Cure Diaries, Artwork, Kitchen, and Get-Togethers

Making Your Home Your Own

Choose a piece of artwork to frame & get the process started for framing it for hanging later this month (on the 28th)

One of my New Year’s resolutions that didn’t get accomplished in 2013 but am determined to get done in 2014 is to finish my scrapbooks. I have two huge shopping bags filled with stuff to be scrapbooked: one with all my wedding stuff and the other with college stuff. Not everything in these bags can be scrapbooked, so whatever can’t go in a book I want to put in a shadowbox.

Weekend Chores: Flowers, Kitchen Organizing & Cleaning, Make a Meal

This weekend’s assignment was to tackle the kitchen, something I have to admit I was a little afraid to do. I haven’t given the kitchen too much love only because I’ve been in the mindset of, “I’m remodeling it anyway.” Considering a remodel is a long ways off, I really need to figure out how to make my kitchen work for me so I can accomplish my New Year’s resolution of not dining out so much. I’ve learned when my kitchen frustrates me, I don’t want to cook in it.

I started this assignment off by cleaning all the surfaces like I normally do, which was mainly my countertops. I cleaned the cabinets for the very first time, I gave the refrigerator a good polish, and I had to use a heavy-duty (sadly, not green) degreaser to fully clean the under cabinet hood and oven.

I went through the refrigerator and removed any expired food or food that had been lingering around from my New Year’s Eve party that I knew I didn’t want. Then Josh helped me out by vacuuming and steam mopping the floors.

All that cleaning and degreasing took most of Saturday, and I was so beat by the time it was done that the last thing I wanted to do was cook a meal. I saved the trying new recipe part for Sunday.

Yesterday I tackled the one area of my kitchen that frustrates me the most: the cabinets between my fridge and oven. Being 5″3 reaching back and up into these cabinets is a pain, and because of this, I have to move everything up to the front which in turn means I can’t utilize the storage to its full capacity.

I took everything out, added several dishes and plates I no longer use to my outbox, removed the ugly contact paper from the shelves, and reorganized everything. I went to Lowe’s for some pull-out shelves to make accessing certain items a lot easier for a short person such as myself.

For dinner, I made homemade butternut squash soup. I tried this recipe with a couple of modifications due to not having all the ingredients and not wanting to roast my squash for an hour (I did it for 30 mins at 375°).

I served it with a side of Trader Joe’s Artisan Ciabatta Bread, and overall it was very tasty! I’m not sure if I will make it again because it was a lot of work, so I am going to explore other readymade versions.

Keep Yourself on Track: Get a Get-Together Together

Ah the get-together… it’s a very tricky situation. When I did this last year I had to skip out on this assignment because towards the end of the month/beginning of February we have a celebration with Joshua’s families to celebrate his birthday, my birthday, Joshua’s adopted mom’s birthday, and Joshua’s adopted brother’s birthday. This will most likely be happening again this year.