And on March 21, this happened.
Apparently Connecticut wants to get rid of me because really there's just no other explanation for it.
Monday, March 21, 2011
you have got to be kidding me
Apparently Connecticut wants to get rid of me because really there's just no other explanation for it.
good morning yummy breakfast
Let's get this out there: I am not a morning person. But I am a huge breakfast person. I love it all the time. I especially love eggs and turkey bacon.
Even though I love breakfast, my usual weekday routine is pretty boring: Greek yogurt or oatmeal with almond butter and honey. Although I love them both, sometimes I just want something that has a little more of a weekend-breakfast feel. So when Cooking Light sent out an email last week that said "17 Grab-and-Go Quick Breakfast Recipes," I was beyond excited.
First recipe that I had to try: Mini Frittatas with Ham and Cheese
Note: I used frozen turkey sausage instead of ham because I don't eat ham. And I didn't use thyme because I apparently threw mine away, but I'm also not a huge fan of it (maybe why I threw it away?).
Pros:
- Easy! Whenever something is easy, I automatically like it more.
- Seriously low in calories (which makes mid morning snacks so guilt-free)
- Tasty - the onions and sausage and cheese play really well off each other
- I have breakfast for a week!
Cons:
- Even though you do eat 3 of them (per serving), they are small little things
- Onions can be iffy in the morning, but they aren't too potent and I always have tea and/or water right after breakfast (and gum in my purse)
To sum it up: these make breakfast a little more fun and exciting! And who doesn't like an exciting breakfast?
Even though I love breakfast, my usual weekday routine is pretty boring: Greek yogurt or oatmeal with almond butter and honey. Although I love them both, sometimes I just want something that has a little more of a weekend-breakfast feel. So when Cooking Light sent out an email last week that said "17 Grab-and-Go Quick Breakfast Recipes," I was beyond excited.
First recipe that I had to try: Mini Frittatas with Ham and Cheese
Note: I used frozen turkey sausage instead of ham because I don't eat ham. And I didn't use thyme because I apparently threw mine away, but I'm also not a huge fan of it (maybe why I threw it away?).
Pros:
- Easy! Whenever something is easy, I automatically like it more.
- Seriously low in calories (which makes mid morning snacks so guilt-free)
- Tasty - the onions and sausage and cheese play really well off each other
- I have breakfast for a week!
Cons:
- Even though you do eat 3 of them (per serving), they are small little things
- Onions can be iffy in the morning, but they aren't too potent and I always have tea and/or water right after breakfast (and gum in my purse)
To sum it up: these make breakfast a little more fun and exciting! And who doesn't like an exciting breakfast?
Thursday, March 17, 2011
best snack ever
I love finding healthy snack ideas because a) I snack a lot and b) I don't want to eat something bad when I'm already sitting at a desk for 7+ hours a day. So not fun.
So when I found this little diddy, I was thrilled! Chickpeas? Yes please. Sweet? Yes. Spicy? Of course! Quick and easy? Oh emm gee.
If you want something quick and easy and yummy and filling and wonderful, definitely make these spicy roasted chickpeas.
Highlights:
- Easy
- More fun than almonds (not that I don't love almonds, but I like variety even more)
- Filling!
- I look forward to my mid-afternoon snack
- I threw them on some spinach with walnuts and feta for a quick and easy salad
Cons:
- When they're gone I am just so sad
Click here for the recipe. Do it now!
So when I found this little diddy, I was thrilled! Chickpeas? Yes please. Sweet? Yes. Spicy? Of course! Quick and easy? Oh emm gee.
If you want something quick and easy and yummy and filling and wonderful, definitely make these spicy roasted chickpeas.
Highlights:
- Easy
- More fun than almonds (not that I don't love almonds, but I like variety even more)
- Filling!
- I look forward to my mid-afternoon snack
- I threw them on some spinach with walnuts and feta for a quick and easy salad
Cons:
- When they're gone I am just so sad
Click here for the recipe. Do it now!
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
pretty shiny thing
My dad just called and this is how our conversation started:
Me: Hello
Dad: Hey what are you doing?
Me: Nothing
Dad: Um, you haven't blogged in a while.
Oh. Right.
So on that note, I have a coffee table to tell you about. Get excited!
I know I mentioned the coffee table a few weeks ago, but this thing was/is a true labor of love. Originally I wasn't a fan of the table because a) it was beat up and b) it's a half moon shape. But the more I looked the more I realized I actually really like it's shape and tapered legs. Plus it's free and it would give me something to practice staining on so it quickly became my favorite piece of furniture.
So when my dad came up over President's Day weekend, I put him to work. He got to know the Norwalk Home Depot really well.
Here are some pictures of the wear and tear this table had been through (ps I took these with my phone in a garage with fluorescent lighting, so, yeah):
Sorry there's no picture of the shape yet, but pictures were always an after thought. I was ready to attack this thing.
Step 1: strip all the stain and shellac and shiny layer off. It was not pretty. Once the stripper-stuff has set on the wood for a while, you strip it off with a scraper. Here's an idea of how cool that was:
Pretty! Clearly Dad was too busy for pictures as well. Side note: this part is super smelly. Like worry-about-your-brain-cells smelly. We took multiple breaks since we were working in a closed garage with no ventilation at all. More on that later.
Anyways, step 2 (which really might be like step 4 since we had to keep stripping that thing down) is sanding. Sanding (with a sander) is so much fun yall. I love it.
This is about mid-way through the sanding. We sanded and sanded and sanded some more until this thing was much lighter and felt like wood.
After wiping down with some mineral oil to get all the dust off, step 3 was to stain! Hooray! I wanted a nice medium brown color with a little bit of red and shine. Lots and lots of shine.
On Tuesday morning when my dad had to leave, he didn't get to see the finished product because I locked the garage and had my keys in my room (and he left around 6am...) - oopsies. So when I went down and checked it I was greeted with what we were afraid of: small hole-like spots where the stain had separated. Check it out:
And a close-up:
After the 2nd coat we saw these spots but kept our fingers crossed that they would magically go away. No such luck. After looking back, we determined this most likely happened because a) it was in the 30s the day we stained and you're not supposed to stain below 50 apparently, b) there was no ventilation and um there's supposed to be adequate ventilation and c) you weren't supposed to do thick coats but um, I wanted instant gratification. And one other thing to note is that we used a stain + polyurethane product instead of a separate spain and poly, so if we had used just stain this might have been different.
Moving on.
Last week I got antsy and took this thing back out to the garage to work on it some more. I sanded, re-stained, realized I needed to sand more so I wiped the stain off, sanded more, and stained for real. And this is where we are now:
Say hello to our pretty pretty table! He's almost done, but not quite. A couple holes formed this time, but they are much less noticable so it's in the living room now and I'm seeing if it bothers me (and yeah, it's kind of bothering me). Also, I realized the drawer and legs need one more coat - they just aren't as wonderfully shiny as the top. And speaking of that - with so much shine, this thing reflects the TV like a lake reflects a sunset and it is so fun to look at. Sometimes I catch myself watching the table and not the TV, but that might also be because I have a weird obsession with this table now.
The good news is tomorrow it's supposed to be around 59 degrees (yeahhhh!!!) so I'll be out in the garage staining away. Hopefully I'll have some finished pictures next week!
And that my friends is the story of my first staining experience. Now I just sit around looking at furniture and dream about staining and painting. Good news is I have a table from South Africa sitting in the garage just waiting for me to make it pretty. Now I just really need Connecticut temps to not go back to the 40s next week. Work with me CT.
Me: Hello
Dad: Hey what are you doing?
Me: Nothing
Dad: Um, you haven't blogged in a while.
Oh. Right.
So on that note, I have a coffee table to tell you about. Get excited!
I know I mentioned the coffee table a few weeks ago, but this thing was/is a true labor of love. Originally I wasn't a fan of the table because a) it was beat up and b) it's a half moon shape. But the more I looked the more I realized I actually really like it's shape and tapered legs. Plus it's free and it would give me something to practice staining on so it quickly became my favorite piece of furniture.
So when my dad came up over President's Day weekend, I put him to work. He got to know the Norwalk Home Depot really well.
Here are some pictures of the wear and tear this table had been through (ps I took these with my phone in a garage with fluorescent lighting, so, yeah):
Sorry there's no picture of the shape yet, but pictures were always an after thought. I was ready to attack this thing.
Step 1: strip all the stain and shellac and shiny layer off. It was not pretty. Once the stripper-stuff has set on the wood for a while, you strip it off with a scraper. Here's an idea of how cool that was:
Pretty! Clearly Dad was too busy for pictures as well. Side note: this part is super smelly. Like worry-about-your-brain-cells smelly. We took multiple breaks since we were working in a closed garage with no ventilation at all. More on that later.
Anyways, step 2 (which really might be like step 4 since we had to keep stripping that thing down) is sanding. Sanding (with a sander) is so much fun yall. I love it.
This is about mid-way through the sanding. We sanded and sanded and sanded some more until this thing was much lighter and felt like wood.
After wiping down with some mineral oil to get all the dust off, step 3 was to stain! Hooray! I wanted a nice medium brown color with a little bit of red and shine. Lots and lots of shine.
On Tuesday morning when my dad had to leave, he didn't get to see the finished product because I locked the garage and had my keys in my room (and he left around 6am...) - oopsies. So when I went down and checked it I was greeted with what we were afraid of: small hole-like spots where the stain had separated. Check it out:
And a close-up:
After the 2nd coat we saw these spots but kept our fingers crossed that they would magically go away. No such luck. After looking back, we determined this most likely happened because a) it was in the 30s the day we stained and you're not supposed to stain below 50 apparently, b) there was no ventilation and um there's supposed to be adequate ventilation and c) you weren't supposed to do thick coats but um, I wanted instant gratification. And one other thing to note is that we used a stain + polyurethane product instead of a separate spain and poly, so if we had used just stain this might have been different.
Moving on.
Last week I got antsy and took this thing back out to the garage to work on it some more. I sanded, re-stained, realized I needed to sand more so I wiped the stain off, sanded more, and stained for real. And this is where we are now:
Say hello to our pretty pretty table! He's almost done, but not quite. A couple holes formed this time, but they are much less noticable so it's in the living room now and I'm seeing if it bothers me (and yeah, it's kind of bothering me). Also, I realized the drawer and legs need one more coat - they just aren't as wonderfully shiny as the top. And speaking of that - with so much shine, this thing reflects the TV like a lake reflects a sunset and it is so fun to look at. Sometimes I catch myself watching the table and not the TV, but that might also be because I have a weird obsession with this table now.
The good news is tomorrow it's supposed to be around 59 degrees (yeahhhh!!!) so I'll be out in the garage staining away. Hopefully I'll have some finished pictures next week!
And that my friends is the story of my first staining experience. Now I just sit around looking at furniture and dream about staining and painting. Good news is I have a table from South Africa sitting in the garage just waiting for me to make it pretty. Now I just really need Connecticut temps to not go back to the 40s next week. Work with me CT.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)