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Sunday, March 29, 2015

Menu planning

Do you plan your meals for the week?  I wish I did a better job of this.  I snapped a picture of two styles of planning that I do:


The one on the left is the one for this week.  We'll call it "buy what's on sale and make it fit." 


I took this when I was in the middle of it.  I made an extra effort to plan lunches, too.  (Usually I just plan dinners.)

A more effective way is the "pre-shop-plan," which is better for avoiding missing ingredients and extra trips to the store.


I made a note of the cookbook page or Pinterest page/website where I found the recipe.  I like to make this plan with the shopping list notepad next to it.  (You can find great organizing notepads in the dollar bins at the craft stores or even discount stores like Marshalls or TJ Maxx!) 

Do you plan your meals for the week?  What's your style?  

Adi

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Victorian Home Tour: Pantry

Here's where we wound up:

organization

Here's where we started:

organization

Oh, the stink.  The old wooden shelves, the nasty shelf paper, the extra storage attempts that looked like an afterthought, the flooring...it all had to go!  Out came the shelves, out came the random hooks, out came the light, out came the tile.  We scrubbed the walls, patched the areas that were damaged by the original shelving, re-textured, and painted the walls in Adam's choice:  orange.  Kraft Macaroni and Cheese orange, actually.  I don't think that's exactly what he was going for but he wanted it bright and, by golly, he got it!

organization

We installed a new light and a WHOLE NEW SHELVING SYSTEM!!  Easy to clean, fully adjustable, and sturdier than you'd think, the wire shelving system is the way to go.  It's hard to avoid warping wood shelving when you're storing food on it and shelf paper is gross, no matter what age it is.

We mounted a repurposed over-the-door hanging rack for my aprons.  My first painting party masterpiece once again lives in the pantry.  (It was also in the pantry at the old house, but it makes me happy in this room!  It also matches the orange perfectly.)

organization

I use a mix of baskets and plastic storage jars and arrange by theme.

organization

When you first walk in, from the ground up, you'll find:


  • bulk items
  • broths, Asian items, rice, and dog treats
  • canned goods and pasta
  • breakfast items

organization

On the very top are extra cereals (I married a cereal nut who hit the jackpot during a recent 4 for $10 sale at the local grocery store), cake carriers, and a giant cupcake tree.

organization

To the right, my baking ingredients are at eye level.

organization

organization

Below that are my baskets of nuts and nut butters, breads and quick pastas (mac and cheese and someone's Spaghettios), chips, and crackers.

organization

On the lowest shelf, I keep large baskets of storage bags, trash bags, and all of those long, skinny boxes of foil, cling wrap, parchment paper, and wax paper.

organization

I'm always on the lookout for cheap party supplies and I keep them in a big tub in the corner.

organization

The final touch is a polka-dot dry erase board where I jot down supplies when we're running low.  

organization

Thanks for taking the tour!

organization

Adi

Victorian Home Tour: Entry and Dining Room

This post is the first in a new series, Victorian Home Tour.  I can't get enough resources that feature decorating a Victorian home so I wanted to add to the collection for the next person who buys a dollhouse. :)  I've posted some pictures but this is going to be a fairly comprehensive look at the befores and afters.  Let's start at the beginning:  the entryway!

The Entryway

Before

entry

Ick.  Dingy, stained wallpaper and lots of holes...not so inviting!

The closet under the stairs:

entry

After

My adorable handyman:

entry

Pretty new tile:

entry

entry

A cool, inviting, textured gray-blue:

entry

entry

The decorating hasn't happened yet, but there's no hurry.  We like it better already!

The Dining Room

Before

the Victorian

Mauvelous.

The walls were covered with sand texture that would scratch you big-time if you so much as brushed up against it.  It had to go.  So, handy Adi spent one evening sanding down the walls.

the Victorian

Victorian

Our contractor started the new texture work:

Victorian

which leads us to:

After

dining room

I was going for a French country look.  I don't think I made it.  This is the one room in the house where the colors on the tiny cards were misleading and I think I may be altering these colors sometime in the future.  I plan to make curtains for the windows, which could help, but it could really go more butter than lemon on top and more navy than whatever shade matches painter's tape on the bottom.  

dining room

I love the natural lighting but it's not doing me any favors on the color combo.  Hey, look, it's the unity candle holder from our wedding that was once a Halloween decoration that may dad changed from black to white!

dining room

We chose many colors throughout the house--we pretty much covered the rainbow.  Stay tuned each week as we go through a new room (or two) of the Victorian!

Monday, March 16, 2015

Lemon Chicken Romano

Y'all, this is some good chicken.

chicken

It may look a little burnt, but that didn't stop us from eating it.  This is a chicken dish that my husband love and one that is making me look forward to leftovers, which is good, considering I made eight pieces of it.

chicken

I got the original recipe here but I made a few changes.  Here's my version:

Lemon Chicken Romano

  • 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, halved and flattened
  • 1 package of Sargento Mozzarella and Provolone shredded cheese mix
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 tablespoons flour (any kind)
  • 1/2 cup bread crumbs (I used Italian blend but Panko's good, too!)
  • 1/2 cup shredded Romano cheese (Parmesan or Asiago would work)
  • 1 lemon, zested, then sliced
  • 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • olive oil


  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  (You'll need it to melt the cheese and finish the chicken at the end.)
  2. Pound out the chicken, pat it dry, salt and pepper it, and set it aside.
  3. Use two shallow dishes (pie plates are perfect!).  In one mix the two cracked eggs and the flour.  In the other mix the crumbs, Romano cheese, lemon zest, and garlic powder, plus another crack or two of the salt and pepper for good measure.  
  4. Pour a thin coat of olive oil into a skillet and heat it on medium to medium-high heat.  (Keep an eye on it and adjust as needed.)  
  5. Dredge the chicken in the egg mix, then the crumb mix, and either set aside or, if you're ready, stick it in the pan.  Cook for two minutes on each side (no touching!), then flip and repeat.  Pull the chicken from the oil and let it rest on a plate with paper towels to drain some of the oil.
  6. Transfer the chicken to a cookie sheet (or two).  Sprinkle cheese on top and stick into the oven.  Cook for 8 to 10 minutes, then hit the broiler for the last couple of minutes to sizzle that cheese.  This should be enough time to cook the chicken to a safe internal temperature (165 minimum).  Even if your oil gets too hot and your chicken looks burnt, don't skip this step.  It shouldn't burn further.
  7. Pull from the oven, top with lemon wedges (from that lemon you zested), and plate it up with your favorite side.  (We did mashed potatoes.)
Good stuff!



Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Deep Thoughts by Adi

Doesn't that title just bring you back to "Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey?"  (If you don't know what I'm talking about here are a couple of classics:  "One thing kids like is to be tricked.  For instance, I was going to take my nephew to Disneyland, but instead I drove him to an old, burned-out warehouse.  'Oh no,' I said, 'Disneyland burned down!'  He cried and cried, but I think that deep down he thought it was a pretty good joke.  I started to drive over to the real Disneyland, but it was getting pretty late." -or- "To me, boxing is like ballet, except there's no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other.")

Is that humor too warped?  Sorry.  It was cool when I was in high school.

For such a light-hearted opening this is probably going to be the most serious post I've written.  It's been a pretty crazy year for me professionally and lately I've been reflecting on my road up this point a little more than usual.  If you choose to keep reading you're in for some backstory but also, I hope, some positivity and encouragement.

Once I settled on a major in education I decided I was going to be a third grade teacher.  (The kids would still be young enough to respect you but old enough to wipe their own noses and tie their own shoes...at least you would hope.)  Of course, I never did become a third grade teacher, because God said "Ha!" or something like that, meaning He had a different plan for me.  After brief stints with kindergarteners, subbing, and temp work, I had no clue what to do with my life or why I chose a major in education.  Discouraged and between jobs, I took advantage of some vacation time back home with my family.  I was out one day with my mom when my dad called and told me that I'd just gotten a call from a district back in Louisiana--the good one!  We were a week into school at this point so I thought my chances of getting a teaching job that year were shot.  I returned the call and they had found my resume (which HR said would be thrown out after a year, and this was definitely more than a year later), saw I had ESL certification, and when could I start?  It turned out to be such an awesome position.  They believed in me from the start and I adored the people I worked for, not to mention the subject matter and the variety of students I got to work with.  It was the dream teaching position and I don't know that any other teaching gig could compare, even to this day.  The only reason I stepped down after that year was because we were moving back to Texas.  I was sad to leave that one but hopeful since I got a year of teaching experience out of it. 

Unfortunately, we were moving back to Texas during one of those low periods where schools were maxed out and there were no open teaching jobs.  (Admittedly, having been burned by a large urban district before that ESL position I knew I didn't want to work for a large district, but you'd think that the 30+ smaller- to mid-sized districts I tried would have led to SOMETHING!)  I had a couple of promising interviews, one of which ended with "here's where your classroom will be...just wait until next week for HR to call with the offer," which, of course, did not pan out and resulted in an embarrassing phone call to HR inquiring about said offer.  The school year started and, once again, I did not have a teaching job.  Fortunately, I was once again desperate and started to look outside the school district realm and into higher ed.  I started getting nervous before we left Louisiana in August and had widened my net then, and landed a phone interview with the admissions office at Texas Wesleyan.  It went okay, but I didn't have much time to think about it as I did the interview from our hotel room on base just before we hit the road to move back to our hometown!  A few weeks later I was called in for a second interview--a presentation!-- and studied up on everything Wesleyan I could find, scouring the internet and pestering all of the former students I knew.  Over a month later I got the offer (turns out I wasn't their first choice...oh well!) and very eagerly accepted.

That Wesleyan job, though not on my career path, turned out to be incredibly beneficial to my career.  I was able to gain public speaking experience, polish my customer service skills, and take free classes toward my master's degree.  It was such a new chapter in my life that I found it fitting to choose business administration for my degree because it WAS different and I wanted a challenge.  I stayed at Wesleyan for about two years until I spotted a job that looked interesting while helping a friend with her job search.  You see, between my junior and senior years of college, I attended a birthday dinner for a friend.  She had invited a few friends and her family, so I struck up a conversation with her brother's girlfriend, who told me about a six week internship with a local school district.  She got me in touch with the director of the grant program that needed help, and I got the job.  That was my first exposure to grants, and wouldn't you know, the job posting I saw several years later was in my home district, working with that same federal grant!  I figured it was worth a shot so I applied.

And I got it!

Thirty districts, each full of numerous positions, with NO LUCK, and suddenly I get the only job I applied for?  That's just crazy, or a God thing again.  In fact, I got to coordinate the afterschool grant program for a school in the neighborhood where I grew up.  The foundation of my faith was established in the church across the street from my school.  How cool is that?!  It was a lot of work to start a program from scratch, especially with my husband being sent for a four month assignment four hours away during my first semester, plus taking grad courses two nights a week, but it was an incredibly rewarding experience.

I loved that position and had no desire to leave for another school when our district got another round of the grant, even if it was a little more ideal than the one I worked with and secured two more years of employment for me.  However, perpetually ambitious, I applied for an opportunity to move up, and it did not happen when I wanted it to.  I'd like to tell you that I took it in stride and was completely fine with it, but the truth is that I'm glad no one else was in my portable at the time I found out because chucking pens and pencils across the room is a very cathartic experience and one best had alone.  :)  When my tantrum burst was over, I immediately grabbed a pen and an index card and wrote out this verse:

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  Jeremiah 29:11  (It's still on my wall, right above my computer screen!)

So, here I was at the start of another year, with a new principal at the same sweet school, and I immersed myself in my campus and enjoyed the program, which at this point had matured into something I was proud of and continued to grow.  I also got a little bolder in my opinion sharing in our staff meetings, respectfully, of course, but more outspoken than before, because I figured I had a clean program, several years of experience, and nothing to lose.  That ended up working in my favor.  You see, things were happening behind the scenes that I did not know about, and I would soon have the chance to try again for that promotion, only this time it was a revamped and improved position.  My openness caught the eye of my administrators, especially considering that after a year into the grant I let my boss's boss, the head of the grant department, know that I was interested in learning more about the field.  He never forgot that, and I am glad!  This time, when the position came open, I got it, and it was another great step in my career (though bittersweet, since I had to leave my little middle school!). 

I said I wanted to learn more about grants and I did (and still am)!  Grant writing, grant reviews, grant evaluation, presenting at grant conferences--I have gotten to experience some really neat stuff in this career I stumbled into.  It's not over yet, but as we are nearing the end of year four of that second five year grant you start to face that temporary nature of grants.  Grants are seed money, an incubator, prompting you to try something new on someone else's dime that hopefully you can learn from and maybe even keep going.  Some people are able to secure multiple grants, even back to back, but there is no guarantee, especially with members of the government vying for federal money to fund their own passion projects at the expense of others.  It's hard to plan a career in grants, but the experience has provided me some peace that doesn't make sense through a worldly lens. 

One great thing that I've gained through this experience is trust.  The positions I've held in this grant were never part of my plan.  Heck, nothing in my career thus far was part of my original plan.  Praise God for that!  He knew what I needed more than I did, and I am so, so thankful for that. 

The other most significant thing I've learned is openness.  Don't say "no" because it doesn't fit your plan.  If someone offers you a chance to take charge, even if it means more work that you'll be doing for free, consider it.  That department staff training day you coordinate for the university may end up being an attractive point of experience on your resume that sets you apart from the other candidates.  I am convinced that part of success is showing up!  Go to that networking event (or birthday party, in my case!); put yourself out there; do the things that scare you!  Make the speech, head the committee, make yourself known!

If you've made it this far, WOW!  I've been wanting to get these ramblings down and thanks for joining me as I did.  I hope you'll leave inspired and ready to go for whatever it is that you want to achieve--or be open to something even better than you could hope for!

Love,
Adi

Sunday, March 8, 2015

Berry Clafouti

Berry Clafouti.  Sounds super fancy, right? 

clafouti

The name is the fanciest part.  This thing should translate to "delicious."  (Instead, it translates to "a tart made with fruit, especially cherries, baked in a thick, sweet batter."  Or delicious, I'm not really sure which one was correct.)  It turns out that it's a custard-like dessert that's famous in the south west of France.  I needed to make a dessert and I had pinned this because wow, that picture looked tasty.  It helped that I also had all of the ingredients so the choice became clear. 

The recipe called for frozen blueberries, and I had some that I'd frozen after our sister blueberry picking adventure last summer. 

picking

picking

picking

I also had some quartered strawberries I'd just frozen the day before so between the two of them I figured I was pretty close to the 3 cups the recipe called for.  Those go into the greased pie plate first.

strawberry blueberry

Then, in a separate bowl, mix together all of the remaining ingredients EXCEPT for the flour.

clafouti

Whisk them together and THEN add the flour.

clafouti

Whisk flour and the wet mix and then pour it over the fruit.

clafouti

Pop it into the oven and bake it for 45 minutes. 

clafouti

Check it with a cake tester or knife and if it's clean at that point then remove it from the oven.

clafouti

clafouti

clafouti

The next step?  Admire your creation, let it cool a little, and then eat!  (You can top it with some homemade whipped cream...or vanilla ice cream!  I went the whipped cream route.)


Here's the recipe:

Berry Clafouti
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Ingredients:
  • 3 cups of frozen (or fresh) berries
  • 3 eggs
  • 3/4 cup of milk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
  • 2 tablespoons of butter, melted and cooled (*cooling is important--don't scramble the eggs!)
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 3/4 cup flour (all purpose or wheat)
Spray pie plate with nonstick spray.  Pour the fruit onto the plate and arrange it so that there's an even layer.  Whisk together all remaining ingredients EXCEPT for the flour.  Whisk the flour into the wet mix--lumps are okay.  (Even if you scrambled the eggs a little it's okay...trust me...)  Put the dish into the oven, uncovered, for 45 minutes or until a knife/tester comes out clean.*  This dessert can be served warm or at room temperature. 

It will be dense and just sweet enough.  The tartness from the berries is a nice complement to the sweetness of the thick custard.  It's also very good with whipped cream!

*45 minutes was the perfect amount for my oven but all ovens are different.

Enjoy!

Adi

Thursday, March 5, 2015

First snow at the Victorian!

We got snow!  Multiple times!  In Texas!

Victorian snow

We missed three whole days of work!

Victorian snow

We ice skated in the street!  (Okay, I slid from the mailbox to the driveway in my boots...close enough...)

Victorian snow

We had our first fire!

antique fireplace

It's all pretty much melted now but it was fun while it lasted.  Now it's (almost) time for Spring Break!  I will NOT be pulling down wallpaper this year.  Speaking of, happy one year anniversary to our house!  It's changed a lot and has a long way to go.  I plan to do a series with my mid-week posts that shows some before- and after-shots of our place but for now it's time to clean up all of the muddy little paw prints caused by this melting snow!

Adi



Sunday, March 1, 2015

A Major Promotion

My sweet husband is now a Major!  While we'll miss the Captain America jokes we can now move on to the Major Pain ones.

He wanted a cookies and milk reception after the promotion so guess what I did for the three days prior to the ceremony?

Air Force promotion

Air Force promotion

Air Force promotion

sugar cookies

Air Force promotion

That would be 87 sugar cookies and 14 dozen Guard cookies.  Ohhhh, the sugar!

The display at the ceremony was a mix of theirs and ours when it comes to decorations.  We were going with blue and gold (blue and yellow are the official AF colors, who knew?) but they had some red so we went with it.

The cookie table:

cookie reception

Milk table:

milk and cookies reception

The sugar cookies--they're in the shape of the oak leaf cluster, the official symbol of Majors and Lieutenant Colonels (Majors are gold, Lieutenant Colonels are silver).  I hope to be using this cookie cutter again someday...

Major promotion

The famous Guard cookies:

Air Force promotion

The ceremony was sweet and the dessert reception even sweeter (haha, literally!).  After the business was over we all went to celebrate the Major at Dave and Buster's.  That place was a blast.  I rule at Skeeball.  The end. 




Adi