RE-model-ING

we are remodeling. the upstairs LR/hallway/entryway/kitchen. it's kind of a big deal ;). we have been waiting and waiting and he's finally started! here are some before pictures:

(nice cape batman)

behind that wall is the kitchen.

ok so there's some before pictures here are the during pictures:

standing in the kitchen looking out. that half wall is going to be a counter/bar. the LR side will be tall with bar stools for eating and the kitchen side will be a working counter. it will have it's own special counter top material separate from the rest of the kitchen. (please ignore the shotty yellow painting. we painted after everything was installed so it looks pretty special)


here's looking into the kitchen from the office area.

looking into the kitchen from the LR

just another angle. all the floors will be ripped out and replaced with dark hardwood. no more gross carpet! and we bought a couch from macy's that is AMAZING. then that big TV you saw is staying downstairs for the boys' game room and the new smaller flat screen will be hung where the fireplace is now after he takes it out.

and ALL THE WALLS WILL BE PAINTED! i am so excited for this part i have so many ideas but they keep getting shot down by the lady in charge. ugggggggg. it would be spectacular if i could just have my way with the color scheme but that won't happen dangit. i have one of those huge swatch color bricks from sherwin williams. well it's a work in progress. i'm "enjoying" the sound of knocking out walls waking me up in the morning. not. but whatever he's working fast hopefully everything will continue going smoothly

i can only cook so much in a microwave and being cramped downstairs with everyone is a blast haha. maybe.

i also just realized i think i forgot to take before pictures of the kitchen. woops. i'll get in trouble for that one later.

i'll post DONE pictures hopefully sooner rather than later.

p.s. i pretty much carried that TV downstairs BTW, with a little help from my dad but just us two did it. it should have been recorded we had to flip, twist and rotate it several times.

heeeedbands

last week i decided to make my own headbands so i went and bought a few things then started making them. i've decided i cannot pull them off, at all. i look like a loony toon to illustrate that point:

the pic. i took with my phone to send to michelle so she could tell me if i look dumb, she never replied so i take that as a yes. haha

please ignore the bags under my eyes that have their own bags and my crazy bang situation.

i just feel this one makes me look like i have a growth on my head. here is another headband and another pic of the same yellow one:

what i did was found those cheaper little girl fabric headbands at walmart for a few dollars then i glued some ribbon on top. the red one is actually a little girls scrunchy i found in a pack again at walmart. i was going to sew it together to make a little ball type thing. then i decided to just wrap the scrunchy around the headband 3 times so i didn't have to sew anything. the yellow one is from a bunch of flowers i got at michaels and the white leaves are also from some fake plant at michaels that i took apart and layered together.

i feel like if i had better hair i might be able to pull them off a little better but maybe not. if my hair had the ability to curl AT ALL it might help hide the bulkiness of them. anyways maybe i'll try again with some smaller objects. but probably not this week. i have a baby shower on sat. for a friend that i'm planning and my gpa was in the hospital all last week (hence the eye bags) so i might go visit him some more.

here is another project i'm working on:

i don't usually like going to walmart but i was there anyways for shelley and i found a $3 shirt so i'll be re-purposing it for something else. if i ever finish i'll post pictures.

Issues

I'm having issues with stupid blogger. i used a template for my last layout instead of just a background like i usually do. well it messed EVERYTHING UP! i'm so frustrated. i've had these terrible head splitting headaches for the last 2 weeks so i'm not going to figure it out right now. i'll try to fix it later for now i'll just have a dumb blog set up. DON'T download and use your own templates it sucks to figure out how to fix it later on. uggggggggggg i might just go take a 16 hour nap now. maybe even 22 hours if i can get away with it :\ ya right.

Obsessed

I love blogs. I go to blogs way too much. I'm always searching for new ones and today I feel like i hit the JACKPOT! seriously. i was looking for DIY headband ideas so michelle and i can make our own. i came across this blog, Kotori and found an idea for ribbon headbands, not exactly what i was looking for. so i closed out of it and searched again. Well i happened to click back to that site a little later and saw the same thing but this time i started looking around. Let's just say i spent the last 1.5 hours looking through all her posts back to jan. 09....ridiculous. she posts A LOT. recipes, jewelery ideas, DIY projects galore everything from sewing, home decorating just EVERYTHING you could want in a blog. ahhhhh i've added her to my blog list and intend to go a little further into her archives (creepy? weird?). there are so many things i've found that i want to do i'll have to make a list. i'll be making her whole wheat lasagna with spinach at some point soon.

go to her blog please. it's amazing.

Operation: Skinny Jeans

i thought i'd write a little bit about my "wellness challenge" (aka diet) we call it the WC b/c it makes it a little easier..? maybe not. probably not. defiantly not. anyways these are NOT the type of jeans i'm talking about:

i'm not much for the emo-esque vibe i get from skinny jeans but, skinnier jeans is what i'm after. i started the Prism diet the week of Halloween. perfect. awesome time to start a diet. halloween, thanksgiving and christmas all within 2 months, please wait until january to start this madness. it will make your life easier. looking back though i'm so glad i started when i did. i ws loosing weight while everyone else was gaining it (hypothetically). i figure if i could skip eating all the junk at those three major holidays i could do it on a day to day basis. (basics of prism: 1st 6 weeks, no white or wheat flour, no sugar, no potatoes 1000 cals a day. next 6 weeks: add in 3 portions of potatoes a week, 2 slices of whole wheat bread a day and 3 sugar free desserts a week. next 6 weeks: add in whole wheat pasta still staying within the 1000 cal range)

i'm happy to say, i didn't cheat once...until christmas eve when i had a piece of bread the pratt's brought over. i thought one little piece of it wouldn't hurt. welllll i was up a large portion of the night feeling like i had a stone lodged in my intestine (sorry if that's a poor image) it was terrible i promised i wouldn't cheat again if it was going to make me feel like that. the next day we had family over for ham and company potatoes, i did eat a lot and the potatoes i ate had stuff i probably shouldn't have had so i made friends with the big box of alkaseltzer. so i've made my final decision: it's not worth it! if something that i was eating every day can cause me to feel like that, it's probably not the best thing to eat. someone told me one time that they used white flour to make glue when she was younger i've decided even though i want a flaky melt in my mouth croissant, i DON'T want it sticking to my insides.

since the end of october i've lost about 35 lbs. i haven't checked in about two weeks so hopefully i'm still on the right track. i really wasn't able to tell, still can't really but i'm down a size in jeans and a size in shirts(or more). none of my old pants fit right anymore they hang off and i walk around like erkel all day when i wear them. anyways this was more of an update for me to keep me motivated. i have a ways to go still but i'm glad i'm finally acting on something i've talked about for a few years. if i can do it, YOU can do it. trust me. i loved me some bread and sweets believe me! no more though. it's a happy and sad thing but more happy.
Operation Skinny (but not in the ankle skinny) Jeans can continue.

i like to knit, knit, knit...(& crochet)

quick weird sidenote: after i got home from babysitting 2 weekends ago my parents had gone to an antique shop and found me a kodak brownie camera!! about a month ago we were up in lynden and i found one but it was 25 bucks so i put it back this one they got for 12! i use it as a bookend on my new cube bookcase


ironically it's holding up my photography books, some of them anyways.


this is a granny square blanket i am making for my grandpa's b-day which is this month. (P.S. where did this month go?!!!) i'm not a huge fan of the colors i decided it looks really fallish. hopefully he'll like it. i still have 2 more rows to stitch on there.


for the last two weeks my mom, her friend and i went to a knitting class on friday. i chose to learn how to cable knit and my mom did fair isle knitting. here's my hat close up:

i actually made two hats for the class i started the little blue on on friday and finished it on sat. then started the purple one on tues and finished it thurs. i just cast on another blue hat to be kids size last night.

i bought the knit simple book after the last class on friday and i have about 12 projects in there i want to do.

they might include leg warmers

fingerless gloves

and an earflap fair isle hat

....there are some projects in the crochet book i want to do to but i figure i should get "real life" stuff done first.

i've babysat for the past two full weekends but this last saturday i had some time to take photo's for the wilson family here's a link to some of the pictures: Wilson Family Pics

i'm trying to come up with a pricing sheet for people but it's hard work maybe someday i'll get it done.

well i have to start on my day i guess. i don't really have much motivation i wish i could buy some.

Adventures in Babysitting

this weekend i babysat friday-monday. i've been babysitting for this family for a VERY long time. the oldest is 9 going to be 10 and i think i've babysat since he was one or two. wow i'm old. anyways their parents went on a fun trip and left me with the kids. it was actually one of the better weekends i've watched them. everyone behaved for the most part and we had lots of fun. i didn't start documenting our adventure until saturday night though. i forgot i had my camera.
so friday night after camreee got home we read some books and hung out then it was already time for bed.
saturday morning we woke up (at 5:45 haha) and had breakfast, got dressed and they practiced and did their chores then we left for swim lessons. after swim we went home and ate lunch then had quiet time- reading, board games etc..., then paino lessons for all three and violin lessons for one. by the time lessons were done and they had each practiced one more time it was time for dinner so we went to subway got a footlong for them to share and went to my house to play the wii for a little bit. they played wii resort and mario kart. after wii it was time to go home and that's when our pictures start:
they wanted dessert so i promised them a small mug of hot chocolate with whipped cream and sprinkles when we got home:



he was trying to make it levitate

the next morning was sunday. the kids decided they didn't think they could sit through church conference which was 2 hours long so we stayed home in our pj's all day. it was sooo fun. they had breakfast:

(this is just going to be sideways i'm too annoyed at blogger to fix it.) i was pretty proud of myself. i burned the eggs to nolans liking (he loves burned eggs) although i did "convert" camree to liking unburned fluffy good eggs :).

after breakfast the kids started practicing their songs and started bringing blankets and pillows out to lay on and have story time. we got all cuddly on the floor and read some books. the cat loved my pillow.


nolan practicing his sweet skillz while the girls and i made the blanket "fort"

after lunch we baked cookies! they couldn't decide which kind they wanted m&m or chocolate chips so we did both :)

everyone had their own part. nolan did the wet ingredients.

brooklyn did the dry.

camree did the candy

i used the recipe on the back of the bag (which i never do) and they turned out kind of sticky woops. should have added more flour.

while the cookies were baking they watched a noah's ark movie since it was church related. then played house on the blankets while i made the dough for our homemade pizza. we cleaned up the living room before dinner then i had the kids roll their dough out and make it however they wanted:

we didn't have many choices for toppings though. mine was a salad pizza and theirs were cheese or chicken and cheese

saying cheeeeeeeeese pizzzzzzzzzzza!

after dinner i didn't feel very good (since i haven't eaten pizza since october) so they played skipbo and i watched.
after skipbo they wanted to play sorry. while they were getting set up camree fell backwards and bumped her head on the coffee table. luckily she caught herself so she didn't hit very hard but it still scared her. so we strapped some peas to her head and she started laughing her head off.

well about this time is when i started to think how great that day had been then we had a little breakdown. brooklyn accidentaly knocked some pieces off the board and everyone got upset at each other and cried a little. after people had settled down we talked about it and they worked it out. then we got out picturika!

we decided to not play for points but for fun so nobody would get upset and it worked surprisingly well. each kid was in charge of a different color deck of cards and we had fun.
then it was story time and bed time.

brooklyn the next morning playing eye replacement doctor with camree...haha
we had a lot to do this morning so they had breakfast, practiced and got ready. made their beds and picked up their rooms a little then i took them into town to see Alvin and the Chipmunks the squeakal. i promised them on friday when we talked about our weekend that i would take them to the museum or a movie on monday if they all got along and did the things they were supposed to without being asked a thousand times and it worked!! the museum was closed unfortunately we wanted to go there but the movie was good too they liked it.

after we got home we tried to sync up our DS's to play one round of sorry! together but mine's a DSi so it didn't work. then we decided it was way too nice to play inside so we stopped playing 4 minutes later and played hide and seek outside with the neighbors. we were out there for about 2 hours then we came in and 5 minutes later their parents got home! it was a very good weekend it's fun now that they're older and we can play games and do fun things. i slept a lot last night haha they wore me out a little bit. probably had something to do with the 5 hrs of sleep i got the first night and the raging wind the last night that kept me up but it was fun.

Cauliflower+Feta+Walnuts=YUMMM

if your name is Anita, do no proceed :) jk you can if you want...
i was going to take photos of the making of this dish but forgot so i borrowed the pic. the only thing i didn't use in mine was the pasta. pasta has flour and i can't have whole wheat pasta for a few more weeks :( but i thought it was marvelous without the pasta anyways.
anyways. i've made this recipe several times in the past and since i've been on this diet i've had a rough time figuring out healthy GOOD flavorful meals to eat. i can't believe i didn't think of this one sooner!
i didn't calculate it out but without the pasta i don't think it has hardly any calories at all and it's so filling. here's the recipe:

2 heads cauliflower
1 medium onion
4 cloves garlic
1 pound whole-wheat pasta
Extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper
1 pinch red pepper flakes
White wine vinegar
1/2 lemon
1/2 cup toasted walnuts
4 ounces ricotta salata or feta cheese
Put a large pot of water on to boil. Cut the cauliflower into small flowerets. Peel the onion and slice it very thin. Peel and finely chop the garlic. Put the pasta on to cook.
Saute the cauliflower in olive oil in a large saute pan. When the cauliflower begins to soften, season with salt and pepper and add the sliced onion and red pepper flakes. Saute over medium to high heat until the vegetables are brown and tender. The cauliflower should still be slightly crunchy and should not taste steamed. Add the garlic and remove from the heat, tossing and stirring so the garlic doesn’t burn; if it starts to brown, add a splash of water. Add a few drops each of vinegar and lemon juice and the toasted walnuts. Taste and correct the seasoning. When the pasta is done, drain and add to the cauliflower, adding enough extra-virgin olive oil to coat the pasta thoroughly, toss together and serve, with the cheese crumbled over the dish.


oh my word this is delicious. actually now that i'm thinking about it i may have already posted this recipe before....i'll check on that but i guess it deserves to be re posted :). it really is so good and i always add a little more than one pinch of red pepper flakes b/c i like it more spicy and we have some really good pepper flakes from teaquent stop here in b'ham.

p.s. please add LOTS of feta. i just love feta. even though it smells like diaper it tastes SOO good. trust me. also i dice my onion very small so i don't know they're in there, i'm not a fan of chunky onions. nosiree.

p.p.s. to toast your walnuts just put them in a dry pan on fairly low heat and keep moving them around so they don't burn. i had a few causalities last night i had to throw away.

thanks smitten kitchen for your always amazing recipes!!

EDIT:

so i went through my archives and realized i am so weird. well that was the first thing i noticed the other thing was i name my blog's weird names so i don't know if i ever posted that recipe before. i vaguely remember writing about it though. hmmm. during my archive adventure i copied some links from old recipes i love and thought i'd post to share the wealth.

fruit flower bouquet- great for babyshowers or other such events

spinach smoothie- be jealous

chicken pizza- 2 different ways

red shredded chicken- yum!

breakfast cookies- favorite "healthy" cookies

chandrans chicken curry- AMAzing!

so there's some homecooking inspiration for you (and for me) i forgot about some of these posts. well now i'm off to grind some whole wheat to make pizza dough for dinner (first time i'll have eaten pizza in 3 months. it won't be like regular pizza but same difference)

#33

So i accomplished one of my goals today. it's hard to classify finishing a goal like this though because it's more of an ongoing thing but i did it for the first time today. i gave money to a lady on the side of the street. it wasn't a significant amount of money but her sign said she was struggling, not homeless. so hopefully it helps a little bit.
it was funny because i had been shopping at target with shelley and we were leaving the mall. i handed shelley the money and rolled her window down to hand it to the lady. after she gave her the money and we were driving away shelley couldn't stop talking about "that woman" she called her. i don't think shelley paid any attention to her sign but she kept saying that woman needs help. she was happy that she gave her money. i thought it was cool that she recognized that she helped someone. well one down 33 more to go.

2010 Goals.

First off I've decided to say two thousand ten instead of twenty ten...just to get that out of the way haha.
on sunday we learned about goals in young womans. i remember having lessons about goals when i was younger but for some reason this lesson made me want to be serious about my goals this year. maybe it's because I'm older and need to finally get serious about life. i feel like i've been skating by the last few years and i'm not too proud of that. we learned that goals should be smart:
S - specific, significant, stretching
M - measurable, meaningful, motivational
A - agreed upon, attainable, achievable, acceptable, action-oriented
R - realistic, relevant, reasonable, rewarding, results-oriented
T - time-based, timely, tangible, trackable
so when i made up my list of goals i wanted them to fall under these categories and for the most part i think i did a good job i just need to focus on them and maybe if i do focus this year i'll actually have something to show for my life haha.
this might be a pretty boring post but it's more for me anyways and i don't think anyone really reads this anyways.
let's get on to it (these are in no particular order BTW)

2010 Goals:

1. learn to quilt

2. crochet an article of clothing other than a scarf or hat

3. write in my journal letters book

4. exercise in some way 3-4x's a week

5. Continue doing Prism diet

6. learn to cook some cool new things from other countries

7. come up with my own recipes (healthy)

8. blog more on both blogs

9. make knitted socks

10. keep myself & my room organized and clutter free (big one)

11. don't spend money so carelessly (got in a habit the last few months...bad news bears)

12. refinance my car in just my name

13. be more compassionate

14. use less sarcasm (this might be hardest!)

15. meet new people and make new friends

16. complete project 365

17. get a handle on my issues (ocd, anxiety etc...)

18. Visit Michelle in ID. and my uncle's family in UT.

19. Go to Russia (this might be put off until 2011)

20. be a more relaxed driver i'm too tense

21. finish my photography classes or get a big chunk of them done

22. be a better photographer and take risks

23. do something nice for somebody randomly

24. be a better visiting teacher

25. read the Book of Mormon straight through no skipping and jumping around

26. pick a Bible story a study it until i know it real well then pick another

27. collect vintage cameras (just go to more antique stores in general)

28. redecorate my room

29. get a life

30. do something spontaneous (ex: road trip, pick a place out of a hat and fly there)

31. read more

32. be a better friend

33. give $ to a homeless person on the side of the street (i realized it's not my place to judge them)

34. delete music from my ipod that isn't the best

so that's what i have so far for this year i feel like it might be too much but it can be something that i work on not just for 2010 but 2011 too :). well good luck with any goals you may have set i know i'll need luck and determination.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!