Adios..... :)

I've been thinking about this for a while now.

I don't really have a good reason, but I woke

up this morning and thought...

it's time.

It's time for me to say goodbye to this blog.

I've been blogging for SEVEN YEARS people!!

Some of you have been there since the very beginning

and I'm so grateful for that!! Your support kept me going:)

Not sure if this is just for now?

(I mean I did just buy doriesstories.com just in case! hahaha!!)

But it just feels right.

A huge heartfelt thank you to you all for reading and commenting

on all my silliness for all these years.

You have no idea how many times your sweet comments made me

smile during some of the worst times of my life.

Really. Thank you:)

....and now I'm crying:(

XOXO,

Dorie

Flowers and beers..... :)

Phew! It's been a busy last few weeks!

We attended the college graduation of one niece in Colorado,

then another from High School in Arizona:)

So naturally, after coming home on Sunday I was

struggling to come up with what to blog about.

As always.

Then I thought hey! I'm sure you all would love

to see my growing collection of...

flowers and beers!!

Check out these perfectly faded and rusty old beer

cans that Rog brings me home from lake Casitas when 

he goes fishing. Sadly with the drought and all, the 

lake has gone way down. But there are treasures to be had

I'm telling ya! Well, treasures to me anyway:)

That glass bottle came from the lake too.

The roses are from our front yard:)

The Coors can kinda looked like it would rather hang out

with the succulents in the kitchen window

 than the roses on the dining table:)

And just look at what surprised me outside the kitchen window!!

Rog brought me that pot from our Via Baja house and

I took a chance watering it not knowing if it was

too dead or even what kind of flower it was.

What a beaut huh!!?? 

Such a sweet reminder of the family we bought that house from:)

So there ya go. Flowers and beers.

Pretty much sums up graduation season huh?!

Hahaha!!

Window pain..... :)

Say hello to one of our current projects. This house is in the

Hobson Heights area in Ventura.

You're looking at the view from the front door looking into the

kitchen/great room area.

The wall just inside the entry felt just too closed in, so we

decided to put in an interior window so you could

see straight through to the ocean views.

 I visualized the window being something black and metal, and I would prefer

something old. So the boys and I jumped in the car and

headed to our other property near the beach that just happened to have

the coolest old window.

Only after measuring, it was way too big.... :(

So we decided to hit up some of our favorite antique and salvage

stores to see if we could find that perfect window.

We started at this Antique store in Summerland and

found.....

nothing:(

Well, that's kind of a lie, because I did leave with some sweet

old corbels that might find their way into that beach house

I was talking about earlier...

Then we hit up The Salvage Company in Santa Barbara.

This place had some really cool lighting....

and boxes full of treasures...

but sadly, no window:(

Just as we were about to leave, this lady who was also shopping there

asked us what we were looking for. I told her how I was really

wanting an old black metal window for this house we're doing.

She then said (queue choir of angels) "oh! I saw one for sale

on Craigslist yesterday for $25 but it wasn't the size I 

needed, I'm pretty sure it's still available."

Within minutes we were headed to meet 

the Craigslist window lady.

I'm not a Craigslister. It's just not my thing, kinda creeps me out

to be honest. But since I had my body guard and my super

vicious guard dog with me, I figured all was cool.

So we get to the window pane lady, and woah.

She had some windows. And doors. And sinks. 

And you name it. And she was wanting to sell it all.

To us.

We were like- um no we don't need french doors, just a window.

Yeah no, no we don't need that pink toilet, just came to look

at the window.

 Nope, don't need shutters either. Just came to look at

your Craigslist window.

Oh those doors are from the Van Halen estate?

Yeah that's cool, but no. No, we really don't need those doors.

No we like Van Halen!

But really, we just came to look at the

STINKIN WINDOW!!!

At this point, Rog and I were exchanging looks like what is

going on??!!?? 

Is there no window??

My creep meter was beeping so I told him I had to go check on Little Bully 

who was waiting in the car.

I wish you could have seen the panic in Rog's face,

it was HILARIOUS!!

After about 2 minutes of laughing in the car, I headed back inside

to rescue Rog from the crazy Craigslist window lady.

 I was pretty much convinced that this black metal window

didn't even exist.

But there it was.

And it was perfect.

After she finally realized that we only came for the window, it got

super awkward. But of course I think awkward is hysterical.

We gave her the $25 and I've never seen

Rog load something so fast.

We seriously laughed the entire way home.

Weirdest experience ever!! 

Avocados much?.... :)

Take a gander at this thing of beauty.

This is the avocado tree in our back yard and she's quite

the giver.

I like to find new ways to use all those avocados. I mean, one can

only eat so much avo toast and guacamole right? 

Wrong. Most people could eat it every day of their lives

and then some!

( I eat my avo toast with berries and avocado honey- delish!)

Anyway last week my sister sent me this recipe for Avocado Deviled Eggs.

Deviled eggs.... why are they called that??

I did what all inquisitive gals would do!

I asked my mom.

She was super helpful.

Oh how I wish you all could get texts from my mom.

Seriously, she called me a gringo.

Aaaaahahaaaa!!

Avocado Deviled Eggs

6 hard boiled eggs 

Mash together:

1 avocado

egg yolks

1 Tbsp fresh lime juice

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp onion powder

1 clove garlic minced

1/2 cup chopped cilantro

I went out back to try to find a ripe avocado that our fat ass backyard squirrel hadn't

sunk his teeth into yet.

I found one. ONE!! 

He literally takes one bite out of the biggest best avocados,

and then tosses them on the ground to die. He's such a jerk!

Oh yeah, the recipe..

I added a pinch of this sweet goodness to the mash and

then sprinkled a tad bit on the top of them too.

Oh AND a bit of crumbled applewood smoked

bacon on the top added just the right amount of...

DELICIOUS!!

So this gringo looked it up. 

I guess the term deviled was first referenced back in the

late 1700's as a culinary term to describe dishes that included highly seasoned 

or spicy ingredients.

Go ahead and file that under completely useless information,

 it won't hurt my feelings.

Hello again!..... :)

Oh my goodness where to start. What pics to choose.... ??

I took this pic as soon as we arrived at my sister's house in Sydney.

Clearly she got the hair up, wear a solid shirt, diamond necklace and cross body

purse memo:)

She had these amazing smelling gardenias in the bathroom that

I would be sharing with my mom.

Can't you just smell them??

She's the hostess with the mostest:)

Check out the view from my 3rd story bedroom window...

at the crack of dawn, on the first few days I was actually up at that crazy hour:)

I slept with the windows open my entire stay.

On the first morning, the one thing I noticed was the sound of the birds.

So many crazy sounding birds!

The kookaburra. You haven't lived until you've been woken up to the 

hilarious sounds of that one! Click here for a listen. I would wait every morning

for it to sing to me:)

 Everyone asks what we did for two weeks.

We did what all sisters do when they get together- duh!

We ate and laughed!

And ate and laughed!

And drank and really laughed!

And ate and laughed some more!

And loved every minute of it:)

I ate the yummiest peach tart more that a few times off this

adorable truck that was oh so conveniently located

just a short walk from my sister's 

house. 

Holy green grass and trees people.

This was at the botanical gardens next to the opera house:)

I've never been jealous of a bird before now.

This is Bondi Beach. The color of the water....heart eyes!

And yes, those were rain clouds:( that cut short our hike.

Beautiful nonetheless!

This is St. Mary's cathedral in Sydney Hyde Park. I sent this pic to Rio and

told her I found the place where she could have her wedding!! and that

that's the van we would be living in after we paid for it.

Not sure if she found that as hilarious as I did.

hee hee hee

The fish market we went to was insane. I've never seen so many

beautiful sea creatures in all my life.

Speaking of insane...

My brother in law whom I lovingly call BD can cook like no other.

I dream of this tuna tartar that he makes..

and by golly he made it for me:)

That other tartar in the background was a salmon tartar. Oh my goodness

my mouth is watering. Seriously delicious!!

 My sister and I are 17 months apart, me being the older one. Since I got married

a week after I turned 19, we realized we hadn't spent this much time together 

since we were in High School!!

So I took this special time together to teach her the finer things.

Like playing the Sims 4. We designed houses and people until our

eyes were bleeding every night.

Notice our twinning pinky's:)

Check out my favorite find.

Is he the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?

It's totally fine if you're getting the shivers because bugs freak you

out, I spent the first half of this post standing on my kitchen 

counter because my son's cat brought a rat into the house.

I get you.

But for me? This bug is going to proudly hang on

my wall as soon as I figure out how to get the stinky 

moth ball out of the frame:(

See that little white box in the lower right corner?

It STINKS! and since it's completely sealed all around

I'm not sure what to do? have it reframed?

Ugh....

Of course my favorite part of the entire trip was just the togetherness.

I loved it.

Two weeks went by so fast and before I knew it I was 

back in little ole Carp:)

But holy jet lag people!!

I was wanting to cook banana bread and clean

house at 2 am!!

Crazy, but worth every sleepless minute of it:)

Underneath it all..... :)

This last week Rog and I went to check on the demo progress on one

of our homes. I love this part! This is when we can

peel away the layers and take a good look at we get to work with.

Almost always we find treasures.

Well, treasures to some of us:) 

Check out this ceiling that was covered up by 

sheet rock and insulation. Bummer we won't be able

to keep it since we are adding a second story:(

But we're going to salvage the wood and use it

somewhere else in the house:)

Wish I had a before pic of this fireplace:(

When the guys were doing the demo, they pulled off the brick

and tore out the hearth and underneath it all

they found bags of.....

 MONEY!!! 

Guns:(

What in the world? They had been walled over, sheet rocked over, 

and bricked over for who knows how long!!

The guys were like coooool!!!!

I was like- is grandmas china in there? old silver?? vintage jewelry???

anyyyything I would want????

Ugh no. Just stupid guns.

We only kept the one below. Because it was from

like 1903 and it just looked cool:)

While I was bummed to know there wasn't bags of the 

green stuff (aka cold hard cash) in the hearth,

I did however find this fabulous wallpaper

in the bathroom that is fun to look at:)

 Since this bathroom is going to be a goner, I'm gonna

have the guys save me a square of it so I can frame it:)

Sure could have used those bags of money that weren't in the 

hearth for my trip on Sunday... 

I'm going to see my sister for TWO WEEKS in Sydney, Australia

with my mama!!!

I can't WAIT!!

So I'm lettin you know that this girl here ain't gonna be doin no bloggin

till I get back, ok??

Team Player.... :)

Me: Hey Little Bully?

LB: Yeah...??

Me: So you know it's Monday right? and you know what that means, right?

LB: Um yeah... only the most stressful day of the week for you.

Me: Yeah well, I'm gonna need your help on this one...

Me: And I bought some craft supplies...

LB: I don't like the sounds of this...

Me: Well it's your birthday on Friday and I thought... well...

maybe you'd let me take some pics of you and all?

I promise treats??

LB: Can I sleep in your bed tonight? Can I snuggle on the couch all day

tomorrow on those "no dog" pillows??

Me: Fiiiine!!!

Me: (laughing hysterically) YOU LOOK SOOOO ADORABLE!!!

LB: Just take the stinkin picture...

Me: Seriously Wally, if you will just look at me 

straight on we could get this over with quicker.

LB: THIS. IS. THE. DUMBEST. THING. EVER.

Thank the heavens NONE of my friends read your blog...

Me: Come on! (still hysterically laughing) I just 

need the money shot!!

LB: ........

Me: YES! YES!! YES!!!

Happy 10th Birthday to the sweetest blonde, brown eyed Frenchman

who ever did grace the planet. I love you to pieces my Little Bully:)