Quick & Easy Breakfast Sandwich

Weekday mornings in my house can be pretty hectic - I have two boys who would rather do just about anything than get ready, so we don't usually have a lot of time for breakfasts. And while they would be happy eating cereal every single day, I like to feed them warm (quick) breakfasts as often as I can.

Start by toasting some bread. I used a sandwich thin but I've also used English Muffins in the past. Go wild.

While the bread is toasting, spray a bowl or ramekin with cooking spray and crack an egg inside.

Sprinkle some chopped up bacon into the bowl with the egg. Instead of cooking bacon each time, I cook a package at a time, chop it up and freeze it. And then every time I make a sandwich or scrambled eggs I can just easily sprinkle bacon-y goodness on top.

Scramble it quickly with a fork...

...and microwave it for one minute.

While the egg cooks, take your toast from the toaster, butter it and add some cheese if you like that sort of thing. I do, so I added some pepper jack.

When the egg is finished cooking, it will be easy to pull out of the bowl (thanks, cooking spray!) so all you need to do is add it to the bread.

There you go, a quick breakfast sandwich.

 

 Add some fruit, a glass of milk, and you're good to go. Both my boys (with their various picky food issues) eat these happily, and Mike and I like them too. Does anybody else feel giddy when they discover a recipe (any recipe) that everyone likes? It's like striking gold.

This, my friends, is breakfast time gold in my house. You should try it!

Floor Sneak Peek

Here I am, helplessly stuck a couple hours away from my house, and I had to wait until this morning for Mike to sent me a photo of the stained floors because he can't reach the light switch and so the rooms were all dark when he got home from work yesterday... boo.

And now that I've seen a photo, I can't decide what I think. They look lighter than the sample I think. I'm not sure if it's the light or Mike's phone's camera, or if I'm going insane. I am officially reserving judgement.

(imagine the dining room above with white trim...)

And here's the sample:

Today's photos were taken at 8:00 on a west facing window with no lights... and the sample was midday with lights on. Someone hold me and tell me it's all going to okay?

What do you think??

It's Staining Time...

... conditions are perfect.

Well, we picked a stain. And by we, I mean me... but then I emailed photos and talked Mike through it and he ultimately came to the same decision as I did without me telling him what I thought, which means we're either both totally in sync or that I am super skilled at subtly leading a witness--er, a husband. Er, scratch that entirely, there was no leading involved.

What were we talking about, again?

Because I am secure in my high maintenance-hood, I had the (very patient) flooring guy running around in circles for me, ultimately putting down seven different stain samples. We ruled out the top three pretty quickly, which left us monkeying around with some custom mixes...

Ultimately we also ruled out the two darkest - they read very flat in person - the grain turned black and all the variations in the natural wood were lost. Sadness. So we mixed some things and came up with something I think we'll be happy with...

And now it's Tuesday and the floors are being stained, but last night I escaped to my parents' house with my boys and our dog for the rest of Spring Break. I'm happy to have more than a kitchen and a basement (that is only "finished" in the loosest sense) to roam around in, but I was going to be the best sort of backseat stainer. Now I can't be there to gush, swoon, cry, sweat bullets and check credentials. 

I'm sure the floor guys appreciate my absence, but little do they know Mike is under direct orders to drive home at least once (work shmerk) and send me photos. 

Mark my words, I will somehow weasel my way into the process!

Ready or Not, Here We Go...

The floor guys are here, and my house is empty.

 

...oh, except for here:

...and not over here, either:

That's not an episode of "Hoarders" my friends, that's my living room.  I had to scurry over mattresses to find a bra this morning because I forgot to pack before dumping my nightstand in my living room Bermuda Triangle.

Yeah, that's right. I said bra on my blog. Bra.

The good news is that I didn't have to tear up the tiles in the entry, which is why there's a piano in there instead of in the kitchen. When we pulled up the first one we saw it was sitting on some concrete instead of more wood, which means we'll need to do a bit more work to get it ready for new tiles and so there's no point in having the floor guys do anything in there for now. I was grateful.

So now I'm just sitting in my makeshift kitchenette (translation: my dining table stuffed in my galley kitchen 'cause there was no room for it anywhere else), sipping some coffee, appreciating the fact that I found a bra, and admiring my two souvenirs from this weekend:

Ewwwww. The small dark bruise is from something coop-related. The bottom, gross one? That's what I get fo going to the park with my family for lunch and some baseball... and then listening to my husband (who played college ball and had an offer to play professionally) when he told me to pitch a ball to him. Apparently I can't jump fast enough. Straight into my leg, y'all... hurt. so. much.

I'd be wearing longer pants but I don't know where they are, and I am not scurrying over any more mattresses today.

What's Up Chicken Butt 03.23.12

(I'm juvenile and the name made me laugh, so it stuck!)

First off, I want to thank everyone for coming here and reading even while my life consists almost entirely of chicken coops and hardwood floor prepping. It's a little overwhelming and hasn't left much time for much else, so I appreciate all my blog friends who still come and check in! I'll keep posting if you keep reading!

Second, the weather has finally warmed up and this weekend it's supposed to be absurdly warm for this time of year (65°F? Nutso, but I'll take it!) and we'll hopefully be making some real progress on the coop. We worked on it today, even -- some more framing and cutting a wall out...

...you know, just getting into the rhythm of coop construction. Watch out, 'cause tomorrow it's on like Donkey Kong... I'm going to go out on a limb and say we'll have a maximum of 2 frustrated cuss-n-walk-offs which will pretty much be a record if we can make it happen. We like to get frustrated around here... I think we've pulled out just as many nails as we've put in. Darn chickens better lay the best eggs ever.

In other poultry-related news, we took the chicks outside on a field trip today, for the first time ever.  They're about 5 weeks old now, and I swear they're getting bigger every. single. day. And I mean that in a "holy crap, stop eating so much!" way, not an "aww, let's treasure these babies before they grow up on us" way.

P.S. Rosie started clucking today, and I about keeled over. Their little chick cheeps are one of the things that help me withstand this ugly feathering teenaged stage... what now?

Wanna Help Me Move? I'll Buy Pizza!

I'm not really moving, but emptying all the rooms with wood floors in them feels eerily similar. Both in the task's endless drudgery and in the fact that I'm putting it off until the last minute (who else hates moving? Procrastinators, unite!).

The hardwood floor guys said they might come early to replace the few boards that are beyond help (like this one that I nicknamed "The Slivernator.")

No, you're right... I didn't really nickname the board. But you can imagine what it would be like if I did, right? Ha.

But "coming early," which was so vague and nonthreatening a couple weeks ago, has suddenly morphed into "coming tomorrow." And that means I've got some stuff to do.

Rooms don't need to be completely clear by tomorrow, but I do want nonessential ones like the guest room emptied so we're not going crazy all weekend when we'll be busy lugging pieces of bunkbeds that weight 700-pounds each. And I'd like the rugs gone so the floor guys can see as much of the wood as possible to look for places that need some extra love... anything that will help me get back into my house faster next week.

 

After I get through tomorrow, my front room ceiling needs to be painted - it's the last remaining yellow glossy ceiling in the house, and I decided to get it painted now, before I have to worry about paint droplets on new floors. 

(You can see that I've started painting the ceilings)

And I need to demo the tile in the entryway so the floor guys can cut the wood out with their special saw to prepare for the slate tile we'll be installing. And then there's moving the piano... blerg.

To sum it up, here's what I'll be doing this weekend inside while it's
a glorious 67° F (!!) outdoors:

Bedrooms, dining room and front room emptied 

Front room ceiling painted 

Entry tile removal

Move the piano. Somewhere.

 

Are there any wise readers out there who know if I need to remove pictures from walls and clothes from closets? We're using water-based poly so I don't know if the fumes will be bad enough to justify removing clothes... any words of advice for me?

Also, what are your plans this weekend? Please tell me they're more exciting than mine!

Speed Styling the Shelves

I'm a girl on a deadline, and my house has to be emptied and prepped for the wood floor guys who are coming in less than a week, so I gave myself approximately 60 minutes to style these shelves in my living room yesterday.

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, considering there was no major planning involved - I just dropped a whole bunch of pretty things in front of the shelves, grabbed a bunch of the books I had piled precariously nearby and started shoving things in random places while thinking things like, "nooo, can't have two animals on the same shelf...." and "that shelf looks too silvery..." and "why on earth don't I have more tall books?"

Really though. I need more tall books.

My one sadness is that there aren't more books -- I'm happy with the overall composition (and knew that I wouldn't be able to fit all of the books back on them as my plan was to add more accessories and leave more open space) but I secretly wish I had more shelves. I don't buy books to decorate with; I decorate with the books I buy - make sense? I have books scattered throughout my whole house and I still have shelves in my basement full of extras.

Here's a sort-of close up thanks to the miracle of poor Photoshopping:

Do you like? What do you think of the Wythe Blue now? I love the extra pop it brings, and now that it's partially covered up my husband is even on board. (he said things like, "wow... it's so... blue." yesterday)

 

This speed styling left me with hours and hours of time to move furniture and prep the house for the wood floor refinishing... and I used approximately 0.0% of that time to be productive. What is wrong with me??

I'm almost done with this project, but for now I need to put it on hold until after my floors get done.

Living room shelves:

Paint backs

Style shelves

Build cabinet doors for media component cubbies

Tomorrow I'll be back with a list of what I'm working on this week in preparation for next week's floor jamboree... much less exciting.

Wythe Blue Painted Shelves

Last night, I pulled off the bajillion books and tackled the backs of my living room shelves.

I do love Wythe Blue. 

It was a quick project, but I still took the opportunity to throw on "The Notebook" and enjoy some quality time with myself and a paintbrush while Mike stayed as far away as possible (he avoids romances and painting at all costs).

 And now you know my secret - I watch all movies and shows with the subtitles on -- when they're not available it drives me bananas. It started when my babies were teeny and I would watch movies with Mike while nursing... and then I realized that being a visual learner, I understood movies so much better when I could read the subtitles too. (especially the movies my husband makes me watch with 250 gun-wielding characters, corporate espionage and surprise endings that I can never keep straight)

It used to make Mike crazy, and now he just knows to put the subtitles on for me. Aww.

I'm going to try to style these babies real quick-like since I have about a billion things to do before my hardwood floors get finished... next week. Gulp.

Living room shelves:

Paint backs

Style shelves

Build cabinet doors for media component cubbies

P.S. Ryan Gosling is my boyfriend.

What's Up Chicken Butt 03.16.2012

Don't hate me for the post title. I have a 6 year old son who brings out the child(ishness) in me.

It's time for another chicken update -- the positive responses last week were such a pleasant surprise! I was flattered that my chicken stories don't bore y'all to tears, because unfortunately they're consuming my life at the moment and I fall asleep thinking about coop features. It's an illness, being detail oriented.

First off, the coop. Last weekend was beautiful and we were able to get the main structure framed, and then it started to rain. 

And it's been overcast and rainy on and off all week, which really isn't ideal coop building weather for someone like me who would rather not be framing coops in the first place. So aside from the $15 vinyl remnant I found Wednesday, we've done nothing all week. Except that's a secret, so I'm going to say that we spent the last several days finalizing dimensions and calibrating the spin... of the axis of... um... poultry-related ventilation equations. 

Yeah, that sounds good... ish.

Now on to the chickens themselves. They are changing and growing so quickly, and now they sort of look like a drawing of a turkey during a game of drunken Pictionary. But you didn't hear that from me. And by all means, don't tell them I said that.

Downy chick fuzz has been almost completely replaced by little feathers from the neck down.

You can see the last little bits around Lumpy's neck looking like dried out dandelion fluff in the above photo.

Here's little Woodpecker, who is probably the most relaxed and easy going of the bunch:

We've been bothering interacting with them enough that they're all pretty tame and used to humans, though...

They'll do anything for Chick Crumbles. Mwahaha.

(an aside: Chick Crumbles is the technical name, but I much prefer Chibble. Chicken Kibble. Work with me here.)

Here are Rosie and Cheeto, checking out the camera:

Cheeto is the farthest along of the Rhode Island Reds - her little head is super ugly because all these dark little feathers are coming in among her sweet pale baby chick head fuzz. It's not a pretty sight.

The Barred Rocks, Rosie and Posie, are much bolder and more inquisitive than the Reds... they hop up on their roost a lot and they are always the first to come and investigate something new, like a crazy lady with a camera opening up the end of their refrigerator box home. (by the way, refrigerator boxes? Huuuge.)

Oh, and they try to fly. Pretty much constantly. Giant flying leaps everywhere. I think we're supposed to clip one of their wings when they get a little bigger so they don't roost in our pine trees and fly over fences. Interesting educational tidbit: chickens descended from jungle birds. This apparently means they're all about trees. 

Any chicken questions? You can try asking me, but um... I might make up the answer. Still worth a shot though ;)

SNAP! Conference = Paper Bag Breathing

It's official: I am the Queen of Ultimate Last Minutes. Yesterday, with something like 5 tickets remaining for next month's SNAP! conference in Utah, I decided it was time to snap! one up (rimshot).

 What can I say... I like to live dangerously. Or maybe I just can't make up my mind without a scary deadline. Either way, it's done. Are you going? Pleeeease look for me there, because I am secretly a big socially awkward nerd who is terrified of going to large gatherings where I know no one.

So much for secrets.

I'll probably be the one against a wall pretending to text so I don't look awkward, when in reality it will make me look even more nerdy and desperate. Ack! What do I do?? Be sure to call me on it if you see me texting.  (which you actually won't see me doing, because my phone's touch screen up and died on me but I'm not eligible to upgrade until May so I'm using a decade-old flip phone until then and it stays inside my purse at all times even when I'm texting because of my technology shame factor of 10 and my run on sentence shame factor of at least a 7.8)

I'll actually be the one against a wall breathing into a paper lunch sack.

So now I need to track down a place to stay. I wonder if the people renting my Salt Lake-area home will let me pitch a tent in their/my yard? Ha.

And do I need to make cards? 

Will someone who has any idea what they're doing please step in and become my temporary life-blog-conference coach?

I should probably not pack 4 pairs of yoga pants, right?

Look at me moving out of my comfort zone. I'm excited! Gold star sticker.

Little Dude Tie

Every once in a while I get a desperate need to try something new; to push the boundaries of my skills, if you will. Being crafty is a great way to do that, because I don't have to pus very hard to find myself in brand new territory. My crafting territory is about the size of a small backyard, and it's full of toddler play equipment.

My boys love ties, so I decided to whip a couple out for Easter. I got to use my new sewing machine (an anniversary gift from Mike) for the first time -- it's fancy and computerized, which means finally there's someone in the house knows how to sew! Woohoo! 

Actually, making the ties wasn't hard at all. I was pleasantly surprised (and that doesn't happen a whole bunch when I start sewing) and felt like a superstar.

  Mike wears ties to work almost every day (and looks so haaaandsome) so the boys love it when they get the chance to dress up. Unfortunately (for them) I'm a polo shirt/khaki pants kind of mom when it comes to dressing nicely. They have one red striped tie that came with my oldest's white button up shirt (which we only purchased for a wedding... it's made of thin material, it's white, and it needs ironing which is three strikes in my world). 

My younger son really loves that tie, especially when paired with his yellow plaid shirt. He thinks he is hot stuff, and I'm 100% okay with him wearing that ensemble to places like church. But then I'm also a superhero-costume-to-the-grocery-store kind of mom. (for them, not me. promise.)

I bought 1/2 yard of material and 1/2 yard of 100% cotton lining which was more than enough for both ties. I started looking on Pinterest and ended up finding a link to the blog Very Homemade - she had made darling ties and even had a great template that I used (I did add a couple inches for my oldest boy's tie though).

I cut the tie shape out in both my fabric and the lining material along the bias, and I also cut a rectangle of tie fabric 2.5" x 17" for the neckband.

I pinned the two pieces for the tie with their right sides facing toward each other, and sewed just the two pointed ends together with a 1/4" seam allowance. Then I trimmed the inside of the points close to the seam so it would turn out and be nice and pointy. Pointy ties are sort of important I guess.

(I drew in where I sewed so it would be more visible)

Turn the tie right side out and press so both points are nice and crisp.

 (mine's not really pointy here... do better than that.)

Next, fold the tie in half lengthwise so the tie material is sandwiched inside the lining, pin, and sew one seam up along the edge. Just make sure you catch all four edges in your seam -- if you make the seam allowance wider, you'll end up with a skinnier tie. Which is sort of a fancy pants GQ thing right now anyway. When you're done sewing, press the seam open.

Now comes the fun part. We're going to turn our skinny little tie tube right side out! Grab a big safety pin, and get to work. You're going to put the pin through the skinny point and feed it back into the tie, working it up through the length in small sections then pulling the excess down, until the pin pops out the other end and you can pull it out and finish flipping the tie. 

(Of course I made a photo illustration for this step, because it took me a minute to get the hang of it... just make sure you hold on to the tip of the safety pin so it doesn't slide back down the tie.)

Now press the finished tie again, centering the long seam in the back.

Set the tie aside and pull out the strip of fabric you cut for the neckband. This one is easy too. Just fold it hot dog style with the right sides in and sew along the edge. Flip it using the safety pin method and press it with the seam on the bottom edge. Then sew a couple inches of soft velcro to both ends (just make sure one piece is on one side of the fabric and the other piece is on the opposite side so when you wrap it around someone's neck they'll match up.)

Also, I like to have the rougher piece of velcro facing out -- I know it's usually worn over a shirt anyway, but I'm sure my kids will wear them with tshirts too, and that will help avoid skin irritation when there's not a shirt collar between velcro and neck.

Now all you need to do is tie your two pieces together, like this:

(click to enlarge - oh, how my floors need refinishing!)

And you're done! Presto, change-o! Abracadabra!

In all honesty, it was very simple. I shared a ton of photos because I need about 1,700 of them in any tutorial I use or I'm totally helpless and end up rocking back and forth in some corner in tears. I was done with boy ties in less than an hour so I know it wasn't too difficult.

Go forth and make Easter ties!

Linking up to the Pinterest Challenge hosted by Young House Love, Bower Power, Hi Sugarplum! and The Great Indoors