I am not the most photogenic person in the world and I feel sort of strange posting several pictures of just me, but I wanted to share a couple photos that Catherine Bosley of Bosley Creative took for me.

Minus the fact that I chose a dress that makes me look pregnant (note to self: put on a belt and look like you have a waist!), I loved what she was able to do with my awkwardness in front of the camera. Plus, she was super fun to work with by making me laugh and feel slightly less weird as I attempted (and mostly failed) to pose like a model.

Ugly Before:

And, much better:

More pictures to come once the room is finished.

I was getting really sick of a nasty, snowy mess constantly being in our entryway from shoes that we had to take off every time we entered the house. So, after seeing a similar idea from Martha (I think) I made a little landing station for our shoes.

I took an old cookie sheet, spay painted it red, added some river rock and that was it. Now we can put our shoes on the rocks and they absorb the messiness. That way our little doormat doesn’t get completely nasty too.

(Please overlook the weird, yellow tint in the pic. I took it under our lamp in the kitchen which casts a yellow glow. Lesson learned.)

Yes, I can cook (not great, but good enough). Yes, I like to do such things and I’m pretty sure my husband likes that I like to do such things too. In the past I would have included more meat (other than seafood) in our cuisine, however as of late I am a no beef, chicken, turkey or pork kind of girl. I feel pretty great about this and I’m coming up with more and more recipes that are tasty enough that my husband doesn’t miss his meat.

Case in point, last night’s dinner was something along the lines of an Asian soup. I’ll share the ingredients with you, but I never measure things (except when baking) so you will have to go by taste like I do.

Ingredients:

• Whole wheat angel hair pasta
• 1 carrot, chopped
• 1 stalk celery, chopped
• Sliced mushrooms
• Napa cabbage
• Garlic, minced (probably 1-2 cloves depending how how much you make and how much you like garlic – we love it)
• 1 Mexican green onion, chopped
• Shrimp (I used pre-cooked, frozen but fresh is way better)
• Handful of fresh basil, chopped
• Ginger (fresh or powder – to taste, but I’d guess about 1 tsp)
• Juice of half a lemon
• Vegetable stock (enough to cover your vegetables, but depends on how “soupy” you want it)
• Salt and pepper
• Olive oil (maybe 2 tsp)

Then you:

• Cook your noodles and set aside
• Start sauteing your hard vegetables (onion, celery, carrot) in the oil
• Add in garlic
• Then add the rest of your veggies and ginger
• Transfer everything (noodles too) to a big pot and pour vegetable stock over
• Add salt and pepper and shrimp if they are pre-cooked (if not, cook them first)
• Heat everything and let it simmer for a bit
• Eat

I know that peacock is so trendy right now, but I am still loving it. That said, I needed to fill an empty space on my living room wall and I wanted something a little different. So I found these pretty feathers that I had lying around and a ugly, generic print inside a decent black frame that I wasn’t using. I simply cut the feathers to fit the frame, flipped over the ugly print so that it was just the white backing and placed the feathers on top. I put everything back in the frame, and there you go – an original little piece of art.