Happy 4th's Eve!

The dogs and I are relaxing this morning. Wendy and I are both lounged out on the new couch and Im enjoying my second cup of coffee. I have most of the week off.. so I've been trying to get a lot of stuff done around the house. Except for right now that is. I intend to sit here awhile longer and most likely have another cup of coffee :) And maybe read for a few also!

Our new couch has finally arrived. It was delivered around 8 o'clock on Friday night. One of the recliners is a little messed up and seems like it may of been stuffed with the wrong padding (its much more stiff than the rest of the couch) so we'll have a technician come and check that out. But other than that, we're really happy about our purchase. Now we're just waiting on our Sofa table and Coffee table! It should be here by the weekend or shortly after. 

We've realized that Wendy's new favorite spot is under the recliner once its popped up. So we've found that we have to continuously ask each other "Is she under mine?" "No, is she under mine?". I guess we'll get used to it. She's always enjoyed laying in little sneaky spots. 

I had an extremely productive day yesterday. I don't know what came over me! I got so much done. I guess I just got on a mission and ran with it. My mom had given us an old metal file cabinet that was rusted and painted a lovely shade of khaki. So I decided to sand it down and spray paint it. Sounds easy, right? Except that I had to do one side at a time and then wait for it to dry. So in between my painting sessions, I managed to reorganize our pantry, move some furniture around and tape off where our new tables will go, 4 loads of laundry, a trip to Home Depot, the dry cleaners, the bank, and Publix.. AND I watered the flowers/garden and picked up dog poop (my personal fav). On top of all that, I organized some of my recipes and cooked us a homemade meal for supper! Which, by the way, was delicious- here's the recipe for that:

Zucchini and Rice Casserole

3 cups Chicken Broth

1 Zucchini sliced

1 medium Onion chopped

2 Bell Peppers chopped (any colors will work)

2 Jalapeno's chopped and seeded (or leave the seeds in if you want a little more spice)

1 cup of Corn (frozen- thawed or fresh)

1 1/2 cups of milk

2 cups jack cheese

4 oz. cream cheese

1 1/2 cups brown long grain rice

3 tbsp all purpose flour

1 lb turkey sausage

Pre-heat your oven to 375. Chop up all your veggies (except the jalapeno) and pop them into a casserole dish. Add your dry rice as well. Pour your Chicken Broth into a pot and bring it to a boil. Then, pour the broth over the veggies and rice. Cover the casserole dish and pop it in the over for 40 minutes. Remove the foil, give it a stir, and then leave it uncovered to cook for an additional 30-40 minutes. 

In the meantime, brown and rinse your turkey sausage (I chopped the jalapeno here and let it sautee with the turkey) Also, once the casserole is close to coming out of the oven, mix your milk and flour and bring to a boil on the stove (I just re-used the chicken broth pot!). Simmer on low until thickened (continuously stir with a whisk!) and then add in the 2 cups of jack cheese and 1 cup of corn. Pull the casserole out of the oven and add in your sausage and cheese mixture. Also add in your dollops of cream cheese evenly. Stir the entire dish well. 

The recipe didn't call for it.. but I added a cracker topping. I melted 2 tbsp of butter and crushed up several club crackers, mixed them together, and then crumbled them over the top. The casserole goes back into the oven for 10-15 minutes and then its complete!

It seems like a lot of steps, but it was relatively easy. And I think it'll make for a great leftover's dish as well. And luckily, with this recipe, I was able to get rid of a Zucchini and 2 Jalapeno's from our garden! I love cooking with fresh ingredients!

Thomas and I are headed to a braves game tonight to see our FIRST game of the season and enjoy their fireworks display. And tomorrow, we'll be spending the day with some friends. We're looking forward to a little creek time, good food, and more fireworks. 

I'll head back to work on Friday once the kids are back in town. And Thomas will be in town for the next 3 weeks! He's been traveling so much lately.. it'll be nice to see his face a little more often.

Next week, I'll start my next session sewing class so I'm really excited about that. It should cover a lot more skills and hopefully I'll be on my way to making lots of fun new projects. It'll meet Monday and Wednesday (7-9:30) for 2 weeks. It'll be a lot.. now that I've started back to work.. but I'm still really looking forward to it.

Hope that everyone has a safe and fun 4th of July!

Hello Summer :)

Summer time is officially here! Up until this week, Georgia has actually managed to stay at a decent temperature. There have been a few hot days but overall, it was a really pleasant spring!

My garden and flowers are doing really well this year. We've got 4 tomato plants, 1 cherry tomato plant, 2 zucchini plants, 1 jalapeno plant, and 1 okra plant. I can already tell we're going to have so many tomato's that I'm going to have to get very creative with some recipes to freeze. And it seems like the zucchini are popping up over night. The red Georgia clay has definitely not held us back!

Thomas and I got back from our Florida beach trip about 2 weeks ago. We had a really good time! However, the rain did not cooperate at all. There were basically solid rain showers everyday.. with 1-2 hour patches of clearness here and there. We watched the weather channel CONSTANTLY hoping we could take advantage of some beach time.

I arrived at the beach on Tuesday and Thomas came in straight from a business trip and flew into Daytona on Thursday. Thomas had joked with me about being at the airport with a sign waiting for him.. and I casually told him that it probably wasn't going to happen. Much to his surprise, not only were we there with a sign.. but we were there with a humiliating one! The 3 of us (myself and the couple we went with, Jen and Blake) were sitting at a bar the night before googling "airport signs" to see what all we could come up with. The 2 semi-finalist were "congrats on your all-state win at the harmonica championship playoff" (and we would all be playing harmonica's) and "congrats on your not guilty verdict". We went with the not guilty verdict and it was hilarious. 

The anticipation of the whole thing was the worst. Jen and I had the signs while Blake was filming. And lucky for us (and Thomas), Daytona is a very SMALL airport.. therefore, we were able to spot him easily AND there were only a couple puzzled looks about our sign :) After taking a red eye from Seattle and then another early flight to Daytona, he really took the whole thing like a champ!

I started back to work on the 11th and am finishing off my second week of work. It's been really great to be back! Today is actually Luke's 3rd birthday and also his first day of summer camp so I'm at home with the morning off. He's very excited but very anxious at the same time so we'll see how the first day goes :)

Thomas and I are anxiously awaiting some new pieces of furniture in the next couple of weeks and we are very excited! We spent an entire weekend hunting for the perfect sectional.. and of course after going to 5 different stores, we ended up going with the same sectional that my brother Seth and his wife Mary have. It's super comfortable and has recliners in each end. It's also held up well with their dogs climbing on it.. and we've also given it the sleep test from when Clara was first born! So we knew this was definitely the couch for us. We also purchased a new coffee table and sofa table so we're excited for those to come in also. Our couch and chair not very comfortable so we are not hesitant at all to say goodbye to them! (and by goodbye, I mean banishing them to the formal living room/game room)

We don't have many plans for the weekend. We'll have Luke's birthday party on Saturday and then hopefully mostly just relaxing and doing some yard work! 

Happy Summer everyone!

Catch Up!

Whoops. A little behind on posting! We've had a lot going on and blogging has definitely been pushed to the back burner. Until now that is :)

A few days after we got back from Italy, we made a trip back to NC for Carrie and Derek Barker's wedding. We had a great time! But we were also ready to get back home. After being gone for almost two and a half weeks, it was nice to get back home and get settled. And actually UNPACK!

The following weekend (first weekend of May) was actually spent at home.. but it was busy none the less! Somehow we managed to have dinner with friends 2 of the nights, squeeze in a date night to the cheesecake factory, and do A LOT of yard work. Our yard took a little bit of neglect while we were in Austin.. but it's finally getting back to its beautiful-ness. And we've added some fun new plants/flowers in the process.

I've also been busy taking a sewing class over the past few weeks. I am definitely having a little bit of an affair.... with my sewing machine! It's so much fun learning how to make stuff! I'm completely addicted and you should all expect homemade gifts for Christmas. Don't say I didn't warn you. And request are being accepted at this time.

This past weekend Thomas and I went with some friends to see Luke Bryan and Jason Aldean in concert. It was a lot of fun and the weather was great. The "lawn" seating was slightly hilly.. which made for an interesting situation when your trying to get situated on a blanket. But we made the best of it and enjoyed the concert!

Currently, I am at home in Salisbury. Thomas had a meeting in Hickory this week so we came to Salisbury mid week so that he could attend a meeting there. We met up with Lorraine and Tommy in Greensboro for dinner on Wednesday night, which was lots of fun, and then Thomas left on Thursday afternoon to go on his annual fishing trip with the guys to Portsmouth Island (I think I spelled that right?). Mom and I were planning to leave today to drive back to Georgia for the weekend but since traffic seems to be horrific in the Charlotte area because of holiday/race traffic, we're going to head out early in the morning instead.
I think we're both looking forward to a little mother/daughter bonding time that will most definitely include shopping, pedicures, and hopefully a trip to see What to Expect When Your Expecting. I have heard that it's hilarious.. and seeing as my Mom was a labor and delivery nurse for 25 years, I think it'll be right up her alley! 

As for our future plans (current future that is), we'll be headed to FL for a long beach weekend with friends in June and then I will be excitedly starting back to work on June 11th! I've really enjoyed my time off over the past few months but I'm ready to get back into the swing of normal life!

That's all I can think of for now! Hope everyone enjoys their upcoming summer vacations!