Long time no post

Wow once again I can't believe how time gets away from me.  This Fall has just zoomed by, between getting into the swing of Aaron going to Kindergarten and both of us being sick way more times than was necessary, the end of the year has come before I was ready for it.  I however am determined to be more organized in 2013 which includes at least weekly posts on my blog.

I've already started planning my next house update, Aaron's room.  It's time for him to get a 5 year old room.  I'll share my inspiration and before pictures with you tomorrow but in the mean time here are a few Christmas pictures of my litttle man

Before and during his Christmas concert:

On Christmas Eve

Til next time, Happy New Year

Where I've been

Can't believe it has been so long since I posted.  I've was busy with a sick little boy for about a week and then just as he started to get better I got sick and that wasn't fun.  I think we're both feeling better and now I'll get back to posting here in the next couple of days.

Monday Must Make Meals

This is the first post in this series, I hope you enjoy it.

Today's Meal is Slow Cooker Jambalaya which I pinned from American Family. 

Here's what you need

Ingredients

• 2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs
• 1 pound smoked sausage, cut into 2-inch slices
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 large green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
• 3 stalks celery, chopped
• 1 (28 oz.) can diced tomatoes with juice
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1 tablespoon Cajun or Creole spice mix
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 pound extralarge shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 1 3/4 cups long-grain rice
• Parsley, optional

directions

Combine chicken, sausage, onion, green pepper, celery, tomatoes, garlic, chicken broth, spice mix, thyme and oregano in a large (5-quart) slow cooker. Cook on low for 5 hours.
Add shrimp and rice; raise heat to high and cook for 30 minutes more. Sprinkle with chopped parsley, if desired.

We loved this recipe and it makes lots so you can freeze it for later too.  I don't add the shrimp because we don't like them and it still tastes great.  I also cut up my thighs and sausages into bite size pieces.

Five Fantastic Friday Finds

Welcome to this Fridays inspiration

Cheddar Bacon Dip, can't wait to try this at my next party.

Plain Chicken

I love this tree, Christmas will be here before you know it.

Trendy Tree

Love these shoes!!

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So true

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A great start to our trip to Disney next summer

Two Peas in a Bucket



Diningroom reveal

For those of you who have been following, you may remember the before picture of my dining room

I found this picture of a diningroom I loved.

Earlier in the summer I started striping the table and chairs and then stained them black.  This is a picture of the chairs when they were finished

Then I recovered the chair seats.

Then I decided that the white microwave hutch looked awful in the corner so I researched painting laminante furniture on Pintrest and this is what I did.

Two coats of Zinsser Cover Stain Primer

And 2 coats of black Eggshell paint

Here is the whole room.  You can also see my new curtains and a few Fall decorations.  I also had a Pantry Cupboard in the corner you can't see, that is going in the basement until I can replace it with something new.





Five Fantastic Friday Finds

Welcome to a new feature on my blog.  Every Friday I will be posting five things that have inspired me and hopefully will inspire you too. 

The Lemon Family

I just love this, the table is decorated beautifully and the pictures hanging from a curtain rod with ribbon is such a cool idea.

Little Bit Funky

This looks like a desert worth trying.



www.pinerly.com

Just a little reminder.

Kim's Card Kits

Some beautiful Christmas cards to make.

Valentino Bow Coat

Love, Love, Love this coat, but at almost $3000 I don't think I'll be adding it to my closet soon.

I hope you enjoyed the first edition of my Five Fantastic Friday Finds and I'll be doig it again next week.

In Progress



Here are some pictures of my diningroom progress.  You can see some of the table under all that mess.  I decided in the end to stain it all black, with the scratches and marks on the top it was too hard to get the brown to look good so I gave up on that idea.  You can also see my new curtains, though they need to be ironed.  The other two pictures show my progress on the microwave cart, it's been primed twice and sanded I just need to pick up some black paint to finish it.

I'm planning to replace the pantry cupbard soon and will eventually put some beadbaord on the lower half of the walls, maybe in the spring.



Fall is coming

Although you wouldn't know it by the temperature, it's still hiting 20C this week, Autumn is on its way.  It's my favorite season so I'm always looking forward to it.  I love the colours and the crisp air in Fall.  I thought I would check out some of the decorating ideas on Pintrest and this is what I found.

Love this wreath done with ornaments

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These are so cute and seem pretty easy to make

artsyfartsymama.com

Aren't the stars pretty



KP Creek

So Cute

Martha Stewart

A Great idea for Pumkins



A Diamond in the Stuff

Makes me wish I had a Mantle

Decorating Ideas Gallery

Pretty Bookcases

Work Man Family

Trying to get organized

As I told you in my first post I"m a procrastinator and a real good one.  However, I'm getting really tired of being disorganized and I know it would help Aaron alot if I was more organized.  I've pinned a lot of great ideas but never seem to do anything about them so this week I've visited some of those sites and made a list of great ideas, I've bookmarked some of my favorite sites here on my blog and after my dinningroom makeover I plan to get started, room by room.

It may not be much for some people but it's a big step for me.

Not much happening

The last day or so have been pretty boring around here.  I've been working on my diningroom table, I hope to have a picture tomorrow.

I will be taking part in the Cross Canada Blog Hop with some of my fellow Canadian CTMH Consultants, it starts tomorrow so hop over to my Treasured Heart Blog then.

Aaron missed two days of school thanks to Leslie but was back yesterday and today.  Mrs. Oliver, his teacher and Mrs. Tucker, his assistant both say he's doing great.  Mrs Tucker told me today he was trying to answer all the questions verbally, which is great since he only started trying to talk in March.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll have some pictures for you.

A Great Tip

Tiffany at The Nest Effect posted a creat tip that will allow us bloggers to respond to comments on our blogs.  Check it out.




Love, love, love when I receive comments. They make my day. Honest.

Many comments that are left are questions or statements that deserve some followup. But, if your email address isn't linked to your Google Profile or you don't leave your email address in the post, I can't respond!

Unless it's a giveaway post and I'm receiving comments for entries, I really try to respond to every single comment that I'm left. Even if it's just one that says that you love my blog. Hello! I love your positive feedback. I want to email you back and THANK YOU!

A few months ago Shelley, from The House of Smiths, wrote a blog post on this topic. Now I know why.

I'm going to show you how to change this setting.

This is what I get when I try to reply to a comment without a linked email address: noreply-comment@blogger.com. Boo!

If you comment with your Google account, then it will make you "sign up for Blogger" before leaving your first comment. This doesn't mean you have to create a blog or anything, it just means you have to create a profile with Blogger so you can comment with your Google account. You can change all of the profile details to make it as anonymous as you'd like once you create the profile.

Once you sign up for Blogger, you'll need to go to www.blogger.com to edit your profile.

Then you'll need to click "show my email address" and "save profile". You can change the email address that is associated with this feature on this page as well - under "identity" and "email address". You can always use your "junk mail" account or set up an email with Gmail for this.

Your email address will not literally show up in your Blogger profile. It will show like this:

When you leave a comment for me, I receive an email with your comment, and your email address will automatically be the "reply to" email (if you go through these steps and enable this feature). Pretty simple.

All in all, I'd really like to be able to respond to each one of you. You can always leave your email address in the comment for me like this: tiffany (at) thenesteffect.com. That way it can't be picked up by spam bots because it's not technically a real email typed like that.

Thank you! =]

I knew we'd have to pay eventually

We've had the most amazing summer here in Newfoundland.  Some days I wondered if  the island had been towed to the Gulf of Mexico, it felt more like Florida than Newfoundland.  I just figured we'd have one of the worst winters on record to pay for it, but no Mother Nature decided she wanted payment much sooner.

Meet Tropical Storm Leslie

Lots of things to say

Well it's been a very busy couple of days here and I'll try to recap as breifly as possible.

First up my diningroom make over.  Here are a couple of pictures of my chairs.  My mom and sister were here until after 1 am Friday night helping me to recover the tops of them .

Next up is a few pictures of my CTMH Customer Appreciation Day that was held this afternoon.  I had 10 wonderful scrapbooking ladies here.  I had planned to take some pictures of them but I started talking and answering questions and sharing ideas so I forgot to get my camera out.



Finally this weekend is the start of Targa Newfoundland  which is a big supporter of Autism in Newfoundland so we went to the car show.  Last week I happened to see a post of Facebook asking if anyone would like their child's name on a car so I asked for Aaron's to be put on it.  

Here's a picture of Aaron in front of the car, doing some dance moves.

 and his name on the roof

And finally Aaron and his dad in front of the Racing for Autism car.



A post to say nothing

I just wanted to stop by quickly and appologies for not continuing my diningroom story.  I've had a really busy couple of days preparing for my CTMH Customer Appreciation Day which is tomorrow.  I promise I'll be back tomorrow night with lots of things to say.

We interupt our regularly scheduled post

to tell you it was Aaron's first day of school.  He was so excited and I was so scared.  He seemed to be doing OK when I left, I guess I'll know how it goes when I pick him up.

So my fantasy has become a reality

I've always dreamed of restoring, refinishing and redecorating my house.  We moved in to our townhouse just before Aaron was born and it has been full of hand me down and mismatched furniture for the last 5 years.  Needless to say I've had less than a shoe string budget for fixing it up but I finally go fed up and decided to tackle something. I decided to work on the dining room first since that is the first room you see in the house.

This is what the room looked like when we moved in:

About a year later I painted it Salsa:

But I wanted to do something with my dining set, which wasn't actually a set but they work together.  The table belonged to my Great-Grandmother on my Mom's side and the chairs belonged to my Grandmother on my Dad's side.  I really like black furniture so I started searching the internet.

And then I found my dream diningroom

Tomorrow I will show you my progress so far.