I'm DIY-ing... wait, that doesn't sound right...

Here is a little preview of a small DIY project I'm doing today. Can you guess what it is? Here's a couple hints:

#1: Today's temperature is expected to hit 60 degrees.

#2: That is a little bottle of exterior paint.

Come back on Thursday (assuming it works as I'm hoping) to see the results!

Weekend Snapshots

Snuggling up on the couches for movie night with Jesse (we watched Moneyball - great movie!),

a crazy white-out blizzard that came out of nowhere,

bright coral fingers and toes, which sometimes look pink and sometimes just plain orange (Orange You Cute? by Sally Hansen),

and the cutest little visitor you've ever seen. :)

A little drop of heaven

Why on earth has it taken me so long to discover how delicious Ferrero Rocher chocolates are? They taste exactly like Nutella, people!! I love Nutella and will eat just about anything if there's Nutella on it. So when I took a bite of one of these babies, I was hooked. Jesse and I received a couple packages of them for Christmas and it's a little embarrassing how quickly we ate them all.

If you've never tried one, do yourself a favor and eat one. You can thank me later.

Why it pays to keep your floors clean

Someday, you will find yourself staring (and drooling) over a bowl of made-from-scratch chocolate chip cookie dough. You will try to control yourself, but to no avail. You just won't be able to resist that delicious combination of butter, flour, sugar, eggs, and chocolate. You dive right in and get yourself a nice, big spoonful.

YUM. But because holding a camera in one hand and a spoon in the other is apparently way beyond your physical abilities, you will accidentally drop that beautiful blob of dough on the floor.

A horrific scene.

Lucky for you, those floors of yours have just been cleaned. So you can take your spoon, scoop it right back up, and shove it in your mouth. Right where it belongs.

This, my friends, is why it's important to keep your floors clean. You never know what you might want to eat off of them.

(Here's the recipe I use, if you're curious!)

Ingredients:

3/4 cup Crisco butter flavored shortening

1 1/4 cups firmly packed light brown sugar

2 tablespoons milk

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 large egg

1 3/4 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Heat oven to 375º. Combine shortening, brown sugar, milk and vanilla in large bowl. Beat at medium speed of electric mixer until well blended. Beat in egg. Combine flour, salt and baking soda. Mix into shortening mixture until just blended. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheet. Bake for about 10 minutes.

Perogies

Growing up, I always loved when my mom made this perogie stir-fry. I thought perogies were the best. I loved them so much that when a stray cat appeared in our garage one day, I named it Perogie. He didn't stick around for long, but my love of perogies is still alive and kicking.

I wanted a quick and easy dinner to make last night and this was just perfect. It's pretty simple - slice up some of your favorite veggies (I used green peppers, onions, carrots, broccoli, and a few pressed garlic cloves) and saute them in olive oil. While those are cooking, open a box of frozen perogies and saute them in another pan until they are lightly browned, about 8-10 minutes. Heat up some sausage (I used Bob Evan's fully cooked links) and toss everything together.

Now here's the secret ingredient...

Penzeys Greek seasoning. Almost all the herbs and spices I use are from Penzeys. They carry every herb and spice under the sun, plus all sorts of yummy mixes like this one. Greek seasoning is a mix of salt, Turkish oregano, garlic, lemon, black pepper, and marjoram. A few final shakes of this on the perogies and you're done! Easy and delicious.

Polished

This is my little nail polish collection. Isn't it cute? :) I've just lately started wearing nail polish on a regular basis. It used to be that I'd only paint my nails for special occasions, like weddings or holidays, but nail polish is quickly becoming my favorite everyday accessory. I almost get excited when the color I'm wearing starts to chip, because that means I can take it off and try out a new color!

Right now I'm wearing a polish from Essie called School Of Hard Rocks. I never thought I'd catch myself wearing blue nail polish, but it's surprisingly pretty! 

Sunny Snow

Have you ever taken a walk on a sunny day with fresh snow on the ground? Well, you should. It's like walking on a beach (no bikinis though) but instead of sand, it's millions of tiny diamonds sparkling like there's no tomorrow.

I know some people hate the snow, but on a day like this I just can't imagine why.

Catching Up

Let's see if anyone still reads this thing. I just checked to see when the last time I updated was... May. Whoops. Time sure does go fast lately! It's hard to believe it's mid-January already. But maybe that's because our temperatures have been in the upper 50s with hardly a trace of snow. Silly Ohio. Anyways, just a few pictures of what the house looks like these days.

Oh, and happy new year! I don't think it's too late for that, right?