So considering it is a lovely cool temperature of 103 degrees currently in Phoenix, I thought it was high time I discuss that lovely season of fall. In Phoenix we don’t have fall. Well not really… but I can’t wait for 80 degree days come October, it sounds perfect. I love to decorate and fall and Halloween have always been some of my favorites seasons. In Washington I loved the crispness in the air, going to the pumpkin patch with Ryan’s family, apple cider, my favorite ceramic decorations at my house, wearing jeans, puffy vest, leggings and skirts. What I hated was the continual rain that the month of November brings. Anyways, as I sit here in the heat I can’t help thinking about all the wonderful fall things.

So this weekend I decided to bust out some fall decorations. So what if it is hotter right now than most people’s midsummer days across the country. I want fall! So I went to the dollar store bought some silk flowers, autumn leaves, ribbon and plastic gourds. Honestly the outcome is less tacky than those ingredients make it sound. And I made a basket for Ryan and I’s front door. I have this beautiful basket from Southern Living I use year around so all I had to do was change out the contents.

I think for my $10 investment the fall outcome looks pretty good. I like how it is a balance between the green colors and the orangy fall colors. It make me think of that transition time right before all the leaves fall to the ground and rot from the rain in Washington.

Well so that is all for my actual fall decorations at the house. But, there are so many things I wish I had to decorate the house with. The hardest thing is that the house is not how we want it renovation-wise so it is hard to want to decorate, especially spend money on decorations, when we could use the money to help pay for the renovations. I am sure I’ll break down and get some things to decorate with in the near future.

Mercury Pumpkins from Pottery Barn

I love these glass mercury pumpkins. I think they would look so pretty clustered with fall colored leaves or maybe some pine cones that were painted white.

Numbered Gourds from Martha Stewart

I think that it would be really pretty to do one for each number in our address and then put them on the front step.

Family Tree from Better Homes and Gardens

I would like to make it in a tall vase so it would be more 3-D then put old photographs of Ryan and I’s families in it. I think the pictures would be especially stunning if we printed them in black and white.

Pine Cone Trees from Better Homes and Gardens

From this photo I am inspired to do a coffee table arrangement with pine cones. I can’t decide if  I would want to do trees like this picture or maybe glue them to syrofoam balls for a bowl of circular shapes, and pair them with moss balls, or something similar.

Pumpkin Hearth from Martha Stewart

I would like to have this fireplace, this mantlepice, and this decor almost exactly. How pretty are the muted colors of the pumpkins and gourds, mixed with the taller foliage? Lovely.

Alright well I’ll post if I do any more decorating for fall.

~Cheers

Well here we are in September… Unfortunately Ryan and I have no changes made to the house yet, but issues keep piling up. I am feeling overwhelmed because it seems like nothing is changing but the to do list keeps getting longer and longer. More below about the list of to do’s on the house. In the meantime I have been spending too much time looking at fabulous blogs about home renovation and decorating, my list of favorites:

1. Young House Love – about a couple who has transformed their Virginia 1950′s brick ranch into a beatiful airy home.

2. Making It Lovely – written by a woman obsessed with pink and brown, all about her cute home, baby, and life in general.

3. My Happy House – a cleaning blog, if you can believe it. I’m following her weekly challenge, because unfortunately cleaning is not my forte.

4. The Nest: Decorating and Renovating Board – the best place to find gazillions of ideas, lots of cool blogs, and general inspiration.

Those are my everyday internet sites I go to. I just dream of when my house looks how it does in my head. I really want to write all about the process, but right now the phase we are in is waiting it feels like. My list of home work right now is still focusing on the kitchen, here is the list so far:

• go to banks to discuss financing for the remodel.
• get more quotes for the demolition of the dreaded wall and for new drywall.
• measure cabinetry and countertops to go to Ikea, Lowe’s, and Home Depot for estimates.
• make a realistic timeline.

So for now that is my goal list for the kitchen. As far as the rest of the house goes I have been cleaning like mad and it is looking better. I don’t know if I mentioned that our sunroom leaks, but that is another issue we have to deal with soon. I can’t wait to share my plans for each of the rooms. One thing I’d like to do for the blog is mood boards. They make them at Young House Love and I want to try them too. I think Ryan can teach me on photoshop.

Okay I think that is all for the house. Otherwise Ryan, Ginny, and I have been enjoying our 3-day weekend. I hung out with Shela and the girls on Saturday and yesterday we went to church where I proceeded to cough the entire service. We rounded out Saturday with a trip to Oreganos. Yummy! Today we are off to Shela’s to pick up my car and maybe do a Scottsdale browse. Life is good, it busy but lots of fun. One more thing: my Daddy is coming for a visit in 2 weeks. Which means it is just 2 weeks until we have a dining table and the best home advisor here with us in Phoenix. I can’t wait for that! For now enjoy some wonderful pictures of our weekend and the adorableness that is our Ginny!

~Cheers

Having some wine fun at Oregano’s last night!

Sleeping in our bed…

How cute is she… smile Ginny!

Well as I said yesterday, we just adopted a 13 week old basset hound puppy. We actually got her for free if you can believe that. The office manager at my school was giving her away and Ryan and I jumped on the offer to get a wonderful dog without the hefty price tag. She is just so beautiful and smart and loving already. We have decided to name her Ginny Joanna, she is a red-head! Ginny loves her belly rubs and today we got her some fun chewy toys that she is totally into. Her ears are super long and she gets them in her water bowl and steps on them all the time, which totally cracks me up! We know she’ll be a lot of work, but the love she has already shown us will make it all worth it. Ryan and I are just so happy Ginny is part of our family. So without further ado here are two pictures showing her in all her puppy cuteness!

Just look at those beautiful eyes and big floppy ears. Here she is trying to convince me to give her food, she is a beggar already, which we are working on breaking.

Last night I put her on the couch when Kirk and Nikki were over and she fell asleep between Nikki and I belly up which was too cute and funny, that we had to put a blanket over her! 

I’ll post more pictures soon, but for now we are just enjoying our new puppy life!

~Cheers

So Ryan and I just adopted a sweet little 13 week old basset hound puppy, from someone at my work! She is so cute, I’ve wanted a puppy for forever. Now we just need a name I’m toying around with different Harry Potter names. We’ll see what sticks. I’ll post pictures tomorrow!

Well in light of the fact that Ryan and I have an unworking, white sanatorium of a kitchen and an unreasonable list of expenses, we have ventured into the world of eating at home every night and doing so with only two kitchen appliances: a toaster oven and a rice cooker. That’s right, no microwave, stove, or oven here. Well let me just tell you it has not been pretty nor easy. I am a delicate creature I like my food best when prepared by someone else, and served with a nice long wine list thank you very much. But no… “the budget” doesn’t allow such wonderful experiences, “the budget” doesn’t allow for Taco Bell or Sonic either, much to my dismay.

So into the awful kitchen I have ventured. Over the past 3 weeks I have become a toaster chef! In the beginning it was mainly just Eggos, but I have become better. I have made french bread pizza, nice salads with cheese toast, english muffin pizza, and sourdough bread pizza… Notice a trend? Well to go along with the saving money thing turkey pepperoni, cheese, and tomato sauce were pretty much what we had. Check out the sourdough pizza from last night. It was actually pretty good.

Wine makes this 1000 times better – but on its own it was good too!

Well even me, who really really likes pizza needs a change. Last week when the gas company came to hook up our stove and it didn’t work I almost cried because all I wanted was pasta! Ryan got the message and surprised me with the best meal of bowtie pasta and tomato sauce. How did he make it? I wondered. He made it in the rice cooker! That’s right… in a pinch you to can make pasta in a rice cooker,  and it turns out just as delicious as on the stove. So tonight I took the same idea and applied to another pasta dish. I made crab fettuccine alfredo. It was so good. I just used the refrigerator fettuccine noodles, Trader Joe’s pre-made alfredo, and a can of crab (that my mom and I hand canned two summers ago – still so good). The fridge noodles cooked super fast in the rice cooker and then I just stirred the sauce and crab over the hot noodles. 

The Ingredients

The Process

The Finished Product!

I’m super proud because I have self-proclaimed my dislike of the domestic job of cooking, but I am getting better, getting over my aversion to cooking and becoming more creative with my ideas and dishes to boot! I think its good… and I know it will all be worth it when I have my shiny new kitchen to use and enjoy, *fingers crossed*, in the very near future. Stay tuned I might let you in on more of my adventures with the toaster and rice cooker. I have some things up my chef sleeve, at least I think I do!

~Cheers

Hi to anyone who actually still reads this,

Well I am officially awful at blogging. But to justify the last few weeks have been horrendously busy. In July I was away visiting my family in beautiful Birch Bay, and thus I was almost completely away from all of civilization. My Grandma’s cabin where I spent my summer has no cable let alone internet. It was a perfect holiday, so relaxing and fun to see my whole family. It made me wonder why I ever wanted to move to Phoenix, but then I remember, ahh yes, jobs! Anyways so that is my bullshit excuse for where I was in July. Now you wonder, “well its the end of August, Andrea, explain that huh?”

Well August has kind of slipped through my fingers. Upon my arrival into bloody hot Phoenix, I went straight back to work in my classroom, finishing the purge of my classroom. I am happy to say that now it is a functional and cute learning space, albeit a bit tiny. In conjunction with that, we began our pack up and prepared for the big moving day. My mom arrived to help the 29th of July and we packed and packed and cleaned and cleaned. The 1st of August was the big moving day. Our wonderful friends Kirk and Nikki helped us load our worldly possessions into a U-Haul and we caravanned them to the new house! Did I mention it was 115 degrees that day? See pictures below of us moving….

Ryan and Kirk move the couch.

…and the bookcase, and then everything else too

Andrea and Nikki look adorable!

Well when we got to the house and all our stuff was here, we sat. And we sat, and we were officially overwhelmed. Thus began a new phase in Ryan and I’s lives in which we got our home improvement handy man skills on. Now if you had asked people last month, “Are Ryan and Andrea handy?” they would have laughed in your face. But now, hah, we have begun to prove the doubters wrong. Ryan and I have single handedly (or is it duel handedly), changed 6 plugs in our house to 3-prong from 2-prong, we have cleaned and lined all the shelves in the kitchen and bathroom, hung a shower curtain, and our biggest accomplishment to date… we replumbed our bathroom sink! Check it out in all its nastiness below.

Am I right, or am I right… disgusting!

And there it is… so fresh and so clean!

Anyways the house is more work than we could have ever imagined. I think when I thought of living here I only ever pictured myself in the house when it was all finished. Well that is certainly not the reality of having an old house. The problems come quicker than we can fix them, such as the gas not working to the stove, and the sunroom leaking (it rained cats and dogs last night and the water poured in). We are going slow and working it all out though. We are getting quotes to get the wall separating the kitchen from the rest of the house torn down, and have big dreams for our perfect little kitchen. More of that to come as it all unfolds. Mostly all the boxes are unpacked, and I have begun to really get in there and clean everything to our standards. Also I got rid of 3 big boxes of clothes, but all of our stuff still didn’t fit so after 2 weeks of searching on Craigslist we finally got this beauty for $60 today. The best thing is they delivered it!

Ahh… isn’t just so pretty?

Anyways that has been our life these last 2 months, I am just now getting in the swing of being a homeowner and a teacher, sometimes I feel like I can’t catch my breath I’ve been so busy.

I do promise to update more regularly from here on out, I have a lot to say. So many plans, and so little money to execute them all. Can Ryan and I do it? Stay tuned… this blog will kickass I guarantee it!

Cheers…

Okay so today is Friday and yesterday was my last day of summer school. I was happy to be done because that means I am only days away from going home to Washington, and that Ryan and I’s house closes next week, but it was bittersweet. During summer school I had the pleasure of directing a production of Peter Pan. It was so fun and rewarding and on Wednesday we performed the play for the rest of summer school and the kids parents. It was so great to see every (and I do mean every) student have at least one person there to support them in their special experience on stage. Getting to direct the performance was an honor, all the students in the class were such hard workers and I was grateful for all the help for the costumes I received from the parents. Here are some pictures from the play taken by my wonderful teaching partner, Kirk,  who I shared this class with. He was nice enough to come to the play (even though he had the day off) and take pictures.

Here is Peter Pan and his faithful shadow. Everyone couldn’t believe I got the boys in tights for Peter Pan, but they were good sports about it.

This is the crocodile. Isn’t he cute? I couldn’t believe how awesome his costume was. His mom and aunt made it for him. It totally blew me away all the work they put into it. He was the perfect crocodile and the audience couldn’t get enough of him!

Here is the first Peter Pan (there were 3) and Tinkerbell starting off the show. The stars were the narrators.

Of course the pirates! What would Peter Pan be if not for Hook and his cronies. All of them were very funny and such hams.

Tinkerbell looking adorable, she was the perfect little Tinkerbell, and she even talked with a kazoo!

Ou cast picture! I am so proud of the whole things it was a special experience to get to share my love of drama with new young faces. I remember loving drama so much growing up and I am so lucky to get to pass on that love to new performers. 

Cheers!

Today was the big day for me in summer school, we performed our Peter Pan play. I should have more details as well as pictures of the performance tomorrow. Kirk, my teaching partner, is giving me the ones he snapped during the play. It was so awesome and cute and fun, I would love to do it again. Stay tuned, that is all.

Cheers!

So since Ryan and I don’t have a house to renovate for another couple of weeks, I can’t fill my whole blog with decorating right yet. In the meantime I thought what better to post than one of Ryan and I’s most favorite summer recipes? Fresh Vietnamese Spring Rolls. These are super easy to make, and best of all they take very little time on the stove to prepare. We love that they are fun to create, we just prep all the ingredients and roll our own and enoy them as we make them. Here’s how you can make them too:

Ingredients for the Rolls:

1. Package of Spring Roll Wrappers – At the Asian grocery or aisle
2. Package of Rice Noodles (sometimes called Rice Sticks) – Again Asian grocery/aisle, make sure to get the rice noodles, not cellophane noodles
3. Cooked Frozen Shrimp
4. Bean Sprouts
5. Matchstick Carrots
6. Leaves of Romaine Lettuce

So, I just quick boil the noodles, it takes about 3 minutes for them to cook, then chill them in the fridge. I thaw the shrimp in hot water in the sink and split each one down the middle. All of the veggies I just wash and put on the table in bowls. I’ll explain how to wrap and roll in a minute but first let’s get to the yummy peanut dipping sauce.

Ingredients for the Sauce:

1. Peanut Butter
2. Hoisin Sauce – Asian aisle
3. Coconut Milk
4. Rice Vinegar
5. Maple Syrup or Honey
6. Soy Sauce
7. Siracha Hot Sauce (or another chili paste hot sauce)

Notice how I don’t put any measurements or amounts, that’s because I never measure when I make this sauce, it is really easy. Just take a couple scoops of peanut butter, maybe 2 tablespoons, and microwave it for about 20 seconds. Then add about the same amount of coconut milk and hoisin sauce. Mix that all together. Add a splash of the remaining ingredients and you’ve got a delicious peanut sauce. I just taste after each ingredient and add things as I feel it needs it. Go ahead make it how you like it!

Now for the fun part, making the rolls and munching on your hard work (okay not really hard)…

Anyways, just take all the ingredients to the table and lay them out. Also you will need a pie plate of cool water. Dip your spring roll wrapper in the water, remove it after it is all the way wet, both sides, but don’t let it get soggy in the water. Lay it on your plate and let the water work for about 30 seconds. It will soften up and now fill away. I like to put the noodles on first, then bean sprouts and carrots, then shrimp, and lettuce last, but it doesn’t matter, Ryan does it differently. Now comes the tricky part: rolling. Fold the sides in first and stretch the wrapper over the filling, and roll it up. Then dip and enjoy and make another!

Here are 2 pictures to feast your eyes on, looks good right?

So tada! That’s Ryan and I’s dinner last night, and mine tonight because I had the leftovers, try them, they are really good and it is nice to eat something so cool and fresh. 

Cheers!

Okay so last night Ryan and I tuned into HGTV, own of my favorite networks by the way, to watch the $250,000 Challenge. The premise of the show is 5 families, all from the same neighborhood are competing to win a mortgage pay-out. Each week the challenge is to renovate one room in their house. They get the funds from HGTV to renovate plus a skilled carpenter and helpers, so labor is free, and they get an allotted budget. Cool right? Well I thought so too. Who wouldn’t love to renovate their home and possibly win $250K for doing it? Last night was kitchens. I thought to myself, awesome… I love kitchens, I want to re-do mine so badly. The 3 families left each got $20,000 and 32 hours to renovate. And here are the results.

That is the kitchen that lost, now for the other 2…

This one is pretty good besides the silver line on the cabinets, I love the back splash.

Hmm… I am noticing a trend with the cabinetry. Anyways, this couple designed a very nice kitchen.

I don’t know about you but I was throughly un-impressed. The 3 kitchens were very nice but… all three used the same white cabinetry and stainless steel appliances. It disappointed me that no one ventured outside the safe option of white cabinets, SS and granite. If someone is giving you $20,000 don’t you think you could do better? I am not trying to sound snarky… okay maybe a little snarky, but still their choices were uninspired (the inspiration was supposed to be nature) and too safe. I just wish someone was done something different, because all 3 ended up looking too much alike. Don’t get me wrong I LOVE white kitchens but these were all the wrong cabinets. The 2 families that are continuing on did some pretty back splash work, inter-mingling tile types. But, honestly I couldn’t get over the cabinetry to look closely.

Okay rant over. I’ll watch next week to see what they do, and take some inspiration from HGTV and NOT get my cabinets from Home Depot if I choose to go with white. But still, Home Depot is cool, and so is HGTV, and so is the competition’s idea. 

Next blog post, hopefully something more upbeat.

Cheers!

Thanks to HGTV for the images.