Kitchen Giddiness

These kitchen towels just make my smile each time I see them! They have such a fun and playful attitude that they give off!

Best of all, they only took about 30 minutes to make!

Scrumptious Lunch

And so the campaign to cook at least one new meal a week continues. This week I was looking through Food & Wine cookbook and came across a picture- who cooks without pictures- of a Penne with Asparagus and English Peas. So, I went to work putting my own twist on it. The recipe has an olive oil dressing on it, and is served cold, but I knew we wanted something a bit heartier and warm, considering the arctic temperatures outside recently! So, I whipped up ane an alfredo cream sauce and used chicken tortellini in place of the penne.

Scrumptious and pretty easy to make!

A Great Giveaway

This is an AMAZING giveaway! Since I've been on a giveaway-winning-streak lately, I decided to enter! Oh the ideas of projects I could make with the Silhouette just don't stop!

And you can enter for a chance to win too!
Visit The Shabby Chic Cottage and follow all the instructions on how to enter. It's really easy, and considering the "pay-out", totally worth it!



And something similar to this will be my first project:

Making this House our Home Progress Report

We have been in our house for nearly a year and a half now. There is still a long list of things "to-do", as I'm sure there will always be. Here's a quick update on a few of the rooms.


Office/Craft Room

I spend most of the day in this room, so getting it to a state of "completion" would be nice.

The original idea was to do a room based on both mine and hunny's alma maters: Georgia Tech and Kennesaw State. Fortunately, they have the same color schemes: yellow, black and white!

These things are done:

• Walls Painted a soft yellow
  
• Two Desks (craigslist find! Painted the legs black and the tops are a dark stained wood)
• Two black bookcases
• Large fabric covered black framed bulletin board (18" x 18" frame was at HobbyLobby on clearance for like $5)
  

These things are still to do:

• Curtains
• Chairs (so we don't have to keep taking dining room chairs up and down the stairs!)
• Wall Shelves
• Frames for diplomas
• Hang artwork

Pictures will be coming as the progress moves along! In the mean time, here is the design board:



Guest Room

We don't use this room too much, so it's not that high on the priority list, but it still needs some TLC.

These things are done:

• Walls Painted a light tan (just like the rest of the house!)
  
• Black Daybed (Neal's old bed)
  
• Black storage unit
  
• Blue Curtains
• Mirror
• Bedding
  

These things are still to do:

• Lamp
• Artwork
• Accent Pillows
• Built in Bench w/storage
  

Here is the design board:


Master Bedroom

Here is the original design board for the master, and nearly all of it was complete:


But now, we are going to change it up! It's so brown and dark, and we really would rather have a lighter, fresher feel to this room, with a new coat of lighter paint, furniture refinish, wall treatment, etc. A new design board for this room will be coming shortly! So exciting!

Baby Projects

While my sugar-plum, bright-eyes, munchie, whatever-I'm-calling-her-at-the-moment, was napping, I finished up some baby gifts of blankets and matching burp cloths! These are super soft and cuddly and simple to make!

A New Delicious Dinner

So, Neal calls right at 5:00 and says he is coming home early. GREAT! Oh, wait, we have nothing to eat for dinner! I knew I had 2 pork chops in the freezer, but hello, they were FROZEN! So, I ran down real quick to thaw them out in some hot water. Neal isn't the biggest fan of pork, and we already had pork once this week, so I knew he wasn't going to be all that thrilled with the choice. So, I had to make it fantastic. I grabbed a bit of honey, some brown sugar and half of a left-over apple. I reduced the honey and brown sugar then put the apples in. Browned the pork chops on really low heat so that they wouldn't cook quickly and loose their moistness. I put the pork chops in a baking dish and covered them with the honey/sugar/apple mixture and put in the oven for 20 minutes. I was just crossing my fingers when I put it all on the table! Well, THESE WERE THE BEST PORK CHOPS I'VE EVER EVER EVER TASTED!!! And they were SO moist! Not too bad for "winging" it!

New Recipe

First week in January, and so far I have kept my "resolution" to make one new recipe a week! This week:

Apple Crisp
by Paula Deen (read: delicious, but will clog your arteries with butter and sugar if you have more than one half serving!)

I am resolved to...

Well, here's my around-the-house-to-do list for 2011. I think it will be interesting to look back in 364 days and see what all I actually accomplished on this list...and what I added to it as we went along!

· DIY curtains for Master Bath

· DIY curtains for Office/Craft Room

· Frame Diplomas

· DIY Bedspread in master

· Find and refinish bedside tables for master

· DIY skirting for crib

· Put shelves in nursery and master closet

· DIY something to the fan for the nursery

· Install above mentioned fan in nursery

· Decide on wall art for behind the sofa

· Set up a chair/rocking chair in the bay window

· Refinish a buffet piece for downstairs

· Figure out how to plant a vegetable garden

· Keep the aforementioned vegetable garden alive…long enough to harvest its fruits!

· Research becoming a certified natural childbirth educator

· Sew more

· Scrapbook 2010 (pictures have been ordered!)

· Scrapbook our 2008 Europe trip (pictures have been printed for over a year now)

· Take more pictures in 2011 than I did in 2010

· Cook at least one new meal a week

· Bake bread

· Prepare Sunday school lessons before Saturday

· Keep files organized as we go through the year