Thursday, December 15, 2011

So, here's the deal

Alright everyone! I am finally posting something new, even though it has been 2 months since the last post! Wow does time fly! 

So, since we left off, my hubby and I got a wonderful little puppy named Dexter! He is a lab/hound and is the cutest black dog I have ever laid eyes on. That is one of the many reasons I haven't posted in a while. In other news, the holidays are here! This means that holiday time with family is more important than posting on the blog. 

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with my side of the family and a few family friends this year. I had to work Thanksgiving morning, got off at 12, then met the hubs at my parent's house for Thanksgiving lunch. It was a great afternoon of relaxation and resting before returning to work the next day. 

We have many Christmas plans in the works this year. It will be my first Christmas as a wife, and it will also be my first Christmas to spend with Joseph's family! I am excited for the change. I work all around Christmas, so we are traveling to the in-law's house on the 23rd and coming back home either Christmas night or the day after Christmas. 

So tonight I do not have any pictures of the puppy (he is very mobile and hard to take good pics of) or the apartment decked out for Christmas (cheaply), I do wish everyone a Merry Christmas! May we all stop in the hubbub of activity and remember why we celebrate this day. Our savior was born to save us and give us an eternity with HIM! REJOICE! 

Love, 

Abby 

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

I Heart Chalkboard Paint!

For my second post of the day, I got bored and needed a new project. I looked around the apartment, and what did I see? Some flour and sugar containers! They were white and beautiful. But they were missing something....CHALKBOARD PAINT! I had some chalkboard paint leftover from making my chalkboard frame that hangs on the pantry door, so I decided to make some labels for the canisters. 

Here they are before the project began. I grabbed all of my supplies: 

Canisters
Chalkboard Paint
Paintbrush
Newspaper (to catch the extra paint) 



I didn't use a stencil or painter's tape because I didn't have either at home, but you can use either if you would like. I just wanted all of the canisters to have a similar shape and size, so I went for it! 

Here are the canisters after the first coat of paint...



Then I waited 30 minutes and painted the second coat (be sure to wait at least 30 minutes until you add another coat, because if the paint is not fully dry, it will chip away when you try to paint another coat). 

Here's after the second coat.



And the third...



Here they are on the kitchen counter...




..........



I hope y'all enjoyed my cute afternoon project! Try it on your own and post pictures for me to see!! 


-Abby :)


Picture frame project

So this week, I have decided to finally add to our picture collection on the wall across from our bed. As you may remember, in another post here, I showed you that we only had one picture frame hanging on that wall. Well, all of that is about to change. 

I took some old picture frames that I had used in my old apartment, painted them, and hung them up with new pictures from our engagement photo session and our wedding. Here's the process...

First, I took 2 old 8x10 frames, and emptied the glass and backing from them. I don't have a picture of this because I forgot, and because they were pretty ugly! 


Next, I painted them 2 different colors to get the feel I wanted in the room.



After carefully choosing which picture should go in which frame, they were ready! 




Here are all of the frames ready to mount on the wall. I didn't paint the others because I didn't want too much color on the wall. 



And....tah dah! Here they are! I left out the black 8x10 because I need a few other frames to fill in space before I put it up. I will update this again once more are added. 



By the way... I learned a valuable lesson yesterday. NEVER put a tervis lid in the bottom level of the dishwasher...NEVER! Your dishwasher will chew it up and spit it out. Literally. This is what happened to ours...



Anyway, happy Tuesday to everyone, have a great day! 

Abby 

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Variegated Yarn Baby Blanket



So this is my first knitting post! For all of you who know me, you know I love to knit! I made this blanket for a friend at work who is having a baby girl at the end of October! It is still sitting in my locker at work, because I haven't worked with her yet this week, but I hope she enjoys the finished product! 

Props to the people who provided this pattern. You can find the original pattern here. It is called the Sunny Baby Blanket. The original pattern suggested a solid color, but since it is blocky, I chose a pretty variegated yarn, called Neapolitan by Impeccable! yarns. I bought it at Michael's. (Random tip when you are buying yarn or other art supplies: there is always a 40% coupon you can use at Michael's from your Sunday paper when you buy things that aren't cheap or on sale. I use one every time I go!)


Here's the pattern: 


Supplies


1. Worsted weight yarn, about 800 yards. I had to use 1 1/8 large skeins to get my desired blanket length

2. US Size 8 circular needles that are at least 29" long 

3. Gauge: I'm lazy so I don't do this, but if you're into it - - 17 stitches and 32 rows = 10cm in garter stitch

Instructions

1. Cast on 132 stitches

2. Rows 1-16: Knit 

3. Begin pattern on row 17: 
             
           Row 1 (right side): Knit.
           Row 2 (wrong side): Knit 8, (purl 8, knit 4) 9 times, purl 8, knit 8.
           Rows 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11: Repeat row 1.
           Rows 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12: Repeat row 2.
           Rows 13-18: Knit.
4. Repeat pattern (rows 1-18) 11 times more (or to desired length - - I knitted 7 sets of the pattern total)
5. Repeat rows 1-12 once more.
6. Knit 16 rows for border
7. Bind off, and weave loose ends to wrong side of work. Wash and block.






Happy Knitting! 

Love Abby 

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Travels and Pumpkins.

Well this time last week, Joseph and I were driving through the day to Winchester, Virginia for my uncle's funeral. Friday was the funeral. It was a sad time, but it was also great to see all of my dad's side of the family. My thoughts and prayers have been going out to my aunt and cousins these past few weeks. I cannot imagine how it feels to lose a father and a husband this early in life. It was his time, though, and I'm glad we got to see him at our wedding in June. It was a hard trip for him, as he was already not feeling good, and Joseph and I both really appreciate him and his family coming down to Birmingham for it. Sadly, I don't have any pictures of him at the wedding, but at the visitation on Thursday night there was a slide show with some pictures from the wedding of uncle Tim having a great time! We all miss him so much, but we are glad he is no longer suffering. 

Friday night, Joseph and I headed with my cousin Paul and his lovely bride Nora to stay with them in Kodak, Tennessee (a small town near Knoxville) so we did not have to drive all the way to Atlanta that night. They live in the most awesome place, Seven Islands Wildlife Refuge. There are beautiful trails, a river, and the cute house that Paul and Nora live in! How did they get to live there, might you ask? Nora was hired as the lands manager for the refuge, and they "made" her live in the house! How great is that?!? 


Here is a picture of the lovely couple on their wedding day in August of this year


Saturday morning, we woke up, took a tour of the barn and area around Paul and Nora's house, ate some awesome blueberry pancakes, and hit the road! We traveled to Kennesaw, Georgia for Joseph's dad's cousin, Mark's wedding (It's complicated, so we just call him uncle Mark!). It was a beautiful reception at Mark and his new wife Maja's house in Atlanta. Fortunately, there is a room (formally known as the cigar room/office) where we periodically peered in to catch snippets of the Alabama Florida game! All I have to say is 38-10. Ridiculous. We had a great time with Joseph's family celebrating life and love. Seeing Mark and Maja together reminded me of our wedding day, and what a whirlwind it was. I wish I had taken pictures of the reception, but we were too busy having a GREAT TIME! 

Sunday afternoon, Joseph and I drove back to Birmingham, and Monday-Wednesday I went back to real life at work. It was actually a good week, even though I chose to work 3 days in a row, which is not my favorite. So I made it through the week, and now it's Thursday. Today I was browsing my friends' blogs, and I found these (Click on link to view recipe). Yum. What are they? Spiced pumpkin muffins. Thanks to Maria, my nursing school co-graduate, I made an amazing dessert/breakfast/afternoon snack food for Joseph and I.

Let's get down to business.

First, get all of your ingredients together. I'll give Maria the cred on the recipe. The only thing I omitted was the allspice, simply because I didn't have any on hand. 


After you have preheated your oven to 400, and followed the recipe, cook for 15-18 min, or until golden brown. 


While the muffins are baking, I decided to make a simple cream cheese icing to go on top of some of the muffins. It makes them a little more sweet/appropriate to eat as dessert, and the non-iced muffins are for breakfast. 


The ingredients you need for icing are: 

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
4 oz cream cheese
3/4 teaspoon vanilla 
2 cups powdered sugar



First, cream butter, vanilla and cream cheese with electric mixer until blended. Then add powdered sugar a little at a time, until your icing reaches desired consistency (I used a little less than 2 cups). 


Once the icing is done, it's probably time to take your muffins out! Yum! 



Use a knife to smooth icing on the muffins you choose after they have cooled for about 10 minutes (unless they smell so good that you want to eat one right away, like me!).




They go great with a glass of milk and your favorite TV show. 


Down to the last bite! So good! 


Now I will put away the left over icing for another culinary adventure that needs cream cheese added. Enjoy the first taste of fall, which to me MUST include pumpkin! 

Abby 

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

A long time coming

Well folks, it's been a week and a half since I posted last. Last week, I worked my first overtime shift ever. It wasn't bad, but the difference between working 3 12-hour days and 4 is drastic. It only makes it worse that my 4th shift was on Saturday (the day of the Arkansas game!). I fortunately got off work early due to a low census and watched the 2nd half of the game at home (while Joseph was AT the game:) - I was jealous!). Needless to say, 4 days of work is exhausting! We shall see if it is worth it when I get paid on Friday. 

Now...on to other things. When I started this blog a few weeks ago, I wanted to let our friends and family know about our life together so far, so it is only appropriate to now show some pictures of our apartment! Be warned that not everything is clean, and I do not like cleaning...so if you ever come over it's probably going to be messy. Anyway, on to the pictures...



This is the couch (and loveseat  - below) that Joseph's great aunt and uncle graciously gave us. They needed a little bit of coordinating color to make them work with the room, but that's where the pillows and painting come in! I'm actually thinking about changing it up a little bit possibly in the spring with some blue pillows and a different wall hanging to make the orange less dominant in the room...but we'll see!



...and this is what the loveseat normally looks like. Pretty, huh? Haha. This is where I usually put clean laundry when I'm too lazy to put it up, then I have to work and it gets put off for a few days. That will all change later today, though! 


This is the wall across from our couches. You can't see it, but there's a wood-burning fireplace below the pictures!! We cannot wait to use it, and Joseph has already been chopping wood for it. The painting in the middle is a beautiful one that my mom's good friend from church did for us. She took our wedding invitation and put in on the canvas, then painted on and around it! What a great way to keepsake your invitation! I might try this as wedding gifts for friends. 


  
The perfect little corner that houses our tv and tv stand.
 

 The hallway before you get to the living room. Here hangs our beautiful sign that Liz Shults made. She also has a wonderful blog that you should check out here.

 

 Ahh...the bedroom. This has been a source of stress for me as far as decorating goes. I do not know what to put on the wall above our bed, and I'm just not the most creative person, so I've done other things to get my mind off these blank walls.


The bed frame, on the other hand, is my favorite part of the room. Why? you ask? because Joseph and his great uncle secretly made it as my wedding present. It's amazing! 



The bed itself, which is now covered with my quilt I used on my bed in college (bought at Dirt Cheap in Tuscaloosa, great find) will soon be covered with this beautiful duvet from Pottery Barn, thanks to a great wedding gift certificate! 

 

 Here is the wall across from the bed. It houses my vanity, and the dresser and TV. I plan to have this be the wall of pictures, I just haven't accumulated enough picture frames yet! 




 The wall leading to the bathroom is the only one that is finished. This initial was made by my good friend, Katherine for our engagement party! I got the frame from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore, which you should all check out. 

So that is all I will show you for now. The rest of the apartment is too dirty for anyone's eyes to see. I cannot wait to get our new duvet cover in the mail, which I just ordered today. I will update all of you once we finish decorating the bedroom! 

Enjoy your hump-day! 

Abby 




Sunday, September 18, 2011

The best chicken I have EVER tasted!

So I lied. Joseph just cooked dinner and I HAD to share it...


Yea. Doesn't it look delicious? Like something you would order from some hole-in-the-wall diner that just happened to serve the best chicken fingers you have EVER eaten? Well ladies and gents, you can make your VERY OWN best chicken fingers. It's easy. 

All you need is a hot pot with a good amount of vegetable oil. Get it hot enough to boil and continue...

1. Grab some chicken fingers out of the fridge

2. Put some all purpose flour in a bowl, and sprinkle with Tony's seasoning, hot sauce, garlic powder, and salt (just a little) 

3. Lightly dredge chicken in flour mixture 

4. Pop chicken fingers into hot oil (a few at a time) and watch them turn golden. 

5. Remove chicken from oil and place on plate covered with a paper towel. Make sure chicken is cooked to at least 155 degrees. 

6. Enjoy, preferably with some veggies to make yourself feel better. At least that's what we did! 


Happy Joseph enjoying his creation! 



Such a yummy dinner ...


Happy clean plate! 

Until next time, eat to your hearts content! 

Abby 


Meal planning, an art.

First of all, I would like to say I have decided to start a tradition. I will be posting twice a week in order to NOT overwhelm myself with blogging. 

That said, I have been trying to plan meals for Joseph and I while also saving money at the grocery store. I tried using coupons, but I was not dedicated enough to save much money. Since I do not have a whole lot of free time, I have decided to shop at Aldi and Publix (Aldi is great for produce and the essentials, while I shop the sales at Publix weekly.) If anyone else has ideas about how to shop smartly, let me know! 

So, as far as meals for the next few weeks, I have come up with a list of recipes I am using, and then we can choose what we want to eat each night. Previously, I made a weekly menu with a certain food for each night, but it got confusing and we ended up not following the meal plan. Since we have a handy chalkboard on our pantry door, I am using that to write all of the choices down and cross them off as we eat each meal. 


Here is a close up of our menu for the next two weeks...we will have leftovers some nights...


...and a view from our dining room. 

As for the recipes, Pinterest has been my best friend since we got married. It is great to find recipes from blogs and friends. I enjoy tweaking the ingredients to things that we have in the apartment already if we're running low on food. I would also like to share a few of my favorite recipes with y'all so far....

We tried this for a dinner party paired with asparagus and it was a hit! 

This is a healthier version of the chili we all love. AND it tastes GREAT! I made a whole crockpot full and put some in the freezer for a night when I don't want to cook. 

This was great to make ahead of time and get Joseph to pop it in the oven on my way home from work one night....and DELICIOUS! One of his friends came over for dinner and really enjoyed it! 

These are great! I am loving everything I make from dashingdish.com! This recipe was so easy and I already had everything to make it in my fridge. She also makes some Great Chicken Enchilada pockets that I have yet to try. 

That is all I have so far, but I would like to add that without the internet, I would probably be failing as a cook. I would also say that whenever I am too tired or can't think of anything to cook, my wonderful husband usually comes up with something AWESOME! 

Ta Ta for now! 

Abby



Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Going back in time...

So it was only three months ago that Joseph and I got married. Wow! What an awesome 3 months it has been! We've moved into our apartment, I started my job the day after we got back from the honeymoon, and Joseph finished his internship with the youth group. Now Joseph is into his first week at his NEW job (yay!), and I feel like reminiscing about our wedding day. 

Just so all of you know, the amazing Camille Beasley of SCB photography took all of our photos, from engagement pics, to the whole wedding day. Now that she is a travel nurse, we miss having her around, but we love looking at the pictures of our wonderful first day as a married couple together. 

Here are a few of our favorites....


getting ready!


seeing each other before the wedding....it was surreal


hugging my dad - this was when i teared up!


my girls! 


the whole wedding party...they do a pretty good job of acting goofy, don't they? 


the guys - of course they had to be cool.


Joseph's family 


My family 


THE KISS


The awesome venue for our reception - The Loft at Flower Stems


After cutting the cake and toasting...haha 


first dance to Coldplay's "Til Kingdom Come"


Dancing forever! So much fun! 


My lovely bridesmaid, Erin, who caught the bouquet


Groomsman, Will, who caught the garter


Leaving in our london taxi cab! 

So all in all, it was the best day of our lives so far. I'm sure there are many better days to come as our family learns and grows, but we will remember our wedding day FOREVER! O I almost forgot...


This is the night before the wedding, when Joseph's groomsmen put an actual ball and chain on his ankle. He had to go to Lowe's the morning of the wedding to get it cut off his leg....HILARIOUS!