Fort Macon

Monday, I had a doctor's appointment in Morehead City, so Jason was able to do duty on Sunday and get Monday off.  Already being down there, we decided to make a day of it.  We went to Fort Macon for the majority of our time.  I had been there multiple times as a kid because we used to vacation in that area when my grandparents had a condo there, but J had never been before, and I knew he would love it, being military related.  I was right, and we had a blast.  It was fun seeing all of it as an adult, though.  I had a new respect for it this time around.  Afterwards, we drove up Emerald Isle and looked at all the beach houses.  Towards the end of the island, we stopped in to have cheeseburgers at one of our favorites, Andy's, and did some browsing in the little beach stores, stopping to talk to a few of the shop owners.  It's such a slow pace of life there, and everyone is so friendly and willing to chat.  And then we headed home.  Such a fun day.  I love that we live so close to these types of places, and just being in Morehead City/Atlantic Beach brings so many fond memories back for me.   And to wrap it up, I thought I would share some pictures from the day.

The beach outside of Fort Macon.

A small museum of local beach information and fort history is in the visitor's center.  J helping to spear a whale, hehe.

The main part of the fort.

J is quite the sneaky cameraman...he doesn't get the camera often.

Silly...

View from the top wall.

Inside the main part.

Replica of what the food storage was like.

Replica of what the chow hall looked like.

These rooms were linked barracks rooms where the guys slept.  Cool picture, huh?!

Showing how the barracks room were laid out.

The main entrance to the fort.

My Ninja Husband

Have a look (and maybe a giggle) at the following images, and then I will explain what they have to do with this post.  

So, I am convinced that my husband must have been dreaming about one of these scenarios 2 nights ago.  Why, you ask?  Because, he performed this very move on me in his sleep.  Straight to the forehead, above my right eye.  When I yelped, he woke up and realized what had happened, and felt terribly!  After he got his bearings, he asked what he did exactly.  I told him he must have been dreaming he was a ninja or a karate master because he definitely just used one of their moves on me!  Trying not to laugh (mostly at my ninja comparison), he made sure I was ok before we went back to sleep. (Disclaimer:  my husband does not beat me, nor is he abusive.  He just has super real dreams that he occasionally frequently acts out, usually on me.  Sometimes on the pillow.  I prefer when the pillow gets it.)  This move he used is called the palm strike in karate.  I looked it up because I knew I'd seen it before, other than the split second when I saw it flying towards me in the middle of the night.  I must have moved or something, and had opened my eyes right before, and because of the street lamp outside, I could see his hand coming, with only enough reaction time to close my eyes.  I was not pleased then, but now it's pretty humorous.  Oh, the stories I could tell about his dreams, and his sleepwalking.  I chalk it up to a side effect of his job.  I thought a king bed was supposed to fix this problem.  I'm going to start sleeping behind a pillow wall, maybe that will help!

Oh, and because my honey is such a sweetie and felt so badly, I got a 1 1/2 hour head rub last night.  Apology accepted:)

Easter Fingernails

So, I am loving the glitter nail trend, and I've seen several blogs and pins on Pinterest where they paint only the ring finger fingernail with the glitter as an accent.  Well, I decided Easter Sunday would be the perfect day for this look.  After a last minute trip home for Easter, the gals made a Target run on Friday.  Plus, Target stocks Essie nail polish, which I adore.  So, after about 15 minutes standing in front of the nail polish, staring, and checking out each and every pink, I decided on Muchi, Muchi by Essie for my nail color, and Sally Hansen Gem Crush in Razzle Dazzler for my glitter.  I was really impressed by the glitter, as it has such a pretty pink base color. 

And, here's how they turned out..I thought they were sooo cute, and it lasted almost 4 days without a single chip (washing, peeling and chopping veggies and also making fruit salad did them in!).  I will be doing this manicure again soon:)

What's Cookin'?

So, I've been trying to mix it up in the kitchen.  Pinterest has been a big inspiration for me, so I've decided to try at least one new thing a week, and more often than not, it's a recipe I pinned.  This can be dangerous since there are so many guilty pleasure recipes, so if it's a decadent dessert recipe that I choose, it's definitely on a once a week basis..especially since I'm trying to do much better with my food choices.  So, ok, this post will be heavy on the yummy food pictures, so dieters beware (read while drinking a bottle of water, that's what I did while writing it so I wouldn't get busy in the kitchen)!

So, the first dish that I'm sharing is Ranch Chicken Tacos, pinned here.  These are a total crowd pleaser and I have fixed them twice already!  The first time was just one night for Jason and me, the second time, I fixed them for some friends, and they just raved, so I highly recommend these!  And they are super easy to boot!

The next thing I'm sharing is my fruit salad.  I usually pair this with tacos or hot dogs or something easy, instead of chips or a less health conscious side.  It's quite simple, and so, so tasty.  I can't wait for this summer to try it with some fresh watermelon:)

For 2-4 people, depending on your serving size, I start with a fruit cup of diced peaches in natural juice (since peaches aren't in season and the juice gives it a good base), then I add 2-3 clementines since they are seedless and perfectly bite sized.  Dice a medium sized apple and slice up one large banana.  Then I quarter about 10 strawberries and half about a cup (give or take) of red grapes.  Then the secret ingredient is maraschino cherries.  I cut about 10-12 of them in half, and then drizzle a little of the cherry syrup on top and mix it up!  I promise, it's delish.

Next is a cookie recipe.  And it rivals my traditional chocolate chip cookie recipe.  It's a chocolate chip cookie, but it's made with a box of cake mix.  They are SO chewy, and SO yummy!  They are def on my top 5 fave cookies list now!  These are pinned here.

Totally the perfect snack for my afternoon.  And Jason was a big fan.  They didn't hang around long!

On to the next!  I decided that after my first attempt with bread, and the fact that it was surprisingly a success (I was skeptical because I have always been afraid of baking with yeast..you know, that I don't let it sit enough, that it will fall, blah blah), that I would try making my own pita bread.  Another success!  Jason loves this stuff with hummus, especially the Sabra brand as they now have a "Supremely Spicy Hummus".  We are hooked!  And these things make great pockets for sandwiches.  I made mine a tad too thick, so next time, I'll need to roll them out a little more.  These are pinned here.

And, lastly...but oh so certainly, not leastly.  If you are a fan of Cracker Barrel (like me!), then I'm sure you are familiar with their Coca-Cola Cake.  This is a very close second to my mom's traditional homemade choclate cake.  Nothing can beat that:)  And now I find out that there is a copy cat recipe for it.  OH. MY.  So of course, this one was a must.  It makes a 9x13 size cake, so make sure you have plenty of help to eat it.  After I had a piece (or 4), I sent it with J to work.  They finished it off with no problem.  I have to say...it's pretty dead on, crackle glaze frosting, super fudgey cake/brownie texture and all.  My tummy's growling just thinking about it.  Good thing I don't have any!  You can find it pinned here.

This picture was taken right out of the oven when you pour the glaze over top.  After about an hour, the glaze hardens and makes the crinkle, crunchy consistency.  Oh, it's sinful.  But oh, how worth it!

Ok, so stop drooling and get in the kitchen, I am always looking for new stuff to try:)

Master Bedroom Makeover

We I got an itch to start another project.  Jason not so much, well, he wanted to do a different project.  He thought we should do the mudroom first, I voted for our bedroom.  Guess who won;o)  He sure does love me because he hardly even put up a fight.  So, this is what we started with:

Kinda dark, nothing spectacular, and didn't feel that welcoming or restful.

We got a king bed about a month or so ago, and didn't have a rails or a headboard, as mentioned 2 or 3 posts ago, so we built a headboard.  And we bought some rails.

We started by pulling the batting strips down and "mudding" them, as we did in the bathroom, to make the walls seamless.  This took about 3 days.  You should have seen the house, there wasn't a single surface untouched by the drywall dust.  That was a really huge challenge for my OCD nature, but I got past it.  Well, not totally, but enough so that I didn't lose my mind.  We drug our mattress into the living room and slept there for the time being, it was the furthest room from our room, so it wasn't affected by the dust as much.  Here's what it was looking like:

You can see the piles of dust on the floor, this was after the first sanding.

Jason is really getting good at this:)

After the drywall came the paint.  I didn't get a picture of just the paint because we finished it the night right before we left to go home for the weekend, and we finished at like 9 pm and still had to pack.  So, no pictures of that.  Once we got back, we were able to finish up with the touch-ups, baseboards, and ceiling trim.  Then, we put the room back together, and this morning, I FINALLY finished the last few things.  We repainted our bookshelf to match the headboard.  That thing brought out the evil in me.  I seriously sat in the floor and cried for 5 minutes, at least (my sarcastic sweet sister asked me if I actually timed how long I sat and cried).  After painting it...twice with Kilz, and twice with oil based paint...I went to put the shelves back in once it was in place, and since it was a tight fit before, the paint made it even tighter.  So after the shelves getting stuck, hence tearing off chunks of paint, and one of the finishing strips ripping off the front of the top shelf because I was trying to pull it down and forward into place, I sat in the pile of peeled paint, wood shards, and broken shelving and cried.  And maybe said a few things that made it a good thing that I was alone.  But I got the shelves in, and then I hot glued the strip back on the top shelf (I know I should have used wood glue, but needless to say, at this point, I didn't care).  Then I primered it..again..twice.  Once that was dry, I slapped on another coat of paint.  It is not my finest piece of work, but it's not too noticeable now that the stuff is back on the shelves.  I told Jason that we were throwing it away whenever we move.  But for now, it works.  So, without anymore delay, the finished product!  (Sorry about the pictures being kinda dark, it's rainy and really overcast today.)

New bedding.  I am loving light blue and red together these days, so I pieced our bedding together, and am pretty happy with the outcome.  The wall color we used is Hopsack by Valspar (paint and primer in one...which I ♥).

Newly painted star and new curtains that Ashwee found for me.  And then there's that durn bookshelf.

We thought about painting all of the furniture to match the headboard, but I ended up liking the contrast, plus the room is so much lighter now, the darker furniture offsets it nicely.

The iron scroll and candle holders were black, so they got a face lift to match the headboard too.  Then I put together a flower arrangement to match the new colors.

The re-purposed lamp shades:)  Notice the little pillow with numbers on it?  I made that too!  I sewed a linen pillow case for the pillow form and then painted our wedding date on it.  It says "established 3-5-05".

The new baseboards.  Oh, and I believe you can see a left over wood shard.  Grr.

New ceiling trim, too.

So, it's done, and I'm so happy with it.  I feel like it's so peaceful in there now.  And on sunny days, the room just lights up.  Now on to the next project, just not too soon!

Oh, and I know the space over the headboard is blank and boring.  I have big plans for that space too.  My thinking for that space is doing something like this:

I plan on ordering my canvas prints from Walmart's online photo department.  For faux canvas, they cost about 30.00 for 16x20 prints.  The decal is from www.lacybella.com.  They come in all colors too.  Now to choose the right photos!

Re-purposed Lamp Shades

We have had plain, boring, white lamp shades on our bedside table lamps since we got them, going on 3 years ago.  A brilliant idea came across my path on Pinterest, and after looking at the tutorial, I decided that I could totally handle this project.  The original is pinned here.  It will take you to this lady's blog with instructions on how to do this.  Basically, you sew a million strips of fabric (I used bleached muslin) with a wide stitch down the middle, pull the thread once you are done to create the ruffle, tie it off, and hot glue around and around until the shade is covered (hopefully better than I did, since I burned the fire outta my fingers about 10 times).  Since my shades were already white, I didn't have to cover them first, if yours are a dark or different color from your fabric, you may want to cover them with the same fabric first.  Here is what our lamps looked like before:

After sewing and sewing, and ruffling and ruffling, you are ready to glue.  This was the most time consuming step, but still it only took me about 2 hours (it will probably take more experienced sewers less time than this as I am still pretty new to sewing).  And be careful when pulling your thread to ruffle, work with little sections at a time, and don't pull too hard.  I broke two strips and had to start over on them, it's really aggravating.  My pile of ruffles and the shades ready to go:

And, the finished product!  I was so happy with how they turned out, and they just bring a little bit of frill to our bedroom without being too much for J.

I will show pictures of them on the lamps and in our bedroom as soon as it is all finished and put back together!

Happenings and Going-Ons

Well it has been busy around here!  Last week, we had Ashley, Matt, Austin, and Alaina here with us.  It was a fun week and we always love having our family here!  Alaina and I did some shopping and finally tried out the new Popeye's in town one day.  Neither of us had ever eaten at one, and I have heard that they are pretty tasty, and I agree!  It's yummy and the staff lives up to the reputation that they are all about southern hospitality.  Afterwards, we checked out the Rugged Wearhouse and Old Navy.  Alaina got some really cute stuff and we were able to pick up a few pairs of shorts and a pair of jeans on sale for Austin.  On one rainy day, Ashley and I ventured out on a makeup hunt.  We were on the search for a certain type of foundation by Smashbox.  It is super wonderful, but kinda pricey.  We found it at the PX for 10 bucks cheaper than department stores.  Score!  Then on to Ulta (after a quick lunch break at the Chick-fil-a), where they were running a special that if you spent 17.50 on their name brand makeup, then you get a free gift.  It was amazing, best free gift I've ever gotten out of one of these promos.  It had tons of goodies in it, and you could pick from 3 different colors.  Ash and I both got the purple, as we felt they had the best color combos.

Then, on Friday, us girls went to see "The Vow".  SO cute.  I love Rachel McAdams.  She is probably my favorite actress.  And she didn't disappoint, once again.  I have been wanting to see this movies for months, so it was a fun afternoon.  We did lots of baking, movie nights, a competitive game of UNO was held with Jason being the wiener, I mean winner, lots of PS3 gaming for the guys, and a Valentine's dinner of chocolate chip pancakes and bacon for Ashley, Matt, Austin, and Alaina while Jason and I went to dinner out.  We decided to try our luck at going out to dinner (we haven't done this in a long time) for Valentine's Day.  We drove out to Wallace to eat at the Mad Boar, it's a local restaurant with local food, and has an Irish feel.  We love it, and were pleased to find out that we only had a 10 minute wait to be seated.  The food was delish and the company was even better.  We traded gifts at dinner as well.  Jason had surprised me with roses and the biggest balloon I have ever seen when he came home from work, and then at dinner he presented me with this:

If you know me well, you know that I looove skeleton keys.  I have always wanted some kind of open hearts piece, so this was perfect.  Honey knows me well:)  He got a big box of Godiva chocolates and truffles and a new PS3 remote that has the digital camouflage print on it.  It was a wonderful day.

Then, the weekend after they left, J and I went to Lowe's.  A homeowner's favorite and most dreaded place. This time we were shopping for lumber to make our new headboard.  We got a new king bed a few weeks ago (after I had my shin kicked twice in one week), and after some shopping around, got a little frustrated at the price of headboards and bed frames.  So, after more research, I came across a beautiful DIY headboard on Pinterest.  It's pinned here.  Follow the link from there to get the plans, shopping list, dimensions, and everything else you need to make it.  This lady is amazing, she shows you how to make about anything yourself, and gives you detailed lists, pictures, and layouts on how to do it.  So, Jason and our neighbor, Bruce got to work putting it together, it took about 2-3 hours, and it is ahh-may-zing!  It's in the process of being painted now, but here it is put together and getting the nail holes puttied over.

My man is so talented.  I love it!  We are painting it a creamy white, like the cabinets in our guest bath.  It is called Crumb Cookie by Olympic.  It's the perfect color, not too white, not too off-white.  

Remember I said J was going to paint my new rifle pink?  Well, once we got to the store to look at colors, I decided on a teal/aqua color.  It's a little darker than it looks in the picture, but the teal against the black reminds me of the Carolina Panthers colors, and so it worked out perfectly!  It think it looks wonderful, and I'm so excited to have a pretty gun (pretty and gun...doesn't sound like they should go together, huh?).  Whatcha think?!

And, we started our master bedroom makeover yesterday.  I think we have lost our minds.  We are refinishing the walls and painting them a new neutral, installing baseboards, and painting furniture.  This will be a process, but I will post pictures along the way.  We got some new bedding as well, it really lightens up the room and makes it feel inviting and cottage like.  I can't wait to show y'all when it's finished!  

Oh!  And I got some new finger nail polishes, and I love them all!  I'm very into neutrals right now, but I gotta have a bright pop in there too.

(left to right) Sally Hansen Insta-Dry in Petal Pusher, Essie Cute as a Button, and Sally Hansen Hard as Nails in Wet Cement.  Oh, and the color on my nails in the previous post is OPI in You Don't Know Jacques.  I am finding that OPI is the longest lasting polish so far, the Insta-Dry stuff is pretty and I love the brush, but it doesn't hold up nearly as well.  The Hard as Nails is pretty good too, it lasted almost as long as the OPI.  I haven't tried the new Essie one yet, I'll have to let you know on that one.

Ok, I'll be back soon with my newly re-purposed, plain white lamp shades. 

Target Practice

This past weekend, I decided (with no opposition) that we needed to do some shooting.  Here in the south, that is a favorite pastime, and a weekend filler.  My sugar britches bought me a .45 last year when we moved out to the middle of nowhere, in the woods.  It makes me feel better to have something for home defense besides an alarm.  After all, like I said, we are out in the country.  And the po-po's wouldn't get here before the burglar killed me and made off with my stuff.  So... I will take matters into my own hands if that day ever comes (praying it never does!).  Anyways, it's a powerful gun, and so I like to shoot it every so often so I don't get rusty.  Oh, and I learned to shoot the .22 as well.  I'd never shot that one before, and I refused to shoot the shotgun again.  Last time, my shoulder hurt for 3 days (I'm a weenie, my 70-something grandmother shot it like a champ, she's hardcore). 

Guns, Clips & Ammo ready to go.

Jason with the Taurus.  He shot me under the table.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised, he is trained to do this stuff.  Still, my competitve side still comes out, and I don't like losing.  Especially that badly.

His target...all shots in the black.  I got 4 in the black, mine is underneath his.

Like my pink ear protection muffs?  Me too, they were in my stocking from Santa this year:)

  

Having a scope is awesome!  J said this gun could be mine now.  He's going to sand the wood down and paint it pink.  I like it!

My target for the .22.  I did much better with a scope.  I actually got 2 in the red!  But, again, J did better :p  He said, "What do you expect?  I just got off the range!"  So.

My sessy man concentrating.

Wish I could say this was mine;o)  I'll be shooting that many in the red soon enough.