Under the Kitchen Sink Make-Over

I didn't take any before shots of the chaos under my kitchen sink. But I did take pics of the after. :)

Cabinet...........Kristen was nice to give me 3 bins that she wasn't using and didn't want to return to the store. She told me I could have them so I gladly accepted. Thanks Kristen! :) The before I had everything just loose in there. The side behind the trash can had a piece of foil laying down with items neatly on the foil. Then I used a bin that I had on hand but it was too big and the trash can didn't fit in front of it.

On the left side I keep the trash can and on the right side are things used most of the time, like green works spray, dishwasher detergent, new sponges, floor wipes etc.

On the left side (I moved out the trash can so you could see) there are some extra items (dish soap, dishwasher detergent etc) and also wasp spray, raid, oven cleaner, duster, WD40 pen etc.

Up close of the everyday bin...

Up close of the other bin. Little cluttered but once I run out of the current soaps in the everyday bin those will be moved over and I don't plan on keeping extras. If I run out, target is 15 min away. I don't need to hoard 3 bottles of dishwasher detergent when it's just not necessary. You know? :)

New Things Monday

My little sister Ashley was here the other day. I went with her to the store as she stopped in for a few things she needed for her camping trip. One item she needed was bread. She saw these Nature's Own Sandwich Rounds and they were on sale. Buy 1 get 1 free. They have Whole wheat, Whole grain and multi-grain. Ashley said she only needed 1 package so she said I could pick the free one. I picked the whole wheat. I love nature's own whole wheat bread so I figured the rounds would be good too. I told Ashley I would feature them as my next 'New things Monday' and she smiled and said "ok". :) I tried 1 by itself as a snack later that day. Sooooooooooooooo good. I love it! Nate had one with some leftover manwich and he loved it too. He also used 2 for some tuna sammiches he made for his dinner. For lunch, I made myself some pb and apple sammich rounds. I spread the pb on the bread, added sliced apples and had a little sammich. Very good! :) I will buy these again and again! :)

4th of July Weekend 2011

I worked on Saturday from 10am till 2pm and then VACATION started. Woo-hoo! :) Nate headed down to Norfolk for a wedding so I was Nateless for the weekend. :(

Anyways, I got a VIP pass for Buffalo Wild Wings from one of the PD's at work. We have a new location opening up and they were having a VIP night. It was a pass for 2. I'd never really gone to a VIP thing before so I was excited to check it out. Sharon and I went together. It started at 6pm. Everything was FREE except the alcohol but Sharon and I don't drink so we didn't have to pay for anything. :) We got an appetizer of soft pretzels. It came with 3 pretzels and for dipping they gave us a cheese (kinda like cheese wiz) and then mustard. The mustard was kinda sweet and was very good with the pretzels. For our dinner, we both got a house salad and then wings. Sharon got wings with the bone and I got boneless wings. We both agreed the wings should have been hot or warm. By the time they got to us they were cold. :( They were still good but would have been better if they'd gotten to us hot. But hey we didn't pay anything for it so we didn't complain. We tipped the waitress $5 each and then headed out to meet Joe (Sharon's hubby) at the movies.

Joe met us at the movies. We watched 'Bad Teacher'. It was ok. There were funny parts but pretty much all the funny things you see in the preview for the movie are the only funny parts. One family left like 20 min into the movie. They had a small child with them so maybe they realized the R rating truly was a R rating and that their small child shouldn't be in there. I mean geez come on ppl. You want to see a R rated move then leave the little ones at home. Thanks! It's R rated for a reason. (sorry for the rant...it's just so irresponsible)

On Sunday, we went to Kristen and Dave's for a cookout! :)

Kristen had decorated her outside umbrella with some cute 4th of July decor.

Mini cupcakes that Kristen made. How festive? :) So cute! And these were soooo good. I couldn't get enough. I can't remember how many I ate throughout the day. haha

Kristen had some fresh strawberries and blueberries out for us. She served it with some vanilla yogurt for dipping. So good! :)

Sharon made a carrot salad. She knows I can't have a lot of green veggies so she wanted something that would be good for me to eat. :) She mixed carrots, raisins, pineapples and pineapple yogurt together. I thought it was good. Everyone tried it. Sharon didn't like it. She said it would be better with plain yogurt and smaller shreds of carrots. I thought it was good.

Crystal and Eddie brought delicious deviled eggs and some fresh fruit. Soooo good! :D

I didn't take any pics of what I brought. I brought 'green stuff' (coolwhip, pitashio mix, and crushed pineapples). I also brought baked beans and some reduced fat chips. Everything was gobbled up. :P

Our cook, Dave. :)
Burgers just about done. :) Sharon's burger is all the way to the left with 'fake cheese'. LOL

We ate and ate some more and talked and talked. We also watched some of the closing arguments for the trial of the century and all expressed our thoughts and opinions. We also played hand and foot. So fun! What a wonderful day with wonderful friends! :)

Paula Deen's Spicy Buttermilk Fried Chicken

I found a delicious recipe for fried chicken the other day. I'd never tried making fried chicken before but I figured I could give it a shot.

Spicy Buttermilk Fried Chicken

Makes 4 to 6 servings

1 quart of buttermilk

1 tbsp hot sauce

1 1/2 tsp seasoned salt

1 (4 to 5 pound) whole chicken, cut into 8 pieces

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp garlic salt

1 tsp ground red pepper

1 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp seasoned salt

Peanut oil for frying

1. In a large bowl, combine buttermilk, hot sauce, and 1 1/2 tsp seasoned salt. Add chicken pieces; cover and refrigerate for at least 8 hours or up to 24 hours. Drain, discarding butter mixture.

2. In a shallow dish, combine flour, garlic salt, red pepper, onion powder, and 1/2 tsp seasoned salt. Dredge chicken in flour mixture, and place on a wire rack. Let stand on wire rack for 15 min.

3. In a large cast-iron skillet, pour oil to a depth of 3 inches; heat to 350 degrees.

4. Fry chicken pieces, in batches, for 12 to 15 minutes per side or until a thermometer inserted in thickest portion registers 165 degrees. Drain on a clean wire rack over paper towels.

For mine.......I used boneless chicken breasts. I also didn't have garlic salt so I just used some minced garlic. Not sure if that mattered or not. When I cooked my chicken in my skillet all the breading came right off. :( I was so mad and I was cussing out Paula Deen. LOL I don't know why this happened. And what seemed like forever but was only really a half hour the chicken was finally done. It tasted good and juicy. It tasted just like fried chicken but without the skin. I was disappointed b/c of the skin coming off and I don't think I'll try to make this again. I don't think it was worth doing all the steps if the skin was all just gonna come off while cooking. At least I tried. I'll stick with oven baked shake n bake. :)

New Things Monday

Featuring.....Pure Silk Almond Milk. We got the unsweetened kind. Laura got this for the Visalis party last week to make samples with and there was some leftover in the fridge so I poured myself a glass. Okay really I just drank out of the carton and finished it off. LOL It's not like I drank it and put it back in the fridge. :P

They also have original, vanilla and chocolate. (I wonder how the chocolate taste)???

Since I tried the unsweetened one, it tastes just like milk with a little taste of almond. It's smooth and creamy. It's really good and I would def buy this again and again.
Another good thing.....almonds are good for your heart so it's a win win. I've heard many people talk about almond milk so I knew I had to try it and I'm really glad I did. I def want to try the chocolate one. I bet it's like drinking a melted Hershey bar with almonds. :) MMMMMM

Project: Cord Carts

Nate and I went out today with our friends Crystal and Eddie. We bowled 2 games at Splitsville and then ate a late lunch/early dinner at Firebirds.

After we got home Nate hung my magnetic board and then we headed to the basement. Nate cleaned the carpets with our carpet cleaner and I worked on the Cord Carts. :) I got this lovely idea from Nate's brother Dan. :)

Here's the picture from last night that I took of the carts and the container full of cords......

First thing first.....I had to de-tangle 95% of the cords. I layed them out on the floor.........

I then started putting some cords in the drawers and made labels.....

Some of the cords Nate had me throw out that he didn't need anymore. I was happy to do that. I still have 3 drawers unlabeled for now. I know I'll find something to fill them up with. One of the drawers I put old cell phones and old chargers in. I know there are more phones laying around somewhere. Once I find them all I'm going to donate them so they can be recycled.

I can't wait to have this project complete. I'm sure cleaning and sorting the office I'll come across some more cords but at least now they have a place. :)

I think the 2 big drawers that are empty are going to be 'canon' drawers for camera stuff. If there is a lot of camera stuff I might have to get a drawer just for canon things. We'll see.

Message Board for the bathroom?

The other day I got an idea to find a cork/magnetic/dry erase board for my bathroom. It is weird to have a msg board in the bathroom? Maybe, but I think it's a great idea. I thought while standing at the sink it would be nice to have the calendar there so I can double check what's going on for the day. And the dry erase board is perfect for when things come to your mind. You can just jot it down. :)

At target we found some boards but the only one I found that I liked was this squared magnetic dry erase board. I figured I didn't really need a cork board. And the cool thing....the board came with 2 magnets and dry erase marker. :) If I remember correctly it was around $8. They had blue, red, magenta and lime green. Nate liked the blue one so I figured it was better than the other colors so blue is what we got.

Nate hung it up for me when we got home. I added my coumadin chart and our calendar. I can't wait to start using it daily. :)

The Big Basement Clean up 2011

When Nate is looking for something he moves things all around and makes a mess. A big mess. I was free this weekend for the first time in a long time and decided to tackle the basement. The first thing I did was pick up loose items and then I did some filing. I hadn't filed since March. I also filled up a whole trash bag full of old papers that I didn't need to keep anymore. Then I took a break. But I finally went back down and finished up. :)

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Look....you can see the carpet. YEY! :)

The containers were put in the storage closet. I had Billy help me with this. I can't lift those containers by myself.

OFFICE AREA

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Obviously, the office area still has a lot of work that needs to be done. The good thing was that I got a lot of things up off the floor. I also sold 3 computer monitors on Craigslist so those are gone.

THE DESK:

The desk is full of stuff. Mostly some computer towers with no hard drives, a monitor, pictures, some CDs and a broken printer. I need Nate to tell me what is trash, donate or sell.

OTHER END:

CLEAN :) We're thinking of setting up a work out area over by the DVD's. I have a medicine ball, a big workout ball, and yoga mat. Nate has a jump rope, and he wants to get a punching bag. So, I think that side will be a gym area. I'll bring a radio down so I have something to listen to when I'm doing crunches. :)

PROJECT:

I got these carts a while back. I got the idea from Nate's brother Dan. Dan put cords in the drawers and labeled them. I thought it was genius so I need to C-O-P-Y. :)

I found the container we have that's full of cords and stuck it next to the carts. I need Nate to tell me what's what so I can put the cords in their designated drawers and label them. Maybe that's something I can do tomorrow? :)

These containers are lined up along the wall. Most of these items are things I have listed on Craigslist. In the blue container are misc things that I'm unsure what to do with.

Here are some more containers. Again some of these items are listed on Craigslist and waiting to be sold. I also have some milk bottles and blue glass in the purple container that I'm trying to decide what to do with. I might pull out my favorites and then Clist the rest. We'll see.

I feel good about what I accomplished. It will be nice to get the office finished so it can be used as an office. Nate can use the big desk for his photo projects and his Body by Vi stuff. Tomorrow Nate is planning on cleaning the carpets with our carpet cleaner. They def need to be cleaned so I hope Nate can do that tomorrow while I work on the cart project for the cords. :)