Category: Home (page 4 of 8)

April 22, 2013 / 1 Comment

Snickerdoodles

We tried a new pizza place down the street on Friday night, it was delicious! A great date night treat! Stone baked pizzas, that were fresh, with homemade, locally sourced and organic ingredients and some items imported directly from Italy.

The dough was so thin and crispy, it was the perfect size! It was so good that after a full day on Saturday, getting up before 6am and running around all day and doing some serious gardening we went back for dinner. Mr. Michie picked up a pizza for himself and some lasagna and a salad for me.

We planted flowers this weekend, washed the outside windows and cleaned everything up. I am trying to fight off a bad sinus infection, so Mr. Michie took care of me for the better part of the weekend. We made a pot roast with lots of veggies and served it over a saffron infused risotto for Sunday dinner, it was heavenly.

We also made some snickerdoodles to snack on. Happiness is a snickerdoodle!

March 21, 2013 / 0 Comments

Back in Business

Well we were up early yesterday morning, moving the last few items out of the way for the washing machine repairman.

It appears that he has fixed it! He replaced the pump and the drainage hose. I ran a vinegar rinse through the machine last night on hot and then tried a drying cycle and knock on wood it all worked fine.

So Mr. Michie ordered us some Chinese food for dinner and I spent the next 2 hours putting our kitchen back again. The floor was all sticky where he had been working, so I mopped and cleaned and wiped and danced around to music.

I put my first load of laundry in this morning, so fingers crossed all will go well! We are very lucky to have a compact washer/dryer, but I will say, using the giant queen bee tumble dryer at the the laundromat was a real treat. ALL of my laundry was dried in 30 minutes, folded and when I got home put away, no laundry baskets hanging around our bedroom for 1/2 the week or the drying rack having to be up. It was like we suddenly had this gigantic space upstairs and I loved every minute of it. Oh well, its back to business!

March 18, 2013 / 0 Comments

The Hits Just Keep Coming

Well the hits just kept coming this weekend. Between the fish, the late nights at work, the endless bleaching of the cupboard floor and all the other craziness, my washing machine now has something wrong with it.

I’m telling you I could write a country music song about fish and life and things breaking, but I don’t have a dog or a woman who left me and took my truck, so I guess it wouldn’t be as an exciting song as it could be. But, I could think of a few of my favorite country tunes that would just about sum up this week.

I called the store where my washing machine was purchased from, only to have the women on the other end of the phone tell me to do everything I had already done. So now it will be a service call to Bosch and I hope that I can get someone to come out a little later in the afternoon, as I can’t leave work early this week because we have exams going on.

So, I took myself off to the laundromat What an experience that was! I think it might have even been in a worse state then it was in the last time I was in there, which was almost 9 years ago.

But hey, we’ve got clean clothes! The dryers worked like a dream, everything dried in 30 minutes, I can’t do that record speed with my washer/dryer. I read my book, I watched the rain, I put my back against the dryer to keep myself toasty and I just was. There was no other place to be other then where I was right then and that counts for something.

I snapped these shots with my little wildfire, not as nice as Mr. Michie’s IPhone, but they did the job! I came prepared with my bounce sheets (I always stock up when I go home), my laundry detergent, my book, some water and a ton of change, although I had to get more from two different places as there is no change machine in the laundrette.

I hope this week has better things in store for me.

February 24, 2013 / 1 Comment

The Ending of the Week

As it seems is always the way, we have come to the end of our week off and I am now finally starting to wind down and fully relax and tomorrow we go back to work, you just have to have a sense of humor about these things.

It was snowing when I woke up yesterday morning and after getting showered and dressed we walked the long way round to the grocery store. We bundled up and just took our time. It was beautiful and quiet as the snow fell around us. We even got to see a train rumble along below us as we stood on the bridge. I love trains.

We made homemade macaroni and cheese for lunch yesterday and just stayed cozy with blankets, copious amounts of tea and candles lit here and there. We each read and did a little work. I decided on the first tiny stuffed animal I am going to make for a special little person and so I washed my fabric in preparation for that.

It was just a nice mellow day. We ate leftover homemade pizza from dinner on Friday night. I made that wonderful crust again from Annie’s Eats and Mr. Michie made his wonderful pesto again (the one he made for me on Valentine’s) and he smeared that on our crust, with diced tomatoes and cheese, it was delicious. We also watched Star Wars, so Mr. Michie was very happy!

February 21, 2013 / 2 Comments

Our Day

Yesterday we finished our major overhaul of the room we chose to attack during 1/2 term. There are still a few more things to sort though, and to be put back in their rightful place, but it feels so wonderful to be rid of anything we don’t need.

We recycled, donated, organized, made two bags of items to take to school that will live in the cupboard as still life objects, dusted, vacuumed, mopped and sat for a five minute break to catch our breaths.

We decided to have a big lunch yesterday since Mr. Michie had an online meeting last night. I made a fresh spinach and artichoke dip, with a couple of pieces of crusty bread and carrot and red pepper sticks to dip into it. It was wonderful.

We cheated and watched something while we ate, an episode of “Bunheads”. I will be sad when this show finishes for the season!

For dessert I had a chocolate chip cookie and it was actually smiling at me.

It reminded me of one of my all-time favorite “Bewitched” episodes, when Tabitha turns herself into an oatmeal raisin cookie and then smiles at her mom, with the raisins forming the smile, too cute! (It starts about 5 minutes in)

It must have been the day for things looking like other things to me, because I had a handful of popcorn last night and this piece looked like a little alien creature waving at me, I thought it looked cute and couldn’t eat it, but Mr. Michie grabbed it and ate it instead.

February 20, 2013 / 1 Comment

Purging

The past two days we have done some serious purging in our house. This has been our second major clean out of the year since we attacked the attic.

This time we attacked the kitchen and pantry. You can now clearly see the floor in our pantry and actually walk in without having to hold on to the door jam to get what you need or balance mixing bowls on your knee to get the bowl you are really after. It is AMAZING!

All of our cookbooks are now lined up on one shelf, well almost one shelf, we ran out of room and had to move to the next shelf. I have a thing about cookbooks, they just kind of jump into my hands.

We had 2 big trips to the recycling center and 3 big trips to the Charity shop (it sounds scarier then it is, we walk, so it would have been one round trip in a car). It feels good to purge, to clean, to simplify. Everything just feels brighter and refreshened.

I think that removing the clutter, removes some of the stress from day to day living. We have made a pledge to simplify this year and to make sure that we can eat at our dinner table at night, which is not always easy as Mr. Michie normally has a lot of papers to grade and that is his easiest place to work. But, we are working with that to make our lives easier, more enjoyable and our home life a little more stress free.

After working all day it is nice to come home to a house that is organized (at least semi-organized) and things are easier to get to, so you can enjoy them more and enjoy your house more. As Martha Stewart says, “Its a good thing!”

January 31, 2013 / 0 Comments

A Busy Night

Once I got home last night from the job that pays me with real money, I started my second job last night, the one I love, even though there is no money in it, my job at home. It was a busy night! We had to run to the grocery store to pick up a few ingredients for a cake I am making for Mr. Michie’s class. Friday is their cake day and this week the class is celebrating two birthdays, so he asked me if I would make Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Cake.

He loves this cake. I baked my 2 cakes last night, so tonight when I get in from work, I can make the icing and start to decorate it.

At the grocery store we were walking down the baking aisle and saw these:

I couldn’t believe it! We have been being very good lately, but decided to cheat a little and got a bag of these and a bag of chocolate chunk with pecan. I have never been able to get Pepperidge Farm cookies here, so this is a BIG DEAL! If they start selling the gingerbread men or the chocolate milano’s, I am in big trouble!!

I folded laundry, we had homemade tiropita for dinner and salad, they were delicious, just the right bite from the feta cheese! I did the dishes, cleaned the kitchen, baked the cakes, Mr. Michie had an online meeting and then I finally sat down to watch some TV and “Romancing the Stone”on. I love that movie! So, I sat there with my little Pepperidge Farm cookies wrapped in a blanket and was absolutely happy.

January 28, 2013 / 1 Comment

Spring Cleaning

We worked extremely hard yesterday putting away all of our Christmas decorations and giving the house a thorough cleaning.

Next week, I am going to really tear apart our bedroom and get the closets more organized. I know that we will most likely end up with a bag of items for The Salvation Army and a bag of items to be turned into fabric scraps and dust rags.

The house looks so bare now, but it feels clean. I have decorated for Valentine’s Day and left one little tiny tree up, that I have adorned with Valentine hearts. Nothing wrong with a little twinkle and glow.

Our weekend in pictures:

Goodbye Genevieve see you next year!

Mr. Michie took out the garbage and recycling and we saw a double rainbow the complete full arch, that was a nice gift.

Potato Soup for dinner. I kind of followed Paula Deen’s recipe for it, but then went off the rails and made it completely my own. It was warming to the soul and we sat on the couch like vegetables, completely worn out and watched “Two Mules for Sister Sara”. Happiness!

November 29, 2012 / 2 Comments

Munchkin

I’ve begun to put away fall, but I just love my little munchkins so, I am sad to part with them.

They are either going to become gifts to the forest or as my Mom cleverly suggested, I spray paint them white or gold and place them within my Christmas decor…

November 27, 2012 / 0 Comments

A Turkey Sandwich

My Monday wish came true, I got to eat a turkey sandwich! This year, that is all I truly wanted out of Thanksgiving, was a turkey sandwich and a slice of pumpkin pie. We left work last night in the pouring rain and got soaking wet waiting for the bus, I don’t know if my jacket will ever dry out! We came in, took off our wet clothes, threw on some pj bottoms and sweatshirts and heated up a little spinach and artichoke dip.

We snacked on that and talked about our day, then we worked on making some turkey sandwiches. I sliced the bread while Mr. Michie picked out a Christmas movie. It had been a long day, so we decided to just keep vegging out and stayed on the couch under our quilt to eat our delectable sandwiches made with the Thanksgiving leftovers and watched The Santa Claus. Our evening would not have been complete if we didn’t eat a slice of pumpkin pie with whipped cream of course!

Today was such a long day, I am already ready for the weekend again, crazy isn’t it!