with rips in inappropriate places) or straight up ugly. We had a couple of piles going.
1. Goodwill
2. Garbage (scrap material)
3. Salvageable
(with a little elbow grease... or in my case this morning:
some nimble fingers, a cup of coffee and The View)

I busted this out

And decided to jump on the budget-friendly blogosphere bandwagon and went to work.
I had 3 work jeans to patch and 2 pairs of everyday jeans

In case you're not a sewer, this was just a matter of cutting out a piece of jean to patch the hole and stitch where you can't obviously see the stitches and until it's super uber duper strong.

(pffff!!! As if the picture above cleared any of those instructions up! ha!)

So now he can keep working his hiney off.

I'm done now.. seriously this time

2011-03-10T21:11:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure why I ended up posting about being ok with something being unfinished. I should have known that as soon as I did something like that, it would be impossible to discontinue the list of left "to-do's". Subsequently, I've got another project to share with you! A grand finale of decorations for the wall, above the tv. Priorities, right?

I started by taking the pictures out of this frame, a frame that was definitely one of those iamjustnowlivingonmyownandhavenoideawhatimdoingwithdecorations
butamquicktopurchasethisbecauseitmakesmefeelmorelikeanadult
impulse purchases.

I knew I was going to make my own frames for them so instead of getting glass cut for me for each size frame I decided to laminate the picture to protect them with our laminator that I just had to have as an office "essential". It was so darn essential, that it hasn't been used until this project. See how essential it was for this, though?
Once the pictures were laminated and cut out, Jeremy cut out 8 frames sizes 4x6, 4x4 and 3x3.

I used a thick/spongy mat board as backing for the pictures and literally stapled the laminated pictures to it.

Then hot glued the pictures to the frames after the frames were painted brown

I also ordered some circular mirrors from Target.com (around 20 bucks), arranged them on the wall and hung the pictures I put together by ribbon that I hot glued onto the frame.

Seriously-hot glue guns and paint go a long way!

And here we are!

I clearly need to clean the mirrors and can't end without thanking my friend Josie for helping me today! So, seriously.. Now I think I'm done with this room.... for now.

Another Guest Room Face Lift

2011-03-06T21:32:00.000-08:00

Every 3 or 4 days I have a load of strictly to-be-air-dried clothes and have only space in the guest bedroom closet to do so. As I was in there hanging wet laundry I couldn't help but be annoyed at how bright the room is! The bedding, the walls, the furniture we made.. all off colors of white. And I know that I was supposed to accept that the room wasn't complete but... I didn't

I started off with a small project. I used some scrap matting from a craft store and bought some wooden letters, painted them and measured them to fit evenly on the matting.

Jeremy built a frame and I painted it brown. I love it above our guest bedroom closet.
(Not nearly as much as I will love to have trim around the closet doors, but we'll cross that road some day)

The story behind the next project is fun. Jeremy's dad and his wife just bought a new house and have joined their things. In the process of joining there has also been purging. Jeremy and I, along with the rest of the kids, have gotten the opportunity to rummage through things and bring found treasures home with us. This tray we found and was Jeremy's grandmothers'. It has a really cool picture in the wood that matched the style in the bedroom perfectly.

I sanded it down and roughed up the picture on the face
of the tray and painted it brown.

Here's the picture from my last post that Jeremy
built a frame for out of trim. Clever boy!

The collective effort of the projects makes the room look so
much cozier and much less starchy and stuffy.

It's Craft Corner Time!

2011-03-03T16:48:00.000-08:00

Want to learn how to make this?

First you'll need these:

And a little bit of this

And you'll get this!

I need to spray all of the little pieces of paper down and clean up the strings from the hot glue gun and will probably be framing it with a homemade frame and paint chocolate brown.
Other than that though,
I'm in love!

a very special girls' night out

2011-03-03T06:43:00.001-08:00

Last Saturday, I was on my way to Portland for a very special girls' night out:These, are girls that went to my high school, who have also moved to the valley, most who I haven't seen since then....6 years ago... How did that happen? I am addicted to these types of reunions, thanks to this dinner. I want to do them every weekend! Catching up, and telling stories and the "remember whens" were soooo much fun! Thanks girls for a great, great night!

A weird thing to blog about

2011-03-02T17:26:00.001-08:00

This is my beauty supply/whatever you want to call it collection cupboard. And until recently it has been a nightmare, pulling things in and out of, to get ready for the day.

Yes this is a weird thing to blog about, but I am always a giant fan of things that are organized and in the end makes things sooo much easier in my daily routine.

I am currently storing my nail polishes in a vase (seriously, who needs five-thousand vases??)
I'm storing my makeup brushes in a planter with decorative rocks to help separate them
And I've always stored my dangley (is that what everyone calls them? I've called them that since admiring my mothers earings growing up) earings from a martini glass.

Jeremy just built me a little steppey thingy for all of my beauty products and -holy cow- has it made my life easier. No more knocking things over as I pull them in and out of the cupboard.
Don't worry these cupboards and lining will be gone soonish.

Hurray for more organization!!

Compost

2011-02-26T11:47:00.000-08:00

Jeremy and I are very excited about starting our very first garden this year.
I have been known to kill thyme, er time... by researching which veggies are fairly easy to grow, but if you have any suggestions, please feel free to fill me in! (actually I've killed thyme also, I'm not much of a gardener...)

For now, until the construction of the garden begins, our days start with a little of this

To be disposed of in this

which will hopefully provide us with some beautiful produce!

Recipes

2011-02-26T10:53:00.000-08:00

I am anti-clutter...ish.... The "ish" is an addition to that

statement that I am recently grasping.
The "ish" is referring to the fact that I can tolerate it,
when there is no use in spending time to pick something up
or organizing it when it's going to be torn apart in the
near future anyway. This "ish" can be summed up into picking
your battles and using your time wisely.
For example, this is my junk drawer

This will always be my junk drawer so I am safe to keep it up every once in awhile.
(Although, honestly, it always looks like this so I don't really need to organize it)
But, this is what I mean. Even my junk drawer is organized, but our office...during tax season.. when you own a construction company... is cluttery.
There is no use (and would actually be extremely counter-productive)
in cleaning up all of the paper work after prepping for part of a day.

I do, however have some hidden exceptions around the house.
My recipe collection is one of those exceptions.
I used to just store the ones I found or created in a little recipe box and just
dug through them when I needed to. But lately it has been truly been on my
nerves that I don't have them organized.

So I started with this mess And eventually got everything organized into a recipe binder that was given to me as a gift for my bridal shower (3 years ago... I know... I know). I have the fondest memories with this particular gift, everyone who attended the shower put their favorite recipes into the book. It's fun to cook other peoples' recipes, especially if those people are family.

And here's what I ended up with.

The box is going to go into our baby closet.. Once we have kids we are going to compile our childrens' favorite recipes from their childhood to send with them once they are out of the house.. Did that just sound as crazy as I think it did??
How's that for over planning, eh?

Never want to unstrap

2011-02-26T08:01:00.000-08:00

I was finally able to ride my new snow board
last Friday and I never want to unstrap.

'Cause baby when it's cold outside, you sand.

2011-02-26T07:41:00.001-08:00

It was a frigid Thursday morning.

The kind of morning where everything seems to feel different...

Smell different...

Look different...

Sound different.

I woke up on Thursday to a thick blanket (6 inches thick, actually) of snow covering the city. (I know I'm from Central Oregon and 6" of snow is nothing to write home about, but in Eugene, it's enough to close schools and banks _and_ enough to realize how terribly unprepared Eugenian drivers are for this weather) As a result I felt the need to get a thicker blanket to team up with my existing blanket on my bed and get back to it. (After all, it was 6 am and I had nowhere to be until 8:30) Until I heard a buzzing sound. I made no mistake, I knew exactly what the buzz was, it didn't take a contractor's wife to figure it out, but.... WHY?!! Why, am I hearing the buzz at 6 am? I bundled up, and found my husband outside...working...in the snow....
Well, not in the snow, he fashioned a covered work shop out of a pop up tent that we typically use for camping. (Maybe this experience will encourage him to get back on the building band wagon and build himself a shop ::crossing my fingers:: ) Either way, it was snowing and he was outside.

Cause baby when it's cold outside
you sand.

When He Cooks.. I Sit.

2011-02-26T07:20:00.001-08:00

spicy corn casserole
apple/blueberry crisp

I am absolutely aware that I am one of those very blessed wives who has a husband who will cook for me. A husband who can cook well for me I should say. I definitely have never needed to choke down a dinner with the thought "it's the thought that counts, he tried" playing in my head on repeat. My only struggle with him being in the kitchen, is..... honestly?... with him being in the kitchen! I am a self professed (and working on it) control freak/perfectionist. Granted, not everything in my world is on the list of things I feel the urge to control, but the kitchen, absolutely, is on the list. I've noticed that in the past year or two, an increasing amount of situations will pop up where I am forced to fight the urge to just take over and force everyone else to just stand-by while I make everything "perfect." Seriously
:::who do i think i am?:::
I'm learning how to relax, take a few deep breaths and live a little. It's very stressful putting yourself in control all of the time, and when you realize how incredibly unnecessary it is and how much damage it's doing for --nothing-- it also makes you feel a little, nope a lot, ridiculous. I would rather have a blast and make memories and enjoy the time I'm spending with someone doing something than turning gray early worrying about the final product.

So from now on, when he cooks... I sit.
(unless he needs help ;)

Mere Christianity

2011-02-08T16:30:00.000-08:00

A little bit of a vocab lesson (and by saying the word "lesson" understand that I don't think that I'm teaching you something you don't already know) according to my marketing class:

Attitude- a consistent evaluation, positive or negative, about people, places or things
Motivation-a need that causes action
Satisfiers-factors that meet needs
Learning-a change in behavior due to past experiences

I'm reading a book I was given as a Christmas gift from my brother-in-law, Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. I'm sure you've heard of it, it's one of the biggies. I grew up with Christian morals and standards as a child. It was the pillar of my upbringing. I have always believed that if you stand firm on something that you were told to believe then you aren't standing firm at all, you need to experience it for yourself. Make it your own. Know exactly why it is you believe what you do... not just because mommy said so. While reading this book I've been very motivated to share it with other people, I'm learning a lot and it's creating a new perspective and a new attitude on why my faith meets my needs... I've spent a good amount of time trying to run away from the path that God has for my life. Faith and Grace pull me back in, every time. I've been doing a lot of reading and researching. Equipping, if you will. I want to understand why I feel what I feel. I'm the halfway person, you know.. there's the person that is ok with just "that feeling" and basing their faith on that, these people don't need proof. Truth is truth and that's the end of the story.. Others need facts and dates and history.. more of an intellectual ground to stomp on. I'm inbetween the two. I always have been. 'Mere Christianity' is a very logical way of looking at the Christian faith. I have been challenged, humbled and convicted by this book. C.S. Lewis is brilliant. Here's a few quotes I've underlined, so far.. (I'm only 150 pages in)

~"Strictly speaking, there are no such thing as good and bad impulses. Think once again of a piano. It has not got two kinds of notes on it, the "right" notes and the "wrong" ones. Every single note is right at one time and wrong at another. The Moral Law is not any one instinct or set of instincts: it is something which makes a kind of tune (the tune we call goodness or right conduct) by directing the instincts."

~"In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that-and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison- you do not know God at all. As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you"

~"To love and admire anything outside yourself is to take one step away from utter spiritual ruin; though we shall not be well so long as we love and admire anything more than we love and admire God"

~"Charity means 'Love, in a Christian sense.' But love in a Christian sense does not mean an emotion. It is a state not of the feelings but of the will; that state of the will which we have naturally about ourselves, and must learn to have about other people."

~"We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means-the only complete realist."

~"And what matters is the nature of the change in itself, not how we feel while is is happening. It is the change from being confident about our own efforts to the state in which we despair of doing anythings for ourselves and leave it to God."

I can't wait to finish this book, undoubtedly, with a new fresh perspective on Christianity.

An Exception to Completion

2011-02-08T09:49:00.001-08:00

The guest bedroom is finally complete with it's decorations and furniture. I'm sure we'll be adding to it here and there with theme appropriate doo-dads in the future and will be most certainly doing the finish work on the room (at the moment it is without base boards/new closet/new window/new closet doors/etc) but for now we're happy with the foundation we've set.

I love the collaborative effort of things that we've purchased-both bargain and expensive-and things that we repurposed and things that we totally made from scratch. It's been a fun to theme out a room with the challenge of keeping the color scheme similar to the rest of the house eliminating the risk of it looking like the crazy room that doesn't fit! I'm happy to let our guests sleep in this room, for now. And for now, it can be our room that's basically complete with the exception of a few things. Our exception to completion.

Fever

2011-01-31T16:50:00.000-08:00

It has been getting pretty hot and feverish around here. With Jeremy out of town, it's hard if either of us get sick. We just want to be taken care of by each other. Unfortunately this type of fever won't be going away any time soon. We're talking years. I'm talking baby fever. And... Jeremy.... has... got.... it..... BAD! It could be coming from the fact that he's going to be turning 29 in July and maybe nearing 30 has something to do with it? Or maybe it's the fact that he's been working in a home with small children and it's creating this urge? It definitely doesn't help that we have an entire closet full of baby gear in our weight room. We're talking breast pump, bottles, clothes up to one year, picture frames, the start of decor if we have a boy (we are doing a "lake tahoe/cabin" feel with a boys' room, that's IF we have one), toys, a stroller, a play pin, several swings and bouncies, a heartbeat monitor, baby books, a car seat.... I can't think of more but I'm sure the list would go on if I got up to look to see what was in those bins...

Now, you get the idea, right?
Oh! and not to forget the swings and bouncies skeletons that are filling the shelf in the closet.

Now, why is all of this stuff out of their bins? Well, Jeremy is home the first part of this week and I decided to show him all of the stuff that goes into the first stages of a babies' life. He had no clue what over half of the stuff was. I didn't do this to shut him down or to humiliate him, I just wanted to show him that having the stuff doesn't mean we are ready. And if knowing what the stuff is and how to use it all was going to be rough what about the actual baby? I know that he will be a fabulous father, but I think this education cured his fever a bit and helped his head to get back on track so we can stick to the plan!

side note: I actually adore the fact that he is the one with baby fever, and that he actually sat the hour and a half to listen to what each of the baby things did! He's so very much a keeper!!

Desk Plans

2011-01-31T16:18:00.000-08:00

Jeremy and I went to Washington in July to help one of my dearest friends move to LA. As a gift, she blessed us with a beautiful office desk. The desk is perfect for our business. We, then, moved our old desk out of our old office and created a weight room in the old office and moved the office into the music room. Did you follow that? We also did some painting/electrical work/outlets and plates replacements/slate laying/grouting in the new office, a face lift it desperately needed. In short, the desk encouraged some rearranging, updating, finishing and maintenance. The desk was perfect in it's original state but to make it perfect-er, I thought of turning the unit with the glass cupboards into a grid that holds rolled up plans for Jeremy's blue prints. I don't know why but I just realized how many ideas I think up that cannot be finished without Jeremy doing them for me. WHOA! Poor guy! He's got a long list, my thoughts never stop!!

In any case, here's one of those ideas that got finished.
Here are the cupboard doors that were taken off, I would have loved to keep them on but the rolled up blue prints are too long... boo
Here's a shot of the whole desk (note my little craft shelf on the right that could not be any more jam packed full of crafty thingys), also, don't pay attention to the mess... it's tax season... lame excuse, I know but it's the only time of the year that this type of clutter is tolerable.
Mid project.All Finished!!

Jeremy left some room on the bottom to possibly do some shelves. I love how it turned out and can't wait to get a label maker to type out addresses so we know which blue print is in which slot.

Happy Birthdy Daddy!!

2011-01-31T15:37:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago my dad celebrated the big 5-0. I thought of some things I could get him, but thought it would be more meaningful if we surprised him with an impromptu birthday party. I couldn't come empty handed so I thought of something as equally surprising and meaningful to bring. A homemade cake, made by yours truly, in the shape of a guitar. The longest relationship he's ever had (excluding those with his brother/sister/mom&dad of course) is with his music. And for as long as I can remember music was not music without the strumming of a guitar.

It was a Thursday and we were leaving for Bend to pick up my brother and surprise my dad on Friday night. I had a whole day to get this cake whipped up. I started with making a homemade batter... turned out to be a beyond terrible idea. So, no big deal, I just ran to the store (I literally ran, the grocery store is like 40 steps from my front door) and bought a few boxes of cake mix... A few boxes too few, actually.
Here are the templates I free handed-ly cut out to fit into the baking pans. YES, the one on the left is a turkey baking pan.... I ended up needing 6 boxes of cake and 4 icing.. tubes.. containers.. jars? .. whatever they're called. The first layer was no problem. The second layer was a s-t-r-u-g-g-l-e. It worked out that I was the only one in the house because I couldn't hold back in the outbursts of frustration that came with lining up the second layer perfectly without breakage, etc.
First Layer.
Second Layer.
I made platforms out of cardboard and covered them in foil. Mostly because I didn't have platters that proved large enough to hold the massiveness.

After a ton of patience (this is why I enjoy cooking so much more, simply because it isn't a waiting game as much as baking is) and a cooled double layer cake it was time to cut.
i. was. so. scared.It ended up turning out ok! As luck would have it, the white chocolate chips that I added to the batter, acted as glue to firmly hold the batter together while I was cutting the guitar shape out. I just thought it would add to the flavor, whadyaknow?

Next step, icing. yikes. It didn't go well. At this point, the intent was all that mattered. I was okay with it being destroyed and ruined. It sort of turned from frustrating to a joke. Like, who on earth was I, to be attempting something like this?? really! But I thought if I heated the icing that I could just pour it over the cake instead of spreading it and getting a choppy ice job.
Just a teence better than I thought it was going to be.
Finished product.He enjoyed it, which ultimately was the goal.

HAPPY 50th BIRTHDAY, POPPA!!!
You Don't Look A Day Over 35!

Big Girl Job

2011-01-17T16:30:00.000-08:00

I was offered my very first big girl job several months ago with an entrepreneur I met while serving at a local Mexican restaurant, a job I've had for the past 2 years. I was excited to further my business experience and jumped at the opportunity to meet with him and see what he had for me. We met in October for a quasi-interview. I was surprised to get an e-mail from him after leaving our meeting that day asking if he could refer me to a friend who also needed help with his business. This was definitely the first job referral I've had by a person I had just interviewed with. I was excited, humbled and a little stressed out at the thought of juggling 4 jobs, full time school and our own business. It was easy to leave the restaurant I had been serving at and my decision was made for me to narrow the jobs to only 2. The guy that I had originally interviewed with, sort of fell off the face of the earth but the job he had referred me to is ending up to be the best job I could have imagined. I'm so blessed by this new opportunity and can't wait to see what's in store for me as the new office manager at Agate Alley Bistro.

Careers and A'Cappella

2011-01-17T16:02:00.000-08:00

My brother-in-law, Jacob has had quite the eventful year. His success as a member of On The Rocks has exceeded anyone's expectations, including their own I'm sure. They went viral and then went national as one of the 10 groups on this year's season of NBC's The Sing Off. Apart from the group, Jacob is accomplishing his own individual successes. He's finishing up his masters in Music Education. He has been student teaching and conducted his first concert in November. I have watched my father-in-law conduct until he retired and it was touching to see the similarities in their conducting style. He's such a big boy now!! Is that weird to say? Probably. It is really surreal to see my husbands younger siblings transition into their adult lives. We're very, very proud of him!

Skating to the 80's

2011-01-17T15:55:00.000-08:00

Jeremy and I were invited to one of the best birthday bashes
I can remember going to. It was an 80's roller skating birthday.
Our friend, Betsy, does not mess around when it comes to having a good time.

Here's what I mean:

We dressed in our best 80's/power outfits (power outfits are those crazy things in your closet that you wish were acceptable to wear in public, but because they aren't you keep them until an event like this)She rented the entire skating rink for her birthday so we were able to
skate the night away with our friends. I cannot remember the last time
I slapped a pair of skates on, but as soon as I got my sea legs I was hooked.
I could have skated all night long.

Merry, belated, Christmas!

2011-01-17T15:32:00.000-08:00

Wow. Blogging sure has taken a back seat for the past month or so. I'll get to what we've been up to in the past month or so in another post. This year Christmas was held at our house for gatherings with my in-laws. We typically do Christmas Eve with Jeremy's dad and on Christmas morning we celebrate with Jeremy's mom. Those events were all held at our house and it was our turn to play host. I guess after 6 or so Christmases we were due to deck our own halls.

Here's our table set for 9. I'm pretty sure this is close to the biggest sit down dinner we've hosted but we had so much fun doing this together!
We made ham, mashed potatoes, home made rolls and gravy, green beans/asparagus and fruit salad. We kept it simple, which was key in lowering the stress. Another key component in de-sstressing for the holidays is to let someone else do the cleaning! I'm a bit of a control freak when it comes to how things are cleaned so I did all of the regular house cleaning but had someone do the carpets. Huge relief!

This Christmas was special in so many ways.

We had some fun...
(yes those are adult onsies and yes those are props that we brought and yes... we walked into the mall-- dressed like that. no fear)

We had some much needed and oh so wonderful
family time This is one of the most special pictures I have, to date. It's the first time my brother's family met my dad and his family. My niece and nephew met their Grandpa for the first time and were spoiled rotten to make up for lost time. It was so special to see such a quick bond between the three of them. A merry milestone.

Merry, belated, Christmas!

Pastry Procrastination

2010-10-29T15:19:00.000-07:00

PROCRASTINATION.

You're looking at 4 loaves of pumpkin bread, 2 loaves of banana/butterscotch bread, 2 loaves of gingerbread, 24 apple tartlets, 48 oatmeal/cranberry bars, and enough sugar cookie dough for 200 cookies. I started baking Wednesday and finished this morning. Why does this scream procrastination, you ask? Well, it may not be your definition, but for me this is about as last minute and delayed as it gets. I was asked several weeks ago to put together the dessert snacks for our churches' three services on Sunday (Halloween). I completely spaced calling people until last Wednesday and had about 3 of the 25 people I called agree to help out. I needed 12. I'm crossing my fingers that these loaves (coupled with what the volunteers and my wonderful friend Josie are making) will feed the 5000... Well, closer to 3000.

A Story...

2010-10-20T09:04:00.000-07:00

...told by my dad, published in my Grandmother's book 'Confessions of an ex-Jehovah's Witness':

We stood on the slick, brown path at the top of the cliff, shivering, dripping wet, not really conscious of what had just happened. "Am I in trouble?" Toni asked. I choked down the lump in my throat, smiled and answered, "No, honey." She was silent for a few moments, no small accomplishment for a chatty 7-year-old. "Well" she said finally, "I guess God just didn't want me dead yet." All emotions broke loose. I knelt down in the mucky path and held my precious daughter in my arms, tears shamelessly falling down my cheeks. Other hikers may have passed us by. I do not recall. All I could think of was what might have happened, could have happened to Toni. And me.

*************

It was a beautiful May afternoon in the Pacific Northwest. The rain was much warmer than normal for this time of year.

I had carefully chosen an ambitious outing for myself and my three kids: Tyler, my oldest, was all boy at 11. Cali, my youngest was 6 years old, had a wanderlust; I'd have to keep a close eye on her. And Toni. "Little Miss Socialite," my wife called her. She had a God-given gift of leadership that did not need teaching but did need mentoring.

The outing I had chosen for that Saturday afternoon was a hike I'd found in a trail guide for children. It appeared to be a relatively easy hike in the foothills of Snoqualmie Pass. The guide showed a beautiful waterfall on the trail, plus a natural waterslide. It was unlikely that we would be able to enjoy the waterslide because the spring runoff would be fierce.

The rain drizzled steadily over us, but the thick pine canopy reduced the rain to a faint mist. Happily, we marched in a single file up the trail to the first top, a 50-foot drop called Franklin's Falls. The scene was breathtaking and the kids loved it.

The thick, foggy mist made our hair and face wet and cold, but the kids didn't seem to mind. We lingered for awhile as the falls poured thousands of gallons into Denny Creek, making the smooth rocks at the base of the falls waxy and unsure. Then, we returned to the trail.

Again, we formed a single file as the path wove up and away from the river into the dense forest, and back along the canyon's edge some 30 to 40 feet above the creek. Occasionally, we would wander away from the path and look over the edge of the cliff, admiring God's handiwork, stopping once to eat a quick lunch. I encouraged the kids to explore safely, within eyesight and earshot of myself or one of the other kids. These were smart kids, eager to wander but conscious of their surroundings and potential for danger.

Off to the right we could hear the thunder of another waterfall. This one was not on the map. We left the trail to find it.

There it was, smaller than Franklin Falls, but no less beautiful. It fell at least 40 feet straight into a steeply declining chute of rapids. I could see now why the guide said we would not be able to delight in the waterslide; the river was angry here, rushing by at a speed I could not calculate. I stood in awe of the raw power being generated. The sound was nearly deafening, and I did not notice that my three children were climbing down for a closer look, with Toni, the natural leader, in front.

I started down after them, being mindful of the glassy smooth rocks that were thinly covered by new green moss.

"Watch your step," I yelled over the din of the falls. "Those rocks are really slippery!"
Toni nodded. Tyler waved, but Cali held back a little and let me pass so that I could help her down.

As I reached back to help Cali down a small ridge, I heard a scream.

I whipped my head around just in time to see Toni falling headfirst over the cliff's horizon.
Strangely, I was not afraid, was not panicked. I felt a profound sense of urgency and concern, of course, but never fear.

"Stay put," I told the other two. I quickly made my way to the cliff's edge. I listened intently for a response to my calls and finally heard the sweetest sound I shall ever hear: "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!"

Somehow, she had managed to miss the massive rocks jutting from the face of the cliff, missed the huge log that lay placidly across the boiling river, and miraculously, missed the wrathful current itself.

"I'm coming, baby. Daddy's coming," I called back. The closer I got to the steeply sloping cliff's edge, the less footing I found. Suddenly, my feet slipped on the mossy rock. The sky became the ground the ground became the sky; pain began to stab at my back, my leg, my arm as I tumbled helplessly down the cliff, bouncing off boulders and the huge pin log before becoming instantly, briefly airborne, and finally splashing in the the freezing water. I came up immediately, gasping and ready to fight the fierce current.

Incredibly, the current charged past behind me, a scant two or three feet away. I stood now in approximately five feet of slow-moving, almost still, water where the cliff face made a sharp inward V-cut into the mountain. To the right and left of the V-cut the icy water rushed madly by, oblivious of the sanctuary where I landed.

Toni was clinging to a small flat rock at the base of the cliff. She looked so tiny and courageous there as she silently struggled to grip the smoothed edges of stone with her small, frosty fingers.

"Daddy's here, Daddy's here," I panted. "I gotcha, baby."

I wadded over, the water still up to my chest at the base of the cliff. I pushed Toni up and out of the water and onto a small lip. From there we slowly made our way up the face of the cliff, crawling, grabbing crevices, shoving our knees hard against the stone, and dragging ourselves upward, our clothes still weighty and hanging with the drenching from the river below.
I briefly looked up. I saw my son, whom I'd completely forgotten about, leaning precariously down with a small strap he'd taken off the water bottle.

"Get back!" I barked. "We're OK. Go back up." Somewhere far above us, Cali was safely embracing a huge tree.

We continued our struggle up the cliff, finally emerging at the ridge where we began our trek.

Later at home, we examined our wounds. Toni had somehow managed to escape with only a small scratch on her leg. She had fallen approximately 20 feet, head first. I had bruises on my back, legs, arm and side, plus a very painful sprained left wrist. I had fallen closer to 30 feet.

That night when we said our prayer, we took our time.

Since that day, God has reminded me of the incident and the significance of many aspects of that trip. Such as how we as human beings are so easily lured by the things of this world when we stray from the path that God has chosen for us, and how easy we can fall because of our weaknesses. But he also reminded me that when we do fall, we can still call out for Him because we have a relationship with Him; He is, after all, our Father. And when we call out to Him, He is swift and sure to come.

(A time after my dad was haunted with the details of this traumatic day he woke up in the middle of the night and wrote this song)

************

The path is narrow, the cliff is steep
I try to focus, but sometimes I fall deep
And no earthly man can save me from my fall
There is only One Who hears my call

I'm cold and weary, my strength is gone
I'm bound to stumble; how long can I go on?
And just when I'm about to give it in
He gives me the hope to try again

I cry out, Oh Father, and He comes to me
I reach out to Him, and He takes my hand
And like a frightened child I'm clinging to the Rock of my salvation
until He comes

He comes for me

***************

I ran across this book today while looking for something in our book shelf. I forgot that this experience was published. And until reading the book several years ago, didn't know that my dad immortalized this memory on paper. I'm moved by Grace and am driven by His plan. He's not finished with me yet.

PEACE

2010-10-20T07:24:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning at a little before 5 am with not an ounce of sleep left in me. I was wide awake and ready to chase after whatever details the day had on it's itinerary. Jeremy was not so wide awake, quite the opposite, he was narrowly sleeping...?... Anyway, trying not to wake my equally narrow sleeping dog, I got onto the computer... 20 minutes later... I couldn't stand it anymore... C'mon! Wake up! I was able to carefully wake Jeremy and convince him to take a walk with me and the pooch if I got him coffee at our neighborhood espresso stand. We arrived at home with darkness still blanketing the sky, still so I decided to work out and get a little bible reading in. I've been reading in Galatians and decided to look up a study online to partner with my reading. Along with the study of each verse, it also had descriptions/definitions of each term pertaining to the context that it's in (ie "Law" in this book is talking about the Mosaic Law in the Old Testament, as oppose to "Gods Law" in the New Testament). Galatians is a letter to the Galatian people written by Paul, an apostle. In several passages he emphasizes peace. Peace. A word jam packed full of meaning. I think depending on the person/circumstance that word is jam packed full of relative meaning. The mom with 5 toddlers may have a different perspective on what peace is to her versus the single student about to graduate Law School. These perspectives are possibly far more circumstantial meanings as oppose to the state of definitive peace. This study defined peace as:

"A cessation of conflict, a state of contentment, and quietness of heart, a sense of well being."

After reading this I realized how important my daily lists aren't and how little importance my busy-ness is. If you can't find peace, you're in a constant state of chaos. I realized that I need to find less pride in all of the things I've accomplished at the cost of loss of sleep, good attitude or eating and find myself in a state of stillness and peace. After thinking about it, why am I adding to the worlds' chaos with my own? My mission to get into the habit of practicing a peaceful state.

Extra, Extra! Read All About IT!

2010-10-13T16:08:00.000-07:00

I am not sure how much more like "Fall-y" it can smell in my house at this point. I've canned 7 jars of apple sauce this morning. The cinnamon and spice that permeates every nook of my house and my senses gives me a pleasant feeling of everything lovely that Fall has to offer. In my quest to conquer the giant bucket of apples I had from our tree, I decided to add to the preservation of food and go farm hopping. I got a lot of fresh, beautiful produce at an equally beautiful discounted price.

For Example:

50 ears of corn for $15
A bag full of organic honey, jalapenos, portobella mushrooms, freshly cut/packaged meat, acorn squash, tons of fruit and a pound of green beans for $36!This bucket was full and gave me 7 jars of apple sauce, 12 tarts, 3 apple crisps for free!

I used to think that organic was grocery code for much, MUCH more expensive. Well it is when you get it from the grocery stores. If you grow your own or visit a nearby orchard or small farm (one that doesn't distribute to grocery stores and is certified organic) it is much cheaper and is much more rewarding. It requires a little bit more work to preserve the bulk you are bound to end up with after leaving these farms but the rewards are well worth it.

There is a wonderful farm near our house, River Bend Farm and Pleasant Hill Orchard, that I visited for the first time today and was blown away at the gobs of produce/nuts/honey/meat/fruit/etc that they have. It's all either grown on the farm or is brought from within the county. All local. Which we LOVE. River Bend is involved with a fantastic program called the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). It is a program that benefits both community and farm. It is a program that, for a small fee, provides a large amount of in season produce weekly for those who are members. A CSA membership assures you of the finest and freshest food for your family and supports local community agriculture. This particular farm provides a membership that includes a weekly box of produce/baked goodies from their farm store kitchen for 20 weeks. The purpose for this program is to generate revenue in the farms off season. Which leads me to my next point: supporting/purchasing local.

It's not just a lovely thought. It's not an idea I had because I live in Eugene, Or (hippie-ville USA). There are serious health risks for those ignorant enough to assume that the produce/meat they are buying at the grocery store is actually what it says it is when it says it's "organic" or FDA approved. So, say you take the risk and buy "organic" from a grocery store, you pay up the yin yang for it, right?? OR, let's say you can't afford the "organic" selections from the grocery store. An apple's an apple, right? Ugh, no. Unfortunately, we live in the age of the quick buck. In addition to the unfortunate concept of the quick buck, we are suffering illnesses due to herbicides, pesticides, antibiotics and hormones. You think it's not that big of a deal and that there's a small chance of us getting sick by being "healthy" and eating "organic" produce and meat. Seriously, do your homework before you assume this. If you don't care for yourself, care for your existing or future children. It truly doesn't take a whole lot of effort to find a local small farm and pick your own berries and freeze them or buy corn in bulk and can them. Grow your own vegetable garden. As John C. Maxwell said "There are 5 small words between success and failure; I do not have time." If you make it a priority and make time, it is totally doable.

Blessed to Bake

2010-10-12T09:20:00.000-07:00

I proposed the idea several weeks ago to the leadership at my church to start a baking group with the ladies who serve in the nursery at my church with me. With 200+ childcare volunteers it is hard to get to know everyone just by going to the gatherings. Last night was the very first baking evening. Only 2 ladies were able to make it, but it was so fun getting to know them! Jeremy and I have been getting to know a lot of people in our church by going to classes or multiple gatherings a week and by serving wherever the church needs us and I love this body that God has placed us in. It's not a country club of believers, it's not a religious meeting-doing our weekly religious duty-, everyone we've met is so real and open about their testimony which encourages us to do the same. It's truly changed our lives.

(I like much more crisp, than apple in my apple crisp)

The ladies and I baked apple crisp last night and it was YUMMY! I thought I would start off simple and would definitely take advantage of the apples on our tree that are about to be composted if we didn't use them for something. I had planned to also make some apple tartlets with the ladies but, I didn't thaw the puff pastry in time. Which actually worked perfectly because I was using a recipe that I'd never tried before (a brave move with guests, I know) so I gave the tartlets a try after the ladies left. They are so easy and sooooo delicious!After watching a youtube video on how to make tarts and studying the recipe I totally winged what I ended up baking and they ended up tasting wonderful!

The way I did these are terrible for you. Probably 500 or so calories per tartlet. I've given up sugar/sweets for a month or so and since then have had sugar head ache withdrawals and now am at a point, apparently, where if I have sweets it gives me a head ache. So, the leftovers are going to be a frequent visitor in Jeremy's lunch box.

For the Tartlets:

~Spray a muffin pan with non stick spray
~Cut Puff Pastry to fit each hole with a little over hang
~Cut about 5 medium apples into tiny pieces and reduce with a little water and mix in some cinnamon, a small handful of dark brown sugar and a pinch of flour
~After the apples are soft and the mixture has thickened, spoon into each puff pastry and fold the excess puff pastry over on each side
~Bake on 375 for 35-40 mins

To Top:
~Reduce any jam you'd think will taste good (apricot, plum, strawberry, etc)
~Brush onto baked tartlet
~In a double boiler cream together butterscotch and whipping cream to drizzle over top of cooled tartlet

Viola!!

I had half of one last night and they were sooo yummy. I haven't weighed myself this morning, but something tells me that numbers have increased for sure!

I can't wait to continue this idea and get to know more of the ladies!

Birds Gone WILD!!!

2010-10-11T09:39:00.000-07:00

I was on the couch with my laptop in my lap doing some work and watching the birds in my back yard enjoying our pond. When out of now where one of the larger birds flew the 10 or so feet from the pond and right into our window. OUCH.

(try not looking out the window, look at the actual glass.)

Apparently the leaves that have fallen into the pond have somehow fermented into some sort of birdy booze. I really can't explain this any other way.

Disclaimer: the bird is fine, he flew away right after the collision. I'm pretty sure his friends need to have a serious sit down with him about drinking and flying.

Ashes, ashes we all fall down!

2010-10-09T15:52:00.000-07:00

Jeremy and I have been working out in the yard for several hours, every day since Sunday. 6 days of giving our yard a bit of a face lift. I didn't have any before pictures so I will just leave you with the aftermath piles and said piles being burnt into nothingness.

Meet My Mister

2010-10-09T15:25:00.000-07:00

Meet my Mr. Busy, my Mr. Driven, my Mr. Sweetheart, my Mr. Thoughtful, my Mr. Strong, my Mr. Creative, my Mr. Selfless, my Mr. Giving, my Mr. Handsome, my Mr. Talented, my Mr. Handy, my Mr. Loving, Caring, Successful, Overcoming, Godly, Patient, Tolerant, Smart, Helper, Teacher, Best Friend. My Mister Husband.

There are moments in a marriage that pleasantly and proverbially slap you in the face with a "and THIS is why you chose this mister to be your forever." Today, Jeremy and I woke up with a list of things to do. We've been working every day this week on our house/yard and are nearing the end of our list of "to-do's." Jeremy has also been working long days in an attempt to finish numerous small jobs to prepare for his monster job he's got coming up soon. I'm so impressed with the amount of energy in him. He is a get er done kind of guy. And with a willing attitude, which is key. With the list dwindling down and a sleepy/rainy Saturday to wake up to neither one of us were quick to get out of bed to get started on the house before we went to work. Jeremy started several things on the list and went outside to pick a giant bucket full of apples from our tree (without me asking) for my baking day I have planned with some ladies from our church on Monday. He thought enough about what I had going on to pick those apples for me and my friends. This may seem like a small thing to be made into a big deal, and honestly he does sweet/thoughtful things like this all of the time, but today we were both worn out and unmotivated. Despite being burnt out, he thought of me first. I am a blessed woman. Love you J!

Paint Color Has Been Chosen

2010-10-09T14:54:00.000-07:00

Pretty exciting stuff eh?

Well it is to us!

This color choice (a long process to arrive here) means that we are now able to paint closets/trim/casings/ baseboards/our pantry.......and............ once our cabinets are decided upon, this will be the color of our kitchen cabinets as well! Very, very exciting!

Here are the painting jobs that I could not wait to have done once the choice had finally been made!

This is brand new trim that Jeremy put up in record time after work one night
We primed/sanded/filled in holes last night and painted it this morning.

We also finished painting our pantry that was primed several months ago its second coat went on this morning and the trim will be finished with its second coat later today

We asked the paint guy to use the recipe from our wall color and add a fraction of it to a semi-gloss white and we are stoked with what turned out! Choosing from color swatches would have looked far too green/pink/etc against the wall color. I am, however, not really looking forward to living out of the guest bedroom closet when I start to paint my closet ;) but stoked to get it finished!

2010-09-22T16:08:00.000-07:00

Addiction. A scary word. Often a word that gets thrown around flagrantly with light hearted undertones. Whatever your experiences are with addictions, you know that once you've kicked an addiction the withdrawals and fiending are not far behind. Lurking in the shadows, serving as a punishment for your strong will to quit.

Ok... Enough, drama queen.

I am on a sugar and dairy strike. I was addicted! What?! I really was.

The dairy thing, bad news because I'm allergic, but would pop a lactaid and down a glass of milk coupled with a grilled cheese sandwich... No bueno. Sugar, on the other hand, and I have had a wonderful relationship throughout my 23 years on this earth. I have been a faithful and loyal consumer of all things that included sugar as an ingredient. In fact, as a child my parents would find me in the middle of the night with a face covered in sugar due to robbing the sugar bowl. My love for sweets started at a very young age. Ok, so every kid loves sweets. No need to alert the media. But into my adulthood, consuming entire boxes of donuts as a meal in the middle of the day and no where near "my time of the month" was not uncommon. I created a habit of "rewarding" myself upon completion of each meal with a cookie or brownie. Nightly I rewarded myself with the completion of the day with a bowl of ice cream (a double whamie-no-no, sweets and lactose). I classically conditioned myself to complete something (I'm being vague with the word "something" because I would literally wake up in the morning and think to reward myself with something sweet) and it would be followed by a sweet snack/meal. NOT OK. This probably sounds like I was depressed, I wasn't. I just have no self control. Not when it comes to sweet ingestables. And especially not if my metabolism is so darn fast that I didn't visually reap the consequences of my lack of self control.

SO, I've been without both dairy and sugar since Saturday. The headaches are enough to resort back to my unhealthy but delicious ways. But I won't! I want to create a healthy lifestyle for myself and my home and my future family.

I made some power muffins the other day and they sure are powerful! After tweeking the recipe several times, I think I've got it down.

Ingredients
1 ripened banana
2 tsp olive oil
1 organic brown egg
1/4 cup non-packed brown sugar
1/2 cup freshly ground flax seed
1/4 whole wheat flour
1/2 cup oats (the whole grain kind, looks like horse food)
1/2 tsp baking soda

This recipe is the base, from here you can add whatever you want. I added in some dried cranberries and some dried apricots. Nuts, dark chocolate chips, any dried fruit all would be great. They are a great way to start out your day!I'm crossing my fingers that I can keep this up!

Canning Experiment

2010-09-13T12:30:00.001-07:00

My sister came to visit last October and we attempted to can some apples and pears from our trees. I'm pretty sure we completed each recipe wonderfully (everything tasted great!) but the process of canning to preserve wasn't quite accomplished. I have been doing my homework and decided to give it another go with our plums. With better equipment and a serious set up I was bound and determined to not let these yummy plums go to waste. I was able to can a couple of jars of plum jelly and one can of preserved plums. The jelly is delish. I'm very proud of myself! This is a whole new level of domestication, I was unsure I would ever reach. Our apples are near ready to be picked and I'll have some time before the pears are ready. I'll give it a go, for a round 2 with the apples. I'm crossing my fingers!

Furniture Finale

2010-09-13T12:12:00.000-07:00

We've completed our table contribution to our guest bedroom with 2 bed side tables and a foot of the bed TV table. I am so happy with how these tables have turned out and loved every minute of creating them from start to finish with J. I love that this table is the TV table and has yet to have a TV or a DVD player for it's designated shelf. Details, details.. right? We have one final thing to make for this bedroom. We'll see how it turns out before I tell you what it is.These are some of the decorations in this room that I've made and put together. I had the vases for awhile but they were quite formal for the look I was going for in the space. So, to create a far more casual look I decided to use natural elements in them. For example filling the space in them with dark brown coffee beans (which have made the room smell divine) and painted some of our favorite bible verses on some cut out round wood. They'll look complete on the table once we've got a TV on there!

All I Need Is a Roof Over My Head....

2010-09-13T11:55:00.000-07:00

Well, that would be nice within the next week or so. But for now I am so thankful that Jeremy has somehow made some time in his unbelievably confusing and nutty schedule to re-roof our desperate roof. I am so very blessed beyond belief to have such a handy and talented husband to get jobs, like these, done. This particular job is very messy, noisy and going to be sooooo worth every bit of the hassle once it's finished.. for several interior reasons...

REASON #1
REASON #2
REASON #3

All of which were completely pointless to patch or fix until the roof was re-done. So, once the roof is finished we'll be able to finish our ceilings and the painting will be finished once and for all in the rooms that we've started them in.

Teamwork

2010-09-13T11:47:00.000-07:00

My dad came from Bend last weekend to visit. We played some music, ate, laughed (can't help that when he's in around) and.... did yard work. I know, weird right? Well, he had a use for some plums that were growing on our 3 plum trees we have in our back yard. We picked what we could but the tops of the trees were impossible to get to. What to do? Well, get out the chain saw and chop those trees down, of course! In other words he helped us prune our fruit trees. It was an overdue chore that we completely neglected last year. They're basically bare now! My OCD loves it! I would rather see bare and manageable than full and over taking the back corner of ours and our neighbors yards.

Pleasant Surprise

2010-09-13T11:25:00.000-07:00

I have been in a constant state of being pleasantly surprised in the past several months. I start out with a fairly pessimistic attitude of the outcome (which surprises me to say about myself, I've always considered myself to be a very positive thinker) with something I've volunteered to do or am participating in or a sticky situation with someone. It seems that I'm being shown so many different facets of life that I've not been open to in the past. Which also surprises me to say about myself because I've always thought of myself to be open to just about anything. In any case, I love being pleasantly proved wrong. I am absolutely ok with that!

Recently I learned that a crafty co-worker of mine was moving back to her home town in Hawaii after some very unexpected and unfortunate events. As a hobby, another co-worker of mine digs for crystals. She'll ecstatically bring them into work, after they've been carefully cleaned, and show all of us why they are so special. This girl knows her rock facts. I appreciated the fact that she was so interested in digging for rocks, but they were just rocks to me... until... my friend who was moving decided that she would love to go rock digging before her departure. These rocks would be beautifully turned into jewelry. One thing that bonds her and I is our love for being crafty and creating. Since I was willing to do whatever she wanted to get in as much time with her as I could before she left I agreed to go. The three of us met on a very early, misty, weekday to dig for rocks. We pulled into a hidden nook, lakeside and began digging. We played a game called "rock of the day" which was us basically comparing our rocks to see who had the best find. It was exciting to find little unexpected treasures that I would have otherwise walked right over and ignored. I learned a lot and had so much fun! Who knew?

Happy Fall!!

2010-09-13T11:12:00.000-07:00

Despite the sprinkles of sunny weather and heat here and there, Fall has crept up and fallen upon us. Fall is a season that I have gradually fallen in love with. I love roaring fire places, pumpkin/apple spice candles, fall decorations (my Halloween decorations are already out), fresh baked ____ (fill in the blank), knee length boots, fuzzy socks, hot cocoa, yumminess slowly cooking in the crock pot, cuddles, fog, crispy mornings and .......... FOOTBALL!! Football is especially awesome this year. Why? Well, a very generous father in law of mine decided to give all of his children/step children/childrens' significant others University of Oregon Duck season football tickets for Christmas. A gift that truly keeps on giving! Their first game was two Saturdays ago and started off the season with a 72-0 defeat over New Mexico. If you know anything about college football, a win like that over N.M. isn't a huge deal, it's sort of expected. Rest assured. The Ducks are legit this year. Proving themselves with a 48-13 defeat over the TN Volunteers. Moving us from a top 7 team to a top 5. GO DUCKS!

Pajama Program

2010-09-02T11:00:00.000-07:00

I recently helped to celebrate a beautiful babies first birthday. I've been with this family helping with their children for almost 2 years. One thing that bonds this family and I is our love for giving. For this particular birthday, instead of guests bringing gifts, they brought donations to the Pajama Program. A non profit program that provides pajamas and books for children around the country waiting to be adopted. It was a beautiful idea and such a wonderful cause. Check out their website and feel free to adopt this idea. I know I will.... in a couple of years ;)

Wedding Season Continued

2010-08-23T11:36:00.000-07:00

About 3 or so weeks ago I was asked by my sister in laws best friend to coordinate her wedding. I was blessed and honored to even be considered. And not simply because it was a big deal to be asked to be such a big part of someone's special day, but because of who Megan is. Who Megan and Josh both are. I have grown so incredibly fond of the two of them since meeting several years ago. Their love for one another is truly unique and inspiring. Anyone who knows them, can't help but smile at the thought of this remarkable couple. Weddings are always special for one reason or another, even it's at the thought of getting free food, let's be honest. But this wedding was jam packed full of special surprises, flawless planning, sweet family and moments that will permanently have a reserved section in my memory bank and was special for the love that they have for one another. It was a lot of work, but so worth seeing Megan's dream wedding come to life.

Thank you for all of the memories and for letting me be a part of your big day.
CONGRATULATIONS
to Megan and Josh Lenhardt
You deserve all of the happiness in the world.
We love you