My Kitchen

Once upon a time I ran across a list of blogging prompts. One of the prompts was share the favorite room in your home, and why you love it. I immediately knew which room I would choose, I would choose the kitchen. And while that may be a bit of a stretch, here is my reasoning.

Growing up I had a love hate relationship with cooking. I loved to cook but I hated to wait for whatever it was I was cooking to finish because I was usually “starving” or at least so I thought at the time.

As I got older I started making a “hope” chest. You know what that is, right? A hope that you get married, except I wasn’t hoping I’d get married, I hoped I’d have my own kitchen. Everything I collected happened to be kitchen gadgets and utensils. When Food Network started up, I used to watch it religiously, trying to learn how to cook from the greats, Tyler Florence, Emeril Lagassee, Rachael Ray, Paula Deen… I wanted nothing more to do than to learn to be one of the greats when it came to the kitchen.

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Life and Kitchens and Pipes oh my

 Redemption Brownies

Have you ever been just totally sucked into a persons blog and just wished you lived in their house, or something like that? Don’t worry, I don’t see that around these parts. Oh well I like my little house. Some days it can be trying. And some day you get water pipes breaking the day before you have family over (twice, read that, twice) but that’s part of the fun of home ownership right?

One night when the washer started flooding the laundry room (blocked water pipe, not busted) I went walking through the house grumbling about home ownership and I told Tbug NEVER OWN YOUR OWN HOUSE, it sucks! She was like so do I get to live with you the rest of my life? I told her only if you want to live in a box because that’s where I’m moving next. Over dramatic much?!?!

Truthfully when I was around 15 my family went to Ft. Worth, Texas for the AQHYA Worldshow for me to compete and I saw a family living under a bridge. I started crying and saying I never wanted to live under a bridge. To this day I still wonder about that family and whatever happened to them.

That’s kind of one of my fears, not going to lie. And I’m really not sure any of this has to do with the pictures above other than it is of my kitchen. I went on a cleaning spree the other day, just the kitchen, but one room at a time. The next day I tackled our bedroom. Baby steps, right? And by the time I get all the rooms clean it will be time to start all over again, right?

And I may just have eaten that salad and then had a brownie… or two or three… I’ll never tell!

Happy Hump Day because I guess you need to know what day it is in case you live under a rock or in a box or maybe with a pet fox.

Our Kitchen Remake

When we moved into the house, our kitchen had these cabinets. They aren’t bad, they’re just not what we wanted. We priced replacing them but right now it just isn’t in the budget. So for just under 4 years we’ve lived with them. One day while we were walking around Lowes (which you know you’ve grown up when you love wandering around Lowes) we found this cabinet refinisher kit. It was even on sale so hubby and I thought, sure, why not.

Haha, then it sat at our house for a few months. I got pregnant and no one would let me touch the paint and then the fact that I was in school and whatnot and hubby works and it just didn’t work. Then one day we decided it was time to get the cabinets done, especially since we’re having a baby shower here at my house this weekend.

So I went without kitchen cabinet doors for a little over a month. It made it really easy to get stuff in and out of the cabinets but at the same time I really missed my cabinet doors. My mom, father-in-law and husband did the sweetest thing for me and repainted my cabinets for me with this refinisher stuff we got from Lowes.

And botta bing, botta boom.

So I just wanted to show the finished look. We took down the tile backsplash and replaced with faux bricks (I love the brick look) and then we made the cabinets look brand new. I Love my new kitchen. It’s really lightened it up and it’s really dark because remember… I live in a berm house.

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What’s up with the Crazy Weather?!?!

Here we are approaching the 2nd Anniversary of the Joplin Tornado.  A tornado that did major devastation to my part of the country and yet we’re not the only part of the country that is hurting.  Just yesterday Moore Oklahoma was hit by an EF5 tornado.  I have a college friend and her husband who live in Moore.  She said they were okay and that their house was 1000 feet from being taken out by the tornado.

I really am starting to wonder why Mother Nature is so upset lately.  Is it just me and the fact that I’m older so I pay more attention, or is the weather becoming crazier?  Can anyone shed some light on that?

So Sunday afternoon we were headed to pick my mom up from her work trip to Germany.  She was in Germany 2 years ago when the Joplin tornado hit.  She found out by watching International news and calling my dad at 1am to chew him out for not telling her what was going on.  I tried to call her but dad said it would be the middle of the night and that he’d call her first thing in the morning.  Just so happens our mornings here started 7 hours after her morning there.  Rude awakening for everyone involved.  Then mom called me at work to chew me out for not making dad call her.  My phone call came in at 10am.

Anyway, they were calling for bad weather.  This is what the sky looked like just before we left to head for the airport.

Which was a bit eery seeing as though this was the predicted forcast for the evening.

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Missouri weather changes in a New York Minute

Welcome to Missouri… where the winter will surprise you every time!  We’ve pretty much been going through a drought the last couple of years.  What’s new, a lot of the country has been.  Our last big snow happened in February 2011.  Last year we didn’t get any, or well a light dusting.  And then this year was shaping up to be the same.

Back in January, we got a small snow.  Not much at all and by the next day it was gone.  As you can tell, the road is pretty well dry.  This was the next day.

Sure the woods and the field still had a bit of snow in it because no one drives through it… ok well that’s a lie, we did… but that’s besides the point.  When we got home that day hubby asked if I wanted to go with him.  I said, absolutely, so away we went.

The timber was pretty, although it was mainly ice, not as much snow.  That’s really pretty typcical for Missouri weather anyway… ice.  Back in 2007 we were without power for a week.  We had a huge ice storm come through and knock power out for most everyone.  It was not a fun time.  Getting up in the wee hours of the morning and seeing your breath in the bathroom.  Nope, no running water either. 

Living out in the country where we do, we’re on well water, so no power, no well.  No well, no water.  We went and bucketed it up from the creek.  Boy that was fun, lemme tell ya.  We didn’t have a generator so at night we sat in the dark or next to candles.  It was like being transferred back to pioneer days after you had all the modern day experiences.  By the end of that week I was grumpy.

So anyway, back to my story present day.  I watched the weather channel all fall and it said we really would have a dry winter.  So when we got this very light snow fall, we went and enjoyed it, thinking this might just be it.  That was the case last year anyway.

When you have snow melting and very cold nights (ok so not very cold compared to some of my readers, but cold for Missourians) you get nice icicles that form.

Yes, I kind of made an unhappy discovery in the back of the beast… It is in the form of my roasting pan covered in mud.  This was sure a fun one to clean :(… NOT.

It was nice while it lasted, but like I said, it lasted about a day.  Of course I get sick of the snow very easily because I’m a hot weather girl myself.

So jump into February and more particularly last week, we were under a Winter Weather Advisory.  We were in the southern tip of it (however I hear that parts of Texas got dumped on about the same time) so we didn’t get much.  It was all gone the next day.

Then this week hit.  They put out the Winter Weather Advisory on Sunday.  Said our area was in the 1-3 inches category, but be prepared.  And this was the beauty I got to drive to work in come Tuesday morning.

And it really snowed all the way into Wednesday afternoon, then the sun came out.  Rule around here, if you don’t like the weather, hang around 30 minutes, it’s bound to change! 🙂

When the sun came out, we hit about 35 degrees and everything started melting.  All the prime time to get photos, I was stuck at work.  Oh well… such is life.

That and I really don’t like snow, but it sure is darn pretty while it’s falling!

Now our field is half visible half white.  That’s after a day of “warmth” as they call it.  I’m going to call it more a day where the snow quit falling.

But it sure is pretty!

Although Marlie, Audrey & Rio didn’t agree with me so much.

So now, we’re at Friday.  The snow has moved out of the area.  We’re looking at a high today of 34.  A high tomorrow of 39 and a high of 54 by Sunday.  Yeah I told you, if you don’t like the weather, hang around, it’ll change.

Oh well, at least I got to experience some snow, right.  It was the ice I could deal without!  I slipped and fell at work the other day in the parking lot on ice.  My pride was hurt more than anything, although my body aches.  I landed on my laptop, my camera fell off my arm and slammed against the concrete and there were spectators to watch.  It was a grand day.  But at least I’m safe and the snow/ice will be gone! 🙂

Have a fabulous weekend!

What he would miss…

You know, we all have our funny little quirks.  Those “ticks” that make us who we are and separate us from everyone else.

I got home from work the other day and hubby walked into the bedroom, looked at the bed and said, “Well, I know what you decided not to wear today.”  And it’s true.

First off, I’m not a morning person, no matter how hard I try to be, so getting up and getting dressed, well I have that down to an art.  I know exactly when I have to have whatever I’m doing done by so I can get to work on time.  hair, make-up, contacts in, teeth brushed, clothes on, shoes on, etc.

The one problem with all of that I have though is…
                        dun dun dun….

What am I going to wear that morning to work.

I walk into the closet, decide on one thing, then grab something else, realize they don’t match and instead of hanging them back up, I throw them on the bed and go after something else.  Some mornings it looks like my side of the closet just threw up on the bed.

When I come home that night, I generally put all my clothes away and they wait for the next day’s dressing adventure.

Maybe I’m wrong here, but I truly believe that is something that my wonderful husband would miss about me.

Oh and hey, go check out this post!  It might tell a little something about yours truly!  And if you are here from this post, please leave me a note and let me know!

p.s. Don’t forget about the Extravaganza that starts TOMORROW!!!!!!