CURB APPEAL - POST SIX

Do you remember my series of curb appeal posts last summer/fall? If not, let me remind you what our house looked like before.

Recap: brown paint, crumbling concrete steps (that we attempted to paint but then the paint crumbled off as well), old rusty house number, unruly spiria plants, and red bricks lining the flower beds.

Now for the excitement. This is as good as it's going to get, people. Photo credit below to Jordan and Judith Photo/Film. 

 
Recap: green paint, new wooden front steps, new adorable house number, window boxes, hostias (that unfortunately did not really grow this summer), and new stones lining the flower beds.

So there you have it! We spent the better part of last fall and this summer painting that baby - mostly waiting for good, dry painting days!! In the end we had to hire someone to paint the back side because it's a walk out basement and we didn't have the equipment to do it ourselves. The rest of the job wasn't all that bad.
It's never going to happen but the last of my to do list would be: stain the front steps and cut down the pine trees (to the left of this photo).

Looking forward to the Trick or Treaters that will be stopping by in a month and a half. :) It's such a good neighbourhood for that!! We love our sweet little first home.

THINGS THAT LAST FOR SEVEN YEARS

All photo credit in this post to Jordan and Judith Photo/Film. 

Hubby and I celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary last month and every time we reach a new year I always think about what I've learned about marriage since we wed in 2008. I was nineteen when we got married which is just shocking to me now but thankfully I would do it again a hundred times over. Even more thankfully God must have really guided that decision because holy - nineteen!! I don't like anything that I liked when I was nineteen!

I certainly am no marriage expert - heaven knows I lose my temper far too often and to be honest I don't think anyone ever accused me of being low maintenance (oops!) - but I do feel like we have learned a lot together over seven years of marriage (three of those being long distance).

We think the most important thing is to keep God at the center. If both people focus on their relationship with God and being more Godly themselves you will be a better partner. And we believe that being focused on God (and spreading His love) is what is most important in life.

Though one can be overpowered , two can defend themselves.

A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

Ecclesiastes 4:12

Don't get me wrong - marriage can be really hard. We have had difficult days and difficult months/years, to be honest. Thankfully we always get back to good days eventually but at times that takes a lot of work. Once we were at a wedding and a groomsman said, "Most people say marriage is easy." At that point we had been married for a few years and maybe only just began to live together. The two of us looked at each other incredulously as if to say, "We must be doing this all wrong." HA! Hubby and I still laugh about that.


So to take a totally different direction (I'll quit while I'm ahead sounding very sage and wise and hope you skimmed over the temper and high maintenance part - hehe), this anniversary has got me thinking... what are things that last for seven years? I know you've been wondering the same thing. :)

1. A high quality vacuum - we spent almost all of our wedding money on an Electrolux Oxygen vacuum. We bought the Oxygen 3 at the time - the link is for the Oxygen 12. Worth every penny.
2. Santa's Solution Tree Stand - we have this baby which was created and fabricated near my hometown. It's called Santa's Solution and we swear by it. It holds more water than any other tree stand by far and your tree will not fall over. It is literally THE BEST. Made in Canada. (Just like me!)
3. Books - some of my best friends are books! Books will stand the test of time, I tell you. They are beastly to move though. (My apologies to all of our friends who have ever helped us pack!)
4. Hubby's free tshirts - I actually typed this last week and then tonight got hubby to cut back to max ten free tshirts. After we counted them I realized he had less than I had thought...I would have been better off to ask him to keep five... :)
5. Childhood stuffed animals - Dumbo and Theodore (mine and his) are still sitting beside each other on our dresser. Besties. Dumbo is far better looking.

And of course to complete the list, things that do not last seven years!

1. Sheets/towels - I followed someone's advice when we first got married and I only used some of our towels so those ones are pretty much worn out and now we can move onto the stack of unused wedding towels. My mom bought us really nice sheets and we used them exclusively for three or four years. I threw them out about a month ago - just shy of seven years.
2. A futon - the bane of my existence. We watch TV while sitting on the futon in the basement literally every night. I mean, it doesn't owe us anything but let's just say one of the supports has been held together with butter knives and duct tape for many, many years now. It will not be making the next move with us.
3. Drinkware/coffee carafe - we broke all of those suckers in the first year or two of marriage. Glass cups? One by one we slowly whittled them away. Coffee carafe? Lasted less than a year.
4. Unity candle - this momento from our wedding survived three moves. The fourth time we moved (ugh) was one month after the third move (ugh). Strangest life decision yet. Sorry unity candle. I hope this doesn't mean we're not unified anymore.
5. A coffee table - it would have held up for seven years (and it's just from Zellers or Wal Mart!) but unfortunately I was talking to my best friend on the phone and spilled nail polish remover on it. Better days, better days.

SUMMER MEALS POST THREE: TACO SALAD

This taco salad is something my aunt has made forever and we have adapted it as a regular meal in the last couple of years. It's so fast to make, feels relatively healthy (if you go light on the chips and dressing), and really inexpensive. The best thing is it only takes a few ingredients and we basically have all of them on hand all the time anyway.

This post is for my friend K who sent out a request on facebook today for some new meals to add to her meal rotation. :) We all end up cooking the same thing all the time, don't we?

I fry up some ground beef with taco seasoning and then put it in the freezer to cool down while I prepare the veggies. I like meat in my salad to be room temp so it doesn't wilt the lettuce. So then I cut up romaine lettuce, a bell pepper, a tomato, and shred some cheddar cheese. At the end I throw in the ground beef and some tostitos chips, then drizzle with catalina dressing. It's soooo good. This is seriously my favourite at home supper right now.

SUMMER MEALS POST TWO: STUFFED PEPPERS AND MUSSELS

Two posts in one week. Totally on a roll. See you again in 8 months. Kidding, kidding.

I have some exterior house updates to share eventually - the house is looking waaay different than last summer. But for now we're going to stick with a second post about summer meals. Earlier this week I shared burrito bowls. I had leftover corn and black beans from that meal so decided to add them to rice and stuff them in green peppers cooked on the barbecue. We had mussels as our protein (we're big fans) which I cooked in a covered pot on the stove.

Here's what I did for the stuffed peppers.

I cooked half a cup of basmati rice in the rice cooker for two stuffed peppers. Then I hollowed out the peppers (I used green but you can use any kind of bell pepper). When the rice was done I mixed in some corn and black beans, black pepper, cayenne pepper, cumin... I can't remember if I used a couple of other spices. I think I might have added a little cinnamon and garlic powder? I mean really you can't go wrong no matter what you add. Then I added a couple of spoonfuls of salsa and some shredded cheese on top. Hubby put them right on the barbecue for 10 minutes or so. I toyed with the idea of making the stuffed peppers a meal by themselves and adding some sausage, but I decided I was in the mood for mussels.

Now for our secret mussel recipe - world famous. Just kidding, but I do have a little cousin who loves our mussels and requests them when she comes to visit. :)

We do the same thing every time - I add crushed garlic to a pot (5 or 6 cloves), chopped green onions, and sliced hot peppers (jalapenos etc). The hot peppers make the dish - trust me!! Use lots and lots of them - you can't go wrong. I pour in a quarter or a third of a bottle of white wine (I buy the cheapest wine at the liquor store for cooking). When I made them this week for the first time I bought non-alcoholic wine at the grocery store because I was feeling too lazy to make an extra trip to the liquor store. I didn't notice a big difference, to be honest.

Now, I'm not a chef so take this with a grain of salt (hehe), but I usually throw out the raw muscles that are open and won't close. I must have seen this on the Food Network at some point or something. I think it's basically the same as not eating the ones that aren't open once they're cooked. The idea is that the raw ones that don't close are already dead so you don't want to eat them. I don't know.

I cook them on high just until the shells all open. It doesn't take long. 10 minutes max! Just in time for your stuffed peppers to grill on the BBQ!

Enjoy, my friends!

SUMMER MEALS POST ONE: BURRITO BOWLS

I'm a little embarrassed. It has been so long. It feels like when you awkwardly run into a friend on the street and they say, "How long have you lived here?!" And you say, "A year and a half....sorry I never...called..."

Ah well - I'm back.

Thought I'd start my August posts after a long hiatus with some meal inspiration. We barbecue all summer because I don't want to heat up the house by turning the stove on and our meals get so boring to me. You must get where I'm coming from. It's a variation of a grilled veggie, potatoes, and chicken breast with an occasional hamburger or kabob thrown in. Snooze fest.

I can't take the credit for some of these meals I'm going to share with you guys because I texted three people in my life who I feel make delicious meals. :) My friend S said she had been planning on making burrito bowls at some point and I thought that was a fantastic idea. To cook them I used my rice maker and one burner on the stove - minimal heating up of the house and not barbecue!! Hallelujah!

First off I started the basmati rice in the rice cooker (the longest step). Then I fried up some extra lean hamburger with some thinly sliced red onion (we're not the biggest onion fans in over here). When that was cooked I added a half package of taco seasoning. Next I added some black beans (you buy them with the other canned vegetables - I had never used them before) and corn - both rinsed and drained. To assemble, put rice in a bowl and then the hamburger/bean mixture over top. Then I added the cold ingredients - fresh tomato, sliced green onion, a couple of spoonfuls of salsa and sour cream, and grated cheese. Mix up and enjoy. This is a fairly healthy meal (as long as you watch your portions of meat and rice!), something out of the ordinary for us, and didn't make the house any hotter than necessary. Hope you like it! Stay tuned because I'm going to show you what else I've made with black beans and corn recently. Thanks for the idea, S!