I've watched "White Christmas" - the season can begin

Let's pretend the previous post was yesterday's.  There.  That was a good post yesterday, huh?

The gifts are all wrapped and under the tree.  Last year I faked it and just threw many gifts in bags.  If a gift was actually wrapped all I did was stick a bow on the front and call it good.  This year I decided that all the gifts should be tied with ribbon and the ribbon should then be curled and cut.  It took me probably a total of 6 hours to do, but I'm happy with the result.  Part of the anticipation is unwrapping the gift.  If it just takes one second flat to do it then what's the fun in that?

I feel like my Christmas tree could use more "oomph" at the top.  I'll have to see about that next year.  Maybe.  I really am not someone who needs to way overdo everything when it comes to decorating.  I enjoy it, but I don't shop for my home very often (or ever).  I think everyone has something that they feel pretty crazy to spend money on and, for me, that's home decor.  I'd rather have a new shirt or, better yet, buy clothes for Millie.

Speaking of decor and Millie, I bought her a stocking.  It's a technicality, really.  We aren't ever here at our house for the holidays so I don't know that her stocking will even be used except for looks.  I forgot to get one for her last year so I bought her a really sweet heirloom needlepoint stocking from L.L. Bean just a couple of weeks ago.

And just for the fun of it, here's her First Christmas ornament from last year.  I love it.

I love looking at photos of the babies from a year or more ago.  I can't believe how much they've changed in what seems like a short amount of time.  Here they are on 11/29/09 (l to r:  Kate, Anna, Amelia):

 And here they are on 11/27/10 (in the same order, only Caleb [6] and Ben [4 months - my sister, Carrie's, 3rd] are sandwiched between them:

How time flies!  The girls are starting to play with each other more and getting into the territorial phase.  Amelia is the youngest - she's almost 18 months.  Anna is the oldest of the girls at 20 months and Kate is 19 months.

I think that does it for me tonight. 

Happy Wednesday!

In the Bedroom

I don't know what's happening, but the list of blogs on my page won't refresh which means I don't have a clue who has updated recently.  My not seem all that important unless you're sitting in a dark living room with your husband who is playing Xbox and it's either sit there and watch him play or catch up on your blog-reading. 

David and I bought our laptops at almost the exact same time.  We weren't even dating yet.  In my little mind we were good friends and we really liked spending time with each other.  Meanwhile, the more time we spent together, the more he liked me and wanted to date me.  But that's another story for another time.

Our engagement photo. 

Wedding guests signed the mat and now it hangs in our bedroom.

Anyway, we bought our computers in August of 2005.  I only know this because of when David and I started our friendship (July 2005) and when we started dating (September 2005).  My point is that, in laptop years, our computers are old.  Way over the hill.  As a matter of fact, mine is literally falling apart and David's doesn't even keep a charge anymore unless the cord is held just a certain way which requires it to be held down underneath the computer and tilted just so on the table.  Once, a couple of years ago, we had a guy come to our house to give us an estimate on what it would cost to replace the aluminum windows on our house with vinyl.  He was an older man, and I remember feeling sorry for him that he had to spend his post-retirement years driving around being a salesguy.  I tried to stay as uninvolved in the bidding price as possible, but they still won't do a bid unless the spouse is in the room so I had to be in the vicinity, pretending to listen.  I was sitting in an overstuffed chair across from where I would usually sit on the couch, my laptop perched on my legs which were folded under me.  My laptop was plugged in because, as I remember, it was almost out of battery power.  Only problem was that it was plugged in over by the couch where I usually sat and this poor old man decided to walk to the bay window in our living room without watching where he was going.  He tripped on the cord and my laptop went flying.  Luckily, the old man was okay if not a little embarassed (as was I), but my laptop suffered a couple of minor casualties.  Among them, a piece of plastic broke off the corner on top of the laptop and the portable USB adapter (my laptop is so old that it doesn't have a USB drive) bent and was never the same.

My corner of the room. 

I was so proud of myself for picking out and deciding where those shelves should go. 

Notice we don't have window treatments.  Sigh.

Not to bore you with our laptop woes, but my laptop is incredibly slow and doesn't hold a charge for longer than 20 minutes.  David's hasn't held a charge for quite a while, but only recently has he had to finagle the cord a certain way to even get battery power to his computer.  I'm pretty sure his battery is gone. 

So, in November we bought a PC.  I went back and forth about whether I actually wanted a PC or a laptop, but in the end we decided on a PC because of how much it would store compared to a laptop.  We need the space because we are parents.

David's grandma B made this for me and I absolutely love it.  It fits between the box spring and mattress to hold magazines, notes, whatever!  I'm so glad I don't have to keep my magazines on the floor anymore.

I did fight where David wanted to put it:  in our bedroom.  Our bedroom is so ghetto-fabulous right now.  We have, literally, 3 different styles of furniture in our bedroom and 7 pieces of furniture.  My husband has a lot of clothes.  He actually wears the same rotation of about 8-10 shirts and 3 pairs of pants, but he keeps 80% more clothes than that "just in case".  Just in case of what, I don't know.  But anyway, the desk joined the Bedroom of Misfit Furniture and is now happily residing squished in here with everything else.  We are a Realtor's nightmare.  The simple truth is that there wasn't another logical place to put the desk & computer.  The desk used to sit idly in the upstairs guest bedroom, collecting old issues of Real Simple and acting as a catch-all for whatever our guests decided to put on it.  We couldn't put the computer in a guest room - it might be a little rude to barge in on guests when they're staying here so that I can check Facebook or write a blog.  I mean, I'm no etiquette expert - I'm just guessing.

The desk. 

The bows and clippies I've made hanging tackily on the wall.  I need a designer or something.

It's not a bad desk.  I have dreams of sanding it down, painting it, and replacing the knobs but it's a family desk and I am not allowed.  Same goes for the dresser and nightstand that match.  So, I learn to appreciate the charm of a mismatched room. 

I've been sitting here trying to figure out why, A) Blogger keeps turning my right-side-up pictures sideways when I upload them (annoying!), and B) How to add captions to pictures in Blogger.  Too frustrated to keep messing with it.  It really should be easier. 

It's late and I'm going to bed.  Thankfully, David has tomorrow (today) off work.  A perk of being a government employee.  Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day!

Birthday

I'm tired. All of the time. I actually don't have much time to post because I have a lot to do here at work. But I wanted to share my birthday because it was a great one.

A couple of my coworkers walked to the Pike Place Market on Monday and bought these for me:

I was so touched that I teared up. I know, how hormonal am I?

D and I had a great dinner at PF Chang's on Monday night followed by our last childbirth class. Truthfully, I'm glad it's over and we have a weeknight back. I'm glad we took the class but 7 weeks is just a little too long, especially when, towards the end, your feet swell up so badly that they turn purple when you don't have them up. I was very glad for the birthing balls in the class that I could put my feet up on!

Last night we went to my in-laws' house for my birthday dinner. I had steak, potato salad, salad, rolls, and asparagus. Dessert was chocolate brownies with chocolate frosting which my mother-in-law so sweetly sent the leftovers home with me. It was all delicious!

My brother-in-law (my husband's sister's husband) is a handyman and can fix/build/paint/maintain/treat/climb pretty much anything. He owns his own handyman business called Jake of All Trades and even though his job yesterday entailed being on a roof in 90° weather, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't trade it for anything. He's the kind of guy who, in the winter, will take off toward the Pass and look for a place to get his truck stuck in the snow so he can camp out there then dig himself out in the morning. On the way, he'll tow cars out of ditches for stranded people. He's hiked just about every mountain around here if not all of them, and he oftentimes just takes his dog, Sage, on his adventures. He's also very technical and knows a ton about computers and software...he worked behind a desk for a while but quickly realized that he wasn't enjoying being cooped up indoors all day. So, now he owns his handyman business and I'm glad for him that he's doing what he really loves. He and D are going on their first overnight motorcycle trip next weekend. Of course I have mixed feelings about this, but if I wanted D to go with anyone it would be Jake. They'll have a great time.

All of that rambling about Jake was for a reason. Part of my birthday gift from Jake and D's sister is that Jake is going to build me a table for my entry. Since we have a split-level, we don't have much of an entry so I don't want anything big. What's there now is just a tad on the worn out side and I prefer to have doors on the front of the table to hide the things D puts down there so he doesn't forget them. I'd like to incorporate some sort of place for people to put their shoes, too, but I don't think that will be feasible. Here's a picture of our entryway. Send suggestions if you have them! I'm thinking about a corner table instead of a table that takes up the entire space of the window. This is the only photo I could find so I'll see if I can take a better one tonight. Now that I look at it, I'm realizing I need window treatment on that front window. And, I promise the walls aren't white...they're actually a light beige-ish color.


This post is much longer than I thought it would be.

My mother-in-law, father-in-law, and D all pitched in and got this for me for my birthday!!

I'm really excited to think of all the things I can make now! Just need to learn how to sew and I'm all set! My mother-in-law and my mom can teach me a lot, I'm sure.

I will do a post about my shower because I want to show you some of my favorite gifts. For now I really have to get to work. So much to do and only a week and a half to do it! Not that I'm complaining!

Nursery, Car Seat, etc etc

The chair rail is installed in the nursery. D just has to putty it and use a wax pen to cover up the nails from the nail gun. It looks really great - we're excited. Then we'll be able to hang the valance and I'll have to start thinking about wall decor. I'm realizing how little storage I have in the nursery...I'm thinking about doing corner shelves since they tend to look less "in the way". The room is really small so we need to maximize the space we have... I drew these up in Publisher this morning and am hoping my husband's brother-in-law will make them for us. If not, then I'm sure D can figure out a way to make them happen. I'd go out and buy them but I haven't seen any that match what I'm looking for.

I was able to put away most of the gifts from the shower but it's driving me crazy not to rip the tags off the clothes and wash them all. I know many people say only to rip the tags off a few of the clothes in case you don't use them but how am I going to do that? I love every single clothing item I have for Amelia already that I can't imagine just not using any. And what a pain to want her to wear something one day that hasn't been washed yet. So, I'm torn. I know I still have a few more weeks before I should wash her clothes but tell me what you did with the tag-ripping/washing.

I spent the weekend sick. It wasn't all bad, I just couldn't breathe and I had to blow my nose every 2 minutes. It's much better today although the sore throat isn't completely gone. I knitted a scarf until I ran out of yarn, only to realize it was too short and I took it all apart. So, I started a new scarf. I'm becoming quicker at knitting but purling takes me longer. So the scarf I'm knitting now has only 1 row of purling and the rest is knitting...I'm getting through it much quicker.

Hopefully only about 4 weeks left of work. Woohoo! When I think about the fact that 4 weeks ago was 2 days before Anna was born, I realize how fast the time will fly :)

OH! We went to the hospital where we'll be delivering and took our car seat with us. We met one-on-one with a certified car seat inspector person and he taught us how to properly install our car seat and also how to properly "install" our baby in the car seat. Helpful stuff.

Sorry for the boring post. I'm going to be calling the Puget Sound Blood Center today to let them know that we plan on donating our baby's cord blood. I'm actually excited about it...there are so many people who can benefit from donated cord blood.

We're heading to Oregon this weekend, hopefully to see my younger sister's baby, but if not then Lindsay will be induced Sunday night and will hopefully have a baby for sure on Memorial Day which D and I will stay for.

Better get back to work. Or something.

I'm Caving

I had a nice weekend. The weather on Saturday was gorgeous so D took that time to cut the baseboards for the baby's room. Tonight, the baseboards and chair rail will be painted as will a few other things for the nursery. But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Last week, a very dear friend sent me these...

She sent them to me for Mother's Day since Amelia isn't here yet. If you've never had See's Candies you're missing out - you're missing out a lot. These particular chocolates are my favorite...they're called Bordeaux. This is how See's describes Bordeaux: "A classic favorite, See's Dark Chocolate Bordeaux is a heavenly blend of brown sugar and buttercream covered in rich, dark chocolate." Yeah, it's good. My very sweet friend knew how much I loved Bordeaux so she had a box shipped to me - so very thoughtful of her!

So, I'm going to cave.

I know I said I wouldn't show pictures of the nursery until after it's completed but I don't think I can wait. Well, more than that, I'm trying not to nail myself down to a date of when everything in the nursery will be completed because there's still a lot to do.

D set the baseboards in the nursery as they will be when he nails them into place. There will also be a chair rail around the room but those haven't been cut quite yet so you'll just have to use your imagination. We placed a few of the bedding set pieces around so you could see the bedding with the paint color and furniture. I'm very excited to start putting things into the drawers of the dresser/changing table! We're going to get a glider - we will just have to figure out a place to put it since that room is pretty small. But we'll get it in there somehow!

It's funny to me how different the paint color looks depending on where you're standing and the lighting. D described it at first as looking "Seahawks green" which I thought was funny...I guess it did look a little neon when it was first painted. But, like I said, it depends on where you're standing. There's still a lot left to do in this room so I think once everything is finished it will look much different than these initial pictures. So, these pictures are part of our process. I have pictures of D painting the room, cutting the baseboards, and assembling the furniture that I'll keep for posterity.

Tonight we have a meet & greet with a pediatrician in the area. At that time we'll schedule a meet & greet with another pediatrician in the same office and then decide between the two. I'm hoping that I'll have a chance to put my feet up tonight...my feet are swelling so much that my toes feel like sausages. Yeah, attractive.

Have a great Tuesday!

Happy Birthday, Granddad!

Why do I feel such guilt when I miss a day or two of posting? I think it must be residual from my March "I'll-post-every-day" stint, because I feel like I need to post every day.

First, I want to give a big shout-out to my Granddad who is celebrating his ::mrrsphfphs:: birthday today! Happy birthday, Granddad! And while I'm at it, happy Cinco de Mayo!

I have to say that it's a nasty day here. Nasty, nasty. Windy, pelting rain, gray, dark, depressing. Plus the I-90 floating bridge has the carpool lanes closed for a few weeks so I got to sit in traffic for a bit today in the wind and pelting rain. I left my house at 6:15 to pick up my carpool partner so we could hopefully get a head start on the traffic. It only worked a little.

I should tell you that we picked a paint color for the nursery. I'm so excited about it, too, I can't wait for D to slap the paint on the wall tonight! It's none of the colors that I previously showed you and to save myself from opinions that might alter the newfound confidence I have in my decorating abilities, I'm going to reveal the color when I reveal the nursery. Hoping to have the nursery completely done by the first of June. Hoping to have the paint, baseboards, chair rail, and furniture done by next weekend. Hoping.

I should mention that Amelia has found my ribs. She doesn't really kick them, she just manages to lodge her knee or foot right underneath them. It really hurts. I'm able to massage that body part (whatever it is) away from my ribs and, like a good little girl, she stays away. She's only hurt me a few times so far.

Last night we took a tour with our childbirth class of the hospital where we'll deliver. It wasn't a fun tour. Mostly because I was embarassed the entire time of how loud some of the people in our class were being while we were walking through the halls. One woman's door was open and she was holding her new baby. Some people literally stopped in front of her door and gaped at her. SERIOUSLY!? Give the woman some privacy! Also, it was hot on the recovery room floor. Crowd 22 people (11 of them being pregnant and having hot flashes anyway) into a tiny, overheated recovery room and it's like a furnace. I just took a drink of water because I was getting overheated just thinking about it again. The remodeled rooms were nice and I'll definitely be using the jacuzzi tub when I'm there.

Could someone please be a lamb and bring me a decaf, grande, extra caramel sauce, extra hot caramel macchiato, please? I don't want to walk to Starbucks in the rain today. Okay, thanks.

Oh, and just because I can, here are my favorite kiddos:

Happy Tuesday!

Belly Progression & Nursery Paint (need opinions again)

Funny facts:

The other day I couldn't remember my personal email address (is it plural or singular?). Today I couldn't remember my work phone number (is 2072 really my extension?).

So I'm 31 weeks today. If you're reading this on Friday, pretend it's Thursday. I haven't been the absolute best at remembering to take belly pictures, but I think I have a pretty fair collection so far. I made up a little progression page to see how far I've come. I realize I didn't make a lot of progress between 29 and 31 weeks. Or maybe I did - I've gotten a lot of comments from people in the last few days about how pregnant I look. "Uh, thanks. I think."


I love how my rump is seemingly pushing the text out of the picture in the "31 weeks" slot. Nice. That picture was just taken this evening.

Moooo-ving on (Yes, I feel THAT big).

D & I went to Lowe's and bought some paint samples. 5, to be exact.

This is just "Berry Taffy"...I know it's hard to see.


This is "Spring Glow", "Berry Taffy" and "Spring Meadow".


This is "Berry Taffy" with "Spring Glow" and "Spring Meadow" stripes


This is my nightmare. Not the "Fragrant Lilac" - I love that color, actually. But, the "Peach Tea"...trust me when I say I sincerely believed it would be much, much lighter than that. I had to go with a more orangy yellow to match the bedding but I didn't realize it would be so dark! So, that's an automatic "no, thank you".

All of these paints are Valspar...we loooove Valspar.

So, imagine a white chair rail in the room and tell me what you think. Like? Hate? Any combinations you prefer? Do you like a single color by itself? Do you think I need a different shade of any of them? Am I WAY off?

Also, our walls aren't as heavily textured as I thought. Stripes would be fine. D just doesn't want to do them and is resisting with every ounce of effort he has...and that says something because usually his response to my every whim is "Whatever you want" (I say that with only the slightest exaggeration - he spoils me). He's a perfectionist and he's afraid the stripes will come out crooked and that the painters tape won't prevent bleeds so it will look terrible. If you have any stripe advice (if you think stripes are a good way to go), then please let me know!

Can you tell I have little confidence in my decorating ability? I heavily rely on the opinions of others in these matters because, while I know what I DON'T like, I always am afraid that I'm not thinking of everything and even if I find something I like I wonder if someone else could think of something I'd like better. So, offer away!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Pottery Barn Kids MESSED UP

Someone please tell me how Pottery Barn Kids got this so messed up.

This first picture is what I wanted to purchase. Notice how cute the birds nest is and the twine that hangs from the ceiling.


This is what I got. Notice the metal mobile, no nest, no twine, and a bunch of small birds instead of the two cute ones in their nest.
Seriously!? Someone explain this to me. Am I way off? There were no more pictures of the mobile on their site other than what I showed you.

I'm upset. Maybe it's a stupid thing to be upset about but I'm hormonal and this makes me mad. I was really looking forward to the cute mobile that they advertised on their site.

It's a neeeewww bed!

So, we're getting money back this tax season. D always tries to adjust our witholding so that we still get money back every tax season but we also get as much money up-front as possible. Well, it's not fine-tuned yet which means we're getting back more than we thought we would. Really, that's okay with us!

I bought the mattress we use now about 4 years ago when I was living on my own. It's a Queen-sized pillow top and probably midddle of the line as far as quality. The problem is that it's *too* soft and some weekends when we sleep in we wake up with aching backs. Plus, we are out of room. D likes to stretch out in bed and not suffocate me but that's been impossible...I think he's the one feeling suffocated. With his 6'2" frame, me, my body pillow, and our dog who ninjas her way into our bed in the middle of the night it's a tight squeeze. When the baby comes we will probably have a Moses basket or something similar that we can opt to have in the bed with us some nights. Right now it simply wouldn't fit and I would feel pretty bad about making my husband sleep on the floor to accomodate the baby! ;)

Even though we're in the middle of a bathroom remodel and a laundry room remodel, we decided to spend the tax money on a mattress - a good one that will last us a while. We first visited Sleep Country USA during their "Once a year super sale" (when are they not having a sale? I actually asked the salesguy this exact question and he said "Well, this is our biggest and best sale of the year") and we found a mattress we really liked that was marked down about $500 from the original price. We weren't ready to purchase right then even though the salesguy probably would have kissed each one of us if we had bought that mattress. You could hear crickets chirping on the sales floor and cobwebs were beginning to form on the headboards. Not really, but I can imagine this economic downturn hasn't bode well for the mattress industry.

I convinced D that we should look at Sears because I heard that they had good deals on mattresses. We happened on Sears during their "50% off plus 10% off plus another 10% off for using your Sears card" sale. We found a top-of-the-line Serta "Perfect Day" Calm Harbor mattress that was originally $4400 marked down to $1600. It was a deal we couldn't pass up. So, we bought it and it will be delivered on Saturday. The saleswoman was an older asian lady named Myriam and she was so sweet and motherly. I accidentally knocked some brochures onto the floor and I thought she was going to have a heart attack trying to stop me from bending over to pick them up. She then told me the right and wrong way to bend down while pregnant and informed me that I wasn't to reach above my head for any reason.

Couple of realizations I've had as of late:

• You know you're an adult when you use your tax refund to buy a mattress.

• You also know you're an adult when you post on a blog about buying a mattress with your tax refund...

• ...and when you show a picture.


We also bought a set of King sized sheets (2 of each sheet and 4 pillow cases). The bed in our room will be a guest bed and now we have actual beds in each guest room instead of futons. Woohoo! The night we bought the mattress I went online in search of the perfect bedding. Our room is a greyish green so it had to coordinate with that. I narrowed down my search to about 12 and D went through and nixed all but 2 or 3 of them. In the end, this is what we decided on. If you haven't been to Overstock.com, you should visit. They have some amazing deals!

The set comes with everything you see. The bedspread, bed skirt, 2 shams, 2 Euro-shams, and 3 accent pillows. I think the only thing it doesn't come with is sheets which is perfectly fine since we have those bases covered!

For the record, I think the wall color in that picture doesn't coordinate well at all with the bedding. :) Of course, now that I say that the bedding will probably look terrible in our bedroom, too!

One more thing. At Sears I found some maternity sweatpants that were normally $34 and a matching zip-up maternity hoodie that was normally $37 on sale for $13 each. With the extra % off for the sale that day I got both the hoodie and the sweatpants for $14. What a deal!! I'm wearing them now and I LOVE them. They're so comfortable. Just had to share. The hoodie even has a tie under the bust. Cute!

By the time you read this it might be Monday. If it is, can I just say...

TOMORROW (Tuesday) WE FIND OUT THE GENDER OF OUR BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm REALLY excited. On this site, most of you have said "boy" (in the poll to the right). On another site where I blog, 28 out of 46 people have said "girl" - that's 61%! Isn't that funny. So we'll see which blog site is right!

I probably won't get to post until Wednesday morning. We're having D's family over on Tuesday night for dessert and the big reveal. If I post it on here before they come over then they will know before they get here!

Hope you all had a great weekend. Apparently my husband didn't have a great weekend - he's been saying that he feels like he didn't get anything done on the house.

I made breakfast for dinner tonight and drank some OJ which means baby B is doing flips right now. I don't think I can get tired of this feeling.

Have a wonderful evening/day/morning. :)

Pickling and Home Decor

Please go say hi to my twin, Carrie, if you get a minute. She's the mother of my cute nephew, Caleb, and she's in the process of growing another offspring.

I was going to post about my vintage books for "Vintage Thingies Thursday", too, but I realized that I don't have the publishing dates for the books here at work so that post will have to wait until tonight or tomorrow.

I do, however, have some pictures to share. The first is of the curtains in our living room. I was going to attempt to give you the full shot of our living room so you could see the entire picture, but I'm an absent-minded person and forgot about taking more pictures. When I was talking to my sister-in-law about the curtains, she asked where I got them. That's when I realized that they came from 3 different places. The shears are from Target (the ones I loved from the Sunday circular), the tab panels are from Lowe's, and the double curtain rod and hardware are from Fred Meyer.
We initially bought a double curtain rod from Target but when we got home we realized that the decorative end would be too big for the space. Meaning that the curtain would not cover the entire window because the decorative end would stop it from reaching all the way to the edge. We took that back, along with a chocolate brown colored tab panel that we bought at Lowe's so I could see what it would look like. Horrible, that's what. The curtains look better during the day when the light is shining through, but when I tried to take a picture it was too dark for you to really see anything.

D hung up the curtains, as he does everything else. He won't let me touch a nail and hammer. For this reason, every picture in our home is straight.

Last Saturday, as I mentioned, I drove to my in-laws' house to do some pickling with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law. I'll share with you how this all got started. Last June, my mother-in-law gave D & me a jar of her homemade pickles from August 2007. We literally consumed the entire jar in one sitting. That's the story of how we came to pickle last Saturday.

My MIL bought 37 pounds of cucumbers for SIL and I to pickle with. Initially, I think we just planned to stuff the baby cucumbers in the jars and have whole pickles. As it turned out, the baby cucumbers weren't so "baby" after all. So, SIL and I decided to cut them into chips and spears. The smaller whole pickles we stuffed into the jars, but for the most part we sliced them up. I imagined myself a few months from now with a jar of the pickle chips in my lap just eating away. I sliced them nice and thick for maximum flavor and crunch.

So, we pickled. I was over there by 10am and didn't leave until after 4pm. It was nice to have some girl time - all the guys were doing their own things. D was painting our deck at home, my father-in-law was at a woodworking show, and my SIL's husband was with my FIL.

I'll share the recipe with you because they really are the best pickles I've ever had. They're very zesty (2 dried red peppers) and flavorful.



I ended up taking home 19 jars which we are storing in our garage until they have "marinated" long enough to eat. My MIL told us "the longer the better", and that they'll probably need at least 3 months before they have "marinated" long enough to be tasty and crunchy.

Zesty Dill Pickles
4" pickling cucumbers

1/8 t powdered alum
1 garlic clove
2 heads fresh dill
1 (to 2, depending on how "zesty" you like them) dried hot red pepper

1 c coarse-med salt (i.e coarse Kosher salt)
3 qt water
1 qt cider vinegar

Wash cucumbers. Let stand in cold water overnight. Pack in hot sterilized jars.

To each quart add above spices.
Combine last 3 ingredients. Heat to boiling.
Fill jars with the brine and use a butter knife to push out the air inside the jar...move it around the inside of the jar between the cucumbers and the glass. Seal the jars with lid and ring. Immerse the sealed jars in water and when the water comes to a boil, count 15 minutes. Remove jars and let cool completely. Best to let them sit uninterrupted for 12-24 hours.

That's about it for today. I want to leave you with a few pictures of the trip we took to New England last year. I'd love to go back there again and spend more time in Boston and just leisurely driving around the countryside.

The first photo is of Louisa May Alcott's home in Concord, MA. The second photo is of the lake where the film On Golden Pond was shot. The third and final photo I took at one of our hotels - Grand Mountain Resort....it was beautiful.


P.S. When I make my first batch of Maple Oat Nut Scones for the season, I promise to post the recipe. Maybe.

If you want to follow my blog, you can click on "Follow this blog" at the top of the page under "Wonderful Readers".

I only look busy

Check out my new look. I did it at work today. It's a Friday, it's slow. Don't know what else to tell ya.

I promise the following:

• I will post pictures of D's surprise party. I am just waiting for someone to send them to me. I did not take pictures...my mind was somewhere else. It was a wild success, though; I just love D's friends. I guess I can call them my friends since I've known most of them for 3+ years, just usually it doesn't really occur to me since they have a history with my husband and I don't hang out with them unless I'm with my husband so...I'm sure you're feelin' me on this. At any rate, they're great people and every single one of them who said they would show up, showed up. Party of 11.
  
  
  
• I hung new curtains in my living room. Most (normal) women would consider this a domestic duty and nothing out of the ordinary, but for me, it was magic. They were the first curtains ever to be hung in my house. I know, *GASP*. Curtains are expensive, though, and you have to buy all the junk to hang them up with. But, I saw an ad in the Sunday paper last week in the Target circular for some sheer curtains I had to have. So, D and I all of a sudden were thrown into a day of curtain shopping. It wasn't an easy feat, either. The window in the living room is inset, a double window, and it's 104" across. I bought all the junk and called my mom only to hear her tell me "I wouldn't cover that window if I were you". Ha! After it was finished she said she really liked it. I can't believe I made a decorating move without my mother's wholehearted approval. Baby steps. In any event, I will be posting pictures of these curtains soon.
  
  
  
• Next Thursday I have more vintage books to show you, so stay tuned. They're pretty sweet. I got them a few weeks ago but when "Vintage Thingies Thursday" comes around, I just can't get it together and post my books! Next Thursday is the day!
  

So, thanks for being patient. I was sick yesterday...I don't even know what I was sick with, I just know that my head felt like it was going to explode and I felt nauseous. Yuck. My head is not 100% today, but I'll live. I'm going to hang out with a friend tonight while D is at softball.

I'm (--) this close to finishing The Count of Monte Cristo. After that, it's either "Taking Charge of Your Fertility" or the first book of the "Twilight" series. Hmm, which to choose.

When is too soon to break out the fall decorations? I really want to do that this weekend.

Have a wonderful weekend!