Mom and Dad's Transformation

So we have done a lot of work in my parents' house (where I grew up). They have owned this house for 30 years and it has a lifetime of memories! I would not change my childhood for anything!

My mom loves wallpaper so she had wallpapered almost every room. If it didn't have wallpaper it had some kind of border to accent the paint. She surely hates plain painted walls!

These are all pictures of what we have done over the past month or so. They had surely accumulated 30 years worth of stuff! Time to downsize!!

Here are some before and after pictures of each room! (Some after pictures will come in about 2 weeks! Also all the carpet was replaced so that will be when I posted to showing photos!)

Living Room

Glenn's old room which then became Debbie's room.

When I took the desk off the wall I found Star Wars wallpaper remnant from Glenn's childhood! When Debbie moved in she painted it dark green and of course there is a border to match! 

Play Room 

 

 Hallway / Stairs

 

Dining Room (Formal)

Eat-In Kitchen

 

  Rachel and Beth's Bedroom

Parents' Bedroom

 My Bedroom (shared with Debbie's while Glenn was home)

  

Garage 

Random

(Left/Top) The tile flooring that we used to have before they put carpet in the eat-in kitchen area.

(Right/Bottom) An old chair we have had forever that my mom has recovered a few times!

The reason for all of this you may ask is they are moving! The house no longer has 7 people living there and is too big for them now. They will be looking for a single level house near me in Greensboro, NC! It will definitely be a big change!

I think Chris and I are just as ready for the move as they are!

Thank you to Bud and Kathy Hastings, Sue and Dennis Evans, and all other friends that have given up their time to help us in this endeavor!

Kitchen Time!

My appetizer was fresh tomatoes from the garden with fresh basil from my herbs, a little balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper. (Chris wouldn't eat it)

Dinner was chop steaks, peirogies, fresh (from our garden) green beans, and sister schuberts dinner rolls! It was delicious!

I baked zucchini cake with my zucchini from the garden! It is so delicious I never make the icing that goes on top! The bad thing is Chris doesn't really eat it so I gave most of it away!

So moist and delicious!

I had fun with a tomato. There was a hole that went through the edge of it and the water shot through!

Grilled squash (yes from my garden!)

Homemade pickles with cucmbers from our garden! Too bad he doesn't eat these either!

There are dill pickles (left) and bread & butter pickles (right). I have yet to perfect the dill recipe, so if you have a good one please share!! (I love claussen kosher dills!)

 This is a bread and butter recipe from my mom and it is awesome!!

It tastes like the real thing!!

Homemade pizza!!

It has homemade crust and sauce as well! Can you tell which side is mine and which is Chris'?

The Cooked Pizza!! Ready to EAT!!

The Bountiful Garden

So our garden has been growing and producing an abundant amount of vegetables! With the numerous mosquitos out, I do have to layer my clothing so as not to get eaten while picking. After being in MD helping "renovate" my parents' house I did spend 4 hours picking just tomatoes! This bowl is from only one tomato plant!

Chris' "experiment" tomato plant has grown to be over 10 feet tall! Of all the tomato plants it is the biggest and a cherry tomato plant no less!

Many of our vegetables have been given to friends and family. We have enjoyed giving them away just as much if not more than those receiving the vegetables!

I am sad to report, our corn did not fare so well. The squirrels began eating it so we picked what we could salvage thinking smaller was better than nothing. However when we cooked it, it had a weird taste, so we had to scrap it. Next year, I do not believe we will plant corn since we are 2 and 0 for growing corn.

Chris has decided to experiment more in our garden and with spicy things. Now if you know him you know he does not like spicy foods too much. So I asked him why he bought a white ghost pepper plant (one of the hottest peppers). He did say he would try anything once! So when it produces peppers we will definitely be having a party with everyone over to see who is daring enough to eat one! There will be video, which will be posted online!

Our green beans have come and gone as well. So now we are saving the space for fall lettuce and peas. Broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage is also finished.

We have since planted 3 more squash, 3 more zucchini, 4 honeydew melon, 1 canteloupe, and 4 more pickling cucumbers! We are hoping for a good fall harvest (and hopefully my parents will be living here then as well!)

Tomatoes as you can see are still going crazy and don't seem to be lessening anytime soon!

  Here are some pictures of our latest harvests!

The Garden of 2012!

We have finally planted our garden and it has started to grow!!

About 3 weeks ago we finally put the seeds/plants in the ground. We changed some things around from last year.

We will have plenty to eat and share!

We began with 2 half rows of corn, 1 full row and 2 half rows of green beans, 3 summer squash, 3 zucchini, 3 cabbage, 6 cucumbers, 3 cauliflower, 7 broccoli, 4 banana peppers, 4 jalapeno peppers, 3 red peppers, 4 green peppers, 16 tomatoes (8 different kinds), and 8 romaine lettuce...

I wasn't lying when I said we would have enough to share!

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As of this past weekend our 3 zucchini plants bit the dust! So we went ahead and replaced 2 zucchini plants and decided to get daring...  We now have watermelon, canteloupe, spaghetti squash, and butternut squash!! There are also approximately 30 random tomato plants growing in our garden all around!! We began pulling some but I think we may leave a few that appeared in some pretty good spots!

More pictures to come! Things have grown quite a bit, especially with all the rain we have had!

A little paint can do the trick!

So during Spring Break I spent time in MD with family and here in NC at my house. I was not quite as productive as I had hoped to be but I did get the other wall of our kitchen painted! Now it finally matches the rest of it!
Here is the before:

  Here it is after primer:

Here is the after:
 It actually makes the kitchen look bigger and brighter!

 
Now all we have to do is paint the ceiling, paint the cabinets, and get new flooring!

Spring Break?!?

So spring break began yesterday at approximately 3pm. Since 3 yesterday, I worked at school until about 5pm, when I left and headed "home" to MD. I arrived at Debbie's house at about 11pm which marked bedtime! This morning I went to work at CRG with her to help screen phone calls. It is never a dull moment in that office. There are some great people there, especially the bosses! I will go back and work more with her on Monday before returning to NC.
The reason I came "home" was for the Easter holiday. I have not made it home since Christmas. It should be interesting to see how my parents have changed the house I grew up in. They finally decided (I believe) to move to NC and have been busy painting and cleaning up the old house. Chris was unable to come with me. (Boy do I dislike the scheduling where he works) Don't get me wrong, I am extremely grateful that he has a job I just think his work schedule could be better. He had off today for Good Friday, but he has to work tomorrow. Yup, it stinks!
As much as I want to relax over Spring Break, I just don't see that happening. My "to do" list continues to get bigger! I wonder what would happen if I decided to just go back to NC and do nothing but cook and scrapbook?! Too bad I did bring some school work home that I have to get done. Oh well! Maybe next year I can do that. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are all workdays though, so technically I should be working, however our principal is wonderful and understanding that we have other lives and need a break. She is allowing us to take time off or make up the time! I think I may still go in for a few hours Wednesday to clean.
When I do get back home (NC) we are going to finally plant our garden! We bought pepper plants, tomato plants, cucumber, broccoli, cabbage, and squash plants from the farmers market. I have a few more tomato plants to buy as well as green beans and corn seeds. It should be fun this year to see how we amend our garden and learn from last year. I will definitely post more consistently (I hope) this summer. (Only 38 more school days until summer!!!!)
Well it is 11:30 at night on a Friday and I am beat. It is time to go to bed so I don't spend the whole day tomorrow in bed! Hopefully I will write more while we have the week off!