a little story about some pumpkin seeds

The scene is set in a lime green bowl on my kitchen island

Enter the raw pumkin seeds.  They're the star of the show.

Whats that? Oh no!!! The dark villian....maple syrup!!!

The cinnamon and a pinch of salt arrive to spice up the scene.

Mix it all up---oh the plot thickens!!! and spread it all out...it's quite delectable show...

Roast them all together at 250 for about 20 minutes and you'll have a grand finale.

A pretty tastey one too!

Hope you enjoyed the show!

Sarah

salsa....yummo!

Today I had a hankering for some fresh salsa. In Andy's hometown there is a place that his parents go to frequently to buy fresh pico. I wanted me some of that...but a trip to Michigan was too far out of the way, so I went to Freddy's instead.

I got peppers, cilantro, garlic, tomatoes--in the can and out--they are expensive here!, and onion.

Because I have an itty-bitty food processor I could only do one veggie at a time.

I chopped them all up  and mixed them together. It tastes exactly like the stuff in Michigan.

I used:

1 1/2 onion

4 cloves of garlic

3rd of a red pepper

1 jalepeno...I took most of the seeds out, if you leave them in be prepared for fire mouth

half a tomato and some cherry tomatoes that needed to go

half a can of drained diced tomatoes

handful of cilantro

It's perty too!

Hope you can enjoy some tastey goodness too!

Sarah

summer adventures

Hello Party People!!! Whats happening?

Well, lately I have been a terrible blogger....but with the weather we've had...who can blame me. I am officially tanner than I would have been if I lived in MI still. At least my arms, hands, face and a little bit of my legs...which for me is TAN!!

Wow, long tangent. Todays post is going to be more of a photo post of life lately.

Making food a rainbow is so much more fun to eat!

We got to hang out with these peeps for a week. Too bad the warm weather came the day they left, but it was still highly enjoyable!

(andy's siblings, Jordan and his wife Jodi, and his sister Emily)

Checking out the wildlife at the Conservation Center!

Lots O' babies there!

The lynx were out and about and beautiful!

and the tiger in the grass...oh wait thats Lucy!!!

We went camping at Eklutna lake...

this was our view:)

and came home to a beautiful rainbow! It was actually a double rainbowm but we couldn't pick it up with our camera!

How have you been enjoying your summer?

Sarah

I did it again....

So a month or so back I posted about how I had redone a bathroom in our house and had painted it orange....well more like fleshy brain matter...but I digress...I had painted one of the walls in a checker pattern with white. Below are a few pictures for you to remind yourself.

Well after about a month I decided it had too much of a brain matter color to it and the lines in the checker board weren't even. Every time I went in there it looked worse and worse to me. The straw that broke the camels back was the fact that neither Andy, myself or Nathania....liked it. It was ugly. I tried to like it. I really did...mostly cause I went through the hassle of painting it and it took FOREVER!

So, whats a girl to do when she hates the color of her bathroom and she has guests arriving in 2 days?

Mix up some paint of course!

We have this really pretty dark blue, but it was gonna be too dark for the small space. So I added some of the fresh green that I had painted our other bathroom with and voila! I had the color I wanted and didn't spend a dime. WOOHOO for being cheap!

 I then spent the next two days painting it, and putting up the towel rods again. I even put up a mirror, but that's a story for a whole different post.

Here is the result. What do you think? Improvement or not? I think its a vast improvement.

The color is truer in the bottom two pictures. We need to work on the light...think we're gonna add a light in with a new fan.

I haven't put the shelf back up yet, cause I'm not sure I like it. We'll see.

What have you been working on? Did you ever re-paint a room within two months?

Sarah

Mary, Mary, quite contrary...

how does your garden grow?

Well....better and bigger than last year!

The first two pictures are of the front bed, which is filled with hostas...and an encroaching columbine. Oh and a huge bleeding heart. The hostas are not huge...but way bigger than last year and I know I need to add more plants, but I'm too cheap. What I really want to do is add peonies in behind the hostas in front of the window....anybody wanna give me some?

 This is the side garden. The blooming flowers are hardy geraniums and there are some iris...not blooming and a globe flower...which isn't blooming either. But I have an overgrown rhubarb that needs to be used....anybody have a favorite rhubarb recipe to send my way? I'll blog about it!!!!!!

This is the view of the finished patio that I forgot to include in a previous post..

These are my garden beds. They are doing really well this year! I have spinach coming up in random places ( I let it go to seed last year), radishes that have already been consumed. Flowering squash and kale that is doing really well!

This is the other side. I have some squash and lettuce...but mostly flowers. Last year I had planted some cosmos and delphiniums and they didn't do squat. This year they started coming up in nice little rows! I have to transplant them and think they would go nicely behind the hardy geraniums....what do you think?

How is your garden growing? What are you growing?

Happy gardening!

Sarah

Nursing Cover

 I recently completed this cute nursing cover for a friend who is due in about 15wks.  I love the funky fabric! It's been in my stash for ages and I'm glad I finally got to use it!  It was super easy to make. I followed this link and made a few minor changes. I made both the boning and the cover wider as those were 2 of the complaints I had with the one I had purchased. I hope she likes it!

 I also decided to make her a bib with some cute fabric I inherited and some left over batting. I used an IKEA bib I had as a template and made it wider and used a snap as a closure instead of velcro. I think the colors are fun and it's reversible!

Happy Sewing

Nathania

patio

We have this space under our deck that had some decorative rock in it. They were a pain to walk on and overall we didn't like the look of them down there either. We wanted something more functional. So we cleared out the rock...and put it in our RV spot...more on that later.

Andy laid out some landscaping fabric and we went to town with some bricks.

Remember this pile? We got these bricks for free from Craigslist...a little work in digging them out, but we got over 200 bricks for free!

We just put them in haphazardly. No pattern. We didn't put any sand down...too cheap! But it's relatively flat and looks a heck of a lot better than those ugly rocks! We still have some left to do...but we ran out of bricks. So we'll wait until we can find some more free ones!

Add Picture

Looks much better don't you think?

Sarah

hose...to wreath!

Last summer ANdy got a whole bunch of lawn stuff for like $50 bucks off craigslist. It included a terrible hose...it was leaky, kinked up and just not worth using. This spring when we were cleaning out the shed we found the hose again...Andy wanted to throw it out, but being the frugal girl I am, I kept it and made some wreaths out of it!

How you may ask?

I coiled the hose to the certain thickness I wanted for the wreath. I used about three coils per wreath. Then I used my trusty duct tape to make it stay in a circular form.

Then I was looking through the yarn and stuff I had and found the chain cowls I had made this past winter....which I never wore, but I thought the chain would look cool around the wreath. So I took them apart and used them to wind around the wreath form.

This is the wreath I made Nathania. I used some fabric and some push pins to make the rosettes at the bottom.

I did the same thing with the one on my front door. You can't really see the flowers, but they are tan and acually do stand out.

I made two other wreaths, but didn't get pictures...but thats pretty cool, being able to make 4 wreaths from one old hose!

So if you're looking for something to do with that old hose in your shed....make a wreath! Cause those wreath forms are way to expensive:)

Sarah

its not easy being green

We've been slowly re-painting our house...well actually, I've been painting...but anyhow recently I decided to tackle the bathroom in our bedroom. It was nothing special or fancy...

White walls, beige floors

ugly mirror and stage lights....pretty typical for these here parts.

I had recently come across a can o' paint at Home Depot in the mistints area that I REALLY liked. It was this fantastic spring green. So I bought it and painted our bathroom with it.

The difference is amazing! I had the shower curtain already and it matched perfectly. The bathroom looks way more modern now!

The next step is to replace the lights....which I have but need Storman to come and help me!

What do you think?

Sarah

lazy lucy

you know she's lazy when she won't even stand up to eat!

you're my favorite

Last Saturday night, Nathania and I hosted a "Favorite Things Exchange"

We got the idea from Joy over at joyshope.com you should go check her out...she's a pretty cool lady!

We began the evening with some good finger-lip-smacking food! Nathania and I didn't want to have the more traditional foods....veggie tray, fruit salad....not that there is anything wrong with those, but we wanted variety.

We came up with some good ideas...

SO yummy!

This is a shortbread, ricotta, chocolate, raspberry parfait....needed a little more sweetener, but super tasty. I got the recipe from watching me some Dr. Oz. It's apparently not super un-healthy...well minus the shortbread:)

These were a favorite. Nathania made them so I'm not sure what goes into them. They got a little crispy but were very yummy!

We also had Goat Cheese Grape Truffles, Watermelon/Mango/Lime fruit salad, stuffed mushrooms, sangria and a tasty punch. We liked all of our recipes....so maybe we'll share them if interested!

Now onto the actual party. Everyone brought 5 of the same thing under $8. We went around and explained why the item we brought was our favorite. Then we drew 5 names from a bowl and those lucky ladies got to take the item home!

Fun right?

After everyone had been given their stuff, they had a number and we went around and were able to "steal" an item we didn't get but really wanted! There were also numbers given out so that each lady could pick out a goody tote.

I made these simple totes from fabric from my stash. The only thing I went and bought was the strap...the ladies got to pick a bag to take their swag back home in!

This is a picture of most of the stuff. I had to steal my pictures from Krista...I don't know where my camera was!

Nyree brought shea butter and a body polisher...I love the lotion! So great for dry hands!

This is a dutch treat that was part of my favorite thing. You put it on toast and it is DE-licious! I also gave a painting edger...so useful when painting, you don't really need to tape!

This was Krista's favorite thing. It's Maple, Cinnamon Almond butter....so yummy! You can check out her post on it here.

 

Nathania also brought a dutch treat. She brought packets of Nasi Goreng...it's an Indonesian rice dish. We had to get our mom to send us a box with our treats in it...cause you can't get them her in AK...THANKS MOM!!!!

Nathania also made lavender beeswax lotion.

Beth brought some homemade lemon bars and some fun nail polish! Andy ate half my lemon bars...so not cool!

Lisa brought a little goody bag with laundry soap, white chocolate, sticky notes and some lip balm.

There were two other ladies there, Alecia and Mallory...and I don't have a picture of their stuff! But Mallory brought some good lotion...we have some dry hands in these here parts! I don't remember what it was called...but will find out!

Alecia brought some coasters and modpodge so that you can decoupage the coasters with family pictures...thus having a coaster and picture all in one!

Overall the party was a huge success! We're planning another "themed" party....and it's gonna be a good one! What are some of your favorite things?

Sarah