My Messy House

My house is currently a disaster.

Nothing is where it belongs, and there is dog and cat fur everywhere.

By the time I get home in the evening after work and then make supper all I want to do is curl up on the couch with J and watch TV. And then on my day off I feel like I "deserve" a day to relax and do nothing except read and play on the internet.

I thought about doing PopSugar's 30-Day Cleaning Challenge. It seemed fitting since I'm already doing their 2015 Reading Challenge, but I don't necessarily think my microwave and my oven are the first place to start. I think I need to get the house clean, and then start using some sort of schedule that involves doing one or two quick tasks each night. I've seen some on Pinterest, I just need to find the right one for me. (Or find one that's pretty close to tweak a bit.)

Do you have any tricks for keeping your house clean and tidy?

Closet Make-Over

Now that my students loans are almost completely paid off (two more payments!) J and I have decided to start doing some little things around the house. Part of it is because we're hoping to sell within the next couple years and we'd like to make a little money, and part of it is just because we haven't done much since we bought our place three years ago.

So far we've laid new flooring in the living room and dining room, plus we've given the spare room and the office a minor face lift. (Check out the fun I had giving our filing cabinet a new paint job...) The next room we plan on tackling is our master bedroom. But, before we could even start thinking about painting and re-decorating the room needed to be completely re-organized.

We decided to start with the closet and our dresser drawers this weekend. We ran a few errands in the morning, including getting our passport pictures done (yay!) and taking a run to Home Depot to pick out some kind of closet shelving kit. We went with the 5-8' FreeSlide because it looked like the best for our needs, and it was within our budget. (We had a $50 gift card and it was $59.99, so it was perfect.)

We've been horrible lately when it comes to putting our clothes away after we do laundry so we had baskets full of clean laundry everywhere, and most of it wasn't folded. So Saturday evening we threw in a DVD (Mom's Night Out, which was really cute) and started folding and organizing clothes. Of course we had some helpers during our laundry folding. Sydney wanted to play in every basket we opened, and Daisy wanted to knock over every pile of clean clothes she could. Luckily Daisy got tired eventually!

Sunday after church I took a little nap (like I do pretty much every Saturday) and J started putting up the closet organizer. It's a good thing my husband is handy, because the instructions aren't the greatest and they were designed for an 8' closet even though the organizer is for a 5' to 8' closet. Our closet is only 6' so he had to do some playing to get everything in and the way we wanted it. We spent Sunday evening sorting and putting away all of our clothes. We are huge pack rats, but we forced ourselves to throw out anything really ratty and we filled a couple garbage bags with clothes to donate somewhere. By the time we went to bed I was extremely happy with how the closet looked. Now it's time to pick out paint colours!

 

Book Review; "Midnight Crossroad" by Charlaine Harris

On Friday I finished my first book of the year and scratched "Book by a Female Author" off my 2015 Reading Challenge list.

Midnight Crossroad (A novel of Midnight, Texas)
Charlaine Harris | May 6, 2014

Amazon Synopsis: From Charlaine Harris, the bestselling author who created Sookie Stackhouse and her world of Bon Temps, Louisiana, comes a darker locale—populated by more strangers than friends. But then, that’s how the locals prefer it…

Welcome to Midnight, Texas, a town with many boarded-up windows and few full-time inhabitants, located at the crossing of Witch Light Road and Davy Road. It’s a pretty standard dried-up western town.

There’s a pawnshop (someone lives in the basement and is seen only at night). There’s a diner (people who are just passing through tend not to linger). And there’s new resident Manfred Bernardo, who thinks he’s found the perfect place to work in private (and who has secrets of his own).

Stop at the one traffic light in town, and everything looks normal. Stay awhile, and learn the truth...

My Thoughts: I read (and loved) all of the Sookie Stackhouse books and I think I was expecting "Midnight Crossroad" to be very similar. Harris is a great writer - her characters, settings, and plot are all well-developed and well-written - but I still struggled to get through this book. I blame that on the fact that I was expecting there to be more of a cross-over with Sookie's world. If I hadn't known who the author was I'm not sure I would have struggled quite so much, but I still don't think I would be inclined to pick up book 2 when it's released in May.

Have you ever been disappointed by a book from an author you usually enjoy?

 

Breakfast of Champions

For Chistmas this year J and I were given a Hamilton Beach Breakfast Sandwich Maker by my friend Lauren. The store I work in sells this little gadget and I've been eyeing them for quite a while so I was pretty excited when I opened it up Christmas morning. Yesterday was the first chance we actually had to use it and I was really happy with it.

We made our breakfast sandwiches using pancakes (Compliments frozen buttermilk pancakes fit in the sandwich maker perfectly if you've got one of your own), pre-cooked bacon, and an egg. After four minutes they were cooked perfectly. We covered them in maple syrup and enjoyed them with some fresh fruit. Best breakfast I've had at home in a while. (Actually better than the last meal I had at Cora's too, now that I think about it.)

Clean up was easy too, which is important to me. If it's too big of a pain to clean it I'm just not going to use it. I'm super lazy, especially when it comes to cleaning! (I made sure my slow cooker was dishwasher safe because I knew I wouldn't use it if I couldn't just chuck it in the dishwasher.)

The only downside was that we could only make one sandwich at a time, so J had his breakfast half finished before mine was finished cooking. They do sell dual sandwich makers, so if I feel like we're getting a lot of use out of this one I make look into getting one of those.

Do you have any neat little kitchen appliances that you love?

PS: This post wasn't sponsored or anything. I just really like our breakfast sandwich maker and I wanted to share one of my new favourite products. :-)

Upside-Down Pineapple Cake

Yesterday was my youngest brother-in-law's last day in Nova Scotia before he headed back to school in Florida. I can't believe how fast the last five weeks have flown by! It was great getting to spend some time with Joseph, he's grown up so much since he left for Pensacola a year and half ago. Joseph is the baby of the family and his older siblings (J included) have always treated him that way. These past five weeks I think they all saw their brother as more than the baby and I think their relationship with him changed and grew. It was great to see. He and J spent some one-on-one time skiing and I have to admit it made me really happy. (I'm a dork, and I accept that.)

 

The entire family went over to my mother- and father-in-law's place for lasagna last night. My mother-in-law doesn't make lasagna very often but we all get pretty excited when she does. I will always pick my mom's chilli, my mom's turkey dinner, and my mom's cookies but when it comes to lasagna my mother-in-law definitely wins. (Just don't tell my mom!)

 

I was off yesterday so I volunteered to make dessert. I've always wanted to try a pineapple upside down cake and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. I was really happy with how well this cake turned out, and how simple it was to make. It was a huge hit with the whole family. If you're looking for something new to try, I definitely recommend giving this cake a try!

 

 

Upside-Down Pineapple Cake
Makes: 9 Pieces
Prep Time: 20 min. Total Time: 60 min.
Source: compliments.ca

[ Ingredients ]

1/2 cup packed brown sugar
3 tbsp butter
9 slices pineapple (drained)
9 maraschino cherries
3 tbsp water

3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup of butter
1 large egg
2/3 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

[ Directions ]

1. Pre-heat oven to 325° F.
2. In a small saucepan heat brown sugar, butter and water. Stir mixture until it boils.
3. Grease the side of an 8x8 baking pan and pour the mixture in. Arrange your pineapple slices and cherries. (I had to cut a couple of the slices to get them to fit properly.)
4. Using an electric mixer cream the sugar and butter. Add egg, milk and vanilla and mix well.
5. Combine all the dry ingredients and then use a spatular to fold them into the wet ingredients.
6. Pour the batter into your greased pan and put it in the oven for 40 minutes. Check to make sure the cake is done by inserting a toothpick in the centre. If the toothpick comes out clean it's done.
7. Once cake has completely cooled invert it on to a plate and serve.

Enjoy!

2015 Reading Challenge

 

I absolutely love to read. I've been a reader as long as I can remember. When I was in elementary school I loved my mom's old Nancy Drew books and the Baby-Sitter's Club. In junior high and high school I read pretty much whatever I could get my hands on. When I was in university I didn't read as much as I would have liked, but over the past couple years I've turned back into an avid reader.

 

Lately I've been stuck in a bit of a rut when it comes to reading. There's so much fantastic YA dystopian fiction that I want to read every series I hear about. I feel like I need to branch out though, I can't keep reading the same type of book over and over again. A couple of my staff mentioned the 2015 Reading Challenge that PopSugar posted. Since they both decided to give it a try I figured I would too.

 

There's one category for each week of the year, but I'm not going to do them in order. I'm a little behind since it's January 15th and I haven't finished a book yet this year, but I think I can catch up.

 

Here are the categories in case you're interested:

 

1. a book with more than 500 pages
2. a romance
3. a book that became a movie
4. a book published this year
5. a book with a number in the title
6. a book written by someone under 30
7. a book with nonhuman characters
8. a funny book
9. a book by a female author
10. a mystery or thriller
11. a book with a one-word title
12. a book of short stories
13. a book set in a different country
14. a nonfiction book
15. a popular author's first book
16. a book from your favorite author that you haven't read yet
17. a book a friend recommended
18. a Pulitzer-prize winning book
19. a book based on a true story
20. a book at the bottom of your to read list
21. a book your mom or dad loves
22. a book that scares you
23. a book more than 100 years old
24. a book based entirely on its cover
25. a book you were supposed to read in school but didn't
26. a memoir
27. a book you can finish in a day
28. a book with antonyms in the title
29. a book set somewhere you've always wanted to visit
30. a book that came out the year you were born
31. a book with bad reviews
32. a trilogy (the first)
33. a trilogy (the second)
34. a trilogy (the third)
35. a book from your childhood
36. a book with a love triangle
37. a book set in the future
38. a book set in high school
39. a book with a color in the title
40. a book that made/makes you cry
41. a book with magic
42. a graphic novel
43. a book by an author you've never read before
44. a book you own but have never read
45. a book that takes place in your hometown
46. a book that was originally written in another language
47. a book set during Christmas (or similar holiday)
48. a book written by an author with your same initials
49. a play
50. a banned book
51. a book based on OR turned into a tv show
52. a book you started but never finished    

 

I'm currently reading "Midnight Crossroad" by Charlaine Harris. I picked it up from the library because I enjoyed her Sookie Stackhouse series, but I'm struggling to get into it. I'm hoping that trying to get the next book checked off my reading challenge list will keep me motivated to get through it.

 

Are you doing any reading challenges? If you're not enjoying a book do you keep reading until the end, or do you start a different book?

Planning a Bridal Shower

Some days, as I'm scrolling through Pinterest, I get a little sad that it wasn't around when I was planning my wedding. However, now that I'm planning a wedding shower for my sister-in-law to-be  I get to take full advantage of the wonder that is Pinterest.

Tracey's shower won't be until May, but I've got so many great ideas already! Here are just a few of the things (I think) I've decided on...

Burlap & Lace "Bride-to-Be" Sash | I haven't decided if I'll order this adorable one from Etsy or if I'll try to make my own, but this sash is absolutely perfect from Tracey. She's a country girl at heart so we'll be going with a rustic theme, and our bridesmaid dresses are a pretty plum colour.

Burlap & Lace Invitations | I love these invitations! I love the colours, the fonts, the style, EVERYTHING. As soon as we nail down all the time/date details I will be ordering these. I just can't get over how perfect they are.

Burlap Countdown | I thought this was just really cute. I'm looking forward to making some of the small, personal details that Tracey will love. I'll probably make a similar "sign the guest book" sign, but I haven't figured out what kind of guestbook to go with yet.

Picture Garland | I think this idea is really sweet. I've already asked the groom-to-be to start gathering up as many photos as he can. I'd really like Tracey to be surprised when she's sees the pictures on it. It looks so simple to make too.

I've got so many more ideas floating around in my head, I can't wait to put it all together. Have you planned any showers or parties recently? Any tips or things I need to make sure I remember?