See Ya Later Party

This evening we got together with the friends in the old rental neighborhood for a potluck. The boys like to call our old neighbor Pearl the "heart of the neighborhood" and that's just what she is. We spent many and afternoon in her driveway visiting and chatting while the kids played.

So in honor of her birthday (she jokes it's her 100th) and their heading back to South Dakota for the summer we had a party. It wasn't exactly a good-bye party so we decided to call it a "See Ya Later" Party. Pretty much the whole neighborhood was invited.

We all brought food to share. Our friend Nicole had a connection and got the kids a bouncy house to play in. It was a big hit!

I volunteered to make a piñata. I worked on it for several days. It turned out really cute. I didn't want it to break to easily so I really layered on the paper mache. I guess I was a little too heavy handed because that thing was hard to break!

In the end it worked out okay because there were a lot of kids there and everyone got to take a turn. Not like those grocery store piñatas that break on the first hit.

Even the birthday girl gave it her best shot, but it didn't break.

Finally, someone punctured it and Jerry helped things along a bit by shaking the candy out.

Everyone had a great time visiting with friends and eating delicious food. We decided we should make this a yearly tradition!

We are really blessed to have ended up with such great friends and neighbors when we moved here!

Shelf Makeover

I performed a little mini-makeover on a old friend today. When I got my farmhouse table and chairs back in (I think?) 1995 my mom had a friend make me a shelf to match. It has hung over my table ever since.

If I dug out some old photo albums I could probably find a few pictures of it from the 90's. The earliest digital photo I could find was this one from when we lived on Ontario.

And here it is again with the new table at the house on Trotter.

I thought it might look nice in the new kitchen painted black to match the cabinets. So I took it outside and gave it a quite coat of black spray paint. Since the edges of the cabinets are distressed, I gave the edges of the shelf a quick sanding.

I think it turned out really nice. At this point I can't imagine my kitchen without it!

Now I just have to get the everything else hung… one step at a time!

Pretzels

Every so often the boys and I like to make soft pretzels. I found this new recipe online that is supposed to taste just like Auntie Anne's so we thought we'd give it a try. They were delicious! Definitely a keeper recipe that we will make again.

1 cup milk
1 package (or 1 T.) active dry yeast 
3 T. light brown sugar
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 T. butter
1 t. table salt
3 T. cup baking soda
2 T. coarse salt

Warm the milk in microwave to about 110 degrees; pour into a medium bowl and sprinkle in the yeast. Stir in the brown sugar and 1 cup flour with a wooden spoon. Dice 2 tablespoons butter and soften; stir into the mix. Add the remaining flour and the table salt to make a sticky dough. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth. Place in a lightly greased bowl and cover. Let rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 450º and grease a large baking sheet. Divide the dough into 6 pieces. Form each rope into a pretzel shape.

Dissolve the baking soda in 1 cup warm water in a shallow baking dish. Gently dip each pretzel in the soda solution, then place baking sheet. Sprinkle with the coarse salt. Bake until golden, 10 to 12 minutes.

A Scrubbing Saga: Before and After

Since things are a little more settled after moving into the new house, I've taken on a new project. Scrubbing all 915 square feet of the guest house tile on my hands and knees with a scrub brush. Who needs a gym membership when you can get an arm workout scrubbing tile? I tried several methods but that seems to be the only one that actually works. Actually, my arms can take it, it's my knees and back that are really complaining.

I started in the back bedroom and was pretty surprised to discover the grout is not actually a dark grey. I'm not sure what the previous owners used to clean, I wish I knew so I could avoid using it to clean floors in the future. Thankfully, the tile in the main house is dark brown so I didn't have to scrub quite so hard. It's sure is worth it though. It looks a million times better!

I snapped these photos when I was half way through the kitchen to show just how gross it was before and how great it looks after I'm done scrubbing!

Time to refill my bucket and get back to work!