Pantry Eating at its best

Gorgeous Italian pantry--image here--Nope, not mine. It would be way more fun to eat out of this one...

First things first--I love that this is a fake blog open to no one to read. That means I don't have to try to come up with clever post titles. Because I certainly am not clever enough for that...and I would needlessly stress over it naturally.

Anyway, we move out ONE WEEK (!!) from today. This means the bar is only a little more than a week away. Honestly, I'm glad. I can't wait to take it and be done with it. I'm doing my damndest to make sure I don't burn out/peak too early/freak out/lose motivation/insert other worry here. So here's hoping I keep going and just pass the darn thing already.

Sooo back to the topic at hand: pantry eating. I'm fascinated by frugal mommy sites where they talk about their crazy, ridiculous low budgets and doing things like bartering for milk. While I'm not going out to work in the fields just yet, I figured I might as well try to use up all our pantry things before racing to the store to buy new food.

I suppose I should show you what our pantry actually looks like now:

Okay I did choose the saddest shelf and took it with my phone--so while it certainly does look sad it's not all that bad

The sad pantry has made for some interesting meals:

1. Rice, black beans, and Portuguese sausage--surprisingly wonderful!

2. Pork chops and a medley of veggies--eh. Cuba really turned me off to Pork. Doug like it though

(oh and ps if i were a real blogger i'd have pictures of all these. but i'm not. so i don't)

3. Italian sausage, edamame, and tater tots--so weird. so delicious. i felt like a little kid getting to eat whatever she wanted

And tonight's meal of old frozen chicken breast, frozen sugar snap peas, and baked sweet potatoes (maybe i'll get a pic up here...probably not)

The reason I started this long, winded, rambling post was that this has taught me to stretch my imagination and not run to the delivery menu drawer. Hopefully I can keep this up when I don't have the "oh crap I am moving and need to use up this food" mentality.

Maybe one day I will be bartering for milk after all...particularly given that mint.com now informs me I have -$174,000 to my name. Excellent.

Inspiration (from Grey's Anatomy no less...)

The ever wise Bailey spoke those words a long time ago, and they have always resonated with me. It reminds me to stop beating myself up when I can't do it all and to let go of even trying to.

You gotta do what you can, of course, but when you can't, you can't.

So thank you Shonda Rhimes and the Grey's writers :) I have plans to blow this up a bit bigger and frame it to hang somewhere in the new apt.

ps--i also had fun experimenting with making a poster. I need better fonts!

Eat Pray Love

I just finished Eat Pray Love. I know I'm late to the party, but hey now I get to see the movie with it fresh in my mind! Can't wait to do that by the way...

Here is where I pause to watch a trailer of the movie. And get sad because Liz was most certainly not Julia Roberts in my head. And in my mind the book bore no resemblance to a romantic comedy, which is exactly what the preview looked like. Sigh...

Anyway, I just loved the book. It was one of those books where you want to slow down and soak up every word so you can be sure it's getting through and sticking.

So on that note, I decided to excerpt a few of my favorite passages:

"the appreciation of pleasure can be an anchor of one's humanity...You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight."

"Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it."

"If I am truly to become an autonomous woman, then I must take over that role of being my own guardian...I not only have to become my own husband, but I need to be my own father too."

I realize there were many gems I did not mark that I now have sadly lost. But what I appreciated most was Gilbert's incredible honesty. She truly bore her soul, her most private and ugly thoughts, for the whole world to see. It made for some powerful stuff on God, grace, relationships, happiness, and figuring out who you are and your place in the world.

Couch Love

We're in the market for a new couch. In about 4 months that is. But I can't wait! I am ready for an upgrade from our current couch--the Ektorp from Ikea. No hating on it--it has served me well these last three years and has gotten LOTS of love this year! But it's white and a little dingy. In short, I'm over it.

So while killing time before Billy Elliot today (that kid can DANCE!), my mom and I stumbled upon this beauty in Macy's:

I LOVE IT! I love the buttons on the back part. And Doug would love its flat arms. It comes in a chocalatey brown color that would be perfect! I also love that it looks all sleek and clean, but is totally comfortable too. (obviously we tried it out). PLUS it is ONLY $699! A total steal.

So of course I got to browsing the interwebs when I got home and here's a couple others I like.

This lovely at Pottery Barn:

I love the shape of the back. And of course, I love the upholstered look rather than the slip cover. I like to show off those legs! Sadly this is not as much of a steal...probably would be about $1800 in any fabric I'd want.

And this one (also Macy's):

Sorry, Macy's website has yucky abilities with downloading pictures. So it's hard to see. But this is another gorgeous beauty with the buttons and wide arms. Love her.

And then my eyes started hurting and I lost interest. Because did I mention this isn't happening for months yet?

Summer Reading

Yay! My Amazon order arrived today :)

Here's what I'm reading (aside from 11 fascinating Bar Bri books on topics such as Wills and Real Property...):

1. Eat Pray Love
2. The Choice Effect (written by a friend of my college roommate and best friend!)
3. Little Bee
4. Madame Bovary (not pictured)
5. House Beautiful
6. Better Homes and Gardens
7. Real Simple (not pictured--Amazon takes FOREVER to send magazines!)

I was inspired by Edie, my blog crush, to ramp up my reading again. She reads some impressive stuff. Seeing as I'm also spending a million hours a day on the aforementioned boringness of Bar Bri, I thought I'd follow her lead on a smaller scale!

I've been reading Madame Bovary for a couple days and so far it just hasn't grabbed me yet. So I'm jumping ship for the time being. I'm starting with Eat Pray Love. I know I'm light years behind everyone who read this years ago, but hey at least I know it should be good! I'm in a reflective mood lately and am looking to be inspired. So bring it on Elizabeth Gilbert!

So here goes!

My first paint project!

I decided to take the plunge today and paint my ratty old dresser. I've been looking at every piece of furniture I own now, dreaming of how I'll transform it with paint. So I decided it was time to just do it already and stop worrying.

I started with this old dresser I use for my tights and things. My mom bought it for $5 a few years ago (thanks Mom!). It was already painted white and was in sad shape with lots of chips and stains. I figured if I messed it up it couldn't be much worse than what I was already living with, and I could throw it out when I moved to LA.

So I dove in--after reading what seemed like hundreds of blog posts on painting furniture. I bought Rustoleum semi-gloss black paint. I chose this one because it had a picture of furniture on it so I knew I could use it (I'm not kidding). I am sure I could have used lots of other paints, but that aisle is intimidating so I went with what felt safe.

Here's a few before shots:

Even with this bad picture you can see how uneven the paint was.

It also had a few chips on it:

Here it is all sanded down and primed (ps-I have no idea if I sanded enough or even had the right sandpaper thingie. My new motto is just go with it! So I did...):

I got excited seeing it all grey--it already looked so much better! (like my orange toes? :)

And here it is now!

(what looks like a fleck of white is just on the picture, not the dresser!)

I'm really happy with how it turned out. I already have plans for painting two shelves black to match our other fancy one we got for free from Doug's old neighbor. This is addicting!

My very first DIY project--tile art!

I don’t even remember how I stumbled upon all the wonderful blogs I read, like this one and this one. I’m sure it happened during the hours of procrastination during finals in my third year of law school. At first, I was just admiring the pretty pictures and homes. I recently got interested in decorating and was having fun putting together mine and boyfriend’s apartment. But then I started letting my mind wander to what I might be able to do. Of course this was swiftly followed by thoughts of “you can’t do that." Nevertheless, when I stumbled across this I knew there was no going back. I blocked out a time on my calendar and read the post 5,000 times to be sure I understood exactly how to do it.

When the appointed project week arrived, I was so excited. I spent an hour roaming around Home Depot choosing just the right tile, even lining them up in the 2X2 square to see what it would look like (I’m sure they were loving that). I asked lots of questions that I’m sure made the nice Home Depot worker wonder what business I had in their store. Any questions he asked of me were pretty much met with a blank stare. I can’t even remember them now to type here. When the nice worker asked if I needed floor or ceiling grout, I said “ummm well I’m mounting it on the floor but it will go on the wall” (Kimba had not prepared me for this question!). This time it was nice worker’s turn to give a blank stare. I expanded—“well it’s for artwork." I guess that was enough for him because he showed me an adhesive/grout combo deal (2 for 1-score!) and I was on my way. He must have lots of clueless, uncrafty people like me who come in wanting to make tile art. Kimba’s post was inspiring so I’d believe it!

Supplies in hand, I trudged out to wait for the bus and was reminded yet again of why having a car would be nice. So I hailed a cab instead. I was in my new lulu workout pants and the 2x2 piece of dry wall was dusting on me! (Most DIY gals would know not to wear nice, new clothes to Home Depot. Lesson learned). I made it home, laid out my new drop cloth (which boyfriend asked if I made—clearly he has more faith in my craftiness than I do) and got to work.

I won’t give a tutorial because, really, there are far wiser, more experienced people out there to teach you—see Kimba’s site. I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

Here it is all grouted up!

And the final product!

I am SO proud of this first project. I feel like I can do anything now—and I can’t stop my imagination from running. I’ve already conjured plans for a new upholstered headboard (like this one and this one!) and seriously cannot look at a piece of furniture in my apartment without wanting to paint it.

So there you have it—I survived my very first DIY project and caught the bug. If you like the way this looks (or Kimba’s because I think I still like hers better) you CAN do it! It is SO easy and hardly takes ANY time. Just give it a try!

Let me know what you think below (please be nice though--I'm so new to this!)