Getting ready for Christmas......

Last weekend we started putting our Christmas decorations and lights up!

I mean, my awesome husband started putting our Christmas lights up........

I just love the way our house looks when we are all decorated for Christmas.


Here is my sweet husband putting up the outdoor Christmas tree. Soon this little tree will be all lit up in blue lights.

Tim anchored it to the ground with wires so it won't tip over.

And he buried an outdoor extension cord a few inches under the grass. It runs from the tree to the house, and will power the blue lights on the tree.

I'll post an update when we get the rest of the lights and the decorations up.

Bedroom Wish List

Tim and I have big plans for our bedroom, and it will still be a little while before we get to dig in.

First, lets go back 3 years to see what our bedroom looked like on the day we moved in:

We think our house was last re-decorated sometime in the 80's. It's in desperate need of a face lift. Two walls in our bedroom are painted hunter green, and the other 2 are tan. We haven't repainted the bedroom yet, we have been living with the hunter green/ tan combo for 3 years now.

This furniture was given to us when we moved in:

The furniture is big and outdated, but better than nothing. We are glad we didn't have to buy bedroom furniture right away when we moved in, we wanted to take our time to decide what we want.

Here are a few pics of our bedroom as it looks today. It's a very small room, and it's really nothing special.

Yes, thats a blanket covering the window (we are THOSE people!) We plan to get a classier window covering but for now Tim needs the blankets to black out the room so he can sleep. Sometimes in the summer it's still light out when he goes to bed.

In the picture below, you can see my necklaces and bracelets hanging on the walls. I really need a better way to store these.

The bed was Timmy's from before we got together. This bed is the first thing I want to replace.

This is not a comfortable bed. It doesn't even look comfortable.

And look how small that bed is! It's not even queen-sized, it's a double. That means Tim and I each get
17 1/2 inches of sleeping space, which we share with 2 dogs.

Quite cozy, but not comfortable at all!

Here is our closet. I had Tim remove the closet doors, the hanging clothes bar and the shelves that were in there. He replaced them with these shelves:

I understand this wouldn't be everyones  choice for their clothes storage, but it works very well for us.
I hated trying to dig through 14 drawers to find a shirt. I would rather have my shirts in a stack where I can see them all. Drawers are small and only hold about 6 shirts each.
Our hanging clothes have been relocated to one of the hallway closets.

Eventually I will make a curtain for the closet. It will be something like a shower curtain type set-up, but will be made of fabric, not plastic. The curtain will hide the clothes but will easily push to one side or the other so we can still access our clothes easily.


We have been planning to re-do the entire bedroom since we moved in here 3 years ago, but since Tim and I (and the dogs) are really the only ones that see the bedroom, it keeps getting pushed down the list. We have been concentrating on re-doing the more visible rooms first, like the kitchen, living room and bathroom.

Here are a few of the ideas we have decided we like for our bedroom:

We want to paint the walls either tan or gray, we haven't decided yet but maybe leaning towards the gray.

The trim will be black, the same as the trim in the rest of the house.

Here are a few pictures of what we are looking at for our bedroom furniture:


Our bed will be simple, black, and have drawers underneath. We like the idea of the double stack of drawers, so the bed is taller. Plus we would have more drawers for storage since we don't plan to have a dresser. Queen sized please! Maybe king.

We like this headboard with the simple shelves:

I'm not sure if we will be able to find the exact bed we want. Tim may have to make our bed frame for us.

We want simple night stands (one for each side of the bed):

And for my jewelry storage, I want a jewelry box like one of these:

I need a place to keep all of my girly stuff; face cleaner, deodorant, lotions, q-tips, etc.... I like to keep all of that stuff in one place (and not in the bathroom).

I found this picture online, and Tim said he could make it for me:

Of course, it will be painted black, I LOVE this idea!!

OK, that takes care of our bedroom furniture wish list.

We will get rid of our dressers, all of our clothes are stored in the closet.

For the decorating, as I mentioned above, the walls will be painted either gray or tan, and the trim paint will be black.

We plan to start collecting vintage Harley Davidson metal signs and pictures like these:

And maybe we'll add a mirror or two. Since authentic Harley decor is really expensive, I can DIY these with Stickers and cheaper mirrors:

We'll replace the handles on my new vanity and our new nightstands with some of these:

And a ceiling fan too. I like this Harley one, but it costs almost $400.00 (YIKES!) I'm pretty sure Tim and I can buy a plain black ceiling fan and DIY it to look close to this Harley one:

We plan to replace our bedroom TV with a flat screen, and we want to hang it on an extendable arm like this:

 With the extendable arm, the TV will lay flat against the wall when we aren't watching. When we want to watch TV from the bed, we can pull it out and the TV will hover over the bed.  (It will hover down by our feet, not directly above us) YAY for not having to wear my glasses in bed to see the TV!

So there you have it, and hopefully we will get to our bedroom re-do very soon! I'll keep you posted!

Oh MY! French Silk Pie!

I made 2 of these French silk pies this weekend. My family LOVED them!

This isn't your typical chocolate pudding mix kind of pie. This pie is very chocolaty, very dense, and very rich.


Here is the recipe:

Homemade French Silk Pie


For this pie, I used frozen pie crust. I bought 9 inch deep dish crust.

You can use whatever type of pie crust you prefer.

Thaw the fozen pie crust for about 10-15 minutes. Then prick all over with a fork and bake in a 400 degree oven for about 10 minutes until it begins to turn golden brown around the top edge. If your crust bubbles up while you are baking it, prick it a few more times and continue baking.

While your pie crusts cool, you can make the chocolate filling.

To make two 9 inch deep dish pies, you will need:

4 cups milk
8 egg yolks
4 tablespoons flour
8 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups white sugar
2 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons vanilla
4 (one ounce) squares of unsweetened baking chocolate

In a bowl, beat milk and egg yolks until mixed

In a small bowl, mix cornstarch, flour and water until a smooth paste forms.

In a large pot, mix milk/egg mixture with sugar. Heat over medium heat.

Keep stirring constantly.

As you stir, add salt, and then add the cornstarch/flour paste.

Continue to stir over medium heat for 8-15 minutes until it reaches a full boil. A full boil will still boil even though you are stirring.

When it reaches a full boil, stir and boil for 1 minute (don't full boil longer than 1 minute). Mixture should thicken.

Remove from heat,

Add squares of chocolate, butter and vanilla. Stir until chocolate is melted and smooth.

Pour into pie shells.

Let pies cool for 5 minutes, then cover with plastic wrap (make the wrap cling to the top of the pie, so you won't get a hard filmy layer of on top of pie as it cools)

Put in refrigerator and cool for at least 4 hours.

Before serving, remove plastic wrap and spread a thick layer of cool whip (or you choice of topping).

You can add sprinkles, or shaved chocolate pieces (shave a chocolate bar using a carrot peeler).

Passing time

My son Allen and his girlfriend Shelah were over the other night.

And they helped for a while on my puzzle (this one has a pic of New York City)

I like doing puzzles, it's very relaxing.

You kind of get into a puzzle mode.

When I have a puzzle out, it seems to attract people to sit down and work on it.

Kind of like a magnet.

And then when I finish a puzzle, I put it up for sale on my ebay site so I can get most of my money back.

Burn Day!

We couldn't let this long weekend go by without a project.

This morning we burned all of the brush and tree limbs from our yard. We have several mature trees that drop limbs throughout the year. Plus we tore out the bushes from the front of the house a few months ago, so we had a giant pile of dead bushes to deal with.

We usually burn twice a year.

Here is part of the pile we have collected since spring

We brought all of the brush and limbs to the middle of the yard and made a nice burn pile

Tim lit it with a propane torch (he calls it a weed burner) --- and yes, we had a fire permit and shovels and water nearby

We had a nice bonfire for a few hours. And we walked around the yard and collected all of the sticks, limbs, and fallen tree branches we could find.

Until everything burned down to mostly ashes

So that was our day-after-thanksgiving fun! (and now my yard is all cleaned up and ready for winter!) YAY!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

HAPPY DAY!! NEW FRIDGE!!!

Today, this awesome Lowe's truck pulled up in front of our house, and brought us a new fridge!!

This is so exciting! For three years, we have been living with this old fridge that came with the house

Note**  the old fridge had been moved across the room so I could clean the floor underneath where it was (yuck!) In the above picture, it's just sitting in front of the window waiting to be moved out of the house.

Tim said he would replace the old appliances that came with the house as they died, but after 3 years, this fridge is still going strong.

Except, the ice maker never worked, and the inside light stopped working 2 years ago.

I've been waiting and waiting for it to just stop working.

And now I don't have to wait anymore!

Tim found an awesome sale on refrigerators at Lowe's last week, and LUCKY ME!, he bought one!!!!

I'm loving this!

It's just gorgeous!!

Plenty of room inside! (That's a 20 lb. turkey thawing in there)

And I have a light!!!

And then there is this cool drawer thingie. It has 3 compartments.  I'm not sure what to put in there, but right now I have meats on the right side (lunchmeat, bacon, hotdogs), and I have fruit cups and yogurt cups on the left.
I put cheese and onions in the middle.

I think I better move the onions.

Here is the freezer on the bottom. It has the 2 bottom bins, and also a pullout wire basket.

The freezer is still empty, we moved all of the frozen stuff to the chest freezer downstairs.

The sweetest part of all, the water thing and ice maker in the door! I'm so excited, and Timmy is running the copper wire RIGHT NOW to get the water line hooked up.

-sorry for the crummy pictures

So exciting! And now the old stove is next to go!! 

You can see it lurking in the back of this photo:

And I'm working on paint colors too, we're going to change the gray wall color to something a little brighter. 

It's a little too drab in there with all of the gray and the black. But more on that later.