More of the house....

This is looking into the kitchen from the hallway. To the right is the office. I can stand at the sink and talk to everyone in the livingroom.
This is our woodstove. You can't see it from the pictures, but there is a brick in the wall from the church where we were married. It was torn down to make more room.
Notice the blank wall? I can't decide what I want to put there. The antique buffet is from an estate auction. Yes, those are rabbit ears...no cable or satellite here.
My pretty gaucamole cabinets!! I have old spoons to put on them for door pulls. My dh just hasn't done it yet....arrrggghhh. They are very difficult to open without handles.

My House....Entrance, Hall, Powder Room

This is my entrance. The front door was our splurge. The lighting is what set the decorating tone of the house. I bought six of those lights for $8.00 each on clearance. Once I got the lights all the other decorating themes just fell into place.
This is looking down the hallway from the entrance. The powder room is at the end of the hall. The three closed doors are closets. The open door is to the teens' room.
This is my bargain vanity. I got it at Lowe's 1/2 price...$250.00. I later found out it wasn't even supposed to be on clearance, it was a special order item for $498.00!!! Woohoo, it was my lucky day. The mirror is an antique w/ glass shelves...it comes from my husband's side of the family.

Dinner Tonight....

Tonight, we will be having Chicken Spaghetti.....no, it does not have a tomato base.

Chicken

Velveeta

Cream of Mushroom

Sauteed onions & garlic

Spaghetti Noodles (cooked in the chicken broth)

Topped w/ crumbled Ritz crackers

Mix together and bake covered w/ foil at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

There is never any leftover, so I couldn't tell you if it is good as a leftover....ba haaaaaa.

Flea Market Finds

I had nothing better to do today than go "Flea Marketing". Ok, so I am stretching the truth....as I sit in the kitchen looking at the dirty dishes.







I love Pampered Chef stoneware and stumbled upon the round deep dish baker for......$6.00!! It was brand new! I also found some pretty floral pictures for my bedroom. Since moving into this house, I have very little on my walls.

I have an old yellow utility cart that my sister gave to me. I found a pink one today that would look awesome somewhere in my house for $17.50. I did not get it though....I am blogging about it so I will remember to go back and get it.

My daughter wants to get into the cake decorating business...at least at this very moment she does. It was her lucky day today. I found a wedding cake tier thingy...you put the cake on. It has columns and holds a big round cake and a little round cake. It was $3.00 at the thrift store. At a flea market, I found two heart shaped cake pans for $2.00 each.

The freakiest thing happened today also. I was commenting to a friend about the old pictures in flea markets, "Wouldn't it be weird to actually know someone in these pictures?" Well, guess what? I opened a drawer of an end table and it was full of pictures of my 9th grade science teacher. It was like her whole life pictures of just her. I don't think she ever married or had children. I'm not even sure she is still alive. The pictures spanned from baby to about when I had her as a teacher. This is the teacher that everyone would make fun of....she was just different. She collected rocks and cherished them. Kids would purposely drop them and break them when she would pass them around the room. It was really sad. Then here I am staring at her life in pictures. She was very beautiful as a young girl and woman. I believe something happened along the way. She was very elegant and then went to very plain Jane. Well, Ms. Stivers, wherever you are, I'm sorry if I ever did anything to make you think less of yourself and your abilities.

Social Friday

I thought I'd post about something our homeschool group started this year. It is called Social Friday. We noticed that anytime our group got together, it was structured. Even if we went to the zoo, it had some structure to it. So, we rent a building that is designed for use by children for three hours. There is a gym with volleyball. There are also pool tables, foosball tables, air hockey tables and board games. Once a month, we all meet there and just play and talk. We are not allowed to "plan" anything that requires knowing how many will be there.

If we want to do an "activity" such as a craft, we can post on the email loop what we want to do and then give a supply list for others to bring if they want to participate. It is up to each individual whether they want to have "structure". We charge $25 for the school year and that money goes towards the missions of the building. We also get a tax deduction. Each family also has to plan and carry out one other activity that doesn't interfere with Social Friday. So far, it has been a great success. I know my youngest now puts it on her calendar so she won't forget it. Thanks to M. for such a great idea!!

Pizza was Good!!!

Woo Hoo! The pizza was great. It wasn't great because the recipe was great. It was great because my oldest daughter MADE THE PIZZA!!! Any meal I don't have to cook is WONDERFUL!! She used a crust mix that we already had in the back of the refrigerator....from a previous whim. I forgot to tell her about the bell peppers, so we had sausage (Blue & Gold) with onions. She did an awesome job. Thank you Carly!!! I love you!!

What's for Dinner?

We are having homemade sausage, onion, green pepper pizza. I found an "easy" recipe on http://www.allrecipes.com/ for a crust. We have meetings tonight and I sure hope it is really easy. I'll let you know if it works out as easy as the hundreds of reviews say. I also need to mention Aldi's grocery store. If you have one near you, I'd encourage you to check it out. I can usually get a week's worth of groceries for my family of five for around $50.00. Of course you have to have a quarter for your grocery cart and you sack your own groceries. You do get the quarter back when you take your cart back. This really eliminates coming outside to find a cart scratching up your car. The store is usually very clean, unlike other sack your own grocery stores I've visited.

A Very Stormy Night

I didn't get much sleep last night due to a freaky January storm blowing through. I swear my husband CAN sleep through anything. We built a house and have only been living in it three months. I never worried so much during storms in the old house. In this house, I'm stressed by every little storm. I guess I should mention that it only took two weeks to have to make an insurance claim on the house due to another storm that blew through unexpectantly. I just went outside to look around and it looks like mostly tree branches...which were loose from the ice storm we had about a month ago. It also looks like we have several new "ponds" around the place. I hope this isn't a precursor of what is to come this spring.

Oh the fun of shopping!

I can't imagine what it was like dressing up to go grocery shopping. I am excited that farmer's markets are making a huge come-back. Maybe, just maybe one day I'll get all fancied up and go to the farmer's market. I wonder what kind of looks I'll get....ba haaaaaaa. I do good to put on make-up before leaving the house....who am I kidding? I love looking at vintage photos. I wish I could just frame them all and put them all over my house.

Happy New Year and Happy Wedding

I guess the entire family is going to get this sickness....and on top of that, I heard that this thing tends to make a comeback....aaaakkkkk. I firmly believe that Mucinex is a gift from God! My beautiful neice, Valerie got married last night. Pretty much the entire bride's side coughed all the way through the ceremony. I tried to stifle my cough one time and got choked and created a much louder choking noise than if I would have just coughed. Thank goodness she didn't videotape the wedding.....they wouldn't have heard a thing! If Valerie reads this......I wish you all the love in the world. You had such a beautiful wedding...right up my alley....simple, yet elegant. You were beautiful! Mrs. McClure......hmmmm, sounds so old.....I love you!