WELL WORTH THE WORK

For those of you who have purchased a home, do you remember the walk-throughs? Those thousand or so homes you walked through, looking for the exact home you want to pluck you life-blood into. And you have this list with like a bazillion things on it that you are hoping this house has.

My list had lots and lots of things crossed out.


In fact there were only a few things on my list that my house had.


A roof that didn't leak was one of them.


Anywho, on the day I moved into my home I noticed two things.
1. The garage was being held straight by a 2x4 (last summer we had to tear out and put in a new beam to fix that problem)
2. My house didn't have a pantry.

Now who in their right mind, if you are female, builds a home without a kitchen pantry? I don't know, but the lady who built this place didn't put one in.


Oh there is room for a pantry, there just isn't one.

And since I really didn't want to build one (I have already put up too many 2x4's in this home) and I really needed someplace to put the canned goods, (the island just is too far to bend down, plus things get lost down there. I swear, it is worse than the dryer at eating things.

So I decided to find and buy a stand alone pantry. The problem was two-fold. The ones that were the size I wanted cost close to a thousand dollars, and the ones in my price range were too small.


I decided to get creative and go looking for anything with doors and shelves.

I found this! It is an armoire with shelves inside.

And while it was pine, like my cupboards, it had been antiqued. So there was all of this black stuff on the wood that made it look old. It also made it look too dark next to my cabinets. (cupboards, cabinets...same thing)

After trying a sander, which would have taken two plus weeks, and some varnish stripper, which did nothing to the black stuff... I once again got creative. I tried Goof Off!

If you have never used the stuff, you are missing out. It removes weird stuff from almost anything. I love to use it when I have those painting oops.

So here is what the Goof Off did.

After scrubbing till my arms wanted to fall off, and going through two bottles (so far) of Goof Off, I decided to stain one door and see how it looked.

See the black still on the inside of the Armiore. The door has been stained.

The door on the right has been stained, the one on the left has not. I still have to take the black stuff off of the sides and inside then I will stain the whole thing. I can't wait for it to be finished.

I'll post a picture when it is done.

THE DREADED DENTIST

I have this love/hate relationship with my dentist. He is by far the best dentist I have ever had, but I seriously hate to see him.

I had to psych myself up, yet again, to go see him today and have two cavities filled. I use the word "psych" because I have a long standing history of canceling about 30+% of my appointments because I just can't get my head around to wanting to be tortured for hours.

I hate having other peoples hands in my mouth... OH how I hate it.

Today though, I didn't expect to be too bad. I went in last month and had a bigger cavity filled and it wasn't any big deal, so I figured I would go, have them fill the two little puppies and be on my merry way.

Little did I know!

I was there for almost two hours and it was the second worst dental appointment of my life (my wisdom teeth being the worst--I'll tell that story someday). I hurt so bad after I left that I wanted to curl up in a ball, call my mommy and cry.

I was really shocked at how awful the pain was, because lets face it, I suffer through some pretty hardcore pain everyday without pain meds and I figure my pain threshold is pretty high these days.

I have to take Emmi to the dentist tomorrow for an x-ray, but I can honestly say it will take my the full 6 months to work myself back up to going for my cleaning.

Oh the pain!

MOTHER NATURE

I Swear, mother nature suffers from a personality disorder of some kind.

There I was last Saturday, sitting next to a river, watching ducks ignore the 30 or so loaves of bread that the kids had thrown at them. My face was getting sunburned by the 60 degree weather and the sub sandwich I had just picked up was getting stale.

I go home and till the garden, admire my little tulips that have poked their heads through the sandy soil.

And now I'm sitting here in my freaking office watching snowflakes fall.

How wrong is that?

To make myself feel better I'm including a picture of the tulips that bloomed on my kitchen table a few weeks ago. Maybe someday soon I will see some of these cuties outside my house.

SPRING IS ALMOST HERE

This week has brought spring fever to our home. It has been in the 60's for the past few days allowing the little one to play outside more. But the best part is that yesterday I spent a few hours in the yard cleaning up all of the winter debre and cutting off all of the dead stuff from plants. While i did that I noticed all of the tulips and daffodiles coming up and other bushes starting to get leaves. It is so exciting!

The really weird thing is that I was too lazy last fall to pull up all of the annual plants Emmi planted in the flower gardens and two kinds are coming back. Her pansies from last year survived our winter and are blooming again and the snap dragons have stared new green growth. I can't wait until we have blooms all over the yard.
Happy almost spring!

CHARITY'S HOMEMADE POT PIE

Because you all asked for it, here it is. I never had a recipe for this, I just made it, but because I have been asked...like a hundred times...for this I finally wrote it down as I cooked and measured things out. So here you go, enjoy!

Charity's Homemade Pot Pie
Makes 1 large Pot Pie
By Charity M.

2 frozen pie crusts in pie tins (or make homemade if you like)
2 Large Chicken Breasts (Cut into bite sized pieces)
1 ½ - 2 Potatoes (Cut into bite sized pieces)
1/3 Cup Chopped Onions
1 16 oz bag Frozen Peas & Carrots
½ Can of Corn with water drained (or Frozen Corn)
2 Cans Cream of Chicken Soup (10.5 oz)
1 stem of Celery, chopped (Optional)
1/8 Cup of Water
Parsley
Salt
Pepper

* Set pie crusts out to thaw.

* Chop Potatoes into bite sized squares and place in a boiling pot of water. Cook until tender. Do not let them get soggy, they still need firmness to them. Drain the water and set aside.

* In a large skillet with a small amount of oil, add chopped Chicken and chopped Onions. When chicken is fully cooked add Water, Celery, Peas, Carrots and Corn. Cook until the vegetables are thawed and tender stirring frequently.

* Stir Cream of Chicken Soup into the vegetable mixture, add parsley, salt and pepper to taste. Cook until the mixture is warm.

* Pour into one of the pie tins then use the second pie crust for the top of the pot pie. Make 2-4 slits in the top for venting.

* Place the pie on a cookie sheet before baking to prevent spillage.

Bake @ 375 degrees
25 minutes (If the filling is still warm when you bake it)
45 minutes (If the pie is refrigerated before cooking)

HAPPY VALENTINES

I've never been a big valentine's day person, Maybe it is because I never seem to have a significant other to celebrate with, or maybe it is because it is a stupid holiday where the stores bank on the notion that men should show the women in their lives how much they mean to them. I think that is called EVERY DAY.

However, every year for the past 5 years I have held a Valentine party for my nieces and nephews. It started out as just a babysitting gig, then as Emmi got older we turned it into a sleepover party. A night when parents could ditch their kids and ummmmmmm, weeeeeell. Do what parents do when their kids are not there.

Every year we have made tie-dye shirts, watched a movie and had fun (afterwards I downed the Tylenol). This year because my back has been giving me fits since October and I didn't think I could handle it, I decided not to do the sleepover.

So last night 6 of my nieces and nephews came over to party. We made fleece blankets, decorated cookies and watched Iron Man. It sure was a fun night.