Back to Blogging

It's been a long time since my last blog post.  An embarrassingly long time.  And I'm sorry about that.

I always enjoyed blogging.  Whether it be about food, or the progress on our house, or my lack of ambition for eating healthy and exercising, I enjoyed writing about it.  And as I look at my blogger account, I see that my last post is from October.  And the post before that is from July.  And I have 6 unfinished entries all in draft mode between those dates.  Shameful.  Absolutely shameful.

So instead of trying to finish up those posts and submit them to the reading world as if nothing happened in between, I decided to write up a post, and eventually get back to those other posts.

So what has happened in the last six-ish months?

On the house front:

• Scott and I went through the MASS Save program and had our house insulated.  We've seen an improvement in the cost of heating, and once we get around to replacing our original 1970's Single Pane Windows, the improvement will be even better.
• We invested in a Snow Blower last year, and it's proved it's weight in gold so far.  I'm so glad we got it. 
• We finally got new garage door openers.  I can't tell you how awesome it is to be able to park in the garage.  Especially when it's snowing!  The fact that I haven't had to clean my car off once this winter season is absolutely awesome!
• My brother in law relocated out to the east coast, and it forced us to finally get some things done around the house....
• In light of his return, and the fact that he would be staying at our house, we figured that having a guest bedroom would be helpful.  And having a bed in that room would be even better.  So we moved our set into that room, and treated ourselves to a new bed.  A king-sized bed.  It's fabulous.  I love everything about it.  Although, I do need to purchase a step stool to adequately climb into it.  
• We finally have light fixtures.  It took long enough, right?!?  We finally have beautiful light fixtures in the hallway, and all bedrooms.  We also purchased fixtures for the bathrooms, but until we actually re-do the twice done work in the bathrooms that still needs to be redone, we won't be installing the new fixtures.  
• I finally picked out, purchased, and hung curtains in the living room and dining room.  Well, I picked them out and purchased them.  I just supervised the actually hanging.  It's safe to say that I love the curtains.  :-)
• We partially cleaned out the "office."  By partially cleaned out, I mean I can see the desk, and the piles of boxes are a little bit more organized.  This is on our list of things to do, and will hopefully get done within the next month.

On the cooking and baking front:

• Scott and I started writing a menu on Sundays.  And on the weeks that we write the menu, we always have good dinners.  I try to mix things up, and make things that are easy, but somewhat healthy and quick to make.  We need to make sure that we continue this practice.
• I've made different dishes, like my go-to meals like tacos/burritos, meatloaf, chicken, and shepherds pie.  And then I've tried new things like Beef and Broccoli and Fettuccine Alfredo
• I recently had some work people over for a "team dinner" and successfully made Baked Macaroni.  I had about 20 lbs of macaroni in the pantry (I have an obsession with buying Barilla when it's on sale, and refuse to buy anything else), and thought that would be the perfect dish.  I was extremely happy with the results.
• Scott and I hosted Christmas Even this year, and we had about 17 people here.  We featured an all fish dinner, and it went over really well.  I also made delicious Christmas Cookies, and made the traditional Coffee Cake, which has become tradition for Christmas morning.  I love a good family tradition with family recipes.

On the work front:

• Work has been crazy.  Crazy with a Capitol C.  I've been working on a project for the last year and a half and it just went live on Monday March 3.  It has been very gratifying to see the results of all my hard work play out, and while it's required lots of extra hours, it'll be worth it in the long run.
• I hate talking about work outside of work, so that's all I'll say about that.

On the Personal Front:

• A friend and I have recently become involved (is that the right word?) in reading smutty romance novels.  It's been a very entertaining experience.  I suppose it all started with Fifty Shades of Grey, and just went on from there.  We read the books, compare notes, analyze them, and then find new books and repeat the process.  We try to meet up every couple of weeks for dinner and a movie (or something of the sort) and compare notes.  (We obviously compare notes on the spot while reading via text message, but then also try to meet up in person to compare notes as well).  We met up last night, and since it was the first time in a few weeks that we met, we had a lot to talk about.  And we talked about it all while Scott was in the other room.  At one point, he came out to the dining room where we were eating pizza and comparing notes, and very casually said, "It sounds like you're having a conversation about real people in here, and not characters from smutty novels."  That just about sums it up.  
• I finally took the plunge and bought a MacBook.  I've been looking at trying to buy a MacBook for a long time, and I am so excited that I finally took the plunge.  I decided to buy it for myself with some of the money I earned from my last Performance Bonus at work.  I've heard horror stories about the Apple Store in Providence Place Mall, but was pleasantly surprised with my ability to get helped in a quick amount of time.  Perhaps it was because it was a beautiful day and everyone was outside?  In any case, I'm excited to learn more about the operating system, and the ins and outs of the Mac world.
• Back around Thanksgiving, Scott's niece and nephews came out from California and stayed out here for the week.  It was a great week, and we got to do lots of fun things with them, including cutting down a fresh Christmas tree.  We got a very short, very fat tree that took up an entire corner of our living room.  
• Oh yea.  And in September, I turned 30.

I think that's a pretty good synopsis of my life for the last six-ish months.  I'm excited, and hopeful, that I will be a good little blogger and keep up what I started.  Hopefully you'll join me!

Our beautiful new bed, and the new light fixture, too!

Our super fat tree, which my mom nicknamed, "Wide-bottom"

Christmas Morning Coffee Cake!

Scott dutifully snowplowing out the driveway

The new dining room curtains!!

My organized pantry, with an array of different types of Macaroni.

The finished product of the delicious Baked Macaroni

Shopping Success!

We did some shopping this week!!!

We got all of the bathroom fixtures (We got those from Robinson Supply).  It was a lot of fun picking everything out.

We got the tile!!  Wahoo, I am SO excited!  We got it at Home Depot, and ended up buying one from the display board.  We were a little annoyed because we found one we loved only to find that the design tile was discontinued, so we created one for ourselves. 

The tile design we went with (with a different design piece)

We were the customers at Home Depot who caused two different aisles to close down so they could take a new stack of tile down from the top row.

Closing down the aisles to bring our tile down

The only thing left on the list to buy now is the doors and the bulkhead (I have a few questions for the contractor on those).

But we're ready to roll!  We've got the dumpster waiting!!  :o)

The dumpster is ready!  Can't wait to start the projects!!

Weekend Shopping Trip

So this weekend we are going shopping.  


Here's what's on the list so far:

• For the outside of the house
• 3 Doors (with storm doors) - We are replacing the outside doors leading into the house
• Bulkhead
• For the Bathrooms
• Shower/Tub with a mixing valve
• Tile & Grout 
• 2 vanities (one at 21" for the half bath and one at 57" for the full bath)
• 1 counter-top/sink (we are reusing the one that was in the half bath since it's so nice)
• 2 faucets
• 2 toilets (chair height!!)
• Lights for the half bath
• For all rooms
• PAINT!  I already chose my colors....Now we need ceiling paint, trim paint and we need to get to work!

It's going to be a fun weekend!!!

From Wallpaper to Paint, and everything in between

We are finally done stripping wallpaper!

This weekend, we started cleaning the walls (we're cleaning with TSP before priming/painting).  I managed to survive the weekend with blisters (from raking the yard after mowing), a burn on my arm (from accidentally touching a light bulk while I was finishing stripping the bathroom), a shock (I managed to shock myself while washing the wall - I think the sponge hit the electric socket), and a light bulb blew up in my face while I was cleaning (I think I dripped water on it).  

Hopefully I'm done injuring myself!!! :o)

What wallpaper?

With the exception of 1/2 a bedroom that still has backing on the walls and one room where all of the paper is down and we just need to remove the excess glue (thanks to my mother in law who graciously paid to have someone help us -Thank you again!!!), we're almost done with the wallpaper removal!!


It's taken over a month (far longer than I originally anticipated) and we still have a lot more work ahead of ourselves.


I honestly don't know what I will do when there is officially none left. Maybe I'll drink a huge drink. All I know is I'll probably be seeing ugly 1970's patterns in my nightmares for a long time.


Once we finish the wallpaper and glue, we're on to washing (with TSP), priming (we have to use a special primer for walls that have been papered but not painted), and then finally painting.


Wish us luck!!

A view of the hallway, clear of wallpaper!

For the love of baking soda

I've talked in the past of my love of baking soda.  I've used it in a couple of different applications (I was able to clean a brand new stainless pan that I decided to fry eggplant in).  In going through Pinterest (my favorite obsession), I found a another method for using baking soda - this time to clean a glass-top stove.  I have a glass top stove, and personally, I can't stand it.  Everyone raves about how easy it is to clean, blah blah blah, but I find it more annoying than anything else.  I feel like it always looks dirty and I can never seem to get it clean.

Well not any more!!!

Stuff Needed

-Big bowl full of hot soapy water

-Baking Soda

-Dish Towel

How to clean your glass-top stove with baking soda!!!

My disgustingly dirty cook top

Sprinkle baking soda liberally over the soiled cook top

I cleaned my cook top one half at a time based on the side of the dish towel

Submerge the dish towel into the hot soapy water.  Wring it out but make sure it is sufficiently soggy.  Place the wet towel over the baking soda.

 

On the first half, I wrang out too much of the water.  I ended up having to do it twice in order to get it cleaned the way I wanted.  

Set the timer!!  10-15 minutes, depending on how dirty the cook-top is!

When the timer goes off, swirl the dish towel around and make a paste out of the water and scrub scrub scrub.  Make sure you rise out the towel multiple times to wash the baking soda off the cook-top (if not, you'll have a clean but streaky glass cook-top).

And voilà!

My beautifully CLEAN cook-top!

Such a Slacker!

I feel like such a slacker.  I haven't cooked a decent meal in about 2 weeks (except for some tacos last week).  We have been so busy trying to get the house ready (2 weeks later, we still have a ton of more wallpaper to strip down).  We have been really lucky to have our mom's making us food over the last couple of days, so at least we haven't been starved!

We had a super busy weekend at the house.  We finished taking down the wallpaper in the dining room, and started on the hallway.  We also are about 1/3 finished (almost 1/2 finished) with the living room - we were pleasantly surprised to find that the bottom layer in the living room came down fairly easily.  My mom also took down all the paper in the bathroom, so all we'll have to do is steam off the glue, which should be relatively easy.

We also mowed the lawn on Saturday!!  We got a ride-on mower with the house, and I have been busting to try it out.  The lawn was getting pretty high, so I took a quick break on Saturday and spent an hour in the yard.  To make the experience more pleasurable, I'll have to add a cup holder onto the mower to hold my iced coffee!  haha :o)  

My dad took some pictures - enjoy!! :)

Wallpaper, Part 2!

So stripping wallpaper has proven to to be quite the project.  I think that I knew it was going to be a challenge, but it has totally exceeded my expectations.  We've been to the house to 9 times since closing, and each of those days we've made progress on taking the wallpaper down.  It's amazing how much of a difference the absence of the paper has made.

So Far:  We've finished the kitchen (which had 2 layers) and we're about 3/4 done with the dining room.  Below is a few pictures of the dining room just to show you a visual on how much nicer the room looks without the paper!

The Dining Room, with some of the paper stripped off.  It's a two part process - steaming the first layer and then the bottom layer

A little bit more progress...

The dining room, sans wallpaper!

Once we finish the dining room, we'll be moving onto the hallway (which has the same paper as the dining room - both layers) and the living room.  We thought the living room was going to be an easy shot where we could pull down the wallpaper and then steam off the glue...Unfortunately, when we pulled down the first layer of paper, we found ANOTHER LAYER underneath!  It's white, so it's deceiving, but (once again) it's textured...And it's stuck on there really good so we'll have to steam this off, too!

  

So that's that so far.  It's a work in progress, and it's coming along, just taking a little bit longer than I originally anticipated!

Fun with Wallpaper!

 

It amazes me how certain things can come into style, and then go out again (and maybe even come back in again...).  Wallpaper seems to be one of those things.  My parents always had wallpaper in our house when I was young, but as I've gotten older, they seem to be leaning more towards paint.   


Personally, I'm not a fan of wallpaper.  While it protects the walls, I find it a lot easier to paint, especially if you get sick of what's on the walls...  My husband and I recently bought a house and we are so excited!  We closed on Friday, and we've begun the process of trying to clean it up.  The house is beautiful, but there is wallpaper in EVERY SINGLE ROOM except for one room, which has dark wood paneling.  We definitely have our work cut out for us.



My dad has an industrial wallpaper steamer, so we've been using that, but while there was only one steamer, and two of us trying to take down wallpaper, I ended up going to Home Depot the other night and I bought a $50 steamer which works great!  I would definitely recommend it to anyone who needs to strip wallpaper.  It's only $50, and it works just as great as the industrial one (which costs at least $30/day to rent).


I figured I would share some of the wallpaper that we're dealing with....It's always a fun thing to look at!!  :o)

Master bedroom and bath

Bedroom.  As my neighbor said, it's so ugly you could possibly do something fun with it.  The most fun I'm going to do with it is strip it down, lol

Bedroom.  This is the least offensive.  Although it is textured...

Living Room.  If you looked up hideous in the dictionary, this will be next to the definition.  It's textured (obviously) and pretty much looks like they glued a burlap bag to the wall...

Dining Room and Hallway.  It doesn't look too bad, but imagine this repeated over everything.  Lucky us, there's a second layer of wallpaper underneath!!!

Main bathroom.  This isn't TOO bad.  But bad enough...

Kitchen.  Another form of hideous.  While stripping this wallpaper, we found not only another layer of wallpaper underneath, but also a Formica back-splash!

Last night, while stripping wallpaper, I found this.  It totally explains WHY they papered over the original back-splash.  Obviously, they tried to remove it in one spot and ruined the wall...

We have only gotten through the kitchen so far....But we have found some fun things written on the wall!!

So the kitchen is done, only 7 more rooms to go!  Wish us luck!!

Folding Sheets

My mom has an amazing method of folding sheets.  I call it a method, because each set of sheets that she has is a work of art, and the only way to consistently produce such a neat bundle of sheets is to have a method.


As a child, I remember (quite often) deciding that I wasn't going to take a nap, so my mom would have me help her fold the laundry.  While I was usually in charge of folding the face-cloths (in half, and in half again), I often helped to fold the sheets - It's always easier to have two people folding sheets...  


In college, I remember one of my roommates having trouble specifically with the fitted sheet.  I showed her my mom's method, and then said, and here's what I do with the rest of the sheets!  I love passing this method on, because it not only saves room in the linen closet, but it also looks pretty (or as pretty as sheets can get).


I'm going to go through how my mom folds her fitted sheets, which is the main part to "the method" .... I'm not going to go through the folding of the flat sheet - that one is easy!


So here goes (in picture form, of course :o) )

Fold the corners into each other by having one corner inside-out and folding it into the corner that is right side out.  Once your fold one corner into the other, do it on the other side, too

Lay your fitted sheet on the bed (or table) so that the all of the corners are folded into one area (in this case, the top left corner)

Fold the right side into the middle, and then continue to fold the fitted sheet by bringing the left side over (folding the sheet in 3's), and then folding up by 3's again.  You'll end up with a nice rectangle.  If your sheets are big enough, you can fold them in 4's and probably get a perfect square.

Fold the flat sheet into a rectangle (which is always so much easier than folding the fitted sheet) and stack the two together.  My mom gets hers to be the exact same size, I am not that good.

Take your matching pillowcases and fold them in half the long way

Put your stack of sheets right in the middle of the pillow cases

And you've got a bundle.

All of my sheets are folded like this.  The best part is, you never have to go searching for your pillow cases!!

The amazing uses of Baking Soda

I think that at one time, Baking Soda was regarded as one of the greatest and most versatile things possible.  However, throughout the years, we have put out different products that essentially contain Baking Soda, but are advertised as something else.  In all honesty, I had no idea that Baking Soda could do what it does!

I came across this revelation this morning, actually, because over the weekend, I made eggplant (possibly one of the most delicious foods in the world).  Now I usually look for the healthy way to make foods, but when it comes to eggplant, the best way to make it is to fry it!  Now, with frying just about anything, I've found that you're going to make a mess.  And this frying experience was no exception.  I used one of my beautifully shiny tri-ply shallow pans and fried a ton of eggplant, and found that I had grease stains all over it that neither soap and water or white vinegar would take off.  How upsetting!

As I was making my morning coffee this morning, I all of a sudden said, what about Baking Soda?  Poured some all over the pan, ran some super hot water, took a little scrubby (not metal) and ..... results!  I'm so excited.  So in a follow up to my awesome revelation, I've done some research, and here's a list of just a few things that Baking Soda can do!

• In the Kitchen
• Put a small box or bowl in the fridge/freezer/cupboard to keep away odors
• Sprinkle a little in the bottom of the garbage can, and a little more after you put a new bag in, to reduce garbage odors!
• Put out a grease fire with a little B S
• Sprinkle B S on a damp cloth to clean surfaces.  Rinse with clean water.
• Rinse food containers with hot water and B S to remove stale smells.  Soak longer if the smell persists.
• Sprinkle the floor with B S and wipe with a warm, damp cloth.  This will help remove scuff marks and grease spills.
• For burnt-on food in the bottom of pots, sprinkle with B S, then add hot water.  Let soak overnight, the dried on food will come loose much more easily
• Clean the Microwave, oven, coffee pot, or tea pot
• Polish your silverware with 3 parts B S and 1 part water - rinse thoroughly
•  
• In the Bathroom
• Make toothpaste and use as a mouth wash
• Use as a facial scrub and exfoliant
• Use as a deodorant
• Use to treat bites and itches
• Use with your shampoo to help your hair to be healthier
• Use a B S paste (3 parts BS, 1 part water) to remove stubborn stains from most surfaces.  Apply, let stand, then scrub or wipe clean.
• Clean hairbrushes and combs in a combo of BS and water
• Pour 1/4 cup BS down the drain weekly, rinsed with hot water to avoid clogged drains.
• Around the House
• Sprinkle smelly carpets with BS, let stand for at least 15 minutes then vacuum.  This will help remove the smells.
• Put B S in the bottom of each ashtray for smokers.  This will help keep away some of the stale smoke smell
• Children's toys can be cleaned using 1/4 cup B S in 1 quart warm water.  Submerge the toy in the mixture, or wipe with a damp cloth, and rinse with clear water.
• In the Laundry
• Replace half of each measure of laundry detergent with BS to keep clothing fresh
• Pretreat grease stains on clothes with a BS paste
• If using chlorine bleach, BS will increase effectiveness.  Add 1/2 cup to your laundry along with the usual amount of bleach.
• Yard and Garage
• Helps clean up grease spills
• Remove burnt food from the grill.
• Cleans lawn furniture

All items were found via here and here.

ENJOY!!!!!

Laundry

I don't hate doing laundry.  I find it to be a mindless task that takes up too much time.  When I was young, I used to help my mom do the laundry by matching socks, folding underwear, and folding face cloths.  Once in a while, she would have me help her fold the sheets.  She taught me this method of folding the sheets:  She would fold the fitted sheet into a perfect square and stack it with the flat sheet.  Then she would fold the pillow cases in half the long way and wrap them around the stack of sheets to make a neat little set (this way, you would never lose the pillow cases).  I taught my friend Amy this method in college; As far as I know, she still folds her sheets this way.
 
I've lived in my own place for almost four years now (my, how the time flies).  I love my condo, but if I could, I would change one thing:  I would get laundry into my own unit.  I'm honestly not even sure if I would be allowed to put it in my unit (I would have to check the condo documents).  In any case, because the laundry is in the basement, and I live on the 3rd floor, I find that I wait overly long spans of time to do laundry.  It's a good thing I have a ridiculous amount of clothes.

Early this afternoon, my husband sent me a BBM (Our usual mode of communication during the work day).  He asked if I had laundry that needed to be done.  He had previously noted that I had started to create a little "sock graveyard" next to the bed, so he collected up the socks.  He figured that he would just add those to his own laundry that he was planning on washing today.  But when he messaged me, I told him that the clothes in my closet as well as the massive pile of clothes on the little table next to the dresser also all needed to be washed.  Well, the husband ended up doing 3 loads of laundry for me today (and none of his own).  I should also note that when he washed my clothes, he also followed all of the washing directions on the tags.  Props for that:  I usually just separate into dark and light, and wash...

I don't hate doing laundry.  I just hate the stair-master workout that I get every time I need to do some laundry...