Springtime

Wow, I haven't updated for a lonnnngg time. Here are some sweet things that have happened this spring.

Cats sat in windows.

I made this garden-esque wreath.

We planted colorful heucheras out front. They're doing well! I'll have to post a pic of their growth later.

We bicycled at Bombay Hook.

We easter egg hunted with our neice Gabby. She's pretty concentrated in this picture...

We dug the edges out of the garden.

Jeremy found this arrowhead and has not put it down since.

That's it. Summer is coming... expect more blog posts. I have plans, lots of plans.

Valentine's Day Message

:-)

The music is "Life is Rosy" by Jess Penner.

Reflecting on our Bathroom

Here's a project 2 years in the making.... We intended to put the original mirror back up following our bathroom renovation. However, it turns out installed the tile too far over. I got a dremel tool and fixed the problem, but then I dropped the big mirror and cracked the edge when we were lining it up for installation. Oops...

We've had a much smaller mirror sitting on the counter in the bathroom for some time. The other broken-ish mirror has been sitting on the floor of the guest bedroom in hopes the broken part would magically disappear or that we'd fix the mirror (HA). Anyway, in November I walked into thte bedroom and the mirror just split down the middle. I wasn't anywhere near it, it just broke when I opened the door. Oh well, at least it gave us the push to get rid of it. 

Now we needed a new mirror. We weren't really in search of one but Black Friday sales had other plans. Lowes had some remnant Black Friday sales on the following Sunday--including this huge 42 x 56 mirror for a great deal. We got that baby home, stuck it in the space and the rest is history! Just kidding. We got it home, figured out it didn't fit, so Jeremy had to move all the lights in the bathroom up about a foot before we could install it. While the project ended up taking three more hours than it should have, the mirror now happily resides on our bathroom wall.

Original Mirror

Bathroom with temporary mirror

New Mirror

Normally we have our "gossamer leaves" (no joke, that's what our shower curtain is called---I'm not nearly that poetic) shower curtain, but our house is dressed for Christmas. Needless to say, we're quite pleased with the mirror, but more pleased that it's done.

Dining Room Re-Re-Paint

Okay. I lived with it for more than a year. As the months passed I just started hating my dining room more and more. It took soooo much work to put up, but I think in the end the color clinched it. There was something 80s bathroom wallpaper to it. I just couldn't handle it anymore--especially with all of these people coming over for Christmas.

Here's what it looked like originally:

Here's with the paint job:

Here's the dining room now. I picked green, Jeremy picked the shade.

The dining room is clearly decked out for Christmas, but I think the color will wear well for all seasons. We have a lot of light and lot of green views in that room.

Stop and Stair

We had some ugly and shaky rails going up our main stairs. I don't have any recent pictures, so these are the ones from when we bought the house. They haven't improved since then, trust me.

Before the holidays we wanted to have a nice, safe railing to make sure ladies, gentlemen, and children of all ages were able to traverse the stairs. It started with a lot of math and planning from me. Good thing that geometry was the best of my math subjects. As many of you know math isn't one of my strengths. Surprisingly my calculations turned out to be pretty solid :-)

We took down the old rail--which came out disconcertingly easily...

Then with some help from the family we set to work on the rail. We measured...

 Cut and set the newel posts.

Spent a lot of time getting the rails in place. After the rails were securly attached to the newels, the spindles were installed.

After a day and half of work, the rail was installed! After a few adjustments I set to staining and poly-ing. One more coat to go and then it should be set!

Behold! How is that for some DIY?!

Bedroom Move

We moved our bedroom into the blue room. It still needs decorating, but already has a new dresser for Jeremy and a bed--so that's enough for us!

My side

 Ignore ugly blue bathroom, please.

Jeremy's side with ikea rug and underbed drawers.

New dresser for Jeremy!

A Dose of Fall

Sun across the leaves in the backyard

2 Serving Acorn Squash Soup

Easily scaled up for leftovers or bigger groups.

Ingredients

1 acorn squash, cut in half and deseeded

½ yellow onion

1 clove garlic

3 tablespoons olive oil

3 tbsp butter

2 cups of chicken broth

1 teaspoon salt

1/8 tsp/pinch of pepper

1/8 tsp/pinch of cayenne

1/8 tsp/pinch of ground sage

¼ teaspoon of ground mustard

1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce

1/3 cup heavy cream

2 tablespoons parmesan

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cut squash in half and deseed. Chop up onion and garlic. Put ¼ of your chopped pile of onion and 1/2 of your garlic clove into each squash.  Put the rest aside. Pour olive oil over squashes. Put squash in oven for about 50 minutes to roast.

After taking the squash out of the oven, let the squash get cool enough and scoop the insides out of the skin. Then, melt the butter in a large stockpot.  When melted, caramelize the remaining garlic and onion.* Pour in the broth and squash. Use an immersion blender to make the soup really smooth. It might take a couple minutes. I was targeting big pieces of squash with mine to get it totally smooth. When smooth, put in all the spices and Worcestershire. Stir in cream and parmesan cheese. Serve.

*If you’re like me, you don’t get the whole “caramelized onion thing” so just wait until the edges look brown and it smells pretty good. That may not be a caramelized onion, but whatever, it’s works just fine for this recipe.

This is the lazy version of this recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/guy-fieri/acorn-squash-soup-recipe/index.html