Day in the Life {12/22/14}

I really enjoy these kinds of posts so maybe someone will enjoy a sneak peek into one of my days!

5:40 am. Ever since we moved into our house in the summer the dog has rarely slept through the night. She wakes up because she needs to go outside or she's decided it's time for breakfast. Today she decides she needs to potty so she half climbs on the bed to wake me up. I follow her and she optimistically stops at the food bowl. This new game has been going on for a few months and we can't figure out how to break the cycle. All I know is I am ready for a kid since I'm not sleeping as it is. My first alarm goes off at 6 so I'm waiting for Sky and trying to be asleep so my mind won't start thinking of work. Lately I have been having a hell of a time falling asleep on Sundays so every minute I can sleep I try to seize it. 

6:10 am. My jawbone starts buzzing. I am sort of asleep and it seems like it's being extra buzzy and I fumble to turn it off. 

7:10 am. I finally decide to get up so I go straight to the shower and start getting ready. M got me a jawbone up24 for my birthday and it can tell you how you sleep in addition to tracking steps and distances. It isn't water proof so I take it off to jump in the shower. When I start "the process" I realize I forgot to turn off the jawbone's sleep mode. This is one of the most interesting things the bracelet can track and I'm always curious what my sleep was like. I turn it to "active" and stick it back on my wrist. I am getting used to the bracelet now that I have had it for 2 weeks so I make a mental note to pay more attention. 

8:19 am. I check my sleep history from last night. Not turning off sleep mode as soon as I got up has thrown off my results and I got up 5 times instead of once.

10 am. It's Monday and a few days before Christmas so the office is more quiet than usual which I like. I decide this week is perfect for all the catch up work I need to do so I start digging into my AFE inbox. I restarted my computer on Friday and did all the required software updates so I feel confident this won't take long because things are "working"

10:20 am. Famous last words. The AFE system is having an epic meltdown and I keep getting these little white screens of death/error messages. I ask the support staff if something is wrong and no one can answer my questions. I send them a few snapshots and bang my head against the wall over all the work I will have to re type later on. I decide to scan and email an operating agreement to my admin staff in Houston with a detailed explanation in my email and hope this will go smoothly. 

11:30 am. Time to go home for lunch. I ordered all of the husband's Christmas and bday presents online and it occurred to me that one shipped but I never received it. I automatically panic and think it's been stolen because it shows delivery on Dec 18th. After checking and asking the husband if he has seen it, it ends up he thought it was from his mom and had it hidden in his "secret present room". I am horrible with secrets and I get home last so I have been having a hell of a time trying to hide my boxes.  Every single one has logos all over it too. I also haven't bought any stocking stuffers. I have no explanation for this stress I am putting on myself. I suddenly feel my reflux flaring up.

2:30 pm. I get an email with my weekly jawbone update. Looks like I got no nights of uninterrupted sleep last week and I went to bed really late on average. The frowny face really cracks me up. I am trying to make my iTunes Radio stop playing songs I don't like and play more awesome music so I blacklist another song and get back to work.

6 pm. Freedom!  Look at this gorgeous sunset. 

6:15 pm. Husband is still Christmas shopping so I get home first. Usually the dog is hiding in my closet which is directly in view of the garage entrance. I don't see her and turns out she is trying to be as flat as possible on our bed to blend in. Something is up so I peek into the living room and indeed...we have lost another wooden spoon. I like how she set up spider to take the fall. 

 

 

7 pm. We start dinner. I personally feel like pizza but only because I am tired and lazy. We opt for meatloaf so I get busy fixing it. I forget to document because I have to defrost the meat and my phone is almost dead. 

8-11 pm. I chill on the couch and semi get into the first batman movie with Christian Bale. He looks super young!  How old is this movie?  2005?!  Wow I feel ancient. I lose interest and flip to Watch What Happens Live. Anderson Cooper is "pleading the fifth" and won't stop giving evasive responses to everything. It isn't as fun to watch when celebrities try to be buttoned up so I check on the Broncos/Bengals game. What happened to Peyton Manning this year?  

11:16 pm. I hear rain on our solar tube which surprises me because rain was not forecasted. I check outside and yes, it's wet. Yay my flowers are getting water.  I am grateful for any rain we get but Sky is not and refuses to go outside to potty if there is a hint of change in atmospheric conditions. This can last for days so I gear up for battle and head off to sleep. 

12 pm. I feel guilty that I am slacking on blogging again so I start working on this post to hopefully get up for Tuesday. Why am I not tired?  I finally hit a wall and head off to bed. Mmmm sleep!  

High Impact...Hidden in the Shadows

The front yard landscaping is the only project we have successfully completed in this house! The former owners pretty much phoned it in while they lived here and the front yard suffered like the rest of the house.  99% of our front yard is concrete.  We live on a street that starts to curve as you get to our house so we have our driveway and a second way onto our lot that makes it like a circle driveway.  It is ugly as can be but it has been great for extra parking and safety since our street can be dicey sometimes with people flying around the corner.

Unfortunately we don't have any full shots of the landscaping - I am going to make sure we have good "before" photos next project we start.  Everything in the beds was overgrown or dead so it looked like we were living it up with no HOA to hound us about aesthetics.  I cringed every time I drove up!  We were "those neighbors" that we hate living around.  In the summer the sun was beating down on the front of the house in the afternoon so we waited until October to plant some new landscaping.  We didn't want everything to incinerate in the heat.  Our house faces north/south and our last house did as well so we thought it would get some sun.

We tore out everything in the beds and scraped the soil/mulch (yay that was easy) and also were eyeing this random brick wall that was in front of the bed.  The bed is flush with the foundation and driveway and the way the bricks were laid, you could only plant large shrubs and no flowers because you wouldn't be able to see them.  After we ripped the plants out we were brainstorming about what to do and we noticed the bricks were wobbly.  I used my kung fu skills and kicked them...to our surprise, they fell right over.  HAPPY TIMES!  Whoever built that mess did NOT mortar them to the driveway so out they all came.  It was already looking better.  Again, no one will take bricks/rocks so while we step up the dumpster hunt, they are in M's old truck bed.  Once that was done we headed over to the nursery to make our vision of gorgeousness a reality.

We needed soil and plants so we selected our bounty and off to the register we went where we were punched in the face by the ridiculous price tag of the nursery items.  I like to support local businesses but we are on a budget since we have to renovate EVERYTHING on this house.  We will probably stick to a big box store next time - especially for soil.  When we were planting, there is a flood sprinkler system that is in the beds and I managed to hit a line so we had to replace a piece.  It is dead center where we wanted the plants and pretty shallow so it was tough navigating around it.

A few weeks later we noticed that the sun's new angle for winter/fall stops just short of hitting the front of our house with sun...so our plants have never seen the sun.  Surprisingly they haven't died but we did get a freeze and they were hurting.  Some never really bounced back 100% so I'm trying to watch the weather because they don't have the advantage of warming up with sunlight.  Lately it's been warmer and our pansies are flowering so for everything hiding in the shadows...it looks MUCH better!

Keep on a rockin me, baby!

Many people have heard the never ending story of the river rocks in our back yard.  I can't even begin to explain how back breaking this project has been.  There was a pond/fountain and in between that and our workshop, all the grass had been torn out and replaced with river rocks.  Midland is in the middle of West Texas and we are under water restrictions so a lot of people use these rocks to landscape.  It's not like I'm advocating everyone drain the water sources dry by not having any sort of xeriscape but do it so it looks nice!

Pond update here and here

So the rocks.  Midland has a citizen's collection center that is practically our second home but they do NOT take construction debris like bricks or rocks.  We were super lucky that one weekend the guy working there let us drop off two truckloads of rocks and he just kind of stirred them up into the ground.  We were able to scrape out almost all of the rocks that way and it was awesome.  But we still have more rocks and we need to tear out the fake gutters around the shed...but those are filled with rocks too.  We put a bunch of rocks into a big blue tub to try to get to a solid progress point and then the project died because you are not supposed to dump the rocks into the alley dumpsters either.  We also have rocks in the front yard that need to be torn out.  *sobs*  These rocks were turning into the bane of my existence.

The solution is to rent a dumpster.  The City has dumpsters for rent but I swear they only have two because every time I call they are unavailable.  They are first come, first serve so I'm pretty confident we will never be able to rent one.  Then I started looking into dumpster companies and WOW!  To rent a 10 cubic yard size one is a minimum of $400.  3 tons of debris weight is built into that cost but once you exceed that, it is another $65/ton of weight to dump

Honestly that one company I talked to was maybe $150 more than the City cost when you really think about everything but the husband was not pleased.  The part that killed me was even the dumpster people cringed when I said it was yard disposal like rocks.  EVERYONE HATES THESE ROCKS!    I feel like I'm going to end up being Tim Robbins in The Shawshank Redemption where he takes little handfuls of dirt out every day into the yard for his tunnel project.  I'll just start dropping handfuls of rocks into other yards of rocks when Sky goes for walks!  

The other issue is that there is not a facility where you can drop waste off and they charge you for weight.  Killeen had a dump where they weighed your vehicle on entrance and exit and that was awesome.  When I was renovating the rental to sell it, on my way back to DFW I had to stop by to drop off my trash since I couldn't leave my trash can out in the street for infinity.  

The plan right now is to call more dumpster rentals for price checks.  I really don't feel like spending $400+ to get rid of these rocks but at this point, our yard looks ridiculous and we need to finish so that when it's warm enough, we can lay sod and call a sprinkler company.  The "after" picture below isn't going to blow people away with it's beauty but considering the amount of back breaking labor we have done in the backyard, it has come a long way!

December Update: House Exterior Punch List

The husband and I used to really enjoy doing yard work so it seemed logical to dive into the thing we liked the most to get our feet wet on this house.  Given the sheer amount of holes/cracks/popcorn/paneling issues with the walls inside, painting seemed super overwhelming.  Every season I would plant almost 200 annuals in our flower beds, we were on top of mowing/weeds, I would trim our little oak tree like a boss....just generally we took pride in our house appearance.  We don't have an HOA in our neighborhood so maybe that's a lot of why we haven't tried enough...or it could be the rocks finally broke our spirit.

When we last left off on the pond adventure we had completely torn it out and filled the hole with 20 bags of soil.  Then we declared it too hot to do anything else and quit for about a month and a half.    Then one day it suddenly got a little cooler, we got some pep in our yard step and got the brilliant idea to keep going for about 3-4 more weekends.

Here's the running list of action items for the exterior:

Gutters on house and workshop
Tear out pond
Remove all the rocks - 60% complete
Remove fake gutters around workshop & fill in with soil - 33% complete
Tear our bricks in front yard plant beds
Landscape front beds
Trim oak tree in front yard
Tear out pond electrical
Tear out little tree next to pond electrical
Replace fence & bring one side towards street for more backyard
Tear out melon plants/lattice on side yard
Tear out lattice/vine plants in back yard
Lay sod on side yard & back yard
Run new sprinklers where pond was and tune up existing (too much overspray onto fence)
Paint front door
Power wash front porch
Replace numbers on house with something more modern
Replace front door light fixture with something more modern
Possibly tear out some concrete in front yard (long term)
Add some flair to house facade (long term)
Install horseshoe pits in backyard (this requires not being hermits)
Replace brown roof for "weathered wood" shingles (standard roof color - crossing fingers for hail - long term)

Looking at that list...it's a lot of projects.  Some are contractor jobs that we just haven't handled or it's the wrong season (laying sod).  Either way, the current state of the backyard is way better looking than it used to be.  My parents came up for Thanksgiving and we actually had a nice little spot to sit outside and get a fire going in our chiminea.  The front yard is also looking better but with a sea of concrete, it is really tough to have curb appeal.  I think we need some colorful ceramic planters by the front door and our roof line is also very flat which doesn't help with visual interest.

Stay tuned for an update on how the backyard is looking and why this blue tub of rocks is STILL in the way for four months and counting...

Nest Energy Report: November

We've had the Nest thermostat for almost six months now and my opinion of it hasn't changed since my last post.  Mine is tucked in the hallway with the guest rooms and we never walk by it so it thinks we are never home and tries to adjust to reflect the "absence".  We turned off the learning/sensing features and manage it manually now.  I find this to be frustrating for how "smart" it is but oh well!

So for November (let's just skip over the other months) we mostly used the heater.  We keep our temperature settings lower because despite the fact that our system is 20 years old, it surprisingly works well.  Nest has three options for cooling/heating.  It has A/C, heat and a mix of A/C and heat.  November was cold so we did 100% heat.  December has been much milder and we have been using the mix setting the past two weeks.

How did we do?  We keep our heat temp around 69-70*.  If it's really cold, we will bump it up to 72* but then go to sleep with it around 69/70.  For November we used 56 hours of energy and according to the weekly report we get from Reliant, we average about $3.50/day in electric usage.  Nest's suggestion this month was to turn our temperature down another 2 degrees but that's our max cold tolerance so maybe not.

Anyway, a month or so ago I did turn off the "auto away" feature on Nest because of the hall issue and it thinking we are gone all the time.  Turning that off killed my leafs so usually we earn a leaf a day and instead ended up with 5 for the month.  The leafs used to be a game for me - see how energy efficient I could be...but now I am more interested in how long the system runs.  On heat, it usually will run for maybe 45 minutes the entire day.  My favorite thing is still being able to control it from my iPhone!!

Here is a snapshot from our report...have you taken the plunge with the Nest yet?

Hello....anyone there?

Sooo....it's been several months since I got on here and it appears I have lost my audience...all 4 of you!  But Christmas cards are going out this week and if people look at the back side of the card, they will see our blog address.  I actually enjoyed blogging and I recognize I will never become a millionaire off this but it has been tough trying to find my "niche".

Truthfully we are pretty boring (my friend described us as hermits the other day which is completely true) so the only thing we really had to write about was our home projects.  When we started getting into the rock situation in the backyard and had no where to dump them, we completely ran out of steam.  Our backyard looks like it's about 40% complete and we still need to hit up the entry way with a 3rd coat of paint to make it look more even.  I've got 5 cans of paint in the laundry room waiting to go up on walls.  Admittedly, living in a house that is outdated and like Pandora's box when you get into simple projects is very very overwhelming.  We are at a point where we need to get a contractor to come in here to tell us what the overall scope is going to be and how to break this up into phases.  We constantly go around in circles about ideas for the larger projects like the kitchen and master bathroom/closet and obsessing about things we are not willing to throw money at (or have any idea of cost) is getting exhausting!

Oddly enough the thing we need first and foremost are gutters.  One would not expect to need them out in an area that averages 15 inches of rain a year, but when you drive around and look at houses that don't have them (which is the majority), the rain is eroding away the bottom half of the brick veneer when it falls off the roof and splashes.  Our house is 30ish years old and a significant amount of our bricks are very fragile and chip off if you brush up on them.  We also have issues with the rain trenching a "moat" around our house, there's no diversion over doorways and our front bed planter is ground zero for plant pummeling when it rains.  We got new gutters at our old house thanks to a terrible hail storm and I think replacing all of them and the downspouts was about $1500.  Everything in Midland is twice as expensive and twice as slow but we definitely need to look into this project.

Number two (this and gutters is a toss up, really) on the priority list is a whole house water softener and a R.O. system in the kitchen.  The water out here is....not good.  It is undrinkable (very salty and has a dirty, thick mouth feel) and it constantly fails federal regulations on things like particulates, toxins, etc.  Nice, huh?  The water is heavy with chlorine and my skin has never been worse since moving out here.  When we bought our refrigerator we had to get a plumber to re-plum the water line to the fridge area so we got an estimate on what we need.  It will be about four thousand dollars (yikes) to get everything installed.  Our dishes come out clean but not streak free, my skin might be happy and my hair might look good, our appliances will last longer and we also will not have to go once every 1.5 weeks or so to refill our 5 gallon water jugs at the RO water stations.  That isn't a big deal at all to me and Sky likes to go, but getting a RO tap installed at the sink will be nice!

So those are some of things we are eyeing pulling the trigger on.  We have been going through a ton of transition and loss over the past year so I am ready for 2015 to be here so we can start fresh.  I also am going to work on blog content so I do not ignore my little space on the interwebs anymore!

August Nest Energy Report

I know I am being a bad blogger lately but with no DIY projects, it's just the day to day boring stuff like work and school.  Maybe I will do a "Day in the Life" post because I enjoy those on other blogs.

I got my August Nest Report today and I still can't explain how the Nest is doing anything productive/smart for the house.  For August we cooled our house for 317 hours - that is about 100 hours more than July.  Granted it has been super hot out here and August is always a peak usage month but that's a significant jump even with the "Auto Away" feature.  The only thing I have done differently is I bumped the temp down to 74* at noon on Fridays.  I have half days and when I come home it is pretty warm inside.  Maybe I will turn it back up and try to stick with fans only.

Another thing Nest did was tell me how many leafs I earned - we pretty much earn a leaf a day due to "Auto Away".  On average we probably use about 11 hours of AC a day.  This weekend it rained off and on steadily every day and we only used 3 and 4 hours of AC on Saturday and Sunday.  That was pretty awesome.  Apparently we are awesome leaf earners so that is motivating in the game of "use less energy".  Not sure how much motivation I have while it's still super hot outside but we definitely do not keep the house very warm in the winter.

This weekend we are hoping to finally make the push and get the rocks out of the back yard.  I would also like to change out a few lights on the exterior of the house - everything is motion sense and they don't work well because someone shot out the sensors with a BB gun so we would like on/off fixtures.

Cooking Steak in an Ice Chest

Sous-vide is a method of cooking food sealed in airtight plastic bags in a water bath or in a temperature-controlled steam environment for longer than normal cooking times—72 hours in some cases—at an accurately regulated temperature much lower than normally used for cooking, typically around 131°F to 140°F for meats and higher for vegetables. The intention is to cook the item evenly, ensuring that the inside is properly cooked without overcooking the outside, and retain moisture.  {from wikipedia}

You can buy sous-vide cooking tools - this one from William-Sonoma will run you about $500.  You can also buy what is essentially a water heater and use your own container - this one will empty your wallet by $1,000.  Or you can be cheap and use an ice chest like we did!

This video is super simple and explains how you can cook a steak in an ice chest.  We practiced the day before with a thermometer to watch how the temperature fluctuates and added hot water as necessary.  I was really skeptical about whether this would work but I trusted the process and the husband.  This truly was the best steak I have ever had and we have spent over $900 for a luxury steak house experience at Wolfgang Puck's Cut in Las Vegas (which was also pretty awesome).

STEP 1.  Buy your steak (duh).  You do not have to use expensive steaks because this cooking process is low and slow.  We splurged on HEB 31 day dry aged ribeyes since it was Labor Day weekend.  Before you are ready to cook the steaks, get them as close to room temperature as possible.  You want room temperature because when you submerge them in the water, you want to maintain the water temperature and the initial drop off is the fastest.

STEP 2.  Our target temperature for the steaks was 134*F which meant our water needed to be around 138*F.  Boil your water, pour it in the cooler and check the temperature.  Make sure it is a few degrees warmer than you want to account for thermal loss.  When it is at your desired temperature, seal each steak into a ziplock with the air squeezed out or a vacuum sealed bag (if you have that).  Do not season the meat.

STEP 3.  Water temperature management.  Once you drop your steaks in, close the lid and set the timer for 5 minutes.  Check the water temperature and add water if necessary - we had to add two cups of boiling water.  Repeat at 10 or 15 minute intervals until you reach the desired time and level of doneness to the meat.  We cooked our steaks for 45 minutes at a target meat temp of 134*.  The water temperature inside the cooler dictates the temperature that your meat will hit - it won't go over that temperature so you can't overcook your meat with this method.

STEP 4.  Remove the steaks from the cooler.  Discard the plastic bags and pat the steaks dry.  The meat will look sad and not appetizing at all so you will want to sear the outsides and season the meat. Get your grill/cast iron skillet screaming hot.  We put butter on our griddle and seasoned the meat with salt/garlic powder/pepper.  Sear on each side of the steak for about a minute per side - a little longer if you like it crispier.  Remove once you are done searing.

gimme all the steaks!!!!!!

STEP 5.  Enjoy!  The meat is so tender and it has a different mouth feel to it - it is so moist that we thought it tasted super juicy and almost like the consistency of ahi tuna.  I will always like grilled steaks or cast iron skillet steaks but cooking a steak with a sous-vide method has totally changed my outlook on how an awesome steak tastes.  The only comment was the husband thought his was a teensy bit rare so we might go up a few degrees next time.

Recipe {Homemade Chili/Taco Seasoning}

I stumbled on this recipe one day because I was tired of taco and chili seasoning packets.  They are so high in sodium (and chemicals) and I wasn't finding a brand that had the taste I was looking for.  Tacos are our go-to lazy dinner and when it's cold we love to make chili.  After some quick googling I ended up on mybakingaddiction.com and found this little gem.  It is completely customizable and as it is, it is not too spicy but that doesn't mean you can't turn it up a notch!

This yields about 2/3 cup of seasoning and it stores great.

Ingredients
4 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (I like 2 teaspoons)
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 teaspoons paprika (I like smoked paprika)
2 tablespoons ground cumin
3 teaspoons sea salt (I do not put salt in my mix)
4 teaspoons black pepper (sometimes I omit this and do it to taste)

Combine in a medium bowl and mix all ingredients together.  Store in an air tight container at room temperature.  I use 2.5 to 3 tablespoons for each dish.  I believe this yields about 5-7 dishes worth of servings.

Paint Recommendations {Sherwin Williams}

Three years ago when we decided to start repainting our house we went to Sherwin Williams and bought a paint fan for $20.  If we kept the receipt and were done using it, the guy at the store said we could bring it back and get a partial refund.

When we bought our Little Elm house the paint colors were okay - they weren't necessarily our taste but it was move-in ready and that was what we were looking for.  Fast forward to moving in....and we notice all of these discolored spots everywhere with drips.  The owners decided to "help" by touching up the paint where they had nail holes.  They even went so far as to cut chunks of the drywall out behind the doors to try to color match the walls.  If we buy a house again that has move-in ready colors that we can live with for a little - we will write it into the contract that the seller is not to touch the walls - just take your things off the walls and leave them ALONE!  

We lived with it for a little while and finally found a painter to do the front half of our house.  He was nice enough but I would never use him again.  He recommended flat paint and we liked the idea of flat because the semi-gloss shine didn't need to be on all the walls in the house.  Aside from the crappy paint job he did, he picked SW colors and paint types.  Enter the ProMar series from Sherwin Williams.

This is hands down the crappiest paint I have ever paid for in my life.  We were sold on flat paint because it was "washable".  If any contractor comes to your house with ProMar cans - chase him away and tell him to buy something else!  Our second contractor showed up with this stuff after I specifically ordered something superior and he got an earful.  Here is why I don't like this paint and I would never recommend it.  ProMar 200 (or any ProMar series) is a contractor grade paint that is flat and goes on with a chalky-like feel to the touch.  It also is NOT washable.  We scratched the wall when a lamp fell over so I was trying to wipe the scratch with a damp cloth.  If the paint touches water it will discolor and rubbing it will cause the paint to rub off and expose whatever was underneath.  The only pro to this paint is that it does touch up fairly well (if you have a can still on hand) and feathers nicely but not having the ability to scrub makes it an epic fail.

Next up was when I painted our living room by myself.  Since I knew I didn't want the ProMar or to pay contractor pricing, I ended up going with the HGTV collection that SW sells for homeowners.

This paint is okay.  I wouldn't say it's epic fail category.  If you have a project and are a newbie painter I think this is fine.  My complaint is that I had to scrub some parts of the wall after it was painted (I was painting trim) and the paint came off like it was peeling plastic.  It's very rubbery and I felt like I had to use a ton of paint to get solid coverage on our textured walls.  Even the SW employee said it wasn't that great of a paint - thanks for the recommendation after I bought it!

Round two of painting our house through a contractor was about a year ago.  This guy was way more professional, super nice and continually reminded me he had been in Architectural Digest magazine.  That doesn't make me want to hire you more but good for you!  Anyway, his crew did a great job (we hired them a second time to paint out the rest of our house to list it) and the first thing I told him was that I do not believe in flat paint.  He quickly dismissed me saying that they use SW SuperPaint and it is indeed washable.  Skeptical but reminded of Architectural Digest magazine, wanting a flat finish and getting a ceiling thrown in for free, I agreed.  

SuperPaint by SW is amazing.  Seriously - it's totally amazing.  It has a great flat finish that isn't as chalky as ProMar AND it is washable.  When I had my foot surgery I couldn't get my foot wet for about 5 weeks so I had to splash around in the tub like a beached whale to take a bath.  I got paint on the walls one day and I was worried it stained - nope it dried perfectly with NO discoloration.  SOLD!  Wiping dog mud off the walls?  No rubbing off or discoloration!  SOLD!  This paint is amazing but it is pricey.  It retails for homeowners for about $55/gal so if you have a coupon or it's sale time, I would stock up.  We are members of the SW rewards club (or whatever it is) and we get 10% off purchases.  Next time you are in the mood to paint I highly suggest going with SuperPaint.  If I can ever get motivated to paint my entryway, I am buying SuperPaint!

Entryway {Mood Board}

Since everything in our house is ugly and it's overwhelming to think about trying to tackle anything inside...the entryway seems like a safe choice for the first real indoor project.  Ironically our entryway is almost exactly the same color as our old kitchen before we painted it.  It's a wine/burgundy red color and the previous owners had 57 pictures on the walls - yes I counted.  It screams dated to me and it is not us at all.  There are a ton of nail holes and the walls look streaky like they are dusty but you can't wipe it off.  Our old kitchen had the same look to it so I am convinced it is something with the paint color or it's a bad paint job.

We struggle with home style but the little bit of reno we did in our old house - we definitely lean more towards modern/cool styling and colors.  Modern mixed with some traditional/transitional elements.  We really liked having a gray walls - it is the one color we can agree on so obviously the natural choice is to make everything gray, right?  It made our house look so much brighter and the color we picked changed with the lighting which was something we liked.  The husband is actually colorblind so I pick paint colors and he gives his opinion.  Now that we have a few colors we like, we will probably keep with the same themes in this house.

My chief complaints about the entryway are:
1) Dark
2) Shiny brass light fixture
3) Wooden light switch plates (every room in our house has at least 3 different switch plate styles)
4) The honey colored front door
5) Shiny brass/gold door hardware
6) Terrible flooring
7) Boring doors and outdated hardware

So basically that list means everything in the entryway is a fail but luckily most of that is immediately fixable.  The entire house needs new flooring and we haven't even started talking about that so the tiles stay for now.  I have a jute rug that is in the entry and it will stay.  Another interesting fact about Midland (I have never heard of this before) is that many of the AC systems - the vents are trenched into the foundations.  Our return air vent is trenched under the front of our house and the return vents are by the front door under a closet - so it runs from the garage to the front door.  This is something we argued with the sellers about but they would not seal off and reroute the vent through the ceiling (they can be massive health hazards).  We have a hall closet but the front entry closet is elevated above the return vent and it has a horrible piece of 70s carpet on the floor.  That is coming out too and we will probably just seal the floor somehow.  Haven't pulled it up to see what is underneath the carpet.

Because that closet door is elevated, we need a flush mount light fixture so it won't hit when you open the door.  My intention is to carry the light fixture into our hallways so I tried to pick something cost conscious because I need four of them.

So the tentative plan is this mood board...which I have not run by the husband.  The vibe I am going for is trying to bring in as much light as possible into the space.  Right now it's like a grape cave and this house needs all the brightening up it can get.  Lightening up the paint color with Sherwin Williams Agreeable Grey will make the biggest bang for our buck.  We also will paint all of the trim and ceiling to brighten it up.  We like Sherwin Williams so we also use Ceiling Bright White and Extra White on trim.  We need to replace all of the doors in this house and the front closet is a custom size.  We have those plain, flat wood doors from the late 70s/early 80s.  I have read/watched a lot of tutorials about adding moulding to the doors but these doors are in rough shape and probably not worth salvaging.

One thing we don't necessarily agree on is art colorings.  We both like abstract art but M wants more red and I like happier, soothing prints.  I order all our Christmas/moving/announcement cards off Minted and they have a great selection of art.  I pulled both of these off the website because they fit the feel I am interested in.  Our entry is too narrow to put any furniture but there is a spot in the living room right when you walk in that I think would be great for some sort of table.

For the front door, I need to find my paint fan and pull a darker color out of the brick.  Our door is orange facing the outside and honey blonde wood on the inside.  The trim on our house is a creamy beige.  I will sand everything down and repaint it - probably Porpoise because there are hints of green in the brick and that color gives off more green than the chip shows.

So far so good - it's a start!!  It's a small enough space that we can take a decent bite out of the house and not feel like it's the never ending project (cough cough - the river rocks outside - cough cough).

Oily - My Life with Essential Oils

In January I dipped my toe in the essential oil waters. I have seen Facebook friends preach the healing powers/benefits and I thought "Hey if I could take less medicines to heal that would be nice!"  I have plantar fasciitis in my left foot and allergies so I decided to give it a shot. 

I decided to go with Young Living essential oils because a) everyone else uses them and b) their Seed to Seal promise and the fact that they are pharmaceutical grade which means they can be injested. Most bottles are 15mL which means you get about 300 drops out of one bottle and depending on the type of oil they can range from $12-35 a piece. I really wanted a diffuser and wasn't sure where to start so I ordered the premium starter kit that wholesale members can buy. It came with 10 5mL bottles of the most commonly used oils, the diffuser and some other stuff. Young Living is multi level marketing company so you can order through someone, pay retail and order online or join as a "wholesale" client and get a little bit of a discount. I signed up as a wholesale distributor so if I ever wanted to go whole hog, I could get people to sign up under me and really go crazy with the MLM. I just want to do my own thing so I don't do that stuff but if someone wanted to use my member number as a referral that's ok too. :-)

Anyway, my kit came and these oils are super concentrated - like one or two drops on your body is beyond adequate. When you diffuse, use 4-5 drops. If you put them on your body sometimes they burn (the "hot") oils so diluting them with coconut oil or olive oil helps lessen the sensation. You also cannot let the oils touch plastic. It will leech out the chemicals and eat through it. I have seen a styrofoam cup with oil swirled around in it be eaten and I put a cotton ball on my car air vent and it blistered the plastic. You have to be very careful!

So back to the experiments. We do not have kids and the husband doesn't want me touching him with my "voodoo" so I don't feel like I have had a real opportunity to experiment and see how they work. I really enjoy diffusing thieves oil blend in the house or whatever else smells good to me (so does the husband) and I need to order some more diffusers on Amazon. My YL diffuser has a light on it that doesn't turn off and I have found a different one on Amazon that has a light you can turn off. I would like to diffuse at night when we sleep. I also bought thieves concentrated cleaner that you mix with water - I really enjoy cleaning with that because it is safe to ingest and non-toxic. My only complaint is that it doesn't cut through heavy grease very well. 

My most used oils are peppermint, RC, thieves, stress away and lemongrass. My nose gets really stuffed up at night for no reason and a few years ago I got on two nose sprays. At night I started putting peppermint and RC on the outside of my nose when I sleep. It has helped SO MUCH with my congestion. If I wake up in the night and feel stuffy I put more on and it works so fast. I also think it helps me sleep better because I woke up a lot at night before I started using oils. 

I have plantar fasciitis in my left foot. Last year I had surgery on my right foot for that and a pinched nerve and the recovery is really long and difficult. I am trying to heal naturally because I don't want surgery so I read to massage 3 drops each of lemongrass, wintergreen and RC into your foot.  Lemongrass is supposed to be an excellent healer for tendons. When you do the massaging/treatments you should do them every 4 hours.  Now...I have a day job and sole of these oils don't smell that good - particularly lemongrass. I am not comfortable forcing my coworkers to smell my voodoo so I do not follow the 4 hour rule. I will say that when I do my massages my foot does feel better. It feels like bengay and I do get relief. If I did it consistently I feel like I would have good results. Lemongrass also stains things with a yellow tint so that is one thing I don't like. I recently bought the special orthosport massage oil and it is similar to my homemade combo.

Sometimes I put a few drops of lemon oil in a glass container of water to drink. It tastes the way lemon peel smells to me but I enjoy infused water occassionally. Lemon oil is also great for removing sticky adhesives. 

Stress away is one of my favorite smells - it's got a vanilla citrus smell to it. I like to run it on my feet when I go to sleep and behind my ears in the morning. Do I feel less stress?  I am not sure but I will keep up with the consistency and report back. 

I also put lavender on acne and ingest thieves with a tablespoon of honey when I feel like I'm getting sick/rundown. Thieves has anti-viral properties and it has a cinnamon smell to it...it's one of my favorites. 

My next experiment is going to be seeing if they will remove skin tags. I don't get sick a lot but my foot is my biggest struggle right now. Does anyone else use oils or have any success stories?

Cooking {Salt Crusted Snapper}

One of the husband's goals is to try to be more adventurous with cooking and try to make more "difficult" dishes.  This week's attempt was salt crusted snapper.

I have seen this done on a few cooking shows and it looked super intimidating.  The husband used to be a fishmonger at a grocery store and while it probably wasn't his favorite job, he knows how to fillet fish and prep them from scratch so it is much more cost effective now to just buy whole fishes if we can.  It's an awesome skill set to have!

He followed this recipe from Mario Batali for Food Network:

Ingredients

1 whole 3-pound fish such as snapper, bream, sea bass or porgy

4 egg whites

2 cups kosher salt

1 bunch fresh thyme

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 lemon, cut into wedges

Directions

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

Clean and gut fish, remove top and bottom fins, scale and remove gills. Whisk egg whites to soft peaks and fold in salt. Place thyme in body cavity and set aside. Place 4 tablespoons of egg white mixture on a large platter, suitable for oven to table use. Place fish on top of mixture and spoon remaining mixture over top of fish. Place fish and platter in oven and bake for 25 to 30 minutes. remove and strike crust to crack. Carefully remove salt crust from top of fish and divide flesh among two plates. Serve with good oil and lemons.

Things we did differently - we stuffed our fish with lemon slices, thyme and olive oil.  We also used almost a whole box of kosher salt.  The recipe says to spread the egg/salt mixture on the bottom of the dish and then place the fish on top of it.  He did that but once it baked, it was stuck on there and we are still soaking the dish trying to get some of it off.  I would suggest a piece of parchment paper then spread the salt/egg white mixture.  You want the egg/salt mixture to be the consistency of cake frosting so it's easier to mould it to the fish and it isn't runny.  I think next time using a sheet pan would be better than a pyrex.

The idea is that the salt dome holds the heat in and allows the fish to cook evenly and perfectly. It definitely cooks the fish perfectly but we had some trouble peeling off our salt dome so some fish was a little salty.  I'm not sure if we cooked it a little too long or didn't let it cool before we cracked it or missed some secret trick.  Aside from some of the salt, it was awesome and we want to try it again!

Spreading the base layer of egg/salt mixture

Baked and ready for cracking

The meat is so tender it is literally fall off the bone delicious!

Trip Recap Part 2 {MARFA}

Like I said in Part 1 of the recap, we did not plan anything for this trip.  The forecast said rain all weekend so we decided to go check out Alpine and Fort Davis on Saturday.  There is no where to eat breakfast in Marfa - there is a coffee shop called Frama that is attached to a laundromat but they do not serve food.  They do have good coffee and there is also a juice place called Squeeze Marfa which we did not try.  So off to Alpine we went.

There truly is no cell service once you get outside of the towns so I frantically checked for places to eat in Alpine once we got into town and settled on a spot called Magoo's.  Magoo's is a mexican joint but TripAdvisor people said their breakfast was good.  M got pancakes/bacon/eggs and I got huevos rancheros.  I read the menu and thought "Refried beans...uh that is not typical" but I ordered it anyway because if I eat something like pancakes, I am starving within an hour.  Let me tell you it was so random but I ate it all anyway - it was like this spicy breakfast goulash with eggs, beans, green chilies and tortillas that totally sticks to your ribs.  On the bright side, I was not hungry for most of the rest of the day so mission accomplished.  We decided after Magoo's to go check out the McDonald Observatory which is maybe 45-50 miles north of Alpine.

I really, really enjoyed the trip just because of the scenery.  I have never driven around in the Davis Mountains in the daytime and it is gorgeous (I did go to the Observatory in college for a star party one night).  Midland is flat and kind of depressing but we do get some gorgeous sunsets.  Seeing elevation changes for us is practically like rolling around on a bed full of money...it's totally awesome.  I have always enjoyed West Texas/New Mexico/Arizona.  We did lots of vacations as kids in the Southwest and I internally geek out over living out here because I love it so much.  Low humidity?  Awesome.  Seeing weather systems blow up before they make it here?  Double awesome. Cool nights where you can actually sit outside and enjoy yourself?  Triple awesome.

Now that we have established that West Texas is awesome...back to the trip recap.  Fort Davis is nestled in the mountains and we wanted to check out the Fort (it's a national park) but decided to press on and see the Observatory because the chance of an outside star party that night was slim considering the weather.  The stars were aligned (he he he) because when we got there they were just about to start a tour of the observatories.  For $8/adult we got in our car and off we drove up the mountain to the facility that has the Harlan J Smith telescope.  They also have a shuttle if you would prefer to take that to the facilities.

Waiting for the tour to begin at the top

The McDonald Observatory was created because a Texas banker out of Paris, TX left the bulk of his fortune to the University of Texas to endow an astronomy observatory.  He was an amateur astronomy and just loved studying the field.  This year is the Observatory's 75th anniversary.  Here is a summary of the daytime tour directly off the website:

The Tour typically begins at the overlook to the south of the 107" dome.  From there, peaks over 80 miles way can be seen.  At this location, your guide will typically discuss some of the history of the Observatory and why this location was chosen for an astronomical research facility. After pointing out some of the peaks in the area, the tour typically then proceeds to the ground floor lobby of the 107" dome where some of the history of that telescope is discussed. After a climb up four flights of steps (an elevator is available for those who shouldn't or can't take the steps .. your guide with discuss access to the elevator) the tour continues with descriptions of the parts of the telescope seen at the 5th floor level, demonstrations of the telescope motions, etc.
After visiting the 107" telescope, your guide will provide instructions for continuing with the tour at the summit of Mt. Fowlkes and the Hobby-Eberly Telescope. At the HET, you'll learn more about that telescope's unique, low-cost (for a world class telescope, at least) design and about new cutting-edge research projects for which the HET is currently being re-engineered.

This is exactly as described and the tour takes about an hour and half.  The Hobby-Eberly is currently undergoing upgrades so that the astronomers will be able to study dark matter/dark energy. It is basically a honeycomb of mirrors that are about 27 inches each in diameter and because of the construction, it is a little disappointing to view but it has some neat features they explain in detail.  They expect the construction to be done next year. 

The storms were starting to fire up while we were there and as soon as we were done with the tour and went back to the guest center, the rain hit hard.  It didn't occur to either of us to watch the movie or stay and explore the visitor center - we did want to get back to Marfa and try Pizza Foundation so we got our Christmas ornament (it's a tradition to buy an ornament when we go on trips) and off we went into the monsoon.  Apparently this time of year is monsoon season down there.  

We got back to Marfa and went straight to Pizza Foundation.  I had read reviews and they open at 1 and serve until they run out of pizza dough.  We were worried they would feed all the hipsters before we got a chance to try it.  Their menu is simple but the kid at the counter was annoyed at me asking how it works.  They have 3 "foundations" and then you can add extra toppings.  They offer a cheese, white and margarita pizza.  We decided to do half white add onion (him) and half margarita add sausage (me) since the pizzas are 18 inches wide.  It was amazing.  There is a place in Frisco called Pizzaria Testa and it's true Naples type pizza and Pizza Foundation was exactly as delicious but they are way more generous with toppings.  I would go back to Marfa just to eat pizza.  Soooo good!

We wanted to walk around Marfa and see what there was to see....there's not much.  We went into this store Freida's that a waiter at Maiya's recommended because his wife owns it and it wasn't really our speed.  We walked into an art gallery that was doing an exhibit on 9/11 - it was a woman who painted it from a child's perspective.  Again it wasn't our speed.  There wasn't much else open so we decided to try the rock shop and I ended up getting a rock.  The rock shop had some cool stuff but it was kind of expensive.  Like everywhere in Marfa, there is practically no air conditioning or it's tiny window units that don't cool well.  Back to the casita we went for some relaxing and a few hours later we decided to try Jett's Grill at the Hotel Paisano.  The food was pretty good but the best part for me was my drink - the American Honey.  They muddled the liquor, lemon and sweetness together and serve it over an oversized iced tea ice cube.  I could have drank 10 of those things but stopped at 2.  I want to try to make it at home.

After dinner we wanted to try Frama to see if they had ice cream but they closed at 8 so we went back to the casita and waited it out to go check out the Marfa Lights around 9:45ish.  Legend has it that these lights have been seen since 1883 by ranchers and no one knows what they are.  There is a "light stop" off the highway and it was pretty crowded - I am not sure if we actually saw the lights but we kept seeing something.  I had read that the lights dance, shoot across the land and are different colors.  We saw lights that kind of blinked on and off so the husband maintains they were highway lights.  I have no idea what they were.  Take a lawn chair and some drinks and let me know what you see!

Sunday was our last day and we got coffee at Frama and headed out to Prada Marfa.  Prada Marfa is an art installation that was set up in 2005 - it is a sealed off Prada store front with real Prada items inside of it.  It is about 35 miles west of Marfa towards Valentine.  It is...weird.  I got one great picture but this place has been vandalized with graffiti and the awnings are ripped so it looks kind of sad.  I'm glad we got to see it but it was not life changing.  Once we were done with that we took the super scenic route back to Midland and about 3-4 hours later we were home!  It was a great trip and we would like to go back and spend more time in Fort Davis and Alpine next time!

The menu at Frama is scrabble tiles!

Congratulations if you made it to the end of this post!  I need to work on making these shorter!