I'm so ready for summer!!!

I cannot wait to trade in my Uggs for flip flops, wear cute summer sundresses instead of bulky winter coats, and switch over to ICED chais at Starbuck's!

In the meantime, I'll just reminisce about last summer's vacation to Aruba and the pretty pink flowers in our front yard!

Brinner

Breakfast + Dinner = Brinner

I don't know how it originated, but brinner is one of the best inventions EVER! There are so many options for brinner, the possibilities are endless! Pancakes, french toast, omelettes, you name it!

One of our favorite brinners is a concoction of eggs, cheese, sausage and some sort of veggie - usually peppers, but last night I changed things up a bit.

Here's a picture of last night's masterpiece (well, actually the leftovers from last night, which were very yummy the 2nd time around)

No, it's the not the prettiest looking meal I've ever made, and I should have taken a picture when it was still in the casserole dish (note to self), but! It's pretty simple to make, and my husband loves it, which is another plus.

Here's what I used:

-Organic Valley eggs (5 - I only had 5 left in the container, otherwise I might have used 6)

-a dash of organic milk (the S&S kind)

- Hans All Natural Skinless Chicken Breakfast Links (6)

(These can be found at Whole Foods - they come in a package of 14 for about $5)

- Cascasdian Farms Broccoli Cuts (I only used half the bag, so about 8 oz. worth)

(bought at S&S in their Nature's Pride section)

- Shaw's brand Mexican blend shredded cheese (the only shredded cheese I have on hand currently!) I didn't measure this out. I used enough to cover the egg/broccoli/sausage mixture. Next time I'll pay more attention!

And here's how I threw it all together:

-I cooked the sausages over medium heat til they were browned on both sides (about 8-10 mins) While I was doing this, I defrosted the broccoli and cut it up into smaller, bite-sized pieces.

-Using a medium casserole dish (I have no idea how much it holds, but it's oval shaped and has a cover and I love it!) I added the eggs and milk, whisking together.

-I cut up the sausage into pieces, added that and the broccoli to the egg/milk mixture.

-I sprinkled the shredded cheese on top of everything and then cooked it (covered!) in the microwave (yes, you read that right!) for 10 minutes. Well, 8 minutes, actually because I took it out, poked at it with a fork and realized a section of it still hadn't cooked all the way through, so I put it back in for another 2 minutes and it was perfect!

It came out of the microwave very hot, so I let it sit for a minute or 2, then scooped it into a bowl and served it - delish!

I like that it's quick to make, and I usually have all the ingredients on hand. I've never tried it with broccoli - as I said earlier, I tend to make this with peppers - I get the frozen tri colored ones, either from Whole Foods or Trader Joe's. But the broccoli worked just as well - I'm sure you could use other veggies too and probably different meats.

I realize I didn't give a stellar recipe, but I don't always follow recipes and this was just one of those meals that's sort of evolved over the past year.

I hope this is the first of many "experiments" that I blog about too!

Blame it on the..

snow! (you thought I was gonna say rain, right?)

Yes, I'm blaming my lack of blogging on the several feet of snow we've gotten in the past month!

(looking out from the guest bedroom to the backyard..and this isn't even from the most recent snowstorm!)

But really..

I knew I couldn't stay away too long, so I'm back at it, thanks to some motivation from a few fellow bloggers.

Ok, so..where to start

-The half bath is 99% completed.. I haven't been able to finish painting in there, because of the stupid toilet. (The gross yellow one that needs to be replaced ASAP!) I will take updated pictures soon

-I'm realizing that we're sort of in a "house project" lull (again, blaming this on the snow!) but I'm happy to say that all the insulation we put in the attic this past November has helped tremendously with our heating bill and we are nice and toasty! There are a few little projects I'd like to complete over the next few months (mainly decorative projects, like hanging artwork, putting up some shelves, etc) but that's not going to sustain this blog!

Soo..it's time for this blog to undergo a conversion of sorts. I'm going to work on posting not only house updates, but also recipes, money saving tips, random thoughts, and the like.

I'm hoping this will help tide me over until the spring/summer when we can really tackle some large projects like:

-Working to transform our disgusting lawn into a yard worthy of a Scott's Turf Builder ad

-Painting our kitchen cabinets a crisp white

-Possibly painting our ceilings if we feel up to it

-Sand/restain/paint some furniture that's been lying around for awhile

Having said that, I'm about to post a yummy recipe I whipped up for dinner last night, so stay tuned!

When life hands you lemons...

Yesterday the new washing machine got delivered! YAY!

But they couldn't hook it up because of some "plumbing issues!" BOO!

However, as this blog title suggests, sometimes you gotta make something out of nothing..er, lemons.

So instead of doing oodles and oodles of laundry in our fancy pants machine, I started tackling the walls that desperately needed paint.

This is the last room in our house that has yet to be painted (the sunroom off the kitchen has decent walls that we can live with, for now!).

Let's take a walk down memory lane and check out the befores:

(At the inspection)

(Housewarming party)

I've said it before and I'll say it again: It is simply AMAZING what a coat of paint can do!!

(Work in progress!)

(I literally had to hop up on the dryer, swing my feet over the washer, and hop down into that tight space to paint the wall adjacent to the toilet - quite the acrobatic feat!)

I had forgotten how tiresome painting can be - hence the "I'm too tired to finish rolling this little bit of wall!!!"

I'm loving how the light color is making this tiny space feel a whole lot bigger!

I'm also loving that my Dad will be here shortly to finish hooking up our machine and then I can play Laundry Princess for part of the day!! Yippee!!

Another one bites the dust...

And for us, that "one" would be the washing machine..

It came with the house, as did all the other appliances, and it seemed to be in pretty good shape when we moved in 6 months ago:

(This was during the home inspection)

Well, about a week ago, I washed some bathmats and other scatter rugs and apparently the rugs were too heavy and caused the machine to become unbalanced, which then caused it to pull away from the wall. This stretched out one of the hoses and created a semi-large puddle on the floor. When my husband saw this, he immediately thought it was a leak created from the hose.

After pulling it away further to inspect it more thoroughly, he discovered that part of the bottom of the machine was completely corroded:

We talked to my Dad about it, but he said the cost to repair it, plus just having someone come out to look at it, would be about the price of a new machine.

So, even though this wasn't in our financial forecast for 2011, we figured it made sense to just upgrade the machine now and not have to worry about it for at least another 10-15 years

We took a drive down to Sears and found a great machine at a great price (plus we could use our Sears card to get even more of a discount and great financing, and they gave us a rebate to mail in for the cost of the delivery fee - score!)

As of Friday, this baby will be part of the family:

I love that it's going to save water, $$ and get our clothes even cleaner than before!

New Year = New Look

Now that 2011 is officially here (woo hoo!!) I decided it was time to start switching out some of our old furniture. I'd been spying these ottomans at Target for the past several months (and had been patiently waiting to buy them!!) so when I got a few gift cards for Xmas, I knew I could wait no longer:

I love that these have dual functions as a coffee table and ottoman and extra seating when we need it. Sidenote: they are the perfect height for playing the drums in RockBand, so says one of our close friends who tried it out last night at our New Year's Eve party!!

So I switched out our old glass top coffee table - which was really not meshing with the rest of our decor -

and now it looks a little something like...

Oh and they are sooo much easier to move around than our former table, which always seemed to take up a ton of space too.

Now I just pray that our cats don't attack them and claw them to pieces!!!

Don't let the cuteness fool you!!!

Happy New Year everyone!!

Oh, hello blog!

Yikes, it's been over a month since I last posted!

Unfortunately, once December rolled around and the holidays got closer, our projects took a back seat.

But I thought I'd share some photos of how we decorated the house for Christmas

And here are a few from a recent blizzard:

Yup, the snow was up to his knees!

I'm hoping, after the New Year, we'll be able to jump into some more projects, namely, finally painting the downstairs bath, buying new toilets for both bathrooms (yay for a Lowe's giftcard from my sister for Christmas!) and figuring out a plan of attack for painting the kitchen cabinets - a project we'll most likely undertake in the Spring!

And one of my goals for 2011 is to blog more!!