Glimpes of My House

I feel bad for missing out on blogging yesterday and I fully intend on getting things done this weekend so I probably wont blog Saturday or Sunday, sooooo..... I'm going to give you some glimpses of decorating I've done around my house.

 

This is my big, wide living room wall. My sister helped me initially piece it out one Sunday as our whole family looked on. Snore for them, fun for us. Once it was up, it didn't look quite right, so lots of hours and text pictures to my sister with additions, subtractions and rearranging, I finalized it and it turned out pretty darn good! Although, if you look to the way bottom left, you can see that my daughter, Ella, replaced what was a blank white frame with a card her cousin, Holly, made for her. Ella really thinks she call rearrange and redecorate whenever she wants.... I just keep digging in her drawers for what I'm missing and replacing what she's taken down.

 

 

Here's another glimpse of the cupboard arrangement I designed and stained. I still have to add some hardware and of course the toe kicks, but  I'm happy with my almost finished product!

 

 

Another piece of my kitchen- I got the basket from a store called Alco in Spring Valley. I had to find something to keep our bread away from the dogs yet accessible to the kids because heaven forbid the kids put the bread in a cupboard... The silverware container is a bread crock from Pampered Chef-it's also easier for the kids to take silverware off the counter because heaven forbid they open a drawer for a fork. The Kitchen sign is form Kohl's and the coffee sign is a part of a set I had laying around. I'll probably replace it with something else when I find that "just right" thing. I also recently added the under cabinet lights. I have to custom cut an outlet cover still- the outlet was installed prior to us having a counter there and it's just a titch too low for the counter backsplash. It's all part of the whole build a house from scratch learning process.  

 

 

I made these!!! Well, I bought the letters from Michaels or Hobby Lobby, but I painted and distressed them myself! I love how they turned out! Men, however, make fun of my EAT sign. They just don't get it.....

 

 

 

Here's an area I'm still working on, but it's kinda sorta cute for now. The cupboard at the bottom of the pic was actually one I took off one of the walls in my kitchen prior to remodel. It fit my entry wall almost perfectly and hide the kids' snowmobile/ four wheel helmets perfectly. I got the baskets at Target on clearance and the three fit the width of the cupboard like they were made for each other. I'm still working on what to hang above the hooked mirror.

This is another work in progress wall. I think I'll probably put 8 foot high beadboard on the walls in these last two pictures  and paint the beadboard a soft matte black or a cream color (haven't decided yet) and top it off with a pretty molding. Since we don't have an actual coat closet by our front door, I think that would separate it as well as set it off from the rest of the house. I obviously have a few places to fill in with decoration for now until I decide a plan of action, but I'm waiting for that right thrift store find. Perhaps oversized skeleton keys or a wire schoolhouse basket..... 
 

Last peek at my house:

 

I was at Savers one day and saw this "window" but it had ugly paintings of herbs. I saw a better idea. I got me some chalkboard paint and said, "Away with the herbs!" (I didn't really say that, but I thought it.) The top To-Do piece was actually from another chalkboard I had once upon a time. You can't really see it, but also once upon a time, I found these two rusty long baskets, maybe 20 inches long and only four inches deep. I have no idea what they may have been used for back in the day, but I hung it below this board and we put all kinds of things in there- gloves, mail, library books, etc. Right now, I'm using it to display a book that my friends, Gina and Chelsey, had made for us for Christmas. 

 

Perhaps I'll have the ambition to do some fancy things with my bathroom this weekend! I'll let you know on Monday if that happens :)

Name Players

Celebrity Names. We're pretty much all aware of celebrities who have changed their names for the sake of stardom. Marilyn Monroe was Norma Jean Mortenson Baker. Mohamed Ali was Cassius Clay Jr. And how can I not mention Chad Johnson, er Chad Ochocinco, er Chad Johnson???

If you don't follow football or celebrity news for that matter, there's this guy, born Chad Johnson, who legally changed his last name to Ochocinco because his NFL football number was/is 85 and he wanted to honor his Spanish heritage. (That's not even how you properly say 85 in Spanish.) He even took it upon himself to change his football jersey and was fined $5000 because of it. There's more to this story, but basically he claimed he couldn't change his name back to Johnson for financial reasons. He even made news again saying he was going to change his last name to Hachi Go, which is 85 in Japanese, but never went through with it. He did legally go back to Johnson when he moved to the Miami Dolphins last summer.

Then there's simpler changes like Topher Grace (Eric, from That 70's Show) His real first name is Christopher. Instead of shortening it to the plain ol yawn Chris, he chose to use the latter part of his name.

On a side note: Topher Grace was the only teenage cast member Ashton Kutcher did not Punk during the show's run.
One another side note: Ashton is Mr. Kutcher's middle name. His real first name? Interestingly enough is Christopher.
On another extra side note: That 70's Show was originally named Teenage Wasteland.

Then there's 'necessary' changes like Olivia Wilde (House, Tron:Legacy, The Change Up) Her birth name is Olivia Cockburn. Try becoming a Hollywood starlet with that last name...

If you missed it the other night and the replay the next night, Niki Minaj professed on Idol her name is Onika Tonya Miraj. And if Kree ain't singing on the country music awards next year??? Then I guess she'll change her name again?


Let's go a little old skool, blast from the past here:

Walter Matthau?
Walter Matuschanskayasky
(After the Matus, just start making some cha sounds followed by a couple skis)


Whoopi Goldberg?
Caryn Johnson
(Really? Of ALL the names you could have used for yourself, you chose Whoopi?)

Conway Twitty? Harold Lloyd Jenkins (Hal Jenkins would have worked just fine, I'm thinking.)




More on Ms. Goldberg....

So, she literally renamed herself after the Whoopie Cusion. I'm not shitting you. She thought they were funny and she was trying to break into comedy. And no, she's not Jewish. Her mother thought she should choose a Jewish surname so she sounded successful.

Names in the Music Industry:

Prince- His given first name at birth was actually is Prince. And of course there was that whole Artist Formerly Known As symbol crap he pulled.

I'm not sure what people are calling him these days- Sean John Combs? Diddy? P Diddy? Puff Daddy? Tator Puff? One day there will be a gangsta back alley bar brawl between him and Ron White for the name Tator line of names.

Speaking of...

Larry the Cable Guy? NOT EVEN LARRY!
Daniel Lawrence Whitney


Silly names:

WWE Wrestler Shawn Michaels:
Michael Higgenbottom

Singer Bjork:
Bjork Gudmundsdottir

Charles Bronson
Charles Dennis Buchinski

Doris Day
Doris von Kappelhoff

Pat Benatar
Patricia Andrejewski

Natalie Portman
Natalie Hershlag





Michael Landon
Eugene Maurice Orowitz

Lady Gaga
Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta





These are all people who considered "What's in a name?" prior to stardom. What would your star name be?

Duck Dynasty's Robertson Family Reveals Part IV

It's Wednesday!

All new episode of Duck Dyansty on A&E at 9pm. (For the record, my kids are super disappointed there is only one new episode a week versus the back to backs they used to have.)

So? What have I got for you....

The Robertsons en mass were seen on the ACMs this past Sunday night, lookin' all spiffed up and fabulous.

 

 

Korie and Willie did a great job presenting an award to Jason Aldean. My kids spent the whole show yelling, "There's Phil! There's Willie!" whenever the camera panned to their row of seats during the show. Forget the awards, it was a virtual "Where's Waldo, Robertson Edditon" at the Sexton household. Minus the red stripes.

 

Guess what? Guess What?

I've got more pictures of the illusive Christine Robertson!

 

 

I think we'd all get to know her as we've gotten glimpses of what the other family members are like.

 

Here's an older picture from a church directory in Alabama

 

 

In this church directory(circa 1993), the teenager in the picture's name is Scott. I've not been able to uncover a whole lot about any Scott Robertson. At first, I thought maybe he was a possible foster child (perhaps Willie and Korie got their fostering inspiration from an older generation?) but the resemblance between Christine and Scott are too alike. Their noses and their smiles are very much alike. Sooo... I'm not sure. Silas Robertson's step child? The couple's actual child? I just don't know. I'll keep digging.

 

Speaking of Korie and Willie's children (middle of last paragraph) here a some fun pictures that Korie posted on Instgram:

 

 

 

 

Silly, I like it.

 

For more Silly, I'd like to share a few videos that Jase and Si did for a car dealership in Arkansas. They made me laugh. Unfortunately, I can't get the darn things to embed in my blog, so you'll have to click the Video Links.

 

 

 

Video #1

 

 

 

And the following's my favorite! 

 

 

 

Video #2

 

 More Robertson Family Reveals:

Part I   Part II    Part III

 

 

Dessert is Served!

I wasn't sure what to write about today. Not much happened other than going to Mayo Clinic for Paul's blood transfusions and oh yeah, I may have sorta committed to learning how to ride a Harley. Mostly because people laughed when Paul told them I was going to. Now, I think I shall learn.

Anyway, not what this post is about.

 It's about Dessert!!!

(As suggested by my friend, Julie, on Facebook.)

 Being diabetic, I relish desserts. I savor them. I eat desert way more often than I should. But I appreciate them.

To start out, I'm going to tell you about a good, lowfat choice that's easy!

Weight Watchers Fruit Dip

Low fat Cool Whip

Strawberry Yogurt

That's it. Buy them both, mix them together. We don't dip fruit in it around here. We eat it with a spoon. Bam! dessert. You can add miniature marshmallows if you want to be a fancy pants and your kids haven't left the bag of Jet Puffs open making them crusty and unusable. (I may have some experience with this.)

Okay, on to the good stuff. Along with not caring so much about sugar, fat doesn't matter that much either. And this is where I'm going to start munching on baby carrots in effort to not make the box of brownie mix in the cupboard. Speaking of....

BROWNIES!!!!!

Not just brownies, Extreme Brownies!

Here's a brief history on brownies: I have no idea. Here's my brief history with brownies. My best friend in high school, Marianne, and I were at her (my?) house and had yet to go to bed so we went to the kitchen and made brownies. At two a.m. Actually, we laughed and talked and ate most of the batter then made brownies, but it became both a sleepover tradition and an inside joke between us. I still eat too much of the batter prior to pouring it in the pan. I now compensate by making two boxes or use a smaller pan, as well as think about Marianne.

When I Googled Most Pinned Desserts, the brownies pictured above came up as well as the website they came from called Buns In My Oven & Not the Baby Kind. She admits she prefers box mix brownies. I have to admit I prefer them as well. The kind that comes in the red box. Betty Crocker, I'm pretty sure. Pillsbury is in a blue box and I tend to stay far, far away from anything that says Duncan Hines, so yes, I prefer Betty Crocker brownie mix. (I am still munching on carrots, btw)

When I'm in town tomorrow, I'm gonna get the ingredients to make these bad boys. I'll have to research where to get the espresso powder, probably HyVee since they like to carry more specialized products, and I DEFINITELY want a bit of a coffee flavor to them.

Good Ol' Homemade Brownies

Ingredients:                                                          

1 cup (2 sticks) butter
2 1/4 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1 1/4 cups cocoa powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon espresso powder, optional
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9x13 baking dish.
In small saucepan over low heat, melt butter completely. Stir in sugar and continue cooking for 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly. Do not allow sugar mixture to boil.
Pour butter mixture into a large bowl or stand mixer, beat in cocoa powder, eggs, salt, baking powder, espresso powder, and vanilla extract. Mix until well combined.
Stir in the flour and chocolate chips until well combined.
Spread into prepared pan (batter will be very thick and sticky) and bake for about 30 minutes, until a tester comes out mostly clean. The edges should be set and the center should still look slightly moist, but not uncooked. Cool on a wire rack.

recipe from King Arthur Flour

NOW, this little missy genious cooking buns girl amps these up a bit and  AHHH (Imagine light shining from Heaven and soprano angels singing) We get these:

Brookies, Buckeye Brownies and Cookie Dough Brownies

Click here  for her instructions and recipes!

(Carrot sticks, Sarah, carrot sticks)

One desert that isn't for me? Ice Cream. I don't like ice cream.

Cookies!!!!

I'm not going to give you any cookie recipes, I'm going to tell you about my friend, Mary, and her cookies. They're delicious. They're Beautiful!!!!!

Not only are they delicious and beautifaul, all proceeds go to a good cause. Check out Mary's Cookiepalooza Facebook Page.

(If you don't understand how imbedded links work, click Facebook Page to get to Mary)

Well, my brownies are done. I mean, my carrots are gone, so I'll catch you all tomorrow for another Duck Dynasty Robertson Family Reveals!

(No carrots were harmed nor eaten during the making of this blog)

One Day Office Redo

My house is always a work in progress. Partly because I'm lazy, party because my construction skills are laughable at best and mostly because a finished product of our home is extremely low on my husband's priority list. Last week, I decided I should make use of a day without children and stuff I had lying around the house.

Here is what I ended up with:

So you say, "Yeah? So? I's an office area...." Well, let me tell you, first of all, I stained all these cupboards myself, as well as made the cabinetry plan. I did all this back in December, but that was just the start. I took a looooong break from the home improvement game. This is what my desk area looked like last week prior to redo:

Pretty sad after I did put in all that work a few months back. But, as most surfaces in my house, this one got piled up like crazy. If you also notice, the small cupboard door on the top left is crooked. That's because Christmas Day, the day after I finished getting the cupboards in place, our 8 year old daughter pulled on it and the fruits of my labor were lost quickly. So the first thing I did was take the doors off and replace them with these baskets.

I found them at Walmart for $11 a piece. I knew they'd fit perfectly the minute I saw them. Next, and I didn't take pictures of this, I threaded all the cords down the wall behind the countertop and moved the computer tower into the lower cupboard. This freed up so much counter space!

This is where my laughable construction skills come in:

 

I wanted to put some under-cabinet lighting in and quite frankly, I thought that the middle cupboard needed some trim to look a little meatier. I just so happened to have 1" oak trim from my half wall project in my kitchen (that is yet to be finished.) I'll have to go buy more to finish my kitchen now, but I was all about doing this at the moment. I was too lazy to go to the garage and find clamps, so to keep the trim in place while I screwed it in place, the stuff in the immediate vicinity worked great. I threw some wood glue in between the pieces, too. I'm unsure if this was protocol, but I didn't think it would hurt. I will tell you, that I did use actual constructuring skills to screw this in, I used wood screws, I predrilled my holes AND I countersunk the screws. If you don't know what that means, ha! I 'yo face, cause I do :)

Oh and I painted inside of the cupboard as well as the wall between the uppers and lowers. And hung the "Sexton" sign on the wall above the cupboard instead of propping it up against the wall up there.

 

 

Skip forward, like, an hour, and I decorated because before I did more hard stuff, I wanted to enjoy some of the fruits of my labor. The next step was cabinet hardware. This meant more drilling. I have a very love hate relationship with my drill. In my mind, I'm a pro drilling stuff. In reality, I do a lot of swearing and almost crying while using it. A tool I found that is a must when installing hardware is this little thing found in cabinet hardware section of any big box store:

 

 

It's awesome. No mess ups. Well, almost no mess ups. I can't not tell you I don't have a few extra holes in my drawers, but thankfully the cupped pulls hide them. Phew!

 

After that, I added the battery powered LED lights under the cabinets, picked up and built  bar stool and added some office organizers. The bins above the printer came from the dollar section at Target and I just attached them to the wall with Velcro so they can be easily taken down to search for odds and ends. Eventually, I plan on added the under counter retractable key board tray I got off Amazon.com for fifteen bucks. Someone will hopefully come over with a brad nailer and install my toe kicks and vent cover under the cabinets.

 

 

 

If you're wondering where I got the Sexton sign, my brother, TJ, and his girlfriend, Jackie, made it for our family for Christmas this past year! My sister, Melissa, made me the copper tree for Christmas a few years back. I love this piece!  I guess my other sister, Jaime, is going to have to make me something for the left side.... (hint, hint, wink, wink)

 

All the accessories came from either Target or Kohls.

 

And once again:

 

BEFORE                                AFTER