Climbing Columns

For about 2 years I've been trying to get confederate jasmine to grow up our porch columns. When we planted it at our mailbox within a month the jasmine had grown up the lattice surrounding the mailbox. It has been a slow go on the porch columns. This photo was taken last July a year after the c.j. was planted it was just growing in circles.

We've tried different ways to give the jasmine something to grip on but the latest, fishing wire, wasn't cutting it. I picked up these Command Strips for cords on clearance at Target and I think they may be the winner.Unlike the staples I wanted to use, they don't damage the wood. And unlike the ugly netting that Eric wanted to use, they are virtually invisible.


See the only thing you notice in this photo is the pollen. If the confederate jasmine has grown this much since July I am hoping by the end of the summer the columns will be covered.


Anyone have any backup ideas if this doesn't work?

Lunch this week is...

It seems like I am always writing about lunch on here. Well lunch is my favorite time of the day because Eric and I both go home and on beautiful days like today we eat outside.
Plus I've got a new food to try for lunch to help us get out of the lunch rut. Tuesday night I made a big batch of Cheesy Chicken & Rice Bake to eat on all week. I used greek yogurt and cut the cheese to 1/2 a cup. I forgot to buy black beans (THE story of my life) but it turned out just fine.
Oh and ps did you know that you can shred chicken in your blender? Life changer right there.



For dessert I had an apple sandwich. Cored apple slices and pb, sometimes chocolate chips.

This last picture cracks me up because it looks like I took it with a major zoom lens sitting in a bird's nest 3 miles away. iphone major zoom at its best.

Do you notice a running theme? A begging dog!

How The Beach Looks In March

Well I'm back from my little beach vacay with a group of girls from Sunday School. Fitting 11 girls into one condo proved to be a great weekend.


It rained all day Saturday and felt more like we were in the mountains instead of the beach. I took this picture in the car because with the grey sky the dunes looked like snow piled up on the side of the road.

Since it was raining we went shopping at the outlet mall where I had to buy a sweater to stay warm. $10 for a green cardigan at Loft, sold! I did see these rugs in TJ Maxx and thought about getting one for the hall bathtroom but changed my mind, too big.

In one of the stores we went in there was a huge table of flat fold remnants. I started to sweat when my friend called me over because I was overwhelmed with the beauty of designer fabrics for only $5 a yard!!! I just made new bedding for the 3rd time in 3 years but I had to talk myself out of buying fabric to make all new bedding again.

Here is some more of the fabric I was sweating over. I did take home the grey on the left. No clue what will become of it, maybe fabric for a boy's nursery.

I grabbed 2 yards of Portfolio Textiles Bansuri Slate ($33.50 yd) aka Toscana Ikat Slate ($38.oo yd) from Ballard Designs for only $5 a yard!!!!!!! I tried to get someone to take home the ikat on the right (same style different colorway) but no takers.


After a rainy Saturday, Sunday turned out to be beautiful.


The loaner in me enjoyed a run on the beach alone in the cool sunshine. When I was younger my sisters and cousins and I found a ton of big unbroken sand dollars in the ocean. Eric is always skeptical of the story so it has turned into a joke for me to find a sand dollar. Last summer I finally found him a baby sand dollar and this time as a joke he told me to find him another one. When I loaded this picture today I noticed a baby sand dollar that isn't broken. Can you find it? Ok give up it is about 1/4 down the picture above my right shoe. I am so upset I didn't notice when I was at the beach.



After breakfast we tried to enjoy some sun but the wind had other plans and pelted us with sand. We wrapped it up and came home.

Honestly I was a little nervous about going for several reasons. I am friends with a few of the girls but some I didn't know. It wasn't a problem at all, I loved being around my friends that I don't get to spend a lot of time with and I loved getting to know new people. I was also a little nervous about being the only one in the group without kids. I love a good funny kid story but I can't really relate to a lot of mom things. Again not a problem I didn't really feel like there was too much mom talk. One last thing I was nervous about was having to do a lot with a group. I like to be around people but I am also a loner and can only entertain or be entertained for so long before I get ill. Once again not a problem we hung out as a group but then did our own things. All of my fears were invalid, therapy sessions from the rolling waves are the best.

Beach Weekend

I made this cute little card using the Red Stamp app on my iphone. It is so fun to play with but with so many cute design and color combos it can be a little hard to decide. If colors is the only problem I've got today then I'll take it.
Have a great weekend! -V

February In Review

In January I decided to start the photo a day or 365 project. (I just loaded that post and backdated it to Feb 1st.) I started with my camera but then got lazy so I switched over to phone pictures. I downloaded the app my365 to keep track of everything. I've enjoyed it so far even though my pictures are boring and I often forget to be creative, but tis my life. If you want a little more structure you can follow this guide.

{1} long hair {2} our dinner dates {3} meeting Rivers {4} scrubbing the floor {5} grout cleaner ruined the finish on my countertop {6} bubbles {7} momma g's new cups {8} my fav for the week {9} hot chocolate {10} tie dye shirts {11} mani by CB {12} lunch @ nana's {13} bloodwork {14} v-day {15} lazy {16} v-day card from e's parents

{17}bedtime w/ claire {18} watching The Bodyguard {19} mexican girl date {20} bible study {21} mardi gras on our run {22} welcome home {23} supper time {24} e finished the new testament {25} 5k {26} cutting e's hair {27} packing {28} mr penny's corner {29} lunch

Brunch

I've been on a big breakfast food kick lately. Usually it is eggs and bacon or a scrambled egg sandwich but today I incorporated pancakes into the mix.

I was pretty crunched for time so these turned out to be the world's ugliest pancakes but they were still pretty tasty. Several weeks ago while having brinner I asked Eric "well if breakfast for dinner is brinner what can we call breakfast for lunch?". He replied "brunch". Oh why didn't I think of that one.


I'm sure this brunch phase will be over in a few weeks so I will be looking for something new to eat for lunch. What is your favorite go to lunch that doesn't involve sandwiches?

Parmesan Chicken & Rice

Over the weekend I cooked this dish, originally posted in 2009 before we renovated the kitchen (hence the old counters). I can't remember the last time I cooked it, but now I remember why it is one of my favs. I was also reminded the rice is always better cooked in broth instead of water.

What you need:

1 tbs Olive Oil
1/2 cup chopped onion (we didn't have one so I left this out) 1 garlic clove (I always double the garlic, gotta keep those vampires away)
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 package of mushrooms chopped
1 package of chicken breasts chopped
1/2 cup white cooking wine
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 cup uncooked instant brown rice
1 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

Serves 4

Heat oil in skillet over med-high heat. Add onion, garlic, thyme & mushrooms. Saute 5 minutes or until onion is tender.

Add chicken; saute 4 minutes or until chicken is brown.

Add wine, salt & pepper: cook until liquid almost evaporates.

Stir in rice & broth. Bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat & simmer until liquid is absorbed. Stir in cheese before serving.

Of course since E is allergic to the enzyme in milk, I don't mix the cheese in the dish, just put in on top of mine. We ate ours with steamed broccoli & cauliflowers and a spinach salad. I think it would taste good if you added broccoli to the dish, but E disagrees, so I kept them separate.

On this Presidents Day

how about a little

George Washington

John Quincy Adams

Teddy Roosevelt

I'm not sure I have a spot in my house for a president but I would love this for my kitchen.

Grapefruit

All beautiful gouache paints can be found in this etsy shop

Elizabeth Mayville

Breezeway Curtains

About 5 months after I bought the fabric for my breezeway curtains and about a month after I sewing the curtains I finally have them pleated and hung.

I think they turned out nice and add a little bit of softness to the space made of glass, tile and bricks.
I had a few people ask for some tips when I first posted about sewing the curtains so this is the way I make curtains. They aren't professional but they look good enough for me. I am not a master seamstress or a perfectionist but this is what works best for my curtains.


First of all you need to decide if you want visible stitches on your curtains. I prefer to make my lined curtains without any visible stitches. It really is easy to do this method, the worst part is smoothing out all of your fabric.



This is the only tutorial I could find on making lined curtains the way I do. It is pretty confusing in regards to the lining. Basically you take your fabric & lining line them up vertically and sew down one side. Then I cut 4" off vertically on the opposite side the of the curtain. Line the fabric edges up, smooth out, pin and sew. Turn curtains right side out, even up the difference in the lining fabric and iron. Make sense, yeah I didn't think so. Don't try to cut corners buy pinning one side then cutting fabric and pinning the other then sewing both sides. It always ends up wonky.

After you split the difference in the lining and ironed the curtains should turn out like this. No visible seams and you don't see the lining of your curtains from the front. Oh and as usual I used a twin size sheet from Walmart for the lining, $5!




I only do 6" for a bottom hem and 4" for a top header. I use a blind stitch to hem and I always hem them while they are on the rod. I'm not great at making my curtains come out the right length so this always works best for me.

No visible stitches!





If you don't mind visible seams, House of Hepworths has a great tutorial on sewing lined curtains.



These are the pleater hooks & tape I used. Both purchased at Hancock Fabrics.



It took me forever to figure out how the hooks went in. I finally figured it out. You are suppose to pull the strings to get your pleats but I never did, just inserting the hooks makes the pleats also.




Since I am neither a master seamstress or a mathematical wizard my pleats aren't all spaced out perfectly. I was able to skip two places except for the last pleat and skipped 3. No one will ever notice.

Here is how the pleats look with the hooks.



That was good enough but I wanted a little more definition so I tacked the pleats at the bottom.


When the curtains are open they are just a little too skinny to cover all of the windows. That is one of the disadvantages of pleats is they make the width of your curtains smaller. I am ok with them not closing all of the way but if you do need the privacy you may want to think about doubling up on the curtain width.


Another thing that I am weird about is all of my windows on the front of my house looking the same. I like for my curtains to hang about 6" over the windows and I have them all lined so from the outside of the house everything looks uniform. By making the curtains only a single width they look the same from the front of the house as my other curtains.

Yep my neighbor "fixed" up his house and painted it lime green

Overall I am really happy with my curtains. Pleating the curtains turned out a lot easier than I had anticipated. Off to pleat the dining room curtains....

Some videos that I watched to make a little more sense of the whole thing.

Here

Here
Here
Here - describes the difference in long neck and short neck prongs

Weekend Update

How was your weekend? Ours was jam packed. It was nice to get out of town and have nothing to do. Even though it felt like every minute of our weekend was scheduled so we could fit it all in, it was nice to have family at each one of those stops!

First up we went to my nephews basketball game. Have you ever been to an 8 year olds' basketball game? It is so funny. It was a nail biter and went to the last second. Brooks scored 4 points!



B & B with their "Auburn" aunts & uncles.

I had to tie dye some shirts for our team to wear in an upcoming 5k and Brooks helped. He has wanted to learn how to tie dye "his whole life". It was pretty fun and now he is ready to tie dye some more shirts.
We also made the bouncy balls I mentioned Friday but I forgot to take pics. They worked out ok. The smaller the better. It was still cool to play with the borax and glue.

Eric's brother and his family also live in my hometown so we spent some time with them too! CB decided I needed my nails done. This was about 1/4 of the nail polishes she has!

With all of the choices, it was too hard for me to make a color selection. She decided I needed green with silver dots. It was stunning. We also played Play Doh. I used a metallic gold and made a pretty ring.

CB stamped the Dora pendant out of metallic silver Play Doh and I made the gold necklace and bracelet to wear them on. Pretty cool if I say so myself, but I should still keep my day job.

Of course with a week old baby around there was a lot of snuggling!

Yesterday was the main reason we all went home. Nana's Sunday Lunch. My Nana always made Sunday lunch but has recently "retired" from the position. She said the next time we all came home she would cook. It was such a special treat!!!!!!! Back then we could all fit at one table, now the fam has 5 more members we we had to split up. Baron assigns all of the seats.

My parents' dog Zeb also loves to go to Nana's on Sunday. He is 14 years old (!) and loves when we come home because he gets to go into our bedrooms. He loves to get a tan beside my bed.

We've developed a bad habit, stopping at Krispy Kreme donuts on the way home. But with all of that good food you have to load up on caffeine and sugar to stay awake for 3 1/2 hours. Who can resist heart donuts?!
Apparently not Claire.

Ok so if you made it through all of that I have a trick for you. I forgot to take my camera home so I only have phone pics from the weekend. They are all pretty crappy, but Instagramed them to make it look like I took crappy pics on purpose.
Did you know that you can use Instagram on "airplane mode" and it won't publish pics to your feed? One thing I didn't like about Instagram was that every pic I wanted to "edit" was published and I didn't want all of them published. Now it isn't a problem. This is how your "feed" will look. The pic won't show up on the live feed but it is in your phone pictures!

Did you already know the airplane mode Instagram trick, am I living under a rock?