Happy Halloween!

We don't really do much for Halloween at our house. My family never really did anything when I was little, and we don't have kids to dress up, so it usually is pretty uneventful around here.

Last weekend however, my cousin Sarah and her boyfriend Jason hosted their '2nd Annual Pumpkin Massacre and Pancake Dinner' at their apartment. It was just going to be a pumpkin carving party, but she called me about three hours before it was supposed to start and said that everyone was dressing up. So I had just over an hour to come up with something to wear, and ended up going as Rosie the Riveter from the 1940's propaganda posters.

Here's Rosie

Me as Rosie with Sarah as a 1950s housewife-kind of blurry


Us again...

Doesn't Sarah look adorable? The dress is actually one her grandmother wore in college!

The hosts - Sarah and Jason. He was dressed as a mad chef which is not fair because he's a chef in real life. ;)

There were other people there but I don't have pictures of them because I didn't really know them and felt odd having pictures of people I don't know. But, the party was a lot of fun!!

To celebrate Halloween this evening Sarah is coming over to help me put out Christmas decorations! I know that's a little crazy, and I promise I've never put them out anywhere near this early (I'm usually a mid-November/week of Thanksgiving girl), but I do have my reasons.

November is going to be a super-busy month for us. Next weekend we're going out of town, but we're bringing my brother and his girlfriend Haley back with us. They live in Seattle and are only going to be in Texas for 10 days, and they're going to spend 3 at our house. So, they'll be here Sunday to Tuesday when I have to take the to the airport. Wednesday I get a day to clean the house before Jonathan's dad and stepmom come for 4 days.

When they leave there will only be 10 days until Thanksgiving, which we are hosting, so I'll probably be in crazy cleaning/cooking mode and won't have time to put out all the Christmas stuff. I really want everything put out before Thanksgiving because as crazy as our November is, we don't have any house guests planned for December, (so far). Pretty much if I don't have everything out before Thanksgiving, no one will see it, and that's just sad.

So Christmas decorating on Halloween it is! I was kind of skeptical of it at first too, but I'm really coming around to the idea. How can I not, I mean Christmas has to be my absolute favorite time of the year. Hands down.

I hope you all have a wonderful, safe Halloween while we're putting up Christmas trees! haha

Jennifer

The Most Delicious Brownies Ever!

So, I've been really trying to watch what I eat lately, because, well let's face it, I'm entirely too fat. I've been doing pretty good about the calorie count thing, but at the same time I'm trying to plan for Thanksgiving and testing a few recipes out, because I am that OCD.

Last Sunday night I brought out last year's Southern Living Christmas cookbook, (you can get this year's here). BIG MISTAKE! I was innocently flipping through the pages of turkey and dressings, and mashed potatoes, and appetizers, when I was suddenly stopped dead in my tracks at the site of a full page picture of Chewy Almond-Fudge Bars. Personally, at my house we never had brownies at Christmas, too many other yummy things to occupy our tastebuds. So, my theory is the publishers just threw this picture and accompanying recipe in to throw us poor, unsuspecting southern girls off our pre-holiday diets. Mission accomplished.

About 3 minutes after I found said recipe and sat drooling at the page, hubby was on the way to Kroger to pick up a few necessary ingredients. And about 45 minutes later we were enjoying small, warm, delicious bits of heaven.

So, here's the recipe and I hope you like them too. But, maybe not like them as much as we did and eat the entire pan within 36 hours! I'm not including the picture because I promise it's just too much to resist.

Chewy Almond-Fudge Bars

1 box chewy fudge brownie mix (we used Duncan Hines)
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup sweetened condensed milk
14 miniature Mounds bars (Kroger only had Almond Joys, because apparently they always feel like a nut)
3/4 cup chopped almonds-toasted (we skipped this part, because we had the almonds from the Almond Joys, and I'm too lazy to toast almonds-translation, I always burn them)

Prepare brownie mix according to package directions, (i.e. include the eggs and water), but reduce veggie oil 3 tablespoons. Pour into lightly greased 13x9 pan. Pour sweetened condensed milk over batter; sprinkle with chopped candy bars and almonds.

Bake at 350 for 35-38 minutes. Cool completely in pan on a wire rack. Cut into bars. Enjoy!!

Let's Talk Windows

...well, window treatments specifically. Our living room has 6 three-foot windows. That's right, 6! Five are in a row going the length of the room, with one foot in between each window. Here's a visual to help:

I'm still using pictures from the realtor page, because I'm not ready to post picture of the living room's current state. It's definitely still a work in progress, meaning I rearrange the accessories on the mantel about 2-3 times a week trying to come up with something I like, and I'll admit my reputation for constantly rearranging furniture is definitely still holding true. But I digress.

I tried using these drapes:

that we've had for a few years, and they just don't work. We put them up the week we moved in and I immediately knew they were wrong but I wanted to wait a few weeks and see if I got used to them. Well, 7 weeks later, I'm still not happy. I would post a picture of what they looked like, but I already started taking them down to move to our bedroom. Last week I tried putting up a couple panels of these:
that were up in our old guest room for a while. I really like them, and they're not up anywhere right now, but they just don't quite fit either. I think they look more like bedroom curtains, for some reason.

With both of these options failing, I don't have any other options left that we already have. Somehow I've accumulated several different types of curtains/drapes, but because there's a total of 18 feet of windows, (23 feet if you count the 1 ft between each window), I don't have another set of curtains that will cover all the windows.

So, I've been shopping around trying to find some new drapes to put up, and have come to one conclusion, curtains are expensive, and 23 feet of window coverings, very expensive!! I did find some at Pottery Barn that I think will work, and we just happen to have a coupon for 15% and a giftcard that will seriously help diminish the blow to the pocketbook.

But, here's where I need your help! You didn't think I would let all you lovely ladies brilliant decorating advice go to waste did you?

Some helpful things to keep in mind, our walls are off white, and this is a picture of our couch, (it's a crappy picture but it's the best one I could find). Disregard those pillows, they're in the guestroom now, I have a ton of pillows that move around the house with the seasons.

We have pretty neutral bases, so we can go in a couple of routes.

Option A - Pottery Barn drapes in Ivory

Which could be in keeping with our neutral theme and keep things kind of light and airy which reminds me of the house gorgeous beach house in "Something's Gotta Give":

I love this look and have been partial to the light-airy look for a while, but I think it really needs the dark flooring for the contrast to work most effectively, and we have that generic beige carpet that's in almost every house built since like 1997.

Option B

Pottery Barn drapes in Espresso

I think it would really warm up the room and I love the look of the high contrast; it really reminds me of Cameron Diaz's character's house 'The Holiday.'


I'm just not sure if we're high contrast people, and because we have so many windows I'm afraid it would be too dark. Of course our room isn't as large as her's and our furniture isn't as white, so maybe it would be more warm than high contrast, I can't decide.

Final option, C - Pottery Barn curtains in Carrot.

Ha! As much I would love to the kind of person who is brave enough to put up orange curtains, I'm just not that gal. ;)

So, what's the verdict? A or B? Light or Dark? Light and airy or warm with high contrast?

I'm really at a loss and would like to get these ordered before my whole family comes for Thanksgiving. Oh, yeah, my whole family is coming for Thanksgiving, in less than a month!! That's a post for another day!! So, girlies I'm depending on y'all to help me out here!

Thanks!
Jennifer

The Return of the Sun!

FINALLY! I don't think I've actually seen the sun in about three weeks, and it's rained almost everyday of those three weeks. But right now, I actually have sunlight streaming in through the windows and it is absolutely glorious! I was kind of enjoying the nice cool temperatures for the past week but today it is pretty warm and HUMID, but I will not complain!!

I've stalking the weather channel this week watching what it's supposed to be like because we are supposed to have family pictures taken this weekend with the husband's family, and I've been hoping it will be nice! We're supposed to wear jeans and black/white tops, and I bought a black top at Anne Taylor last weekend for 40% off the sale price that I'm planning to wear, but now they're predicting the high is only going to be 60! Brrrr!! I may have to find something new to wear...

This week Jonathan started working night shift at the hospital and I'm not super enthusiastic about it. The hospital he's working at actually doesn't hire people directly to the day shift, they all start out on nights, so we knew this was coming, I'd just forgotten how much it sucked when he worked nights right after college... Pretty much I've taken to being awake extremely odd hours the past few nights. So, if you ever can't sleep and are awake at 4 a.m. and needing someone to talk to in the middle of the night, I will most likely be awake too... I just hope he can move to the day shift quickly! It's only been three days and I'm already ready for it to be over!

Jennifer

Blah..

That's how I feel today; it's been so dark here all day! It's only rained off-and-on, but it has been so dark outside. I miss the sunshine. It's hard to find motivation to do things when the outside makes you feel so blah...

I did manage to get most of our summer clothes boxed up and our winter clothes put out this morning. It feels really odd to be doing that the first week in October in Texas, but honestly, I don't think we've worn any of them the past couple of weeks anyway, and it's not really supposed to be above 80 for the next week-and-a-half, so I figured it was about that time.

Other than that small project, I feel like I've not accomplished anything in the past few days. I just haven't felt like doing anything, I'm moody and grumpy and I miss the sun! I was going to write about our weekend because it was actually really busy and fun, but I'll do that later. For now, here are the last batch of summer pictures that I just NOW got developed. They were taken in late July when my sister-in-law's boyfriend came to T-Town for a few days.


This is my sister-in-law Anna and her boyfriend, Steven, at Ironwood for dinner. It's kind of a goofy picture of him, but they still look cute!


Me and Anna. This is probably one of my favorite pictures of us... It was cuter zoomed out except my big fat arms that I had to crop out.

Jonathan and me at the Golf Ranch after dinner. He had to work so he missed dinner, but we went to the driving range after dinner so the boys could hit some balls before Steven played with my father-in-law the next day. Father-in-law is an amazing golfer, I'd be intimidated playing with him for the first time too. I'm not so much a fan of this picture, I wish Jonathan didn't have his sunglasses on.

Me and Anna again. I swear the girl never has never taken a bad picture in her entire life.


Anna and Steven. Again, they're just too cute!


The four of us together. Really wish Jonathan didn't have those dang sunglasses on again... This was my first attempt at using a tripod and camera timer, and it actually worked pretty well. I say pretty well, because I had to crop the picture because my legs were blurry from still being in motion from running from the camera to everyone else, but other than that, it's great! ;)

That's all for now, hopefully I'll be more pleasant next time.