Monday, February 27, 2012

Quotable Me

Haha. That title sounds so pompous. But I just thought of something and think it'd make a great Pinterest quote ;)

It is always best to end the day with chocolate and prayer.

:) Am I right or am I right?!

Anyone want to create a little picture quote of that? Haha

Friday, February 24, 2012

Things that Make Me Smile

- When I wake Jason up, sometimes he lets me in on what he was dreaming about. Today his first awake words were "Dog... toothpaste... Dog have toothbrush..." Haha, sounds like an interesting dream :).

-His most requested song is Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and when he requests any song, he says, "Mama sing twinkle twinkle little star how I wonder what you are up above the world so high like a diamond in the sky." Haha. So if he wants me to sing the Alphabet Song, he says the whole thing, and same for other songs. It's so funny to me.

-When I've been in the bathroom blowdrying my hair or if I've been cooking dinner, or after I put him to bed and start cleaning up, or anytime he's playing by himself and I later find things like this:

or this:

or this:
He's in a stacking phase. He calls anything stacked "tow-a"
i.e. tower.

or this:


or this:

or this:

Finding these things always makes me smile.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Hanging Spree (edit)

I recently came across a video of how to hang things on different types of walls. They show a better type of butterfly drywall catch thingy. So if you attempt something similar, I would suggest watching THIS VIDEO from Lowe's and using what they suggest. :)

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Hanging Spree

I first saw this idea on Pinterest, through Merrick's boards, but it originally came from ButtonBirdDesigns. Of all the jewelry hanger things on Pinterest, I liked this idea best. And completely unintentionally, I painted it the same color as the original. Maybe it was just locked in my brain as the color it was supposed to be, but I looked at a loooot of stores to find a good color that would go w/ gold, which is the color my bedroom is full of - gold beadspread, gold framed mirror (yet to be sprayed a diff color), tan carpet, light brown dresser set.... And this was the best color I could find for it. Valspar Tropical Oasis.

Here's my stash:
Most of the necklaces were hanging on that gold jewelry hanger. (Nina, if you're reading this, here's another ode to you! Do you remember that jewelry hanger? You gave it to me before you guys moved to Florida! Haha I still have it!) The hanger was way too full and getting the necklaces off was often a time-consuming job of untangling. Oh and that's not even all of the jewelry - I don't think we laid out bracelets or earrings. Some of the stuff was in that little box underneath and in another jewelry box. That side table is about 3x3' so we figured something 4x4 would work a little better. And that's the size pegboard comes in, so we wouldn't even need to cut anything. Yay :)

At Lowe's, my Dad & I discovered that the 4x4's were a little thicker than the 2x4's, so we went with 2 2x4's (less weight on the drywall = a good thing). Then we got to spraying. Ugh. Spraying & I never work well together. I tried to do thin, even coats, spraying the right distance away, keeping my arm moving - everything you're supposed to do to get good looking coverage - and no matter how hard I tried and how many coats I applied, it came out splotchy. Like, some parts were glossy (yay) and some spots were matte (boo). So once I could tell that more coats wasn't fixing the problem, I called it good and dead.

At ACE Hardware, we picked up some special drywall hanging things and nails.

Works like this: You screw the nail into that rectangular thingy above, shove the whole thing into the wall, and the rectangular thing butterflies open, catching against the inside of the wall. We also used a washer so the nailhead wouldn't go through the pegboard holes.

We held up one to see where I wanted to position them and then drew inside the holes where the screws would go. I can't remember if we checked to make sure that one was level. But to make sure they were evenly spaced, we did this.
Held the level inbetween them. Then drew inside the other pegboard holes.

With the biggest drill bit we had, my dad drilled the screw holes.
Then Mom and Dad got on a plane and flew home to Ohio. So it was all up to me to actually hang them. Sadly, because those butterfly things are so wide, I had to almost double the size of the drywall holes in order to get them through. And then once they were through, the drywall holes were waaaaaaay huge for the screw... But they're up and sturdy. I did one panel by myself (with Kitten's supervision) ...
See my jewelry box collection to the right?

...but the second one was giving me grief for some reason, so I asked my friend Karah to come over and hold the pegboard while I drilled.

By the way, drilling is one of my new favorite things to do. :)

And voila!
I started out hanging them all up at random (as pictured above) but then realized it would be annoying to relocate the peg hook when putting a necklace back up. So I organized them like so.
And this is how they currently are. Bracelets and earrings have yet to be hung or put up somehow because I ran out of hooks. Oh, and Lowe's didn't have the small size hooks so those came from ACE Hardware too. Well, I guess they do have the small size, but they come in a package w/ assorted sizes. And I wanted only the small ones.

Someday I think it'd look nice to frame the pegboards, but for now, they add lots of awesome color to my otherwise monochromatic gold room and have a paneled artwork feel. I love paneled art. Oh, and that last picture is the truest color (at least on my computer) - a medium teal color.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Roasted Tomatoes & Egg Salad Sandwich

If you've never tried roasting tomatoes before, I strongly!! recommend it. WOW are they good. I combined the efforts of Ina Garten and Smitten Kitchen - I roasted mine with peeled and semi-crushed garlic cloves; a smattering of salt, onion pwd, and dried basil & oregano; and olive oil, roasting them on 450 for 25-ish minutes. Oh, and I cut them about 1/4" thick b/c I knew they'd shrink in the oven.

I made some egg salad using pesto and mayo and fresh flat-leaf parsley. It was good. But adding the roasted tomatoes made it sooo good.

Italian-style egg salad sandwhich on toasted whole wheat
bread with roasted tomatoes and lettuce.

Friday, February 10, 2012

Vegetable Pakora

If you know me, you know I LOOOOOOOOVE Indian food. When I was in 2nd grade, my best friend was Indian, and I always ate dinner at her house because her mom made the best food! So thanks to Nina and her mom, I always want to go to an Indian restaurant for my birthday.

A few months ago... woops, just now getting around to posting... I made Vegetable Pakora. YUUUUUMMMM!!! Here are the recipes I used to come up with a recipe that worked with the veggies I had on hand:
Easy Indian Recipes and Menu In Progress.

Does anyone else do that? I look at a couple of recipes to see what the similarities and differences are to see how I can tweak it to accomodate my fridge and pantry.

Basically, it's gram flour (which is flour made from chickpeas), shredded and blanched veggies, a binder (oil or egg or both), and seasonings. The gram flour and the fenugreek (or Methi Powder) MAKE THIS DISH. It will NOT taste like pakora if you try using regular flour and won't taste nearly as good if you skip the fenugreek seasoning. For the veggies, I remember using zucchini and carrots and onions and yuca root (because I randomly wanted to try it out - it's like a potato). All you do for those is shred them on your cheese grater, and then to blanch, you put them in a pot of rapidly boiling water for about a min or so. Then let them drain and cool. After you mix it all, you deep fry little balls of the mixture.

Here's me making my own gram flour. ...'Cause I thought it would be easy... Just buy it if you can.

And here are my yummy homemade pakoras.


It's really an easy vegetarian dish or appetizer if you have shreddable veggies and buy some gram flour and fenugreek.