Faith, Hope & Love

I've Moved!

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Mon, 25 Jan 2016 18:15:00 +0000

So, if anyone is still out there, I have moved to a different blog. If you want to check it out, you can find me at http://thrive.ink.

Thanks for stopping by! :)

~Morgan

My Trip to Chattanooga

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Fri, 23 May 2014 12:00:00 +0000

That post title sounds a lot like a paper you'd turn in on the first day back to school about your summer vacation. "Here Mrs. Teacher, this is my paper on my summer vacation. It's called 'My Trip to Chattanooga.'"

Anyway, a few weekends ago I took a trip to Tennessee to visit two of my very dear friends. One is my BFF from high school and the other is her husband. My BFF, Kelly, is a pharmacist and after college she moved to TN so when we want to see each other we have to travel. I was excited to spend a weekend away!

My two sweet friends.

Their sweet puppy Stella.

We ate dinner the first night at a wonderful Tapas restaurant. I ate blue cheese puffs, spinach artichoke dip and what they call papas bravas. Yum!! We all shared and they gave me some of their pear and walnut quesadilla. It was so good!

Selfie in the car on the way to lunch.

I was so happy to see they had this Daft Punk table!!

I've loved Daft Punk since Discovery.

We ate lunch at the best pizza place. Basically you pick the pizza size and that's a base price and then you pick all your toppings including type of cheese. We got spinach, artichokes, mushrooms, tomatoes, feta cheese, garlic and mozzarella. It was so tasty! I loved that there were so many toppings options and that we could pick whatever we wanted.

After lunch we headed to the Aquarium. It was so nice!!

We really enjoyed the penguin exhibit. We even made new friends.

Look at this penguin on the left standing on another penguin!

We even got trapped in this cage with a shark right behind us!!

I bought a souvenir before we left. I got this cute, little owl mug because of course when you think of the aquarium, you think owl....

Bobby and Kelly cooked the most amazing dinner for me. The made their own ravioli from scratch.... It was pumpkin ravioli with a sage cream sauce. Yum!!! They also made honey ricotta bruschetta and we enjoyed a tasty salad. These two have been taking cooking classes and they are quite the chefs! Dinner was soooo good. I wish I lived closer so I could drop by for dinner more often. :)

I had such a fun weekend. It's always great to catch up with Kelly. :)

Easter

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Tue, 20 May 2014 23:20:00 +0000

Woah! It's been a month since I last posted. Time is just slipping by me... It seems like I'm never home these days due to work, church and hobbies. However, today I am home sick with (what I think is) strep throat so what better to do than blog? :)
I realize it's pretty late to be posting about Easter, but I am enjoying reminiscing about days when it wasn't painful to eat something besides soup.

I made my family take a lot of pictures after church. It was a coincidence that they all wore pink.

My grandfather joined us for lunch. He is a huge Bama fan so that's why he always wears this houndstooth hat.

I love my baby sister. :)

I love how my mom will do pretty much anything that I ask her to. She's the best. For real.

It looks like this photo was photoshopped to death, but I didn't even touch it. It truly was just a beautiful day.

Trying to look sophisticated.

Our friend London:

For lunch we enjoyed lemon pasta, parmesan green beans, spinach salad and my mom made chicken for the meat eaters.

It wasn't a traditional Easter meal, but we wanted to do something different and a little simpler. :)

We also played some Just Dance 2014 and Scattegories. I am a beast at that game, but one of my sisters still beat me... All in all, a great Easter with the family!

Kirby Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Mon, 21 Apr 2014 15:27:00 +0000

My sister's birthday party was the weekend before last and I wanted to share the cake I made for her with you guys. :) My sister loves the Kirby games on the Wii and I'm pretty sure Kirby is her favorite video game character in general. She has little Kirby trinkets in her room and a Kirby shirt so I thought why not make her a Kirby cake? I've made her a rainbow cake the past 2 years and I wanted to do something different this year.

Here's Kirby:

Picture from here.

And here is the cake:

We made tacos and veggie tacos with all sorts of toppings. I made queso dip and we had guacamole and of course, salsa. There were lots and lots of tortilla chips too. We also made black beans and rice.

Here's a picture of the table before we added the rest of the taco stuff.

It's not that exciting looking, haha. Honestly, my mom and I decided to make this years party more low-key. Usually I go crazy and try to make too much food/decor/whatever and burn myself (and my mom) out trying to get everything done at the last minute. So it was nice to just relax this year!

I thought it was sweet that one of my sister's friends bought her a Kirby figure since I had made her a Kirby cake.

As you can see someone bought McKenna the Trouble board game so I acted out the old commercial from when I was a kid where they all go "Gettin' into trouble!!" at the end and they had no clue what I was doing....

Here's McKenna with her cake! :)

I didn't actually get a picture of the 2 of us that day.... So here's one from the day we had a family dinner to celebrate her birthday.

I love my sister!

A Little About Me

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Thu, 03 Apr 2014 18:42:00 +0000

I find that when I read a blog I enjoy it more when I feel like I 'know' the person so I thought it would be fun to share a little bit more about myself. And in a video, no less! I have never done a vlog before and got a wild hair to try it. So here a few facts abut myself:

trim.X0iJeM from Morgan on Vimeo.

I realized afterward, that I mentioned improv and then gave no explanation of what it was, but perhaps it's more well-known in your neck of the woods anyway.... Basically, we play improv games similar to the show Whose Line is it Anyway and we get all our suggestions from our audience. The difference between us and the show is we are family friendly. :)

If you didn't watch the video, I think it's basically me admitting that I am a nerd. And I didn't even get in to how much I love Star Wars/Star Trek.

A Day in the Life

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 11:23:00 +0000

I see these kinds of posts on all different types of blogs and it's always interesting to me to read about how people spend their days. I have always thought that no one would care what my DITL looks like cause to me it's usually pretty boring. :) However for the past 2 months at work I have been working rotating, weird hour shifts and I kind of want to document it so that when I look back years from now I can remember this weird time in my life. I say weird because I have days go by (or whole weeks) where I'm like, "What the heck have I done these past few days besides sleep and work? Oh, nothing, that's right."

And who knows, maybe one of you will find this interesting?? I decided I would document one of my days working midnight shift because that is the weirdest transition for me and the hardest to get anything done (outside of work) during. I am on midnights this week so I picked Monday to share with you all.

4:30 pm - Wake up. My first thought, "Ughhhhh..... I feel like I've been hit by a truck...." I am really good at falling asleep and sleeping during the day, but when I wake up I feel horrible.
4:35 pm - Meander downstairs to eat dinner. I make some of my favorite pasta and pack some leftovers for work later. I also have some strawberries and spinach salad.
5:00 pm - Clean kitchen and pack the rest of my food and fill my water bottles for work.
5:15 pm - Walk back and forth between the living room and kitchen 5 times because I am too disoriented to remember what I was going in the living room for.
5:20 pm - Oh yeah, I wanted to check my cell phone. Grab it and zombie upstairs to get ready for work.
5:50 pm - Make my bed, clear off my nightstands (trying to create a good (daily) habit), pack my purse

6:00 pm - Head out to run some errands
6:30 pm - Off to improv rehearsal before work
9:30 pm - Improv rehearsal is over, time for second dinner! I grab a Greek salad and sandwich from my favorite Greek restaurant and head on to work. I get hungry a lot more often when I am on mids for some reason.
10:00 pm - Get settled at work and take over for the person before me.
12:00 am - Wow! Those first 2 hours of work flew by!! Time to eat some snacks. I have a granny smith apple and some cheez-its. Yumm.

1:30 am - I am hungry and my co-workers are getting tired so they aren't telling jokes and entertaining me anymore.
3:00 am - Time to go heat up my leftover pasta. Yay! 3rd dinner!

3:30 am - Pasta was delicious and eating killed some time. :)
5:00 am - Someone sneezes over our intercom system. I find it hilarious, but no one else laughs. I am an awkward person.

6:45 am - My relief is here! It's almost time to go home!
7:00 am - I am on the way to freedom.
7:15 am - The person behind me honks their horn at me because I am not moving and the light is green. I didn't see the light was green because I was so engrossed in eating my egg and cheese biscuit from McDonald's. :( Sorry dude. I proceed forward with biscuit hanging out of my mouth.
7:30 am - Home sweet home.
7:35 am - After rinsing out my water bottles and cleaning my food containers, it's time for a quick shower.
7:50 am - I am knocked out for the next 8+ hours.

People always feel bad for me when I tell them I am working the midnight shift but really it's not that bad. You gotta make a living somehow! Anyway, I usually have fun while I am working - it's a unique and fun job. It is stressful at times, but I like it. Yes, it is strange hours, but I don't have too hard a time getting used to it. My problem is adjusting back to day shift after midnights. Yikes! That is a nightmare.

I also find that I am more tired and hungry the weeks I work mids. I'm not really sure why that is...

But like I said, a job is a job and I am very fortunate to have one at all, especially to have one I really like. :)

In case you are wondering why there are no pictures of me in my DITL post it's because I didn't want to ask my co-workers to take any of me. That would have been weird, but here's a picture from my work trip to Houston in November. This is what I sometimes look like at work, except my console is never that clean (there would be lots of snacks surrounding me) and I have to wear a headset.

This was completely posed by the way. I wasn't actually working here.

Laundry Room Evolution

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 12:00:00 +0000

So on Ellen the other day, she gave a family my couch! Well, not the one I own, but one just like it!!

I feel so cool now!!

If you're wondering about it, it's the Linden Street Friday sofa from JCPenney. Yep, who would think to look for their couch at JCPenney? Well, me. It's listed on JCPenney's website for almost $2000 right now, which is crazy..... I definitely didn't spend that much when I bought mine.

Here's what the house looked like yesterday when I was washing the slipcovers:

Crazy.

And on to what this post is really about. The laundry room/pantry.

It had bland beginnings.

Then I painted it Apple Green.

Now, for the actual update.

I used Jen from I Heart Organizing's idea of covering wire shelves with foam board. I have always been so annoyed by these wire shelves. Things were always tipping over or falling through and it was so frustrating. Like Jen, I covered the foam board with contact paper.

It's so much easier to store things on the shelves now!! No more tipping over.

And here's a shot of the other side of the laundry room.

I added a 'counter' to the top of my laundry machines by just painting a piece of plywood. Afterward I sprayed it with a clear gloss spray so that it would be smoother. I put down some of that grippy shelf liner so that the counter would stay in place. It's been awesome, but I still want to do something that will cover up the stuff in the back.

View from the garage. This is the door I come in when I get home.

Close up of the contact paper. Sometimes it can be unwieldy!

You can see my lint holder and cleaning rag bucket. :)

And myself cutting out all those pieces of foam board.....

It took hours for me to cut the foam board to size, tape 2 pieces together and then measure, cut and apply the contact paper, but I am so happy with the result.

And the mess after.

And they all lived happily ever after. The end.

Homemade Peppercorn Ranch Dressing

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Thu, 06 Mar 2014 13:58:00 +0000

As promised yesterday, here is the peppercorn ranch dressing recipe I use.

I originally got this recipe from Allrecipes.com, but I can't find it on there now. So here it is:

Ingredients:

1 cup mayo

1 cup sour cream

1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/4 cup milk

3 tablespoons lemon juice

1 1/2 teaspoons ground pepper

1/2 teaspoon garlic salt

1/2 teaspoon onion powder

Mix!

That's it.

A Week of Easy, Vegetarian Meals

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Wed, 05 Mar 2014 13:10:00 +0000

I want to offer you a week of easy, vegetarian meals.

I often am asked by meat eaters what are my favorite dishes and what I commonly eat. I usually just say pasta because that's the first thing that comes to my mind, but I've been thinking about it for a few days and wanted to document some of my favorite meals. These are meals I can make on a weeknight because I usually keep these ingredients on hand and they are relatively quick to make.

You will see spinach salad on here with almost every meal because I actually do eat that all the time. I love it, it's good for me and it's easy.

For dressing, I like to make homemade peppercorn ranch dressing or balsamic vinegar. I'll share my peppercorn ranch recipe tomorrow.

1) Tri-color rotini pasta with green beans, bread and spinach salad.

I love this recipe. I have it memorized by now because I make it alllll the time. I always have the ingredients on hand for this one so it's a go-to dish.

I found the recipe many years ago on Sandra Lee's Semi-Homemade website, but I can't find it now. Here it is from my recipe book:

Ingredients:

1 (1 pound) package of tricolor rotini (I like the hidden veggie kind)

1 package frozen broccoli stir-fry mix (Birds Eye brand)

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

2 teaspoons black pepper

1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cups shredded Parmesan

In a large pot, bring 4 quarts water to a boil. Add pasta and cook according to package directions. Add the stir-fry mix to pasta water during the last 2 to 3 minutes. Drain well.

In a bowl, whisk together olive oil, vinegar, pepper, red pepper and salt. I like to add basil too. Add the pasta mix and cheese, tossing to coat. Serve.

Here's the recipe for the Focaccia.

2) Baked Potatoes, parmesan green beans and spinach salad.

This one is easy peasy. There's only like 5 minutes of actual cooking time for you! You just have to plan ahead to get the potatoes in the oven. I first pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees. I wash/scrub the potatoes, cut up aluminum foil for each potato, rub the potatoes with olive oil, sprinkle sea salt on and then wrap them in their little aluminum foil blankets and toss them in the oven. After an hour they are steamy and ready for eating.

When the potatoes are almost ready I start the green beans and prepare my salad.

I've shared the green bean recipe before, you can find it here. They are soooo easy! It takes about 5 minutes to make them.

3) Lemon pasta, spinach salad, edamame

The pasta is Pioneer Woman's Baked Lemon Pasta.

In the picture those are Parmesan green beans, but I like to switch it up sometimes and have edamame. It's yummy and easy (I just heat up one of those 'steam in the bag' packages in the microwave) and they have protein.

4) Pita pizzas, fresh fruit, spinach salad

This one is just fun. I like this for guests because they can put whatever they want on it. I buy the pitas when they are BOGO at Publix. :) On mine, I like pesto sauce, a little sea salt, spinach, cut up tomatoes, olives, mushrooms (if I have them), mozzarella cheese.

This is the brand of pitas that I buy, but I prefer the wheat kind.

I put them in the oven for about ten to fifteen minutes and they're good to go.

I always keep fresh fruit around the house. I like to wash and cut it up when I get home from the store so it's ready to go, so whatever I have on hand I serve.

5) Stuffed peppers, mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli.

Yes, I like cheese. I will admit this one takes me a little more time because I have to prepare the items for the "stuffing" of the bell peppers, but it's still easy.

I found the recipe I use on the blog Mom Machine. I love these peppers! I add cayenne pepper to mine cause I like the rice to be a little spicy to contrast with the sweetness of the bell peppers.

And there you have it,

Man, I could have listed even more. I didn't even get to the soups yet. Yum, soup.

Now, please don't let me mislead you into thinking that I cook every night. I don't. On days that I have improv rehearsal (yes, I really do improv) or church I usually head straight there after work and eat leftovers when I get home. These are just ideas for meals that I make pretty regularly. :) I also have the habit of when I cook, making a lot extra of stuff so I usually can eat on it for a few days and take leftovers to work so that cuts down on how often I cook too.

And sometimes I just eat this for dinner. :)

Houston Trip

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 12:30:00 +0000

Occasionally I get sent out to Houston, TX for work trips. I went there for 10 days in November for some training and I had a great time. There are quite a few folks out there that I work with closely, even though I don't live there, so when I get to go hang out with them in person it's a lot of fun.

The more I go there, the better I get to know my friends there so it's always exciting to go these days cause I know I'll have people there!

I'm certainly no expert on Houston because I pretty much never get my own car while I'm there so I don't really get to explore on my own. I was so shocked when on this November trip, I was given my own car for a week!

Anyway, here's my trip in pictures:

Of course my first picture involved food. I love burritos. :)

I took this awesome blurry picture of where I spent my days in Houston.

Spent one day in the control room with my Houston counterpart position which was cool. The person sitting there that day actually is one of my favorite planners (I have worked with her a lot these past 4 years) so I lucked out.

I got to see a lot of mock-ups while I was there including this one of the space shuttle, which is a little outdated now. ;)

This was in the lobby of mission control center so I had to snap a picture.

Everyone teased me because I thought these old, little phone booths were so cute!

My best Houston friend picked me up on Saturday so that we could spend the day together.

We ate at this amazing Mexican restaurant there called Chuy's. Check out this ceiling covered with hubcaps.

I thought the pendant lights over the tables were so cool! They had all these tiny pieces of colored glass in them and the light coming through looked awesome.

My food was so good. Now that I am back home I crave this dish all the time, but I don't have a Chuy's in my town. :(

I ordered the vegetarian combo and it came with a vegetarian enchilada that came with a spicy sauce and a chile relleno also with a spicy sauce. My meal was so amazing.

They also had several different dips for the chips there too.

We went to the outlet mall and walked around a park, but I didn't get any pictures of that. :(

Then we went to this little cafe called Le Madeleine. It was so precious and their desserts are delicious!! I had the lemon tart and it was sooo good. Sometimes with lemon stuff it can be too sour, but this was perfect!

I ate the whole thing and regretted nothing.

On Monday, I for some reason took a picture of this guy explaining work stuff to us. He was pretty cool.

I took a picture of this drill because it had it's own little tool belt and I just thought that was so adorable.

Awwwww!!

I took this picture because I am weird and thought it was funny that the stick person broke the table.

This is a real tool on the International Space Station that astronauts can use. It's soooo little and cute!!!

Some of my Houston buddies took me to eat at the Indian restaurant. It was sooo good! They had my favorite dish, Sag Panir. :)

A model of Station:

See if you can find the tiny astronaut in this picture:

I took this one for my English friend that thinks Americans are extremely patriotic and have too many American flags everywhere. :)

Meet my friend Robonaut:

He's got muscles and he's super cool! While we were doing our training on Robonaut, they gave us a demonstration and let us all shake his hand. I was so honored because I really like this payload!

My sandwich for lunch one day:

We went to this place called Nobi House and everyone told me I had to get the egg sandwich and I was so confused, but now I know why!! It was really good. The place was pretty cool and modern too.

My friend hanging out in one of the mock-ups of the astronaut's sleeping quarters.

He was pretty cramped because dude is over 6 feet tall.

This is a mock-up of one of their exercise machines.

Just chillin' in the mock-up of the Russian segment of Space Station.

This contraption is what the astronauts use to weigh themselves. It's called SLAMMD because they sit on it really still and it "slams" them into the wall in order to get their weight. Obviously they have to do it that way because of the lack of gravity. :)

The last picture of my trip is my trying to perform one of the procedures the astronauts commonly have to do on Station. I was very confused and needed lots of help. :( Mainly because I didn't know all the tool names.

I had such a good time and I'm hoping I'll get to go back within the next year. If I get to go I will go back to downtown and visit the Sam Houston Park. I went there the trip before last and it's beautiful. They have a gorgeous Japanese garden in the park. I hope you enjoyed the virtual trip!

Living Room Updates

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Wed, 26 Feb 2014 13:00:00 +0000

Warning: There are a LOT of pictures in this post.

I think the last time I showed you all a full look at my living room was when I bought my green rug ....in 2011. Now, not too much has changed, but I wanted to take some updated pictures to show what it's looking like now.

So, in 2012 after purchasing some new bookshelves from Ikea, here's how it looked:

And now:

I mainly changed up pillows and other accessories here and there.

I added this desk in the corner just recently. More on that in another post.

Watching Psych on Netflix as usual..... :)

I wanted to get a few pictures with the desk lamp on.

So, if you made it through all of those pictures, you are a trooper. Good job!

Loft Updates

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Mon, 24 Feb 2014 13:00:00 +0000

When I first got this house, I mentioned how much I loved this open area upstairs that I call the loft. It started out looking like this (more info here):

The last time I posted about the loft, it was looking like this:

There's been a few more changes since then. I finally got the loft, hallway and stairwell painted in fall of 2012 (I'm late posting about that update....). I wanted something neutral since it's a transition area and I finally decided on Light Pewter by Benjamin Moore. It's a light gray color and I have loved it in this space so far.

I also bought a mirror and rug for the room. I bought the mirror on Joss and Main and I think it's so cute. I just was being lazy about hanging it. The rug came from Homegoods, it's really not big enough for the space, but I don't care. It's colorful and I love it. :)

So after those changes, the mirror sat there for a whole year. Just waiting to be hung up. So neglected!

Here is how the room is looking now, after I FINALLY hung up the mirror!

Ta-da! It's a junk room!

Well, one side is anyway.... Yep, there's my Christmas tree. It's chillin' in here with some boxes and packing material. You'll also notice my Guitar Hero World Tour drum set and a pile of stuff I'm trying to sell on Craigslist.

On the other side....

There's a short story behind this table. I bought my dining room table in 2012 and when I did, they sent 1 and it had a busted up corner. I got the table from Overstock and if you receive a damage item, you can go to your account on the webpage and fill out a form for damaged items. I did this and they said that I would received another one and that I could throw the old table away. I thought they would take away the old one when they gave me the new one. Throw it away?? Why on earth would I do that? It just has a dinged up corner. Sooo, I just moved the old one upstairs and put the messed up corner up against the wall.

I'm still loving this bright, airy room, but I will love it even more once I get all the extra junk cleared out. Craigslist! Do your thing!

Nightstand Organization

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 13:00:00 +0000

As I mentioned in this post, I'm still on an organizing kick. I had a pretty productive Sunday and got a lot of spaces organized/cleaned! I guess I am starting my Spring cleaning early. :) I have some things to share from Sunday, but I wanted to show you guys another quick organizing project I accomplished last week while I was still snowed in at home.

This is one of my nightstands. Well, how it looked before I got sick of looking at it. (Yes, there is a lot going on with that wall in the background, but that's another post for another day!)

I sleep with a fan at night so that explains that, but that Pez from Easter and all those papers on the bottom shelf had to go. Actually, it really doesn't look that bad in the picture, but in person it looked like there were 3,000 papers about to tip over at any given time. Basically, this is the spot than whenever I get home from church or Bible studies, I just toss all my papers/books there. Every time I would walk through my bedroom I would see that stack of papers and it really started to bug me.

I had been putting off doing this project because I was really hoping to find some cute bins, maybe at Target or Homegoods, to organize my nightstand belongings, but I never did :( So being stuck at home for 3 days in a row was enough to make me accept that I just had to use what I had and I finally got to it.

Here's what I did:

I had 2 of these baskets in my "office" - can't really call it that yet because that room is a joke - for over 2 years. I was planning to use them in there, but never had a good reason for them so I brought one into my room and stuck it in the nightstand. It fit perfectly! I couldn't believe how nicely it fit. I even took a picture and sent it to my mom to show her.

Anyway, I stole some old folders from my file cabinet that weren't being used anymore (I'm going to have to re-label them once I get some labels) and made one for holding sermon notes, one for my papers from small group at church and another for studies for a Bible study that my roommate and I host.

I also popped in my Bible and notebooks in because I generally read scripture on my iPad (look at me! So 2014!) instead of the old school way. I added a little Ikea vase to hold my post it flags and a pen for when I am developing my studies or reading through a book. So now I have my "Jesus basket" all ready to go and whenever I need to plan a study or have my quiet time, it's a lot easier to grab what I am looking for! Also, it's much easier to put everything back where it should go.

Look how nicely this basket fits into its home! :)

It's a beautiful thing.

Gallery Wall Updates

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Mon, 17 Feb 2014 13:00:00 +0000

The last time I showed you my living room gallery wall (in 2012) it was looking like this:

Well, over time I've changed a few things here and there and I wanted to share how it's looking these days.

Some of my new art I found as free printables, like this cool peacock! (found here)

Yes, I still have a Thanksgiving printable from Eighteen 25 up, but I'm about to change it to a spring themed printable.

As a nod to my job at NASA, I bought these 2 cool prints from Etsy. One is of space shuttle and the other's a cool little astronaut dude. :)

I also purchased this print of the metro system in Moscow, Russia. After traveling there for work in 2012, it's neat to walk by this reminder every day.

I love the updates and it's always nice to support Etsy artists when I can. :)

Guest Bin

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Thu, 13 Feb 2014 13:00:00 +0000

Ever since January I've been on an organizing kick. I guess maybe it's because of the new year and everything? Anyway, what's been happening is I'll see some place that is totally messy and that I would normally ignore, but nowadays I instantly pull everything out and have to organize it right then. I don't know what happened to me, but it's a good thing while it lasts. :)

So anyway, about a month ago one of my friends was over late and she was too tired to drive home so she just spent the night. This isn't too unusual for me and it's the same person most of the time, haha. I have a couple things for guests who stay with me, but they are scattered all over the house. I decided that I would gather all the stuff I have for guests into one bin that guests can access while they are here. And then I thought, why didn't I do this already??

I was also tired of looking at my linen closet (which is where I am storing this guest bin), but I'll deal with that on another day....

Here's part of the mess. Yes, I do need that much contact solution and don't you store your Lucille Ball DVDs in your linen closet?

I couldn't leave the house for this project cause we've been having bad weather here in North Alabama and we weren't prepared for it. The roads were all icy so I searched through my house for stuff I could steal for the guest bin.

I found this green basket, small teal bin and a white vase.

The green and teal bins came from Target and the white vase was from Ikea.

Here are all the items I already had. I am going to buy some more things when I can get out again. I want to put in some hand lotion, ibuprofen, more toothbrushes and maybe a few other things.

Here are the items in their new home!

Here's the bin in the linen closet. I got rid of a few unnecessary things to make it fit and it felt good to purge a little. I will be proud to hand this over to my next guest :)

Cabinet Cleaning

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Tue, 11 Feb 2014 13:00:00 +0000

This isn't the most exciting update, but I still thought I would share it. My kitchen cabinets used to always have spots on them and I would just use a microfiber cloth and water to try and get rid of them, but the cabinets would still look streaky and sad. I googled "green cabinet cleaner" and found the following recipe on a few different sites:

1/4 cup white vinegar
1/2 tsp. olive oil

I took 2 microfiber cloths and used one to apply the cleaner and one to buff the cabinets dry.

Here's what the cabinets were looking like before.

Not really sure what that is...

Getting ready to mix up the solution!

And the after

I love the way this makes my cabinets look. The vinegar cleans and the olive oil shines up the cabinets really nicely!

Thanksgiving

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Thu, 06 Feb 2014 17:51:00 +0000

So I realize it's pretty late to be posting about Thanksgiving, but I'm going to anyway because 2013 was the first year that I hosted Thanksgiving at my place and I was pretty excited about it. My family usually plans these kinds of things at the last minute so I wasn't stepping on anybody's toes by offering to host this year. Also, my family is pretty small (at least those of us who get together for Thanksgiving) so it wasn't a huge ordeal.

It was pretty fun getting together a menu and planning everything! So first of all, the decorations.

Ever since my BFF's wedding shower, I always have some sort of bunting hanging in my dining room. I think it's just cause I having some extra color in there since the only other ways I do that are with the art and various table runners. I created this one with some extra papers I had.

I went shopping with my mom and we found this fabric that features all the traditional Thanksgiving colors (well, to us anyway) and so I got some to create 2 runners out of. I made one for the food table and one for the dining table. I don't have a sewing machine so I just used hem tape and it held up really well.

When I was picking up some of the food at Publix (my favorite grocery store....) I spotted these red-orange flowers and picked some up to arrange on the table. I'm definitely no florist, but I thought they were a nice touch.

For place settings, I just put out my everyday plates and silverware. I don't have china or another set of dishes, so this is it. :)

I made my grandmother's red velvet cake like I enjoy doing for most holidays. There was an incident though where before the meal was served, my diabetic grandfather cut into it and ate a piece. That was an interesting moment. :) Don't worry, he was fine.

Here I am with the finished food table! I was really pleased with how everything turned out. My mom and sisters arrived early and helped me with the cooking so it wasn't too overwhelming. They also brought the meat so my vegetarian self wouldn't have to make it.

We had mashed potatoes, spinach salad, squash/zucchini casserole, roasted broccoli, veggie casserole, my grandma's biscuits, ham and green bean casserole. My mom also brought a cheesecake for us.

I planned my menu out a few weeks early so that gave me time to get stuff on sale for the meal. I am a coupon-er still and so if I can save money on something I was going to get anyway, that just makes my day. I'm really glad I did it that way or I would have spent a lot of money on food at the last minute.

The other thing is, a lot of this was foods that I tend to have on hand anyway so that helped too.

We had a really great time eating, playing board games and just hanging out together. I love my family. :)

The main thing I learned from this experience was timing. I have a hard time with big meals like these getting everything finished at around the same time. Do any of you have tips for that?

Chocolate Chip Cookies

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Tue, 04 Feb 2014 20:16:00 +0000

I found this recipe a few years back on allrecipes and I've made it for parties, to bring to work and just when I want something sweet to eat. I love this recipe and thought I'd share it with you guys.

I'm actually on the hook to bring some to work this week. See, I'm a bit of a prankster at work and there are a few people in particular I like to pick on. Usually they don't fight back, but in this case my victim did. How did it start? Well in September I hid this co-workers keyboard and mouse and of course, was promptly accused of it. I denied it, they found the mouse and keyboard so all should have been well. Then, a month later I discovered that my Marvin the Martian doll had been stolen because I received an email with pictures of it bound and gagged and a ransom note. I ignored it and figured they'd give me my doll back, but they didn't so I have to bake cookies in order to get him back.

Not that any of you will need this recipe for that particular situation.....

Recipe makes 4 dozen cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup white sugar

1 cup packed brown sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons hot water

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2) Cream together the butter, white sugar, and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Dissolve baking soda in hot water. Add to batter along with salt. Stir in flour and chocolate chips. Drop by large spoonfuls onto ungreased pans.
3) Bake for about 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges are nicely browned.

If you're wondering about the ornaments and Christmas-y penguin napkins, I took these pictures right after Christmas.

Guest Room

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Mon, 03 Feb 2014 03:32:00 +0000

This isn't a huge update, but I thought I would take some nicer (that's subjective, isn't it?) pictures of the guest room, which isn't really a guest room anymore because I have a roommate now. I still thought it would be nice to post these better-looking photos. The last post about this room had really dark pictures cause it had rained the day I took them.

Natural light works wonders, eh?

Random

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Thu, 23 Jan 2014 21:37:00 +0000

Hello my bloggy friends. I have been MIA for almost a year! My goodness, I didn't think it would be that long before I would blog again. There wasn't any crazy reason for me stopping, I just got busy with work and church and my improv troupe that I'm a part of. It seemed like I had something going on every night of the week and when I'd get home at 10 or later, I would just go straight to bed.

I always thought, well.... next week I will blog and catch up, but obviously weeks turned into months and here we are. I sure do miss all my blogging friends though! I feel so out of the loop and I feel sad for not sharing what's been going on in my world too. I have a lot of fun house changes to share with you guys and I hope I'll be able to get some posts up next week about them.

For now though I am going to be catching up on your blogs and seeing what you all have been doing!! :)

P.S. - This is totally random, but I accidentally ran over my porch light on the way to work this morning. Now, you might be asking yourself how that is possible and I will tell you. A month ago when I changed my porch light bulbs I dropped the screw that holds that cover on for one of them. So I searched for about 5 minutes, couldn't find the screw and what did I do? Did I go to the store and by another one? Nope, I put the cover on the ground and left it thinking I would just search on another day. Well, it's been there ever since and this morning was crushed under the tire of my car.

What am I going to do about it? I have no idea yet. Maybe in another month I'll figure it out.

Nooo!!

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 00:30:00 +0000

We had really bad thunderstorms here last night and when I headed to work this morning, it was still rainy and windy outside. When I left work and headed home, I discovered a sad sight.

The patio furniture I bought last July had blown over into the flower beds and the cushions/pllows were gone :(

I parked the car and went walking/running down the street looking for the cushions and found 1 beside a neighbors house, but couldn't find the other one! I wasn't willing to give up though so I kept looking (in the rain) and once I got to the end of the street, I found the other cushion on my neighbor's front porch. I was glad I found it, but another neighbor gave me a really strange look and I felt I had to explain that I did indeed live in this neighborhood.... I'm not a creeper, just want my cushion back!!

I never found those pretty, blue pillows though. I am so sad because they were a birthday gift from my mom. :(

At least I got the cushions back though and I learned a lesson. From now on if a storm is imminent, I will be sure to put my patio furniture in the garage! I did that earlier in the winter, but thought that it would be ok now that it's February. WRONG!

I'm not really sure if this is blog-worthy, but I wanted to complain. Haha.

Dining Room Light

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 13:00:00 +0000

I've been wanting a new dining room light pretty much since the moment I bought this house, but since you can't get them for free and I didn't know exactly what I wanted I just waited. Well, for Christmas I put one on my wish list just to remind myself to come back to it later once I had saved up, but someone bought it for me for Christmas!

I was so excited to get it! It came in the mail a few days later and my mom helped me to put it together and get it up. That was difficult (we're certainly not electricians), but worth the hours put in.

Here's the fixture that came with the house:

And here's the new fixture up!

The light is from Destination Lighting. I have the brushed nickel version and it has a cream-colored linen shade.

I love it! This light is so beautiful. :)

Happy New Year!

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 13:00:00 +0000

So what have I done since November? Well, not much really and it's been pretty nice. I've been spending a lot of time with my family and friends. I did manage to get together a few friends for a New Year's Eve get-together and I gotta say, there were some pretty special people there. Check it out!

Don't be jealous

We had some potato soup for dinner. I put out some toppings so we could make the soup "loaded" - sour cream, cheese...

I also made tomato basil pizza

We had lots of cookies too. I have a great chocolate chip cookie recipe that I'll share next week. I brought some of the leftovers to work and they were gone before I could blink.

My friend Sharon made us two kinds of punch. I sure do love punch. :)

It was a really fun night and no one's yard caught on fire this year.

Happy new year to all of my friends in blog land! :) Hope you all had a great time bringing in the new year!

Still Here

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 19:27:00 +0000

Well, I am still around though it doesn't seem like it. I have been taking lots of time to hang out with my family and friends and enjoy the holiday season. :) I have had a really wonderful last few weeks and hope that all of you are getting to spend a lot of time with your loved ones too!

I'll be back in blog land soon!

Everyone Can Paint

noreply@blogger.com (Morgan) — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 13:00:00 +0000

In college I minored in Theatre. For one course, we had to draw and paint costumes/sets. When I started out, I was really nervous about the course because I had never drawn well and knew we would be drawing for pretty much the whole semester. Well, the first day of class we walked in and the teacher said, "Do not tell me you cannot draw. Everyone can draw." I was thinking, "OK... I won't tell you, but I don't think I can."

That very day we had to get our sketch books and draw people in the class and draw our own hands. I really did not want to draw someone else's face for fear of making them look horrible with my lack of skills. The teacher said to just draw what we saw and so I followed his very simple instructions and what do you know? The drawing I did actually looked pretty much like the person. It took forever to draw him, but I was glad I did it.

Later on in the semester, we painted as well and I really enjoyed that, but after the class ended I retired my sketch book and paints. A few weeks ago, some friends at work invited me to go to a painting class here in town. They have a different painting each day and they teach you step by step how to paint it. I thought it sounded like fun and it would be cool to paint something again so of course I went with them. :)

We had a fun time and it was easy to follow the teacher's instructions.

Here's my painting!

The original painting had red and orange too, but I left that out so that it would match the color scheme of my house. I love how it turned out and think it's cool cause I painted it myself.

Now I just have to figure out where to put it. Maybe here?

This area is void of excitement, but we'll see where it ends up. Do any of you have this kind of thing in your area?