Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Hang in there.... :)

Whew!! We're IN!! What a crrrazy weekend. We were on the verge of starvation when my friend came over with this most thoughtful of gifts. She's the bomb homemade bread maker:) She said the sweetest polish saying that her mother-in-law taught her:
 
Bread that this home never knows hunger
Salt that your lives may always have flavor
Wine that joy and prosperity may be with you always and in all ways
 
Then she said butter. Because you can't have bread without butter:)
Thank you L.O. for your thoughtfulness, it was perfect:)
 
 
I'll tell ya- with all this packing and moving, the hubby and I were sooo tired of eating out. We were dying for anything home cooked. Enter my hero- my daughter Rio. Ok, in all fairness her bf Chase is actually the cook in their house, but her name just rhymed better:) Aaanyway, Rio called and asked if we wanted them to bring us dinner.... oh my! LOOK at that goodness!! Salmon, rice and veggies:)  
 
 
With all that nutrition, I was able to get down to business. Serious business. Putting out my fab pumpkins!! Happiness:)
 
 
And planting beaut flowers, under the watchful eye of Little Bully:) More happiness:)
 

Pics next week, I PROMISE!! I'm almost all done in here!

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Chaos...and avoiding it:)

You say I'm crazy?! I got your crazy!! Holy chaos around here Batman.
 
 
Packed up a million boxes of books. I'm grounding the hubby and myself from Barnes & Noble for a year!!
 
 
Haven't made my bed in a week. Pure awesome.
 
 
Broke my favorite picture ever:(
I was wondering why Wallace had the barfs the other night, then I found the culprit. This Halloween rat, missing his tail.....
 
 
Lunch. Now I have the barfs. Yeah, that's my bowl of sea salt. Don't judge my stressful salt eating! Aaaand reading an old Country Living that I found in a heap of old mags. Awesome.
 
 
And my purse. It's become my catch all. Doggie bags (why??), water, an old collar of Wallace's that I refuse to throw away (why??), gorilla glue..... Ugh.
So what do I do in times so stressful as these??
 
 
Hit Sweet Salvage that's what!! I got this cool little chair, some green books, a FAB green cabinet (that I didn't get a pic of before it went to storage), that old frog card (because Frenchies are often called frog dogs), a really cool table runner and a first place bulldog AKC ribbon from 1973:)
 It was a good day:)
 
We ended the night at the newbie, popped a cork and drank our wine on the porch swing:) 
 
 
We will be all moved in and settled in the little new house this Friday:) I'll have pics for you next week!! Gotta go! The stinkin moving fairy aint lookin like she's showing up.... :(

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Roast chicken... :)

Look at Ina and her perfect roast chicken. She makes it for her Jeffrey every Friday. In that perfectly crisp white shirt. In that fab kitchen. With the most fab green wallpaper.....
I've been roasting chicken about once a week for a while now:) Not as often in the summer time, because the thought of turning on my oven in triple digit weather will most often send me into the fetal position- on the kitchen floor- begging for mercy. Seriously.
 
Aaaanyway...here's my version:)
 what you'll need for this most amazing chicken-
A whole chicken
1 whole lemon- halved
1 whole head of garlic- halved (skin on)
1 bunch of thyme
2 Tbsp of butter- melted
Salt and Pepper 
Kitchen string (in the cutest acorn container)
 
Preheat you oven to 425 degrees. Rinse and pat dry your baby chicken. (Eww chickens always look like a little fat babies to me!)
 Liberally salt and pepper the inside of the chicken.
 
 Half your lemon and garlic. Leave the skin on the garlic. (please notice that I'm not wearing a perfectly crisp ironed white shirt a- la- Ina. i'm rocking a french bulldog rescue network tee. cause that's how I roll...)
 
 
 I alternate stuffing the lemon, garlic and thyme into the chicken. I imagine it looks a lot prettier and more organized in there..?? I just realized how crazy that sounded after I wrote it. 
 
 
 
 Tie up the legs with string.
 
 
 Brush the (thing that weirdly resembles a baby) chicken with the melted butter. Liberally salt and pepper the outside. Tuck the wings under and stick it in the oven!
 
 
Ina says to cook it for an hour and half. I usually start to check on it after about an hour and fifteen, depending on the size of the chicken. Make sense? And when she's all cooked up she will come out looking all kinds of beautiful:) 
 
 
 I load up my plate with veggies to make up for the fact that I'm chowing down on the brown meat:)
 
 
Oh and that's my little salt and pepper pile on the far left. For dippin:) Yeah I'm thinking the broccoli makes up for that too?? 

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

To pack or not to pack.... :)

THAT is the question. My answer? Psh NO!! I know I should be packing up my house like a crazy lady, but in pure Dorie fashion I can think of a MILLION other things I'd rather be doing! Like cuting up the newbie for numero uno!! I've been taking my favorite things over to the house and putting them here and there, and let me just say....it's looking all kinds of adorable!!
Case in point. My FEED WAREHOUSE sign. Me loves. For forever:)
I'm still waiting on my table top, hence the lonely chairs trying their hardest to look like they belong with something that's not there.... :(
 
 
My green books in my fab new FOUND cabinet:) I decided to leave the doors off, so I had some shelves to play with:) and hey, in case I forgot to mention it- I'm now working at FOUND on Tues, Wed and Thurs! Come by and say hello!!
 
 
My cow picture. This is the one that started it all. I fell in love with this pic years ago, and doesn't it look so at home here?? And check out that original brick on that fireplace! How it has survived since 1922 without being painted, I'll never know, but it's FAB! I dropped off my slipcovers today to be done:) What color you ask? Duh!!! You didn't really think I'd live in this house without a little GREEN??!!
 
 
That's it for now. Yeah, I came home to this pile of lovelies staring at me in the face:(
 
 
So needless to say.... I got to git to gittin!!! Waaaaa:(

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Pumpkin panic.... :)

I've found myself panicking lately. A lot. About Halloween. It's my favorite holiday in all the land, and all my Halloween goodies are boxed up and living in the garage of the newbie:(
 
Weeeell......Whilst shopping for stuff COMPLETELY non related to Halloween at Target (isn't that how it always goes?) I came across these masquerade masks and googly eyes and thought.....
 
 
Hey! Throw the mask over a fake pumpkin and add googly eyes behind and....
 
 
Simple easy HALLOWEEN!!!
 
 
Oh, Target also had a package of stick on mustaches that I thought were adorable, so I stuck one on this little fakey pumkin and hot glued some spiders on it for eyes!
 
 
So there's my mantle for the next few weeks. Although upon closer investigation of the above pic, I'm seeing that little pumpkin sorta looks like a Halloween turkey with that black thingy behind it!?
 GEEZ!!! I just can't leave well enough alone!!!