Morton and the Mirror

 

Every weekend I try to go to AT LEAST one thrift store.  I’m always searching for quirky things for our house, frames for my future gallery wall, or furniture that needs a little TLC.  For the record, I’m not one of those lucky gals that stumbles upon a barely sat in Eames chair for $20 or some other out of this world deal.  I sometimes find a mirror I can repaint or some candlesticks that I can put on my mantel.  However, this weekend was different.  I felt like that lucky gal.  I wandered into a new thrift store I’d never been to before and it was like stumbling upon a treasure trove!  I saw chairs to reupholster!  Mirrors to hang on my walls!  Quirky antiques to adorn my shelves!  It was AWESOME. But then I rounded a corner and saw that one thing I KNEW I had to have.  And here it is…

Isn’t she beauty-ful?!?!  I can’t even BELIEVE I found her, just hanging all alone on a peg board wall for only a few dollars!  She was waiting for me to take her home.  Can you tell I’m obsessed?  I have plans..

 

Then today when I came home for lunch, there was a gigantic package waiting for me, which is always SOOOO exciting.  What could it be?!?!  So I carefully undid the tape and inside was another box and inside that box was the most wonderful thing that has ever arrived on my doorstep via UPS… his name is Morton.

 

OMG!!!!!!!!  I squealed! And then I immediately hung him up on any random nail or screw I could find, just to see how he will look in all sorts of places around the house.  I can’t believe he’s mine.  From my parents for Christmas.  My mom actually had him shipped to her first because she wanted to meet him before she sent him to me.  HAHA!  Wow, I sound like a total nut job right about now, huh?  Anywho, that’s Morton and my new mirror.  I’m off to FaceTime with my parents and Morton…

Thanks for stoppin’ by!

Apple Pie: A Weekend Project

 

Hey everybody, Nick here.  So this weekend my lady and I took on a little cooking project of sorts.  Here in the south we like our apple pie, and I’m not talking about the kind you bake.  I recently procured some Tennessee white whiskey, made from corn and smooth as water.  The perfect thing to do with this stuff is make apple pie liquor.  So the wife and I headed to WalMart to gather our supplies.  We got ourselves some apple juice, specifically Simply Apple, some cinnamon sticks, sour apples, and some Mason jars of the quart variety. 

Now, in a big stew pot I mixed up my apple pie.  I would share this with you but sadly, it’s my secret, get your own!  Haha!  Really though, you can look it up online; or as the wife would say, “Google it!”  So while my magic elixir was simmering away on the stove I took all the tops off my jars, cut up my apples and put the cinnamon sticks in the jars.

Make sure you get the seeds out.  Nobody wants seeds in their pie shots.

After it simmered for about 15 minutes it was ready to be cooled down.  Since the liquid has to be cool before it can be poured into the jars, I went ahead and prepared an ice bath for my pot.  I’m impatient and didn’t feel like letting it cool on it’s own.

Here’s an artsy little pic the wife took of my handy work.

 

So next I just used a ladle and a funnel to fill my jars and then set them all in a cool place to chill out for a week or so.  Now I won’t lie, I’ve already taken a few swigs from one of the jars and it is BEYOND delicious.  It’s also dangerous stuff, since you can’t taste the alcohol.  This stuff will be perfect for get togethers in the cold winter months and on into the summer for barbecues and such.  If you can’t get your hands on any white lightening, pure grain alcohol works just fine.  Hope you enjoyed my first post here on our little blog!  I leave you with some more pictures my lady took of the process.  Thanks for stoppin’ by!

Holy Smokes!

Long time no blog, folks!  It been crazy with a capital K around here lately!  Mix together the holidays with some sad family stuff and we were all caught up in that little thing called life.  So I’ll get you up to speed on what’s been happenin’ in our neck of the woods.  '

Christmas was absolutely fabulous and I got to spend FOUR whole days with my parents and brother.  They live about 7 hours away from me, so anytime I can see them is a good time for me!  We always stay at my aunt’s house when we go “home” (we used to live in the same town, but since I now live in KY and my parents are in IL we meet up in our hometown) and it’s so nice at Christmas to have everyone there in the house as one big family.  I luuuurve it.

I got a pair of Tom's and I’m so psyched to wear them!  They’re beautiful and white, so I’m not quite ready to bust them out in the dead of winter and get them all gross, but they are AWESOME!  Nick got a LifeProof case for his iPhone.  If you’ve never looked into them, they’re awesome and waaaayyyyy better than Otterboxes. 

With the New Year now officially rung in and off to a fast start Nick and I sat down to make a list of everything we want to do around the house this year.  A few things we hope to get crossed off the list early in the year are:

-Paint the family room

-Paint the kitchen

-Paint the laundry room, including the cabinets.

Hopefully these painting jobs will give us the DIY nudge we need to take on all the other projects on our list!  Obviously this will lead to some (hopefully) pretty great posts here on the ol’ blogger-ooski.  Anywhoodle, stick around and let the good times roll!

While I’m thinking about it, if you’re visiting our little blog from Facebook or you’ve found me randomly on the internet(so basically everyone except our parents, who are already subscribed) purty please hit the little button on the left side that says “Join this Site” and follow along with us on the regular.  We sure would love ya for it!

Thanks for stoppin’ by!

Kreativ Blogger

 

The lovely Jeanne from Snuggle Bunny's Journey has awarded me the Kreativ Blogger award!  Thank you Jeanne!!  It really means a lot to me to be recognized by another blogger.  Go stop by Jeanne’s blog and take a peek around.  She has the cutest little boy!

For this award I am to tell you 7 things about myself and then pass on the award to 10 other bloggers.  However, I don’t really have 10 other bloggers to give it to!  I’m the worst, I swear!  But here are the 7 things…

1. I’m married to my love, Nick, and we’ve been married for 2 and a half years.

2. I’m one of the biggest home bodies I know.  I just love being at home.  I’ve always loved being home and with my family.

3. Nick and I have 2 dogs, a Golden Retriever named Peanut and a Husky named Jacobe.

4. I am a magazine addict.  I love almost all magazines, even some of the trashy gossip ones, but my favorites are Glamour and People.

5. I love foods that other people think are gross or weird.  These include, but are not limited to, green olives, corned beef hash, feta cheese, and cauliflower just to name a few.

6. One of my favorite things to do is snuggle up on the couch on a rainy day and watch movies I’ve seen a thousand times while eating delicious take-out .  It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

7. I love to paint my nails.  I also have an unhealthy obsession with makeup and am a fashionista at heart.

Once I have 10 bloggers I will pass the love along!

Festive Mantel of White

I generally love all things Christmas, especially decorations.  My particular taste in Christmas decorations tends to be white and silver.  I think it’s because I love snow…and shiny things.  Which is why my collection of mercury glass and mirrors is never complete.  So this year I went all out with the white theme.  As I mentioned in this post, I have been eagerly awaiting the time of year when I could decorate my mantle for Christmas!  I hadn’t really sat down and thought much about what I was going to do with the mantle, I just started doing it!  I started with some thrift store mirrors and candlesticks and the whole thing just took off from there.  I knew it had to be white and silver and it had to glow at night.  I gathered my supplies and an hour later I had this…


I can’t even BEGIN to tell you how in love with this mantle I am!  It turned out so perfectly and I am so happy every time I look at it.  I could seriously stare at it all day and especially when it’s all lit up at night.  It ended up being a few DIY crafty-type projects that came together to make up one big DIY project.  I’ll break down a couple of the little projects in later posts, but they’re pretty basic. 


Once again, my mom came through with the natural element for this mantle. She handpicked the pine cones from her backyard and brought me a big ol’ bag of them.  They’re all so perfect and I wish I had about a million more of them to string up all over the house! 





I love the little “tree” I assembled from random branches.  The night I brought this huge branch home with me, Nick looked at me like I was crazy.  I told him to just wait and see how fabulous it was going to be!  It gives the mantle such great height and interest.  I’m really glad I didn’t paint the branches white, like I almost did. 

These two trees are another favorite little project I did.  I about gave up on the dang feathers I used, but it turned out alright.  And here it is all lit up at night…

I just love it and I hope you do too. Let me know what you think!  Anyone else do any fun mantle activities lately??  I’d love to hear all about it.  I’ll be back tomorrow with the rest of my Christmas décor.
Merry Christmas, ya’ll!  It really is the most wonderful time of the year. 
Thanks for stoppin’ by!

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