Playing catch up!

I'm going to post about this past (most recent) weekend first and then hopefully I'll have time later to post about the one previous. Exciting things (well, exciting to ME) going on in my little world.

Friday I took the day off from work. Went to the dentist and got bad news. Yuck. Going to get a second opinion from another dentist next week and hopefully an affordable payment plan (we're talking $3500 worth of work, folks). Well, in any case, that was depressing. And it made my mouth sore so I came home and took a nap and then got ready to go meet my MIL and SIL for dinner and then the Jason Aldean/Luke Bryan concert. I will be the first person to tell ya, I don't generally like "new" country music. I seriously love the stuff that came out in the 90's, or I prefer old country - George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Johnny Cash, Kenny Rogers - the classics. But Jason and Luke put on a heck of a show!! It was a lot of fun. Live music is so good for the soul, and living in Nashville.... sometimes you've just gotta embrace the country!





Me and my sis in law wearing our new shirts. I had to get the Dirt Road Anthem shirt for two reasons: #1 The beginning of the video was shot right around/in my neighborhood, and #2 the song references George Jones. So that was a no-brainer.


Having fun at the show!


This was my SIL's drink at dinner. A Blackberry Volcano. So cool, and tasty, too!

Saturday Morning, Josh and I went to a local coffee shop just a mile or so away. They will be moving INTO our neighborhood soon, pretty much right up the street and around the corner from us!



Then we stopped at an Estate Sale in our hood, where we got a box full of vintage goodies for $9.50.



After that I had an appointment, and after the appointment, picked up my friend Kristina because she wanted to go to the Estate Sale, too. We kind of rushed through it the first time so I didn't get to see everything, so I was excited to get to go again. Spent another $13, will show you my total haul in a second.

We had a little more time to kill, so Kristina suggested we go to The Beehive, which is a little local store that sells fun things for the home and garden. We had never been there before, so why the heck not?

Well, I had bought a little vintage orange bowl at the estate sale that I wanted to plant succulents in, and sure enough, the Beehive had some succulents. I went out to my car to get my bowl and see what would fit. The lady that worked there looked that bottom of the bowl and said "This is a vintage McCoy! You only paid $5 for it?" (price tag was still on it) I told her everything there was half priced, so I actually only paid $2.50. She said the flower frog that was in it (search image here https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&source=hp&biw=1603&bih=750&q=flower+frog&gbv=2&oq=flower+fro&aq=1&aqi=g10&aql=&gs_sm=1&gs_upl=1255l4209l0l7048l12l12l1l1l1l0l162l718l8.2l10l0) was worth $5 alone. I had no use for the flower frog, so I gave it to her and she seemed happy about that. Meanwhile, I got my succulents and a McCoy for $2.50 and I was happy about THAT!



Here is everything I got at the estate sale:



So many fun vintage books, I can never resist those!







Also started my first batch of vanilla vodka - we'll see how it turns out. Should be ready today or tomorrow:



Decided to display some of my vintage pieces of Fiesta that never get used and put them in the hutch. I rearranged it a million times, but I think I am finally happy with this:



My shelves are still a work in progress, though. They will be the death of me!

Another one for the "better late than never" file.

I think I am still suffering from a post-holiday hangover! The holidays were definitely hectic, to say the least.

We traveled to Ohio for the Christmas holiday. We drove up the evening of the 22nd. The drive just seems to get more and more brutal each time. Eight hours, at night, with three dogs? Bru-tal! And once you pass Cincinnati, there is pretty much nothing until you get to Toledo. So you're tired and cranky, and sick of everything that is on the radio already, and you still have 3 more hours to go. Arrgh!



Of course, somehow on the 23rd we managed to rally and head to IKEA!







Until we get one close to Nashville, it will never cease to be exciting to me! I don't even remember what all we bought. Not much. Some flowerpots, frames and little things like that. We were going to get new couch and ottoman covers, but we backed out at the last minute (Josh wanted red and I wanted grey). Good thing we chose not to purchase them (over a $300 purchase for the colors I wanted and we've had some car repairs to take care of since then).

Christmas was good. Went to Mom's church, which always has a great Christmas service, even though I am not particularly a church person.

My sister made these lovely cookies:



Pablo greatly enjoyed all the fat squirrels up north and tried to climb my mom's trees in hopes of getting them.



We drank a lot of Tim Horton's Iced Capps (and ate a lot of sandwiches, bagels and donut holes there, too):



Oh, how I wish we had a Tim's down here!

My Dad got a giant sock monkey:



It will look nice under his sock monkey tree:



I got a record player, which I am really excited about. It was fun to drag out my old records from the garage and give them a listen this past weekend. Josh got a kindle, which he really loves, and we also got a convection oven that he is really loving and using for everything - even toast! I haven't quite mastered it yet.



Once we came back to Nashville, we had two more Christmases. The first was with Josh's mom. She always buys us Christmas jammies and it's a lot of fun. See?







I love my sweet seester-in-law:



And my precious brother-in-law, too. Soglad they came in from Colorado!



The next day (or maybe 2 days after that, I can't remember), we hosted another Christmas at our little house, this time with his dad and siblings (I haven't uploaded the photos yet). I was really proud of myself because I actually DELEGATED for once in my life. Usually when I host something, I am all about making it as complicated as possible and doing it all myself. Not this time. I went with easy recipes (a cilantro-ranch-jalapeno dip, cream cheese chicken cili in the crockpot and hot chocolate also in the crockpot), and I asked Josh's dad to bring the rice to put the chili over and the garlic bread, and his siblings to bring wine. It all turned out great and was pretty low stress! I didn't even bust out the cloth napkins.

I hope everyone had wonderful holidays and may you have a wonderful 2012!

Weekend!!

My dearest bro-in-law arrived in town on Saturday from CO and stayed with us for the night. He is doing some training for his job in KY, but we were lucky enough to have him in TN for a couple of days.

Several of us went out to eat Saturday night at Battered and Fried. I had a fried scallop sushi roll. My heavens, it was so good I wish I had never tasted it, because now I just want to eat it again!



(here's our group minus me and two others)

After dinner, everyone came back to our house to hang on the porch and drink beer and tell stories. Which means our fridge looked like this:



We have tons leftover, too bad I don't like beer.

And speaking of our porch, we finally got the glider put together... I love sitting in it and watching the hoodlums go by.

Here's a shot of it the evening we put it together:



And here is how it looks in the daytime:



Love it! The pillows are made of napkins from World Market. I got two different patterns for the big pillows so they are reversible, and one of each pattern for the bolsters. Now we just need a porch swing (and a couple more pillows) for the other side of the porch.

Sunday was a very lazy day...





I can't resist sharing this picture... Julio stole Pablo's "chewie", and when I went to take a picture, Pablo came up next to me and Julio bared his little teeth because he didn't want Pablo to take it back.



Josh took Bo, the neighbor dog, to the vet to get fixed this morning. Here is a picture of him and Pablo (BFF's!) from Friday:



I think his new home is going to work out. He's adjusting.

Oopsie!

It's been nearly a week since I read blogs or updated mine. I am not doing a very good job of chronicling my life lately!

My mom and Aunt were visiting from Thursday night through Monday morning, so I spent those days cooking, cleaning and playing tour guide. I'm still whooped from all that! Friday we shopped all day, and man, those two can shop! We had lunch at the little restaurant down the street that day. Saturday we went to the Farmer's Market in the morning,  Loveless Cafe  for lunch and then to the Hermitage... and then more shopping. Sunday I made a hearty breakfast and then we went downtown to walk around, stopped in at a Honky Tonk (Legends, my favorite), had lunch at Demos', and then spent a little time just hanging around the house. I made a huge dinner that night. Unfortunately, it was ungodly hot all weekend, and since my stove was working overtime and my husband likes to keep the thermostat at a toasty 78 degrees, it was hotter than Hades both inside and out.

I usually eat fairly light on the weekends, so I felt unusually stuffed between all the home cooking and mid-day eating out.

I was so busy playing hostess, I didn't really take any pictures aside from a few at the Hermitage. Weird that I've lived practically down the street from it most of the years I've lived in Tennessee, but I've never been. No pictures allowed inside, but I did grab a few on the grounds and in the garden.













My mom also brought me/us new vintage looking metal porch furniture for my birthday/our anniversary. We have the two chairs and table put together, we just need to finish the glider. Can't wait to take photos of it to share! I got some cute napkins from World Market that my mom made into outdoor pillows for me to go on them. Just took a little fabric glue, stuffing and scotchguard! I used two patterns, so the big pillows are reversible. Very inexpensive and I will probably make more.

My mom also hung up my new-to-me vintage kitchen curtains from my MIL.



I have valances on this kitchen window facing the backyard and on the back door window, and then panels and a valance on the side window. I need to get some ribbon to tie the panels back with, and then I will share a photo of that.

Here's one last little photo... on the left is a grape tomato from the store, on the right is a grape tomato from my garden... a little bigger than a grape, huh??



I kept noticing my tomatoes disappearing and I have figured out why. Pablo is picking them and using them as little balls to play with outside. That goober!

Entertaining Anxiety and other first world problems.

Somewhere in the last couple of months, I have turned into one of those people with a busy life. That's not to say I have an exciting life, by any means, but my schedule is a little fuller. Sometimes we have things to do on weekends, or people over. Working out several days a week, in addition to working full-time also eats up a lot of hours. Pablo is settling down a little, but he's still mostly a full-time job (who has learned to wiggle out of the fence). What I am getting at is that my DVR is backlogged and tons of reading material is going un-read for far too long around these here parts. I feel I have less free-time now than I did when I was working two jobs and it is a weird feeling.

I'm also going through this weird anxiety when it comes to having people over. One of the things I love most in the world is having parties, or just having people over and cooking for them. I love it, love it, love it. I try to be a good hostess, take everyone's food preferences/allergies into account and provide a relaxing and happy atmosphere.  I think I do a fairly decent job of it, but lately I keep second-guessing myself. What if everyone is not having as much fun as me? What if they're all just here to humor me? What if I'm really a terrible cook and no one has had the guts to tell me?

Sunday, we had Josh's dad and his wife over for Father's Day. He didn't want us to do anything too fancy (I tend to bust out the cloth napkins too regularly, I guess), so we grilled sausages and corn on the cob and I also made baked beans and pasta salad. We topped off the meal with this AMAZING strawberry pie:



I have been wanting to make a strawberry pie for a few weeks, but  every recipe I could find called for jello in it... That just wasn't what I was going for. A friend/coworker sent me this recipe and I knew at first glance this was the one. I used a shortbread crust instead of graham cracker, though!

http://bakingbites.com/2009/06/fresh-strawberry-pie/

I really can't wait to have a reason to make it again!

This saturday I am hosting a little luncheon for my co-workers. In light of my recent onset of Entertaining Anxiety, I am a little worried about everyone having a good time, etc., but I think it will all be fine if I stop worrying about it and just get on with it. I am VERY excited about it, though... Many cute details that I can't wait to share once it's over. ;)

Weekend!

Our weekend was pretty lovely, but busy!

Saturday morning we woke up and went to the gym. They had a circuit training class going on that I thought would be fun. Um, I was wrong. The cardio part of the class consisted of step aerobics. If you know me at all in real life, you know I am NOT graceful nor coordinated in the least bit. When I realized what kind of class it was going to be, I was quick to inform the teacher that it wasn't my forte and I would most likely get out of step. She told me as long as I kept stepping, even if I wasn't doing the right steps, I'd still get a good work out. Did I mention this class was an hour long? Yikes.

I loved the other parts of the class, though. The abs, warm up, cool down, the weights, etc. Just not the stepping. The worst/best part was there is this guy there who goes to just about every class and he always hollers things out, people's names, "wooooo!", that kind of stuff. Well, the whole time I was struggling, he kept yelling "Don't give up, Shawna! You gon' be a stepper! Wooo!" I could have died of embarassment. Even the pregnant girl in class was kicking my ass. And of course, Mr. Cheerleader never yelled out my name when I was doing something right. I would have loved to hear "You're killin' those bicep curls, girl!" Oh, well.  But it was a good workout, even if I did most of it wrong. Today is the first day that I am not sore from it. My arms DEFINITELY got it good.

After the gym, we headed for our Neighborhood Home Tour. I was really excited about it, because number one I love my 'hood, number 2 I love to see how people decorate, and number 3 I like it when the community (and other people) all come together for this event. Unfortunately, this year was a dud. There were two houses on our side of the hood on the tour, but the one was so messy... I'd hate to see how they live every day if they are that messy on tour day. The other house on our side was the same style as ours, and it's always neat to see how different the houses are even when they are the same layout. The girl that owned that one was very sweet and we talked with her a lot. She knew which house was ours in the neighborhood (hello, yellow door!) and asked us a lot of questions about our house and I told her to stop by anytime to come have a look. It has always been a dream of mine to be on the home tour, but I always think I have this or that to finish and it's not 'perfect'.  Well, it's probably never going to be perfect, but it does have a personality and lots of character (most of the other homes this year were very lacking in that department). So I made up my mind to do it next year, no matter what is still 'imperfect' or 'undone'.

After the home tour, I met my friend/coworker Julie at the Mall for a "girl date" to guide her through Forever 21 (they have some great stuff, but the store can be so overwhelming!) I ended up with 3 dresses.



After the mall I went to Whole Foods to stock up on some cheese because the next day we were going to Arrington Vineyards to celebrate my bro-in-law's bday (and you know Josh and I always get put on cheese duty!). I got great service at the cheese counter, he just kept feeding me samples! I was in heaven. After that I went to the grocery store to do our regular shopping, and by the time I got home it was evening and I hadn't sat down in my house all day! But I still had a little cooking to do. When I finally did sit down, Julio just wanted to cuddle.



Our Sunday Miracle was Pablo and Julio in the same bed! Although I think Pablo just got in there to steal Julio's little mouse, but Julio let him, so it's a start, right?





Pablo has been a challenge these last few days (and that is putting it mildly). He is scheduled to be fixed TOMORROW, and then we are going to look into a trainer for him. He is definitely not your typical puppy. I always joke that if he had a cartoon thought balloon over his head it would repeat the word "Destroy!" over and over.



Arrington was fun. So good to see my bro-in-law and sis-in-law in town from CO and spend time with family and friends. In addition to bringing the cheese plate (with crackers, fig jam and honey and red pepper flakes to accompany), and hummus and pita chips, I made vegetable pizza. Yum!



Here's me and the bday boy:


And me and my sweet seester-in-law (love, love, LOVE her):


Bros:


Chad and Katie (the couple we had over for dinner a couple of weeks ago):


I didn't take as many picutres as I usually do this weekend. :( But I DO make a mean cheese plate. :)

Gratuitous Dog Shots:




This morning I was supposed to go to the gym for a 5:30 ab class, but right before my alarm went off (at 4:50), a crazy storm hit and we lost our electricity. I would have still went in the rain, but it was still pitch black outside and it wasn't just rain, it was a crazy heavy downpour! I am hoping for decently light traffic on the way home so I can at least make it to pilates at 5:30 tonight. We'll see, but I hope so! Send me some good traffic vibes!