Your thoughts, please?

I hope that you are all out enjoying a beautiful day in sunshine and warm weather.  

Me?  Well….I’m enjoying a day of dreary weather – overcast and with a slight nip in the air.  And no, that isn’t sarcasm. I really am enjoying it!

I spent my morning shuffling clothing around my house – putting away the winter stuff and taking out the summer stuff – thereby assuring that it will snow this week, because 1) Murphy’s Law and 2) that’s how my life works.

And now….for the real reason I’m posting this.  The real two reasons, really.

First of all, if you could, please (pretty please) go vote for one of my recipes in the So Delicious recipe contest. I have absolutely NO chance of winning at all, but with a $500 Williams Sonoma gift certificate on the line, I would be kicking myself if I didn’t at least try.

My recipes:

• Buttered Corn-off-the-cob “Ice Cream”
• Vegan Tomato-Raspberry-Lime Ice Cream
• Tom Ka Gai Soup

Just click on the link and it will take you to the pinterest page.  ”Likes” and repins each count.  Thanks!!

And so….now.

This afternoon, I saw my a sign for a garage sale at my neighbor’s house.  I have never met these neighbors, and it turns out, I never will.  It was an older woman who reacently passed and her son is selling EVERYTHING.  So really, it is more of an estate sale.

I got there before they really had anything priced and I saw….THAT UP THERE!!

Remember when I moved into my new house and I so wanted a stove and fridge set that looked like that??!?!  

The only ones I could find were over $1000 EACH, and these?  These authentic (and yes, really not at all energy efficient) fridge and oven combos….I got him down to $100 for BOTH.

I am still hemming and hawing about it because of a couple caveats.  

1. The fridge, as my dad pointed out, is not going to be “green” at all and will likely be hella expensive, energy-wise.
2. The oven is set up for propane, not natural gas.  But I think that is probably really easy to fix.
3. 

These are old photos of my kitchen (it is much more decorated and *ahem* lived in now), but in case you can’t remember what my kitchen looks like (what?!? Impossible!), how AWESOME would those look in here?!?!

Seriously.  What am I waiting for?

This is silly.  I should just go buy it.  

Right?

Things I Made: Lazy Sunday Update #4

Mother’s Day:  that special day where you honor your mother by posting a picture of her on your blog that she would probably hate you for on any other day.

Happy Mother’s Day, to the BEST Mom there is!!!!

And Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms! 

This picture makes me long for summer.  Soon, Katie, soon.  

(Side note about the weather, because I have to keep up the “tradition” of complaining, lest my reputation get all foiled by this sappy stuff, IT SNOWED yesterday.  Luckily, I didn’t notice it while it was happening because I was inside warming up ALL.DAY.LONG. after the hour long, 20 mph 35 degree wind-in-my-face mountain bike in the morning.  I love my bike though.)  

Enough of that.

We left off last week on Sunday, so you got an extra day last weekend, due to my laziness.  Which means, one less day this week, due to my on-top-of-it-ness.  

 Sorry.  (No I’m not.)

On Monday, I painted those frames and the test tube rack I mentioned last week.  There were some fights in the comments over what color I should go with.  Fights nearing fisticuffs, I feared.  

Okay, that’s totally not true; no one really cared.  But some people did give me suggestions, which I dutifully ignored.  I went with yellow for both of the frames and the test tube rack.  (Obviously.)

On Tuesday, I made Sunflower Seed Butter Bread.  I didn’t take any pictures though.  

Why did I not take any pictures, you ask?  Quite simply, I made the bread at 4:30 am, a time at which my desire to take pictures of food is even lower than it is at a normal time of day (which is to say, LOW….VERY LOW).  Also?  I kind of expected that there would be some bread leftover.

There wasn’t. This means that I either 1) seriously underestimated the power of free (homemade) food for college students or 2) make a mean (read: super tasty) Sunflower Seed Butter Bread.

This is a picture of Peanut Butter Bread.  I didn’t even plan this, I swear, but I made this bread last year for my Ornithology students.  

There wasn’t any left last year either.  You’d think I’d learn.

On Wednesday, I made this lap desk.  (Lies: I made this on Sunday, but this was one of those “rollover” days, where I didn’t actually make anything, but I used something from a day I made two somethings.  This doesn’t happen as often as you would think.)

I used the tutorial here.  I didn’t have a cool looking hard surface for the top, so I Mod Podged green fabric onto an old cutting board.  It isn’t perfect, and it’s a little heavy, but it is the perfect size for my dying laptop.  

Pretty badass zebra print, isn’t it?

On Thursday, I made Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookies.  No picture, because as I’ve mentioned once or twice, I’m lazy with the pictures.  I can’t seem to make myself care.  (Or make myself remember before I eat all the cookies.)

On Friday, I made Jamaican Curry Peanut Butter.  

I wish, oh how I wish, I could take the credit for coming up with the spices, but I just bought the peanuts, pre-spiced.  I bought them on a whim, thinking they’d make great butter, and I was right.  This isn’t going to last long, kids.  (The peanut butter, that is.  Not the being right thing.)

On Saturday,  I made an apron.  A gardening apron!!

Again, I can’t take the credit for this (sensing a trend here, are we?); I’m reading a great book on gardening, You Grow Girl, and there was a pattern for a gardening apron.  

I didn’t actually use the pattern, but I did use the idea as fodder for my version.  It’s kind of hard to see, but there are slots in the apron for all the tools that I end up dropping here and there while I am out weeding and lose and then have to go digging through the pile of debris to find.

Not anymore, though.  Tools, you’ve got a home now.  

Speaking of gardening, I need to get some of that done today.  

Look at all my baby tomatoes!!  I kept telling myself all winter that I wasn’t going to go overboard this summer with the garden.  Keep it simple, Katie is what I said.  But, like a kid in a candy store, I had to plant FOUR kinds of tomato seeds.  And not just one or two of each….many.  Lots.

Anyone want a tomato plant?

Just kidding.  You can’t have them.

Alright, time for me to get outside and get some gardening done.  Oh yeah, and go to the greenhouse to buy more stuff to plant because I’m crazy and what is moderation?

What did you make last week?  Are you gardening?  Peanut buttering?  Painting?