meal plan monday: sept 3.

today i was reminded how much i despise the deli counter. because its only at the deli counter where, after waiting patiently from "now serving customer 93" to "now serving customer 97," a long string of numbers including mine (customer 01) can somehow suddenly be completely disregarded in favor of serving "customer number 02" who decided she is above all of this waiting-patiently-in-an-orderly-line-by-number-order business and just had to be served right that very second. which then makes me look like a cranky b*tch when customer 03 is called and i have to yell "um, how about number 01!?"

so yeah. thanks for officially being the low point of my day, "customer number 02." thanks a lot.

anyway, i made it to the grocery store and bought some semblance of edible food, so here's the plan for the week.

Monday: breaded tilapia and corn on the cob.
Tuesday: hamburger helper with corn on the cob.
Wednesday: taco salad with guacamole.
Thursday: frozen raviolis.
Friday: chicken and pasta with creamy pesto sauce.
Saturday: bridesmaid brunch at Victoria's apartment.
Sunday: grilled cheese and tomato soup.

masterpiece.

i pulled over this morning on the same corner where i saw the pheasant, because even the small glimpse of the glowing sunrise that caught my eye in my rearview mirror was too stunning to ignore.

this doesnt even quite capture the magnificent vibrant shade of orange-red God painted the sun this morning, or the golden-red light it threw into all the shadowy corners of everything.

and then, twenty minutes later, God changed his color palette and created something completely new and wonderful.

Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens... when i consider the heavens, the work of your fingers... what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?... Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Psalm 8

someday starts today.

so remember that one time when i told you that we were dreaming of the day when we would be able to completely gut our guest bathroom and rebuild it from the studs, but until then we were planning to stick to the slow and steady baby steps method of home improvement we've been using for the past two years? well i guess you can just go ahead and disregard that whole baby steps thing, because plans have changed.

Mark has decided that right now is as good a time as any to tackle the guest bathroom. and by tackle, i really mean it literally: knock down, drag out, nothing left standing. the entire bathroom is going to be overhauled. new tub, tile, toilet, vanity, light fixtures, fan, paint, trim, everything. (well, i think the mirror might get to stay) we spent a couple hours over the weekend in Home Depot pricing out all the various pieces and deciding on finishes and colors and tile and grout. and i think we came up with a pretty good plan.

this is my most current inspiration picture: 

source via pinterest

i dont know if we'll do the board and batten, but i'm really digging the light, bright, semi-beachy feel of this room, and i'm excited to see what a little bit of light and brightness will do to transform our tiny windowless room from its current state of being a depressing den of disgustingness.

the best part of this plan is that is has a definite deadline. if all goes according to plan (and even if it doesnt, there's a little wiggle room built into the schedule) we'll have a brand new gorgeous guest bathroom by the time my family gets here for Thanksgiving! demo is scheduled to start after work today, the first of what i'm sure will be many Depot trips is slated for Saturday, and once again our Labor Day weekend is going to actually be labor-filled. 

i'll be sure to keep you all updated along the way, since i have a feeling this project has the potential to be quite the adventure.

original bathroom planning post here.

meal plan monday: aug 27.

this weekend was awesome for several reasons, none of which being the fact that i was overly productive. instead of laundry and cleaning and dishes, i dabbled with my acrylic paints and my sister's shoes. i slept in. i went to my first ever company picnic. i giggled til my face hurt. i went shopping with my friend and i now own a pair of sequined hot pants. i spent a significant amount of time wandering the aisles of Home Depot with my husband and i actually enjoyed it. i started planning a gallery wall. i sat on the couch and watched a movie. i went to bed early. i dont think i cooked a single thing all weekend. awesome.

even on clearance, the shirt was overpriced. but $4 for those shorts? sold!

but now it is today, the beginning of another week. and unfortunately, i dont think mark and i could survive any longer if i dont start cooking again, even just a little bit. so here's the plan:

Monday: taco night.
Tuesday: chicken broccoli noodle casserole (recipe)
Wednesday: fish, rice, and a veggie.
Thursday: frozen raviolis.
Friday: breakfast for dinner.
Saturday: chicken quesadillas.
Sunday: mark's cousins' birthday party.

all on the table.

the last time i shared my dining room with y'all, it was looking something like this: freshly painted, tiny table, mostly empty.

but as of last night, the dining room is looking more like this: shazam!

don't mind me, i'll just be over here jumping up and down and squealing with delight.

so as you can see, we've made a few changes. the mirror turned white, which went against pretty much everybody's vote, but i think that i like it. it keeps everything on the top half of the room feeling light and airy, while letting the dark brown stripes keep the room grounded from below. plus, i like that the light mirror frame lets our wedding-gift candle sconces be the stand out feature on that wall.

the rug is from IKEA, and i think it makes one of the biggest differences in this space by breaking up the hardwood that runs through most of the house. the three canvasses on the other wall were ones that i originally bought way back when i had my own apartment and then never did anything with, so they had just been chilling in a craft box in the basement for a few years. i still need to decide what to paint on them, but i figured inspiration might strike a little sooner if i am staring at their blankness all the time instead of ignoring them in a box.

but the real star of this show is obviously our new dining room set! we ordered our gorgeous new table and chairs from an online Amish furniture company, and they are wonderful. (the delivery company, not so much, but i'm choosing not to focus on the negative right now) every piece of furniture is chunky and heavy and solid and so smooth and i'm in love i'm in love and i dont care who know it!

i never realized just how tiny our old table was until we got this big guy in here - he really fills the room perfectly without feeling crowded (note: i wasnt sure if the table was a boy or girl until just now: its a boy!) the six chairs we got will be more than enough most of the time, but we also got two leaves so the table can expand up to 8 feet and seat up to 10 people.

is it weird that i kind of want to spend all my free time just sitting at the table, not necessarily to eat, but just to stroke its smooth, soft table top and run my hands around all its lovely curves? yes? well, it's my table and i'll do what i want to. because seriously: soooo soft and smooth...

safe to shower again.

so i mentioned the other day in my guest bathroom planning post about how my guest bathroom had gotten to the point where it was so very disgusting that my sister had recently refused to shower in it ever again. and honestly, i dont blame her. in fact, since Mark installed the exhaust fan in the master bathroom, we dont ever shower in here anymore either. you think we're all exaggerating or overreacting? think again:

stained tub + moldy crumbling caulking = vomit. 

so in order to keep everyone i know from boycotting visiting me based on the state of my guest bathroom, i decided it was high time to clean that mess. so i turned to my new favorite source for all sources of DIY house related tips and tricks: pinterest. and lo and behold, i found a recipe for a magic tub cleaner, using things that i had on hand at my house!

i mixed and prepared my ingredients, applied them to the tub, waited the prescribed amount of time, and even scrubbed everything down. and after all that... my tub smelled like vinegar and dish soap and only looked slightly less gross.

womp womp. the tub was super clean, but still looked super disgusting. not exactly the magic formula i was hoping for. it was becoming abundantly clear to me at this point that i needed to call in some reinforcement and resort to more drastic measures.

enter the husband and his tools, which he used to remove all of the nasty grout and the built in soap dish that i accidentally separated from the wall that one time because apparently it was designed to hold the weight of a bar of soap instead of a good portion of my bodyweight while i was using it as a leg-shaving footrest.

after letting everything air out for a while, he reattached the soap dish with some sort of liquid-nails-adhesive-in-a-tube and let it dry for a couple days.

ta da! the soap dish is back and functional for holding bars of soap. and i am under strict orders to never use it as a footrest again.

the final step was to re-caulk all of the areas where the nasty caulk had been removed, and all around the soap dish. its kind of amazing the difference a little bit of caulk can make.

of course, i forgot to take a true "after" picture, but trust me, its a huge difference. and with Saturday's addition of a new shower curtain liner, the guest bathroom is starting to look like you might actually be able to get clean in there, rather than coming out more disgusting than before you got into the shower.

of course, this bathroom still has a LONG way to go, and while we are dreaming of the day when we will be able to completely gut the bathroom and rebuild it from the studs, we are sticking to the same slow and steady baby steps method of home improvement that has worked for us so far. next step: paint!

meal plan monday: aug 20.

i ate horrendously over the weekend while Mark was away. like think fast food, microwave mac n cheese, goldfish, and a few crabs, topped off with copious amounts of skittles. sounds delicious, right? it was. but i think i might have overdone it a little on the skittles, and then i didnt even work out at all to try and counteract that binge-fest of supreme laziness. i felt terrible about it, but i also didnt feel like cooking or eating any real food, since i was home alone.

i dont want to cook anything this week, either. but i guess i will. since mark's home. i love that guy.

Monday: zuchinni, black bean, and rice skillet. (recipe)
Tuesday:.chicken tacos. (recipe-ish)
Wednesday: tilapia with cucumber salad. (recipe)
Thursday: frozen raviolis.
Friday: grilled cheese w/ tomato soup.
Saturday: company picnic.
Sunday: pancakes.