Team Jones

Photo a Day in February

2012-02-01T23:40:00.000-05:00

I'm coming back (for now) and I've got a little project that will hopefully get me back into the swing of things. The idea of a photo a day in February is catching on all over Pinterest and I'm one of bajillions of women who are probably going to try to do this for 28 straight days.

There are official lists with an assigned topic for each day of the month, but I'm going my own route here and attempting to catch up the dear ol' bloggy poo with the goings on of the Joneses since I last posted. I figured a picture (or, in some cases, a series of them) a day to catch me up won't do any harm, and then after that I can coast on into regular blog updating again.

So, without further adieu, I present you with my photo for February 1:

Our group of friends traveled down to St. George Island for a long weekend (or, in the teachers' cases, a week) of easy beach life at a house called The Blue Wave. What a great weekend we had together! (Yes, I am sparing you the obligatory jumping photo in exchange for the photo where everyone's faces can be seen.)

Alright, be ready to catch up with the Joneses one photo at a time over the month of February! So happy to be back.

213 Gardenia, Part 5: A feminine touch

2011-06-04T17:07:00.000-04:00

With all the leather and wood furniture we have in the living room, it was high time I added a little floral touch to the house to make things a little prettier. Don't get me wrong, I am crazy about our living room! But enough is enough when it comes to masculine stuff everywhere.

Lady Luck was on my side a few months ago when we drove to Cartersville for our niece Katie Anne's birthday party: Carlton's mom bestowed upon me a beautiful blooming orchid plant made of some sort of wax and plastic and silk. Everything about it said "pretty" to me, especially because it wasn't something that needed upkeep (except for a light dusting now and then). I also sorted through a plethora of my leftover college stuff-worth-saving that my parents had in storage in their basement, and I came out with some very sentimental posters (ahem, Chelsea Ray, my antique-ish poster of the map of Paris was re-discovered!!!) as well as some long lost perfumes. I usually stick to one for everyday use (Givenchy Very Irresistable) and one for special occasions (Coco Chanel). But every now and then I like to mix things up a little bit. Hence the pretty bottles I brought back with me to Moultrie.

Fast forward a couple months and that orchid plant has a beautiful spot in our hallway bathroom, along with a lovely glass wall shelf and those very noticeable perfume bottles. The bathroom went from a plain, typical extra bathroom to a feminine floral fancy spot. Well, fancy for me at least.

For now, here's how things went. First, I stood in the doorway of the hallway bathroom and pouted for about five minutes. The towel rack on the wall has been naked for a few months. I asked Carlton to do some laundry. He did a load of "whites"--mostly towels (almost all of our towels are just white) and a few t-shirts. And then he decided to be a doll and toss in the stepping rug from the floor in front of our front door. Which was black, and had never been washed before. So, needless to say, the towels which used to be white (which included my white, beautifully monogrammed towels that were a gift from Grandmama) are now all a sort of mushroom color. But only in large, amoeba shaped splotches. While they are all linen fresh and folded neatly for shower drying off, they're not really fit for display anymore. What a travesty!

Anyway, the hand towels always ended up on the countertop anyway (Carlton), so the towel rack was really only there for show. Sort of like the one remaining half of our toilet paper holder that a sleepover guest so carefully ripped out of the wall, stripped the screws, tore the sheetrock, and left for us to fix. But I'm not bitter or anything.

Anyway, back to the here and the now. Here's the before:

I took down the towel rack. It was useless to us for the most part, and it was taking up some valuable wall real estate. (Vicki, please don't freak out on me... but I tore up one of the pretty gardening books you gifted me a few years ago to create "art" for the walls.)

I found about five or six photos in this decorative coffee table gardening book and tore them out to compare them next to each other. I needed two coordinating 8x10 photos to go into the two frames I had leftover from this wall decorating project in our dining room. (Hmm, it appears I enjoy making framed art by destroying other stuff!) Here are my two choices:

Next, I cut the pages to fit into the frames. I didn't want any matte inside the frame around the pictures, so all I did was cut the paper to fit into the frame. Simple and so incredibly quick.

Then I hung them on the wall that once showcased a naked towel rack. I didn't take the time to fill in the screw holes and smooth out the sheetrock behind the frames. I'll do that when I decide on a paint color for this bathroom. In the meantime, at least I have something feminine and pretty to look at!

Thanks so much, Vicki, for the gardening book and the orchid plant! They have both helped make this hallway bathroom beautiful! I decided to display the brightly colored pink and orange and yellow and purple perfume bottles on a glass shelf that I originally purchased for our master bathroom. It was never hung in there because it's such a tight space and the shelf didn't really create an extra "real" storage. Well, it works perfectly here! It's the perfect display spot for the pretty bottles and it's not bulky or ugly in any way. Finally, something pretty to admire in this hallway bathroom. Ahhhhhh.

Epigram of Good Riddance to The Spider Who Scared Me

2011-04-20T17:46:00.000-04:00

Good Riddance, you Spider Who Scared Me.

You will never touch, touch, touch, creepy-step in my windowsill again.

For you are dead in my kitchen sink,

Curled up in a disgusting wrinkled wad of spindly legs

And your own dusty web

Underneath the noodle strainer I used for spaghetti night.

My fear and my reality

2011-04-19T22:14:00.000-04:00

Since our recent kitchen clean-out aka painting and hanging shelves (two weeks ago), I was really careful about cleaning the trim around the window, around the doors, and the baseboards. That's how I know the content of these two following images is brand spankin' new.

Meet our roommate. And no, I'm not happy about it. At all.

You can sort of see the creepy strands of web this guy laid out. He has been pretty successful in catching his own wild game. It's too bad I find him one of the most repulsive, disgusting, creepy, crawly, scary creatures on the face of this planet. Actually, it's not too bad at all. He deserves it.

Give me rats. Give me cockroaches. Give me snakes, please! Give me whatever you're afraid of and I'll gladly give you spiders. Or any arachnid. They're just so... creepy! I'm afraid of them and I don't care if you think it's stupid, or if you argue, "Trisha, they catch and eat mosquitoes and gnats and flies and beetles and other pesky insects!" You know what? So do bats. Give me bats! Please, give me bats. I LOVE bats! Bats are really cool because their wings ARE their hands. They fly by sonar in the night and they're still mammals. Mammals without eight disgusting jointed legs.

In case you didn't find the first picture gross enough, here's a picture my camera took all on its own, without any editing at all (except for my text) to support me in my efforts to have spiders outlawed and sent to Mexico to live with scorpions and centipedes and millipedes and other -pedes. Oh, and those terrible sand spider things they have over there in Afghanistan that they put into a ring to fight other giant insects. Actually, let's just send them all to Afghanistan. Load 'em up now! (I'm sending out a petition as soon as this is blog post goes live.)

Of course, any person who suffers from this right-of-mindedness others choose to call "arachnophobia" will tell you that it's not the size of the spider that makes the skin crawl and the mind panic. But I'm also here to tell you that a big spider is especially terrifying! The spiders that choose to make his kitchen windowsill their catching grounds are some of the most terrible spiders I've ever seen in my whole 26 years of being alive. They're black, but they're brown. They're about an inch in diameter. Their legs are long and lanky and spindly and creeeeeepy (I just shuddered) and they like to touch the surface they're walking on a few times before they actually take a step. Like they're smart or something. I know this because Carlton made me watch one once so we'd know where it was by the time he got a shoe to squish it. I had to watch it touch, touch, touch, creepy-step. Touch, touch, touch, creepy-step. Carlton took way too long to find a shoe. I think he did it on purpose. Because when I'm terrified, I tense up and my breath stops and I freeze and can't make any noise. I'm not a screamer... I'm more like a fainting goat, only without the convenience of the fainting part. Uh, that just made me sick to my stomach.

Okay, guys, if there is one thing that makes me think bad thoughts about South Georgia, it's these spiders. They're big and gross and they're in all my windowsills, littering them with insect carcasses and messing them up with gross sticky webs. And I can't see them. Because my window frames are black. And they tuck themselves in like it's comfortable in there or something. It just creeps me out. I can't wash dishes in my own kitchen sink without being afraid one's gonna go creeping across the windowsill. Because that happened once.

So, if you're out there reading this, keep me in your prayers. Please! Carlton sprayed the entire window frame with a strong bug killer. Here's hoping this creep goes outside to die a miserable, guilty death. And that I never find his curled up body anywhere. Amen.

213 Gardenia, Part 4: Ekby Bjarnum saves the day!

2011-04-19T20:03:00.000-04:00

When we bought this house, I was very excited about a lot of things. However (oooooh here we go), I was more than a little hesitant about one of its vital spaces: the kitchen.

While one side of the kitchen lures you in with a new dishwasher, two-bowl stainless sink, freshly painted satin black solid wood cabinets, brand spakin' new countertops, and even a pretty little lamp light over the sink, the other side is... more than lackluster. Crowded out by the laundry room and its folding shutter doors and the fridge that is quite tiny (thank goodness there's only two of us!), the previous owner opted to furnish the rest of those 5-6 feet of empty space with a round kitchen table complete with two chairs.

While that worked for them, it's not really my thing. And we only have one table to eat at anyway, and it's "borrowed" from my parents, and it's in the dining room. Basically, my kitchen is totally lopsided. While I can work in there with a sort of efficiency because there's nowhere else to go, I have a hard time doing more than one thing at once... because there's nowhere to put multiple things! To fill in the empty wall space where a kitchen table could go, I have had the trash can, multiple empty cardboard boxes that once housed various Coca Cola products as well as Budweiser beverages, and a 7' shutter-style separation wall thingy. While it filled in the empty wall space, I was getting tired of it just... being there.

(Before paint and shelves)

While my grand plan for making this place awesome calls for a stretch of base cabinets, a long length of counter space, and open shelving above with a pretty light fixture that matches the sink light to replace the ceiling fan... oh! and a new light fixture to replace the gross-neon-ultraviolet-old-school florescent rectangular box that stretches across the kitchen ceiling -- that's not all in the budget as of yet. (Remember the Dave Chair? That sucker wasn't exactly cheap. Neither was the sofa. Or Carlton's Barcalounger. And that stuff was first on the list, definitely!) The cabinets and countertops and electrical work might have wait a little bit longer, but I figured I could at least get started by painting the kitchen (a long standing desire of mine) and installing the open shelving along the wall. Right?

(Before paint)

Well, my opportunity came quicker than I thought while I was enjoying my BFF Weekend with my BFF Chelsea (okay, I'll stop with the links already). Our shopping trip to Ikea opened my eyes to the perfect shelves for my kitchen. I found some simple, straight stainless steel wrapped shelves to hang on the kitchen wall with low profile hardware, and they were exactly what I wanted! I purchased two of the Ekby Bjarnum "Mossby" shelves for $44.99 each and the hardware to secure them to each other as well as to the wall in the kitchen.

I've gotta say, with the walls painted (more on my obsession with Benjamin Moore's paint color Revere Pewter in the near future) and the shelves installed, I don't think I could be any happier! I can just see it now: this kitchen may be a wonderful place to work after all! That is, once the cabinets and counter tops are installed. For now, I can just sit back and work in the kitchen with a little bit of open space and fresh paint on the walls.

I staged the shelf for pictures, but as far as the kitchen goes... well... I tidied up a little bit. But I was also prepping supper, so try to give me a break guys! Below is a picture I took of the counter next to the stove, where there was once an empty wall. I purchased 8 of these pretty little lace cut-out dishes using a Christmas gift card from my parents last year, and finally hung 3 of them in the empty wall space. Perfect! I just love the different lace embellishments around their edges. I had painted one coat here and was re-patching some old nail holes in the wall, so that explains the spackle here:

Now that I've got this strong start on making this kitchen into what I really want, I'm so motivated to keep the pace going! Next up? Cabinets and a counter top!

Rock N Red

2011-04-07T23:17:00.000-04:00

For about two weeks now I have enjoyed wearing nail polish on a fully grown-out fingernail. It's like I've been reunited with a long lost relative or something, having this fingernail back to normal after a long and exhausting growing out process after this terribly terrifying incident.

What a relief it is to fit in with the rest of my well-groomed coworkers! It's considered a part of important grooming practices at my job, with customers watching our hands as we count their money, that we maintain well manicured hands at all times. Needless to say, this gruesome sight of a disemboweled fingernail just wasn't acceptable in my line of work. And keeping the tip of a busy finger bandaged is a full time job on its own! (If you're ever in need of this info, here's an FYI: regular sized, regular shaped--not the finger shaped junk--woven cloth BandAid brand bandages are the way to go if you ever stupidly injure yourself like I did. Wrap one over the tip of the finger first, then wrap one around the finger horizontally. It'll last you a few hours if you're typing and working your hands in a money counting fashion.)

Everyone, please give a round of applause for our returning beloved fingernail, The Bird!

She's making her online debut in her favorite Spring shade, Rock N Red by petites, a convenient brand of nail polish I found at WalMart. The convenient part? It's a tiny bottle (only about an inch high, or two inches if you include the brush nob), so by the time it's dried up to a gummy paste you've used most of if anyway. The other convenient part? It only cost me $1.00. Brilliant! Because I took these pictures under lamp light at night, the color looks pretty rich and dark when it's actually really bright and borderline toenail-color-only quality. It's a good thing tomorrow's Casual Friday at work!

One part vinegar

2011-03-28T21:01:00.000-04:00

Spring is here!!!

The azaleas are blooming...

Vespa has been having fun exploring the back yard and all the chirping, buzzing, squawking noises it has to offer...

...and looking just absolutely lovely as always...

I've recently received my Real Simple and Martha Stewart Living magazines within a week or so. Both of them featured some pretty in-depth tutorials and tips on doing a good, thorough Spring cleaning for your home. And as not fun as that may sound to most, I do enjoy the satisfaction I get from finishing a good, thorough house cleaning job the right way.

I was ready to get started on this deep Spring cleaning right away. These magazines really did their trick--I was motivated!

I started in our master bedroom. I had Carlton help me move the bed out away from the wall, where I dusted and vacuumed and... wait... what's that???

As I dusted the baseboards on the wall that our bed was against (I strongly recommend you check that spot out in your room--you'll be grossed out!), I discovered that our walls were dusty. Like, grossly dusty!

The couple that lived here before us has a pet cat with long, luscious, thick fur. Her name is Libby and she's soooo sweet and cuddly and beautiful. I desperately wanted her to be a part of the bargaining in the contract for the house. Carlton did not concur. So, she still lives with her owners who are good friends of ours (so I get to see her often!). But her fur? It's still floating around here every now and then. For instance, it was stuck to our bedroom walls! Along with dust, eyelashes, and Carlton's awesome man body hair, our walls were practically furry! From this picture below, though, you can tell why neither Carlton nor I ever really noticed how dusty the bedroom walls were. They look normal and... normal. While the walls are a peculiar shade of washed-out pea soup--something I never would have personally selected--I love the color and I'm planning on keeping the walls the color they are.

But when I got up close to the walls and actually looked at them really well, I discovered how disgusting they were! The picture below was taken in one of the corners of the room, where the most dust, etc. had accumulated. Prepare yourselves to be totally grossed out!

And if that didn't set in well enough, here's a picture of two of my dusting cloths. They both started out like the one on the right. The one on the left is what cleaned the walls in my bedroom with 1 part vinegar to 4 parts water. Aside from the wet balls of dust bunny carcasses that I removed from the rag before taking this picture, this rag on the left should be a testament to the grossness that was my bedroom walls!

Oh! As an added bonus, that pesky can't-seem-to-get-rid-of-it dusty scent in our bedroom is gone now!

I had a conversation with a friend a few months back about the hair and fur on her bedroom walls and I was grossed out! I remember asking her what she thought the problem might be. She said she had a feeling it had something to do with her ceiling fan running along with pets (and a husband) who shed like crazy. I've taken a close look at the other rooms in our house, and there seems to be a theme going here: while our master bedroom (complete with ceiling fan running a lot of the time) had dusty walls, our kitchen and living room do not have that problem.

My advise is this: inspect your walls! If they're furry and dusty and can be wiped down (aka not flat paint), wash them NOW!!!!!

A BFF weekend for the books

2011-03-16T20:42:00.019-04:00

This weekend was just maybe perhaps possibly the best weekend I've had in years. I finally, finally, finally got to see my best friend in the whole wide world after what feels like years! In fact, I think the last time I got to see Chelsea was last year in July (!!!) for a shower we co-hosted in honor of my sister. July? Really? Had it really been that long? Can real BFFs go that long without seeing each other (or hardly even talking) and still be BFFs?

Chelsea and I sure can. We have before, we did this time, and I'm certain we will in the future. It happens just like other people who have true BFFs say it happens: when we finally, finally, finally see each other again, we run to each other, embrace, sway a little, shake with excitement, tear up a little and wipe it away so the other won't see, embrace and sway some more, stomp our feet to get out all the extra energy, and then pull away, look at each other, and sigh with relief; the wait is finally over, and we're back together at last. Well, okay, another enthusiastic hug or two. And then for real this time. It's out of our systems.

Now what trouble can we start?!?

Chelsea and I had planned this Ree Day & BFF Weekend for months. Seriously! We schemed and made lists, and even took an entire vacation day away from work to make this weekend as magical as it actually turned out to be.

Ree Drummond, known out here in the blogosphere as The Pioneer Woman, was in Atlanta this weekend. If you know me, then you know that I'm a huge fan of hers, as is Chelsea. When Chelsea broke the news to me that "P-Dub" was going to be in Atlanta for a book signing, we immediately made a set of "Ree Day Rules & Such" (which we have decided to keep strictly to ourselves for fear of utter embarrassment or even a restraining order if Ree herself ever read it!). We worked up plans for an entire BFF weekend that included meeting Ree, shopping at IKEA, dining on tapas, enjoying cocktails, listening to great music, resting at my sister's house, cooking recipes from P-Dub's aaaah-mazing cookbook, and who-knows-what-else. I had a countdown on my calendar at work. I purchased a flattering, flowing, flowery, flouncy blouse because a) it's flattering, flowing, etc., and b) it's Ree's favorite sort of blouse. Why not coordinate for the photo op, am I right?? And yeah, I was totally shopping for a compliment.

So our countdowns finally dwindled down to 3, 2, 1!!! and so I packed my bags, drove to up Macon, and Chelsea and I hugged like BFFs hug after not seeing each other since last July. It was pretty awesome. Then we loaded up her car and headed for Atlanta! Of course, our Ree Day schedule worked perfectly, so we made it with a few hours to burn. What's a girl to do besides shop in a two-story Target complete with escalators for people... and buggies, too??? That's right, an escalator for your shopping cart. We stood there and waited for someone with a buggie to come along so we could see how it worked. And it was really cool. After we exhausted our will to shop anymore we headed to a little place next door to the Borders book store where Ree Drummond was scheduled to make her appearance just a couple hours later. What was next door to Borders?

Pinkberry.

Not familiar with Pinkberry? Well, it's only pretty much one of the best things to ever eat for a snack. Ever. It's fat free yogurt mixed with fat free milk and flavored with natural stuff to make some freaking amazing frozen yogurt. Oh wow, it was so good! I immediately checked out the floor (paved in tiny pea-sized pebbles), furniture, lighting, and color scheme. What fun!

Then Chelsea and I were educated on Pinkberry--how it's made and what it's made of--and then we got a tour of all the amazing toppings (as long as it fits "comfortably" within the rim of your bowl, it's included in the price of the yogurt!). I was so pumped to look at the menu and read Blood Orange as a yogurt flavor! That's one of the Lamberth ladies' favorite flavors. On top I opted for something rather simple: fresh, handmade blood orange syrup, pineapple chunks, and raspberries (on the right). Chelsea went for a double flavor bowl of coconut and mango yogurts and just about every fruit there was (on the left)!

Then the time came to wait our turn. We were in group "E" which meant there were groups A through D ahead of us. Bummer. We camped out in the childrens books section and watched Ree stalkers and judged wardrobe mishaps and hairstyle don'ts, and once our letter of the alphabet was announced, we stood in line with letters A through E.

While we waited in line, Chelsea found this really cute little hedgehog finger puppet perched on a

book shelf:

Then we found a stack of PostSecret books and left our own little secrets for someone else to discover and read for themselves. I know PS is supposed to be anonymous, but we signed one of them anyway:

And then the time we had been waiting so long for finally came! Chelsea and I met Ree Drummond, aka Pioneer Woman, aka P-Dub, aka our new BFF. She was absolutely delightful. She had a sort of Midwestern accent. Her dimples were totally cute, and her red hair was just red enough. And did you notice her blouse? Well, she surely noticed mine. That's right, people, Ree loved my flattering, flowing, flowery, flouncy blouse and totally told me she loved it. Then we talked for a couple minutes as she wrote little notes in our cookbooks. Chelsea and I asked her if her face had gotten tired of smiling yet, and she replied that that's just kinda how her face is, and we said, something like "how lovely to have a smile stuck on your face all the time!" and then we snapped this picture. Can you see how nervous we were? Well, we were totally nervous, and we felt so stupid for being so nervous. But we were nervous anyway. And then, as we finished up our little nervous and giggly conversation with Ree, she said, "It was just lovely to have met the two of you! Oh, and can I borrow your blouse?" And then I melted. And exploded. And then I melted again.

(Oh my goodness, I still can't believe we met Ree! She was divine and lovely. And so pretty! And those dimples. And that red wavy hair. Ah!)

Oh! And did I mention that her utterly studly husband was there as well? Well, he was. Marlboro Man, dressed down to the boots, Wranglers, and--yes, even he cowboy hat, score!--was there. Here's the picture that Ree herself posts on her blog all the time that defines what she thinks of her husband, Marlboro Man:

Chelsea and I were determined to get our own shot of this famous behind, chaps or not. He was surrounded by women who were fawning all over him, gasping and giggling and groping and taking all sorts of pictures and hogging all the time he had while lots of other women waited and snapped pictures from a distance. But what did Chelsea and I do? We staged a Photo Bomber session. And for those of you who don't know what the art of Photo Bombing is, it's basically standing in the background of a picture that's currently being taken and doing something funny. They person taking the picture, as well as the people in the picture, don't see what you've done in the background until they get home and relive their memories of groping on Marlboro Man's sweaty chest at the Borders Book Store in Peachtree City! I've got to say, I really hope it was as successful from other womens' cameras as it was from mine!

Then, after we cooled off from that fun little game, we went around the corner to a tapas restaurant called Twist and enjoyed tapas, a fun and noisy atmosphere that neither of us was used to anymore as old and grown adults, and some outta-this-world delicious cocktails. Before we knew it, we were coming down with a serious case of the sleepies. Maybe it was the cocktail that got us just warm enough to want to snuggle up to a cool pillow. Maybe it was the fact that our Ree Day adrenaline was finally subsiding. But we were ready to settle down and get out of that noisy restaurant, so we headed for my sister's house.

After a couple glasses of "hello, we're here, and thanks for letting us crash in the guest room" wine, we all went to sleep without an alarm clock set! And oh my goodness, that felt sooooo good to wake up without an alarm screaming at us! We played with the pups, watched My Girl ("And don't come back for five to seven days!!!"), ate orange-and-cranberry muffins along with sausage for breakfast, and just basked in nothingness for a whole four hours.

And then it was time to IKEA. Do you IKEA? We sure did! For some reason, we decided to take a picture on the way OUT of the massive superstore. My apologies for the dishevelment! OMG I'm looking rough. Those big yellow letters always blow me away. How tall do you think they really are?

Bless my little sister's heart for shopping with us that afternoon. I don't know if she meant to or not, but she kept me and Chelsea moving at a (somewhat) acceptable pace. I'd get caught up in the gadget kitchen drawer organization section and Chelsea would come to a standstill while admiring random coat hangers and storage shelves. But Kristen would always remind us that there was something else more interesting just around the corner. And thank goodness for that, because even with her guidance (towards the exit door) and perseverance (aka constantly walking about two steps ahead of us with our shopping cart), we shopped at IKEA for over 4 hours! While that does include a delicious lunch of Swedish meatballs and mashed taters, the shopping just dominated this IKEA visit. To the max.

That being said, IKEA did us in. Chelsea drove herself and me back to Macon like a champ where Andrew greeted us with copious amounts of wine (yum, shiraz!), salmon, ribeyes, potatoes, mushrooms, and a few other accoutrement. Morgan and Larry, some of their great friends there in Macon, met us at their house where we ate a lot, drank a lot, laughed a lot, and played a lot of Phase Ten... until a lot of wine was spilled all over the playing cards!

(Yes, that's my bendy straw in a glass of red wine. I didn't want PLS (Purple Lip Syndrome) from sipping on that wine all night, and that's my brilliant solution for it, okay?)

After a long, long, loooooooooooooooooong night of playing "Watch That YouTube Music Video and Remember When That Song Was Awesome" with Andrew and Chelsea, we retired for some well deserved and much needed rest.... at 4:30am!!! Needless to say, sleeping until 12:00 in the afternoon was an accomplishment for me, and I woke up rested and ready to get home to take a nap in my own bed... after some steak and eggs prepared by the Ray Household resident chef, Andrew himself!

Like I said, this weekend was just maybe perhaps possibly the best weekend I've had in years. And it's definitely one for the books. Thanks to Chelsea, my Very Best Friend of over 14 years. May God bless us with at least 14 more!!!

Makes me wanna nom nom nom nom nom

2011-03-07T21:45:00.000-05:00

I've discovered a new marinade that I'm crazy about. Sure, it's a salad dressing, and I'm positive it's really good on some crisp, sweet butter lettuce topped with Kalamata olives, cherry tomatoes, and fancy sliced radishes. But I'm loving this dressing because I've just used it as a marinade for dressing our meat for dinner twice within a week.

On Thursday night Carlton fired up the grill and I whipped out a gallon size ZipLoc bag. I put in four little 1/4" thin sliced bone-in pork chops that were BOGO (buy one package of four and get another free, woohoo!) at the grocery store with a generous squirt of the dressing and let it sit while the coals got themselves all hot and ready. I've gotta say, those pork chops were soooooo delicious! The dressing/marinade charred around the edges, caramelized in some spots, and got tangy and zesty and salty and all sorts of rich and delicious on those pork chops! I'd say that if you're cooking anything over open flame that takes more than 8-10 minutes to cook completely, I wouldn't marinate the meat first, but rather baste it onto the meat after it's gotten started cooking on the grill because it was cooked just right for our skinny little 1/4" pork chops. I served the pork chops with something I've only recently discovered in the freezer section of the grocery store, and Carlton and I both agree--they're delicious! Alexia Sweet Potato Fries. This time I bought the chipotle flavor and they were soooo good along with the pork chops! (This is the one and only way I will eat sweet potatoes thus far... they must be oven fried and Trisha loves them!)

Then tonight I took those individually frozen chicken tenders you buy in the big bag from the frozen meats section of the grocery store, and I put them in a baking dish, frozen, straight into the oven for the 20 minutes of recommended baking time. Once the 20 minutes were up, I took the baking dish out, squirted my dressing over each of the tenders, and turned the oven onto high broil for about 4 or 5 minutes... just long enough for the dressing to start to caramelize around the edges of the chicken. Delicious! We had some starchy sides tonight--no veggies because I wasn't in the mood for any. Some herb baked potato wedges and Sister Schubert's Dinner Yeast Rolls. What a delicious and easy meal! I dirtied one baking sheet, two dinner plates, two forks, one butter knife, and two drinking glasses! Carlton was lucky that his "doing the dishes chore" (aka put the plates in the dishwasher) was so quick and easy.

So, if you're tired of the salty zest of Dale's Seasoning and you're not up for Spicy Buffalo or Sweet, Smoky Barbecue flavors, go Greek! Feta and oregano? Yes, please!!!!

213 Gardenia, Part 3: Sofa, So Good

2011-03-06T20:47:00.000-05:00

Until about August of last year, we were still living off of Carlton's sofa from college.

I know. Gross.

It was a good ole fella with a strong back, a tough exterior, and the ability to practically force you to lie down and sleep. The gunmetal gray upholstery never showed a stain, never ripped, never showed stress or wear. The tough hardwood structure underneath it all was sturdy and--one might think--made of a boulder. And you'd understand that if you ever tried to move the thing. And we did... multiple times!

But the cushions. Oh, those terrible, terrible cushions! Now, the seat cushions were just fine. They stood the test of time and college-aged boys like the rest of the sofa. But the back cushions just about disintegrated into a sad amoebic state, all wobbly and irregular and squishy and mushy and deformed. A person with intentions of sitting on the sofa like a normal human being would either a) have to sit and lean forward towards the coffee table as if he was eating a floppy slice of pizza, or b) turn sideways, curl her legs up underneath her bottom, and prop her elbow on the arm of the sofa as if she was knitting or reading a handy home decorating magazine. Either scenario was not conducive to comfortable TV watching or any sort of social interaction whatsoever.

And then the cushions, or the fabric, or the something just started to stink. They didn't stink like they were old, or like they were dusty, or even like we'd burried an entire dead animal in the sleeper mattress which was folded up inside the sofa. They stunk like there was some sort of fungus or mildew growing inside them, and it was overwhelming. The smell would just waft up to my nostrils and I'd smell it on again and off again. Have you ever left a load of laundry in the washer and forgot about it for a month? Well, neither have I. But I have forgotten about a load of washed laundry in the washer for about 2 days or so. And that yucko smell when you open the washer and suddenly remember that there are rancid clothes awaiting your return? The college sofa was just about like that, times 10! It wasn't constant. It would just suddenly waft up and surprise you like a slap in the face. So you never knew when it was gonna come around next. I was particularly paranoid about having our friends over at the house. Dinner would be served and everyone would enjoy the meal, and then conversation and full bellies would lead us all to the living room to lounge and joke around. But what hostess wants to risk a stinky sofa catastrophe when she's entertaining? Not this gal! Nobody wants the Jenga bricks to topple because of a sudden sofa stink.

And Febreeze, baking soda, Lysol, and other stink stomping remedies never would permanently work. Okay, so you get it--it stunk.

I got the OK to shop around for a sofa only a few months after we'd moved into the house. But actually following through and purchasing a new sofa was going to be a difficult task for me to complete! I had a very specific list of requirements I wanted to check off of my list before I was going to dish out the cash. First and foremost, I must have a guaranteed buyer for the Athens condo sofa before a new sofa is purchased. Then my new sofa must have: two seat cushions (because I like the look of two longer cushions as opposed to three smaller cushions), a tight back cushion (no loose pillow cushions like the Athens condo sofa had, no loose looking cushions that are sewn onto the back of the sofa), nailhead trim, heavy linen woven fabric or something that looked similar, and a sturdy composition. Nothing flimsy, nothing too fru-fru, nothing too traditional or contemporary. And I must be able to test the sofa out before purchase.

Then Pier1 came to the rescue. I'd never really paid much attention to their upholstered furniture, but as I browsed through one afternoon on a day off work, The Cameron Sofa just caught my eye and I knew it was the one! It had two seat cushions, a tight back cushion, a square back profile, nailhead trim, and the upholstery was a lovely taupe color. Even though it's a very short pile chenille fabric, it has a thin line pattern in it (sort of like the matrix has that line pattern), so it gives a nod to that linen look I think. So, a few weeks later, when the sofa was on sale ($100 off the floor model price!), my parents came to town and we borrowed a friend's pickup truck to drive the sofa from Valdosta's Pier1 store to the house. AND IT'S PERFECT!!!

I couldn't be happier with this purchase. It's a beautiful addition to our furniture and a very sturdy and heavy duty piece of furniture that works great as a focal point for the room.

The rug in the picture is also new! It's the Chevron Rug from West Elm in the charcoal color and it couldn't be more perfect in our living room. With these strong neutral permanent fixtures, I have had fun changing out seasonal throw pillows on the sofa. Over the holidays I had some bright red and green pillows. This spring I've got some lemon yellow, gray, blue, and green pillows to brighten things up a bit. Over all, it's great!

The two lamps were wedding gifts from my parents that were originally topped by beautiful bright teal dupioni silk shades which sadly died in one of our many moves. I replaced them with some pretty woven mini-twine shades from Target. The end tables are from Carlton's mom and Grandmama, and the coffee table is the one remaining piece of furniture from Carlton's college days (besides his "desk" which we will cover in a later post). I absolutely love the color, shape, style, and ability to withstand bangs and dents and glasses without coasters and just about anything else in the world. It's staying because I love it! It has three drawers to hold just about anything you might need to hide when company is coming over in 2-and-a-half minutes. And it's the perfect size for our living room. The picture on the wall over the sofa is a blown-up picture of one I took inside the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris in 2006 during a photo taking contest with Carlton. It's beautiful and I love looking at the low light by candle, the stained glass in the background, the strong stacked marble pillars, and the blurs of praying patrons below. It's peaceful, colorful, quaint, and lovely. I got lucky when this shot came out so perfectly. Wonderful!

So, that's the sofa and her surroundings. I love everything about it... obviously!

(Please forgive the picture. I took it at night under lamplight, which is the only light our living room gets. Fortunately, when I got up to take the picture, Vespa decided to ask me nicely to open the front door so she could "go outside" and her little pose was a perfect photo op! I couldn't trade this picture out for one I took during daylight because of her opportune vogue.)

213 Gardenia, Part 2: The Dave Chair

2011-02-26T17:29:00.000-05:00

This story goes back to a long time ago, waaaaay back when. Carlton was still in college at UGA and his BFF/roommate Dave was preparing to move out of the condo after he'd graduated. Maybe it was laziness, maybe it was the tired I-give-up attitude we all get when we're moving, maybe it was because he had a brown set just like it, or maybe it was a little parting gift: Dave left a black leather chair and ottoman with Carlton.

I was super psyched--not because I wanted Dave to go, because I was really sad about that--but because I absolutely loved the chair and ottoman set! They were black leather with a beautiful curved back side made of wood that just about wrapped around you. The chair and ottoman both sat atop chrome legs that just finished the total look.

Well, as most of us know, Carlton's UGA college years were over in a flash--only 6 years, and that guy was outta there! Not too much time passed and the epic Athens condo was sold. And--really bad news for Trisha--her favorite chair and ottoman combo were gone with it. They never got moved out before the condo belonged to someone else!

I obsessed over the chair and whined and pined away for the chair. I knew it just wasn't in my future to own a chair like this. Why? Well, because it's the famous Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman and the starting price on the set is about $5,000.00. That's five thousand dollars if you can't read zeros very well. I studied this furniture designer in college as an interior design student. Eames is a really big deal! And what made matters even worse was the fact that this chair is in just about any commercial or television show you will see... ever!!! The chair was speaking to me from the grave and there was nothing I could do about it. I secretly hoped that the scratch-off lotto tickets we got as a little $15 gift at Christmastime would win us the money to buy one. And that didn't happen! How rude.

Then Carlton got sick of listening to me whine and whimper about the freakin' chair. He shopped around online for a few weeks and revealed an excellent discovery: they make knock-offs! Duuuuuuh, Trisha. This meant I didn't have to resort to buying a ghetto ripped-up original on Ebay and pay tons to have it reupholstered in top grain leather and then attempt to find an ottoman to go with it. I could have a new one for a tiny fraction of the cost!

I have a new favorite corner in our living room: The Dave Chair is so comfortable to curl up in and watch TV. It just wraps around you and hugs you all over! The leather gets warm once you're settled in. The wood wraps around the back of the chair flawlessly and beautifully, and the legs shine so bright with their perfect chrome finish.

The Dave Chair is accented by a retro two-tier table with beautiful exposed dovetail details all the way around the edges and metal peg legs. I found the wooden lamp at WalMart as well as the ecru colored shade. The shade didn't really stand out against the color of our walls very well, and it seemed kinda blah next to the strong black statement chair, so I hot glued some black grosgrain around the top and bottom which finished it beautifully (I saw the idea in someone's blog once a while back... was it yourse?). The frames on the wall are also from WalMart, though the pictures to fill them are (hopefully) still waiting for me to pick them up from CVS. The green cracked glass candle sconces are from Pier 1 and were only $6 each! The Dave Chair is what makes this my new favorite corner in the living room.

213 Gardenia, Part 1: No palm pillows.

2011-02-25T21:23:00.000-05:00

Since we moved into our first house at 213 Gardenia Drive in September of 2009, I have yet to show anything online about the decorating I've done to make this our home. Maybe I've shown a piece of something here or there, but I haven't shared any little stories or personal reasons behind our choices. So, I'm starting a little series (not sure how many "parts" there will be quite yet). I'm starting with the new furniture we've purchased for our living room. It's kind of a big deal because we've purchased a lot of new furniture to live in!

We've selected everything very slowly a) because we wanted this to be high quality furniture that would last forever (aka a little more $$ than would allow us to purchase everything at once), so we wouldn't have to keep re-buying cheap furniture again and again, and b) because Carlton has given me all artistic, decorating, and wifely privileges of selecting the furniture I wanted so the house would turn into a space we're happy with, something that is well put-together, something that is well decorated, and something that is well thought out. So I have been taking my time and making sure everything was juuuuust right. Of course we're not completely done (by far), but we've definitely made some excellent progress.

So, without further adieu, I proudly introduce you to The Living Room Furniture:

Part 1: The Barcalounger

I'll go ahead and apologize in advance if you own a recliner that is stereotypical to La Z Boy's puffy pillow-laden style. I'm about to bust it up with hatred. I've got a big problem with the typical "recliner." I absolutely hate the puffy, puckered-up, over-stuffed, chenille clad reclining chairs. Their gross wooden handles on whichever side of the chair make me cringe. Their floppy and overstuffed headrests make me actually lean my chin towards my chest when I'm sitting in one of these abominations... how can that be considered comfortable??? And what's with the extra padded armrests on top... of the... armrests? The palms of my hands really don't need a pillow. Thanks very much.

So when Carlton put his foot down that he was "gonna have a recliner no matter what" and I put my foot down that he absolutely was not "gonna have a huge ugly puffy piece of ugliness in our house no matter what," we started shopping around. A lot. Thanks to Barcalounger and their smart design, The Hubs and I are both really happy. Carlton's Barcalounger stands tall, square, and proud. Its leather has already worn in nicely. See on the footrest, where his leg wiggles constantly while he concentrates on a book or a game? It's the same effect on the arms where he pushes back to recline, and as well where his head rests--the leather is darkened and buffed a little. And Vespa's cute little puppy scratches are on the arms of the chair, too. She jumps onto the Barcalounger when she's excited, i.e. when she knows she's going to get to go for a ride. On the side that's facing the camera, near the back at the bottom right corner, you can see the animal's natural hide--wrinkles from the animal's armpit or leg skin wrinkling and folding, and even a few bug bite scars! It's totally natural and susceptible to the wear of our everyday life... and it's supposed to look like that. Which I love. It's different than our parents' leather furniture because it's imperfect and because not run through embossing machines to give it that "natural" (not nearly!) bumpy look that, in my opinion, resembles jewel toned styrofoam (not hatin', just sayin'!). I could just squeeze this chair, I love it so much. And it smells good, too. And it doesn't hurt that we got it for 30% off, either. It's all good with the Barcalounger.

While Carlton says it's not a "sleep all night" kind of recliner, he sure does seem to like it until around 11:00 to midnight every night when we go to bed. So, we're both happy: he has a man chair recliner to lounge in at night while I have a beautifully square, non-puffy club chair to admire. No palm pillows in this living room.

Slappin' da bass

2011-02-18T20:13:00.000-05:00

First off, this is not a love letter to Paul Rudd. But if it happened to be one, I would totally gush. My love of his absolutely hilarious body humor is just kinda outta control. I loved him in F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and I have loved him in so many movies I can't even count! The way he can move his body all crooked and snap his neck to the side and pronounce his words to bring laughter to his audience is just unparalleled in my book. It's good old fashioned goofy comedy. Not that this is a love letter. Just sayin'.

Before I move on, you should watch this clip of Paul Rudd and that good old fashioned goofy comedy. Be sure to watch the entire scene of him and his fiancee after they've discussed one of his favorite hobbies, slappin' da bass (which she had no idea about) and one of his favorite bands, Rush (which she has never heard before):

Now on to what happened the Thursday night.

I was lying on the sofa, just minding my own business semi-watching Hollywood Week on American Idol. It was the first time the contestants were performing on the Hollywood stage by themselves. I was suddenly interested when contestant Casey Abrams's presence on the show was already being chronicled (only a few episodes into the season). Was this crazy-interesting performer going home already?? His audition with the air blown keyboard thing was one of my favorites! The kid wasn't afraid to be crazy and have soul at the same time. I liked him because he was really different.

He was being chronicled because of his crazy audition attitude and crazy audition musical instrument, all because he was about to make another crazy move: this guy had a bass in hand and had planned to use it on stage for his next performance! I'm not talking about a Paul Rudd rock band bass here, either. I mean, this guy was wheeling out a taller-than-himself string symphony style string bass.

This is gonna be... interestinnnnnnng???

And then this happened:

Yes, I realize his voice was pitchy and off tune and pretty much all over the place about half the time. But what a performance!

I'm a true stickler for a few select songs. You've gotta sing them right. You've gotta have the right voice. You've gotta have the charisma. And in a few cases, such as Georgia On My Mind, you've just gotta be Ray Charles. No excuses!

Well, unless you're Casey Abrams, apparently. I hate it when singers have pitch and tone problems--who doesn't! He was pushing himself when he selected this song to sing. But the performance overall literally got me to sit straight up, clap, laugh in disbelief, renounce my Ray Charles or die rule, and rewind it to watch a few more times thanks to TiVo.

I've just gotta say this: I'm a fan of Casey Abrams. What a performance! I'll keep watching the show this season just to wait for another performance by him!

P.S. This experience has happened to me once before and I wrote about it here. Adam Lambert stole the show when he sang Mad World, a creepy-beautiful song featured in the cult film Donnie Darko (which I'm bothered that I love so much), and I watched American Idol that season just to see what Adam Lambert was gonna do next.

P.S.P.S. I do really like Paul Rudd, though. Like, a lot. Don't tell Carlton.

Q & A

2011-02-17T22:46:00.000-05:00

Q: What happens when you go to CVS late at night to buy Liquid BandAid for a rather inconvenient finger injury?

A: Your husband and you decide to hit up the candy aisle for an after-dinner sweet snack. And of course, since he's in the mood for something rich while you want something fruity, he goes for the PeanutButter M&Ms while you grab the Skittles.

Q: What happens when you opt out of registering for candy dishes as wedding gifts for your nuptials three-and-a-half years ago because they're silly little crystal bowls that are useless and unnecessary and a waste of money according to you?

A: Your husband's PeanutButter M&Ms are piled on the table next to his recliner for easy access, just a few at a time, because he only wants a little corner cut from the bag "to keep them from ending up everywhere if they spill."

Q: What happens when a few of those PeanutButter M&Ms stay behind on the table overnight and throughout the next morning, afternoon, and evening because the ole Hubster got full and decided he was done eating said PeanutButter M&Ms?

A: Those candies stay exactly where the Hubster put them overnight. They stay there through the next morning. And probably throughout the afternoon because Puppa sleeps most of the day. But in the evening, Momma and Poppa come home from work to find a little tan puddle of puppy puke on the floor. Hmmm, Momma is puzzled but tosses the small step rug into the wash.

Then just before dinner, while Poppa and Puppa are cuddling in a newly washed white comforter, Momma notices a rather dazzling stripe of neon blue across said comforter. "Hmmm," Momma thought. "That must be the little Clorox laundry booster thingy I put into the washing machine with the comforter and sheets to get things extra white. Maybe it didn't rinse all the way out if the comforter was all tangled up around it?"

Then Momma looks over at Puppa. Puppa's little white beard is slightly coated in the same neon blue color like a teenager who has decided to highlight her pretty blonde hair with Blue Raspberry Lemonade KoolAid (because that really does work). Panic stricken, Momma is terrified that Puppa may have smelled the sweet laundry scent and decided to nibble on what was left? That could be another "that can't be good" moment in this household... and that can't be good.

Then Momma looks at Puppa's paws. Same neon blue! What's going on here?

Puppa jumps down, picks up something from the floor, and jumps back onto Poppa's lap. She spits out a round neon blue something shaped like a marble. Poppa notices it as a PeanutButter M&M. Momma is totally relieved.

This explains the little puddle of tan puke. It explains the neon blue beard, paws, chest, and comforter. It explains why... ALL OF POPPA'S LEFTOVER PEANUTBUTTER M&MS ARE MISSING FROM THE TABLE!!!

Vespa finishes her last little neon treat with a happy little smile on her face. Because dogs can smile. It's been proven.

Hey, at least it wasn't bleach!

(I hit the fun little Saturate button in my Picasa editor because I wanted to be sure the blue could be seen even in our dim night time living room light. That's why Vespa's little undercarriage looks so hot pink. But the blue? It's really that bright!)

"That can't be good."

2011-02-08T22:32:00.000-05:00

Those were the first four words that actually came out of my mouth after this happened:

The next four words were: "Carlton! Come here! Quick!!!" And then something like, "Carlton, WAKE UP and get in here now, I've hurt myself!!!" (I made the picture that poopish color instead of actual color because it's really even grosser in actual color. (Spell check didn't give "grosser" a red squiggle, so it counts in my book!) Yes, this was a double parenthesis. Woot!)

Because just minutes before I did that up there, I had taken this picture:

He was napping because we like to practice what we call "Lazy Sunday" around this house, and it was definitely really nice Lazy Sunday. Until. Poor guy got a loud, panicked wake-up call.

Just a few things here and then I'll be done:

1. I'm so glad I was using my fancy ceramic knife because it was really sharp (obviously), thus I wasn't really pressing down on the knife that hard (which would have made the above poopish colored photo even more gruesome).
2. I was holding the handle of the knife with my left hand because I (not true--->) like to pretend (true--->) I'm a southpaw.
3. I was pressing down on the top of the knife at the tip of it with my right hand (hand pictured above in poopish color) for a little help, and to make things safer (laugh*) by not having to press so hard on the knife from the handle. *Funny how I was using the hand I'm not good with to help out the hand I am good with.
4. My right hand slipped down towards the cutting board.
5. I reacted HOW I SHOULDN'T HAVE reacted for a split second, jerked my hand back towards me, and SHWING!!!!!ING!ING!ING!!! That was the sound of a steel blade shwinging, though I wasn't even using a steel blade. Kinda like cars erking to a stop in a movie when they're on cobblestone streets. Basically, not really possible at all ever.
6. I sliced my fingertip, including the nail, open.
7. Was Velveeta cheese dip really worth it?

Jesus Cookies

2011-02-06T14:50:00.001-05:00

Widely known as sausage balls by most Americans, my version is (a)bigger and (b)cheesier (mostly because of a)my laziness to keep smaller batches going into and out of the oven, and also (b)because of my love for a good tangy sharp cheddar cheese).

I grew up eating sausage balls on Sunday mornings when my dad would make a fresh hot batch for Breakfast Sunday, usually the first Sunday of the month at church. And so now every once in a while I'll make them for Carlton on Sunday mornings when we sleep in -- they make an excellent meal for a late breakfast or early lunch, especially on weekends when you just want to stay in your pj's all day and be lazy.

About a year ago, I started bringing this larger version of sausage balls to various gatherings with our friends. They were quickly re-named "Sausage Cookies" because the larger sausage balls would flatten out like a cookie while baking in the oven.

Then during a great college football game gathering this year the Sausage Cookies were re-named again. Our friend Ted, with a mouth full of sausage and cheesy biscuit, said something that went a little like this: "I'm gonna go ahead and put this out there: this sausage cookie just saved my soul. It opened my eyes to all that is holy and sacred, and brought me closer to God. I just decided that these should be called Jesus Cookies from now on."

And so it was. Or maybe, And all God's children said, "Amen." Either way, it stuck.

Our friends are all gathering together later this afternoon for a Superbowl Party at Eric and Stella's house. Carlton received our bring-this-food assignment via text message that went something like this: "Please tell Trish to bring her Velveeta cheese dip. And Jesus Cookies. Lots of Jesus Cookies."

So, without further adieu, here's the recipe that just might save your soul.

Start with these four ingredients:

To make 36 Jesus Cookies, you'll need:
- One package Jimmy Dean Hot Sausage (you can use mild if you don't like things spicy, or maple if you prefer things a bit sweet, but I'd steer clear of the sage flavor in this recipe)
- One large brick Medium or Sharp Cheddar Cheese (I think it's 14 oz or 16 oz?)
- 1 1/2 cups Bisquick baking mix
- 1 cup milk

Then complete these steps to enlightenment:

Start by cooking the sausage. Many online recipes skip this step, but I like to know that the pork sausage is cooked all the way through. And it's also the only way to get rid of all that extra grease. Break the sausage into small pieces as it cooks. (I hate it when the cooks on TV use a wooden spoon to cook raw meat, and they almost always do so. I always get stuck on the worry of those raw meat germs digging their way into the wood and never coming out, and multiplying, and tainting all the food you cook for eternity. But for some reason, today I used a bamboo utensil. Don't ask me why, I have no idea.)

While the sausage is cooking, shred your cheese. I always use the larger side of the grater that makes thicker shreds because the job gets done quicker. But if you like the skinny curly shreds of cheese, that will work just as well. It'll all melt in the end anyway. I usually leave about as much as you see in the picture for snacking with crackers and such later on. Mostly because by the time I have that much cheese left, my arm is tired and I don't want to slice my fingertips on the shredder. (One tip that really helps me shred the cheese: put the brick of cheese into the freezer about 30 minutes before you're going to shred it. It's easier to push through the shredder because it doesn't get all flimsy on you while you work.)

Dump your shredded cheese into a large mixing bowl along with the Bisquik baking mix. I use the original baking mix because that's what my dad uses and he's always right about formulas and mathematics and physics and stuff. So these Jesus Cookies always turn out right. Toss the cheese and baking mix until combined well. ACTION SHOT!!!

Next, drain the grease from your cooked sausage and add it to the mixing bowl along with the milk. Stir it well until everything is combined and sticky. It should stick to the bowl, your fingers, everything. If it's not that sticky, add more milk a little at a time until it's that sticky. But not runny. If it's runny, add more baking mix until it's sticky like I said it should be. This is where my dad's physics are important.

Then plop your dough mixture out onto a sprayed cookie sheet about a 1/2" apart. It's important that the cookie sheet is sprayed because of all the cheese in these things -- it sticks to an unsprayed cookie sheet like a mofo, and you'll never have a single Jesus Cookie that makes it out unscathed. (Can I use the term mofo in the same sentence as Jesus? Is that wrong?) Your pre-cooked Jesus Cookies should be about this big:

After they've baked in the 400 degree oven for about 10-12 minutes, they should look like this, with slightly browned edges. The batter should still be fairly dense inside, but still just a little fluffy.

Sneak one or two while you put the next batch onto the cookie sheet and into the oven. (Should I put the food I'm eating so close to a bamboo stirring utensil that was just used to break up raw meat? Living on the wild side, I suppose.)

If you make these any time in the future, let me know what you think! They're certainly popular with Carlton, with me, and with our group of friends. They're perfect for your family breakfast or lunch, a snack at a party, or even as part of a breakfast-for-dinner meal! This batch is about to head over to Eric and Stella's house for the Superbowl Party. Maybe I should make another batch? 36 might not be enough for these guys.

What I do when the husband isn't around and I don't feel like knitting. Wait. What?

2011-01-22T15:06:00.000-05:00

That's right, there was just something about this morning that put me in the mood to not knit. Weird.

So. I got to work on a few loads of laundry and tuckered myself out pretty quickly. I love folding, but today just wasn't the day. But I had the feeling to do something at least something productive. I dumped the clothes in a pile on the sofa and went to find something that would feel a little busier.

But first I decided to fix myself a bowl of Raisin Bran. As I pulled the box from the one shelf in my laundry closet / pantry, all sorts of stuff fell. Chips, boxed pastas, granola bars, other cereal boxes, and even a can of enchilada sauce! That was it... I knew what I would do this morning: organize my kitchen.

Once I finished my cereal, I got to work. Pantry / laundry first, then medicine cabinet, and then whoknowswhatelse. It wasn't so bad, what with Billy Joel / Elton John Pandora Radio on in the background.

Cereals, pastas, other boxed goods stacked. Bagged mixes, loose and random items organized in containers. Interior of microwave scrubbed (gross!), laundry supplies replenished and organized. What a nightmare getting started! Yes, my microwave is in my laundry room sitting atop my washing machine like it belongs there. Everyone I know gives me a tough time about it being there, but look. Understand me here! We hardly use our microwave, like, ever. It's used a lot for us if it's used once a week. So, there is no sense at all for this huge ugly thing to take up 24 linear inches of the give-or-take 60 linear inches of kitchen counter space I have to work with! What are you using the top of your front load washing machine for? That's what I thought. So leave me alone about it. Here's the before, and the next two are the after result. Whew! That was tough.

Hey kids, shake it loose together
The spotlight's hitting something
That's been known to change the weather
We'll kill the fatted calf tonight
So stick around
You're gonna hear electric music
Solid walls of sound

Say, Candy and Ronnie, have you seen them yet
But they're so spaced out, B-B-B-Bennie and the Jets
Oh but they're weird and they're wonderful
Oh Bennie she's really keen
She's got electric boots a mohair suit
You know I read it in a magazine
B-B-B-Bennie and the Jets

Hey kids, plug into the faithless
Maybe they're blinded
But Bennie makes them ageless
We shall survive, let us take ourselves along
Where we fight our parents out in the streets
To find who's right and who's wrong

It turns out it's a good thing I went through this horrific sight and got everything sorted and organized. I'm low on laundry stain cleaner, canned goods, and totally overstocked on chips. I had absolutely no idea until I did this!

Then I turned to the medicine cabinet and the cabinet which stores Vespa's food and treats. Guh-ross. Grossgrossgross!!! I didn't even take a before picture. First of all, the cabinet itself is just about useless. The cabinet door measures about 6" wide. Then the cabinet is only about 6" to the back of it, but about 30" to the side... it fills in a corner in the kitchen, so it is pretty much there as useless filler. I'm using it for the medicine cabinet, and to store some items from the kitchen that are less used.

I got allergy meds organized first. All the little blister pill packs into their rightful boxes, etc. I struggled a lot with allergies last Spring (our first Spring in south Georgia), and I went through a lot of allergy medicines before I discovered the one that works at all -- Benadryl. I swear these cold meds aren't being used in a meth lab! I just had to go through all this stuff before I found that Benadryl was the only one that made be feel better. Too bad it turns me into a zombie. Anyway, one basket is filled with allergy and cold meds.

The other is filled with vitamins, supplements, Advil, Tylenol, and tummy control.

And finally daily multivitamins, my beloved Benadryl Itch Stick, and other essentials are right in front of the door now. And yes, those are Carlton's Flinstones vitamins. I judge him too.

Then I got Vespa's monthly flea/tick control together along with other random meds that didn't fit on the bottom shelf and shoved it all in the center shelf.

Finally, my last bit of storage in this funky cabinet went to my tiny cheese dip Crock Pot (that's about all it's good for) and my KichenAid Stand Mixer... mixers. The paddle, the hook, the whipper thingy, and the dust guard. They needed somewhere to go that was out of the way, and this was perfect. Oh, and Carlton's beloved 5 Hour Energy thingies. I count them as vitamins. Read the label. So, in they go with the rest of his little Flinstones!

Then there was little miss Vespa. Or this morning after her back yard prowl and failure at bird catching, she was more like Little Miss Sunshine:

I got her cabinet organized, too. Her extra food was stored in an airtight container to keep it fresh, and so were her beloved "doughnut" treats.

Such a pretty kitchen!

Now I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that it doesn't all explode the second Carlton goes looking for the Tums at 2:30am.

Finally!

2011-01-20T20:52:00.000-05:00

We finally have a place to hang our framed-and-signed-by-wedding-guests engagement photo:

I finally have a spot in my bedroom to admire my Degas ballerina replica statuette:

We finally have somewhere to stuff our underwear, t-shirts, and other casualish clothes that don't necessarily need a hanger to be happy:

I went shopping on Saturday and spent a whopping $190.00 on this solid wood chest of drawers. It's got wood drawers with dovetail joints and everything. And I was ready to have a drawer for our drawers, if you know what I mean! A shelf in the armoire just wasn't keeping me happy... because stacked clothes topple when they're on a shelf. The chest was delivered while Carlton and I were at work (I told them that was okay when I purchased it since even I have a real live grown-up full-time job now), and we ripped it out of its packaging tonight after supper. This sucker was really heavy! After we struggled a bit to move it from the carport into the bedroom on the wall I had designated, I started prepping the drawers for our drawers. They were dusty inside, so I wiped them out with a damp cloth. Then it was time to move the hardware out to the outside of each drawer. I like how it's very straight and square and minimalist and how it almost has an Asian flare. And I love the fact that the hardware is the same wood as the chest:

As Carlton and I unpacked the chest from its cardboard, foam, and plastic packaging, I had noticed it was a bit short and that the feet were shaped differently than what I had seen in the showroom. And when I opened the bottom drawer of the chest, I discovered why: it's because the legs of the chest were packed away for safekeeping. I set them aside for attachment tomorrow. Because, after all, there's no need to get overzealous here. It's not like the legs will run away or anything.

So now we have a beautiful new chest of drawers to store all of our stuff and to make our master bedroom feel even more at home and comfortable (for us and our armoire... she was so tired of toppled stacks of clothes!)

Hooray for finally having another new little important piece of furniture to help make our happy little house a happy little home!!!

My new favorite vegetable

2011-01-12T20:22:00.002-05:00

If you know me very well at all, you know how crazy I am about zucchini cooked on the grill until it's charred on the outside and still crisp in the center. You've gotta cut it into quarters, spray with a little Pam olive oil, sprinkle with salt, and set it over direct flame. There's nothing better in the summertime! I have been known to skip over my steak or burger and just eat the zucchini with a HUGE smile on my face when it's done just right. Ahhh, so delish!

Lately, I've fallen in love with something that is JUST as good and -- because there's no grill preparation needed -- might even take less preparation than the zucchini! It's fresh, healthy, full of flavor, it goes with just about anything, and it's really quick and easy to fix. I've made small batches for just Carlton and me (yes, Carlton even loves this stuff!!!!!), and I've also made huge batches to feed 8-10 guests.

Baked Parmesan Broccoli:

1 package of fresh broccoli
Good olive oil
Grated Parmesan cheese
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Maybe some red pepper flakes for a little kick

- Heat oven to 350 degrees.
- Cut broccoli florets from their stalks. (If it's a large side dish, as if chicken and broccoli is all you're having for dinner, I usually prepare one broccoli stalk per person. If it's a smaller side dish to go along with two or more things, cut at your discretion.)
- Spread broccoli onto a nonstick baking sheet and drizzle very lightly with olive oil. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese on lightly (I just use the stuff we sprinkle on our pizza at home -- nothing expensive!) and toss everything around to get it all evenly distributed.
- Make sure everything is spread out on the baking sheet well.
- Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper. (The Parmesan cheese tends to get a little salty when it bakes, so while you do want a little salt, go easy on it and salt more on your plate if it's needed.)
- Bake for about 10 minutes, and voila! You've got a delicious, flavorful, and healthy side dish that everyone is sure to love.

We ate this all gone from our plates before I thought to take a picture. Yes, it's that good!!!

(Sometimes, if I'm feeling spicy enough, I'll sprinkle on some red pepper flakes once the broccoli is on my plate. It spares Carlton's sensitive senses that way. Yummmmm for me!!!)

Christmas 2010

2010-12-30T22:10:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving night, lighting the Christmas lights at Moultrie's Courthouse on the Square

This year's Christmas festivities were fast, fun, and frenzied. Unfortunately, I had to work on Christmas Eve until 1:00. But as soon as I was home from work, we loaded up all the presents and headed for Cartersville. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera along for our Christmas weekend in Cartersville because of our rush out the door from Moultrie, but I'll gladly show pictures that others took! We drove straight to my parents' house where we dropped off Vespa so she could rest up for Santa's mid-night visit. Then, we drove straight to my grandpa's house for our traditional Christmas Eve gathering.

My tabletop centerpiece, arranged just in time for the Teller Christmas Gift Exchange and Dinner Party

Papa's front yard was covered in his traditional white wooden reindeer, and accented by lots of lights. Papa had a tiny tabletop tree this year, topped by a countrytastic Santa Claus, speckled with bass fish ornaments and sprinkled with white lights. We had our usual spoiling of Trisha and Kristen by Leslie and Papa. Among many gifts, I opened a beautiful black pearl necklace from Leslie, and then a set of pearl earrings from Papa which match a long pearl necklace he gave me last year for Christmas. Once 10:30 or 11:00pm came around, it was definitely time for Carlton and me to head back to my parents' house for some much needed sleep. I was exhausted!

Our Christmas tree, cut down at the tree farm by Carlton himself!

On Christmas morning, my sister and I woke up according to our usual Christmas morning ritual: at the crack of dawn. The sun wasn't even up yet! After we walked the pups, it was time to open all the presents that Santa had magically brought in the middle of the night. (Yes, Santa still comes to our house!) Carlton and I were overwhelmed by all the great gifts we were given! Some of my favorites were the new Shark steam mop, some sweater sets and cardigans, a new pair of snazzy shoes, and gift cards for buying home decor. Carlton racked up on new shirts for work as well as gift cards for games and dining out, buy his favorite gift by far was from my dad: an automatic shooting Nerf gun complete with tons of ammo and even a shield! We gave my mom a new travel cosmetics bag, and we gave my dad a 6 month subscription to Netflix to try out. By 9:30, we had inhaled our once-a-year treat of my mom's amazing coffee cake and were on our way for a second Christmas morning with Carlton's parents and Grandmama.

Two new tree ornaments, and they're two of my most favorite!

Carlton and I both racked up again on excellent gifts from his parents. Carlton opened more collared shirts for work, a nice pair of Smith&Wesson sunglasses, and some cold, hard cash. I opened up some more beautiful, professional sweaters that got me excited about going back to work, a new set of bamboo knitting needles, a beautiful set of table linens from Grandmama, and a luscious fleece king-size heated blanket for our bed. Score!!! We gave Carlton's dad a sleep wireless mouse for his livingroom recliner netbook internet surfing, and Carlton's mom and Grandmama got matching handmade jewel earrings. Surrounded by boxes and bows and crumpled paper, Carlton and I collapsed into a Christmas morning coma... until it was time to meet my parents and drive through the Christmas white snow to Kennesaw's Imax 3D cinema to watch Tron.

That night we went back to Carlton's parents' house where we played with his little cousins Hannah and Justin, opened presents with them, and had some delicious chicken pot pie made by Vicki. Hannah loved her Ribbon Dancer, and Justin couldn't wait to play with Hannah using the new walkie-talkies we got him!

One of the two wreaths that framed our sliding doors which lead out to the back porch, fashioned with a glittery reindeer!

On Sunday morning we woke up at Carlton's house and prepared for our last hoorah of opening presents--with Katie Anne, baby SJ, Saunders, and Katie! I was sooooo excited to spend the morning with Katie Anne and play with her. She opened her gifts very slowly, making sure she got to see everyone else's facial expressions as they opened their gifts, too! My favorite gift to give her this year was a playtime grill, complete with all sorts of food to cook on it, grilling tools like a spatula and tongs, salt and pepper and bbq sauce, and even a propane tank hooked up my a hose to the grill! She cooked and cooked for us and the grill made awesome crackling and sizzling sounds. Then, surprise!!! Katie Anne opened an entire new kitchen, complete with pots and pans and dishes for Doc and VJ's house! Katie Anna racked up on homemaking tools.

My favorite gift to give to baby SJ was something made by hand over a number of nights. I sat, studied my computer, and picked out what I thought to be the most darling (EVER!) little baby boy's sweater vest. I picked out yarn, sat on the sofa, and just knitted my little heart into that sweater vest. I would ooooh and aaaaah over it every time I'd stop and look it over. Of course, I had to take time away from knitting when I randomly decided to paint my living room and dining room, as well as when I made intricate plans for a Christmas dinner party at the house. But I got straight back to work and finished sewing the snaps on the shoulder of that vest the morning little SJ came over to open it from its gift box. He was so excited, he vowed to wear it for his upcoming professional pictures! Auntie Trisha can't wait to see the vest on that cute little Hambone!

It wasn't long after that last splurge of opening gifts (only 2:00!) that Carlton and I loaded up the car and headed back home to Moultrie where we collapsed into the bed and napped. Christmas weekend was exhausting and hectic, but it was so much fun to share the white Christmas holiday with our families!

Autumn in South Georgia

2010-11-12T00:04:00.000-05:00

The signs of Summer have finally subsided. While there are still tides of warm air that roll in now and then, I can finally wear a sweater to work and go the entire day with out actually sweating in my sweater.

The gnats are gone...

Carlton and I have enjoyed a football game together with friends in Athens...

...as well as the legendary Georgia/Florida game in Jacksonville, Florida... STOMP THE GATORS!!!!!

I've finished another scarf for mailing out to my "secret" swap partner in California...

We have celebrated my birthday with some of our close friends at my favorite Thomasville restaurant Marebella, just like last year but with a different group...

Pecans are being brought in from their beautiful groves all around us, ready to be baked into some delicious pies...

Cotton is being harvested from the fields...

...packaged for shipping in semi-trailers...

...and processed at the cotton gin for distribution throughout the USA...

Vespa has been chasing squirrels and loving her new playpen, totally free from adult supervision...

The (apparently) world-famous Ag Expo has come and gone... "Have you eaten today? Thank a farmer!!!"

Vespa is now sporting a smart, fall-inspired houndstooth collar, complete with a coordinating leash for cool and stylish neighborhood strolls...

Calico, Moultrie's Roselawn-ish crafts fair, will be in town this weekend and I won a free ticket at work, so guess who's going to Calico...

I've come to terms with the fact that I just might become that "Kooky Auntie Trisha" because I'm currently knitting what appears to be the smallest sweatervest ever made, ever... and I can't wait to pinch his chubby widdle cheeks when I see him in it, either...

And finally, the City of Moultrie is now making preparations for the Thanksgiving Night Display of Lights that string from the top of the courthouse dome out to the rest of the storefronts around the square...

Autumn is beautiful here in Moultrie!

I'm 26!

2010-11-04T21:12:00.000-04:00

Well, I've gotta say... being 26 has been great so far!

One major perk of marrying into the Jones family: they wholeheartedly believe that your birthday should be celebrated for a week! Hence, The Birthday Week. My thoughts on that? Sure, why not! Aside from the fact that my birthday was on November 1st, my birthday celebrations started a little early. I decided my "birthday week" would start when Saunders made it down on Friday night, October 29th. First things first! Saunders brought a gift from his and Carlton's mom-- a birthday present for me! A pretty, wavy, fluted, funky vase with gray and purple swirls all through-and-through. It is totally, 100% me and I love it! Carlton is sure he's gonna be looking at it for years to come. It's the perfect size to hold lots of knitting needles on the sofa end table, or a bundle of flowers on the dinner table! Thanks, Vicki!

Saunders came to Moultrie because we were heading to Jacksonville, Florida early-early-early the next morning to go to the Georgia/Florida football game. Once he got to Moultrie, and once I got home from work and changed, we decided to show Saunders a little bit of the "big town" Moultrie scene. We took him to Blue Sky, a favorite local hangout place for dinner, drinks, watching games, playing excellent trivia, and just hanging out.

As soon as we walked in, Saunders was satisfied: "This is what I wanted, this is something only Moultrie has." And that's exactly right! Saunders treated himself to the gigantic ribeye while Carlton had a burger and I overindulged in the Boom-Boom Shrimp (it's fried shrimp covered in a crazy-good sauce-- kinda a creamy sauce like they serve you at a Japanese steakhouse, only completely hot and spicy at the same time... totally delectable!). We stayed there for a couple hours, just talking and catching up over drinks and desserts.

We didn't stay up too late once we got back home, though, because our plans were to leave the house by about 6:00am the next morning. Goooooo Dawgs! It was a struggle to be awake and out the door, but we somehow managed to do it. The drive was nice, the tailgating with friends was excellent, and it didn't seem like it was long before we were making the trek to the stadium to see an incredibly exciting football game.

Our seats couldn't have been better! We were sitting just 3 rows from the field... that's right, you read that correctly... 3 rows back!!! We were on about the 15 yard line, so we were right there in the middle of all the action when exciting end zone plays made the crowd go wild. Unfortunately, The Dawgs lost in overtime, but I couldn't complain one bit. It was my first Georgia/Florida game experience and it was so exciting and fun and incredible!!!

The drive back was pretty rough. Not because of traffic, because there was none at all. It was rough because we were all so exhausted and ready for sleep. The stop at the Waffle House was a good call at first, because it gave us a chance to get moving again, to perk back up, and to get some food on our stomachs (I hadn't eaten since my breakfast McGriddle on the way down to Florida because the tailgate cooks only brought sausages and hotdogs... sadly, not my cup of tea). But once that Waffle House started digesting, we only got sleepier and warmer and cozier and more tired. Saunders toughed it out for most of the drive home, and I did my best to talk and keep the conversation going. I didn't want anyone falling asleep at the wheel! We made it home safely in the end, but man-o-man was that a struggle. Thanks for pulling through, Saunders!

Our Sunday consisted of seeing Saunders off, napping, having lunch, napping, tv watching, and seeing friends for dinner. You've gotta love a lazy Sunday!

Monday marked November 1st, my true birthday. I carried my new Dooney&Bourke eggplant-purple patent leather purse to work. Yeah, that's right. You can be jealous, I totally understand why you would be. It's because I have a new eggplant-purple patent leather Dooney& Bourke handbag and you don't. It's completely natural. (Actually, the truth is this: a fellow teller at the bank carries D&Bs on a regular basis. She's got two little girls under the age of four and needs both of her hands open at all times to keep up with her girls. This particular purse is more of a forearm bag, if you will--the strap is too short to classify it as a shoulderbag. So, she had this incredible purse at home and could never use it.)

I sent Carlton a text picture of it and he gave the thumbs up with a return comment of: "I'm so glad I found the perfect birthday present for you, Babe! I was getting worried that I wouldn't find you anything, but this purse is just perfect for you. Happy Birthday!" And so, I got a beautiful, brand new (okay, so it's last season), never-been-used Dooney&Bourke for $75. Can't beat that!)

Monday night I carried my new Dooney&Bourke eggplant-purple patent leather forearm bag to dinner in Thomasville. Carlton took me to one of my favorite places to eat, Jonah's, where I ordered the Surf-n-Turf filet and crabcake with their famous creamy white cheddar grits and coleslaw. Carlton got the fried shrimp and fries. We shared the sinful deep fried hushpuppies... we just couldn't not eat them!

And now for today. My yarn arrived today! Remember, the yarn I purchased to knit this sweater? It was waiting for me, all dry and cozy in its USPS Mailing Box in the carport when I got home. I'm ready to knit myself a sweater. I really complicated, pretty, retro-style sweater.

As for my birthday week, I think it's gone well so far. Speckled in with a few white chocolate macadamia nut cookies for a nighttime snack here and there, I'm pretty satisfied! We're looking forward to a group dinner in Thomasville on Friday or Saturday night with our Moultrie crew. Since spunky little Stella will be turning 29 on the 9th, this dinner outing should be a fun one!

One more thing before I sign off: I'm not the only one getting great presents around here. Look in the background of this picture I took today after work. You'll see Vespa's new present: a backyard fence! She's been chasing squirrels and birds and lying in the warm sun, all while we're inside not supervising! We are also getting Vespa used to her new "playpen" by running and playing as much as we can, and everybody's having a great time in this cool fall weather!

Thanks to everybody for sending so much love to me for my birthday! More "Adventures of the Moultrie Joneses" updates to come. Muah!

Beatnik

2010-10-23T21:16:00.000-04:00

Well, it's looking like I've got a new knitting project on my list of 2010 wanna-do's. I know, I know. But I just found it, and I've been wanting to knit another sweater since I finished my first one. But I haven't found one that I loved enough to commit to the yarn, the color, the pattern, and all the work involved. I thought I had found one I wanted to do last year, but could never allow myself to commit to the pricey yarn that the pattern called for even though I loved everything about it. Well guys, I've finally found it: the yarn, the color, the price, the pattern... and I'm ready to do the work.

It's in the latest issue (Deep Fall 2010) of Knitty, an online magazine that I love to follow regularly. It's a pattern called Beatnik and--while the model was staring at me in a kinda creepy way and frumped over the sweater and covered most of it with a prop for the sake of a "model-y" photo, it still caught my eye right away--it was right on the front page of the site when I checked in just tonight. Since about 8:30, let's just say that I've already logged on to CreativeYarns.net(which is the yarn shop in Macon that I'm wacky-crazy about) and set aside the yarn I'll need to finish the project. Although I am completely obsessed with clementines as a fruit (I've been known to tote them around in my purse just in case the mood strikes me to endulge in another), I'm not the kind of girl to knit an entire cabled sweater in the color. What do you think about a soft, light, heathered beige-gray? (Chelsea, doesn't this color look like my Revere Pewter that I'm still so obsessed with?!?!?) Okay, yeah, that's what I thought. I'm definitely excited now. Should I go ahead and order the yarn?

The neck of the sweater is so unexpected, yet it completely finishes the entire look. Any sweater with 3/4 sleeves is a hit with me. I've recently learned how to make cables in knitting and so I've recently discovered how much I love making cables in knitting. Looks like this one may turn into a labor of love, but what precious homemade useable--nay, wearable--craft isn't??? It looks like Carlton just officially bugged out of having to shop for anything for my birthday present. Yarn, it is! Happy birthday to me... in 9 days, that is. ;)

Yippeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!

10-02-2010

2010-10-20T23:06:00.000-04:00

That's the day my little sister got married. That's an easy anniversary date to remember!

I came up to Cartersville that Thursday afternoon and the weekend's final preliminary projects soon ensued. We picked up dozens and dozens and dozens! of glazed sugar cookies from Agan's Bakery and packaged them all in groups very cutely inside their little miniature Mason Jar wedding favor containers (which was very cute, lemme tell ya). Then we went to Town Center Mall to pick up Scott (the groom) and Carlton's suits. Scott made Kristen leave the store while he tried on his suit. Because, in his words, "if I can't see her dress before the wedding, why should she be able to see my suit?" I maintained my Matron of Honor status quite well by staying with Scott to give the thumbs-up on Scott's total ensemble which included a real-deal bow tie and Toms shoes to finish the custom look. He was a big hit with all the store associates in his get-up.

After the suits were picked up, we had dinner and then worked on printing lots of names and stories and all sorts of stuff for the reception tables.

On Friday, we woke up, got things packed up as quickly as we could, and got on the road to Helen, Georgia. And my-oh-my let me tell you, it was so pretty up there! We all quickly changed into "rehearsal clothes" and made our way from the hotel to the wedding site for the rehearsal. Once the rehearsal finished, everyone enjoyed a delicious meal hosted by the mother of the groom at the Eidelweiss Inn before numerous cheers and toasts were made in honor of the soon-to-be-married couple. We all collapsed into our beds back at the hotel and slept well until the next morning.

October 2, 2010
WEDDING DAY IS HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rushing, rushing, running, rushing, madness, craziness, run! Run! Run!

We got to Kellum Valley Farm just in time to get the bride ready for her beautiful day. I fixed her hair while she did her own make-up. Each bridesmaid took care of her own primping. Everyone was in such a fun rush to make sure everything was picture-perfect, it was hard to notice Daniel, the incredibly amazing photographer who floated around all day. He captured so many special moments.

In the end, all of the careful planning and attention to special details paid off tenfold. The wedding, reception, and overall Kellum Valley Farm Mason wedding scene were unbelievably gorgeous. (P.S. I don't know what it is about us Lamberth girls and the need to have our wedding reception in/near a barn, but it totally makes for a picture perfect scene... if I do say so myself.)

I wish all the congratulations in the world to my little sister Kristen and my new brother-in-law Scott. Your day was almost as special as the two of you are! I couldn't have pictured a more fitting wedding day for my sister. Keep that evil eye near for peace and prosperity!

The best way to look at the photos that Daniel Stancil took at the wedding is linked below. He made a blog page especially for the Masons, but the "Our Slideshow" link on the top right is the best way to see everything. Enjoy! (You know you wish you had some of those monogrammed Agan's glazed sugar cookies.)

http://mason.danielstancil.com/#/slideshow/

*I've gotta say, the photographer for these kids was absolutely great. He was funny and cheesy (in that he still says the term "cool beans" kinda way) and he made my nervous-excited sister relax a little better. And yet he totally fell into the background where he wasn't really noticed. But somehow he still seemed to capture everything that should have been captured! Great job, Daniel Stancil! If you want to get more information on him for wedding, family, or special occasion photos, I linked each one of the pictures in this post to his site. Well, since I jacked them without his expressed permissions, I suppose that's the least I could do. ;)

Things to come...

2010-10-19T21:28:00.000-04:00

It's obviously been another while since I've come around. I've recently been pressured by my from-a-still-too-far-distance best friend to come back, and with enthusiasm. Actually, the "and with enthusiasm" part I added, mostly because I'm feeling enthusiastic.

I'll fill you in very soon on the goings-on of the Moultrie Joneses. I've got months of photos on my camera to download and tweak in Picasa and share with whosoever decides to click on in. (Apparently, while my mind may think I'm enthusiastic, I'm not in the mood to be overly enthusiastic about getting started back up.) I wouldn't bother with filling in the blanks on the recent months' activities, except for the fact that they're pretty important activities.

Here's a little taste of things that have happened. And, for this blog, of things to come:

- Our friend Cam's birthday and trivia night and cupcakes and $1 beer Dixie cups stacked high atop a table
- Finished knitting projects... I know!!!
- Recipes I've made up and/or tried out on our friends that have been really successful (thank goodness)
- My baby sister got married. That's MORE than a really big deal. That's an incredibly, especially, enormously huge deal!
- Vacation plans. Two separate vacation plans, to be exact. And both of them require PASSPORTS!!!
- A new job for me, praise the Lord God Almighty!
- ...and more.

I hope I don't disappoint this time around. I hope I stick to my "enthusiastic" guns and get things moving again here on my little bloggy blog. And I hope you read and enjoy. Cheers.

Happy 3rd Anniversary to my Hubster and me!

2010-07-29T17:19:00.000-04:00

From the lyrics of our first-dance song, "I love you more today than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow."

Knitting chunky cables

2010-07-25T19:23:00.000-04:00

I've been absent from this blog for a long time. Let's just get that past us and marvel at what I'm teaching myself right now! This is by far accomplishing one of my New Year's resolutions in knitting: learning to knit cables!!! You know what cables are. They look like 3-D twisting vines or braids. They're in a lot of chunky, warm sweaters in the winter time. They're also seen a lot in a small-scale form in men's dress socks.

A few months ago I visited a yarn shop for my first-ever time! I went with Chelsea in Macon and purchased three balls of this Spud & Chloe yarn in the color you see below called flannel as well as one that's a sort of heathered reddish color called sequoia. It's so chunky that it would be nearly impossible to knit a flattering sweater with it. Plus, I'd need tons more of the yarn than I have right now. And at $13.40 a ball, that's not very likely to happen.

But why not make a killer bag? I could use a handmade purse. And a big one. There's enough of this stuff to go very far and make a beautiful bag! So, I set out to find a pattern and found the perfect one for free. I know, big plus there. The pattern for the bag shows cables all over, which is very pretty, but I found someone's version of the same bag posted online and loved it even more than the original.

Original: Modified:

It's only one round of cables at the top opening to frame off the rest of the bag which is simple and pretty. It seemed like the perfect beginner's project that wouldn't fatigue me too much on this attempt at a new-to-me knitting technique.

Excuse the lazy Sunday afternoon nightgown and un-manicured hand with a weird amount of wrinkles on my thumb. Here's what I've done so far today since I started the project:

So far this week

2010-06-01T21:58:00.000-04:00

I've been...

...knitting a pretty project for a swap:

...snagging some blooms from our next-door neighbor's gardenia bush (What! The house is vacant and for sale, and nobody else is appreciating these pretty and fragrant blooms!):

(Oooooooooooooh, you don't even know. These two blooms are in a little ceramic cup I spun in college, and let's just say, they're making my little perch in the corner of the sofa a whole lot better.)

...enjoying a number of thunderstorms that have rumbled their way through Moultrie and totally made my front porch ferns - and their recovering-from-bird-baby-poop leaves - really, really happy.

...and lovin' my little Puppa who naps so sweet and cute. After the thunderstorm calms itself down a bit, that is.

(Everybody now, "Aaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!")

More of your Moultrie Jones goings on to be shared later this week!

Love that musk

2010-05-29T15:07:00.004-04:00

A few weeks after Carlton and I had bought our house and moved in, I was at the grocery store after work to buy a few things for dinner one night. I happened to bump into the guy who sold the house to us, Ted, and we chatted for a few minutes while I helped him find a specialty ingredient listed on his wife's "Honey Do" shopping list. As we talked, he invited Carlton and me to hang out with his wife and himself along with a group of their friends who get together once or twice a week. Of course, I totally jumped on the opportunity to get to know some people who were our age in Moultrie! Ted and his wife were recent UGA grads, and their group of friends were all newlyweds... the perfect group for Carlton and me to get in with!

So, a few weeks passed and plans were made for Ted and his wife Erin to pick Carlton and me up from the house and drive over to Tifton for dinner at a Japanese Steakhouse. Ted, 28 was (and is!) a loud, sarcastic, animated character-of-a-guy who's easy to get along with right off the bat, and his wife Erin, 23, was so easy-going and sweet that we knew we'd stick around with this group. We met the other couples: Cam & Erin (yep, a second Erin) were a freshly newlywed couple of two (or was it 6?) weeks, and Eric & Stella were also newlyweds of a few months.

After dinner that night, it became a regular weekly ordeal for each couple to host a dinner night and swap out cooking/entertaining responsibilities. I soaked up the friendship and garage-door-style friends we had made... no knocking, no front door doorbell business... just bust through the carport door right into the kitchen, throw the beers in the fridge, and get to talkin' and laughin'!

The first time we had dinner at Eric and Stella's house was a big surprise to me. I had heard tall tales, rumors, and other stories of a dog named Magnus, but other than that, Carlton and I knew nothing about him. Honestly, I was expecting something like a Miniature Schnauzer or a Chocolate Lab or a Jack Russel Terrier. But Eric and Stella had actually aptly named their dog. Magnus's name fit him perfectly... he was a gigantic American Boxer and before I was even in the house he was running towards ME!!! "Stand still and don't make eye contact! Don't run away, he'll chase you down and eat your guts! Hide your fingers, they're merely sweet morsels for this monster!" I told myself in instant stereotypical panic and fear of the beastly animal who was now fearlessly... sniffing my crotch and "wagging" his little inch-long nub of a tail???

Wait. I'm still alive? I still have a face? He's not eating me? I still have my ears... my stud earrings didn't sparkle in the light and attract any quick-snapping jowly jaws of death? And my ponytail is still intact... he hasn't yanked my hair off my scalp? He's "wagging" that little nub and not snarling at me? These dogs aren't savage killing beasts? I let him sniff the back of my hand. He pushed his forehead into me and practically forced me to pet him. Magnus was... kind? Loving? Sweet? Craving love and affection from everyone around him? Okay, I can live with a happy-go-lucky snub-nose dog! And ever since then, Magnus and I have been the best of friends when Carlton and I visit. (I ganked these pictures of Magnus from Stella's Facebook photo albums, so they may be a little distorted. But ain't he cuuuuuuute?!??)

I even speak for him when Eric and Stella aren't paying attention. For some reason he sounds a bit like Disney's character Goofy, only with a little more of a congested-sinuses undertone, and no "hyuk, hyuk, hyuk" after every sentence spoken. He's actually quite the pouty whiner.

Well, nights with friends are always good ones. But nights at Eric and Stella's are especially great for one of us... and it's not a person... it's a dog. Of course, Magnus loves all the extra attention with all the extra willing-to-scratch fingers around. But the truly happy dog in this situation is Vespa.

Vespa and Magnus have never met. But, oh, would Vespa love to get to know Magnus! I've tried and tried describing to Stella and Eric Vespa's elation, her exhilaration, her extreme-to-the-max love of Magnus's... musk. When we come home from their house, it's usually around 11:00 or so on a Sunday evening and Carlton will quickly jump into the shower and get ready for bed. And Vespa takes that opportunity to sniff and sniff and sniffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff until she just can't even breathe anymore! Vespa is head-over-heals crazy about Magnus's musk. She just can't get enough! She'll actually sniff in for so long that she doesn't breathe out until she's almost choking or something! But the whole time, Vespa's tail is just a-waggin'.

Below is a video of Vespa sniffing away at Carlton's crocks and athletic shorts that he wore to Eric and Stella's house on this particular Sunday night. She can't even take the time to acknowledge me calling her name over and over again. Please ignore all of her hanger chew toys and my overly-countrified accent... sometimes it's hard to hold on to that Hillbilly Georgia accent when you're around a bunch of Redneck twang!

Happiness

2010-05-18T22:50:00.001-04:00

I'm back. Well, at least I think I am. For now, at least! I was away from blogworld for more than just a little while. But even though I wasn't physically typing anything, I was taking pictures. Pictures of happy things like the coming of Spring time...

...and a perfectly perfect trip to see my very best friend along with some other very old and very wonderful friends. And by very old, I mean the friends-of-13-years kind of friends. It was a really great evening.

Ooo! And while I was there, I had my very first Yarn Shop shopping experience. I'll write about that in detail later.

Then Carlton and I spent Easter weekend with our families. Vespa is always happy to see her Sissy and rassle a whole bunch.

We celebrated the hatching of two whole separate families of bird babies (and mourned the sickness of two very undeserving ferns as well as the tragic loss of little Crouton, R.I.P.).

I went as Sisterly Supporter and photographer to see the Bride's wedding dress (squeeeee!) and to see the wedding/reception venue.

So, while I was loading these happy pictures off my camera and into my Picasa album tonight, I was also browsing through the blogs posted today by bloggers I follow.

In keeping with the theme of happy pictures, Pioneer Woman is currently hosting her next Photography Assignment. This round's theme? Happiness. I've participated in her assignments before and must boast that I have felt quite adequate with my submitted photos. Either way, it's always fun whether you participate and win (totally not me), participate and not win (totally me), or simply click over to her Flickr page to see what everyone else is looking at through a camera lens (obsessively me). If you like cooking and trying out new recipes, reading funny stories about calf nuts and bassett hounds, taking pictures and getting great/free photography advice and tutorials, wearing cute-and-comfy clothes and getting great/free fashion advise, and if you really like the over-all breezy personality of her current Photography Assignment, I can promise you that you'll fall in love with the Pioneer Woman. Quite frankly, in her own words, she'll "make your skirt fly up!"

The very short life of a little bird baby named "Crouton"

2010-05-13T22:02:00.002-04:00

First, a background story:

About two months ago I bought a couple of nice, big, healthy, fluffy ferns and hung them on the two corners of our front porch. They're a great addition to the facade of the house, and they definitely make it look inviting and homey.
About a month-and-a-half ago, just as birds started chirping happily as temperatures rose for Springtime's arrival, a momma and poppa bird decided one of the ferns would be transformed into a home and a nest was hastily--yet, might I add, neatly (I was impressed with her tidy weaving technique and liked her minimalist decorating style)--constructed within the leaves of the fern. Then the very next day there were five eggs tucked right there in the center, so incredibly neat and cute and itty-bitty. And by itty-bitty I mean smaller around the middle than a dime. Tiny little things: white with little black speckles, like cracked black pepper. Before too long the eggs hatched and we were proud landlords to a family of seven.

Then the bird babies grew, ate, grew some more, ate some more, and eventually flew away... leaving my beautiful, fluffy fern a total limpy, dried-up poopfest with a sickly hole on one side where momma had entered and exited enough to break all the fern branches off. Boo, birds! Once the babies were gone I waited a whole day to be sure the new-to-flying birds wouldn't return to the nest before I grabbed some plastic knitting needles and dug that rotten poopy nest out of the plant, watered it like crazy, and began nursing it back to its happy, fluffy fern self. We're still on the road to recovery.

And now for the story of little Crouton....
About one week of peaceful fern doctoring took place before I discovered a new momma and a new poppa building a new nest... in the only happy, healthy, fluffy fern on the front porch that I had left! Ooooh, I was so mad! Please, birds, find this fern unsuitable and move a long! Alas, Momma and Poppa Finch deemed the fern sturdy and well-camouflaged... plus, it's in the best school district of the county and I think that was the selling point for Momma.
Repeat the whole build-nest-lay-eggs ordeal. But add an extra egg. This fern was definitely gonna be pooped to death by the time birdy rearing was over in a few weeks! I watched for a few days and slowly but surely the eggs hatched. Two hatched, then three more hatched... but the last egg didn't hatch for another two whole days. On the day it did hatch, I peeked into the fern to check on it (because I'm nosy like that and I was concerned!) and I noticed the egg had been pushed out of the nest and into the leaves of the fern. As I pulled the egg out of the leaves, I realized it was only half of an eggshell attached to the tiny bottom of the last-to-hatch baby bird.
"He must have fallen out of the nest as he pushed his way out of the shell," I thought to myself. I carefully put him back into the nest.

The next day I peeked into the fern and discovered that the baby bird was in the same exact spot again! Not in the nest, but under the leaves of the fern right next to the nest. Even though his other siblings were already growing (and he was still just as tiny), I decided to put him back into the nest and give it one last try. "He must get a bug every now and then even if he is half the size of his fatty siblings!"
Welp, the next morning came along and I peeked in only to find... you guessed it... little bird baby in the fern leaves again. Poor little guy. He must have been deemed a "failure to thrive" hatchling since he hatched two whole days after all the others. He was too little to stand against the siblings when Momma came by to feed them. He just got kicked to the curb.
I just couldn't stomach the thought of these birds growing and flying away, and me digging out the nest with plastic needles only to find this tiny bird baby skeleton underneath. That would just be too much. So, my heart sank and by 9:00AM yesterday morning I had brought him inside.

I put a few knitted swatches (yes, hahaha, of course Trisha had knitting swatches just lying around) into an empty box that our last bank checks had been mailed in, set it up underneath a lamp, found a medicine dropper and some fruit juice and started nursing the pitiful little booger.
He settled in under the lamp and went up and down in chirping and eating quality. Sometimes his tummy would be empty but he wouldn't eat. Other times his belly would be full and he would chirp and eat like crazy. He bobbled his head around like a dummy, and I thought to myself, "well, maybe his mom really did know best after all."
But he ate, pooped, chirped, and slept.
Carlton and I found it incredibly funny that Vespa was so still when we let her look at him, although she constantly swallowed and licked her chops, and vibrated with tense excitement. We decided that the bird should be named "Crouton" because Vespa would totally love to crunch on his toasty little body.

He made it through the night, which neither Carlton nor I expected. Vespa woke up and needed to go out at about 4:30AM, and once we came back in I checked on him, fed him a few drops of juice, and left him to sleep some more. He was quite feisty.
This morning he was acting kinda dumb again. Flopping around, breathing sporadically, and overall just looking kinda floppy. But this afternoon I checked on him and fed him a few times. He was back to his spry, chirpy self again. So weird. But at 5:30... you guessed it... his head was floppy and he wouldn't eat.
And then when I checked on him at 7:00, not only was he not responsive at all, but he wasn't even pink anymore. He was just there, laying sorta sideways, and not breathing anymore. Crouton had died.
Of course I'm kinda sad, I was the one who rescued him from The Great Fern Entanglement. Carlton's kinda sad because, well, it was a tiny baby animal who just couldn't make it, and that's just plain sad.

But Vespa... oh, Vespa. She's just totally devastated. Inconsolable. When she came into the room to look for little Crouton, she didn't believe me when I explained the situation in terms she understands (usually pertaining to food), "All gone, Vespa. Da baby is alllllll gone." She ripped the check book box to shreds, turned all the knitted swatches over and over and over again, and whimpered for little Crouton. Which just makes the whole thing a even a bit more sad.

R.I.P. Crouton, May 10 - May 13

Let's all take a moment of silence.

Greenthumb update

2010-03-22T22:48:00.000-04:00

Just a happy little update on how the daffodils are coming along!

Vespa's mud bath

2010-03-11T22:25:00.001-05:00

Every now and then, Vespa enjoys a good meal of worm and bug in the great outdoors. Sometimes, she's a lucky pup and happens upon a worm or slug that has found its way to the middle of the driveway at an inopportune time... when the concrete decides to dry. It is then that the earthworm or slug will eventually wither and wilt and dry and become tough. Chewy. A premium, all-natural pup chewie. And Vespa just loves them. And I love them because they're small enough to be chewed and swallowed in one piece without being a terrifying choking hazard.

It was one beautiful, sunny day last week when I decided to open the sliding glass back doors and allow Vespa to explore her turf "on her own" for a while. I was scrubbing a sink load of dishes and pots and pans and cookie sheets at the sink and could watch her through the window, just in case she decided to chase after any pesky roaming neighborhood cats.

After about 30 minutes of freedom, I decided to grab the camera and see what I found Vespa up to on her outdoor explorations. Mostly, she'll be treeing a squirrel or sniffing at pinecones and sticks. But on this day Vespa was into something much more interesting! She had discovered a bug that was flopping around in a muddy puddle right in the middle of the back yard. And, what do we do when we discover a bug? We roll around on it. We rub all over it. We especially get it around our neck and behind our ears... you know... so we can savor it, and save a little of it for later. It dries especially well when suspended behind a loose-fitting collar, in case anyone was curious.

Here she is, sniffing the air and assessing the situation before delving into the muddy puddle of grossness:

Oh, she was caught rolling in the mud and she knew it was gonna get her into biiiiiiiiig trouble. She immediately started her Trail-of-Tears-Death-Row-walk-of-shame up to the back deck for immediate scolding and stern talking-to. But wait a sec. Squirrel? Oh, yeah. Trouble.

Reporting for punishment with mud on the feet. Yuk!

It was so incredibly hilarious how she thought she was in trouble for rubbing on the bug in the mud. I usually freak out and yell in a freakishly loud and high-pitched voice because the thought of rolling on bugs to catch them on her neck just grosses me out! But this time I was just hysterical with laughter because she wouldn't look at me. At all. She completely avoided eye contact at all costs!

Tail down, ears back, eyes turned away: the only way to take on verbal abuse/punishment from Momma.

Squirrel??!!??? Oh yeah, I'm in trouble. Better stay here.

She still didn't make eye contact here! She just looked right past me and up into the sky. Which made me even more hysterical with laughter because of these squinty little eyes! How cuuuuuuute!!!

After a few minutes of consoling and petting on Vespa, she came around to realize that she actually wasn't in trouble. We decided to lie out on the back deck for about 10 minutes in the warm sun like turtles before calling it an afternoon and heading inside for a cleansing bath.

Playing catch up

2010-03-05T16:45:00.001-05:00

Since I've fallen far behind in any way of updating this blog, and since I'm emptying many valuable (and many useless) pictures from my camera's memory card, I decided to load some of them here. This is what we've been up to since... uh, about December:

It was juuuuust dark enough so that I got to look at this beautiful courthouse every day when I left work from Thanksgiving until New Year's Day.

We got to decorate our first home for Christmas with a real tree, cranberry garland, plenty of colorful ornaments from friends and family, and the illuminated star topper we've had since our first Christmas as husband and wife. My favorite Christmas decoration was this pair of sweet papier mache gold leaf reindeer I purchased for $15 total at Michael's.

We treated our niece Katie Anne with a box full of dress-up playtime clothes. No matter its blurriness and color off-ness and light problems, this is my absolute favorite picture of Katie Anne. She's blurry because she's twirling. Her little foot is turned sideways like she's about to tip over, and the chef's hat is about to swallow her whole! She looks soooo happy, and that's why I love it!

I sewed my first-ever purse from a pattern. It's pieces of fabric sewn together and then quilted. And I did it all on my very own! It is Vespa's weekender tote and we fill it with her food and water and toys (and my knitting projects) for the road when we drive up to Cartersville for weekends with family.

I joined my first-ever knitting swap. It was a scarf swap, and the girl I was knitting for loves the color blue. She also lives in Portugal!!!! My knitting work has gone international now. :)

In addition to the Barcalounger we purchased for Carlton, I've been slowly-but-surely settling into our home. I've bought little somethings here and there for hanging on the wall and accessorizing and furnishing the house. Our TV is now up off the floor, as are all the electronics associated with it! Like, up on a TV stand! And we've got some artwork and mirrors and sconces (like this one above) hanging on the walls. Slowly but surely, we're making it prettier.

I got my fingernails dirty the weekend of Valentine's Day. I planted about a million daffodil bulbs from Papa, and about a thousand bulbs from Vicki. Here's hoping I don't disappoint anyone!

Two weeks later, that's what we saw!

And as of this morning, we're rockin' these cute little bubbles of something colorful at the very tips of many of the pointy, leafy plants! (I'll keep you filled in as we make more progress!)

We have dinner parties here at the house on a regular basis! About once a month (or every six weeks or so, depending on whose turn it is) a group of 6-10 folks show up and I get to feed them. This was our latest gathering, a smaller group. We capped off the night with a game of poker and a homemade cheesecake topped with fresh whipped cream. Cool fact: The tall, blurry guy sitting next to Carlton (and his wife in red next to him) used to own our house!

I was reeeeeeeeeeally sick about a week ago. I vomited so violently that I burst all sorts of tiny little blood vessels around my eyes and all over my face. Looked like Carlton had beaten me after a couple of days! Feeling much better, thanks for your well wishes everyone!

And finally, our house is VERY ready for Spring to arrive. I hung these big, full ferns just a few days ago and they're loving it up there in the breeze. All we need for the front of the house now is a UGA flag for that flag holder. Oh, and to actually attach our 2-1-3 house numbers underneath the porch light. Oh, and of course, to plant the rest of those potted plants Vicki brought us!!! :)

Make memories

2010-02-16T20:10:00.000-05:00

I had written a very touching pretty-much-novel that related to this link, but I somehow hit a combination of two keys on this ill-forsaken laptop and deleted the entire thing. I just don't have it in me to repeat what I had already written, and I'd prefer to knit tonight instead of cry big, fat tears. So, please read the beautiful blog entry at this link and do one more thing for me: if you've still got her, be sure to make as many memories with, about, and of your grandmother as you can... because there can never be enough memories of a grandmother and her grandbabies.

Aaaaaaaaain't!

Out with the old, in with the... old?

2010-02-14T21:49:00.000-05:00

When we moved into our sweet little green house with its wet yard and antique air-leaking sliding glass back doors and half-a-kitchen worth of cabinetry (love ya housey, I'm just stating the facts here), one of the projects we put near the top of our list was sort of a minor facelift for the interior.

While it was perfectly fine with us that every single doorknob in the house didn't match, and while it didn't bother us that all the doorknobs were brass (the light fixtures or kitchen hardware are that oil-rubbed bronze or brushed steel, but a doorknob is a doorknob), it really did bother us that the knobs were original to the house, which was built in 1986, and many of them were badly corroded. The brass had corroded off some of the doorknobs, and that made them look rather gross. And what made it even worse for me was that the nastiest-looking one was on the hallway bathroom door, the bathroom that everybody uses when they visit, and we use on a daily basis. Yuk! "Welcome to my home. Please, make yourself comfortable. Enjoy yourself. And, please, caress our disgusting doorknob. But before you do, be sure to wash up and dry your hands on the monogrammed hand towels! Then touch the nasty doorknob."

So, Carlton and I went to Lowe's and to Home Depot. We priced out the number of doorknobs that were in the house, putting into thought the number of closet doors (no locks), as well as bathroom and bedroom doors (locks, please!). It was outrageous how much money it was going to cost us just to replace this hardware... I tried to suppress the amount from my memory, but I think it was going to be about $400! Just for doorknobs. I would rather have more kitchen cabinets for that, thankyouverymuch!

Then I remembered all of the great spray paints that are out there on the market. My parents recently spray painted all of the kitchen cabinet hardware in a house they own and rent out. My sister-in-law Katie spray painted some plastic outdoor play equipment for our niece Katie Anne this past summer. And they make some really nice spray paints these days! I even used one type of spray paint with sand in it to spray onto the side of a to-scale model house I constructed in my college design classes. It was a really realistic brick effect!

The spray paint we found was perfect for what we were looking for. All we needed to do was take off the hardware, line it all up, and spray away. And, at about $3.00 for a can of primer ("highly recommended") and $6.50 for a can of the finishing "hand-hammered bronze" effect (yup, it's even slightly textured!), how could we not give this a shot? $9.50 in a test run sure does beat $400 of replacing doorknobs, so why wouldn't we at least try it first? And, if the paint chips or peels or rubs off, all we're out is a few bucks, and at least we tried it out!

So, here's what we did. It was really quick and really easy. We started at about 4:00 in the afternoon. First, we found a good, flat space in the back yard (not hard to find around these parts!), laid out a heavy painting canvas, and laid out all of our doorknobs. Next, we sprayed them with primer. Let that dry, flipped them, sprayed the other side with primer. Let that dry, sprayed them with the first coat of the good stuff. Let that dry, flipped them, sprayed the other side with the good stuff. After that last round dried we brought them in because it was getting dark.

After the doorknobs dried and set overnight, we checked them out in fresh daylight the next morning. Of course, there were a couple of thin paint places here and there, so we touched them up with a little spritz and let them dry some more.

Installed, the doorknobs look brand new!!! If you weren't told that they didn't all match and that they were actually old grody corroded doorknobs from the 80's, you would never know they weren't brand spankin' new!

The rest of our snow

2010-02-14T21:34:00.000-05:00

So, while our snow down here in Moultrie didn't last long, it was a really exciting event. While I know they're not weathermen, the girls I work with at the quilt shop claimed that it hasn't snowed down here in 15 years! Sadly, some time around 9:30 or 10:00 pm the snow started melting from the yards, rooftops, and even our back deck But here's what we saw later on that night:

Here is Carlton at about 7:00 showing off the size of these massive "snowflakes" that were falling all around us! (Shhh, I didn't tell him, but there was also one stuck to the back of his head like Katie's terrifying crazy eye!)

And this is our back deck at about 7:00, right after the back of Carlton's head thawed out (don't look too hard, Vicki, but I think as of the time this picture was taken I have officially killed the precious rosemary tree) :

And, finally, at 8:00 pm through the glass door:

Ditto!

2010-02-12T17:52:00.001-05:00

Hey y'all, it's snowing way down here, too! All day it's been dripping and drizzling rain, but about 30 minutes ago the snowy/rainy mix started. And now we're pretty much reduced to gigantic, fat, icy snowflakes. I know, it's craziness!

Kids in the house that backs up to ours have been screaming and yelling and celebrating for the past 30 minutes which prompted me to look outside and see what the big fuss was all about. Well, as of 5:30, this is what the excitement is all for:

Here's the view from our front door:

...and from the back:

...and from under the kitchen table, obviously the only safe place from snow in all of the house:

A Recipe for Pretty Home Decoration

2010-01-22T17:47:00.002-05:00

So, quite a few years ago my parents went on one of their fantastic vacations to Italy, and one of the souvenirs they brought back for me has yet to be used. It's just been folded up, in a pantry or drawer or closet or up on a shelf with the dishrags and towels.

Recently, I got the souvenir out of storage, ironed it, and began planning out a pretty new home decoration. Whatever you want to call this thing: fabric recipe-book, or fabric poster, or dishtowel... anything you wanna call it, I love its vibrant lemon-yellow, apple-green, and touch of scarlet red.

I picked up two packages from Target for $9.99, each of which contained four black 8x10 picture frames. ("$9.99 for four whole entire picture frames!?!?!??" I hear you say. "Sure, I was okay with that price!" I might answer. "Even though the frame is plastic, the window is actually glass so they don't look very cheap just hanging there on the wall." Woohoo for cheap plastic frames from Target!) I measured the window of the frame and cut down my cloth to fit inside the frame. Then, before I put the cut-to-fit-perfectly fabric into the frame, I rolled each piece individually to be sure there was no residual lint or fuzzies on it. Because this has been in storage for so many years, it had quite a bit of yuk on it.

Then I put each piece into a frame. I mentioned above that each piece was cut-to-fit-perfectly behind the glass because I didn't want any of the artwork or words to be chopped off or hidden by part of the frame itself. You'll see why in a minute.

Here are all six framed pieces, ready to go in their respective frames. See why I didn't want any of the pictures or words--especially down the middle--covered by the frame? I wanted to still be able to read this, if I ever go crazy and decide to make my own limoncello. I doubt it, but I still wouldn't put it past me either.

Next, I flipped each frame over and pried off the little cardboard stand-prop-thing. Because these are going to hang on the wall, I didn't want the stand-prop-thing to make any of them hang sideways or lopsided.

Eww, look at that naked wall and that pitiful little half of our Mason cabinet. (We're calling it the Mason cabinet because my sister's fiance's mom, Marsha Mason, sold it to me for just $40!!! The top part, including a built-in flour sifter, is currently in our carport amidst paint remover and rags, undergoing some Botox.)

Annnnnnd, voila! Instant pretty on my dining room wall. And a recipe to boot! Now I need to find some whimsical and eye-catching little dishes or saucers or plates or platters to hang on the wall on either side of the frames. What do you think?

London broil, Part I: The Marinade

2010-01-21T16:56:00.003-05:00

There was a day last week when I woke up, sent Carlton off to work, walked Vespa, and turned to my little dish on the kitchen counter for a... GASP!!!... no clementines left for breakfast? Or, lunchtime's dessert? Or, my infamous 4:00-snack-break-that's-not-really-approved-but-chuckled-at-because-they-know-I-get-cranky-at-work-when-I-get-too-hungry snack? Or, my before bedtime dessert (hey, it keeps me away from that bag of Nestle chocolate chips on the baking shelf, okay!)? No clementines at all and I just couldn't believe it.

So, after a quick Lean Cuisine lunch in the shop I jetted out to Winn Dixie to grab a crate of my littleorangedearlybeloveds and head back on into work.

Once I got there, I snatched up a crate and saw that they were putting out fresh boneless, skinless chicken breasts on sale for buy-one-get-one-free. This is not a story of their adventures in being cooked.

This is the first part of the story of half of one of the two London broils I purchased for the same deal--buy-one-get-one-free. It's a good cut of beef. I remember my mom making a London broil every now-and-then when I was growing up, and it was always a good meal, served with mashed potatoes or baked potatoes or roasted potatoes. My mom's a meat-n-potatoes kinda girl, so that's how I'm used to eating. Can't complain about that! That's pretty much all Carlton will eat at all, so dinner tonight should be golden.

So, without anymore gabbing, here's Part I: The Marinade.

You'll need:

Dale's Seasoning, Worcestershire sauce, spicy mustard, sweet wine, and fresh garlic:

Peel the skins off of two or three cloves of garlic. I chose three, because I really like it.

Chop the garlic until you're happy with how small it is. I think I got a little carried away because I'm enjoying using my ceramic knife (thanks again, Daddy!). Then just dump the garlic into your dish.

Add in 1/4 cup of Dale's Seasoning, 1 tablespoon of the Worcestershire sauce, and 2 tablespoons of the spicy mustard:

The next step was supposed to be adding 1/4 cup of the sweet white wine. Ours was a homemade bottle of (apparently peachy) zinfandel and when I popped the cork, GA-ROSSSSSSS!!! There was no way I was going to marinade with this. Thanks for the gift, but um, no thanks. I grabbed honey instead. Add 1 tablespoon of honey to the marinading dish:

Whisk it all about. Like my action shot?

Plop in the beef. Wiggle it around to be sure the stuff really gets on there. Flip it over and wiggle it around some more. Seal it up tight and place it in the refrigerator until it's time to start dinner, hopefully for a few hours!

I'll be back around later tonight to share with you Part II: Cooking, Eating, and Loving the London Broil with some potatoes to boot! Hungry yet?

Apple Cake in an Iron Skillet: a New Year's success!

2010-01-19T21:55:00.004-05:00

Way back, when we were making preparations to celebrate New Year's Eve of 2010, I discovered a recipe listed on Pioneer Woman Cooks and just couldn't pass it up. PW makes everything she cooks look irresistible. But there was something about this gooey, sticky, warm, comforting apple cake that needed to be baked, presented, and eaten that night after our friends Erin and Ted (our house's previous owners) fed us all steak and chicken fajitas. Shhh, stop thinking that an apple cake with vanilla ice cream sounds nasty after stuffing cheese dip and spicy chicken fajitas in your face-hole. It was a warm and sweet and light and delicious finishing touch after dinner and before silly champagne toasts that seemed to go on for an hour, in a good way.

So, needless to say, I called Erin in the early afternoon of New Year's Eve and offered to bring dessert, tempting her with the gooey-ness and apple-ness and sticky-ness that this recipe described. She sounded genuinely excited, so I got prepared ASAP. The only ingredient I didn't already have in the pantry was some tart apples. Actually, I had two apples, but they had gone a little shrively since my every-year's winter obsession with clementines agreed to let them die a slow death on the kitchen counter. Since I needed more than two apples, and since the apples in the cake were going to be eaten, I scooped Carlton up, squished him into the car with me, and we headed to the grocery store for a bag-o-Grannies.

Then I got started. Melt the butter, all 1.75 sticks of it.

(Believe me, it really, really, really was worth all that butter. Really.)

While the butter melted, I prepped my apple for the cake batter:

(By the way, if you don't own a ceramic knife, I strongly recommend making the investment.)

Then, I added my sectioned apples to the skillet:

(Apples cooked in loads of butter? Okay, where do I bite?!?)

Wait, I feel like I forgot something. Oh yeah, the sugar!

(What's that you say? Apples cooked in loads of butter and shovels of sugar? Double-OKAY!!!)

Sugar and butter melted together into a syrup while the apples seasoned it and softened in the process:

(Holy guacamole, the house now smells like pure sin. Or, pure Heaven. Either way, I'm lovin' it.)

While the apples fried/sauteed/tempted me to gobble one up in a heartbeat with no reservation about burning the fool out of my mouth, I made the cake batter in my beloved stand mixer in classic white:

(Would it really be worth it to eat one of those apples at this point? I'll save my mouth the blisters and burns and lick the cake beaters, spoon, and bowl per The Pioneer Woman's instructions instead.)

Once the apples were fork-tender, I plopped the batter on one giant spoonful at a time like a good recipe-follower would do. Instead of plopping on top of the apples like hers seemed to do, mine kinda plopped into the mixture. I just scooped it back up on top of the apples and smoothed it a little:

(I still don't know how I resisted the apples in the skillet. To this day, I think the smell is stuck in my nose. Or, it was just such a good smell that I remember it that vividly. Either way, yummo.)

This was the finished product before I flipped it onto a large serving platter. It came out of my skillet in one piece with no stragglers left behind, what an accidental accomplishment!

(Still an enormous amount of willpower here, I waited until after dinner at Ted and Erin's house to share the gooey, cakey, appley goodness with everyone else.)

While I didn't get a picture of the final cake flipped out of the skillet on my platter (oy, tragedy!), I did get a shot of some of us (the girls of the night, minus one girl, plus one guy) after the warm dessert, along with vanilla ice cream (a MUST with this one, y'all), had been devoured:

Happy faces for a Happy New Year!

A Glimpse Back: Christmas Eve Night

2010-01-08T21:37:00.001-05:00

(This is one of my last couple of "stalling" blog entries awaiting publication, so I'm finishing it up and putting it out there.)

It's really, truly way too bad that it never dawned on me to grab my camera from my purse once I got to Papa's house. We had a good time all together.

On Christmas Eve night every year, it is tradition for my closest of family members to trek over to 35 Magnolia Drive for the customary ham and turkey sandwiches accompanied by that delish! onion dip/chips that go along with some deviled eggs, random other sides, and (if we've been good all year and if we're really, really lucky) a generous serving of Mama's beefy Velveeta cheese dip and corn chips (thanks, Leslie!). While nothing about this meal (other than the ham, although it is usually on a sandwich) belongs in a typical Christmas Eve feast, it is our family's Christmas Eve tradition and we like it just fine.

We gathered in the marquesina again this year like always... again, don't ask me where that word came from, I really don't know... an old family friend, perhaps? Anyway. We ate, talked, caught up with each other, laughed a lot, and then my aunt Leslie passed out named gifts. We all ooooo'd and aaaaah'd over each gift as the paper was ripped and thrown aside. Now please don't get me wrong... I loved all the gifts that I got. Everyone on Christmas Eve was so gracious, and so thoughtful! I got new clothes, "shopping supplies" for our 2010 making-house-into-home projects, soaps and lotions that smell absolutely delicious, and so much more! But what I really enjoyed this year more than anything was watching everyone else open their gifts. I watched Papa start opening before he was supposed to (and get in trouble for it), I saw my aunt open a beautiful kitty quilt, I watched my dad try to pick up and open a hefty new supply of ammunition for one of his prized noisemakers, and I listened in as Tommy scratched off the big-dollar lotto tickets we gave him (which paid for themselves by giving him a bit of cash and some more lotto tickets).

Once all of the "named gifts" were opened, loved on, and set aside for safe keeping, the numbered gifts came out! Numbers 1 thru 10 (I think we had a whole 10 of us there, wow!) were drawn and picked from the pile (or from each others hands!) and the game was loud and fun and mean and sneaky. Who would'a guessed that "As Seen On TV Windshield Cleaner" would be such a hit? Or, an Ove Glove? Hahaha! Of course there were a couple sets of scratch-off lottery tickets that were stolen from the hands of a hopeful-and-greedy family member. Scott was the lucky fellow who won big: an entire manicure/pedicure set complete with soaps, salts, and lotions... and complimented by a handheld back massage gizmo!

After we all finished cleaning up and packing the leftover food and gifts away in car trunks, it was time to say goodnight. Santa was on his way!

Ah - HAH!!!

2010-01-03T21:58:00.001-05:00

I found the entry I was looking for in my previous post!

See? Mirror, with a teal frame. Pretty white bowl on the right. Pretty lamp on the left. I
remembered the important details!

I love The Nester. She's clever, witty, and thrives in an imperfect world that looks so darn good!

(Hey, you. This is another blogger I have just shared with you. Appreciate her!)

Shine your Sink!

2010-01-03T21:43:00.000-05:00

One of my sub-categories in my new year's resolution includes being a more forward-moving, driven, motivated housekeeper. In my previous blog entry, I explained a little bit about how I just can't get things done when I don't have the time to do them the right way... and then they stack up on me and I'm even further away from getting the job done than I originally was.

For instance: cooking dinner. Let's say I want to make some chicken fajitas tonight. I put the chicken in the fridge last night before bed so it could thaw out. Got home from work, walked Vespa, got the chicken out of the fridge, and then I realize the dishwasher didn't run last night when I thought I turned it on. Then, let's say, I clean a skillet and put the chicken on medium heat along with some lime juice, ground cumin, lime zest, and salt&pepper. Now let's say I grab the veggies out of the fridge, reach to the drawer for a knife, and realize all the knives were also in the dishwasher, dirty as can be! Clean a knife. Out of their plastic baggy the bell peppers and onions come. Um, where's the cutting board? Oh yeah, dirty in the dishwasher.

See what I mean? Totally unorganized, frustrated, re-doing steps that should have been done earlier, and forgetting steps that should be done first! It gets annoying really quickly, and it makes it easier to just come up with an excuse for us to go out and grab Arby's or Zaxby's or Chik-fil-A or something that I don't have to prepare.

And now we are fat. :)

Well, throughout the year of 2009 I discovered a common theme throughout a couple of blogs I follow regularly: a couple of ladies recommended that you Shine Your Sink! (I can't for the life of me find the blogs this theme came from, but I promise that one of them shined her sink in a kitchen that had no windows, and put up either a mirror or a piece of reflective metal on the wall above the sink, and set up a tiny lamp on the left to give the sink a happier, brighter feel. There was teal somewhere in the equation. And a pretty white bowl. Ah! When I find it, I'll let you know.) The website FlyLady.net is the dummy's breakthrough drug for conquering any strongly stupid ideas of perfectionism, OCD-ism, or over-committing-ism as far as housekeeping goes. (Because who really has the time, stamina, and determination to be perfect, OCD, and committed to cleaning house all the time?) It's a "baby steps" approach to getting the house clean and organized one step... one minute... one day at a time. She calls it "Living in CHAOS... Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome" and I think that's hilarious. Now, instead of having to write out my own step-by-step list of specific goals to finish around the house and possibly overwhelm myself, FlyLady has already made the list for me! The first day, I started off with shining my kitchen sink. And every day after that, I shine my sink and add in a new task. Some days, I get a break from all tasks other than shining the sink. :) FlyLady is giving me new habits. Instead of looking around for that knife to chop the bell peppers for fajita night, I will have already put that knife back where it belongs... imagine that, what a revolution! (Der.)

So. Here's to a new year, with new goals and new ways of keeping my house a clean, organized, ready-to-cook-fajitas house. And a very, very, very fine house it'll be.

My (one) resolution for 2010

2010-01-02T23:15:00.000-05:00

My resolutions for the New Year all sort of blur together, because they're all a part of the same theme:

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In 2010, I want to nest.

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I want to cook healthier, more colorful food for my husband and me. I want us to eat smaller and healthier portions of everything. More vegetables and less beef and chicken, more fish. One serving of bread. Green vegetables, yellow vegetables, purple, red, orange vegetables. Baked, boiled, grilled, and chilled. I want to drink less sodas and more water. (Actually, for myself, muster up the nerve to cut the Coke. Drink water, and only water. Don't cut it cold turkey, but nobody needs all that sugar multiple times every day.) Eat out less (and in turn, save more money), eat a healthier diet, and eventually (hopefully) lose a few extra pounds in the process.

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Finally spend the money Carlton gave me for my birthday to install a pantry-sized cabinet in our kitchen. It was a sweet, thoughtful, gracious gift from Carlton, and I've even picked the one I'd like. It's tall, with an upper storage area as large as our existing upper cabinets. The middle section would give me a whole third drawer to use for storage in the kitchen (I know!!!). The lower section is as large as one of our existing base cabinets. Yay, storage! This is an awesome gift from Carlton, and I've got to go get it already! Believe me, you'll know when I do.

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I want to keep our new home tidier than I do now. I only work 3 days a week most weeks, and I still don't keep up with cleaning/folding/putting away laundry. Or scrubbing bathrooms. Or vacuuming. Or cooking every night. I touch on everything, but the entirety of each task is never done. One of my resolutions for 2009 was to push through my compulsive need to do each step of each process just so or else start over... and if there's not enough time to do each process just so, it's so hard to even start the project at hand! I have to push through this crazy mind-block and just do it already. (I will never be featured on 'Hoarders'... I will never be featured on 'Hoarders'... I will never be featured on 'Hoarders'....)

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I want to fill our new home with hearty new furniture: a sofa, end tables, a media cabinet, a china cabinet, a master bed frame, night tables, our own end tables and area rugs and dining table and chairs. Buy lamps to light the rooms, and hang art on the walls (mine, purchased, printed, handmade, whatever we like!), paint the rooms, sew drapes for the windows, paint the front door red, install wallpaper and beadboard the laundry "room", just... fluff our nest and make it our home. Toss mix-matched toss pillows on the brown-and-ivory ticking sofa, lounge in the roughed-up leather barcalounger, find a chair and ottoman to replace Dave's, find a respectable desk for Carlton's computer to sit at, find a table I can use as a crafting/sewing table. Make our home a comfortable, cool, mellow, artistic expression of myself... with a bit of Carlton's say-so in the mix. I am, after all, formally trained in house decorating and room planning, y'all! "Come and relax now. Put your troubles down. No need to bear the weight of your worries here, let them all fall away." -Dave Matthews

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While this isn't really "in" with the theme of nesting in my own home, it does involve helping someone else start her own nest. I want to be a strong, sturdy home base for any stress my mom and sister may bump into along this road to marriage that my sister is now on. She's got quite a few months ahead of her that will be filled with lists, chores, projects, more lists, letters, emails, phone calls, even more lists, invitations, parties, celebrations, showers, more lists... and the list goes on. I remember everything my mom did for me in the planning of my wedding. No good deed went unnoticed, and she did a lot of good deeds for me. I was, after all, in the process of finishing up my last semester at UWG, taking all sorts of finals and presenting final projects, putting together my senior exhibition, and planning a wedding on top of all that was just a lot to handle. My mom made so many lists, called so many people, and handled so many things for me... it's just hard to imagine everything she did! And I know my sister helped a lot with all of that as well. She was an amazing Maid of Honor, and completed any and all duties my mom or I would assign to her. She was great moral support, honest in her opinions, and quick to help whenever and wherever she was needed. I hope I can be that moral support, that honest Matron of Honor, and that quick-to-help sister that I know I needed when I was a bride-to-be. I hope I can be as much of a side-kick to my mom that she might want or need for all of the lists, plans, parties, showers, letters, and meetings that she will be juggling for this wedding. In essence, I hope that I can be a nest of support for my mom as she goes to work in the planning department, and I hope that I can be the Matron of Honor that my sister needs me to be, in order to create the nest that her heart is moving towards this October... even if she does decide on hideous bridesmaid dresses!

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I want to make Vespa's nest more fun, active, entertaining, unexpected, and exciting. Sure, she's just outta-this-world happy that we get home from work every day. But there is no anticipation for a neighborhood walk, and I have been feeling this longing from her lately to have more fun. I want to break out the squeaky toys, chewy toys, and the chasing games. I want to expand Vespa's nest this year: install a fence in our backyard! That's been on our list since before we moved in a few months ago, and it is definitely a part of the whole nesting list this year. She LOVED the fenced-in back yard we had in Arizona, and I miss letting her in and out the back door. Come warm weather and cool breezes, I want Vespa to enjoy them in her very own yard.

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I want to take better care of my body. Clean the make-up off of my face every night. Use less chemical products on my face, on my skin, in the laundry, and all over the house. I want to go out for a pedicure and manicure every now-and-then. I want to find a daily multivitamin that won't make me throw up 20 minutes later (so far, in almost 4 years, no success and I don't take any vitamin at all for fear of throwing up every morning). I want to wear better shoes at work that don't hurt my feet, toes, knees, and back by the end of the day. I want to start a daily yoga/fitness routine and maintain a standard for exercise each day. Sweat means no gain... no weight gain, that is. And, since the "B MOH MOB MoFG Diet" has started as of January 1, 2010, I have no option but to meet my goal, maintain my goal, flaunt my goal, love my goal, and live my goal. And the goal deadline is October 2nd. "I'll meet you then, Goal."

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I want to knit more. Learn more knitting techniques (and the right way to do them left-handed). Support the nearest Local Yarn Shops (MACON!!!!!!) instead of zipping to Valdosta for a quick-ish HobLob acrylic yarn fix. Knit something for our becoming-a-nest-of-a-house like a wall-hanging to display over the sofa or bed, a Christmas tree skirt, a throw for the sofa, or heck, an area rug!

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In 2010, I want to nest.

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Christmas Eve Morning

2009-12-29T20:21:00.001-05:00

Merry Christmas Eve!!!

Carlton and I woke up at about 6:45, showered, dressed, filled up gas tank, and hit the highway by 7:30 on Christmas Eve morning. It was a very early morning for us, mostly because of the late night beforehand, but we managed to get on the road within a reasonable amount of time.

The highways were FANTASTIC!!! At any time we could look around us on the road and only see about 3-4 other cars. The most traffic we were ever around was in north Georgia near Kennesaw, and that was at about 11:00am, about the time we guessed everyone was traveling "over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house" for Christmas Eve lunch.

We drove straight to Carlton's parents' house. Carlton's brother Saunders, his wife Katie, and their daughter Katie Anne were also there. KA and I had a lot of fun checking out all the Christmas ornaments on the tree before lunch. For a Christmas Eve lunch, Vicki made a delicious spinach lasagna, garlic bread, and a chocolatey-raspberry-bread pudding for dessert. After lunch, we all headed into the sun room where we opened Christmas gifts.

Brothers Saunders and Carlton checking out all the loot before opening began:

I had my eye on a flat yellow envelope labeled with my name on it (okay, Carlton was written on it too), and was from Katie Anne. My heart was filled with hope for what might actually be in that envelope, and I saved it for last. We all enjoyed opening our gifts. Everyone was very generous and incredibly thoughtful in their gift shopping. It was so much fun to watch Katie Anne open each gift, examine it, play with it, love it, and prepare for the next gift.

(As a side note, which could have easily ended up being its very own blog entry, I had WAYYYY too much fun shopping for Katie Anne this year. I mean, WAYYYY too much fun. You see, she's into playing dress-up. And, well, I just really think dress-up is pretty much the best game ever. Playing dress-up, playing house, playing school, playing kitchen, playing ANYTHING involves an extensive imaginary wardrobe. And that imaginary wardrobe is usually made up of Mommy's old high heels, some plastic jewelry, some ring-pops from the candy aisle, some fancy hair barrettes, and a few other random items found around the house. But why can't an indulgent aunt buy a bit of a dress-up wardrobe to fit her little neice's playful imagination? So, let's just leave it at this: I did. I tried my best to accommodate as many dress-up moods this child might have as I possibly could. Is Katie Anne in the mood to be a bug? Or, a Super Hero? Or, maybe have a Tea Party? How about cooking up a new recipe? This imagination-filled toddler is now totally prepared.)

Carlton and I got just what we had hoped for: lots and lots of new clothes for work! I needed sweaters, cardigans, and shoes. Carlton needed office shirts, and something warm to keep the chill off in the cool office. We are both sooooo well prepared now, thanks everybody! I watched with anticipation as Katie Anne opened a box we had filled with an assortment of dress-up items. This two-year-old holds my heart in her tiny little hands. She'll either melt my heart with happiness, or crush it by tossing all these terrific imagination gifts aside for another paper-ripping second of fun. Oh, Saunders is crazy about the sunglasses Carlton picked out for him? Good. Katie loves the collection of Pandora beads for her bracelet? Great. Katie Anne pulls out a pair of fancy, hot pink teatime gloves with neon orange flowers. "Put them on me, Daddy!" My heart melts. She discovers a pair of optical sunglasses that create a "bug's eye view" when you put them on. "Let me try them on, Mommy!" My heart is dripping to the floor now. The fancy pearl necklace that coordinates with the teatime gloves gets put aside (I'm okay with that, I'll recover) as Katie Anne reaches for the Super Hero Costume, complete with forearm cuffs, cape, and disguising black face mask. "I can be disappeared and you won't even know me, Daddy! And I'll fly really, really fast in the air like a bird!" I think someone had to scoop my melted heart off the floor at this point. She. LOVED! It. And I could tell that she did. My life... is complete.

But wait.

My favorite gift of all was yet to come. And, it was at the bottom of her pile. AT THE BOTTOM OF HER PILE, PEOPLE. (How much patience is a 25-year-old expected to have on Christmas Eve?)

I waited patiently as Katie Anne opened a few more gifts. Carlton got a fancy reversible blue pullover? Nice. Vicki got a beautifully framed photo of Katie Anne? Precious. Now, everyone SHHHH!!! Katie Anne has arrived at the box. (Actually, everyone keeps about their gift-opening business as I silently and secretly-with-my-own-blown-out-of-proportion-excitement hone in on Katie Anne.)

The paper comes off. The box pops open. Her eyes... they just... lit up! She pulls out the present, "Mommy, open this!" "What is this, Katie Anne? What do you think this is?" "Stwarberry Shor-cake?" Katie Anne looks at me, "Stwarberry Shor-cake?" "Well," I told her, "sort of...."

The pieces are pulled from their cardboard packaging and Katie Anne assesses the goods. "Katie Anne, it looks like a chef's outfit with an oven mit and a potholder and an apron and a chef's hat." Her eyes lit up again. "Put it on me, Mommy!"

It's even more perfect that I caught her spinning:

My heart skipped melting and pretty much just evaporated. I was happy. I was satisfied. Christmas, as I considered it, was a success.

"Look at me!" Katie Anne exclaimed 5 minutes later, with the outfit still on.

Grandmama and Vicki open their twin gifts, handmade artistic birdhouses from Carlton and me. I open some beautiful monogrammed guest-bathroom soaps, and then some gorgeous monogrammed towels from Grandmama.

"Look at me!" Katie Anne exclaimed again.

It seemed she would be drawn back into the ripping and tearing of Christmas wrapping paper, the cheers and smiles of a shared good time, and then suddenly remember again what she was wearing:

"Look at me!"

And finally, I opened the yellow envelope that I had saved for last. Now my heart was full. Katie Anne had drawn a picture for me (err, us). A sweet little picture of Carlton, me, and Vespa, complete with a sunshine and Vespa's food.

Just... absolutely, by far, a perfect Christmas Eve afternoon.

The Eve of Christmas Eve

2009-12-29T19:59:00.000-05:00

Carlton and I both worked on December 23rd. Actually, I worked all day like any other normal day at the shop. Carlton was at his office until about 12:30, at which time he drove himself on home to take a long winter's nap with the pup for the rest of the afternoon. :) But the time spent up until 12:30 at his office was just critical office work time, I might add: the exchanging of gifts, lunch, desserts, more gifts, and blissful Christmas spirit had to be crammed into that tiny time frame of 8:30-12:30... and what a job that was! He did come home with some glorious and very gracious gifts (including a great duffel-style insulated cooler, Omaha Steaks, some gigantic summer sausages, gift cards, candies, and more), so I can't really complain too much about the work he did that morning. :)
After I got home at 6:00-ish, we had some dinner and wrapped the last few gifts that were to be packed up and driven to Cartersville the next morning. After the wrapping was finished, Carlton and I went ahead and picked one gift to open that night, for our very own first Christmas in our very own first home. Carlton's choice was pretty much a given, since it was so big it only fit into the MINI because the back seats were down and it definitely wouldn't even come close to fitting into the Nissan (which was what we had planned to drive to Cartersville). I had known for a couple weeks what gift I wanted to open first, but waited patiently for Carlton to open his gift first.

He had tried for weeks to figure out what I'd gotten him, failing time and time again to guess correctly. Once the paper came off, he was so surprised that he had never guessed what was inside the giant box: a new high-def home theater system!

Next it was my turn. I shook my box, listened really well, shook it some more, and ripped the paper open.

More paper!

Finally, I got all the paper off and discovered 10 tiny black boxes. Tiny boxes are always a good thing! Inside the boxes were 5 pairs of earrings and 5 necklaces, making 5 matching sets of semi-precious stone/sterling silver jewelry for me to wear with just about any unsuspecting outfit!

Way to go, Carlton! I was very impressed and surprised. Your bases are now officially covered. (Actually, Carlton's theory was to cover his bases this year on the basic "color wheel" so that from now on he can select "specialty" pieces. Who can argue with an entire collection of necklaces and earrings, or his theory? Not this happy wife!)

After opening our gifts, Carlton and I showered, packed our clothes for the long weekend, and loaded up all the gifts into the car for the long haul up to Cartersville! We got to bed at about midnight, set the alarm for 6:30, and just hoped and prayed that our little eyes could pop open for the holiday drive.

FYI

2009-12-28T21:53:00.002-05:00

Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and post-Christmas posts are awaiting photo download and will be published as soon as internet allows. Move along!

I'm ba-aaaaaaack!

2009-12-28T20:13:00.000-05:00

So I guess it goes without saying that I have been missing from blog-land for quite a while. Aside from my little (and loud!) blurp about my sister's engagement and another about a beautiful stocking, I've been away for too long. We have celebrated two major holidays with family and friends, and there has been not so much as a peep from me in blogland. Sorry, I think I had gotten burned out and just needed a break. I even took pictures here and there with intentions of writing something about them, but just couldn't make myself do it in the end. (I actually have four "drafts" awaiting publication to my blog, but they're all unfinished, and there are no pictures or anything in them.) But hey, I'm back! I have a recipe or two to share, stories about furniture shopping for the new house, family and friend get-togethers, and more. It's good to be back, and fresher (yes, fresher) than ever.

Big news!!!

2009-12-11T20:09:00.000-05:00

Forgive my absence, but let's set that aside for a moment. Like I said, this is big news!

MY SISTER IS A FIANCEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's right, guys, Kristen's boyfriend, Scott, popped the question on Wednesday night as they rode through the maze of bright Christmas lights at Petit Creek Farm. At first she was annoyed that he was driving so slowly, but once he asked the question and got out the ring, she understood why 1 mph was necessary. ;)

Scott talked with me on Monday afternoon through text messaging, asking if Carlton and I would be able to make it into town for "a special dinner" that Wednesday night. Umm, while eating out in the middle of the week might have sounded nice, an 8 hour round trip surely didn't. I thanked him, confused at the "special" part of the question, and asked what the occasion was. As it turned out, Scott had to tell me that he wanted us in town that night for dinner because he was planning to propose to Kristen and then meet his family and my family for dinner to share the great news, and to let Kristen show off her new engagement ring. Well of course, once he explained everything, I made plans to work a half-day on Wednesday so that I could be in Cartersville by 7:30! There's no way I was going to miss dinner with my sister and her fiance on the night they got engaged! Carlton couldn't make it because of busy work on Wednesday and Thursday, but I was really glad my work schedule could move around like it did. I met everyone at The Cellar in Cartersville for dinner. When I came in, Kristen was so surprised she held out her arms and said, "YOU CAME!!!!!!! You came????!!!!???" And then I said, "I came! You're engaged?!????!!!!???" I'm glad I made the drive. It was great to share the celebration with the newly engaged couple and our families.

Congratulations to the happy couple!

Peekaboo...

2009-12-02T22:00:00.000-05:00

I'm still here! Just suffering from a case of the blogging lazies, in conjunction with holiday crazies, and lots and lots and lots of knitting.

Tomorrow I'm off work and will be cleaning (knitting) and running errands (Christmas shopping). I'll make more time to blog then. For now, I'm starting one'a these:

Ruffles for Christmas

2009-11-12T23:23:00.003-05:00

Have you started thinking about and/or working on the gifts you're giving this Christmas? I have been brainstorming for weeks, have ordered some materials (guess what my material of choice is!), and I started the first gift late last night. Thanks to an hour of America's Funniest Home Videos followed by an hour of Project Runway (part 1 of 2 of the season finale!), I've gotten quite a bit of work done on it tonight. Ruffles, anybody?

And, not that you'll get this at all if you're not a knitter, but I totally pulled the loose tail from inside this skein. On the first try. *Rock Star.*

Hooked on Houses, bad photos, and pets on furniture

2009-11-11T19:31:00.007-05:00

I've mentioned in my blog here before that I am a bit of a freakish follower of many, many blogs. I don't follow any particular blog to the extent of stalker status, I just follow a. lot. of. blogs. All a blog author has to do is write one entry or post one picture that grabs my attention and I'm hooked! A lot of the blogs I follow, I have discovered by clicking the links from blogs I was already following. One blogger I love to follow, Julia at Hooked on Houses, posts a lot of really interesting articles and stories about the houses of celebrities and the houses you may see in movies. (I think I found her by stalking through the blogs that my BFF Chelsea follows. See? Stalker.) Julia writes about renovations done on celebrities' houses or houses in movies, and even finds interesting facts about the house that may have driven producers there for filming in the first place. What's also really fun is seeing the MLS listing photos of celebrities' multi-million dollar mansions. Anyway, it's always really cool to read what she's got to write. So, I guess I'll share her with you if you promise to appreciate her. Promise? Okay.

One of my favorite "Gotta-Look-For-Her-Next-Entry-On-This-Topic" topics is her collection of Bad MLS Photos. Just do yourself a favor and click through a few of these blog entries. You will cringe, laugh hysterically, and shake your head in pure disbelief. Check out this picture from one of her entries she titled "Furniture Stand-Off." I love that she asked readers to caption the photo, and my favorite was comment was Eileen's which read, "Red Rover, Red Rover, we call the couch over!"

My new favorite link that Julia has shared really is stalker-worthy... I promise! A blog she follows (remember, that's how I find blogs to follow!) posts photos each Monday of Pets on Furniture. My favorite from today's post was Otis the Dachshund. For some unknown reason I have this little place in my heart that is head-over-heels crazy about dachshunds (especially the long haired ones) and I hope to someday have one in my own little family.

...And Otis, well, he just helped me make a 100% "YES!" decision in about 0.005 seconds that Vespa needs a hand-knitted sweater for this winter.

I guess I've now made my point that a) I'm a blog stalker and b) I love reading Julie's blog. What's one of your favorite blogs to read? I'd love a link to it!!! ;)

Nom, nom, nom....

2009-11-10T22:53:00.004-05:00

What can 6 whole pounds of pup chew on for ever and ever?

Carlton did a little picking up around the house tonight after dinner and found a few burried treasures! Needless to say, Vespa was both disappointed that her treasures had been discovered AND very happy to cuddle up with all her favorite chewies.

Saturday, November 7th, 2009 - The Wedding

2009-11-08T21:17:00.009-05:00

After our morning beach excursion we all headed back to the house for showers and lunch. After lunch, we all got dressed and headed out of the house at about 1:30 on our way to the wedding.

The ceremony was outta-this-world beautiful, under the over-300-year-old Spanish moss drenched oak tree on the lawn of a grand antebellum plantation house. It was the epitome of a southern wedding. I mean, the tree alone was enough to bring you to tears! The bride was incredibly stunning. The groom was handsome, calm, and proud. The wedding party (9 bridesmaids, one junior bridesmaid, 9 groomsmen, a cross bearer, ring bearer, and flower girl... whew!) was classy and traditional. For a better, more in-depth description of the wedding, you can visit Katie's blog. I was more into the bride's gown, the trees, the property, and the precious little two-year-old who insisted I walk the grounds with her after the ceremony finished. So, enjoy the pictures I snapped like a crazy woman! (I loaded them all in "small" mode so that they would load quicker, simply because there are so many. You can click on any image to enlarge it and see details of the afternoon.)

The oak tree was magnificent! Spanish moss everywhere! Brian, the groom, awaiting his bride:

Bridal party processional across the lawn: The flower girl was breathtaking! Here comes the bride:

Exchanging vows: You may now kiss your bride! The recessional:

Katie Anne drew tons of gushing compliments with her sweet face and pretty dress, and I couldn't stop taking her picture:

Saturday, November 7, 2009 - AM

2009-11-08T20:59:00.005-05:00

Saturday was a very, very, very good day! We woke up early and hung out in the house for breakfast before gearing up and heading down to the beach at about 8:00 or 8:30. We hung out on the beach for about 3 hours, and we all really enjoyed the November weather there! There was a warm-ish air with a breeze that was just cool enough to keep the sun fresh on our shoulders. We were never chilly and never hot--I would love to go back next year around this time!

Carlton and Saunders played a friendly game of beach football toss while Katie, Vicki, Katie Anne, and I chatted, dipped our toes in the sand, and enjoyed the morning in the sun with each other.

Vespa even went with us to the beach. This was her first time ever near the ocean and in the sand, and she absolutely LOVED it!!! As soon as she hopped from the dune steps into the sand, she was racing around and around and around in circles as fast as her little legs could move her. She raced around Carlton, around me, around Vicki, and into the water break. She dug holes, greeted other beach walkers, watched sea gulls, tasted a little ocean water, helped Katie Anne dig up the sand toys that Katie Anne had buried, and then she laid in the sun for some rest until we headed back to the house for showers and lunch.

I wonder what Vespa was digging for in this video...?

Friday, November 6, 2009

2009-11-08T19:27:00.003-05:00

Carlton and I spent this weekend in Florida with Saunders, Katie, Katie Anne, and Vicki (his brother and his family, and his mom). Carlton's cousin Brian was getting married, and the Joneses made it a short vacation weekend!

Friday started out as a regular Friday for Carlton and me. He drove off to work while I walked Vespa around the house for about 15 minutes, came inside, and started laundry, cleaned up the kitchen, and checked my email/read up on blog updates. Pretty soon after, I started packing up the suitcase and getting ready for the weekend ahead.

Once Carlton got off work at noon, he came home and propped his feet up while I finished packing up the suitcase (laundry, including his khakis and shirt he planned to wear to the wedding were in the dryer when he got home). By 1:00 we were on the road to Florida, and by 4:30 we had arrived. After a bit of settling into the house, we all got dressed and headed out to the wedding rehearsal dinner--a low country boil!

Of course, dinner, dessert, and the toasts were all excellent! There were lots and lots of toasts delivered in honor of the bride and groom, and everyone enjoyed listening as Katie, Katie Anne, and I played our little games quietly in the gigantic windowsill near the back door.

After toasts were finished, the party started winding down and we headed out before long. Once we got back to the house, Katie Anne went straight to bed while we "big kids" stayed up playing lots of Wii games--mostly bowling for the 4 of us, tennis for Vicki and Carlton, and baseball for Carlton and Saunders.

While I did bring my camera with me, I didn't take any pictures at all until the next morning at the beach. But Katie took lots and lots of pictures, and she will have more linked from her blog.

One is the loneliest... sock?

2009-11-05T22:50:00.003-05:00

This year I blogged about a new endeavor... another new challenge for myself. I participated in the worldwide knitalong project called Socktoberfest! The rules are simple: knit socks during the month of October and share what you've made with the other participants!

While I wasn't able to complete my overly-ambitious goal of knitting a pair of socks for Carlton and a pair of ballet-style slippers for myself, I did get 50% finished with Carlton's socks! That means, Carlton now has one completely hand knitted sock to wear on his happy toes! I got to use a skein of the yarn I purchased on our cruise this past summer, on a shore excursion in Dubrovnik, Croatia. Cool, I know! I've got the second sock on the needles now and am very excited about our drive down to Florida tomorrow afternoon: I'll be knitter-knitter-knitting the whole way!

Vespa even loves the lonesome sock.

November 4th

2009-11-05T15:22:00.002-05:00

Yesterday on November 4th, I technically blogged because I posted something. But actually, I don't think it counted because there wasn't anything really shared... no information, just a few words to make my guilt go away.

Yesterday was a good day at work. I got to post a blog for my boss's blog as well as start a Twitter account for her. She's finally coming around to understanding how Facebook, Twitter, and a blog can work as free advertising for her company. Yippee!!! She hired me with all intentions of me being a merchandiser and to work on her social networking. Because of the schedule of events in the shop, I've really only gotten to be somewhat of a merchandiser and mostly a shop girl... cutting fabric, folding fabric, mailing fabric across the world, straightening fabric, etc, etc, etc. Lots of fabric. Now, don't get me wrong, it's all beautiful, but being a shop girl isn't exactly stimulating or exciting for me.

The new blog entry was posted and Suzanne was so happy with my description of the weekend even though I didn't participate or even go to the event I was blogging about. Good for me. Her next project for me is to connect her blog to Twitter, and to connect her Twitter account to her Facebook account. If you check out the link in the previous paragraph, you'll see the blog. Since Suzanne has been here in Georgia for over two years, you'll see how busy she's been... because she hasn't had time to tell anyone about what she's been up to! I started blogging for her with this entry, and have only had a few tiny chances to add to her site's traffic. Hopefully, all of this social networking will help us get more people to the site to shop. Lots of cross references!

Here's hoping I get more chances at work to keep up with this blog, Facebook, and Twitter stuff!

Playing catch up

2009-11-05T14:53:00.002-05:00

So, what's today? November 5th? Okay, so you'd think I would have learned my lesson from the previous entry. I outted myself, and what did I get in return? Nagging from two very blogerific ladies! I mean, these girls are dedicated. My excuse for not following through with the NaBloPoMo commitment on November 3rd is nonexistent--I didn't post a blog because I was just simply too lazy to get up, get by booty to the computer, and think of something interesting to type.

But my excuse for not blogging yesterday is a real excuse! Since we moved into our new home, we have had on-and-off internet access. The cable company has been to our house at least 5 times, and nobody knows what the problem seems to be. We have been told we have "excellent signal" coming into the house, but the problem is like a ghost to them! They think water may have gotten into some of the equipment on our street, but nobody will actually tell us anything. This week the cable company's bucket truck has been in our neighborhood everyday, with one guy lifted up high to the power lines up and down the street. They were out this morning until about 10:30am, and by 2:00pm the internet has still been touch-and-go. Right now? Internet! Guess what that means. I'm blogging!

Already slipping.

2009-11-04T09:07:00.003-05:00

wow. already missed a day of NaBloPoMo...GET BACK ON IT!! =)

This is what I saw when I logged in to my blog this morning. Jillian is keeping me in shape! I missed yesterday, and I was so tired last night I didn't even care! No excuse, I was just plain tired. This counts as an "I'm sorry" for yesterday, not a post for today. I have a surprise fun dessert planned for tonight, so be prepared to be jealous after dinner!

A good night at Casa de Moultrie

2009-11-02T19:56:00.003-05:00

I'm on the computer in the chair while Carlton's stretched out on the sofa with the laptop. Vespa likes to cuddle up on the sofa on the person lying there....

...Or, she likes to do this:

NaBloPoMo

2009-11-01T23:42:00.003-05:00

In the spirit of all things useless and unimportant, I'm joining in on the National Blog Posting Month challenge. The challenge is simple: post one blog entry every day of the month. So far, I'm at 2 posts in one day! (Does that extra post count as a rollover in case of emergency?)

Wish me luck as I take the challenge along with Jillian and... anyone else who's joining.

November 1, 1984

2009-11-01T21:46:00.007-05:00

Today I turned 25. :) This weekend, I celebrated my birthday with my husband, my sister and her boyfriend, and my best friend and her husband/my good friend. Some birthday cards I was given wished me well, hoped for easy settling into our new home, acknowledged my fear of someone touching my elbow fat, a funny Obama joke about the redistribution of my birthday cake, a touching letter remembering 14 years of best-friendship, and one card even included cute poodle stickers for decorating future paper crafts.

For the simple fact that my birthday guests were driving either 4 hours round trip or 8 hours round trip to be with me on my birthday, I felt that I had no choice but to give in and make it an entire 25th birthday weekend. ;) A weekend trip was the only way to justify all their driving!

The celebrations began on Friday night when Chelsea and Andrew arrived a little before 8:00. They dropped off their bags in the guest bedroom and we all headed out for dinner at a local favorite, Blue Sky Grill, for $1 beers. I ordered some delicious fish while the three others enjoyed burgers and fries. Then, it was back to our house where we watched the movie Just Friends starring the hilarious Ryan Reynolds as a recovered fatty. After a little chatting once the movie ended, we called it a night.

Saturday morning I woke up and came out of the bedroom to walk Vespa to find Chelsea and Andrew watching a TV. After we got dressed, Chelsea and I headed out to shop for lunch food and baking ingredients (cupcake recipe to come!) at WalMart with EVERYONE ELSE IN MOULTRIE. Why did I wait to go grocery shopping at WalMart until Saturday morning? Honestly, I just wanted company! Sorry for stealing your Saturday morning, Chels!

By 1:00 Chelsea and I made it back to the house where the guys had prepped a new miniature charcoal grill and our burgers hit the heat. Our lunch of burgers, bratwursts, hotdogs, pasta salad, grilled zucchini, chips and dips, and baked beans was outta-this-world delish! Once lunch was finished, it was time to watch some college football. We watched plenty of games, and totally vegged out all afternoon in food comas. Some even took short naps in between quarters! Once it started getting dark, we had a few Trick-or-Treaters come by, and I really enjoyed letting them grab their own helping of candy from the bowl. Vespa loved greeting all the kids with enthusiastic barking and excessive tail wagging.

Carlton had made reservations for the six of us to eat at my favorite restaurant around here, in Thomasville, an Italian restaurant in the town's original train depot called Cafe Marebella. We dined on a delicious salad, fresh bread, pastas, chicken parmesan, and fish. Everyone was so happy with their meal, no one could wait to eat their leftovers! It was absolutely delicious. Once we had all finished eating, Carlton's sneaky little surprise pulled through and the hostess and our waiter presented me with a towering slice of divine chocolate cake. They sang a short chorus of Happy Birthday to You along with everyone at our table while the last couple in the restaurant looked on with smiles and sipped coffee. After we passed the cake around the table and everyone had had their fair share, we headed back to the house again to watch some TV. Carlton and I gave in and went to bed during the 7th inning stretch of the world series baseball game... I just couldn't hold my eyes open anymore after that delicious meal and dessert!

Sunday morning I woke up to walk Vespa and came out to a sleepy house. Kristen awoke soon after Vespa's business was finished, and we slipped out of the house to grab some milk and orange juice. When we got back, everyone was on the back deck soaking in the warm sun and enjoying the crisp fall morning air. Chelsea and Andrew had planned to make me a Birthday Breakfast, and I was pretty much banned from the kitchen except to refill my coffee cup... which I did about 4 times! (!!!!!!!!!!!!!FJDSIAOFWENAADF!!!!!!!!!!!!!) Breakfast was magnificent! Chelsea and Andrew treated us all to cinnamon-swirled French toast, scrambled eggs, and bacon. Everyone ate a little more lightly this morning, simply because that's pretty much all we had done all weekend!

After a bit more hanging out on the deck, Chelsea, Kristen, and I headed into the kitchen to start the baking. This was a bit of a gamble because it was a recipe I had just randomly decided on and pulled from MarthaStewart.com and the gamble really worked in my favor. I chose a Red Velvet Cake recipe with a Cream Cheese Frosting, and we made the batter into cupcakes. It all came out so divine, and I even have enough of the frosting to make a whole second batch of cupcakes! (The girls I work with are going to be so lucky this week.)

After inhaling our cupcakes on the deck so as to not make a sticky, crumby mess in the house, Chelsea and Andrew packed up and headed back home to Macon to get the rest of the day to themselves. Kristen and Scott stayed around and we watched the first half of Stranger Than Fiction starring Will Farrel and Maggie Gyllenhaal, a very cute little movie. After we grabbed a quick and light bite to eat at about 3:00, Kristen and Scott headed back to Cartersville while Carlton and I came back to the house and took a nap.

This was a perfect weekend shared with my most favorite people! Happy Birthday to me!!!

Autumn Table Centerpiece

2009-10-29T18:53:00.003-04:00

I'm finally using a "new" piece of china from our recently re-discovered wedding gifts. This large serving bowl measures about 14" in diameter and it's about 3" deep. It would be perfect for serving dinner family-style, like pasta or vegetables. And the felted wool on the table under the dish is leftover from the table linens I sewed for our Little Thanksgiving Dinner for Two last year in Arizona.

Since the felted wool fabric was purchased last year, I'm not gonna include it in my pricing. And, since the dish was a wedding gift, it's also being included as a free fixture. So...
Fabric: $0
Dish: $0
"Zebra" miniature pumpkins: $1 each
Split peas: $0.72 per bag, two bags

I'm at a grand total of $7.44 for the pretty and casual Autumn themed centerpiece. And as a bonus, one of my little white punkins even still has the little curly vine attached!

A weekend in D.C.

2009-10-26T21:09:00.005-04:00

This weekend we flew up to Washington D.C. One of Carlton's best friends from college, Peter, was getting married and Carlton was a groomsman in the wedding.

We left Moultrie on Wednesday night and drove to Cartersville. After staying the night at Carlton's parents' house, my dad picked us up early Thursday morning and drove us to the airport. While waiting for our flight, we met up at the neighboring gate with Ashley and Blake Witters, Julie Ahern, and Kevin Allen--all college friends flying out to D.C. for the wedding.

We landed in D.C. some time around noon, checked into our hotel, and met up with the other UGA guys we had chatted with at the airport. We stayed just off Dupont Circle, a beautiful area of D.C. Tt was a very nice neighborhood with great restaurants and easy accessibility to the metro for sightseeing and general getting around.

Hotel Palomar. I have to say, that designer tried a bit too hard to be posh, down to the huge twizzler and snakeskin/cheetah print carpet:

One of us gave Peter (the groom) a call to let him know we were all in town, and to ask where a good place for lunch might be. He smartly recommended a Greek place near our hotel that turned out to be excellent!

Mmmm, tzatziki sauce and fresh feta cheese atop the hot gyro sandwich!

After Peter surprised us there at the cafe, he took off to do his designated weekend-of-the-wedding groom's duties while the rest of us went to the National Air & Space Museum.

Carlton loved teaching his friends about space travel:
Kevin was really interested in space shuttle stuff:
It blew my mind when I actually read all the stewardess rules and regulations:

Thursday night, the group got back together for dinner at an Italian restaurant across the street from the hotel, and then went back to our room to hang out, watch tv, and enjoy some drinks.

Carlton and I both enjoyed sleeping in very late on Friday. At 10:00 I woke up, and after a short trip out to get Starbucks, I finally got Carlton's eyes to pop open at 11:15. Wedding rehearsal duties for Carlton (including me, as Wifey Tagalong) started at 12:30 when we met at the amazing Pizzeria Paradiso for lunch before heading over to the hall for the wedding rehearsal. Then it was on the metro to Chinatown for dinner--New York strip or grilled chicken, yum!

Isn't this ballroom beautiful?

After all wedding rehearsal responsibilities were over that night, Carlton and I joined Dave and Stephanie McMahan (best buddies, they are, Big Brown Bear and Tall Skinny Ferret), Dave's parents, and Dave and Stephanie's daughter. It was beautiful to see so many Washington D.C. monuments at night. It was even a guided tour of sorts, because Dave's parents lived in D.C. for a number of years and gave a great background story to everything we could see.

The Capitol:

We were evacuated from the sidewalk where I took this picture, and about 30 minutes later we saw Marine One (President's helicopter) and its decoy (or was it the decoy and then Marine One?) land on the White House lawn. Cool!
The Vietnam Memorial was especially moving at night, with the very dim spotlights illuminating each carved name:

Lincoln sat tall and proud:

The Washington Monument was great at night, too. We walked all the way around it on our walk back:

On Saturday, Carlton and I caught pizza at the same place we had eaten the day before (it was soooo good!) and then went back to the hotel for Carlton to get ready. Once he left for pictures, etc I got ready and met up with Stephanie. We headed for the wedding hall at about 3:30, made the 10 minute walk, and made it just in time through the drizzle to get some great aisle seats so we could see all the wedding action.

The wedding, of course, was beautiful! Unfortunately, I left my camera in the hotel, so I'm dependent on Stephanie for ceremony and reception photos. :( The ceremony was followed by a cocktail hour, and then heavy hors dourves, dancing, cupcakes, and drinks. Everything about the wedding was classy and very "Peter and Shaun" no doubt about it. Following the reception, believe it or not, they had planned for an afterparty at Dupont Club, a great bar near the wedding hall. Many of the wedding guests headed over there to celebrate with the newlywed couple for a few more hours! (The sangria was so delicious.)

It was so great to catch up with an old UGA river rafter friend, Nicole (middle) and make a new friend, Alison (right):

I even got a picture with the bride and groom! Surprise!!! Mrs. Courtney, Peter's mom, splashed in at the last second with her bright smile:

Alas, Sunday morning came way too soon, and Carlton and I were wide awake at 6am to catch the metro back to the airport and fly back to Georgia. Congratulations again to Peter and Shaun! Peter, you did a great job with the music and getting the vows right, and Shaun, you couldn't have been more stunning!!! Everything about your wedding day was beautiful. We wish y'all a lifetime of good beer, living abroad, WW2 stories, and so much more!!!

Oops, I just remembered.

2009-10-20T22:16:00.005-04:00

It wasn't until I got home from work tonight that I realized something, um, rather important: we leave for Washington, DC tomorrow immediately after work! (Well, technically, we leave for Cartersville where we will stay the night, leave Vespa "on the farm" with Carlton's parents, and travel to the Atlanta airport at 6am Thursday morning for our flight to DC then.) Which means, I had to pack... TONIGHT! (woops.)

So I started laying out our clothes on the bed, attempting to plan out each day we will be traveling, sightseeing, shmoozing, sightseeing again, wedding-ing, shmoozing some more, and traveling again. Then, panic set in. What's the weather supposed to be like? Rainy?!?!!? Not good. And then there's the time schedule. Rehearsal starts at 2:00, and the reahearsal dinner follows immediately after at 3:30. Generally, rehearsals are semi-dressy, and at night. I originally planned for a cocktail-style dress and heels with tights, but with the daytime hours have changed my plan for that, I think. Plus, Carlton was planning on wearing a suit, and won't that seem a little funny, in the middle of the afternoon, to be wearing a suit to a pizza place? Maybe not in business-minded Washington DC....

Anyway, to calm my panic and disorientation about packing, what to pack, and how to get it all packed without losing my mind, I decided to make a list and sort out all the mother-of-a-mess of clothes I had created on the bed. Thursday: travel and then drinks in the evening; Friday: pizza place for lunch, rehearsal, rehearsal "dinner" at 3:30, evening"meet & greet" in groom's parents' suite for drinks, then night time guys-only drinks in groom's suite; Saturday: morning sightseeing with groom, late afternoon wedding, 5:00 reception, 9:00 "after party" with bride and groom; Sunday: travel, travel, and more travel back to Moultrie. Stress!!! Why didn't I remember that we were leaving tomorrow? Why didn't it dawn on me that we would have to be packed to leave by tonight? Dangit. And all I did last night was knit a sock. Dangit!

I calmed down once I grabbed a piece of paper and a pen, wrote out our schedule, and listed off each article of clothing for each day and event for Carlton and myself. Whew! That really helped. Poor Vespa was so stressed out with me, she just conked out on Desert Rose and put all the responsibility for getting the job done on my shoulders for good. Now it's just a matter of getting a few undershirts and socks through the laundry, packing up the train case with toiletries, folding everything up to fit into the one suitcase, and keep my fingers crossed that it doesn't rain too much on Peter and Shaun's wedding day!

Yummo Potato Soup

2009-10-18T21:31:00.006-04:00

For the past week or so, I have been in the mood for eating soups. I've had a few soups for lunch at work. And I've been wanting to make homemade chili and potato soup for dinner as well. Because the weather has suddenly turned so cool, I took that as a sign to get cooking!

This afternoon, Carlton actually accompanied me to the grocery store (GASP! That NEVER happens!). Because I had a strict list of aisle-to-aisle ingredients needed to make my potato soup and chili (no time wasted by skipping back and forth between aisles, we gotta be efficient!), Carlton agreed to tag along for moral support and general lighthearted company. (It's always nice to browse the aisles with a goofy buggy pusher alongside or behind you.)

Tonight was potato soup night. I think it turned out pretty tasty, and Carlton agreed enthusiastically. The only other potato soup I ever made from scratch was last year, and it turned out really salty, thick, and super rich... nice for a sinful taste, but very hard to eat as a meal. I was wary about making this recipe because it was derived from a few different recipes I found online and combined, and who really knows how that might turn out? I'm calling it Yummo Potato Soup because I was watching Rachel Ray on TV while I made my shopping list, and her vocabulary could inspire anyone to cook a yummo meal in 30 minutes.

Yummo Potato Soup

- Lots of potatoes (I used a whole bag of medium red potatoes and left on the skins after I scrubbed them really well)

- 4 tablespoons butter

- 1/2 cup chopped sweet onion

- 1/4 cup chopped celery

- 1/2 shallot, diced

- 1/2 teaspoon thyme (I had Herbs de Provence so I used that instead)

- 1/4 teaspoon salt

- 1/4 teaspoon pepper

- 2 tablespoons all purpose flour

- 1 cup half-and-half

- 2 cups chicken stock

- 1 cup milk

- 1/4 cup sour cream

- 2 cups shredded cheese

- 8 slices bacon, save drippings for seasoning

(Because I bought turkey bacon, turned the stove on to cook it, and pretty-much-instantaneously burned it because it was mostly fat free, we didn't have the bacon or its drippings for the soup. Word of advise: use regular bacon because it's real bacon and not some nasty turkey wannabe substitute. Did you know turkey bacon comes pre-cut with a scalloped edge so that when it cooks and shrinks up, it curls like real bacon? Yuk!)

Scrub potatoes and chop into bite-size pieces. Put into a deep pot of boiling water at let boil until the largest pieces are fully cooked. Mine were about the size of a nickel, and about 1/4" thick, so they cooked to be soft all the way through in about 10-15 minutes. Once cooked, drain potatoes and set aside until later.

In a very large cooking pot, start by melting 2 tablespoons butter and tossing in the chopped onion, celery, and shallot. Let this cook on low-medium heat until it becomes transparent but not brown. Add in herbs, salt, and pepper, stir well, then move all veggies to the side of your pot.

Toss in your other two tablespoons of butter. You'll make a rue by melting the butter on one side of the pot by itself and adding in the two tablespoons of flour. Stir these together until they create a paste (this is your rue, see photos below), and then mix them in with the rest of your veggies/butter mix. That will make your soup nice and soupy-thick like potato soup should be.

Stir in your chicken stock first to de-glaze the cooking surface of any buttery-veggie-goodness, then add the milk and half-and-half, and then work in your sour cream. At this point, you would also add in your bacon drippings and most broken bacon pieces (saving some for toppings). Turn the heat up to medium-high and let the creamy soup thicken for a few minutes at a simmer. Stir constantly to be sure it doesn't burn to the bottom of your cooking pot.

Slowly add in your 2 cups of shredded cheese, stirring constantly as you add it in. I used Velveeta because I wanted to be sure it would melt in easily and not clump up or be stringy, and it turned out great... plus, Velveeta now comes already shredded!

Once the cheese is melted in evenly, add your potatoes into the soup mixture and turn heat down to low. Cover and let stew for as long as you can stand it... which won't be long, because this stuff smells awesome!

I shredded some sharp cheddar and chopped some green onions to sprinkle over the top, and coated mine in a healthy, fresh cracking of black pepper. (It would have been more amazing with the bacon in the soup as well as some sprinkled on top, but with burned turkey bacon in the trashcan, what can a girl do?) With a little dipping action courtesy of Sister Schubert (freezer section yeast roll goodness wrapped up in a pie dish), this meal couldn't possibly go wrong!

(As a sidenote, I didn't use full-fat, full-sodium products. And as one result of that, we didn't have bacon in the soup, but hey, I could'a saved us from a heart attack for that one. ;) I used reduced fat sour cream no fat half-and-half, no fat low sodium chicken stock, and skim milk as substitutes for the real stuff. The soup was probably a little thinner than it would have been otherwise. I also chickened out of using the real stuff because that's what I did with the recipe I used when I made potato soup last year, and that was the soup we didn't eat because it was too rich and salty in the end I am glad I took the healthier route.)

Ode To A Toilet Paper Holder

2009-10-09T15:59:00.003-04:00

Ode To A Toilet Paper Holder

Oh, Toilet Paper Holder, with your handsome brushed nickel finish in your original packaging,
How I ponder where to hang you in our slightly green bathroom.
The previous owners obviously liked you enough to save you from the grimy shelves of WalMart
only to lose decorating inspiration when you wouldn't really fit anywhere convenient.
They left you under the sink in the cabinet instead, alone in a dark and unfamiliar place.
I sit where I should sit for Toilet Paper Holder placement inspiration,
imagining you on the wall in front of me.

But that's right next to the shower and you'd only bruise my knees when I step out all clean.
(Plus, the poor TP would get soaked all the time.)
I turn to my left and spot the side of the sink cabinet.
But reaching that far to the side is like reaching too far back, and it's just plain difficult.

Should I open the cabinet door and hang you on the inside, away from plain sight?
Nah, that would hide your handsomeness. Plus, your screws would go through the door.

I can't just ignore you and leave the toilet paper perched on the lid of the toilet tank.
That would be a travesty for goodness sake!

Decisions, decisions.

Our inherited bounty

2009-10-08T18:59:00.009-04:00

Top Finds When Moving Into A House That's New... To You:

(Some of these TOP FINDS are positive and exciting while others are depressing, funny, or gross. But it's all a part of moving in after someone else has just moved out!)

1.) Knife sharpener for both straight edge and serrated edge knives. Since we got a fairly nice set of stainless steel knives as a wedding gift over two years ago, I have used our knives just about every day and haven't sharpened them once. This summer, they didn't even really want to slice through tomato skins, so I knew I needed to hunker down and whip out that long scary pole sharpener that came with the knife set. But, eureka! Upon moving into the new-to-us home, I discovered a fancy knife sharpener in an unemptied junk drawer in the kitchen.

2.) Fleas in the front and back yards. Yup, you read that right... fleas! Poor Little Vespa with her fair pink skin and champagne fur has revealed countless little scampering fleas on her warm little undercarriage. What blood sucking insect wouldn't want to cozy on up on a belly like that? It's a good thing she's on her regular flea/tick/heartworm medication, or I would be even more worried. For now, Hubby is playing his part and spraying the yard with some serious stuff and that should hold down the fort for about 3 months....

3.) Light switches that make absolutely no sense. What. So. Ever. We have a light switch in the house that controls whether or not two other light switches actually work! I swear, it makes absolutely no sense. At all! We flip the switch ON and neither the dining room chandelier or the kitchen overhead lights will turn on. We flip the switch OFF and both dining room and kitchen lights are good to go. See? No sense at all! And what kills me is, the switch is in the living room. Yes, seriously.

4.) A lonely Lurch-like old man next door neighbor who yells at the neighborhood dogs all day. I actually watched our next door neighbor man this morning tromp across the street, shaking his fist the whole way... the way Tim Gunn shakes his fist, or like the President points... with his thumb facing forward. This neighbor man, he marched right up to the fence in the back yard of the house across the street from his and shook his fist and hollered at the dogs to stop barking. They would eventually stop. And then start again once he want back to his house. And the vicious cycle would repeat. While this may seem comical at first glance, I better NEVER catch him in our yard yelling at yippy littly Puppa, no matter what!

5.) An unexpected microwave. I was so excited with hopes that the previous owners would leave behind some of their cute furniture that I actually had a dream a couple weeks ago that they left all of it! Now, that didn't actually happen, but we did turn the key to our new home to discover a rather nice looking microwave sitting on the kitchen counter. Woohoo! That's one more appliance we don't need to buy.

6.) Drippy toilets. Two of them. And that's all the toilets our house has! While my parents were in town, my dad quick-fixed the simple issue with the hallway toilet and it immediately quit running. But he didn't get a chance to check out the toilet in the master bathroom, which is the reason that thing trickled and tinkled and kept me awake for two nights before Carlton and I decided to cut the water to it. My dad's quick fix to the hallway bathroom didn't work on the bedroom bathroom, but in my early afternoon frustrations yesterday I discovered the source! The half-shell shaped clapper plug isn't sealing completely, causing water to trickle constantly. Off to Home Depot we go!

7.) A fancy stainless grill with built-in thermometer and smoking chamber. That's right, guys, they just left it here. It's a good looking little grill, with a retro shape to it, and our grill was one thing we sold before we left Arizona, so this was a great surprise!

8.) Congratulatory wedding gifts left of the doorstep. The couple who lived here before us got married the weekend before the closing of the house. Their online wedding registries weren't updated with their new address until this week. I mean, how tempting was THAT! I had to call them and let them know that a gigantic package addressed to Mrs. Erin & Mr. Ted had arrived on our new doorstep. That Bed Bath & Beyond was calling my name, but I have a feeling those sheets would have been tainted if I had kept them for my greedy little self.

9.) No internet. None until the 14th of October. Carlton is going out of his computer lover's brain, just trying to hold onto that stolen single point of internet from a faraway neighbor's password-not-protected wireless router. Off to the Red Box for another $1/night movie rental!

10.) Unpacking our own wedding gifts after two years of waiting to enjoy them. We've gotten tons of use out of our casserole dishes, everyday china, and other kitchen necessary items. But I have been waiting for the day when we would be finished moving across town and across the country to open all the breakable, expensive, and extra special goodies. They've all awaited their grand opening in my bedroom at my parents' house for over 2 years, and we have had SO MUCH FUN in the rediscovery of all the beautiful (and some incredibly ugly and useless) gifts that were given to us!

11.) Surprise! A washer and dryer! That's right kids, the previous owners left behind a perfectly good washer and dryer. If we didn't have our very own HE front load washer and dryer that I love, we would be even more excited about this handsome somewhat-new set of appliances. This is a great set to sell at our next yard sale, and we didn't have to do anything but wheel them out of the kitchen!

12.) Our first real mail at our first real home. It couldn't have been better: Katie Anne sent us some precious school pictures! This was the perfect first mail to get at our new home! I opened the rusty little mailbox door and one lonely little yellow envelope smiled at me from inside. No bills, no junk mail, no wedding gift cards that would need to be turned over to the previous owner. Just a sweet, happy little yellow envelope with pretty little pictures inside. :)

Thanks, thanks, and more thanks to my fam for helping out so much! How much do we owe you?