Coming Up This Weekend: The Guest Bedroom

Our next battle in the War on Stuff is the Guest Bedroom, aka Smarty's room, aka where my wedding dress lives, aka "just throw it in the guest room." It's kind of a conglomeration of all of our random stuff that has never had a real place of its own. Oh, and it's where our guests sleep, in a really pitiful old bed. (Sorry 'bout that) It's pretty bad at the moment, since it's right beside the new, pristine office. We were admittedly a little lax last weekend, using the guest room to house stuff we wanted to keep but didn't know where to put it. Well, watch out, stuff...your moment of truth is coming!!

So, this weekend (hopefully just Saturday) is going to be dedicated to getting that organized, decluttered and usable. And maybe even pretty? I won't get my heart set on that last one, but who knows. Dream Big.

Some related organization projects we'll have to tackle in concert with the guest room will be:

1. Music (CD's, mp3 file organization). I'll throw DVDs in here for good measure.

2. Photos. Oooooh, photos. How do I love you and hate you all at the same time? I'm half digital, half negatives, which, am I really ever going to find the negative I need when I need it? My goal is to get the photos I have printed out in an album so we can at least look at them and enjoy them. And I want to get my photos that are older than the last four years at least in chronological order and somewhere where they won't get ruined.

And now, embarrassed, I give you The Before Shots:

In this shot, note Smarty on "her" bed. Note entire shelf full of pictures and crap like that. Note wedding dress draped over kids' rocking chair. And the rest of the stuff is from the office, and will NOT be going back into the office when we clean this room. I'm contemplating closing the door to preserve the organization in there.

Our IKEA shelves... they're cute and I think could really be functional. I think we need to get rid of some books, and better utilize these bad boys. Note extra wedding crap off to the side. I'm too cheap to throw it away but what do I do w/ it?

Stay tuned, and wish us luck.

Prodigal Summer

All done! It took me forever...which is not to say it wasn't an excellent book and really captivating writing. It was really good. But I just feel like I don't have as much time to read lately so it was more chopped up than I would have liked. This book felt like it would be really nice to just spend a few days with at the beach and read it all at once.

It was essentially 3 interconnected and simultaneous short stories, which encompass 1 summer in a small Kentucky town. It had a lot of very ambitious and grandiose themes - man's place in nature, the unintended consequences of hunting, different ways of viewing natural farming and the laws of nature. Oh, and God and relationships and all kinds of stuff. The characters were pretty interesting. I liked the story called Old Chestnuts, it followed a crotchety old widower who came off very elderly Stephen Colbert to me, which made me enjoy him. I did have a hard time w/ Deanna, the mountain woman who lives up in the wilderness. The only thing that bugged me was her hair. They explained her as having a long braid that came down to here knees. Just the idea of that kinda puts me off. Sorry, you have to have a knife up there or a basic pair of scissors... And the third story was about Lusa, this person who was of Polish and Palestinian descent. And she apparently had red hair. I think I'm a very visual reader and I just couldn't place this kind of look... hers was another moving story.

I really enjoyed this book overall! On to re-read the Red Tent for book club next week... I'm considering this practice school since I'm on a deadline. :) I'm looking forward to reading it though - I got all nostalgic bc it looks like I bought this book in Ireland! It still has the Waterstone's sticker on it. It was 11 Euros. :)

1st Battle: The Office

We did it!! :) It only took ALL weekend, and kind of threw our home into a state of unrest...but it was so needed. I cannot believe the amount of stuff that was crammed into this teeny room. The goal was to make it less "Scott's Lair" and more "Jamie and Scott's Office". Especially with me entering school in less than a month. It feels like someone just handed me an extra room to our house...

Here's a pic from early on Saturday morning:

And here's a few minutes ago... just for effect.


Some of my favorite things we found in the office:
1. Credit card statements from Feb 04
2. Savings account statements from Farmers First Bank in Lititz, PA... good times.
3. Lots and lots of checks from Scott's 1st Raleigh apartment. Yes, this means they've been moved TWICE. :)
4. All the cords that any computer company made...ever. They're in a drawer, with the 5 mice we have "just in case". We also had a punch card, you know, from like old 1970's computers? No clue. But we have one.
5. Also, all the computers and various parts of computers from all of our friends and family.

We did an incredible amount of "downsizing"... we piled everything out into the hall into piles - Trash, Keep, Donate, Sell/Consign/Craigslist...and of course, IDK.


Some of my favorite enviro-saving/doesn't cost me a dime things we did:
1. Scott had a lot of papers printed out to read for school over the past few years. Like, a lot. So, we've saved all the one-sided sheets that were in decent condition and we're going to primarily print our stuff on the backs of those - like grocery lists, directions...whatever. And only print on "real" paper when it's 100% necessary not to have it on the back of a study of human computer interaction.
2. Recycled the paper and cardboard boxes. We took 7 or 8 bags of paper to the Wake Country convenience center.
3. Donated to Goodwill...pretty much anything we could get away with! Lots and lots of various stuff.
4. Craigslisting!! I have 4 active postings right now... fingers crossed our "junk" can be someone else's treasure. Or at least something they'd pay money for...?

So here's the gallery...

The Desk & Workspace!

OMG, was there always a WINDOW there?? :) I keep walking up the stairs and I'm like, is there a light on in that room?? Nope, just the sun. Very cool!

We do want to get a new desk chair, if I do end up using it to do schoolwork/working from home. I really love what we've done with what we have... I don't think we'd *have* to buy anything new at all to make this a very usable room.

Okay, gotta soak up the rest of the weekend...

This is me, working from home...

...and this is Smarty saying "Don't work, pet me."

Meatballs. Not just any meatballs, the best ones. Ever.

Tonight, I think Scott and I found a new favorite meal. We raised a bar in our kitchen... those boring old recipes and casseroles are going to have to work hard to compete with this.

I just finished eating, and I'm still going to have to tell my stomach not to growl and my mouth not to salivate as I type out the recipe and post the picture. Mmmmm, it was fabulous!!!

Florentine Meatballs
(from Rachel Ray...who knew?!)

Ingredients:
1 box frozen spinach, defrosted in the microwave
1 1/3 lb ground turkey breast
1/2 of a medium onion, finely chopped (it called for all but 3 tbsp of a med onion, but we used 3 tbsp tonight and it was perfect...your call.)
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 large egg
1/4 c milk
1/2 c grated Parm cheese
3/4 c bread crumbs
Olive oil

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400.

Wring out defrosted spinach. (Trivia: this is one of my LEAST favorite things to do in any recipe ever.) Place turkey in a bowl and make a well in the middle of it. Add the spinach, onion, garlic, egg, milk, bread crumbs, Parm and salt and pepper to taste. Mix well and form into 12 large balls. (Next time we will make more smaller balls. It makes 12 VERY large meatballs...) Place on a non-stick cookie sheet & drizzle with virgin olive oil. Cook for 20 min in the oven until cooked through.

We LOVED them w/ a nice soft bakery sub roll. And some tomato sauce, and a slice of provolone cheese... Mmmmm.

Follow up to War on Stuff...

Some very interesting links I've found and been perusing off and on for most of the day. Good thing I'm not working from home today - I'd be very unproductive I think!

• Steps for De-Cluttering - I enjoyed the link from this page to the guy who's trying to live with only 100 personal items. A little drastic, but hey, good for him.
  
• Unclutterer...I subscribed to this blog and looove it. Good stuff.
• Good clutter destroying tips
• And... I want to do this when we clean up the office. But don't worry, Scott, we probably won't :)
  

I'm Declaring War On STUFF

Junk, Random Crap...whatever. We have too much of it, and I'm declaring war. We had the fun task of trying to remove some of the Random Crap (RC) from downstairs to try to make the terrain a little less treacherous for a 11 month old this weekend, and for the most part we succeeded. I'd blame what was left behind on the cat toys. Anyway... I'm considering the baby's visit the push we needed to just de-clutterify the place. Here's how I see it: We're young. WHY do we have so much RC??? Most of the junk we took upstairs we never even use and wouldn't miss if we'd just taken it out to the trash rather than upstairs to the guest room.

So, it's not like we live in a junkyard, I don't want to paint an unfair picture. I just get fed up with the amount of stuff we have that we don't need or use on a daily, weekly, monthly, annual...any basis at all, and the amount of time it takes us to save up for/rationalize buying stuff we really do need/want. There's something wrong there...

This is me declaring war... Scott and I are committing our entire next weekend to going through stuff and trashing the unsaveable, donating the potentially reusable, craigslisting the potentially sellable and shuffling around the underutilized. We're going to be smart and green in our approach - I don't want to just throw things away that could be recycled or used by someone else. But I'm tired of having so much more stuff than we need.

Whew, ok, so I said it. Wish me luck. :)

Fuddy Visit!

Kelly, Jon and Susanna "stopped by" on their way home from a week at the beach! We were so excited to see them... and we had a great lunch and afternoon visit.

Susanna's very interested in Smarty... Smarty kind of curious, but more put off by her presence.

Smarty (the cat in the bag) and Susanna's fascinated.

My mom gave Susanna an early (and maybe her first?) 1st Birthday present - a dolly and kitty!

Susanna loves Smarty's weird mousie on a spring toy. More so than Smarty does, incidentally.

Babies these days... she likes to pretend everything is a phone. Remotes are ideal for this. (It was for me)

Awww, cute little smile!

Our outdoor photo shoot. OMG, so freaking hot.

Don't run away! Those 8 or 9 hours in the car back to PA will be fuuuun, we promise!! (wink wink)

Sweaty Jamie & Kel.

Susanna and my momma. Near the end Susanna started playing with the digital cameras.

Original artwork by Susanna:
(she pressed the button...)

And this one is a little more..."artsy"??

Just a fabulous day at work!

I haven't been blogging much about work, just because I try to keep that separate so as not to get myself in trouble :)

Yesterday, I had a great day at work! I thought it'd be a good time to just kind of answer the "How's your internship going?" question.

It's going well! I'm enjoying the assignments I've been given, getting acclimated to the corporate culture and got a really good review from my boss yesterday. We also worked out a deal where I can scale back my hours once school starts next month in order to extend the internship another month...taking me to mid October. So it's cool because I can kind of stick around longer and get more exposure to different types of projects. I think they're open to keeping me as a co-op for next summer as well, which would be great! I really like it a lot!!!

And Scott is doing well too! He is meeting with lots of folks in his department and beginning on his initial assignment. It's about computers and education... that's where I drop off on understanding his field. :) We got some decorations for his office last night at Michael's!! His little office is so pitiful - 4 white walls...

Isn't She Lovely and Say Goodbye to Hollywood

We did it!!! Mission Accomplished!! :) Last night we spent, oh, I don't know, 8 hours at the dealership and got ourselves a brand spanking new 2009 Ford Fusion. We feel really good about the deal we got - a tremendous discount through IBM (woot!) and decent rebate incentives. We got it at Crossroads Ford in Cary, which we'd highly recommend. We just need to find some obnoxious bumper sticker about BUYING AMERICAN :)

So, here are some pictures. I don't have a fancy blog with music, but if you're sitting at home and have access to Stevie Wonder's Isn't She Lovely, that'd make a great soundtrack for the Fusion's first photo shoot.

Isn't she lovely?

Our decked out car... Scott convinced me that black leather isn't just for boys. And we also have Sync, so we can call people just by speaking commands. Just have to figure out how to work that... And we have satellite radio till Christmas.
So shiny and new! It smells great too!

The tires. It's a man thing. I don't even have to say this, but Scott took this picture :)

The one where Scott plays Vanna White. He has the sweet new ride at work today. I think I kind of rocked his world this morning when I suggested wearing a long sleeved button down - he was like "no, it's too hot" and I was all like "Oh snap, don't forget you have A/C on the way to and from work now!" So... a whole new world of possibilities!

And now for the tribute to the Jeep. I'm going to ask you to cut off Stevie Wonder and put on some Green Day Good Riddance (The Time of your Life). Or, if you don't have that, I think Say Goodbye to Hollywood by Billy Joel would also work.

Sad face...

We scrubbed that thing HARD on Sunday to make it all shiny and non-junky looking.

AHHH, the Jeep is totally gonna run you over!

Sniff, sniff...no longer a two Jeep household. (PS, I think we're about to spend a lot less on gas!)

Since we had a hard and a soft top, we got to CRAM all of it in the back seat. And Smarty liked to chill with it inside.

Another one with Scott saying goodbye.

For what it's worth,
It was worth all the while.
It's something unpredictable
But in the end it's right
I hope you had the time of your life.
-Green Day

Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes
I'm afraid it's time for goodbye again
Say goodbye to Hollywood,
Say goodbye my baby.
-Billy Joel

Trading up, Good-bye Jeep!

So, we're doing it! Finally trading in Scott's Jeep Wrangler for a new car. We are totally pumped to seal the deal (hopefully) today on a new Ford Fusion. We'll wait and post pictures once we get that bad boy home, but we test drove and spent some (...a LOT) of time at the dealership Saturday and think we're pretty ready to go. I think Scott's most excited that it'll have air conditioning :)

So, in honor of the Jeep's last day in our care, I decided to write a goodbye letter.

Dear Wrangler,

Where to begin... I've known you for a long time. Back when we first met you were my boyfriend's sweet convertible Jeep, and I thought you were oh-so-cool. We went to the beach together and so many places I can't even begin to recount them all. But, I'm not gonna lie, my main memories are probably a little more shall we say on the Debbie Downer side. You had a tendency to mess up my hair, it became obvious that the CD's that went into your CD player would come back out looking like they'd been used as a coaster and a frisbee in a frat house, and need I even mention that more often than not the inside of you was covered with pollen and smelled like a tent? And don't get me started on the windshield "jiggling" incident of a few months ago on the way back from the beach. Not cool.

I digress... we had some "times"...we'll just leave it at that. The only reason I'm feeling a tad bittersweet is because I know that you and Scott were buddies... and I know how much he's going to hate saying goodbye to you. Twice yesterday he said "I wanna keep my old car (you)... I don't want a new car." But that's just the nostalgia talking, don't get all excited, Wrang. If you had a little more to offer in the air conditioning department, we might be able to stick it out. Oh, and speaking of stick, that's another weakness of yours.

Oh, not to make you jealous, but your replacement has sync, so we can call people without picking up a phone. And play ipods...It's gonna be killer.

So, it's been real... and you'll be missed.
Love,
Jamie

... and we did a "photo shoot" yesterday after the car-washing extravaganza! It's so ironic that we did all this work to clean the Jeep inside and out just to get rid of it! Cross your fingers that the dealership is feeling generous in their trade-in division...

Erica's visit

The only thing Erica was ADAMANT that we do on her visit to NC was see her alma mater - UNC. So, we made a visit to campus and downtown Chapel Hill. One theme for the weekend is the importance of checking the weather. It was a very weird weekend - actually kind of rainy a lot, which is bizzare for NC where we have a big draught. So here's a general what we did and what the weather was like...

Thurs - Jamie worked, E slept in and read, went for a walk. It was a beautiful day, hot as blazes but sunny.
Friday (the 4th) - gorgeous day #2 ... we shopped.
Saturday - freaking 3000% humidity, no sun, and IDK, like 85 degrees. ALL humidity, it was miserable. SOOO, this was our day to go walk around campus leisurely.
Sunday - POOL DAY...and it was overcast. Yeah, we're planners. Way to go!

But we had a blast, no surprise. It was a lot of fun to spend some quality time with Erica again... we laugh a lot.

Around campus at Carolina...

I like these two of me and Scott bc if you switch the faces we're making you'd have one really weird pic and one good one. We're so out of snyc.

See?

Far away of Jamie & Erica in the well thingie. It's the iconic thing on campus...kind of a big deal.

These are the faces of some happy and not miserable girls, don't you think?

Up close turned out pretty good.

Aw heck, let's do Erica & Scott.

Congrats Ash & Rob!

...they're engaged folks, as of this weekend! (And thus dies my dream of having Ashley Sutton marry a man with a last name beginning with "S". I guess the monogrammed towels will have to be sent back...) Rob will make an excellent addition to the family... I *guess* it's alright!

Anyway, congrats guys! We're very excited and happy for you. I have some wedding planning books you'll love.

We went to the Cheesecake Factory last night to celebrate. YES, you read that right. Scott and I ended the 4-yr freeze out on "The Factory" after getting food poisoning from them after we first moved to NC. We survived, but I will admit it was a little tough hearing them detail all the special "c-cakes" they offered.



Here's the rock... very hard to photograph. It's big. And shiny, and Ash is not bashful about showing that bad boy off!! :)



And here's the family...people were surprisingly nonchalant about walking right on through as we were taking this - like we usually just stand perfectly still by the fake palm tree in the waiting area, coupled off and very close together. Must be an Ebert thing...

A terrible recipe for kids, and how we spent our 4th

Erica's here! We've been having a great time so far! Last night we ended up renting Rendition - a movie about how the US skirts the law to detains terror suspects... um, not the most "Yay America, happy Independence Day" movie... It was very, very good though.



Last night, we made a recipe from my cookbook "Silly Snacks. Classroom Treats and Cookie Dough Fun"... a cookbook intended for teachers and/or mothers since most of the recipes are like cookies shaped into pigs or hamburgers or something cute that kids would just gobble up. Well, Erica and I were looking through the cookie dough fun section and decided to give the Cookie Pizza a go. HOLY crap, it takes a LOT to make me say this, but it is so rich. What mother in her right mind would feed this to her child, it's like pure sugar. It's like a sugar cookie topped with fudge topped with m&m's. The only situation I can think of where I'd feed it to a child is if I was babysitting and handing the kid off shortly and really despised the person I was handing him off to.

Cookie Pizza

1 18-oz package refridgerated sugar cookie dough
2 c semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 14-oz can Eagle Sweetened Condensed milk (we used Fat Free, cause we're health NUTS. Obv, w/ the cookie pizza and all...)
2 c M&Ms
2 c mini marshmallows (we omitted)
1/2 c peanuts (also omitted)

Directions:
1. Preaheat oven to 375. Press cookie dough into 2 ungreased 12 in pizza pans. Bake 10 min or until golden.
2. In medium-sized saucepan, melt chips with sweetened condensed milk. Spread over cookie dough. Sprinkle with M&Ms and other toppings.
3. Bake 4 min or so. Cool. Cut.

Buffalo Chicken Tenders

OMG...these were crazy delicious! The hot sauce was hotter than I expected...maybe heating it up (temp-wise) made it hotter (spicy-wise)? Either way - I LOVED these... they were so so good. They were easier than they seemed like they'd be too.

And like all breaded chicken that I've ever made, re-heating them in the oven is highly preferable to heating them in the microwave bc of the mushy factor.

Oh, and in random news - I served it with some Hidden Valley Ranch dressing we had in the fridge that expired June 29 08. Guess what day we ate it? June 29th. Isn't that vierd?

Buffalo-Style Chicken Strips with Ranch Dressing
Got it from Amber's Delectable Delights

Ingredients
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon onion powder (I omitted)
1/2 teaspoon salt (I omitted)
1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper (I used crushed red pepper flakes instead...though IDK if they're the same thing. I don't think they are... eh well.)
2 large egg whites, lightly beaten
1 1/2 cups coarsely crushed cornflakes (I used whole grain Total - it was awesome!)
1 pound chicken breasts, cut into 1/2-inch-thick strips
Cooking spray
1/3 cup hot sauce (such as Crystal) (I used Franks Red Hot)
1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce (such as Tabasco) (Yeah, I omitted this too.)
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 cup fat-free ranch dressing
4 celery stalks, cut into 1/4 x 3-inch sticks
4 carrots, cut into 1/4 x 3-inch sticks

Directions
Preheat oven to 400°.
Combine first 6 ingredients in a shallow dish, stirring with a whisk. Place egg whites in a shallow dish. Place cornflakes in a shallow dish. Working with 1 chicken strip at a time, dredge in flour mixture. Dip in egg whites; dredge in cornflakes. Place on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Repeat procedure with remaining chicken strips, flour mixture, egg whites, and cornflakes.

Lightly coat chicken strips with cooking spray. Bake at 400° for 10 minutes or until done, turning once.

Combine hot sauce, pepper sauce, and Worcestershire in a small saucepan; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 1 minute. Remove from heat; stir in butter. Drizzle hot sauce mixture over chicken. Serve with ranch dressing, celery, and carrots.

I heart blogs, and google reader

This is a PSA of sorts... I just wanted to share with you all the magic that is google reader. Here's a little informational thing about it.

Now, pretend I'm on an infomercial:

I used to click through all the blogs I check every day and be all like - dang, no update, next blog. But with this - it just highlights the blog when it's updated so you don't have to waste your time. You don't even have to visit the site. It's so easy, a caveman could do it. If only they could figure out a way to lose weight without changing your diet or exercising, and dumping spaghetti noodles into the strainer without burning your hands. I bet Google will come up with something for that... Oh, and it's free. No money required to use this gem of a tool. Just a computer and internet...which are not free. So you just need those two things THEN it's free.

And I know I've mentioned this before, but I love blogs. Here are some of my favorites:

Things Younger than McCain - This just makes me laugh... one of those funny/true/scary things.

Huffington Post - I subscribe to this one, but geez, I have a job, and there's no way I can keep up w/ the rate at which they post stuff. But the ones I do peruse are good articles, and I think it's making me more liberal. Yikes.

Dooce - So funny, great photographer and she lives off her blog, which would be awesome. And I love the monthly notes to her daughter...such a sweet idea.

Postcards from Yo Momma - just plain funny - people send in emails and IMs from their mothers. Luckily I have nothing to contribute to the site!

Wake Photography - This is my friend Kelly's (also love her blog) old roommate Kerri who I've met a few times. She's a fabulous photographer (and person :) ) and I enjoy browsing her nature and outdoor photos as I stare at the wall in my cube.

I also love subscribing to Food Blogs - because you can tag posts individually... so (see where I'm going with this?) I have a whole tag called "recipes I want to make" and I pull in the good ones! It makes me feel so efficient. Some of the good blogs are:

Ambers Delectable Delights
Good Things Catered
...and a Cookie for Dessert
Pioneer Woman

...and if you look at these sites' blog rolls you can find a bazillion other cooking blogs. Cookbooks are so 1990s. Oh and I must warn you - if you're hungry, don't look at those blogs bc your stomach will get mad at you. Apparently taking pictures of your food is like the new cool thing to do.

(Though I can only laugh at the thought, I will acknowledge that these are not paid advertisements. Don't I wish. Just my personal endorsements. )

New York City!

Woohoo! We booked our trip to NYC last night, and actually got what feels like a really good deal on airfare! We're going for 1 day and 1 night, then heading to NJ (just outside the city) for Tim & Cara's wedding on August 9th. It'll be a fun reunion of all of Scott's college buddies!

So far for our NYC day, we think we're going to do The Met and go to a Mets game (cute, right?) We *might* go to Top of the Rock...but we're kind of on the fence. Anything else super fabulous and fun we should hit?