New Chairs

Last month Micah and I stopped by a yard sale on our way home. I haven't been hunting these down to much lately, but when one is laid right in your path what can I do but stop? Immediately upon arriving I spotted two wooden dining room chairs in really sorry shape. I walked up to them and noticed how incredibly sturdy they were and how pretty the shape was. So for only $5 a piece I nabbed them.

My husband growled in annoyance as he dragged them to the car vowing that he would NOT be helping with this "project". I ignored his disgruntled behaviour already fabric shopping in my mind. The next time I was at JoAnns I looked and looked for the perfect fabric until I spotted it on my second trip into the home decor section. After a quick price check (on sale for under $7 a yard) I went beaming up the counter. Quite serendipitous don't you agree?
So here they are, with the help of my guns, staple and glue and the mighty brawn of my husband (he wields the staple gun so well).

My Spring

Wow, that month sure did blur past me. My camera broke at the beginning of the month and I never did get around to posting even a recipe! My life has been consumed lately with many of the changes that one would expect in the new year or in spring, but I'll take mine when I can get it. You see I have been having some health issues that until last month were undiagnosed and causing me a great deal of distress. Finally after dozens of test and appointments I finally got my answers and I am very pleased to say they are completely treatable! With the help of supplements, diet changes and only 1 medication I am feeling like my life has started again.


I have been challenging myself in many ways with my diet, my activity level, my happiness and my creativity. Thinking of the things I want from this life and enjoying myself and what God has given me. While we are still hoping to buy a home in the near future I have been focusing my energy on contentment and the joys of my family. Earlier this year you may remember that I planted a garden, what I may not have said was that it was at my mothers and well they didn't follow through much with the watering. SO, lesson learned and instead of giving up we started a container garden on our deck! I went to the nursery and picked up some seedling and set to work. Here is what we have so far and I hope it will go much farther.



We hope to start a lettuce bed and a vermicompost (worm compsting) up as well and just see where we go from there.

We have some blood oranges coming up.



And here are some strawberries

Oh and in other super awesome peachy fantastic news the blanket is done! I may be two One A Month Challenges behind, but I can catch up because it's the freakin' blanket is done!!

Blackberries

This weekend I stopped by my favorite road side fruit stand that sells the most mouth watering strawberries. My excitement went up several notches when I noticed they had blackberries too! Oh how wonderful it is to live in California were I can make blackberry cobble at the end of May, gotta love it.

I got out all my favorite cookbooks, and then some less favorites, and then I used my google bar but I was still not liking any of the recipes I found, most of them taking hours and ingredients I didn't have. I'm also not a big fan of precooking my fruit filling, I like the natural taste of the berries and not anything that has been boiled in cornstarch and sugar you know? Picky picky...


I then gave up on my cook books and called my mother. My mom is not one to spend a lot of time in the kitchen out of enjoyment, it's all about a quick end product with minimal dishes and annoyance. I was thinking that was the way I wanted to go with this recipe. I remember as a child coming in all sticky and covered in purple juices with a bowl of fat blackberries from the backyard and asking her to please make us a cobbler, and she always obliged. Here's how the phone call went:


Me: Mom, do you have that cobbler recipe you always used to make?
Mom: Oh I used the cup-of recipe
Me: huh?
Mom: You know a cup of flour, cup of sugar, cup of milk, cup of berries
Me: Only a cup of fruit?
Mom: Well, you can double that
Me: Oh, well didn't you add any butter
Mom: Oh honey I always add butter to everything, just a bit on top....OH and I like to add cinnamon and sugar on top too
Me: I think I will try it with honey and half the milk, that's the rule right?
Mom: There's a rule? I always just did a straight sub, huh????
Me: Hah, OK thanks mom
Mom: Oh, and a bit of baking soda helps it puff up a bit
Me: Baking soda or baking powder? I think you mean powder. Whatever, I will just double the whole recipe for a 9X13 and add a tsp of baking powder. Temperature? Time?
Mom: Oh 350 and about 45 minutes tell it's brown and bubbly, I think...
Me: I'll check after 30 thanks mom
Mom: Don't forget to butter the pan!
If you can glean a recipe off that too, you might come out with something like this....

The Pantry

Wow, that was one crazy week! I really hate having something to do every night of the week. Being the homebody that I am I'm mostly content to stay at home eat a nice meal and snuggle with my honey, but I don't think I got to do that once the whole week. Oh well, this weekend made up for it a bit and we are starting to reach homeostasis around here.


Anyways, I mentioned on my last post our kitchen organizational woes. Which have really been going on for quite some time. Well, last week we finally did something to fix the problem and it only cost us $14 and few spare hours (which of course was the hardest thing to come by).

We were given an old pantry for free which was a little warped, beat up, and without any hardware. With a trip to the hardware store for hinges and self paper and some paint we had, sandpaper we had and our time we now have a place to store our bulk food that isn't the girls closet! I used my left over chalkboard paint to make the inside door usable for a grocery list. This thing holds a lot of groceries, it's as deep as my fridge. I still have to use our other cupboard and our chest freezer most of the time too.

Buying in bulk is one of the things that really helps keeps our families grocery budget down. We try to eat mostly organic whole foods and still try to stay within budget. This usually means we don't buy "fancy" food like bagels, chips, snacky foods or sodas. Things we do buy are 25lb bags of oats, wheat berries, popcorn, beans and 10lb boxes of organic cheese. We go through a co-op up in Oregon that delivers our bulk food their truck route. With a tiny kitchen we have had to be very inventive with meeting our shopping and cooking needs, but this pantry will definitely help!

Glass

This has been a crazy busy week. So much running around and really not much to show for it. Well, tonight was a lot of the same fun as well. We spent all evening after M got home from work at our local E.R. to get a piece of glass removed from P's foot. She was so awesome though, barely even cried and you could tell the big numbing needle really hurt. I'm so proud of that brave little girl!

I do have one positive crafty thing to show for my week and I will be back with that soon. I've been trying to work on making my living room and kitchen more functional so it's something in that direction. That's the thing with living in small places you have to be ever evolving, finding new ways to organize so that your life and home can be as comfortable as possible

Indulgent Stitches

OK so here we go, a little something to ease the pain of stitches lost. A little something pretty for myself (doesn't a little indulgence always help?).

I've been wanting one for months and finally got around to making one! I got the pattern from here. Well, that's all for now, I will be back later on this week with a new sewing project I started last night. Hope every one's week is starting out well!

Ribbet....

Last week I had to rip back 15 rows of the Orange Cabled Blanket. That's 1800 stitches people! So I have set it aside for awhile to avoid killing it. Now, I could move right on to the next planned knitting project, a Christmas present I have already purchased the yarn for, but no I don't think I will. Instead I will indulge and make a small little something just for me out of my scrap yarn. Come back tomorrow to find out what it is!