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?? 

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:(

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!!!

Cool cats..... :)

 I'm feeling just a teeny tiny bit of fall in the air. I'm lovin it and hatin it at the same time. Lovin it because it means cool weather is on our doorstep, hatin it because I'm not yet settled at my new doorstep:( I did however purchase the items below to help out the situation:)

 

 

 We've been working on the newbie and getting it ready to start movin in next weekend. Since we don't have to be out of our house till November 1st, it's been nice to have the time to do the stuff we want to the new place:) Ohhhhh, and I guess I need to clarify this moving situation a bit. We are NOT moving to Cali, my SON moved to Cali and the house we are renting is his house here- in Mesa, AZ.

 

We spent this last weekend refinishing floors...

 

 

 And visiting the most awesome Sweet Salvage. This time we picked up this cool metal cart that will make a great island, once I have William Rogers add a fab wood top to it!!

 

 

 Also at Sweet Salvage I found these perfectly worn table bases that just needed a cool top. Enter my friend Dan from FOUND. It's my fav store in all the land, and just so happens to be my place of employment on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays! Anyway, I asked Dan if he had anything in his secret stash of goodies that he thought would work here.....

 

 

 He brought me this:) Old, cool, beat up and perfectly awesome!

 

 

 Oh, and Dan delivered this piece to me too. It's an old beaut that he brought back from one of his trips to Europe.  It has doors that go on the top, but I'm thinking I might leave them off for now? I think this piece was always meant to be mine:)

 

 

 What's not meant to be mine, but somehow ended up that way? My sons two cats. When he moved to Cali, he found he couldn't take these sweet sisters:( They're a year and a half old, spayed, cat door trained and really sweet. But........

 

 

 Little Bully HATES them.

 

Soooo, these two little ladies need to find a new home. Please let me know if you- or if you know of anyone that would take these sweet girls and give them a loving home. Little Bully would greatly appreciate it:)

Thank you.... :)

A reeeally big thank you to all my blog buddies who showed up on Saturday. It was so fun to put a face to a name:) Thank you for all the sweet words, the most wonderful bag of peaches, and the cutest angel ornament:) I thought I'd give you all a look at what this place looked like by Sunday night.

 

The dining room- Oh come on! that's got to be the best tablescape ever!

 

The laundry room. Someone needs herself a drip dry rod thingy don't ya think?  

 

"It's a beautiful day, don't let dirty dishes get in the way" ???

 

And I'm thinkin by next week my plants will most likely look like this:(

 

Just keepin this little bloggy o' mine- real!!

Mi casa es su casa.... :)

My house is your house:)

 I started this blog in 2009, shortly after selling the beast and moving into our 500 sq. ft. garage. I started writing out of boredom, to be honest. You did read the 500 sq. ft. part right? 

 

Anyway, I thought I'd start blogging about the house of my dreams. The house that truly built me:)

 

 

And you guys were with me every step of the way:)

I've received quite a few emails from some of you who never got to see the ole gal when she was on the last two historic home tours. Sooooo,

 

 

I'm gonna open her up:) To whoever reads this and wants to come bid her goodbye:( sniff sniff...

This Saturday. 10am- 2pm :)

 

 

And while you're in the neighborhood... You can check out my fav store in all the land- FOUND.

It's literally around the corner:)

 

 

Theeen of course, you can go have the best ever lunch at... UP :)

So there you have it! Cry, Shop and Eat... What more could a girl ask for??

Progress..... :)

This last long lovely weekend, the hubby and  I spent most of it at the newbie:) I'm not a red person. Okay, shoes maybe:) but not my front door. Soooo.....

 

I made me a trip to The Color Wheel, it's my local Ben Moore paint store:) Jim told me about this fab new paint that just came out. It's a primer and paint in one. It's pricey at $65 a gallon. I was starving and about 5 minutes from suffering from heat stroke- the perfect combination to sucker me into trying this stuff:)  I went with the HC-166 Kendall Charcoal.

 

 

And I love it!! I have to say, Jim was right about that stuff! It's amazing paint:) The hubby hung the porch swing that I will not be sitting in until it cools down, which is around Halloween:(

 

 

Speaking of having way too much Halloween crap... the hubby spent most of the weekend closing in this little garage. We need the storage! Okay, I need the storage. I have too many seasonal decorations!... said no woman ever!! 

 

 

The new garage and the entire inside of the newbie will be painted this week:)

 

 

Oh! And the hubby pulled this wall out of the old garage and was about to throw it away. That is until I laid eyes on it and saved it from it's sure death at the landfill.

 

I have no idea what I'm going to do with it yet, but the wood is sooo cool! Headboard maybe??

Your thoughts??