So Fresh

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I got Freshly Pressed…AGAIN! (with this post)

The first time this happened back in August I didn’t know what “Freshly Pressed” meant. Now I do. Freshly Pressed is the front page of Wordress.com

See that’s me at the bottom there with my Herringbone dresser. Basically every weekday WordPress hand picks 10 blogs to feature on their front page for 24 hours. Apparently it’s like the lottery of blogging, well next to being Oprah, Ellen, or Martha (FEEL FREE TO CALL ME LADIES!) There is a whole article on “tips to getting pressed” here. The basic steps are:

1. Write unique content that’s free of bad stuff.

2. Make posts visually appealing.

3. Add relevant tags.

4. Cap off your post with a compelling headline.

5. Aim for typo-free content.

I must say, it’s quite the compliment to have this happen twice to me in 6 months. The other post that was pressed was my Planting The Succulents which received 6,147 hits in 24 hours. This time I got 5,300 hits in 24 hours. How neat is that! Of course I don’t actually get anything (accept gloating rights) from this traffic. Over the last year I have 100% decided I don’t plan too ever try to make money off this blog. It’s just a little too personal. I don’t want to have to worry about content or sponsors, and I definitely don’t want to turn this into a job. It’s just my hobby, or my therapy.

For now I can just toot my horn, that they picked my little old blog TWICE out of 394,642 bloggers and 871,353 new posts.

HAPPY (almost) THREE YEAR BLOGAVERSARY TO ME!

 

 

DIY Herringbone Dresser

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First off, let’s take a minute and acknowledge two things.

1. Herringbone is different from Chevron, and definitely different from Houndstooth. While looking for an actual Herringbone pattern on both Pinterest and Google, the number of incorrect images was surprising! I will say that Herringbone is the most open to interpretation. There are lots of options of stripe thickness, and some people put a seam between the stripes. However in no way should you confuse Herringbone with Houndstooth, as they really look nothing alike. Get it together Pinners!

I made ya’ll this little cheat sheet for fun!

2. This is the trendiest thing I have ever made. I pretty much made this exclusively for Pinterest. Kidding…kind of. It just encompasses all of Pinterests favorite things:

      -Chevron/Herringbone/stripes

      -Grey and Peach

      -Dipped gold details

      -DIY

      -FREE!

You read that right! This project in total cost me $8. Total.

The dresser I found in an ally with a free sign on it. I made Mr. Gaunt strap it to the roof, as it wouldn’t fit in the trunk or back seat. DAMN I NEED A MINIVAN! The Peach paint was leftover from the Laundry Room. The white paint was leftover from the house trim, and I already owned a sander and all the painting equipment. The only things we bought were a $1 can of OOPS paint (the dark grey) and a can of Rustoleum Gold Spray paint for like $7. Obviously this project would not be this cheap if you were not a paint supply hoarder, or a back ally furniture scavenger (in which case, we have nothing in common)

Time wise this project took an embarrassing amount of time. I did spread it out over about 4 days, to let each coat really cure before painting more. That’s really important when doing a lot of taping off. I started with washing, lightly sanding, and painting the whole dresser peach and the drawer fronts white. I removed the knobs and the feet (which unscrewed with ease).

Next was the taping off. Oh lordy this was tricky. You may not know this about me, but the only thing I hate more than math, is measuring. Remember the stripes I just eyeballed in the spare room. However I knew that if I picked a geometric pattern on a small space, I really needed it to be accurate. And really I just shouldn’t be so lazy.

I looked online for a pattern for a while but couldn’t find one. Then I just sat down and drew out what I wanted on a piece of cardboard, then started measuring. I did this wrong twice before getting it right. I didn’t want to have to tape twice, so I had to make sure I calculated both the white and grey areas accurately. I wrote “G” in the grey areas so I wouldn’t get confused. It was tedious, and probably took me a solid hour just taping. ): ALSO: Frog Tape is soo much better than blue tape.

While it dried I painted the feet and knobs all metallic gold.

When it was all done, I was so in love! I made Mr. Gaunt come out to the garage to stare at it with me! I have plans to put a polyurethane (waterbased) coat on it too, but its like $15 for a can, and I’m poor. Plus no one will really be using this dresser. It’s been placed in our spare room, and will belong to future babies…lucky bastards.

Herbed Potatoes and Bikini Bodies

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Quite the title isn’t it.

Mr. Gaunt and I went on a long hilly walk today, I’m kind of hating the gym lately, too hot and stuffy. I’m loving the nice weather, and feel awful not taking advantage of it, so we have been walking a lot. Today we walked to the Post Office, the Library, and strolled through Maritime Heritage Park (which is a beautiful park that unfortunately ends up being kind of sketchy with all the homeless that hang out there). Needless to say our walk ended up being exactly three miles. So that’s nice.

I did have a little breakdown on our walk. I feel so unhappy about my weight right now. My physical fitness has to pick up, and my decadent splurges have to go down stop. I need way more veggies, and way less cheese and bread. I just know how much better I would feel minus 30 pounds. Lordy. It’s never-ending is it? I feel like my ass and stomach are larger than they have been in a while though, which is just so unpleasant. Consider me on a diet!

For dinner we had grilled chicken sausage, asparagus, and herb potatoes.

The potatoes were leftover from Mothers Day that I sliced up. Then I just cut some thyme, dill and oregano from my garden, tossed with some olive oil, pepper and salt, and baked at 425 for 15 minutes. Super yummy, and not too bad for you.

Also in super exciting news!!!! Mr. Gaunt got a promotion today! He will now be a supervisor, which is more responsibility, but also more money! Yay! We really could use more money. I also have taken up a twice a week cleaning gig at my moms wine bar via our other business, which will be bringing in a nice little monthly paycheck. I have also sold 3 paintings this month, and booked our largest wedding yet for November! Mr. Gaunt has also started a used media shop on Amazon that he is done really well at so far. You would think with all our little business adventures that we wouldn’t be nearly so poor. The funny thing is, all this money will be coming in later on, so far now we just have to keep treading water and hope for the best. HARD WORK! HARD WORK! HARD WORK!

Mr. Gaunt and I spent time the other night talking about our jobs, and how hard we are working, and our dreams. We have a philosophy that it is better to work our butts off trying to work for ourselves, and have freedom, then to just work a basic 9-5 for someone else. The saying “If you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life” rings so loud for me. The passion and desire I have to build a career around my life, and not build my life around a job, will continue to fuel me through the hard times. We will make it. We will work for ourselves. We will be able to do the things we want to do. We will get everything we need.

On that note, I did ZuzkaLights ZWOW #19 video tonight. I did it the best I could, and my abs feel it. She says its to prepare me for my bikini body…yeah…uh huh. You should really do it too! It’s not to bad, and its super fast.

http://www.youtube.com/zuzkalight#p/a

 

Oatmeal for one

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I recently (well maybe a couple of months ago) took up eating oatmeal almost every morning.  I use to be a fan of instant oatmeal packets (of the fruit and cream variety…eek! Totally crappy for you) but I gave it up when I couldn’t find one that was both good for you an yummy. I tried an organic brand and thought it was AWFUL! Then for a solid 9 months I ate nothing but Greek yogurt with honey or granola.

In early spring I was sooo cold at work. I felt like I needed something both nourishing and warm to eat at my desk at 6 am. My coworker brought plain old oats every day and microwaved them with cream. It looked really good, so I started bringing a big tube of Quaker Quick Oats, and using our instant hot water dispenser to make a bowl full every morning. Then I add frozen blueberries or raspberries, or home-made raspberry jam, or honey. So good!

Now I eat it 5 days a week. Sometimes I put a little peanut butter in it, or brown sugar for dessert. I eat it at home sometimes too if I want a warm snack, but the instant hot water is way easier than boiling or microwaving it.

Recycled Tire Trellis

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My mom saw this on Pinterest a few weeks ago, and we both loved it. Then Mr. Gaunt and I were with her at a garage sale and we happened upon two mismatched tires, no bike frame in sight. I remembered the trellis and snatched them up for super cheap.

I delegated the project over to Mr. Gaunt, with the challenge of completing it for less than $10. We decided right away to leave both the tire and the spokes on (seems silly to lose the cool spokes!) Mr. Gaunt tried a long piece of wood, and a few other things to put the two tires together without success. Finally he removed the inner bolts of the tire, and bought a 5′ All Thread and matching nuts. We ran the All Thread through both tires and put nuts on each side of the tires to hold them in place.

Mr. Gaunt then drove the All Thread about 28″ into the ground for stability. It still sways a little, as the All Thread is thin, but it wont tip over, because of the bottom tire being a wide base, and the deepness of the All Thread. As peas grow up it, it should actually become more stable as they weigh it evenly down.

Last Mr. Gaunt ran basic gardening string between every other spoke. He tied each length off, instead of wrapping it over and under. Then I planted Sweet Peas  at the base of each string. I’m so excited for them to grow into a giant tube of Sweet Pea Flowers!

NOTE: It’s very important to have a special helper there to inspect your work.

 

Mothers Day 2012

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Happy Mothers Day!

It seems everyone I know is pregnant right now, which is not true, I really only know like 5 pregnant people right now, but still, it’s a lot of moms-to-be! Also three of the bloggers I read daily are also pregnant, so I think it’s just in the air.

We had such a lovely mothers day this year! It was actually the first time Mr. Gaunt and I hosted a dinner that wasn’t just my mom and siblings. My grandparents came up for the afternoon too, which was really cool. My grandparents are really awesome people with lots of really great skills. They can cook better than anyone I know (my grandpa is a professional BBQ and they owned restaurants for years) so getting the opportunity to make a meal for them was kind of exciting. The house and yard also look really awesome right now (if I do say so myself) and with prefect weather and a perfect cat, the day was splendid! I felt like such a grown up. I can’t wait until we have kids and can have birthday parties and other fun holiday celebrations at our house.

Mr. Gaunt did all the grilling today, while mom and I made salad, potato salad, asparagus, sangria, chocolate cover strawberries, and garlic bread. Yum. We really know how to eat.

This first photo is really awesome. It’s me and my mom and my grandma, I think it’s the only three generation photo I have, all we need now is a baby (I know I’m starting to sound baby crazy!). We all look so similar, and blonde…lol!

Mr. Gaunt cooked his first Salmon, and we also did steak kabobs and Asparagus on the grill.

My mom bought me that cute cherry tablecloth at a thrift store in Portland, and today she made a quick stop at Kmart where they had flat sheets on clearance for $5, so that’s what that green one is. Who knew a flat twin sheet fit a 6′ card table so well?

My Fur Baby was extra sweet all day too!

Tomorrow its back to work. My back is a bit sore tonight from cleaning, gardening, moving the lawns and cooking all day. Lordy. It’s also back to the gym this week. We took all of last week off from the gym and worked out outside in the nice weather.  This coming week is supposed to be pretty darn nice too, but we paid for the membership so we rally should use it. It’s just so much nicer, and we work out so much longer outside. Oh well. I’m a little sun burnt too.

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY TO ALL, especially my awesome mom.