Showing posts with label homemade. Show all posts
Showing posts with label homemade. Show all posts

Monday, April 20, 2009

Motivated Monday

I have a few different projects that are in the works. Here is one of them. This is our dining area and what has been done so far is my husband's doing. He installed drywall, which took care of my #1 complaint about owning an "old" house. The walls are tongue and groove planks and they were covered with thick wall paper. So non practical!

He also put in a ceiling system and is going to install 1/4 inch MDF boards up between the beams, but you can already envision it right? Oh, and that light/fan? My #2 complaint! It's going!

My project is to prime and paint. Before the room was painted Dutch Boy's "Red Wine" which I have continued to love for 3 years now. But we're thinking we might be putting our house up for sale sometime soon, and according the the experts over at HGTV, "red is not a color for everyone". So, I think I'm going to go with a muted teal. I am too lazy to look for examples so stay tuned for the finished pictures:) It might be awhile though. After husband is done with the ceiling and we paint, we're going to sand and laquer our hardwood floors.




This project isn't really going to be my doing, but I just wanted to show something sad. Remember when it snowed and then the ground froze? And then it snowed some more and then froze some more? Well, I remember wondering what would happen to my poor plants. So, when spring finally showed its sweet self, I went out with the pruners to give my roses a little care. This is the finished result after cutting away all the dead branches. Boo hoo:( My neighbor and closest rose expert tells me they may have gone back to wild and I may or may not be getting roses at all this summer.

Here's another project that is going to take some work. I am not a baker. I always say I love to cook, but baking is not my thing. Maybe because I think the professionals already do it so well, so why try? I think I have potential to be a good baker. I like measuring things exactly right, leveling off the cup of flour and whatnot. Maybe I don't want to bake because baked goodies are my absolute weakness and I don't want to find myself eating whole cakes. Or half cakes.
But I want to learn how to bake bread. I already know how to put a mix into a bread machine and press the button, but I would like to learn the old fashioned way of doing it. I would love to teach my kids too. So, after making up my mind that I would learn I committed myself by purchasing a 50 pound bag of bread flour at Costco. The bag on top is the 5 pound bag that I usually buy.
I have another project that has to do with this but it's a secret for now.



And this isn't a project but I thought I throw in a picture of my two guys. Aren't they adorable??? Last night we went and relaxed at the Camano Island State Park. Lovely night, lovely sunset, lovely family time!







Friday, September 19, 2008

Easy granola

I don't know about you but I've been feeling the money crunch (ha ha) at the grocery store lately and I've been wanting to make more things from scratch. I love oat meal and so do the kids and its especially delicious now that the weather is getting chilly, but I also would like somewhat of a variety in what I feed my family. So, I looked for granola recipes and ended up making my own simple recipe from what I had. So here is it...

Preheat the oven to 300. Spray 2 9x13 pans with nonstick spray.

Mix together in a big bowl:
5 cups of rolled oats
3/4 cup chopped pecans (or whichever nuts you like)
3/4 cup of brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp powdered ginger
1 tsp salt

Pour dry ingredients into the 2 pans. On each pan pour 1/8 - 1/4 cup honey, 4 Tbsp syrup and 1 Tbsp canola oil. Mix well and spread evenly throughout pans. Bake for 30 - 40 minutes stirring every 10 minutes to ensure even cooking. Let cool for 10 minutes and then put in gallon size zip lock bags or Tupperware containers and store in fridge. (After it was cooled off I also added in chopped dried cherries, but you could add raisens or dried cranberries. I also thought about adding chopped dark chocolate...mmmm).

It smells delicious while baking and my girls loved the warm healthy snack. This morning we made yogurt parfaits, layering vanilla yogurt, jam and granola and they loved those too.

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