Life in Small Town, Wyoming: May 2011

Saturday, May 21, 2011

A couple pictures...

The day our realtor came out to do a walk through of the house, she didn't take any pictures. We made sure we had 2 rooms in tip top shape for pictures (since we had 4 days between her walk through & the house hitting the market, we didn't get it all done). When I spoke to her the next day I mentioned how weird I thought it was that she didn't take any pics. She told me she'd forgotten to bring her camera. Oops. No biggie. After she left from the walk through, I snapped a few pictures, and I told her I'd email them to her. Here are the shots I got for her to post online.

She did get a picture of the front of the house this past Monday when she put the sign in the ground.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Creamy Tomato Soup

4 tablespoons coconut oil
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
4 tablespoons whole wheat pastry flour
2 28-oz. can crushed tomatoes
3 cups beef bone broth
1 cup heavy cream
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring often, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook until soft, about 2 minutes. Add flour & stir to blend.

Add undrained tomatoes and broth to saucepan. Turn heat to medium-high and bring to a boil. Stir constantly until slightly thickened.

Transfer soup to a blender in batches and puree until smooth. Return soup to pan, stir in cream and cook over low heat, until heated through. Do not bring soup back to a boil. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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The peanut gallery ratings on a scale of 1-10, 10 being da-bomb-diggety:

Hubba gave it a 8-9
14 year old said 10
11 year old said 9.9
7 year old just scrunched up his nose & tried not to swallow it (but I'm used to that!!!)
Mom gives it an 8.5

Beans & lentils & inflation- oh my!

I popped over to Life In a Shoe today to be greeted by this post. How timely. I've taken a severe disliking to grocery shopping these days, but I've managed to keep the budget under control & still eat fairly well. Ironies of ironies, we were finishing up a lunch of taco style lentils & rice when I read this post. I added my Cowboy Beans to the list. YUMMY! Go check out the links if you're in need of trimming down the ever-rising grocery budget, too!

Monday, May 16, 2011

I was featured on Pinkapotamous...

Thank you AmieAnn for showing my clock some love!!

AmieAnn hosts the Pink Hippo Party every Monday. Check them out for some wonderful projects & ideas. While you're over there, check out the rest of her blog. It's fun!

Unfortunately this week, I won't be able to join the linky parties. Our sale sign went in the ground today for the house, and I am thoroughly exhausted.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Maybe we don't need word verification?

I "found" this GREAT tutorial about blogger's spam guard being added & working (well). While you're over there, be sure to check out the fantastic things she makes!

Monday, May 9, 2011

WOW!! A quick update!!

The house goes up for show on Monday. 1 week from today. Please pray, not only that the house sells, but that I spend the next week being productive on the few loose ends we have. I'm so nervous. I started sweating once I got off the phone with her.

OK, I need to scream now....

AHHHHHHH. SQUUUEEEEEE!!!

Much better.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

"Clock Face"-lift

The perpetrator..... A brushed silver look clock..... We got it when we were married. It was on our registry. It was cool at the time. Actually it still wasn't a bad clock, I just refused to buy a new clock, and this one wasn't fitting into any of the rooms in the house.

I took the whole thing apart with some ideas on what to do. I decided on some parchment look paper we had. Unfortunately, the paper didn't cover the whole face, so I opted for a torn collage look. I used some Elmer's school glue & water to make a decoupage type adhesive. Once it was dry, I'd trim it.

Except that I think I added WAY too much water to the glue mix, and once it was dry, it was barely stuck in most places. The gob of paper came right off. Rather than even consider going that route again, I remembered I had just bought a remnant of burlap last Thursday. Yes, this would be perfect & even better for the look I was going for. I was planning on using scrapbook number stickers for the paper background, but with the burlap, I wasn't sure how that would work. I scrounged the house looking for something to use on the burlap. I was considering buying some wood disks, maybe some wooden numbers. I really didn't feel like going out, though. I did go to True Value, but that's only a few blocks from my house. I needed spray adhesive for the burlap. I just wasn't up to rummaging through the "big box" stores.

I was trying to come up with a way to make sure the "numbers" were aligned, so I jumped onto google images & did a search for printable clock. As a homeschooling momma, I knew those would be plentiful.

I printed one out, cut around the edge & did a loop of tape & centered it onto my burlap.

Then I added my "numbers." I found 2 packs of 6 buttons in one of my sewing boxes. They were solid brown, so using an emery board, I roughed them up a bit.

I removed my printed clock & voila! Now I just needed to put the clock back together....

Except that when I did, I realized I'd put the buttons too far to the outer edge, and the clock rim & glass wouldn't fit back on. I had to very carefully peel the buttons away & scootch them in a bit more. While the clock was a part I used Krylon's Ruddy Brown primer, followed by a couple coats of Krylon's Celery spray paint in gloss. Once those were dry, I used the aforementioned emery board & roughed it up a bit, giving it that beautiful distressed look I'm so fond of.