What's New Pussy Cat...

...whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.  I was just fretting because here we are coming up on yet another Friday and I will have nothing to share.  I'm slowly (ever so slowly) making progress on the dining table, but it's not reveal ready.  Gosh even redoing furniture has it's own lingo!  I thought of posting a picture of a dresser I repainted two years ago, but I don't have a before picture and as nice as it turned out you can't get the full impact without the before picture.  This blog is all about the FULL IMPACT, so you'll never see the lovely dresser.  So I'm sitting here, looking around the house and I'm thinking we redid the kitchen (about 5 years ago), nah.  Then something catches my eye.  Something I'm extremely proud of.  Something the my husband and I worked on together, without bickering or getting on each others nerves.  At least I don't remember him getting on my nerves and I certainly won't confess don't remember getting on his nerves.

So here's the thing, we are urban farmers.  If you image urban being a smallish town in Oregon and by farmers, I mean we grow some veggies and own a couple of chickens.  Yes, sir we are living the dream.  We brought our chicks home and put them in a coop someone gave us.  We were extremely grateful but the coop had no area for them to roam.  It really was like a nesting box.  Our issue is we have huge hawks and we afraid of having the chicks roam around willy-nilly without cover.  So we headed to Home Depot and gather the materials.  Really it was just a bunch of 2x4's and some chicken wire.  I chose cedar because it smelled so good.  We worked on this for two evenings and I must say, that while I don't envy our hens, they do live in style!

We want to redo the nesting box.  We are not happy with the way that turned out.  The plywood was too thin, so we covered it with an old wool blanket.  This keeps the rain and snow completely out of the box and hopefully adds some warmth.  Other than that, we are pretty proud of our coop.

That brick is there to keep the racoons out.  None have gotten in, but one morning I found something had tried to pry the door open.  Not on my WATCH!!

Linking up with Five Days...5 Ways 
My Repurposed Life 
diy home sweet home

Do You Remember...

...Willamina?  This is what she looked like for many years:

Rugged good looks?  Not!

After some TLC, this is what Willi looks like today:

My but she cleans up well.

And just because I can't get enough of her, she's so pretty, here's one more:

(Don't mind the shadow)

See you next week with more from what will be a lovely bedroom set!  Enjoy.

Linking up with: Funky Junk Interiors 
                         5 Days 5 Ways 
                         Miss Mustard Seed
                         Remodelaholic

PYT

Just look at this pretty young thing!  Isn't she gorgeous?

Just to remind you what she looked like before:

Linking up with  : 5 days...5 ways.
                          Miss Mustard Seed
                          Funky Junk Interiors 
                          diy home sweet home

Well Shoot!

I thought that by now there would be all sorts of fabulousness posted on this blog.  Turns out turning crappy looking furniture into wonderfully delicious looking furniture takes a lot of time!  So trust me I'm working on it.  In the meantime, I've done a great job at not acquiring any more projects.  I know me, a garage for of to do's would stress me out beyond belief.  I haven't been idle, it's just that spare time is not abundant and what with kids, a business, a husband and a life, it's not always easy to dedicate a ton of time to my new found love.  So what have I been up to?  Mostly fixing my mistakes.  I have this beautiful fabric that I'm redoing one of those ugly headboards in.

Beautiful Fabric

 

 

I wanted to cover the chair in a different pattern, so I saw a striped fabric I thought would go well, but alas I didn't buy enough of it.  I tried to make it work but it looked awful!  I didn't really like the way the fabrics looked together anyway and my attempt at adding some shining detail was a HUGE failure.  Don't believe me?  Take a look at this:

FAIL!!!  Back to the drawing board.    

Mental note: Next time lay off the wine before attempting to hammer anything in a straight line.

Now for the good news.  The chair is painted and ready for it's new seat.  I love the antique white color. 

Antique White.  I love it!

I decided I'm going to use the same fabric on the chair and the headboard.  It just goes so perfectly together.  Well shoot, that's not much progress but it's better than nothing!

Moroccan Chicken - Voila

I have to share a recipe with all of you.  It's my famous Moroccan Chicken one pot meal!  It's fabulous.  Also, like most of the wonderful things in my life, I came upon it purely by accident, a large dose of creativity and a prayer.  Don't you just love it when things come together just so?

The story behind this outrageously delicious recipe goes as follows:  My parents were visiting, that meant that Sergio and I actually got a date night...out...without the kids!  Yippee!  Still I'm the type of person that hates to impose, so much so that in my quest to not impose I often find myself imposing on people who probably wish I would just go away quietly without so much hoopla. The thought of leaving my aging (don't tell them I said that) parents with my kids and have them make dinner would just be too much.   So, I decided to make a quick and easy chicken fricassee.  Only it wasn't so quick and time was ticking and the movie would be starting and we still needed to stop and have dinner ourselves.  In my rush, I grab what I thought was cumin and doused the chicken with it.  The aroma hit me like a cinnamon stick, because instead of cumin I had just doused the chicken with cinnamon!  YIKES.  No time to fix it, I just put the lid on the pot, kissed everyone goodbye and prayed that it would all work out in the end.  I mean we had cheese and tuna and milk in the house.  I'm sure that would somehow come together for a lovely meal.

Much to my surprise everyone (including the kids) love this dish.  My dad asked me if it was a Moroccan recipe, which is how it got it's name.  The recipe has since evolved.  Please note that you can add as many or as few of the ingredients listed, but don't forget the cinnamon.  You are just going to have to work and test the amounts, because I'm a dash of this, pinch of that type of cook.  Enjoy!

Chicken thighs (you can use whatever part you like, sometimes I throw drumsticks in there too)

Heat about 2 TBLSP of your favorite oil in a pan and brown the chicken

Once your chicken is slightly browned add the following:

1/2 cup of chopped onions

3 mashed garlic cloves (or more if you like garlic)

one 8oz. can of tomato sauce

one 15oz. can of chopped tomatoes (or even better sun-dried tomatoes)

1/2 to 1 teaspoon of:

Oregon

Thyme

Cumin

Lots of cinnamon (I like each part to be covered in it, but start with less, add more)

1 15oz can of Garbanzo Beans (rinsed)

A handful of manzanilla olives

1/4 cup of white wine

Cover and let simmer until the chicken is fully cooked (about 45 minutes)

Serve over rice or couscous...Enjoy! 

Also I've been working on this pretty young thing.  She's a mess, but she'll be gorgeous.  Stay tuned.

Pssst....

Do you like winning stuff?  Go to this lovely site, Maynard Greenhouse  Even if you don't win, a visit to this site is inspiring.  Good luck!

It's a Keeper or I'm a Giver

We have this table that I (and by "I", I mean my husband) picked up for free from Craigslist.  It was 
ugly and it was heavy.  No matter, we wanted to use it as an art table and were happy that we didn't have to worry about getting paint, glue or glitter on it.  Then I decided to open a preschool and after school enrichment program at home, so we took that ugly table and painted it, cut the legs down to a child's table level.  It turned out so much better than we expected.  Sometimes we consider using it as a HUGE coffee table, but then my kids would be sitting on their chairs with no table and the state frowns upon that...so it stays put in our classroom!  All this to say sometimes free stuff is awesome and you can totally score. 

But wait!  There's more.  I see an ad (again on craigslist) for another free table.  This time I think it's a gimmick because it's actually not hideous.  I ask beg hubs to come with me just in case it's some sort of kidnapping ring.  You know we middle aged housewives are all the rage in the world of people trafficking, also it might be heavy.  Well the couple seemed nice enough.  I don't think I would've been kidnapped, but I do think they were crazy for giving it away!  This is definitely a keeper...only I don't have a place for it and don't need it.

But just look at it!  It's so pretty.  I love the details on it.  I knew right away what I wanted to do with it and thought maybe (if I didn't find a place for it) I would sell it.







  Then I ran into my daughter at the mall.  I realized she's using a card table as her dining table, so now it's hers.  Or at least it will be when I'm done with it.  What can I say I'm a giver.  And this little beauty gets to stay in the family.