Kicked off the month with visiting friends and Chowderfest.
She cooked lots of great food, and he enjoyed every second of it.
They finally started planning that trip to Italy they have been talking about for years. It’s so exciting!
She took a trip with her mom and sister to the big apple while he and his father had a satisfying day of tackling house projects.
The learned some important lessons in planning bigger projects like kitchen renovations. Who knew he cared about color?
I like doing these posts, it gives me a chance to show our family and friends everything we are up to, and they love it too. Sorry for those of you who only come around for recipes you can just skip right past these.
Since winter has kind of had a slow start we were able to get a few more things done outside, like finally adding steps to the new slider. The slider was a project that Chuck and his dad tackled the first weekend in November. There are still some things to touch up (obviously) but it’s functional so that’s what matters. I’m completely in love with it. The dining room is at least 10x brighter than it was before, and check out the decor! My mom found us this unfinished wood table for $25 at a garage sale. It will be getting a face lift at some point in the future to extend its lifespan. We also started to put together my beloved gallery wall, it (like everything else) is still a work in progress. I love the challenge of filling it with handmade and found things, it’s beautiful and cheap. Now we just have to do something about getting some chairs and a new light fixture. Sorry powder blue is just not my style.
In the living room we got the TV positioned above the fireplace. This was an interesting project because TV’s are expensive and we were kind of nervous about hanging it, but it ended up only taking a couple hours and being super easy. We used this bracket
. It had great instructions and Chuck pretty much did this while I hid in the office, attempting to clean. Having the TV over the fireplace makes the room flow so much better, plus we don’t have to worry about our neighbors catching inappropriate scenes on our TV through the big bay window.
I was able to pick up a few other pieces around the house as hand me downs from relatives. Free furniture is my favorite. It’s nice to finally have a place to put down my tea cup while I sit on the couch.
There is still a long way to go with this place and we are hoping to do a lot of that this summer. I’ll try to keep you updated as we go.
Have a good weekend!
This is a meal plan based on the the typical meals that I actually cook on a regular basis. It is not an exact diary of what we eat, but it’s pretty darn close. Enjoy!
Monday – Roast Chicken with Mashed potatoes & Veggies
Tuesday – Irish Vegetable Soup with salad
Wednesday – White Chicken Chili with leftover Chicken
Thursday – Venison Stir Fry with Quinoa
Friday – Pistachio Crusted Cod with French Lentil & Arugula Salad
Indian cuisine and I are not really friends. Aside from a few select recipes (that really resemble the worst of Americanized regional food) I cannot for the life of me make an Indian style dish that actually tastes good.
When Royal contacted me about their Basmati Rice I knew I had to give it another shot. I’m really excited to announce that I was finally about to concoct a pretty delicious Indian style dish. I think keeping it fairly simple was the key here, just basic ingredients and a focus on flavor.
I’m really proud to say that this dish will probably make it into our routine fairly regularly. Since it’s delicious, easy and totally different from my usual meals.
This post was sponsored by Royal® Basmati Rice.
A year has gone by and the 12-12-12 project is complete. I may be short by one project but sometimes that’s just how it goes. I have started a number of projects that were originally sparked by this challenge that I’m hoping to post soon. I just can’t seem to get them all done in the allotted time. I suppose that’s what happens when you take on a challenge like this the same year that you get married, and buy a house.
For this challenge I re-taught myself to knit and crochet, built a wooden back drop, put together a photo book, learned to wood burn, made soap with my sister, made a dream catcher, designed and created a print that still resides in my kitchen, made a ribbon belt for my wedding (also saving a bunch of money on it), glued and cut felt to make a garland, carved and hand stamped my own napkins, and played with rocks.
As far as challenges go I’m pretty pleased with this one. I was forced to thing outside the box and push my comfort zone and do a number of things I don’t think I would have otherwise. Of course I’m disappointed that I didn’t complete all 12 projects, but I’m letting it get to me. I finish way more than 12 projects this year, but many could not be counted toward this project because they were too similar to others. For example I completed a number of hats, scarves and blankets either knitting or crocheting, which was also the first project I completed with this challenge.
The challenge was able to spark a slew of creative ideas and projects for me, which was the whole goal anyway. With that I am happy, and I’m also happy to release the pressure of coming up with and completing a project each month. For someone with a full time job, and a blogging side hustle it was a lot more work than I anticipated.
For 2016 there will be no more craft projects, since we have a number of house projects and travel plans in the works. That’s not to say that craft projects won’t still appear here on the blog, but they won’t be in the restricted fashion that’s required of a challenge.