Encore.

Even though my Pinterest Project Week is over, I have obviously been bit with the bug, as today, I could help but make these, another Pinterest find. And boy, am I ever glad I did.

A few months ago, I was deeply saddened by the sudden closing of the PretzelMaker in Polo Park mall. I hit that stand up often, as a soft pretzel is the perfect snack when lunch isn't possible. Although a similar vendor opened in St Vital Mall, I don't frequent that mall enough to get my fill. I knew that I would need to learn how to make my own and when I saw this recipe on Pinterest, I was reminded of this desire. I don't think I have ever made anything that tastes so similar to the one that can be bought at a restaurant. They were almost identically delicious. These will most definitely be made again. And again. And again.

Things are really shaping up on the exterior of our home, and like we set out to do a few weeks ago, many things have been crossed off the list. A lot of the projects we had to complete on the exterior were ones that simply took a lot of time and a lot of effort and I am so glad to see how beautiful the end results are. The biggest transformation has been to the front "yard". Because of the way our road was built, the large pile of dirt to the left of it has been sitting there for the past year waiting to be dispersed throughout the front. What started with this just after the winter melt...

Progressed to this weed infested mess as the summers heat boiled us all...

And now am left with this, thanks to a BIG help...

It feels great to get it cleaned up and smoothed out, with lots of time to spare before the snow covers it all. The plan is to seed it next spring and then let things grow as they may. I can already see the football and baseball games that will undoubtedly break out at a moments notice in the future years.

We were also able to get the deck built and floor completed. All it needs now is a railing, to be completed in the next few days, along with a step from the house down to the deck. Next spring, we will build the steps that will go down to the eventual grass on the north side of the house, and hopefully add some furniture so we can enjoy long summers nights out there.

Yup...it's pretty good around here right now. I am feeling great about where the house is in terms of completion going into fall, work and school. Of course there is still a lot to do on the inside, but I know that it will all happen in time.

In a few days, Colin will be one. ONE. I am busy party planning as we are getting ready for a BIG celebration over here. Colin on the other hand, doesn't seem too worried about it as he is just as happy and energetic as ever. Just for the record, he climbed in there himself.

Pinterest Project Week: Day Five

Today was another solid day. In between visiting with family, recounting our favorite parts of the show "Wicked" from last night, and catching up with neighbors, there was still time for some creations. Since the guys were building the back deck today, I wanted to make something other than sandwiches for lunch. Jason could eat sandwiches for every meal for the rest of his life, however I am all sandwiched out. Instead, I opted for this. I am always a fan of anything made in a slow cooker for its ease and convenience and this did not disappoint. Will be made again for sure with a few slight modifications to ensure an even cheesier mac and cheese.

I realize that this picture looks like plain noodles in a slow cooker...it was better than it looks here, I promise.

To top off the meal, these were made. A few weeks ago after browsing through the "Eat" board of my Pinterest account, I realized that I have quite a few different and delicious sounding truffle recipes. It was then and there that I decided that this would be the direction of my Christmas baking. Truffles, truffles, and more truffles. Anyone that is used to getting a selection of my baking at Christmas time, you now know what to expect. I promise it will not disappoint.

My mail shutter was also able to be hung today and boy do I love it. The hallway still has a lot of work left in it, but the green really livens it up.

I love it and am thrilled with how it turned out. Amazingly enough, I was also gifted a postcard today to christen the shutter that has found a permanent home there - it is that funny. To add to the hallway decor I would like to get the original house plan that Jason and I drew up on graph paper and get it properly framed for somewhere down this hallway too. Add in a little more colour and we'll be set.

Like I mentioned earlier, today was also the start of the building of our back deck. Since we have been pretty short on usable outdoor space so far around here, I think Jason and I are both pumped that the deck will soon be completed. We are hoping to have everything done, including the handrail, by Colin's 1st birthday so it will be full effort until then. Today they were able to get the entire base and footings complete and even got 10 or so boards on. Tomorrow will be a lot more of the same and hopefully in under a week, we can cross this off the list.


Well here we are...the final day of my Pinterest project week. I do still have a few that I want to tackle in the next few weeks, however they will have to wait until later. I feel great about the stuff I completed and the recipes I tried over the past week. There were some high points and there were definitely some low points, but all in all I think I would call the week a success. My main goal was to feel that I had completed some to-do list items and projects heading into going back to work. I didn't want to start working and feel like my home life list was all over the place and already discouraged by the number items waiting to be tackled. There are always going to be more things to do and try (ie. wreaths, wreaths and more wreaths...read: I love wreaths), but for now, I am sitting solid on the work out my sharpie has gotten the past few days. Today, I was able to cross off:

- stain front deck
- stain back deck
- hem curtains
- complete growth chart
- complete garage door mail holder
- feed my family for 5 days

OK, so that last item wasn't really on there as it is just sort of a given, however I did complete it and with a little more pizzaz that normal.

I absolutely adore Pinterest and the fact that it allows seemingly uncreative people a place where they can be inspired and be encouraged and uplifted enough to give something a try. It continues to inspire my home, my appetite as well as my closet and I am sure that it will continue down that same path for many more pins. I am hoping to do another one of these weeks again before the end of the year. Whose in?

Happy pinning, Happy home, Happy family, Happy life. Yes, please & thank you.

Pinterest Project Week: Day Four

Today, I tackled a project that I have been excited about for quite some time. This.

I found this image on Pinterest and immediately knew that something like this needed to be in our house. The hallway to the garage needed a bit of colour and this idea seemed like the perfect solution. Finding a shutter, however, was not as easy as I thought it might be. Originally I just planned on buying a new one from Home Depot or Rona, painting it and calling it a day. Yes, the aged look of an old and worn shutter is nice, however I wasn't all that concerned with bringing in that detail to the project. My main goal was just to have a shutter up on the wall in a fresh and bright colour. Surprisingly enough, at least to me, home improvement stores don't simply sell pre-made shutters, they only sell them on special order. I guess I can understand why, being that almost all windows are different sizes. So my plan was altered and I started to brainstorm other possibilities.

A few months back, a couple of friends and I checked out this place and I blogged about my trip here. Once again, it did not disappoint and offered me a couple of vintage/used shutters to look through. I am disappointed that I forgot to take a before shot, but today, it looks like this...


It is slightly bigger than I originally wanted, and I somewhat second guessed its size all the way home, but when I held it up to its future home on the wall, I loved its proportions and was forever sold. It will hang beside a mirror and key holder in our garage entrance just outside the mudroom after a little more work and some hanging hardware attached. If I had been smart enough to take a before shot, you would have seen that it was originally (at least originally to me) painted white, over top of a cream colour which was obvious due to the enormous amount of white paint that had and was presently chipping off. At first I contemplated stripping the whole piece down and starting fresh, however opted for a good sand and fresh paint job instead. This picture doesn't really show it, but the shutter does have a nice aged look due to the multiple layers of paint, dents and scratches from which I can only assume was some solid years of duty. The colour I chose was non other that Benjamin Moore's Dill Pickle, which is the colour that our spare bedroom is painted. I heart this colour big time in that room and am equally in love with it on this project. I think it will be the perfect addition to a builders beige hallway and can't wait to see it hung and in place tomorrow after it is dried and dressed up to be hung.

I will definitely be smart enough to take some completed shots of everything all together tomorrow and include them in my daily report. Tomorrow is an exciting day around here as the back deck is going in. I have about 20 boards left to stain but considering I have completed about 60 so far, I am feeling pretty good about my progress and know that those 20 can be done pretty quickly during a morning nap. Tomorrow will also bring a few new recipes that I have been itching to try...especially since one is done in a slow cooker and anything in a slow cooker is usually easy and delicious.

Now will someone please mail me some pretty postcards so I can stick them in my shutter?

Pinterest Project Week: Day Three

It was bound to happen. 2 of 3 of the projects I had planned for today bombed. Brutally. First, let's talk about what went right today. Thanks to my Mom and her sewing skills and confidence boost, I was finally able to hem the curtains in ours and Colin's bedroom. This item has been on my list since we moved in and for some reason, was difficult for me to just get done . Almost 1 year ago to the day I hung those curtains and pinned the hems and not until today was the job complete. If there is something I learned from having my first baby, is that you don't mess around with the darkness factor in their bedrooms. The darker, the better. Bottom line, no excuses, you make that room as pitch black as you possibly can. For us, that means a black out shade, black out curtains, and just for good measure, another layer of black out material between the two. That room is dark.

I was also able to find the key piece to the project that I am MOST excited about tackling this week. I have been on the hunt for this piece for quite some time and just when I thought I might have to give up hope, the basement of a local antique store saved the day. Just like that place always does.

So now for the brutalness. I had originally planned to make these today. I wanted some new prints to frame in our dining room and thought these would be nice. In my defence, I have no experience with acrylic paint and boy did it show. My prints looked like a goopy mess and this project was quickly abandoned. At least I already owned the paint therefore it only cost me a stock of celery which was cut off at the paint end and turned into a snack.

The next project on my list today was this. Again, it did not turn out at all. Jason and Jordan (Jason's brother) did their best to choke it back...I chose not to and ate leftovers from last nights stacked vegetable enchiladas instead. I am a big fan of substituting items in recipes that I may not have on hand and clearly, that is not possible in this recipe. I don't have a deep fryer or a wok and it showed. I didn't have any rice wine and again, it showed. Needless to say, this one will not be made again. It also probably didn't help that right in the middle of the cooking, Colin somehow found a dishwasher soap tab thing and ate a small part of it. I noticed pretty quickly and tried to get the grain out of his mouth but the vomit that came after (strategically projectiled onto one of only 2 pieces of carpet we have in this ENTIRE house) proved that I was too late. A quick call to poison control assured me that there was no problem and we moved on, however I will blame the suckiness of this meal on Colin. It's easy to blame things on him anyways :).

At this point in the day I was feeling pretty defeated until I remembered the last project I was going to tackle. This one I KNEW I couldn't screw up and I was right. How could you ever screw up these? I will now drown my sorrows in these all night long and am sure that they will do just the trick to catapult me into a new day of Pinterest awesomeness.

I will now go and eat my cookies and cry in Colin's extremely dark room. Actually, check that, I have about 400 feet of decking to stain and a few hours of daylight left. The cookies will have to wait.

Pintrest Project Week: Day Two

It is only day two around here and already I have come to the realization that I am capable of making a lot more myself than I ever thought. Exhibit A: today, I made my own marshmallow. Many of you may not be impressed with this. You may make your own marshmallow 3 times a week already and are pe-shawing my achievement all over town. I, however, was not aware that making marshmallow was as easy as it is, or for that matter, even possible at home. I am here to tell you now that it is relatively easy, and quite quick a process. The finished product...

For day two of this Pinterest week, I shifted to a few of the recipes that I have been coveting and thinking about for quite some time. Since we are having company for dinner tonight, I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to try them out. Somewhat risky as if they are a flop as it is more than just Jason I am disappointing but then I quickly remembered that Half Moon is just a quick 5 minute drive up the road.

Currently in the oven is this. A stacked vegetable enchiladas casserole. Something about this dish just drew me. I love a good casserole, I love vegetables, and we are already a fan of a similar, more taco inspired casserole around here. This might be the newest addition to our repertoire. There were only two annoying parts to the process of getting this made. For one, finding corn tortillas is actually quite challenging. Flour tortillas are everywhere, however it wasn't until a random conversation with a baker at Superstore where I got a tip on where I might find the corn variety. So off Colin and I went this morning to a little convenience store not too far from home which was surprisingly filled with a large variety of Mexican spices, condiments and foods. Nowhere on the many signs this store had on its facade did it once mention that these delicacies where within, something that I found strange. It will definitely be remembered as a place to peruse as if there is one thing we love in this house, its Mexican food. The second annoyance was that it actually added something to my to do list as cutting up all the vegetables reminded me of how severely we need to get our composter together. Maybe this Pinterest week will need to repeat itself...next week.

For dessert, it is yet another Pinterest project and this is where those homemade marshmallows come in. These. Here is my version (first picture from Instagram, another obsession of mine right now):



Moon Pies (aka Wagon Wheels) are one of those things that I never would have thought I could make on my own...but I did! I have yet to try one, therefore this excitement is very premature, however how could they really be bad? Cookie, marshmallow and chocolate? I don't think those 3 things together could be bad if they tried.

It just wouldn't be cooking and baking around here anymore without this guy rummaging through each and every drawer he can possibly get into. Thankfully there are only a few that I really need to keep him out of...think platters and sharp knives :).


A notable to-do list item tackled today was starting to get the lumber for the back deck that will be installed later this week stained. I wanted to make sure that I got at least the handrail stained with two coats, as this would be extremely annoying to do after the fact. Check & cross it off...

The rest of the week will see the staining of the actually decking, however I am not as worried about getting them done as they can also be done after installation if necessary.

This week has been so great so far. My project for tomorrow will need to be small and quick as I will be working for the day but have another art project up my sleeve that I have thought about each and every time I am in the produce section at the grocery store. It is definitely time for less thinking and more doing.

Pinterest Project Week: Day One

As I mentioned in a post last week, I have decided that I will tackle one project a day for the next 7 days in order to satisfy my to-do list, as well as cap off the last year of maternity leave. Today, I finally completed a project that I have been wanting to do for quite some time, a replica of a growth chart available at Pottery Barn. I "pinned" it a few months ago and since then have been plotting its completion, wanting it to be done for Colin's first birthday which will be in conjunction with his first "measure". There were a few stalls along the way, mostly due to improper materials, but I can proudly say that things turned out pretty well exactly the way I wanted it to.

See my inspiration here.

And now, for my version (pretty much a direct copy of the instructions)...



I had a lot of fun making this growth chart, partly because it was very simple, but also because it was fun to think about the way it will look in 20+ years. I am hoping for lots of markings, and lots of memories to go with them. When the basement is framed and dry-walled, I have a spot in mind for this guy, but for now, it will live somewhere upstairs...I just haven't quite figured out where yet. All in all this project cost me about $10 as all I needed to buy was the paint pen and piece of pine. Incidentally, the paint pen was not as easy a find as I originally thought it would be, however after a quick tip from a VERY crafty and creative cousin, I was told I could find many varieties at Artists' Emporium, someplace I had never been before. Walking into the store left me incredibly overwhelmed and intimidated, but also extremely inspired to tackle more art and decor projects.

Along side completing this project, I also completed the staining of our front porch, something that has been on my list for longer than I care to admit! Although I did not expect it to be the colour that it ended up being, I really like it. It warms up and cleans up the porch nicely.


Jason was able to find a few minutes to install our two porch lights the other day so the front is definitely coming together. A couple planters and a new wreath are all we need to really make our front door feel complete.

Day one feels like a success so far...I am feeling great already just to have crossed these two items off my archaic to-do list so I can't imagine how good things will feel after 6 more days! Tomorrows line-up is a little more staining (back deck variety now...pre-installation which makes things so much easier) as well as a couple new recipes to try for some of our favorite people coming for dinner. I am pumped (well for the company, not SO much for the staining) :).

Happy Pinning!

One for the Record Books.

In less than 2 weeks, I will be back at work and life will be very, very, very different. In order to celebrate the amazingness of this past year, as well as cap off a year of projects, baking and home decor, I am planning one whole week of steady projects. Next week, I will tackle one or two per day in order to finish off my to-do list as well as try a few new recipes that I have had my eye on for awhile.

For those of you who do not use Pinterest, you do not know what you are missing. Pinterest allows you to capture any image from the internet that catches you eye and documents them all in one place, allowing quick and easy reference. One of the negatives about Pinterest for me is that it is almost too much sometimes. Seeing all the clothes, food, and decor items I am swooning over in one place is almost overload. That is why I am going to pick 7-10 and just get them done. Enough swooning and dreaming, more doing and creating.

I myself am definitely not creative, however for one week, I will copy other people's creativity and enjoy it. Stay tuned!

A few things to cross off.

Ever since we got back from Florida, we have been trying to finish up some of the more dragging chores that we had left throughout the winter around here. In the past week, we have made some major progress and although it may not look like much, the jobs were long and tedious and therefore feel amazing to have been completed. Thankfully, some of them are jobs that we will never have to do again, like completing the siding on the house. Sadly, others are ones that we will fight every year, like the weeds. On a positive note, this morning we put the last piece of siding in and very much enjoyed crossing that off the list. Sure, there are still both gables of shakes to install, as well as the rock we hope to do in the next few years, however it felt great to know that at least something was finished. The siding was started about 10 months ago, paused throughout the colder months and restarted 3 months ago when the warmer weather came. The job was truly a family affair with both Jason's Dad and brother helping when they could. I will not miss this job. (P.S. the bottom of the garage will be rock, ie why there is no siding there)



Jason was also able to hook up our outdoor hose this morning which allowed me to finally plant something. My parents have been fostering this tree for us for the past 2 years, waiting to transplant it out to our house and it finally made its big move.

In my house growing up, we had an annual tradition of taking a picture by the spruce tree in our front yard on the first day of school. Not only is it neat to look back at ourselves over the years, but it is also amazing to see how big the tree got over the course of 20+ years. My hope is that this tiny little tree will become our first day of school tree, and give us the same annual picture that I am so thankful to have from my own childhood. In order to have this dream become a reality, I have been watering it 3 times a day due to our incredibly dry summer, as well as ensuring that it has plenty of encouragement. I will also ensure that the tractor stays out of it's path!

Even though we have been working diligently on the siding and getting the exterior of the house completed before September, we also have started tackling the 4 acres of weeds that have slowly taken over. After spraying them with Round Up, we waited. And waited. And waited. We are in fact still waiting.


They have most definitely died, however now need to be cut and then tilled. Soon we should have a nice, flat, weed free-ish front lawn. Once spring hits next year, we plan to seed most of it and perhaps even lay some sod so we can have some outdoor space to play and run. In the mean time, we have been making good use of the front porch we do already have, although without a railing it makes for a pretty small play space.


Our hope is that by the end of the month the shakes will be installed in the gables, the back deck will be built and the front steps will be new and improved. My hope is that my own, "To do before going back to work" list will also see its match with a Sharpie as I haven't really completed anything on it lately either. My Pinterest project #1 is stalled due to lack of proper tools, my curtains are still not hemmed due to my own cowardliness with a sewing machine and the front deck is not yet stained. I feel a pep talk coming on though...