Fall decorating

I've got the fall bug, for sure.  We finished the kitchen update several days ago and I knew the deep cleaning would be done today.  Last night my dreams were full of fall decorating ideas and I could hardly wait for day light to get started.

I've packed away a good bit of the items we've collected over the years and put another sizable group of things aside for a garage sale.  As I started with the staging today I decided to challenge myself to use only things rediscovered as I was packing.  

I began in the center section on the 9 foot shelf across the top of the sink.  I decided the strongest color statement would go there.  I used some mismatched wine glasses from a  Christmas decoration project several years ago to hoiste up some candles that I attached fall leaves to using raffia.  They were too light against the Antique White paint so after several options failed to meet my expectations I went to the game closet and pulled out a checker board.  Some Halloween pumpkins turned backward for fall finished off the center section.

To the left is a large wooden bowl hubs carved for me many years ago (I just love the wood projects he makes by hand!), an old oil can and a black sprayed frame filled with raffia and a fall leaf. Easy peasie...

To the right is a replica garden gate, Apple cake plate and another treasured wooden bowl hubs made.  :)

Over the fridge is my sewing basket dressed up with some turkey feathers  and two laterns from hubs collection. 

 

Kitchen reveal



I love this scale we found in Elliott's Hardware Store

 

Hooray, the kitchen is done!  I spent most of yesterday deep cleaning after all the painting was done.  I am still new to using my Nikkon D3100 and haven't quite figured out how to avoid the unatural light that occurs indoors, so imagine the walls over the counters are the same Glidden semi gloss Antique White as the ceiling and the walls over the and around the fridge are Glidden's semi gloss Sandbar.  The cabinets are a very dark brown that really do appear almost black. You can see more of the complete project on the DIY One Year Project page.

The other side of the room looks like this (the colors are pretty true in this photo):

The small door next to the fridge is the pantry. 

The double doors open into the laundry closet.

Click here to see close ups of the decorations!

Here is the "BEFORE"

link up parties

Happy Hour Projects

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Picture Perfect 8

How to salvage a sauce gone wrong

I have a very artistic and talented daughter in law.  She is not afraid to try making or doing anything.  This weekend she decided to try making an Apricot glazed pork roast.  Sounds delicious, yes?  She pulled out a cook book and began putting it together, except I guess I kept distracting her by  talking too much.  When I looked at her funny as she began to add a bottle of vinegar, she hesitated and gave me a questioning look.  I asked, how much vinegar does it call for?  She said, 12 oz, that's about how much is in this bottle.  Hmmm.  Okay.

She poured it all in and started adding the other ingredients.  It began to smell pretty good, except you can imagine what I was still thinking about so much vinegar.  After it had been boiling for a while, she wondered out loud if it would taste good.  I boldly suggested she taste it.  I just about fell out of my chair laughing when she caught her breath and started coughing from the strong vinegar taste!  It was hysterical.  She looked a bit surprised and when she rechecked the recipe book... realized she had been combining two recipes and had read 12 ounces apple cranberry juice as 12 ounces of vinegar and missed the 1 tablespoon wine vinegar.  After a good side splitting laugh fest, we began to figure out how to salvage the sauce.  With a LOT of brown sugar and boiling it down until it reduced to a thicker liquid it tasted pretty good.  A lot like a sweet and sour sauce off a China buffet. The men didn't know any difference and raved over her sauce during dinner.  So, now, she is going to write up her recipe as an original by default. 

You can find the original recipe in the Better Homes & Garden Cookbook for a Rhubarb-Glazed Pork Roast followed by an Apricot-Glazed Pork Roast.  Just substitute about 4 cups frozen apricots for the rhubarb, skip the frozen apple cran berry juice concentrate and wine vinegar, add a bottle of vinegar, skip down to the apricot recipe and pick up with the lime juice, soy sauce, fresh ginger, then add a box of brown sugar to salvage it and boil until it is thick.  [if you're brave]

1929 Cook Book

I love cook books, don't you?  I buy them because they entice me, for wedding gifts, for "luv you" gifts and for no reason at all!  I haven't counted them, but there are more than two very large plastic bins full.  I know this because we have been preparing our house for market, packing up the clutter.  Clutter.  That is practically an insult to my beloved cook books! [scowl]

I brought one bin full in to my mom's a couple of weeks ago to allow my sister and our girls to look through them.  We all share a love for cook books. [satisfied smile]  This particular bin held two of my favorites.  The first is a Better Homes & Garden Cook book I received from my dear Aunt for a wedding gift in 1970.  It is tattered and torn and scribbled in from use.  The first page I have written a note to my oldest grand daughter.  She asked to have it when I part from it or from this earth.  On page 148 is a sugar cookie recipe.  The note beside it says 7/8/2006 tea party with Grandad and the invitation we made together for her to present to him is there. [nostalgic sigh].

The second book is one my mother in law gave me.  It is a Good House Keeping book that was not sold, but given as promotions with magazine subscriptions.  It is a 1928 8th edition.  I brought these two books back home with me.  I couldn't bear to put them in storage, so I plan to pass them to my BG Grand and my daughter the very next time they come over.  [happy dance]

Some 1929 Recipes

Apple Fritters

2 medium-sized sour apples

Batter mixture

Powdered sugar

Pare, core and cut apples in eighths.  Cut in slices and add to batter.  Drop by spoonfuls and fry in deep fat. Then roll in powdered sugar.  (I added a little cinnamon and cut the apple in tiny chunks.  The larger pieces were a bit too crisp in the final product)

Banana Fritters

4 bananas

2 teaspoonfuls lemon juice

Powdered sugar

Batter mixture

Peel, scrape and cut bananas in halves, lengthwise, Then  cut in two pieces, crosswise.  Sprinkle with powdered sugar and lemon juice.  Let stand thirty minutes.  Drain, dip in batter, and fry in deep fat.

Batter:

1 cupful flour

1 1/2 teaspoonfuls baking powder

3 tablespoonfuls powdered sugar

1/4 teaspoonful salt

1/3 cupful milk

1 egg

Mix and sift dry ingredients.  Combine milk and egg well beaten and add to dry ingredients, while eating constantly. 



Aging Terracotta

And disposing of chemicals

The kitchen cabinets are finished.  A beautiful change from light walnut to a dark espresso stain.  Now what to do about the paint brush and cleaning fluid?  I read up on safe disposal and  our city recycling rules.  It's not easy to get rid of old paint, stain and cleaning liquids.  I used a minimal amount of mineral spirits in an old glass jar to dilute the stain off the paint brush.  That worked pretty well.  But now...there is that 1/2 Cup of mineral spirit dark with stain.  It actually didn't take me long to come up with a solution.  I looked out the kitchen window at a number of terracotta pots that could use some help.  I used the brush  to give a stain bath to some terracotta pots.  I really quite like the affect, even the drippy texture, so, decided to share this little trick with you.  When I had used up  all the liquid and the brush was no longer filled with stain, I washed the brush out with warm soapy water per instructions on the mineral spirit can.  Now I'm wondering if I made a purposeful batch of this super thin stain and mopped it on my concrete patio, how would that look?  And I wouldn't have to store the left over stain in the garage... hmmm.

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Under The Table and Dreaming

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What's Inside?

Great Grand dropped by today for a visit (with his daddy, of course!)  Because we've been painting the kitchen ceiling, everything is a bit of a mess and in the den.  The very curious 2 year old found a lot of things formerly out of his reach to investigate.  He was a bit disappointed with the empty cookie jar :0(  so tonight I'll be baking and filling it up with some of those yummy Rolo cookies BG Grand made on her visit a couple weeks ago.  You can get the easiest recipe for the most delicious cookies here.

Special moments

I love a day filled with special moments.  I shall get back to identifying special moments for myself every day, it reminds me of how wonderful life truly is.

The termite inspector had good news today.  No bugs!  We re-instated our service plan and thanked our lucky stars for the great news.  Before he had even left our house our lovely big girl grand stopped by.  We celebrated our good fortune with ice cream sandwiches and decided to go on a girl shopping afternoon.  We drooled over the beautiful things and I bought some deliciously scented coconut banana soap at World Market before we headed to the mall.  We shared some little slider burgers and white chocolate macadamia cheesecake (wish I'd thought to take a photo!) at the Cheesecake Factory before going to the movies.  We watched the sweet story of "The Unusual Life of Timothy Green".  I love the relationship I have with big girl grand and relish the moments I get to spend with her.  It was a good day.

What special moment did you get to enjoy today?

Junk decorating

One of my brothers and his wife are very eclectic and have wonderful old finds decorating their ranch style home.  I didn't ask what this cone shaped bucket is for, but I love how she coupled it with that FAMILY sign outside their barn.  She also has a cute junk garden next to her driveway with a re purposed wood flag I envy. 

One day soon I will take some photos to share of their newly added master bedroom suite.  It is an amazing work of art with old wood, tin, tile and .... oh, you will love it.

Photo glimpses of 8/2-8/13

FMS Photo a Day 8/2-13.  Because life is my vacation and I've been vacationing away from my computer, here are photo's for the past 11 days.

8/13  Simple.
Cowboy ingenuity at it's best.

8/12 Spoon.
Found these two spoons on a playground today.  Some body's momma is going to be m.a.d.

8/9 Messy
(but delicious according to little grand)

8/8 Glasses. They bring things into focus for me!

8/7. 8:00 PM

A dozen drops of rain, but a bit of rainbow was rewarded any way!

8/6 Writing
My favorite cook book is well used.  Since receiving it for a wedding gift in 1970, I have made many things in it and left many notes for my oldest grand daughter who asked for it when I'm gone.  I even left the little invitation she & I made for a tea party with her grandad when she was a very young girl.

8/5 Logo
The United States Patent logo on mugs presented to my hubs. 
He has several!

8/4 Somewhere I sat

8/2 One.
Sorry, mom, I didn't know you planned to make a cake and needed more than one egg...

Life is a vacation

I have not been on a vacation but I HAVE been enjoying life like I am on vacation!  Following retirement in June, we have been steadily making improvements to our home of over 30 years preparing to put it on the market.  (more on that on my DIY year long project page).  I put down the paint brush 2 weeks ago to spend some time with my 81 year old mom.

I picked up the little grands (5 & 1) and took them with me to mom's country home.  My daughter in law deserved the break as well!  The little grands kept mom and me entertained.  My home town annual rodeo kicked off our fun despite the 114 F. heat.  A local western wear shop helped the kids create personalized rodeo t-shirts.  There were short visits to the barn yard to feed the horses, early morning picniks, outdoor playtime with sidewalk chalk and late evenings watching the Bull Bat birds swoop through the sky after insects.   Inside activities included drawing, painting, tin can robot building, play dough, sheet/bedspread tents, baking and stick horse racing.

We passed several of these on the highway near my mom's.  They are HUGE!

This is where those huge propellers end up.  A wind farm that stretches for miles outside Vernon, Texas.

Calling to the horses

This is what shows up on your camera when left within reach of a 5 yr old!



When summer heat reaches 114 F, playground time starts with an early morning breakfast picnik.
The menu:  ego waffles, sausage sticks, apple slices, Juicy Juice, and the all important WATER!
There were 4 wonderful slides, climbing walls, a climbing dome and balance beams.  Little Girl Grand spent a lot of time on the beams, we had been wathcing the Olympics all week.

Once in a "BLUE MOON" happens when there are 2 full moons in a month.
This is a blue moon.

How do you deal with extreme heat or cold and young people?