Swinging on Birches

Our bedroom is the catch-all place.  I think it's the room that I know nobody will just waltz in unless invited, so I don't worry as much. And, I'm totally ok with that, but our bed was looking ridiculous.  We are grown adults, and we needed an "adult" bed. Since my two strongest characteristics seem to be cheap and stubborn, I decided that we should make it ourselves.  So, I did what I always do when I want to take on something new--I read and read and read.  Mostly blogs with lots of pictures (thank you, bloggers!!).  The next step was convincing Bryan.  Thankfully, he's usually on board when it involves saving money, and after seeing the steps online, we decided to try it, and we LOVE our results! First, Bryan did the preparation steps--cut a piece of plywood to fit the wall space in our room (ours couldn't be too high because we like to rearrange the furnitre, and we have eaves in our bedroom) and sand the edges just a bit.  We happened t...

There is nothing I like more in the winter than to cozy up under the covers with some trashy reality tv and a project to sew:)  Lately, I've been working on baby blankets for friends.  This one is a pattern from Lion brand yarns online called "Bright Flower Throw."  I chose different colors (Little Boy Blue, Sweet Pea, Chocolate Cake and Lamb) mainly because most of my friends seem to have boys:) I started off by making bunches of the same granny hexagon:) And, then simply whipstitched them all together to form the pattern.  This looked wonderful, but came out about the size of a placemat, so I decided to double the pattern.  Then, I realized that with hexagons, the part where they came together wouldn't have been even, so I made a strip of the "lamb" hexagons to be the bridge between the two blankets. I think it turned out pretty nice overall, and I was much happier with the finished size of this one.  (Excuse the Christmas decorat...

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak My rating: 5 of 5 stars This book was amazing. On par with The Giver or Number the Stars or any other adolescent lit. I love that it's written from death's perspective, too. One of those books that takes a week to process after you're done reading. Wow. View all my reviews

Bryan told me I should post this.  I don't really have anything more important to say today, so I'll share my theory about salad. When you make a salad, you should use no more than 5 ingredients per salad. This excluded potato salad, jello salad, macaroni salad, etc.  Those are in their own category. But, a lettuce salad should have no more than 5 ingredients.  I used to make salads with approximately 5 million vegetables or whatever I had left in the fridge, and it's just not the same.  A few flavors makes for a delicious salad that allows you to taste each ingredient. Tonight's awesome salad that my hubby even raved about: 1. spinach 2. red pepper 3. craisins 4. gorgonzola cheese 5. Certified Angus Beef flat iron steak I thought about adding walnuts for more texture, but then I would be breaking my own rules, wouldn't I? Do you have any food rules?