While Josh Is Away... the Wife Will Paint?

Happy almost Friday everyone!  This week has been an exciting week for us!  We got our first pick of the garden!!  Three green peppers and one cucumber!  We had the peppers in spaghetti and quesadillas and the cucumber in a salad last night!  

As you can guess from the title, Josh has been to Atlanta again for work since my last post....  So I painted not one but two whole rooms!  The first is the bedroom.  I themed it after the Grove Park Inn Spa, I have only been once and it was the most amazing thing ever!  I have done zero decorating and I still need curtains but I thought I would share some pictures of the colors that I choose!  Josh really liked them, and yes he approved the colors!!!

I love the way it turned out!!!!  Exactly what I imagined and it has such a modern feel to it, it just makes me happy to be in the room!!!  With decor and curtains it is going to look awesome!  So I said two rooms the other is my bathroom!  I had already painted my bathroom once before and Josh said he didn't like it once it was painted and it didn't reflect my personality...  Of course I have no before picture, but it was a color called pear just a light creamy color nothing really to it.  I had a mostly plain brown shower curtain and some leaf paintings hanging over the toilet.  Very very simple.  Now it is bright and reflects me more and I absolutely love it!!!!  Yes Josh approved the color and the shower curtain believe it or not.  I still have to get some decor for this room as well.  I am thinking two black shelves over the toilet and I found two awesome pictures at Target that I am going to get next time I go!  They match the old glamour look I am going for!

So I did this over all three days!  Saturday I spend the day with my sister and her kids and babysit while they went out to dinner!  In return she helped me recover my cushions for the back porch!  They are not completely finished yet so maybe next week they will be done we will see!!!  

Josh is leaving for Atlanta again this week but this time I get to go see him for a couple day since I have a long holiday weekend myself!!!!   My dad is also coming up to go to an Asheville Tourists baseball game next week!  Next week is going to fun filled!!!  Thanks for reading!  Look out for more yummy and fun ideas from our house to yours!! 

Garden Update!

Hey everyone!  Hope you all had a great Father's Day weekend and that your week has gone good so far!  Thank goodness tomorrow is Friday!!

This week has been very special for Josh and I, 3 years ago we were getting married!!!!  Yesterday was our actual Anniversary!!!!  So happy end of 3rd beginning of year 4 to my wonderful, loving and supportive husband!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   I am so blessed to have found you, I can't wait for the rest of our lives, just hope it doesn't go to fast!!!!!!!!!!!!

So this week I wanted to show the progress of the GIANT garden that Josh and I planted.  My very first post I showed you a picture of it and I look back and everything was tiny!  Like really really tiny!!  Josh and I check on it just about everyday and it seems like things grow daily!  So far the garden hasn't been to much work, you do have to keep up with the weeds and water and fertilize but it isn't that bad...  except bugs... and by this I mean Colorado Potato Bugs...  they are and will forever be the death of my potatoes.

Little tip, just don't plant potatoes, we tried and tried to get rid of these guys, but one day we came home and I guess all their eggs hatched and they had eaten like 80% of the plants!  Oh did I mention they are resistant to a lot of pesticides and the more you use the more they get used to it!!  I was extremely disappointed.  So we did our research and the only real way to get rid of them is to remove them, so we set out to remove the entire plant, bug and all, and put them in our giant trash can so they could die out.  We found a couple on our Tomato plants which they also like (heads up), so to us tomatoes trump potatoes! If you do have them you have to pick them off make sure there are no eggs and kill them don't just flick them off they just come right back...  I learned from experience.  The little red guys are what I had they are the larva that eat the plants the stripped guy he is the adult version and you wont see many of them, once fed they bury themselves into the ground.  So, lesson learned, potatoes are cheap no need to grow them ever again!  I did however get about 30 pounds of new potatoes to eat and they are really good, so there was positive in all this!!!  Luckily you can freeze them or we would be eating potatoes for every meal for about a month or so!!!  So about 25-30 meals portions for us which is pretty good I think!!!!

Besides that everything else has grown like ten times bigger than it was to begin with!  The before picture was taking Memorial Day weekend and the after picture was taking last night, so in four weeks this is what it looks like!!

Before

After

As you can see we have added climbing posts for the beans and peas, and everything that I had planted by seed that was just poking through is giant, at least to me, it still has a good ways to go!   So I took some close ups of everything but the cucumbers...  somehow I missed them!  But I thought I would share them with you guys!!  As of today, I have about 20 baby tomatoes, six baby green peppers ( I planted red & yellow too) and what seems like hundreds of blooms of cucumbers, yellow squash and zucchini!  My onions are just about ready to be dried and stored just waiting for them to be fully brown and fall over, the beets are getting big you can see them if you get really really close and my carrots are about half an inch thick!!!

Enjoy the pictures!! 

Onions, Beets & Carrots! 

Squash & Zuchinni
(I have 2 rows!)

Peppers!

Beans & Peas

Tomatoes

Corn (I have 2 rows!)

This is the best shot that I could get of my baby peppers, not so small any more, this one is almost the size of my fist so in about a week I will have a fresh green pepper!!!  Some of the tomatoes are about golf ball size so they have a couple weeks to go!  I am super excited about all these fresh veggies!!  

Thanks again for reading!! Josh is traveling out of town tomorrow so you can probably guess what my next  project is!!!! Yes painting!  Two rooms this time!  Also, going to be spending some quality time with my wonderful Niece and Nephew!  Can you say party while the parents are out!!  Yeah like a veggie tales party they are 4 and 6!  But I love them to death!!!!  So much fun!  Hope everyone has a great weekend!!  Please feel free to give me any garden advice!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Special Workout Challenge!

Hey guys!   Just a quick special workout challenge I have decided to do with one of my co-workers!  Saw it posted by a friend on Facebook and thought it was pretty awesome!  I am training to run a 5k hopefully in the end of July and I think will really help me build up the muscle to get me through it the whole without walking a step!  Feel free to join me I just completed day 1!!

Spare Bedroom Project!

Is it already Thursday?  This week has flown by, probably due to the fact I had a big project this week to complete.   For those of you who don't know every time that Josh works out of town I tend to paint or redo a room in the house to surprise him with!   This week he was only gone for two nights so I took it upon myself to paint the spare bedroom.  It started out this icky bland tan color that was really only primer they used when building our house.....  needless to say it was awful!   So the bedspread I have is white with blue and yellow flowers, giving to me by my wonderful Aunt Kim!  So I decided to paint the room a Navy Blue.   The pictures make it look a little darker than it actually is, like most pictures!

This standing in the door way as you enter the room: Click on the pictures for a slideshow!

   

These are the two dressers, with just decor that I had, this room is all the extra stuff has kind of gone in, so it needs some new stuff to make it more modern, which is our style!  This TV is not the one that belongs in the room it is the old one that doesn't work but Josh was busy watching the flat screen we bought in the office and he wasn't allowed out of the room so I felt bad to take it just for a picture so I used the old one so you could get the idea!!!

This decor was giving to me by Josh's grandmother and I really liked it, you can't see it very well but it has small Callie Lilies in it!

             

This is the window, I am not entirely
happy with the appearance, I think I
want different curtains, maybe something
with a small amount of yellow to bring it
all out?  Let me know what you think!                  

 






This is looking at the closet door and you can see the tall dresser again.  Just another angle of the room.  I had a small picture on this wall but i moved it because I thought the curtain would
come over more....  so I will have to play with it and see!  Everything can't be perfect right away then I would have nothing to do! The light makes this look a brighter blue than it actually is.


I am not entirely happy with the room as a whole, I think I am going to switch curtain rods maybe some more modern curtains but I do like the white color and I need a few more pictures to hang and replace some of the older ones I have and maybe some throw pillows for the bed.   I think I need some bursts of yellow in the room to brighten it up a bit, the lighting in the room isn't the best either.  I am open to any and all suggestions on what I do to make it a comfortable room for guests to stay in!

One tip I would like to share that I learned last night from my Aunt Kim is the easiest way to press a giant fluffy bedspread....  Lay it on the bed and steam the wrinkles out!!!  Now why didn't i think of that! Yes I was trying to iron it on my tiny ironing board!  It was not working at all!!  The pictures are not perfect and all the wrinkles are not gone, based on the fact it was late and I was tired and I ran out of water in the iron!!  So I will have to go over it again!

Target has become my new favorite place, around here, to shop for pictures and decor stuff!  They are reasonably priced and have lots of cute pictures!  I found several I would like to eventually get for this room. I am holding off because in a couple weeks I am going to Atlanta to visit Josh on a business trip and I plan to spend one whole day at IKEA!!!  If you have never been to IKEA it is an experience you should have.  It will take you a whole day to walk through just the models they have set up, then you go downstairs into the "store" and you could spend another day!!!!!!!!  Did I mention they have a restaurant too!  It is crazy awesome!  And they are super cheap so I can't wait to see what I can find there!!!!  So excited. :)


So on a complete side note, Josh and I tried something really interesting on the grill this weekend...  French Fries.   They weren't terrible...  you should probably use a grill pan of some sorts not just the grate, however lesson learned.  They were actually pretty good if you like a bit of the char flavor, which I do, he does not.  They were crispy on the outside and soft on the inside like a fry should be! I doubt we will be doing this again but it was worth a try!  I have put a picture below!

Thanks for reading!!  Can't wait to hear everyones suggestions!  Next week I am going to show you my garden project Josh and I will be doing this weekend!!!  You will also be able to see all the tiny vegetables I have growing!   Look out for more yummy and fun ideas coming from our house to yours!

New Beginning!

Hi everyone!  Welcome to my new blog!

I have always wanted to write about all the new recipes and adventures and new projects that Josh and I do!  I created this page back in January and just never got around to posting anything.   Well I got really inspired last night when I was trying a new recipe that I altered that turned out fantastic!

So this week Josh and I have been changing our lifestyle, not dieting, mainly trying to lose weight, which I consider a benefit of a living a healthy lifestyle.  We planted a huge garden this year, we haven't gotten anything out of it yet but here is a picture Memorial Day weekend, the plants have almost double with all the rain and fertilizer since then!   I just can't wait!!!!  This view is standing on our back porch and that is our neighbors house!  This is one of the only pictures of  the garden that Biscuit is not in!!!

So the main problem that I have with eating is I can eat healthy is I make those choices and I feel a lot better, but I am just not hungry when i wake up to eat breakfast.  They say this is the most important meal is jump starts your metabolism, I totally agree, I am just not hungry.   I start to get hungry by the time I get to work around 8:30am each morning and the typical grab and go breakfast options either haven't kept me full are full of sugar or just plain gross.   So this typically leaves me starving for lunch so I overeat.

I promised myself that this week I would fine a solution that is healthy, tastes really good and will keep me full for a whole 3 hours.   If you know me well enough I love www.pinterest.com!  It is full of so many creative and inspiring ideas not just for recipes but quotes, decorating ideas, gardening projects, it is just awesome. I credit my mom for the love of projects!  So I got on there in search of good breakfast ideas.   A little while later I had some options but i chose this particular recipe because it is something I can literally grab and go, If i want to heat it up I can, I can eat it cold, I can crumble it like cereal, there are just a lot of options! You are probably wondering what they are so I will call them Oatmeal Fruit Muffins.   Just for clarification I did find the recipe on Pinterest but I changed a few things in it to make it my and fit my tastes.  Here is the finished product!  Picture is a little dark but it was taking on my phone.

I had one this morning and I just ate it cold and it was pretty yummy, I would probably pop them in the microwave or toaster to make them warm just because it is oatmeal.  So I only had two problems with the recipe, I would have baked it just a little longer to make them a bit crispier on the top and around the edges, and I had no baking powder.  I am fully convinced that Josh just hid it from me because I know I just bought a brand new can of it, but it was no where to be found.  So if anyone doesn't know you can substitute baking power for soda with a little bit of modification.

Using Baking Powder for Baking Soda:

Use 2 to 3 times the amount of Baking Powder you would use then baking soda. 

Using Baking Soda for Baking Powder;

This takes a little more work, but you can make Baking Powder out of baking soda.  You need Cream of Tartar and Baking Soda, simple mix 2 parts tartar to 1 part Baking Soda and you will have just made Baking Powder!  Needless to say I learned this last night as i scrambled around looking for substitutes!  (Thank you Abby Robertson!)

So I guess you guys probably want the recipe so I will Attach it below!

I want to THANK YOU all for reading my blog I know this first one is lengthy, but i just thought hey if I still have stuff to write!!!!  I welcome all comments!!  Look out for more yummy and fun ideas coming from our house to yours! 



Oatmeal Fruit Muffins 

3 cups Instant Oats
1 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
3 mashed up bananas (medium is fine)
2 tsp coca powder (more to your taste)
1 tbsp baking powder
1 cup chopped strawberries

Preheat over to 350 degrees.  Mash the bananas in a bowl and whisk in the eggs until mixed well.  Add the rest of the ingredients and stir until combined.  Spray muffing pan with no-stick spray or use cupcake papers.   I made them a little small because I wasn't sure how much they would rise.   Not a lot by the way.  Bake for 25 minutes or until they get as crunchy as you like them.   I only did mine for 20 minutes and they were a little soft so I would do no less than 25 minutes to get that muffin texture!

I yielded 15 "muffins" at 107 calories each so I usually will eat 2 for breakfast with coffee, hot tea or milk! Let me know how you liked it!