Use what you have, buy what you can afford

I love beautiful things and it kind of makes my head spin to open a decorating magazine or check someone's blog and see yet another thing or look that I could go for in a second!

It's laughable, because my house can't be all white (which I love, like this Scandinavian blog) and bursting with color (which I also love, like this crazy brain-exploding look*).

I think it's helpful to see what other people are doing -- I've gotten great ideas from amazingly creative people! Most of all, I've gotten affirmation in...imperfection!

But sometimes, as this lady mentions, too much information on decorating does create that unsettled discontent feeling...

So how's a girl to figure things out?


Here's my answer: Don't think of it as decorating. Think of it as creating an environment in your home that is beautiful in a practical, humble way; that helps you keep order; and that makes others comfortable! And try as much as possible to use what you already have!

Take a long long time before you go out and buy something new. Keep asking yourself, "do I already have something that I could use for this? Could I clean something up, paint something, or fix something to fit this purpose in a pleasing way? What solutions did others find?" This last question means checking up on your favorite decorating blogs! :)

I'm not a huge fan of my white Formica counter tops or standard wooden cabinets, but they are what I already have. I tried to use paint and accents to make them beautiful for us. And you know what? I really love my kitchen now.

I know one thing: if we had gone deep into debt to get something all gleaming, matching, and perfect, and then I had come across something "make-do" but pleasing in a magazine or on a blog, I would be mad at myself! Of course, if what you have is gleaming, then you'll just have to go with that! ;)

If you find you really do need to buy something to make things better in your home, ask your guardian angel to help you find the right thing -- and by right, I mean something that fits the purpose and the budget and is pleasing to the senses -- not necessarily something that would be right in a magazine shoot.

You will be surprised at what you find!

*I linked to a post of hers that has amazing color and reveals how her pictures look so glowing...just to keep it real, you know?

An outdoor light fixture makeover, but really cheap

Using top-secret CIA-developed techology to produce the "before" photo of my porch light fixture which I forgot to take, I offer you this:
You can see that it's pretty bad. The light and the photo.

I would have loved to have this:
...from Restoration Hardware. But even on sale for "$69-$89" I can't swing it.

I was wondering what to do, when Lo! at T. J. Maxx I found this:

For this amount of smackaroos:
So with a little black spray paint, I now have this:
Compare it to the CIA picture, not the RH picture. That's the key!
I think I could get a prettier bulb, though...

What do you think? I think the black is dramatic, but I found out that at night with the light actually on, you can't really see the fixture! Maybe I should have sprayed it a metallic silver or something more reflective?

Should the drama be at night or during the day? Maybe the answer is what you get for $69-$89!

Slow cooker perplexity

I like to make soup on Wednesdays. I think I have a tendency in general to make my meals too involved, and it's good to know that I don't have to come up with meat/2 side dishes/starch/bread one day a week (other than Fridays, also simple with homemade pizza).
Also, it's good, isn't it, to try to show that we can discipline ourselves to sit back from the plenty we enjoy pretty effortlessly.

I have thought that the slow cooker could really help me keep things simple, but I've found that I don't really know how to use it. At intervals I borrow a stack of cookbooks from the library to help, but I confess that I am skeptical that these recipes would be really as tasty as their conventional counterparts.

Also, I try hard to keep prepared foods out of our daily lives. I'm not a fan of cans of mushroom soup, packets of beef onion flavoring, and jars of instant bouillon. Most contain soy and its derivatives -- plenty of MSG, even if not labeled as such. They are tasty in a fake way, and I don't think they are good for you.

But if I eliminate the recipes calling for those ingredients, I'm down to... not much in the way of slow cooker repertoire.

I'm on the hunt for some really good ideas for my slow cooker, so if you have any that you really love, please share!

In the interest of keeping it simple, yesterday I made split pea soup in my slow cooker. This is one recipe I think is truly convertible to this appliance. I have a 6 quart cooker, so I double the recipe.
Put your smoked ham hocks or ham bone in with a chopped onion, two chopped carrots, and two stalks of chopped celery. You need two bay leaves. Bay leaves are essential! Don't leave them out!
Rinse and pick over 2 packages of split peas (green or yellow, doesn't matter) and throw them in. The recipe on the package says 2 quarts of water per package of peas, but I only put in 3 1/2 quarts. There isn't the evaporation in the slow cooker that you get on the stove top -- but then, there isn't the scorched bottom either!
My cooker can be put on "auto", which is two hours of high and then down to low. I read in one of the cookbooks I borrowed that starting at a higher heat makes for better flavor, and I think that might be true. But I confess that my problem with the slow cooker is that it's... too slow.
Anyway, put in some salt and pepper (yes, you will need salt even with the ham) and let cook all day. You can stir every 5 hours.
Remove the ham bones to a cutting board and chop up the meat, discarding the bones and fat. Put the meat back in, stir, and it's ready to go!

Serve with cornbread or cornmeal yeast bread. My kids always say, "it doesn't look that good but it tastes good!"
Share your tried and true recipes!

Grilled pizza, pizza on the grill!

While I'm waiting for things to get finalized in the kitchen, I'm going to show you some pictures from the late summer. Anyway, summer is much more fun than any other time, so why not think about it some more? Disregard the clutter, please. Thank you.
I want to say something about this board that pulls out from beneath my countertop. You understand that I have, by today's standards, one of the most primitive cabinet setups in America, without the virtue of anything being antique. I mean, I don't grill a goat over an open fire in the hills of Afganistan, but close. See that white formica? It doesn't get more uninspired than that!

Don't get me wrong. Now that things are no longer dark and scary, I actually love my kitchen and wouldn't trade it for anything. See this board? How cool is it to be saying to yourself, "now where am I going to put this??" because you have about 4 square feet of countertop, and then pull out this little hidden board. It makes me happy.

I decided one hot August night to grill our usual Friday night pizza. Now, I have made pizza every Friday night for approximately 20 years! But this was a bit different...
Since it's Friday, we have a meatless pizza. I make half plain and half veggie -- this one has feta as well as other yummy stuff. I usually make four, and I put meat on one or two for Saturday lunch. (By the way, I detest Saturday lunch with a fiery hatred. If I had to make sandwiches I think I would go insane. So I try to make extra pizza so I don't have to think about it.) I was lucky enough to find two 16" pizza pans at TJMaxx about 8 years ago. They sure come in handy!

I popped it onto the grill, which was turned up high. I lowered the heat and cooked it for a few minutes like this. Then when it was set, I slid it onto the grate to get nice and toasty on the bottom. I covered the grill for a few minutes to melt the cheese and cook the toppings.

(I forgot to take a picture until we had eaten most of this one :) When you are done, the pizza doesn't have the browned cheese top the way it usually gets in the oven. It almost looks uncooked on top. But it's actually extremely tasty, with a good smoky flavor.
And on the bottom, it has a great crispy grilled crust! The likes of which I just can't get most of the time, even with my convection oven cranked up to 500*!

Pear sauce, rhubarb pie, and are you smarter than a floor guy?

Bridget keeps asking me if this picture is of meatballs or stew. No, it's pear sauce, as promised.

And I did make that pie!

Anyone know how to get this white pine to look all golden like our other pine floors? It's only part of a pine floor, so you have plenty of time to think up your final answer.

Upstairs we just threw down the oil-based poly and it was all good. But this pine is new and very... pale. I feel like coating it with tea or something!

When you ask the guys at the various paint stores what to do, they all say something like, "it's really up to customer preference." Really? Really? What if the customer doesn't know how to get to her preference? What then? Oh, you have nothing to say about that, Mr. Floor Guy?

Look it up on the internet and you will see that staining advice is prefaced with "up to customer preference."
Not helpful.
I did rub some sage:

And here's some lemon thyme, very potent -- only use a little!
And how about this fabulous cake cover, which I have been wanting and Habou got me from the Cider Mill? Good job resisting the one at Linens and Things! Goodbye saran-wrapped cakes!

I have the skills too!

I wonder where I got them.


I found this very cute skirt at Goodwill last spring; it's from Banana Republic (as you can see), and looked hardly worn at all. The one problem was that it had a slit in the front that went more than halfway up my thigh - hardly appropriate for teaching!

(I'd show a "before" picture, but we took them at night, and the colors are all wonky. Plus, I look extremely goofy in every shot but the one above. Which, you will note, does not have me in it).

I'd been meaning to sew it up ever since I bought it (last spring), but just hadn't gotten around to it. Until one day last week, when I decided I absolutely had to do something productive that evening. I pulled it out and started discussing with Sukie where I would have to sew the slit to make it both decent and functional, when Lorraine piped in: "Why don't you put some of your cute fabric in there?"

Brilliant.

What followed was an extremely scientific, highly precise alteration project.

First, I laid my skirt out on my fabric (quilting, from my stash) and stretched out the slit until it looked like the right length for the job. I then cut out a square of fabric that was stretched-slit long by slit-length-high.

You can see the high degree of precision I'm talking about here.

Then I sewed it in. I'm not sure I really remember how I did this - it involved a lot of trial and error, pinning the two together, seeing if it looked right, deciding it didn't, trying again... But, once it was in, it looked like this:


Isn't that nice?

I'm calling it a kick pleat; I'm not sure if that's the proper term. Is it?

I wore it to school last week and got many compliments. I exercised some remarkable self-restraint, and only bragged about my alteration job three times. We took a few pictures of it in action, but they were at the end of the day again, so the skirt looks a bit tired (more to the point, so do I). Note to self: take pictures in daylight, before you spend eight hours wrinkling your clothing.


But you get the general idea.

Fall decorating, Halloween decorating -- I duznt have sum.

I don't decorate for Halloween, dear Kimba, other than putting out a pumpkin or two, because, well, please don't hate me -- I don't really like Halloween. And I really don't like cleaning up after Halloween decorating.

But I have to tell you -- even for me, I got nothin'.

Well, I've got a colorful but not even very pretty leaf on the plastic covering the desk that goes in the pantry but is now on the deck, pending the floor being installed and then I need to paint the desk:


I've got this:Which represents waiting for my kitchen floor.

And this:Yes, those are the same pears from my other post. They have been in the outside refrigerator, not on that counter, but still. Pear sauce in the works.

I could make a pear and rhubarb pie. That would be good, and sort of combine "fall" with "it's still summer, I'm in denial."

And I've got this:
Which goes in this:
Because you will kick yourself in January if you are buying herbs.

I've got this:and this:
Yes, I will have to paint that porch soon, hmmm.....
And this -- does this look pretty to you? Did you notice the blue painter's tape? Um hum.


My wonderful hardworking husband has this:Might as well chuck that in there just to keep the anxiety level up.

There's this:Oof.

I thought of making a wreath like one I saw on someone's clever blog out of these:

Somewhere in hereis the pumpkin that grew out of the compost. If I got that out, we could put it...well, not on the porch.

And that would be our fall decorating.

Anyone else out there feeling a little overwhelmed?

Don't miss a thing!

I have added one of those thingies on the side there...why don't you add yourself to it? It's easy and fun to see each other's blogs, dontcherthink?
Plus...we love to know you are there, because of your fabulousness! And we don't want it to say 0 for very long, that would be embarrassing :)