Green Grass.

In August, Peter traveled to the Dominican Republic for 10 days, which was fine, I missed him of course, but that's simply a given!  However, what wasn't so fine was that he left me in charge of the grass...umm??  Probably not the best idea!  For those who don't know - we bought a house last March and when we first moved into the house the yard was a disaster, the grass included.  There were giant divots in the yard and the grass was extremely sporadic.  Peter bought all sorts of dirt and fertilizer thinking one of those would do the grass some good, but we never had much luck.  So come last September we decided to hire someone to come in and tear the whole thing up and start over again!  And the grass is now simply glorious - it truly is.  Below is a recent photo to prove it!

So with all that being said - it just so happened to be hitting record highs that week Peter was gone, and it just so happened that I was going to be out of town the first few days he was gone.  Sometime over that weekend, I received an email from my husband kindly reminding me to water the grass, considering he had checked out the weather report.   So when I got back late Sunday night, I thought to myself, I'll water the grass in the morning.  And when I woke up on Monday morning I was in for a bit of a shock.  Parts of the grass were  brown - now not like a dead grass color brown, but just a little off and not quite as green as the rest.

Well let's just say I panicked, called my dad, and even emailed my husband to warn him of the sight he just might see see when he came home.  And he kindly informed me to water the grass two times a day.  TWO TIMES A DAY Peter?? And for how long now??  His reply - about 30 minutes or more each time, in the front yard and the back yard!  I originally thought - He's got to be crazy right??

And let me tell you, he definitely is not, but the man LOVES his grass.  And I suppose we paid money for that grass, so I too should look at that grass rather differently, right?  Well, let's just say, now I most certainly do!  Thus, guess what I did?  I watered that grass for the next 7 days, morning and night for a total of 2 hours each day.  And I was so bored! So of course, I brought a book outside with me, and I held the book in one hand and the hose in the other.

And let's just say, I not only look at that grass differently, but I also look at my husband a little differently - that man is faithful to his grass watering, and let's just say I was so thankful when the husband came home and took back his watering duties.  But things have changed a little around our house - we finally bought a sprinkler!  Simple pleasures, I tell you, Simple pleasures!  And I think the rain is coming, which means the water bill will finally be decreasing, and the grass will only get greener.

So without further ado...I will leave you with some of Peter's photos from the Dominican Republic.

xoxo, 

Malia

The House.

So we have had quite a few house updates!  And I thought I would post some photos on the blog for all to see.  The BIGGEST thing we did was upgrade our windows!  Wow - what a difference it made.  The original windows were aluminum, black windows and they were so cold and nasty and moldy. And after talking about getting new windows for over a year, we decided to do some research and we took the plunge.  We landed on some white, vinyl windows - top of the vinyl line so my husband tells me.  They have night locks and the screens come off from the inside of the house - goodbye screens falling off the windows!

Here are some photos of the process and the befores and afters.  We did say goodbye to our garden window and I had to find a new home for my plants and cookbooks, but it's a blessing!  We don't have a huge box jutting out the window onto the deck - so no more head banging on that thing.  Praise the Lord!

Before and after...look at the view!

Before and after...aren't the new windows just gorgeous?

And another big project that we did ages ago was refinish our deck!  Let's just say, I'm not cut out for manual labor - thank goodness my husband is.  He loved this project!  And we are so glad it is over and done with. We rented a sander for a day - that was the easy part.  The hard part was getting rid of the paint in between the cracks and on the sides of the deck.  We stained the top and ended up painting the sides of the deck black - made for a much shorter project.  Check out the FIRST photo in this post to see what the new deck looks like now.

And our garden creations...peaches, apples, damsens (thought they were plums, but they're not!), potatoes and tomatoes!  We have a ton of green tomatoes right now, but only a few have ripened.  And our green beans were a huge success, but I didn't get any photos of those.

And we also have dahlias growing - I love them!  And one of my dear friends donated 3 whiskey barrels to us - love those!  What else?  We are brainstorming some ideas for our front entry way - it's pretty bland and boring at the moment, but I think we are ready to move to the front now that we have completed so many projects in the backyard.  Peter even redid our back entry way, which you can see in my last Little Things post.

So that's all for now - things are constantly changing.  Until next time!

xoxo,

Malia

It's the Little Things.

So I know I said I had all sorts of things to post...well I do, but I wasn't very good about posting any of them last week.  And it appears that I let a whole week fly by before posting anything!  Hmm..I really must try to change my ways.  But while I am attempting to figure that out, I figured I would leave you with a little something.

Here are some home updates.  My husband has been a little machine and he has been transforming our house every chance he gets.  This past weekend we repainted and restained our deck - pictures to come later.  He took off the pillar things near our back door.  Looks a whole lot better, but once again - this is the only photo I have!  We also had a bonfire last night after Peter sorted out the lilac tree that fell down in the rain and thunderstorm.  And I couldn't let all those flowers go to waste - so let's just say I pulled out nearly every vase I own and filled them with flowers.  And I had to get a picture of our raspberry bushes and our peas.  Things are growing!  Peter pulled a few blueberries off our bushes and they were delicious - huge, juicy berries that are free - doesn't get much better than that!  He also tasted one of our blackberries tonight - yes we have a blackberry bush.  I know, I know, it may have been the worst thing we ever did.  But let's just say Peter was pretty pleased with that one little blackberry - wish you could have seen the smile on that man's face.  Truly priceless - and as long as we maintain it, it can't get too bad right?? 

Yumm...some things that made me happy this past weekend - sour cream blueberry muffins (I should put the recipe in here, but then that would mean I would have to find it again!!), Indian food - delicious and I ordered it WAY spicier than I normally do - my mouth is salivating just thinking about how good it was, and carrot soup.  I have started making carrot soup weekly - a great way for me to get my vegetables, when I don't really feel like eating them!

And some more house projects...we had this brick container thing in front of our house and I give it the nasty eye every time I walk through the front door - which isn't all that often.  I don't know what it is about it, but I just don't like the bricks - I don't even really like the bricks on the sides of our house, but Peter says those are staying!  So what's a girl to do??  Get over it I suppose!  But we could fix one thing...the little brick container.  Peter destroyed it and put in a little planter box instead (finished product picture to be posted later I suppose).  And then we were left with all sorts of remnants which we eventually got rid of a few weeks later.  And another house project - Peter's parking spot.  It was full of just random rocks, weeds and dirt - and Peter dug ALL of that up and filled it in with crushed rock.  It looks so much better!  And lastly...our deck, this is a work in progress, and we spent this past weekend restaining things and repainting the black sides and the black pillars and Peter has built a new step, which I don't have a picture of!  And it looks so much Peter!  I feel so blessed to be homeowner's and even more blessed to be married to a man that LOVES house projects!  Next project - new windows, complete outer paint job, and a new bathroom (this is going to be my birthday present - new floor tiles, new sink, new toilet, new bathtub maybe?, maybe even new light fixtures - a girl can dream right??).

It truly is the little things...like good food, good company, and fun house projects that make me smile.  To be continued...I promise to post more than once this week!  

xoxo, 

Malia

It's the Little Things.

I'm back and I have all sorts of posts in waiting.  But let's start with a brief recap.  This week has truly flown by!  But it sure was a blessed one!  So let me give you a bit of a recap for those who care...

I got my hair done weeks ago.  Now that I don't work at a salon anymore, I must say, my hair maintenance has been put on the back burner, and it's BAD.  I hadn't had my hair colored in 6 months, and I decided it was TIME considering i started to notice little silver hairs at the hairline, and I was pulling them out with tweezers.  And I decided I didn't want to do that anymore, so I made myself a hair appointment.  I love going into that place - and I miss those women SOO much.  I think I was there for 3 hours and in that time frame I read probably 10 magazines, and got a bit of a haircut - not only is grown out my new best friend but so are split ends.  I can honestly say, I have never seen split ends like mine - it was bad, but I didn't want to cut off too much of my hair.

Here is the before...and the after.  Don't know if you can really tell the difference...but check out those roots on the left compared to those on the right.

What else?  I have been doing Bar method workouts at home...yes it may sound silly, but it works!!  I just watched a few videos on youtube and chatted with a few friends that are doing it, and combined all my new wisdom.  And I must say, I got a workout!  And I was sore!  And this picture is proof that I even worked up a sweat - note the glistening stuff on my face.

Peter and I had dinner at Revel - thanks to a gift certificate we were given as a reward for dog sitting!  Best gift EVER!  It was delicious and we had SUCH a fabulous time together!  We truly don't do that enough.  I must say I was a little skeptical simply because it's Korean food, and I don't think I have ever had Korean food, and if I have...I have never had Korean food like this!  Can't wait to go back and HIGHLY recommend it.  We didn't get pictures of our dinner but we did get pictures of our fancy drinks.

And this post wouldn't be complete without a mention of our deck project.  I'm only going to post a few pictures because project really warrants a post of it's very own!  A few weekends ago, I suggested we finally redo our deck!  I was feeling a little guilty because we hadn't done a house project in awhile, and although we have been in our house for one year - we still have alot of little projects we would love to complete, such as the bathroom, new windows, painting the house, redoing the walkway, redoing the front entryway, creating some type of a parking spot for our second car, and the list could go on.  And even after a full day of work, I can honestly say I'm just not cut out for manual labor.  I think I complained every hour on the hour...oh it's hot, oh i'm tired...how much longer??  Blah, blah, blah...I think you get the point!  Anyhow, I can say that I do love participating a little bit and I absolutely love seeing the final product, but I sure am a complainer!!  Thank goodness my husband is so patient with me.

And for a brief garden update...we have roses, potatoes, peonies, tomatoes, cherries, and sugar snap peas, carrots, broccoli, green beans, zucchini/pumpkin/spaghetti squash (not sure what it is to be honest!!), apples, blueberries, blackberries, green peppers, and our dahlias are starting to bloom!  I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but we have begun to harvest the potatoes, sugar snap peas, cherries.  Still waiting on everything else to grow a bit more before we pluck them from their home in the garden!  Stay tuned!

So now you have a little taste of what's been going on in our lives over the past few weeks!  

Xoxo,

Malia

It's the Little Things.

It truly is the little things that make life lovely isn't it?  I have been absent from the blogging world the past few weeks, but that simply means I have been extremely present in every other aspect of my life.  I have spent ALOT of time in the kitchen, making and baking all sorts of things.  The past few weeks, we have hosted all sorts of family and friends for dinner, breakfast, and dinner again.  But even amidst our time in the kitchen, we somehow found time to do some projects outside!

So my time in the kitchen first began with baked stuffed peppers!  They were delicious and so very easy to make!  We stuffed them with turkey meat, rice, tomato soup and some spices.  You could probably add anything to them!

The second loveliest thing is our yard!  I mean look at that grass - that's Peter's handiwork!  And please note our lovely bird feeder on the right, christmas gift courtesy of my in-laws.  The birds LOVE it!  And look at that patio - goodbye hottub, hello patio and late night fires.  And note the retaining wall with the beautiful flowers - also Peter's doing.  And we planted potatoes - hope they grow!

Shepherd's Pie...yum yum.  So here we have turkey meat, carrots, corn, green beans, onions, and loads of spices.  Guess what the white topping was...looks like potatoes right?  Well it's not!  We actually cooked cauliflower and mashed it like you would potatoes and spread them on top.  And it was delicious!  I was shocked and so pleasantly surprised.

And the lovely things continue...I baked a TON of Shamrock cookies for an event we had this past Sunday.  It took forever to make them and frost them and bag them, but it was so worth it!  I had some girls over for dinner on Friday and put an Irish blessing and a cookie on each plate.

And we had people over for breakfast on Saturday morning to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, and it wouldn't be St. Patrick's Day without a true Irish fry (includes fried egg, potato bread, soda bread, baked beans, black pudding, sausage, bacon, tomatoes, and sometimes mushrooms but we left those out).  Peter made potato bread and I made the soda bread and we had black tea and Peter hung the flag from the house!

Peter creating the potato bread - it was super easy!  Or so it seemed.  

What would St. Patrick's Day be without an Irish flag??  Peter created a gate to hide our bins and our huge stack of wood - and it looks so much better!

So there you have it...our lovely little things from the past few weeks.

xoxo,

Malia

Linking up with Finding Beauty!

Seattle Homeshow.

Peter and I ventured down to CenturyLink Field (formerly Qwest Field) for the Seattle Homeshow on Friday night.  We had been blessed with free tickets and figured why not right?  I mean it was Friday, and we didn't have plans, but we were hoping everyone else did and we were hoping it didn't involve the homeshow because we were hoping to miss the crowd.  And that we did!

It was a little overwhelming, and we didn't get to see everything.  I mean we didn't get there till 6:45 PM and doors closed at 8 - so I guess we didn't give ourselves much time.  We perused the booths as we sped down the aisles - we didn't even give people a chance to make eye contact with us!

We were on a mission or at least we looked like we were -  and I'm sure many people are when they go to things like this! Our problem was we were on a mission...but we weren't really looking for anything in particular, we were just looking. We wanted to get ideas for our future projects...so down the aisles we went.

We walked away with a free bag, loads of brochures and business cards and some garden gloves.  We received a few quotes for windows...know anyone good in the Seattle area?  And got some great ideas for our bathroom.  We entered our names into all sorts of drawings - fingers crossed we win $10,000 to remodel our kitchen.  Wonder what our chances are??  And then headed home before the clock struck 8!

Fun Friday night for the Drennan's - and of course our weekend included a stop at Lowe's!

Home projects on our to do list...

• retile bathroom floor
• install new bathroom vanity/maybe new toilet?
• repaint bathroom
• start planting edible things and smelly things (flowers) in the garden!!! (love this project)
• lay down pavers in back door walkway
• and more...

Any great home ideas you are just dying to share??  I would love to hear!

xoxo, 

Malia

It's the Little Things.

Just because it's now Wednesday, and I have been terrible about blogging lately, doesn't mean I can't post about happenings from last week right?

Here are a few of the lovely little things that made my life beautiful this past week!!

The fence connecting us to our neighbors house was falling down, and I came home one day to this!  The fence has now been upgraded, but I have yet to capture it on camera, maybe next week?  And our new patio!  Isn't she beautiful?  Handmade with my husband's own two hands!

A few treasures from Valentine's Day - homemade cards, pink tulips, roasted potatoes, and asparagus!!                  

   (flank steak and my goodlookin' Valentine not posted!)

Homemade Carrot Cake in a JAR!  More to come with this one.

Birthday celebration with some dear friends!

Until next week xoxo,

Malia

Linking up with Hello Hue!

It's the Little Things.

It's the little things in life that really make it so sweet isn't it?   A hug, an I love you, a delicious cup of coffee, a chocolate chip cookie, beautiful flowers, sunshine, an afternoon with a dear friend, a good laugh, a good book, and I could go on, but I won't because you get the point right?  It is such a beautiful thing when you begin to find beauty in the most ordinary things! 

So today, I am linking up with Heather over at Finding Beauty in the Ordinary for her new "Cup Half Full" link up party - thanks Jen for posting about this!  

And without further ado...here are a few beautiful little things from this past weekend!

I love baking muffins!  Banana muffins with crumble toppings.  Yummy!

I have started baking all sorts of things on the weekends in hopes of tiding us over for the week!  Here we have turkey chili, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and potato and carrot soup that has yet to blended.  

 

And one of the best things from this weekend...our BIG yard project and our patio in the making.  Can't wait for it to be finished!  Hello summer, bonfires, and roasted marshmallows!

xoxo,

Malia

Weekend Highlights.

Here are a few of my weekend highlights...

Homemade Blueberry muffins - recipe to come later!

Yard renovations...the before.

During the process.  Getting rid of this awkward space in the fence.

Previous owners used it to store yard waste and branches.

The finished project.  Fence flush with rest of fence!

My highlight - new lamps from TJMaxx.

And they match our bedding perfect - note my new standard shams (Anthro sale).