It's a Numbers Game

216:  The number of (free to me) plants I planted yesterday.  I know, right?  Thanks so much, Woodards!


217:  The number of weeds I pulled yesterday.  I do not say this in jest.  I'm pretty sure it really was 217.

1:      The number of 4-leaf clovers I picked yesterday.  If you pick a 4-leaf while weeding, the weeds don't come back, right?

57:   The number of cars that drove by and saw my rumpus sticking out in the air because my legs were      too tired to keep squatting and standing up and squatting and standing up.

2:     How many gardening gloves I should have but don't.

0:     The number of times I swept potting soil off the porch.  But, honestly, with that carpet it truly doesn't matter.

1:     The number of times I got stung.

3:     How many hours Little Man napped.  Seriously, dear readers, this is how I get stuff done.

6:     Gallons of water hauled to and poured on all of my new (FREE) plants.

3:     How often I've visited Urgent Care in the last 10 weeks for my ears.  Completely irrelevant to this post.

2:     How many hanging baskets I have that are technically too small.  However, I already had them.  And our mantra is "Use What you Have".

I took extra care to make double sure all of my before pictures were taken with Instagram and most of  the afters with my "real" camera, because the worse a before shot looks, the better the after pictures look.  Correct?

Anyway, here are the before pictures:

And after:

Today

Today, I'm:

enjoying a quiet breakfast.


looking forward to getting my hair trimmed!


trying to find something else in the house to paint.


looking through all of my leftover paint to see how much painting I could do.


wishing someone would volunteer to weed my flower beds for me.


on week ten of fluid-filled ears.  


thinking it's pretty gross that there's fluid oozing out of said ears.


reminded that blessings are blessings no matter how big or small.

The Front

So picture with me:  two large plants in two huge planters on either side of the door.  Dark brown shutters.  White porch swing.  Huge ferns hanging between each set of columns (three ferns total).  Window boxes placed on the front windows with brightly colored flowers.  Ugly carpet gone, concrete restored and stained?  Painted?  

What do you think?  Mr. Chadwick and I are going to spend the summer and early fall searching out deals to get this porch looking good.  Do you have thoughts on what kind of plants to get?  Some kind of small evergreen, perhaps?  What color should the shutters be?  Dark brown?  Something light?  We would LOVE feedback!

Peanut Butter Granola

Peanut Butter Granola:

8 cups old fashioned oats

1 cup peanut butter

1 cup honey

2 tsp salt

2 tsp vanilla

4 tsp butter

Preheat oven to 350.  Put oats in a large mixing bowl.  Melt butter in saucepan.  Place the rest of ingredients in saucepan with butter until liquid.  Pour peanut butter mixture over oats and stir until oats are well covered.  Place in oven and bake for 15 minutes.  Stir and then bake for another 5-10 minutes. Let granola cool and then put in airtight container.  

This is our favorite breakfast food.  I like to add a few chocolate chips and shredded coconut, heat in the microwave for 30 seconds, and pour milk over the top.  Yummy!

Friday Photo

I know you are probably all tired of looking at my kitchen, but I finally found a good "before picture" of our old stove.  You know, that old drop-in, directly-wired-into-the-wall stove that only had one working burner?

And now...

Now, come on.  You all can't tell me you're tired of seeing before and after pictures of my kitchen now, can you?

Two For The Price of One

Painted rooms, that is.  At the end of my post yesterday, I mentioned that after painting the kitchen I still have a little over a half gallon of beautiful, gray paint.  Well, seeing as to how we're so fond of gray around here, I decided that while I had the paint and since all of my supplies were already out anyway I may as well go ahead and paint Little Man's room.  

I have been dreaming of this room in gray ever since I first saw the house in November of 2010.  When we closed on the house a few weeks later, I just knew that within a couple of months that green would be singing it's swan song.  It did not.  We decided to do other things instead.  Like tear out all of the carpet.  

Gray, gray, gray.  It's a sophisticated color that can grow with a little boy, whereas that green is not.  Lime green is a cute little color for a temporary nursery, and goodness knows Little Man loves the color green, but it's just not what I envisioned for his growing up space.  

 Very bright.  Very friendly.  And very much age-specific.  When he's 10 years old, this green will no longer be awesome.  A nice shade of gray, however, can be a sophisticated but cute nursery, a handsome room for a little boy, and a classy space for a teenager to study.  Don't you think?

Chore chart by Melissa and Doug.

 Give us a couple of weeks and there will be a floor-to-ceiling built-in bookcase where this white shelf is.

You'll be seeing these switch plates pop up in all of the rooms of the house over the next few months.  I just love them!

This room feels so much calmer to me now.  The green was bright and fun, but this light gray says relaxed and restful.  

Four hours after I started, I had the room done and about six drops of paint left in the bottom of the can.

Who in their right mind could waste six drops of paint?  Not me!  But what to do with it??

Why, tape off that ivory-colored, framed dry erase board from the kitchen and paint it, of course!

Dingy-looking before:

Blending-in After:

It works.  I'm still trying to decide what to use as an accent color in the kitchen (goldenrod, anyone?), and I think this is nice for now.  Not to mention I didn't throw out those six drops of remaining paint!

So, for the measly price of painting one room, I was able to paint two rooms and a dry erase board frame.  I just saved us $30!  And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you do two for the price of one in the painting world.  

And It Has Paint

It's been a long time coming.  We'll consider this Kitchen Remodel: Phase 1.5

Priming.  It's not pretty, but with paint this dark it's completely necessary.  With a good solid coat of primer (I used one quart of Kilz oil-based), I only needed one coat of paint to cover the walls.  One coat!

I started with the hall.  It was easier to do myself (Mr. Chadwick was in NYC) since there was no heavy furniture or appliances to move.

New switch plates.  Crossing that off the list.

After finishing the hall (at 12:30 a.m.), technically, I went to bed.  But after finishing the hall, the next step was the kitchen itself since my heavy-lifter was back home.  More priming.  I used a Shur Line edger which cut alot of time off of the painting process.  Less taping, quicker edging.  Next time you paint, use one.  They're only a couple of bucks and totally worth the money.

Oh, glorious finished product.  I have long awaited your arrival.

The frame on the dry erase board is an off-white which looks grungy now that everything is light and crisp.  I'm going to have to paint it.  All I have to do is decide on a color.

It's really amazing how much brighter and bigger this space seems now that it's a lighter color.  It feels more open and less cave-like.  Oh, and I had a little over a half gallon of paint leftover.  Feel free to leave me a comment telling me what you think I've done with the rest of it.  Hopefully there will be an update on that tomorrow.

Delicious: Cauliflower

That's right.  I said it.  Cauliflower is deee-liii-cious!! Especially when prepared the way I have been cooking it recently.  I'm tempted to spare you the blathering and get straight to the recipe, but you have not lucked out today.  One Sunday afternoon I found myself in need of something else to go along with lunch, so after staring blankly in the freezer for a while, I pulled out a bag of frozen cauliflower.  Now, since I just started dumping food items into a baking dish, I am firmly under the impression that I created this recipe.  If you find me to be incorrect in this assumption, please do not tell me as I will be crushed and heart-broken.  

This makes enough to feed Mr. Chadwick and myself, so if you are feeding a family of four (or larger) or an incredibly hungry group of teenagers (who, I promise you, will eat this vegetable..it is that delectable), go ahead and use two bags of cauliflower.  

Roasted Cauliflower

Preheat oven to 425.

Place into medium-sized baking dish (I use Pampered Chef stoneware) 1 (or 2) bag(s) frozen cauliflower.  Drizzle moderately with olive oil.  Sprinkle with salt (I use kosher), pepper, and onion flakes.  Shake the dish gently to assure yourself that you have attempted to evenly distribute your seasonings and your cauliflower is sitting next to the seasonings in the dish well-coated.  Lightly shake over the top finely shredded pizza cheese.  I really would stick with this type of cheese.  Trust me.  Bake at 425 for 30 minutes.  Take out of oven and let sit for a full five minutes.  Allowing it to sit on the counter lets the cheese soak up the olive oil and get toasty to the point of melting in your mouth.  Please please please don't pass this step by.  Serve and enjoy!

If you know your oven doesn't heat the way it used to, you may need to adjust the baking time either five minutes more or less to make sure your veggies are fork-tender but not over-baked. 

We've honestly never had left-overs, so I don't know how well this would reheat.  If you do have left-overs, feel free to send them to my house...We won't be offended.