Daily Art - Foto Friday, Meerkat Edition

Why meerkats?  Why not.  Here's some meerkats I photographed at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.  They look like they're having a great time.  Hope your Friday is just as fun!

Daily Bargain - Library book score!

When I was a kid, my parents would drop me off at the local library and I would read books until it was time to walk to my tap dance class.  It was a Saturday morning ritual that I enjoyed, being the avid reader that I was.  Currently, I'm a member of two local library networks and it's become somewhere to take Owen, who I've been reading to since he was born.  He seems to have inherited a healthy enjoyment of books and we share a nice, long story each evening before bed.

This week, the Burbank library annual book sale was happening and I took the opportunity to head over there on a lunch break.  All children's books were $0.25 - can't beat that for a bargain.  20 books and $5 later, I hauled 2 gigantic bags of books back out to the car, half expecting for somebody to stop and accuse me of theft!  Including the 5 books I bought at a different library branch the week before, Owen's bookcase is definitely a lot more packed this week. 

As it turns out, I'm attracted to beautiful illustrations, especially if they involve dragons.  One of the books was signed by the author, so a definite collectible, while another was signed by Mickey and Minnie Mouse back in 1998.  We're debating taking it back to Disneyland with us when we go in a few weeks and seeing if we can get it signed again!  Not only was this a vast assortment of books, they were also in excellent condition.  Owen has been carrying around the two Thomas The Tank board books since I got them, even insisting he take them to daycare, where I was informed he shared them with the group. 

So, if you have a library near you, I highly recommend looking to see if they have a book sale coming up.  It's a great way to expand your book collection without breaking the bank, plus you get to support your local library, which is never a bad thing.  I've included the full list of books we purchased below as they are highly rated and we've really enjoyed all the ones we've read so far!







That's All Folks: The Art Of Warner Bros. Animation by Steve Schneider
The Hunchback Of Notre Dame  Disney
Ignis by Gina Wilson
Hieronymus Betts And His Unusual Pets by M. P. Robertson
Lucia And The Light by Phyllis Root and Mary GrandPre
Magic & Mischief: Tales From Cornwall by Shirley Climo and Anthony Bacon Venti
Olivia by Ian Falconer
The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams and William Nicholson
Something Special by David M. McPhail
Garfield Stories by Jim Davis
Dancing Dinos At The Beach by Sally Lucas and Margeaux Lucas
Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
The Cat In The Hat by Dr. Suess
The Cat In The Hat Comes Back by Dr. Seuss 
Stop, Train, Stop! by Rev. W. Awdry
A Crack In The Track by Rev. W. Awdry
The Train Of States by Peter Sis
About Dinosaurs: Little People Big Book by Time-Life Books
Baby's First Library ABC by Yoyo Books
The Enchanted Forest by Ben Marcus
Uncle Lester's Hat by Howie Schneider
Twenty One Elephants And Still Standing by April Jones Prince
Once Upon A Cloud by Rob D. Walker and Matt Mahurin
Paddington's Loose End Book by Michael Bond
The Sea Serpent And Me by Dashka Slater and Catia Chien

Daily Dish - Chicken, asparagus pizza

Well, now that the kitchen is done, we're back to being able to cook in it regularly.  It's a joy!  I'm making a conscious effort to keep the excessive number of appliances we have off the counters as much as possible.  I'm also making an effort to use them more! 

My little brother is general manager of a very high end restaurant, so qualifies as a mega-foodie.  As it turns out, he has been known to sneak around our kitchen, when visiting, to evaluate what appliances we might be missing, and then fills in the blanks for holiday gifts.  That is how we ended up with our bread machine.  We weren't particularly happy with the pizza dough recipe that came in the instructions booklet, so gave this one a shot, which turned out nicely.  I made a double batch so that we could freeze half for later.  I definitely enjoyed the convenience of being able to attend to the little one while the machine worked it's dough magic - hands free!  Of course, you could make your own pizza using a store bought dough or base as well.

Chicken asparagus pizza

- 1 cooked chicken breast, cut into cubes
- 4oz skinny asparagus (cut into 2" pieces)
- 1/2 medium onion (thinly sliced)
- 1/2 red bell pepper (sliced)
- 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 1/2 cup grated mozarella cheese
- 4 tsp olive tepenade

Pre-heat the oven to 425.  If using raw dough, roll out the dough and put onto the pizza pan.  Once the oven is at temp, put the prepared dough in the oven for about 5 minutes to crisp the top.  This prevents it from becoming soggy once the toppings are added.  Remove from oven and add toppings - use the olive tepenade as your base, then top with mozarella cheese, chicken, veggies, and sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top.  Bake for an additional 15 minutes.  Enjoy! 

Daily Ramblings - Kitchen Reno Completed aka I'm A Slacker (Part 2)

I must apologize for my unexcused absence.  I've had photos of our kitchen renovation on my camera for a few weeks now and just never got around to taking them off, or posting about anything at all.  So, here we are and I do want to share these, seeing as you got to see the before photos!

The project took a little over 2 weeks total.  We kept the existing cabinets and all the appliances, except the dishwasher, which we switched to stainless steel to match the rest.  We added new ceramic floor tile, "tan brown" granite, glass mosaic backsplash, stainless steel sink and faucet, cabinet hardware, and under cabinet lighting.  We ended up getting a new water heater installed, adding a light above the pantry, refinishing the ceiling, and removing the garbage compactor which served no purpose other than to remind us that the 1980s happened.  I can hardly recognize the white/bland kitchen that was there before now it's been replaced with a warm and happy space.

Renovations with a toddler in the house?  Not the most fun thing ever, but this was the biggest and most inconvenient one we have planned.  Unlike doing a bathroom where you may have other bathrooms to use in the meantime, most houses only have the one kitchen, which makes life hard when you don't have access to it, especially considering we cook a lot in our house.  

We still have a bathroom and living room space to work on, but for now, we'll take a break in our (finally) dust free space!  Back to regularly scheduled programming...

Daily Baby - Owen's First Year

We just got the photobook of Owen's first year in the mail.  I'm really proud of myself for weeding through the couple thousand photos, keeping it down to only 88 pages, and actually finishing it before he started Kinder.  I know I can't bring the book around to share with everybody, as much as I'd like to (although if you're ever at our house, you're more than welcome to peek), so I made a short video from the scrapbook pages that I created.  I really hope I captured the essence of the tiny little goofball I'm proud to call my son!

The scrapbook pages were created using My Memories digital scrapbooking software.  I ended up ordering the book through Winkflash, who were having a flat page book sale (up to 100 pages for a flat rate, which saved me $66 according to my checkout receipt).  I'd say they run that sale a few times a year, so worth looking out for if you have a big book in the works.  Winkflash seems to be a lesser known printing company, but they do good work and the only complaint I have about their photobooks is that they don't print the album title on the spine.  
Anyway, enjoy!  I'll be back soon with those kitchen before and after photos!

Daily Art - Foto Friday, Jellyfish edition

Today, I wanted something soothing and pretty to share, as a contrast to the mayhem that's happening in my house.  So, here's some pictures of jellyfish that I've taken in the last couple of years.  Happy Friday all!

Daily Ramblings - So that's what was under there...kitchen reno (Part 1)

Welcome to March. So far, the month has been taken up by dust and home improvement, so here's a quick breakdown of what's been going on! (Right now, I'll share everything via Instagram photos, but proper before and after shots to come later...)

Here is the original kitchen. That's a lot of little white tiles, right? In fact, our kitchen table (not pictured) also featured little white tiles on the top, a leftover gift from the previous owners that we never bothered to remove. The problem with little white tiles everywhere is that they are impossible to keep clean....and, without anything on the counters, it's quite apparent how bland this looks!  We've upgraded the appliances in the last couple of years, but notice the beautiful trash compactor in the lower left corner?  We don't even know where the key for that thing is, so it's mostly been taking up space.  We had it removed and I can't say I miss it.


Whomever laid the tile previously never bothered to do the laundry room, or under the dishwasher or stove.  The gap between where the tile stopped, and where the dishwasher was placed, was about a half inch collection point for things that had been swept over time.  Gross, I know, but I certainly wasn't about to go fishing around in there to get things out.  To be honest, when we first moved in, 5.5 years ago, we knew that the kitchen would eventually have to go.  I'm surprised it took us this long!


One advantage (if you want to call it that) of the bad tile job, was that it wasn't a complete shock when the tile was pulled up to reveal this beautiful linoleum underneath.  The building was built in 1981 I believe, which means that's probably the original.  Gorgeous isn't it?  I thought about keeping it for....no, I'm kidding.  That stuff had to go asap.  Three guys spent an entire afternoon scraping it off the sub-floor.  I was at home that day, and not at all jealous of what they were doing.


The counter-tops were demolished on day two, after the floor was pulled up.  Needless to say there's a lot of eating out/ordering for pick-up going on right now, and I'm grateful for the paper plates and plastic cutlery left over from Owen's birthday.  Our fridge is also in the living room, which makes for easy access at least...and we'll just say that's a silver lining.


The cabinets are the one thing that we're keeping, although we will be adding hardware.  Our new floor tile is a slate color with brown tones that match the cabinets, which they are starting to lay down today.  The granite is going in this weekend along with a new sink and faucet.  We're finishing everything up with a pretty glass mosaic back-splash, which will be started next week and is likely to be the most complicated part as it is the most intricate.  It might also be the part that I'm most interested to see come together as the granite and flooring are quite dark, so the back-splash (and paint) is where we decided to bring back some lightness.  


I stood in the kitchen this morning to take a look at/admire the paint color in daylight. As I was contemplating how much I enjoyed our chosen color (BEHR "Sculptor's Clay, which is essentially a neutral somewhere between brown and grey), I laughed at teenage me who would have undoubtedly thought being excited about such things was lame.


Any kind of remodeling can be stressful, even more so with a toddler in the house.  We've had various adventures this week just trying to keep him out of the house as much as possible.  When we did our bathroom, there were at least other bathrooms available to use.  Not having access to the kitchen, as a household that cooks 5 nights a week, is definitely a unique situation that I'll be glad to be done with.  It's a small price to pay for getting to cook in my new, awesome kitchen soon!  I'll be back with an update next week...