Sick & Tired of Feeling Sick & Tired

Going into my 12th week, everyone said the queasiness and exhaustion would wear off.  WRONG!  I have been such a slug!  Poor Ian...he has been so busy around the house, running electric, transplanting things around the yard, mulching, doing laundry...and all I do is rest.  I feel awful!  I made a nice dinner last night, which was difficult with the raw meat and the hot, poorly ventilated kitchen (by the way, we have no air conditioning).  And now I'm whining!  See???  I need to find something to keep me busy!

My new obsession with Pinterest has kept me occupied, but immobile and unproductive!  I think I will pick a couple things from my Crafts & DIY board to do this summer.  Perhaps...

Ruler Art

Wouldn't this be great to measure the growth of a little one???  A little early, perhaps, but it would be a nice piece of wall art for now.  I just found the perfect piece of wood in our wood pile! 

Lavender Wreath

I wonder if I could pull this off?

Head Board

I have been meaning to get around to building or buying a headboard but I haven't made any progress, yet.  I think I love this!  Not as much woodwork as I had anticipated and I love the picture ledge!  I wonder if I could sew that pillow?  This may require a new duvet cover.

 

Tiered Cake Stand

I love this cake easy cake stand!  I don't need one, but I just love it!

Glass Etching

I have always wanted to try this!  It looks so easy...I just have to decide what to etch.  Love the water idea.  This may even give me an excuse to buy a Cricut.

Mercury Glass

I absolutely love mercury glass.  I don't know where this new obsession came from, and my collection only consists of two fake candlesticks from Target.  I want more and I can't afford the real thing so this may be a perfect DIY project for me.

Will any of this get done???  We'll have to see.  Every time I think my energy is coming back, I find myself out of breath and laying down with Netflix.  I just want to feel normal again! 

Getting Excited!

It's officially my summer vacation!  While I have a looong list of things to do, I decided to take a few hours to look at baby stuff online.  After a few sitings, it all became very real.  I am sooo excited for Baby Burley's big arrival!  ...long way off, but it's never too early to get ideas!

I love this idea for books!

This would make a lovely night light...wonder how it looks in the day time, though?

Can't you just see a baby crawling all over this!

Perfect for a winter baby!  ...oh, which I'm having!

In love with this for summer...wish my bump was bigger to fill it out.  I still want it.

This will be happening...

If we have a girl, this will be my first purchase!

...and these

First baby blog...guess it's official!

Pinterest Addiction

I realize this isn't a very original post in the blogosphere, but I had to proclaim my own recent addiction to Pinterest.

...true story

When I first came across this site, I thought it was just another way for me to save things I like.  I already use Diigo and Evernote and have more lists than is healthy for one person.  But then I saw a picture of the Pinterest homepage...not the actual homepage because you need to request an invite for an account in order to access all of the pins.  Kind of a bummer...but part of the appeal!

I am a visual person, so this is ideal for me!  Every now and then a browse the Pinterest boards and "repin" things that strike my fancy onto my own boards...I've built quite a few!  Also, when I peruse all of the blogs I follow, I can pin my favorite images to remind myself of something I want to try or fall in love with.  Now, rather than searching through all of the For the Home bookmarks I've saved, waiting for pages to load, and looking for whatever it is I wanted to save in the first place, it's all there laid out for me in an organized visual collage.

Here are clips from some of my boards...

  

My Style

 Nursery

 Crafts & DIY

  Nostalgia

...because it's nice to remember

  Recipes

 Gift Wrap

  Entertaining

  Baby Shower

 For the Home

There's two things that I love about Pinterest.  First, I lack vision when I decorate, shop, entertain, etc.  If I look at the boards that I've created over time, I can get a sense of what I really like and inspire myself!  Also, if friends and family want to join and become your friends on Pinterest, they can look at your boards and learn what you like.  Makes gift-shopping a breeze!  You hear that Mommy???  hint, hint

Why We've Been Away...

Well, it's been about a month since my last post.  There's a few reasons, I guess.  As the school years winds down, things are busier than ever.  As summer beats us with it's cruel heat waves, our lack of air conditioning has made it very unappealing to keep a hot laptop on my lap.  I've been feeling just awful!  Oh, and we've been working on this...



So there it is.  Hopefully central air will be installed soon, the non-alcoholic hangover will go away, and our blog will resume as usual...only with some slightly cuter posts.

Not Quite A Veggie Lasagna

Last week I had the urge to make a veggie lasagna.  I love me a good hearty meal, and this is oober healthy!  You might me saying to yourself, that doesn't look like a lasagna.  I stood in the pasta aisle at the food store looking at the lasagna noodles.  I had nasty flashbacks to the last time I tried to make lasagna...every single one ripped.  All I had left was a bunch of flat jigsawed pasta pieces, barely supporting layers of meat, cheese, and sauce.  I swore I would never make a traditional lasagna again!  So as I stared at those noodles, wondering if I should break my promise to myself...I chickened out and bought rotini.

Now you know me, I always seem to modify recipes...whether it's because I forgot an ingredient or I'm having some kind of wacky craving.  So, as I looked at veggie lasagna recipes (after buying the ingredients) I realized veggie lasagnas typically have white sauces.  Ho hum.  Red it would be. And I love my turkey meat, so this was not quite a veggie lasagna...it just had a lot of veggies in it.

As I boiled the pasta, I browned up some Italian seasoned turkey meat and in a separate pan, cooked all of my veggies... green and yellow zucchini, broccoli, garlic, mushrooms, and shredded carrots.

To the cooked veggies, I added a can of diced tomatoes and some chopped spinach that I thawed out in the microwave...best bargain in the foodstore!  To the meat I added just a little bit of my tomato sauce, just to give a little flavor.

In a separate bowl, I whisked two eggs and mixed in ricotta cheese and some Italian seasoning.  I typically wouldn't add egg, but I was recently told I needed to eat more eggs...at least one a day...so in they went!  I love disguising food in other food.  

Then, I started layering...

A lil' bit of sauce

Some noodles

Ricotta mixture

Veggies

Turkey

Sauce...gotta control my warm colors in this picture!

Mozzarella

Repeat!  Noodles...ricotta...veggies...turkey...sauce...cheese...

At this point I thought I was going to have too much for my baking pan.

But it all fit just right!

This was absolutely delicious!  I'm glad I didn't use the white sauce because I felt like it was just a little healthier.  There was a bit of cheese, but that's calcium, right??? And it made so much food that I was able to eat it for lunch, too!

A Royal Tea Party

It took me a while, but I finally fell for the royal wedding hype.  There was just something about the history and tradition behind it all.  I absolutely loved that wedding dress!  Isn't she beautiful?!?  I think I selfishly got into the wedding because it gave me an excuse to make tea sandwiches for my co-workers and use my new Sophie Conran footed cake plate.  I looove white Sophie Conran and can't wait to build my collection.  I made 4 different kinds of sandwiches, alternating between fresh white bread and pumpernickel.

One sandwich had a pimento cheese spread which I embellished with a square-cut radish and a small green olive.

I never imagined sot cream cheese, cucumber and mint would make such a lovely combination.  I might salt the cucumber next time.

My friend Mary said her favorite was garlic herb cheese, cucumber, and watercress...delicious!  When I peeled the English cucumber I ended up with these great green ribbons so I threaded them on a toothpick to dress things up.

This was my favorite!  Smoked salmon spread with chives.  And I couldn't let these great chive-tops go to waste!  Lovely.

These were so yummy and a perfect tough for our ladies-only wedding tea party. 

Spring Has Most Certainly Sprung

I keep falling into some serious blogging lulls.  I guess things have been busy around here.  As we move into Spring, I realize why I love it here so much.  In the winter, Quaint Oaks is nice, but it loses much of its beauty, as I'm sure most yards do.  It is so exciting to hear birds and see shades of green come out from hiding.  Here are some early shots of Quaint Oaks.  Ian has done a lot of work transplanting and cleaning out...I can't wait for everything to fill in!