My Favorite Things

Tomatoes:  Not only are they yummy to eat, but my mouth is watering at the thought of all that soup       and pasta and pizza later this winter!

Bird:  This vintage bird ornament was my grandmother's.  It's always been a favorite of mine.  Look at those colors.

Toys:  This is a pile of some of Little Man's favorites.  All are things he scrounged out of my kitchen.

The sofa:  This sofa was Blair's great-grandmother's, and after having it recovered and removing the carpet from this space, it looks fabulous!

My WMW{n't}D Wreath:  Too bad it's on a door that would never make a list of My Favorite Things.

Well, hello there!

The Great Room Floor: Phases 2 and 3

That's right, Phases 2 and 3!  We got up early and got to work.  Blair did a great job pulling out and cutting the carpet for Phase 2.  This really is not an easy job.  The carpet is heavy, and wrangling it out of the house is not just a jar of jellybeans.

Phase 2 finished, the floor vacuumed, and all the furniture put back in place.

Little Man inspects our work.

Here's what's left.  Hello, Phase 3.

Moving the Phase 3 furniture.

The only glitch we found in the room was this spot of slightly uneven, lighter wood.  We noticed when we moved into the house that there was a "patch" on the wall that had been well done, but was still obviously a patch.  I always assumed it was an old air register.  No.  The original house had a bar here that was varnished around.  The 1963 owner probably had some storage there and served her food from it.  I'm not really sure what to do with that spot.  Awkwardly placed chair?  Try to match the finish?

All done!  Everything back in it's place!  No more carpet, no more tack!  We still need to install quarter-round in all of the rooms (except our bedroom) and paint the baseboards.  That will have to come later.  So will a better picture of the finished product.

My hands are rather shaky after the day of work.  

The Great Room Floor: Phase 1

With Blair on Fall Break this week there exists the possibility of getting much accomplished.  After completing several small (but important) tasks this morning, we began Phase 1 of the great room floor redo after lunch.  The great room is just that - a very large large room.  It is made up of the (rarely used) living room and the dining room.  After the disappointment of the office floor, I was slightly nervous about tearing up this carpet.  Upward and onward though, right?  On to bigger and better things, right.  Right.  Due to the fact that there is soooooo muuuuuch carpet in that large room and the fact that carpet tack is difficult to get up and can take foooreeeeverrrr (Sandlot, anyone?), I thought it would be best to divide it into thirds, remove one section of carpet at a time and all of the staples and tack that accompany it.  That way a certain Little Man would be less likely to get into the trouble he's been looking for all day.  Let's face it, he's a small-Blair-child and as such, is always looking for trouble.

And now, what you've all been waiting for!  The before and mid-way pictures!

 No, I have not already decorated for Christmas.  This is from last year.  However, I have been listening to Christmas music all week....

Pre-vacuum

The edge of Phase 1

Tomorrow, we begin Phase 2 and hopefully Phase 3, getting the entire room done.  Can't wait!!

Some chairs

Blair and I got married six years ago, and until last December, we always lived in apartments.  Translated, this means we had no need for a dining table or chairs.  When we bought our Lankford house, we made do for several months eating at a card table with metal folding chairs.  This is really not an effective way to eat.    There's nowhere on the table for food platters and nowhere for company to sit and have a meal with you.  Over the summer, Blair found a rather rough-looking table at the Chadwick farm, and thought it might make for a nice replacement.  This table is 200 years old and needed some work, but after a good clean up, it works very well.  

The only problem we had then was our lack of dining chairs.  Last week one of our neighbors was having a yard sale.  Now, I typically don't go to yard sales.  There is rarely anything there I'm interested in, but looking at the people trying to sell their "goods" always guilts me into buying something.  This yard sale, however, had something I could use.  Three dining chairs.  I realize that dining chairs are usually bought in even numbers, but Little Man is still eating in a booster seat, and I intend to get a bench for one of the long sides of the table anyway.  The chairs were perfect, and by perfect I mean they were dining chairs with a finish I found quite plain, and they were being sold as a set with the matching dining table, which I didn't need.  The lady selling them only wanted $25 for all of it, so, naturally, I couldn't pass that up.  I told myself I could find a use somewhere for that table.  Next to the chairs at the sale was a pile of burlap for $3, and I picked that up, too, knowing exactly what I would use it for.  After hauling it all home, I unfolded the burlap and began to pin, cut, and sew using chairs from Restoration Hardware as my inspiration.

I apologize for not having pictures of this process, but with the cloudy skies lately, my camera just can't handle indoor pictures even with the overhead light on and the flash.

I covered all three chairs and had a little burlap leftover for small projects here and there.  Not exactly like the ridiculously expensive chairs from RH, but for $28, I think I did pretty well.  We now have semi-grown-up chairs to sit in at the table, and company will hopefully no longer look at us like we're college students half-way playing house.

Little Man's First Haircut

He didn't make a peep, he didn't wiggle, he was fabulous.  I didn't expect any less.

The Office

No, not the TV show.  The one here in our house.  The one with major storage issues.  And ugly carpet.  Well, used to have storage issues and ugly carpet. Shall we revisit?

 Blair and I spent Saturday (our 6th wedding anniversary) revamping it. Blair started Friday night by pulling the carpet up.  It was dark when he did this, but we could see that the floor in this room was NOT in the same beautiful condition as what was in the rest of the house.

Saturday morning he was nice enough to take it out of the house for me so I would have the floor free and clear for staple pulling and the removal of the carpet tack.  With the carpet out and the sun shining, we realized just how bad the floor did look.  Apparently, that room was originally carpeted where the other two bedrooms hadn't been, and at some point one of the previous owners of the house had it shampooed.  This left water stains all over the wood.  At this point, however, it was too late to turn back, so onward I pressed.  Now, for those of you living under a rock, it is football season.  Glorious, glorious football season, and I just can't bring myself to face a new week without having first spent my Saturday immersed in some good old SEC ball games.  I spent most of the afternoon running back and forth between the den and the office watching the game and pulling tack up during commercial breaks.

Thank goodness this tack was older.  When the room was re-carpeted, the original tack was left (probably to save money), and this older tack came up like a dream.  After a very thorough vacuuming, I took a very fine sandpaper and lightly sanded the top of the water-stained floor boards.  This helped soooo much!

It's not perfect, but I think after some floor polish it will be tolerable.  I spent Sunday evening moving the furniture back in, which includes this dining table I bought with three chairs at a yard sale (more on that later).

The table helps to cut some of the visual clutter, and I think I may make a skirt for it to completely conceal the tubs underneath.

We've now done all three bedrooms and the turnaround hall, leaving us with the "great room" which we're going to do this weekend.  Here's hoping it looks like the first floors we did.

A Change Up

Anyone who has ever heard my mother rattle off a recipe has also heard her immediately rattle off the list of everything in that recipe she has changed.  This is included in the Many Ways Rachel is Like Her Mother list (this list also includes using binder clips on the end of the toothpaste tube and sticking used tissues in every pocket and purse).  Two nights ago, I decided to try something different for supper.  I follow the blog Simple Bites, which encourages healthy eating as a family.  Last week one of their recipes caught my attention, and I thought I'd file it away to give it a try. I decided to try it Tuesday.  Without proper ingredients.

Butternut Squash Apple Soup

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 16 ounces cubed butternut squash, about 1 large squash
• 1 small leek, cleaned and sliced, about 1/3 cup
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 3/4 cup cubed apple pieces
• 2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 bay leaf
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 teaspoon maple syrup
• 1 – 1 1/2 teaspoon fresh minced sage leaves
• 1/4 cup heavy cream or half and half

Here's what I used:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil  I poured some in the pan until it looked right
• 16 ounces cubed butternut squash, about 1 large squash 2 cups tough, overgrown yellow crookneck squash
• 1 small leek, cleaned and sliced, about 1/3 cup  I have never bought a leek
• 1 clove garlic, minced  I indiscriminately dumped in garlic powder 
• 3/4 cup cubed apple pieces I have no idea how much apple wound up in that soup
• 2 cups chicken or vegetable broth  This I kept!
• 1/2 cup water  And this!
• 1 bay leaf    2 bay leaves
• salt and pepper, to taste  A good bit
• 1 teaspoon maple syrup  Does the fake stuff count?
• 1 – 1 1/2 teaspoon fresh minced sage leaves  I don't buy sage, and I didn't substitute anything.
• 1/4 cup heavy cream or half and half  No heavy whipping cream, so I used 1/4 c water and 1 c powdered milk.

So as you can clearly see, I followed the recipe.  In a very "Shanna-ish" manner, of course.  It actually turned out quite well.  I can't wait to try it again when I have planned for it in advance and have what I need to make it (which means that it will, in all truth, be a completely different soup).

This photo has no relevance to this post whatsoever, except in that no post is complete unless it has a photo, and who can resist this face?

Smartie Pants

He's going to be an engineer, I'm positive.  

And an avid reader.

An Early Harvest

They're not getting ripe outside, and the vines are drying, so I brought them in.

There were also several ripe ones that I packed in water and froze.  As these ripen, I'll do the same to them until they are all ready, and then I'll put them in the crockpot and make more sauce.  We eat "many much" tomato sauce.  Pasta, pizza, soup, the possibilities are endless!

A Monday

Someone woke up with a severe case of extreme naughtiness today.  It wasn't me.

Fortunately for him, he also woke up with a severe case of extreme cuteness.

Ah, the harvest

The first little bit of honey:

And, of course on a Friday night, homemade pizza!

An Evening of Fun

Last night, I went to a soccer game with these two:

We had fun.