Weekend In-Review

One thing I love about my job is the three day weekends I get when I do have a weekend off. Although I didn't get as much accomplished as I had hoped, I'm glad that it was relaxing and fun.

Some highlights: going out for Mexican and seeing a band on Friday. Saturday we had our engagement pictures taken, saw Andrew's family and drove out to Dillon Lake near Zanesville. While we were there, my brother called to tell us he proposed to his girlfriend (they've been dating on and off since the 6th grade)! Sunday was grocery shopping and cleaning, making raspberry freezer jam and brats on the grill.

A black and white sunset at Dillon Lake - I'm glad we finally made it out there even if we didn't catch any fish. We took Route 40 the whole way instead of I-70 and I'm glad we did because we saw lots of pretty barns and wildflowers.

Since I missed out on U-pick strawberries this year, I made raspberry freezer jam instead. Andrew's mom has several huge bushes and they were full of fruit. I used the recipe from the Sure-Jell box, which was easy and quick. Now I just have to let it sit out for 24 hours then refrigerate what I'll give away and freeze the rest for up to a year.

My garden is also coming along nicely and I'm planning a post about that later this week! Here's to hoping that everyone had a wonderful weekend!

Home sweeter home

When we first looked at our house, I'm not going to lie, I hated it. I thought there would never be enough time or money to make it our own, but over the last year its become more like a home. We've spent a lot of time (but not a horrible amount of money) fixing, repairing and making things our own. One major project from this year was changing the trim color from Kelly Green to a redish brown and leaving the house itself white.

I took this picture the day we closed on the house.

And this one the last weekend of May. It might be hard to tell, but just changing that paint color has made such a difference. It matches the roof and the stain on our deck and seems to suit the house a lot better.

Our next major project is the third level of our four level split, which is coming along nicely. That area will have a den/family room, mudroom and a second full bath.

Tree Ripened Peaches

There is an orchard near our house and every summer and fall I look forward to picking fresh fruits and veggies from there. As I was driving home from errands the other day I noticed the tree ripened peaches sign was out and decided to stop in. The peaches were already picked and cost $8 a basket. As soon as I got home, I was looking for a tasty dessert recipe for peaches and found an easy Peach Cobbler.


The recipe sounded easy but it had been years since I've peeled and pitted peaches, which is a lot more work than I remembered. But despite the hard work the end result was delicious! I'm excited for the blackberries and raspberries to be ready at my future mother-in-laws house so I can make more yummy desserts and some jam!

How my garden grows

I took this picture just a week ago and believe it or not my plants have doubled in size! I'm going to take another picture this weekend because I can hardly believe it as well. I've been wanting to do a square foot garden since we bought the house, but last year I really didn't have time because of school and just did tomato plants instead.

The garden includes: 3 kinds of large tomatoes and 2 cherry tomato plants, eggplant, yellow squash, radishes, red onions, white bunching onions, 6 kinds of peppers (3 bell peppers and 3 hot peppers), romaine lettuce and red cabbage. I also have two more heads of red cabbage and zuchini's in pots by our deck along with cilatro, parsley and basil!

I don't think I'll see much "money saving" from the garden this year, but I'm hoping that next year I will. The dirt alone cost about $90 and thankfully we already had the wood and netting from when I thought I would make the garden last year. If things go well, I'm going to make another 4x6 box next year or in the fall. I'd love to have one with early plants and one with summer plants.

I'll be sure to update throughout the summer how things are going and how much I'm able to harvest!!

Life

So I haven't blogged for a few weeks - life really got in the way of things lately! But here is a little recap of what has been going on. I'm going to be doing some photo posts this week and hopefully keeping an update on my new summer project, which is my square foot garden!

• I turned 26 on May 30th. It was a nice laid back celebration that included a Sunday dinner with my family complete with Boston Cream Pie and a Monday celebration with Andrew's family and going to dinner at Bravos. I still can't decide what I want Andrew to get me for a gift yet...but most likely it will be a deep freeze.



• Andrew has been working tirelessly on our house for the last month. Our trim is now a redish brown instead of kelly green and the lower level of the house has drywall again! We shopped for a new back door, bathroom items (we need a shower, sink and toilet), and carpet for the "internet lounge"



• I was disappointed to find out my dream of moving the laundry room isn't going to work out, but after we get the 3rd level of our 4 level split complete we'll be fixing up the basement. I'll finally get a counter to fold laundry on and shelves for all my seasonal decor.



• My garden and flowers are all planted. My mom weeded my flower beds and bought my salvia and geraniums as a birthday gift. I'll post some pictures this week.



• We had an awesome party for Memorial Day complete with tons of picnic food, a keg and my brother parking a pop-up camper in our front yard to sleep in - every year we have our party it gets better and better!



• I'm walking at graduation next weekend even though I got my degree in December. My school is small and only has one commencement every year. Some of my family is coming from PA and it will be nice to see them.

Other than that, life is the same. We do have the church booked for our wedding (9.22.2012), we're reserving the tent soon and I have an amazing photographer as well as a DJ! Work is the same and I'm still holding on to hope that I'll find an amazing Marketing or PR job within the same company soon.

Hope that everyone is having a wonderful start to their summer - do ya'll have anything fun planned?!