Show and Tell

Last week was a very creative week for me. I shall tell you about it. =)

I had a little home decorating project to do that turned out really well.
Turns out, doing things make my life seem a little more meaningful. Who'da thunk!

Last week our corner shelves were put in their homes in the dining room, looking rather bare. Guess whose job it was to spiffy them up? Mine! Yay!

I went on a scavenger hunt around the house, found some interesting stuff, and put it all on the dining room table. We were lacking some focal centerpieces, so I dragged out the percolator and espresso machine.

Then I was at a loss as to how I should arrange it all.

Somehow, it ended up looking really nice. The percolator and espresso maker constantly being before my eyes don't help with the frequent coffee cravings, but they sure are pretty.

Most of the week's creativity was spent in the kitchen. I cooked a lot of stuff. I decided that we needed to have some new, different stuff for dinner, so I went to the library, picked out two cookbooks that had "normal" sorts of food in them, and went from there. (Turns out, most cookbooks are full of recipes that require fancy things we don't keep around here.)

Besides for 3 recipes I (sort of) made from the book, I also decided I wanted to replicate the chile rellenos I had at the Mexican restaurant. Success! No recipe, but it tasted exactly how I wanted it to. Probably not authentic, but whatever. It was delicious.

Also, I kept thinking about all the homemade poptarts I'd seen online. I was itching to try it, and it did so warily. My expectations were very low. I expected nothing more than edible-ness, and that only because the ingredients were edible. I certainly did not expect triumphant success. That's what I got, though!

Even though I used different flour than what the recipe called for, I had perfect, flaky pie crust. (Which you can't tell from the pictures.) You would not believe how excited I was. I ran around jumping and squeaking "IT'S FLAKY! LOOK! It's REAL pie crust!!!" (which you also can't tell from the pictures.)

Anyways, it was a good week. I cooked two Asian-y meals yesterday, complete with oyster sauce I bought at the market. Yum!

While I'm showing off, here's a picture of our mantle that I mentioned somewhat recently.

You kind of can't see all the awesome grasses and stuff on the left, but they're there.
So, that's all for now. Now I need to get off the computer and find some creative things to do today. I think I'll crochet something. I haven't done much of that in a while.

Have a lovely week, people!

Caitlin

Adventure to the Bahamas -The Day Before

Two weeks ago today, I got in a car with three people, headed toward Florida to get on a ship for the BAHAMAS!! Those three people? My super-awesome friend Anna Leigh, her mom, Mrs. Jeannie, and the fun-loving Mrs. Theresa. None of us had been on a cruise before, so yay for new experiences!

I spent the night with the Acords the night before, and they don't usually have coffee. It was getting on around 9 AM and I was like, "Um... This is selfish, but I'm an addict and I need some coffee.... heh!" Mr. Rocky jumped up to make me some, but he didn't have to, because Mrs. Jeanie was on the phone with Mrs. Theresa, who was at McDonalds. Problem solved. The dear Mrs. Theresa brought me some coffee, and I knew everything was gonna be alright.

Mr. Rocky packed our luggage in the trunk, Anna Leigh and I settled down in the back seat with munchies, blankets, and dvds, and so we set out. Mrs. Jeannie took the wheel under the guidance of Anna's GPS, and Mrs. Theresa rode shotgun. And we drove. And drove. For hours.


For lunch, it was decided that we would all write down our top four choices for lunch (on a ripped up napkin) and whichever place had the most votes is where we would go. Subway won! The subway we found had a Dairy Queen beside it, and all of a sudden I really wanted some fries. So I decided to get a DQ chicken wrap, which I ended up regretting because it was tiny and weird. However, the fries were fantastic and that's what mattered. Then we drove even more, finally making it to our hotel about 9 hours after we started.


Anna Leigh and I plopped down on the sleep number beds as soon as we arrived. We played with the settings and laughed for probably half an hour, til Mrs. Jeanie called out outside to look at the awesome pool. By the way, the most popular sleep number is 35. The perfect balance between soft and supportive. The pool was pretty sweet. It had a waterfall rushing over these big landscaping boulders, and a nifty koi pond. It would have been nice to go for a swim, but we got there too late, and had to leave too early in the morning.

All the way to the hotel we kept thinking of things we needed. Fake nails, chocolate, deodorant, wrinkle release spray, blo pops... you know, important stuff like that. A Wal-Mart run was definitely going to be a necessity. We also decided we needed to find a Cracker Barrel for dinner since all of us but Anna needed a real meal. It seemed perhaps if we just drove around we would find what we wanted. We drove one way. Nothing. We drove another way. Nothing. That plan wasn't working so well, so we stopped at a pharmacy and asked some lady where we could find a Cracker Barrel. She gave us really good directions, told us there was, mercifully, a Wal-Mart right beside it, and suggested we visit the Atlantis hotel on Paradise Island once we got to the Bahamas.

So, we headed out following the girl's directions without a hitch, and found the Cracker Barrel. I have never been so excited about roast beef, mashed potatoes, and macaroni in my life. My heart flooded with joy at the thought of it. And rightly so. Anna asked if it fulfilled my expectations, and I told her it quite exceeded them. It was the best ten dollars I've spent in a while, topped off with a biscuit and blackberry jam.

With our stomachs much happier, it was time to head to the next-door Wal-Mart. We sallied forth, made our purchases, and headed back to the car. Mrs. Theresa realized that this trip (which had been pretty dramatic for a simple trip to dinner and Wal-Mart) was definitely worth documenting, and forbade us enter the car. Henceforth she found an optimal space in the parking lot whereat the Wal-Mart sign could be see above our heads. The camera found a place on top the car, auto-timer was set, and the picture was taken! Time to move forward!


Who knew forward would be so confusing? Richard the GPS voice told us how to get back to the hotel from our current location, but we passed the exit he told us to take. We got off at the next one, so he told us to get back on the interstate by turning left in a couple hundred yards. We approached the place to turn and were stunned to find not a clearly marked ramp, but what looked like a vast emptiness instead. "I'm not turning into that cow pasture!" Mrs. Jeanie said, so we did a U turn. It didn't make sense for it to be a cow pasture, and surely Richard was right, so we headed toward the left turn again. "Take it slow, Jeanie. Nobody's behind you, just go slow. It DOES look like a pasture!" said Mrs. Theresa from the passenger's seat. And so she did. Of course, it was not a cow pasture. It was not well lit, but it turned out to be a normal on-ramp, and we made our way back to the hotel drama free, with Anna Leigh and I contentedly eating gummies and chocolate.

Once we got back to the hotel it was time to make preparations. Getting ready for anything can be a fiasco when there are women involved. Increase the number of them, and the insanity increases exponentially. Anna Leigh and I had to lay out all of our potential outfits and corresponding jewelry, and invite a panel of judges to help us. Oh, the indecisiveness of us! We made quite a mess of the contents of our suitcases, deliberating which pants would be best for which day, and showing off our formal dresses. Mrs. Theresa's enthusiasm for everyone's dresses was very gratifying, and we were quite satisfied with our selections. Finally, casual and dinner dress were chosen for the next day, we re-packed our bulging suitcases, and went to bed.

Happy February!

Hello, people.

In my blog absence, I have been to the Bahamas, and been sick.
And who knows what I did with all the time in between, because that was only two weekends.


Of course, I intend to write about my 3-night cruise with Anna Leigh, but sometimes my good intentions don't turn out so well. I have the trip to Florida chronicled in splendid Caitlinesque detail, and the adventurous dance party night fairly well covered, too. Other than that, the rest of the trip is still waiting patiently to be written about, and if I don't do it soon I shall forget.

The problem is once I start writing, I write in exact detail, and end up with a Very Long Story. And then it's so long, I'm not sure anyone will want to read it anyway. So, with the prospect of the documentation becoming a Very Long Story No One Wants To Read, I put it off.

Now you know! But I will try to get around to it, and give you lots of pictures to break up the monotony. And you all seem to enjoy my writing, even when I think it's boring, so I shall give it the benefit of the doubt.

At any rate, moving on to other things: Today is Groundhog Day. Which, honestly, holds no significance for me. I usually forget that it's groundhog day and don't find out the results of the foreshadowing (or not) til days later.

So, happy groundhog day! May winter leave soon. It was quite a shock being in the Bahamas for 3 lovely, warm days, and coming back to the cooold weather. Not that I'm complaining - I'm glad I live in GA where it almost never gets below 30.

P.S. If you would like to buy something from my shop, now would be a good time... Sorry. :)

P.P.S. Oh! By the way, I made a really cool beanie for this kid I know, and I failed to take pics and write a pattern. So, tomorrow, he's wearing it to church and I WILL take pics and write a pattern. And I shall show it to you because it's awesome.

That's all.

Caitlin

Ten Days of Listings

What started as a plan to post an item a day for 7 days turned into 10 new items in my shop!
I skipped Sundays.
Here's how it went down:

Thursday, January 7th


Friday, January 8th



Saturday, January 9th


Monday, January 11th


Tuesday, January 12th


Wednesday, January 13th


Thursday, January 14th


Friday, January 15th
January 15th

Saturday, January 16th


Monday, January 18th

Thanks to good lighting on the 14th, I was able to take pictures of all the scarves I already had, subsequently allowing me to continue listing things without having to make anything new. ;-)

YAY!

Grass and Sticks

Yes, this post is about grass and sticks. Sort of. Since we took our Christmas decorations down, the walls and mantle have seemed really bare and sad. Mama put me in charge of making the mantle pretty again. She gave me a couple other things to do, too. The other things didn't get done til the last minute in the evening because I spent the WHOLE afternoon on this one project.

Benjamin and I went out in the woods and foraged for pretty things. Sweetgum balls, pretty sticks and grasses, curly vine things... It was a lot of fun. I filled a glass lamp base with the sweetgum balls, and made a pretty natural arrangement with grasses and star shaped seedpods in a mason jar. I would post a picture, but our living room is so dark I can't get a good shot of the mantle. Maybe I'll try again eventually.


After the lamp and the mason jar, I got a little overzealous and built this really tall arrangement in a gooorgeous glass jug. (That jug was on the porch when we moved in! It just needed some washing.) After meticulously arranging the whole thing, I went to put it on the mantle and discovered it was way too tall. Unless I wanted to smoosh it. Which I didn't. So now it has a lovely home on the piano.

Those berries were actually just sitting on the piano beside the pictures before I put them in the arrangement. I found them lying on the ground at the park last week!

Then I had the problem of a big open space on the mantle where I had been going to put that jug. The kids told me that we already owned a similar but smaller one somewhere. I went rummaging downstairs again and found it! As of yet it has nothing in it, I tied a satin ribbon around it and set it on top of some books. Books make everything nicer!

So... there's my bit of show and tell for the day. :) More coming soon, as I'll have to show you all the wonderful things I posted in my shop this week!

Happy Saturday!

Caiti