Kitchen Demolition Has Started

Hello Everyone!

Just thought I'd jump in this morning to show the start of the demolition. Yesterday, a friend came over and we emptied out the rest of my kitchen cabinets. Last night, the take-out crew arrived. Here are a few pics from the removal process.  They were going just lickety-split and I had to rush to get in some picture taking. Hence, not the best quality on some of these pictures.

Empty cabinets ready for removal.

Hubby started working on unhooking the sink, garbage disposal, dish washer, etc.

Cabinet man arrived. (Our nephew)

 Have to interject a funny here. When Brian walked in the door, he announced, in a different voice, that we had been selected to have our kitchen featured in the newest home magazine and that he was here to take pictures. Ha Ha! I told him that I thought we had been selected for an Extreme Make-over and that is why he was here!

His wife helped with removing drawer glides and hardware.

Everyone helping to haul them out.

Had to catch this one behind the stove.  This shows that my kitchen has been painted 3 times. First white, then a pale yellow and then the moss green color. Today, I am adding the 4th color. Yay!

All gone!

 A person can sure hide a lot of stuff in cabinets. I really do use most of this but I look at it and wonder, "Do I really?"

Kitchen stuff to living room.

It's a good thing this is coming together in a weekend or so.  I would go nuts with all this stuff everywhere. Excuse me, not go; already am going nuts! Ahh, but the reward at the end will be worth it!

Well, that is it for now. Time to go find my painting supplies and get busy! I'll keep ya posted as the adventure continues. So until next time...

Have a blessed day,

maggie jane

My lot in life

Hello Everyone!

I have discovered that it is my lot in life to always be served a bent fork. You think I'm joking right? Ok, maybe not every time but it seems like every time.  It has become a joke in our family that when we go to restaurants I have to check my fork.  I almost always have the one with a bent tine. And you know, they just don't eat the same. It's hard to relish a creamy piece of cheesecake when one tine is not even and pushing on your lips differently than the others. Now granted that I don't hardly ever order cheesecake but I think you get the idea. Well, the other day, the kids and I went to Wendy's for lunch.  I ordered a salad. You have to have a fork for a salad, right? Yep, you guessed it. A plastic fork with a bent tine. Yes, my lot in life.

Can you tell the second from the right is lower than all the rest?

There seems to be this conspiracy towards me. I can hear it now. "Hey, Sam! Here comes that lady again. Get the bent fork!" Will I survive this plot against me? Yeah, probably. Just make sure if I come to your house for dinner that you don't give me a fork with a bent tine.  I want to enjoy your cheesecake to the fullest!

So until next time...

Have a blessed day,

maggie jane

Kitchen re-do starting

Hello Everyone!

It has begun. I had a friend come over last Saturday and help me take all the doors off of my cabinets in the kitchen. My kitchen looks terrible right now. It is amazing how much we hide behind closed doors, literally.

I can't wait to get this project done. My nephew is coming Thursday to uninstall my cabinets to take to his shop. He is going to fix a few things, change a few things and give them a fresh coat of white lacquer. While they are out, I am going to paint the walls. Then, they will come back in on Monday or Tuesday with new counter tops. Wednesday, my hubby has off and we are hoping to install the tile back splash.  Thursday, I will grout the tile and hopefully by Friday I will be adding decorative touches. But you know how plans can change. This is all best case scenario but I'm counting on a few delays. Does that sound negative? You know the glass have empty instead of half full kind of thing? Well, I'm not trying to sound negative.  I've just been around construction situations too much not to expect some kind of delays.  However, I am hopeful that by the next weekend we will have a new kitchen! My daughter's birthday is that weekend so it would be fun to serve her her birthday breakfast in a new kitchen. I'll keep you all posted on our progress. ;) So until next time...

Have a blessed day,

maggie jane

Mom & Daughter Trip to Kansas City

Hello Everyone!

Well, it is getting close to kitchen tear-out time. This Thursday to be exact. Then I get to attack the walls and get everything clean so the cabinets can come back in with their nice new coat of paint. But that is not what this post is supposed to be about so I'll get to the point.

We had been talking about taking this trip for a while. My daughter's birthday is next week so we decided to just go ahead and do it. My sis-in-law and her daughter went with me and my daughter to Kansas City for the day.  It is about a two hour drive from where we live. There are several stores there that we don't have here. Both of our daughters are into American Girl dolls so that was the first stop after lunch. (This is a picture heavy post so beware.)

We started out at Five Guys burger place.  We had never been there before and I had heard they were the best so we decided to give it a go.  It was very yummy but we sure could have split the fries at least 4 ways instead of just two. It was very conveniently located next to the American Girl Store.

This isn't the greatest picture.  My daughter was having a hard time getting my camera to work right for her.  I think the problem was the light shining in the window behind us.

After we had our fill, we headed next door.

The girl's needed to put their drinks away and get their dolls out to take with them.

Here is my niece getting a star sticker from one of the employees.  My daughter decided she was a little too old for stickers, I think, as she declined when the salesgirl asked her if she wanted one.

Checking out some of the displays.

My daughter had birthday money to spend so she decided on getting a matching shirt for herself and her doll.  This is her watching the sales lady making them.

Girls with their "loot".

Next, we did some big girl shopping and went here.

Such a fun store.  I got a few things but forgot to take pictures.  I'll have to share later on one of my kitchen posts.

After Crate&Barrel, we headed out to find Costco. We only have a Sam's club and there were several things that Costco has that I was wanting. I was hoping they would give me a day pass. Well, it didn't work out that way.  They wanted me to sign up for a membership.  I'm sorry but I'm not going to drive 2 hours often enough to get a membership. Well, while we were asking directions to our next stop, a lady and her two daughters walked out and they had one of the items in their cart that I was wanting.  I told my daughter, "Hey Allie. Look, they got some of those chips we were wanting." Well, the lady heard me and turned and asked me about whether I liked them and that she was trying them out and so forth.  Anyway, we struck up a conversation and I told her about wanting to shop and not being able to. She was so sweet and said she would go in and buy me some. So I gave her money and she went back in and bought me two bags.  I stood out front and visited with her daughters.  I thought that was just the nicest thing.  I wanted a couple of other things but I wasn't about to give her my shopping list. ;) I was just grateful to get one of my items. So to the unknown lady in Kansas City, "Thank You!" She probably will never see this but you just never know.

After getting directions from a Costco employee while waiting for my chip purchase to be made, we went here. One of my all time favorite places to shop.  I'm sad that we don't have one closer.

My niece had fun shopping with her kid size cart.

Then we headed off to the Plaza.  This is an outdoor shopping area that has all kinds of fun stores.  There are several blocks of shops and restaurants.  Most of them are your more high-end stores so it was mostly window shopping for us.  We actually didn't have a whole lot of time left so we only went to Pottery Barn Kids and Williams-Sonoma.

This was a funny picture because my sis-in-law had kept telling her daughter not to touch things in the stores and she asked, "Can this be something I can touch, Mommy?" We were at Pottery Barn Kids and they had a fun little tea set for the kids to check out. Of course Mommy finally said yes.

This is the girls pretending they were having a tea party.

And another.  It was so cute.

Well, that was about it.  We also stopped in at a Whole Foods store to check it out but decided we would rather shop at Trader Joe's; so much cheaper! It was a long day but fun to be together with just us and our girls. So have any of you had any fun Mom/Daughter outings? Do share. So until next time...

Have a blessed day,

maggie jane

More Skirts for Girls

Hello Everyone!

Well, birthday time has come for another one of my little great nieces. I got a little sew happy and made up two skirts and two culottes.  It was fun.

Here they are all together.

Since the last circle skirt I made for my other niece was such a hit, I decided I had better make one for this niece.
This pattern came from here.

This is fabric I bought on Ebay last year to make her something and never got around to it.  I only had a half a yard so I knew I needed to do something while she was still little or I wouldn't have enough fabric.

This little girl has a fetish for pockets so I added these to the side.  The graphic came from The Graphics Fairy
I just added the words and printed it on fabric using my printer.

Culottes made from a shorts pattern.

This is from a paper pattern that I have.  I have made a gajillion of these.

Unfortunately, all this sewing I've been doing has been on borrowed machines.  Mine decided to quit on me right in the middle of a project.  I had to drive an hour to take it to a Bernina dealer. Then they tell me the mother board is bad. Not good. Especially the cost of fixing it, almost $300. Still cheaper than a new Bernina but yikes, that is high. I'm thinking if I ever need to get into a job, I ought to learn how to fix sewing machines. Those guys charge lots of money per hour for labor charge. Oh well, I don't think I can survive without my sewing machine and I DON'T know how to fix it so I guess I will have to bite the bullet and pay the repair cost. Ouch!

Been sewing lately? Do share. So until next time...

Have a blessed day,

maggie jane

June 2012 “All Boy” I Heart Faces Photo Challenge!

Hello Everyone!

Here's another photo I'm entering in the I Heart Faces Photo Challenge for this month.  The theme is "All Boy" in honor of Father's Day.  Well, I just did some pics for some friends of mine who are updating their adoption profile.  This one is of father and son.  Believe me, these two are like two peas in a pod. Cowboy hats and all!

Click on this button to see other great submissions to this fun photo challenge.

Thanks for stopping in. So until next time...

Have a blessed day,

maggie jane

Blueberry Pickin' and a Recipe

Hello Everyone!

Yeah, yeah, it's been a while.  I think I kind of like to store up the happenings and the projects and then just hit you all at once.  ;)  I have several posts in the works that I'm hoping to get up in the next week or so.  Today, I wanted to share a few pics from our morning adventures. My sis-in-law, niece, friend and I, along with a passel of kids, went blueberry pickin. It was a great morning for it; not too hot.  My SIL and I neither one had gone last year so we were ready to do some serious picking.  We were both out and were planning on getting a lot of berries.  I ended up with 6 gallons and she with 9 gallons.

SIL writing her check for the berries.

My daughter tying up our bags.

I grabbed these few pics with my daughter's camera because it was a little point and shoot and I didn't want to mess with my big one.  I wanted to take more of us all actually picking but when you are trying to beat the heat of the day, you don't take time for pictures. As you can see, we picked a mess of berries.  We also got a couple for my mother-in-law. Fortunately, my niece and friend were able to pick those since they weren't getting as many berries for themselves.  "Thanks, ladies, for the extra help!" We started picking at 7:20 am and picked until around 1ish. So in 5 and a half hours, we picked 15 gallons of berries! Not bad.  We were all hot and tired by the time it was all said and done but oh, think of all those berries in the freezer through out the winter!  Oh yay, speaking of freezer, I still had to process all those berries when I got home.  So to say the least, this was an all day job. But now my freezer looks like this.

This was in my bigger freezer; approx. 26 quart bags full of blueberries.

There are 3 bags in my little freezer above the fridge.

The place we pick allows us to mound our berries so we actually come out at about 5 quarts to the gallon instead of 4. So that would be 30 quarts for me.  If you do the math, you will see I'm missing a quart.  Well, what's the use in picking if you can't have some berries to munch on right now? My last quart I put in a bowl and whipped up a yummy, easy dressing to toss them in.

Blueberries in Brown Sugar Cream Sauce

Here is the recipe.  Get ready folks, it is hard. (Just kidding. Just the opposite.)

Brown Sugar Cream Sauce for Blueberries
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup brown sugar

Blend together and toss with:
3-4 cups fresh or frozen blueberries

This is great to eat alone or to pour over Angel Food Cake or Pound Cake. It is also wonderful over Ice Cream.

Give it a try and let me know what you think. If you try it some other way, let me know. I'm thinking maybe with waffles or funnel cake or some other such idea.

Well, there you have our day of blueberry pickin'. So until next time...

Have a blessed day,

maggie jane