Weeds! Weeds! More Weeds!

20140301-181824.jpgSomething that never crossed my mind when we compared new construction homes with mid-century houses were lawns. I thought of wonderful mature trees (some so mature that they had to be chopped πŸ™ ) but not of ill-maintained lawns.
Well, our lawn is pretty mediocre and got even worse this winter when we didn’t rake round 3 of leaves fast enough but eventually raked up a lot of grass with them, too. Still lots to research and work that needs to be done there to get somewhat of a lawn going again. And oh did I mention: mature trees = lots of shade. Great in the heat, not so great for the gardening. Shady grass por favor!

Anywhooo, I spent the last two hours weeding about a fifth of our backyard. You know something ain’t right when it smells like onions and garlic when you mow the lawn! Wild onions galore! Pesky little basturrrds! You can’t just rip them out like some of the other interesting specimen, nope they need to be dug up. Otherwise their cute little onions stay underground and just rapidly regrow their greens. Uffda! Peeps, one thing I’m learning: organic gardening is not for wimps!

But here it is, my proud bounty: a giant planter full of onions and weeds!

 

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Living Room Make Over Part II

After Michael had surprised me with a newly painted room, we just had to properly furnish and decorate it. Before we even moved I had created a mood board of a golden fall inspired living room. We absolutely fell in love with the aspen painting by Parvez Taj and coincidentally it popped up on one of those deal websites on sale and I snatched it up like a dollar bill on the side walk. Pew pew!

We used a few existing pieces of furniture and bought a couple of new ones andΒ  slowly we turned the midnight blue bat cave of gloom into our wonderfully warm, cozy and bright living room:

(click for larger photo)

We were both impressed by the huge leather sofa from Pottery Barn. I had never been the biggest leather fan thanks to black, bulky bachelorpad-style sofas but this one is sooo soft and warm looking, we had to have it! Not to mention it fit perfectly in the window nook. PB collaborates with interior designers that scrutinizes your house for free and suggests lots of PB furniture to fill it. If going into Pottery Barn for furniture didn’t feel grown up then having their interior designer come to our home sure made me feel like an adult. Michelle was wonderful and had some great ideas for both of our living rooms. Mind you at that point this one was still midnight blue black. The cabinet and the lamp in the corner all came from Pottery Barn but she encouraged us to incorporate existing pieces as well. It was definitely a fun experience and she was so great to work with!

I got some throw pillows from World Market and was quite surprised by how reasonably priced they were compared to some online options. How cute is that owl?! Don’t remember where the striped red ones came from – I’ve had those since my first apartment in Charlotte.

Michael found a hammered metal accent table thingy at World Market and we added two slipper chairs from Target that were nicely priced. It was tough to pick a fabric that wasn’t too boring but not too crazy either to compete with the aspen picture. Target did have tons of fun ones to choose from and they’re comfy, too! The original mood board had one leather seat but we both thought a single seat would have not been enough to carry that wall plus we didn’t like the matching one to our sofa and were worried about finding the perfect mismatch.

As for the rug, we had ordered a brown and cream one online. Eh let’s just say it looked like a brown mess. Yuk. Not a fan! After staring at way too many rugs (don’t believe me, check out my pinterest board ;-)) and vetoing each other’s choices we finally ordered the red/orange ombre one and are quite pleased with how it adds warmth to the room.

Looks like someone likes the new rug… πŸ˜‰

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Night And Day Living Room Make-Over Part I

The previous owners of our house had a pretty contemporary sense of design and we really enjoyed touring the house when it came back on the market. They had a great collection of eclectic art and fun furniture. So thankfully we didn’t have to do much with our dining room, kitchen, and bathrooms. However, once their furniture came out and we moved ours in, the midnight blue living room looked like a dark bat cave.

That color had to change! It was a depressing shade of midnight gloom. Ick. We had fallen in love with Parvez Taj’s picture of aspen trees that’s leaning against the wall and wanted to find a warm color for the perfect backdrop. On top of that, the dining room is attached so the color needed to look good with the white and grey colors from there, too.

It was easy to decide on yellow but holy moly, there is no such thing as yellow or 50 shades of yellow. There are “Honeycomb”, “Yellow Brick Road”, “Twenty Karat”, “Heart of Palm”, and even “Jersey Cream”. Way too many! Ever thought your job was horrible? Be glad you don’t have to come up with paint names!!

PearI like bolder colors, Michael likes subtler colors but in the end we were both OK with a Valspar color called “Pear” (EB14-3). We got a little sample and painted a poster board to hold it up against the wall in different lights. And then we just knew that was the one. No not really. It was a lot of going back and forth but in the end we just didn’t find anything better. The next big Sherman-Williams sale came and so we pulled the trigger and had them mix up a few gallons. Yay our living room was going to look like a pear!

So then what you do is you go on a business trip to Germany and when you come back your living room has magically turned from super dark into wonderful peary yellow! It was an unbelievable surprise, in the week that I was gone Michael had patched up the walls, primed them (three times!!) and painted two layers of pear! It must have been completely miserable but what an awesome surprise!

Even the monster on TV is happy the gloom-blue is gone!

The transformation is incredible and seriously like night and day! Our living room is so bright and warm but without Michael’s fear of it “looking like a school bus!!”. It has easily become our favorite room of the house. Funny what a week in Germany can do. πŸ˜‰

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American Football & My Awesome Super Bowl Dip Recipe

Whether you love football or not, it’s hard to escape the excitement that surrounds the big NFL championship every year. Not having grown up with American football (we play football that actually involves feet back home…) lots of people are surprised by how much I have gotten into football (the American version). What started out as a game of two lines of dudes wrestling, then falling down, then getting up again only to wrestle some more has turned into something that gets me excited quite a few Sundays and even Saturdays on occasion. I love going to games and tailgating and I’ve been an avid fantasy football coach for a few season now, too. Basically, you pick players and their performance in real life gives you a score in your fantasy league. It’s really fun (or equally as agitating) playing with my friends.

Me roarrrring during a Panthers game

So, while I was sad our Carolina Panthers did not make it very far in the playoffs this season (sooo proud they made it to the playoffs at all though!), I am excited about this weekend’s match-up. We watched “The Book of Manning” (you can watch the whole Book of Manning here! How cool!) the other day and after that I am now totally rooting for the Broncos. It’d be nice for their former Panthers coach, too.

My traditional thing to bring to Super Bowl parties is my “Green Bay Packers Hot Bean Superbowl Dip”. I named it after the winners of that year’s Super Bowl… Go figure now I’m getting married to a Green Bay fan. This year I am also bringing fun bingo sheets that you can download for free here.

Sandra’s Hot Bean Super Bowl Dip

– 8oz cream cheese
1 cup sour cream
16oz refried beans
0.5 packages of taco seasoning
a few drops of hot sauce
2 TBS parsley
0.25 cups cut green onions
16oz Mexican shredded cheese mix

1. Heat your oven to 350F (175C)2. First mix sour cream and softened cream cheese.
2. Then mix everything except for half of the shredded cheese in.
3. Put mixture into a baking dish (I use an 8x12in dish).
4. Top with remaining half of the shredded cheese.
5. Bake for 20-30 minutes until the cheese is starting to brown.
6. Serve with corn chips!

I always have to take a ton of lactaid to eat this but it’s sooooo good, totally worth it! Nom nom!

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