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