Look!

Look who rescues animals!

I told you it's cool to ADOPT!

Robert Pattinson, what a great guy! :)

Landmarks

This is my 100th post! Woo Hoo! I've enjoyed this so much, and I hope you have, too!

This is also the largest project in my renovation. 

 The. Kitchen.

Get ready for picture overload...they tell the story better than I can.

Before

Moving out old appliances

Taking down wall of cabinets.

Started demo on the wall.

Now, the other side.

Peek-a-Boo!

Mess.

Floor: there were about 4 layers of different things.

New peninsula built.

Check out my cute little dishwasher!

I got a puppy!

Appliances are working!

Ignore my goofy expression.  This is the only/best picture I can find that sort of shows how the kitchen looks now. 

It was a very big project, but one that was well worth it! I spend the most time in this room, and I'm glad we took the extra steps to knock that wall down.  Makes all the difference in the world! 

Exhaustion...but I ask for it!

This was another very memorable weekend.  Friday night friends came over to play Bunco.  We enjoyed catching up with one another so much we never even played.  We ended the night with a few us listening to old rap music and me showing off my Michael Jackson dance skills. Great time!

Saturday night Stephen was given four tickets to see a Beatles tribute band.  If you know anything about me, you know that I love the The Beatles.  I mean L.O.V.E them.  So we invited two of our other friends who we know equally like them to join us.  It was a great evening.  It was weird.  I knew it wasn't them, and up close it didn't really look like them, but they had perfected their mannerisms.  They were good.  I had to have my picture taken with them after it was over. 

 Like I said, didn't really look like them up close, but on stage a few feet away decked out with their instruments, outfits, hair, voices, and actions it was a close second.

Since this tribute band only played early Beatles, the four of us went to Stephen's to break out The Beatles Rock Band to  hear all the other songs.  Fun. Fun. Night.

We now have tickets to see The Fab Four next month, and I can't wait! =)

I had given Stephen hockey tickets for Valentine's Day, so Sunday that's where we went.  Hockey's great. Don't know a thing about it, but it's so entertaining.  The whole time there was something going on, and to make things even better there were at least three fights.  Yes! This was Stephen's first hockey game, and I think he enjoyed it, too. 

Whew! I'm tired just talking about it, but I loved every minute of it! I'm also looking forward to some R&R next weekend...maybe. :)

On a side note: I was a complete glut, so this week I'm going to try to get my eating and exercising back in order.  Any tips? I don't think my face can stand to be any rounder!

Toomer's

Saddens me to say, but this is the only time I ever actually made it to Toomer's to roll.  I was either too busy in the stadium or worried about going out afterwards, or wasn't interested in facing the crowds.  However, I have ridden down that street or walked passed them numerous times in my life and recognize them as a Auburn monument.

 I am so glad we all talked ourselves into going this night. 

I went to a different university, a great university, but I grew up right outside of Auburn, went to many Auburn functions throughout my entire life, and live even closer today.

I have always been and will always be an Auburn fan.  My degree may not have Auburn on it, but it still hurts to see such horrible acts of vandalism.

These photos were taken after the SEC Championship game against South Carolina. 

Not my best photos, but they're all I have. 

War Damn Toomer's!

Read the story.

Someone got a haircut

I just have to brag for a minute! Isn't she a cutie?!

Remember: there are thousands and thousands of wonderful pets out there waiting to be adopted! Lots and lots are full blooded breeds. Do you really need a set of papers to tell you how wonderful your pup is? I DON'T!

Check out http://www.petfinder.com/ to search for specific breeds!

Check out Everyday Re-Creations' latest recipe!      http://www.everydayre-creations.com/

Then submit your best beach/pool/summer picture to enter to win a free cake!

everydayrecreations@gmail.com

Spring is in the air

Does it feel like baseball season to you? It totally does to me every time I walk outside.  It's wonderful! I love spring weather, or maybe I'm just done with winter.  Wait, I realized that means no more fires...now I'm confused!

Either way, love is in the air!

This past weekend we went to the lake with some friends for a relaxing weekend.  It was beautiful, and we had a great time!

Monday at work I received the most beautiful bouquet of roses!

Then, we had the best Valentine's day dinner followed by wine, cheesecake and The Bachelor. Perfection.

One of Stephen's presents: they're almost useless since he doesn't drink coffee, but they were too perfect to pass up! If you understood our love affair with Rock Band, you would completely get it!

No recipes to share, just experiences.  I made some crab stuffed mushrooms.  That recipe needs tweaking before I share.

I hope you all had a wonderful day of love!

Week One

This was my first week to plan my dinner menu and go to the grocery store once.  It was fantastic!  Worked out so much better than running to the store every afternoon.  If I could just get into this habit it would make life so much easier.

Plan Ahead Tip: Set out frozen chicken breasts night before and marinade in the morning.  They were perfectly thawed and ready to go on the grill.  Also, cook potatoes night before so they'll be ready to peel and add to soup.  This cut way back on my cooking time.

What we ate:

• Tuesday-  Pineapple Chicken Quesadillas
• Wednesday- Salmon Patties {recipe below}
• Thursday- Baked Potato Soup

Salmon Patties
Before you turn up your nose, just hear me out.  This is the cheapest and easiest recipe ever.  I've checked. When I was tot, my grandmother would make this for me often.  Growing up I was always rewarded at the end of the year by being checked out first thing in the morning on that last day of school, and she would always make me whatever I wanted for lunch that day.  This was my request.  Now we know that it's also kid friendly. Stephen had never had them before and he approves, too (is he just being sweet?).

Ingredients:

1 can of salmon

1 egg

6-7 saltine crackers

1 tsp flour

salt & pepper

And you must eat it with Yellow Label Syrup (and ketchup), which Stephen decided is really honey.

(I don't want to even mention this, but I have to or you'll be surprised.  At least I was.  You have to pick out the bones...gag, gross...ok forget I said that! Apparently there are brands without them I hear, so now I'm on the hunt to find said brand!)

Mix all ingredients up and form into patties.  One can made four which was perfect for us two.  Fry in a little oil for about 5-6 minutes on each side on medium heat. 

Done-zo!

When I have this meal, I have to have blue box macaroni and biscuits of course my biscuits weren't homemade like Grandmama's, but the taste brought back so many memories.  Grandmama didn't write this recipe down, so I was just going off what Mom said and what I remembered, but they were just as good as I remembered!

1 Down

As promised a brief book review.
If you're looking for an easy-to-read bedtime story, this is a good one.  I read as a way to put me in the right frame of mind to fall asleep easily, or to make my eyes so tired I fall asleep automatically which may have happened a time or two with this book.  That could be a good or bad thing...depends on who you're asking.  Either way, I enjoyed it.  It had biblical references, and it was free.  Here's the author if you'd like to take a look at her stuff. 

The book I read was called Happily Ever After.  It was about a girl who had the dream of opening a book shop in the sleepy lake town of Deep Haven.  She meets a handsome drifter who offers to be her handy man. Could he be the one who's trying to sabotage her store? This had a few surprises and a sweet and unlikely love story. 

Sweet way to end the day.

Livin' It Up

I hope you had a wonderful weekend. We did! Stephen and I celebrated our one year anniversary Saturday!  We went to a fancy-schmancy restaurant and paid way too much for food, but enjoyed every single minute of it!

Moving on to the Living Room in my Home Re-Do Series.

One of the very first things we did once we got the keys was check under the carpet for hard woods.  We knew this house would need a lot of work, but we saw such potential in it. 

Enjoy some before pictures.

Surprise!

I look so happy, but Dad realizes all the work that will soon follow.

This is where and how we ate dinner most every night.

This was by far the easiest room in the house. =)

 

It's French!

It's Fancy!

It's comforting on this cold, gloomy day!

Check out Everyday Re-Creation's latest post!

www.everydayre-creations.com

*I want to apologize up front for the large amount of photos throughout this post.  I can't fully explain the next process without them.  So, enjoy and be thankful it's not you doing all this manual labor!  Also, don't be too harsh about the exhausted looks on all of our faces.  I left out majority of the ones where we looked as if we may fall dead at any given moment.

Our next step in this series is the dining room.  We thought it would be a pretty simple task.  All we had to do was pull up the floor and paint.  Sounds easy enough... We soon discovered that pulling up linoleum would be what our worst nightmares are made of.

 First things first. Are there beautiful hard woods under there??

Yes! 

The next few pictures were taken over the next few days.  Extremely daunting task.  It's funny now because the pictures make it appear as if it went by so quickly, but no, it took almost an entire week of scraping and pulling and tugging and soaking. 

My mom was off, so she would spend hours during the day there scraping and pulling and tugging.

Then, we'd load up in the evening and head down to continue to scrape and tug and pull.

Get where I'm going? It took many, many hours and many, many days of hard work to get this up. We so knew it'd be worth it though!

After all that work was over and done with, we had to pick paint! My first experience (bedroom) worked out great.

  Therefore, I was really trusting myself to explore color options...boy, was I wrong!

Purple was not the look I was after.

My dad painted the bottom white after many thoughts about different reds.  He was not feeling it. 

So, I tried to paint the top a red...

Then, he broke my heart and painted over it with a tan...I'm pleased with it though. 

Had to paint the doors!

Had to add a chair rail.

Before

After

All that work was well worth the effort. The floors came out more beautifully than expected.