What's on Tap this Weekend?

I'm really looking forward to this weekend. It's not so much that anything fantastic has been planned {though I am looking forward to dinner plans we made with another couple for Saturday night} but I'm just looking forward to being at home. As I look around my home lately, I see a lot of projects still waiting to be tackled ~ and I don't like the way it feels. I'm looking forward to knocking some of the easy ones out, and maybe even tackling a bear or two before we see Monday.... so here's what's up:

Play List:

* Walk the Dogs. We all need the walk and fresh air.
* Read.  There has been a stack of books on my nightstand forever since we moved into our new house. That was two years ago. It's time to pick one up and escape for a while.
* Review my list of 101 dreams for 2012.  I created the list two weeks ago. I need to review it and decide where I want to start.

To Finish:

* Laundry.  Amazingly, I'm not far from "finished" at all. A couple more loads, and I can cross this one off!
* Meal Planning for the week.  I found a new program yesterday for this. I'm really excited about trying it out and seeing how it goes!
* Grocery Shopping.  I'm really looking forward to the hubby and I doing a detox week next week.  But we really need to stock up on whole foods in order to make it happen!
* Clean the master suite.  Because I haven't touched it from two weeks ago. And it really needs it again {mainly the bathroom, but the bedroom could use a light dusting and vac as well...}.
* Swap out Hangers in my closet. I bought one more set of those skinny "huggable" hangers from Target last time I was in there. I need to trade out the cruddy hangers for these thin lined ones to make better use of the tiny space I have.

I'm nervous about adding more, because there is always SO much I could add to these lists. Speaking of lists, another Target find I'm loving lately is my new Blue Sky 2012 Planner I found. 


I have the brown one in the middle top.


I'm using it like a diary or journal to jot down important daily events, and many not-so-seemingly-important events. I'm writing down everything from "had a migraine" and "washed sheets" to "hair cut" and "dinner with H" so that I know how much time passes before I get around to doing them again. This all came from when I got my hair cut earlier this year. In the moment I sat down in the salon, I realized it had been since the previous March that I'd gotten my hair cut last. That made it NINE MONTHS that I hadn't cut my hair. My hope with the planner is that I can see exactly what's going on when ~ and appropriately plan going forward. As I mentioned, I'm also putting ailments down {people and furbaby issues alike} so I know how frequently we're not feeling up to par. If it starts looking like a trend, then perhaps I'll be able to investigate deeper to determine if we can prevent the bad from happening again in the future. It's an idea, anyway ~ we'll see how it works in real life... you never know with me.

Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!!

Monday Makeover: Wedding Time Capsule Ornament

Admittedly, this "makeover" is more of a craft. But considering I took something I had, and made it look different, I'm going with "makeover" for the purpose of this post. Roll with me, here...

Unfortunately, however, because I hadn't planned on this being a makeover post, I didn't take a "before" picture. So I will ask you to use your imagination. I know you can do it.

Also, this post is about a month over-due as it relates to a Christmas project! However, hopefully this will help remind me I want to do this again next Christmas, anyway....

So! Picture this: a clear glass ornament. It has little white snowflakes on it. And it's capped with a gold ornament cap.  There you go ~ before photo.  I knew you could do it.

Several weeks ago, I saw this pin:

Source: etsy.com via Liz on Pinterest

And I thought to myself, "Self, you should do this for your wedding. And while you're at it, go ahead and do it for every year after that to create a sort of time capsule of your marriage!" Fantastic idea. Except I am too cheap to go out an buy clear glass ornaments... {yes, I know they are cheap ~ I am cheaper!} I looked at our tree and noticed hubby's grandmother had given us several glass ornaments that were clear, except for some snowflakes on it. This would do just perfectly. They were free, sentimental, and just the right type of vessel for my time capsule.

I took a leftover anniversary party invitation {For those of you who don't know ~ hubby and I got married on our lunch break! So.... no invitations for that! We had a party for our 6 month anniversary to celebrate our marriage} and cut it into strips. Then, I curled the strips of paper around a pen to curl them. Then, I carefully plunked them into the ornament. Our invitations originally contained a red wax "K" seal. So I created a seal on a cereal bag {in place of waxed paper} and once it hardened, I peeled that off and plunked it into the ornament, too.

I'm thrilled with the result! I'm hoping that my ornament for 2012 will contain some fantastic bits from our Scotland/Ireland trip! I'm very much looking forward to keeping up with this tradition. And luckily, Granny gave us several of these clear ornaments, so I can continue to be cheap for many years to come!

Wordless Wednesday: Ahhhhh...

Tasty Tuesday: Bringing in the New Year with Bourbon!

Ok, I know it's January 10th {there are 3 minutes left of it!}, and I know that means the New Year was 10 days ago, and I realize that makes this post regretfully late. I'm sorry, it's been a mad house around here.  That being said, I did want to share with you a couple good finds located within this fantastic book given to the me and the hubby for Christmas: "The Kentucky Bourbon Cocktail Book." {Thank you, Gwynne!}

{ Photo Source }

The hubby and I are slowly enjoying our way through the pages of the book, documenting our journey as we go...

Today I wanted to share with you two of the recipes that we tried this New Year's Eve ... because everyone knows a true Kentuckian doesn't drink champagne on NYE ~ we drink bourbon!  Or, in our case, we drank both...

New Year's "decor" for the buffet

For the evening of New Year's Eve.... we opted for the first place winner of the 2001 Tuaca Cocktail Contest*:

:::Bourbonball:::

1 part bourbon

1 part Tuaca

1 part dark creme de cacao

Combine, shake over ice, and strain into a chilled martini glass.

You'll have to excuse the fact I didn't have dark creme de cacao on hand, and because I'm cheap thrifty, I decided just to use the clear variety I already had buried within my cabinet.  The result?  Super sweet. So I liked it. {YUM!} The hubby, on the other hand, found it much too sweet. I have to wonder if the dark creme de cacao would have made it less sweet and more robust? I'm certainly willing to try it again... ;)

* Until reading this recipe book, I had NO idea what Tuaca was. In case you didn't know either, it's a vanilla citrus liqueur.

And for the ball drop....

:::Kentucky Bourbon Sparkler:::

1 part bourbon

1/2 part brown sugar syrup

1/2 part Tuaca

4 parts sparkling wine

Combine bourbon, syrup, and Tuaca in a champagne flute. Stir, and add sparkling wine.

Bourbon & Champagne on New Years??  Who says you can't have it all?? ;)

We did enjoy two other cocktails from the book that evening that are so far my hubby's faves... I'll have to share them soon!

Cheers!

Weekend Wrap~Up

I will go ahead and disclaim here that it took me through all of today to complete the portions of the list that I completed. I was seriously disappointed that I wasn't more successful! But I anticipate I'll get better at prioritizing and planning the more I work with this concept. {I hope!}

Play List:

* Walk the Dogs {check! ~ and yep, with the entire family}
* Do a creative project with the kiddo.  {I was completely bummed that this did not happen .... and I even had a couple ideas picked out. We just never have enough time .... Hopefully in 2 weeks we can try again!}
* Create my list of 101 dreams for 2012.  {Check!  This challenge was surprisingly really difficult.  Don't get me wrong, it was fun to dream, but it was somewhat stressful, and I found myself with several severe cases of writer's block!  To ease the "duh" moment, I used the following resource to help me.}

Source: simplemom.net via Liz on Pinterest

 To Finish:

* Laundry.  {Check-ish! By the time I go to bed, the last load of delicates will be hanging up to try.  Otherwise, we're good!}
* Meal Planning for the week.  {Meal planning was discussed, but not actually accomplished. Disappointed!} 
* Give the dogs baths. {Check! I'm so glad that we did this ~ as a family!!} 
* Go through the toy box / donate old toys.  {Again, we ran out of time. It's on the time for our next weekend together, too.}
* Take down the last of the Christmas decorations.  {Check!}
* Clean the master suite. {Check! And if you need a good bathroom cleanser, may I recommend the recipe from Martha below.}

Source: marthastewart.com via Liz on Pinterest

We also should get some bonus points for accomplishing a lot of decorating in what I call the "War Room" {it gets it's name from the numerous war related artwork and memorabilia within it's walls}. 

Also, I drove down to spend some time with my parents on Sunday.  I took Toby with me, and he was a very good boy. He was terrified at first, but really started to warm up and calm down by the end. He even laid down calmly on the floor while we ate! I was really impressed with his abilities, and the whole experience has given us more confidence in each other. For my father's birthday, instead of buying him more stuff, I purchased a share of a Gardener's Basket from Heifer International.  If you haven't heard of them, I highly encourage you to consider donating or gifting with them. Fantastic cause!

To try to make better plans going forward, I've printed out 2 monthly calendars. One tracks "family" {step-son oriented} related tasks, goals, projects. The other tracks pretty much all other social type occurances, events, etc.

Source: seasidecreative.com via Liz on Pinterest

Source: thenesteffect.com via Liz on Pinterest

My hope is that by using the calendars, I can jot down what actually happens {when we go out to eat, when the kiddo spends the night with Granny and Gramps instead of us, when we actually go out to the movies, etc...} so I can quickly see at the end of the month how often things are actually happening.  Since I have specific goals for our weekends with the step-son, spending time with friends, and quality time with my husband, I'm hoping the calendars will provide a good at-a-glance recap of how things are progressing so we can make improvements where needed accordingly!  We'll see how it goes...

I'm looking forward to seeing what's on tap for next weekend!