A Delicious Meal and Some Lazy TV Time

My hubby is off for the rest of this week. We are celebrating every minute of our time with him because he has been working crazy hours for months with little or no time off including weekends. We were out early this morning working on a garden. Great times for the most part. ; ) Sometimes, there are too many people telling too many people what to do. That's all I'll say about that. We decided to give him some alone time this afternoon while we picked strawberries. He likes his alone time too, and he has had little to none of that in the past few months either. He stopped by the store while he was out and picked up some yummy ingredients and decided to cook us dinner. He loves to cook and as crazy as it sounds, enjoys doing that in his down time.

So delicious. You will love this one.

TORTELLINI IN SPINACH -TOMATO CREAM SAUCE

Ingredients

• 1 jar (1 lb. 10 oz.) Chunky Pasta Sauce
  
• 1 2/3 cup heavy or whipping cream
• 1 package (15 oz.) cheese tortellini, cooked and drained
• 1 package steam in bag chopped frozen spinach
  
• 2 Tbsp. grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

1. In 2-quart saucepan, simmer Pasta Sauce and cream over medium heat, stirring occasionally, 5 minutes or until heated through. Steam frozen spinach according to directions. Add to sauce. Toss hot tortellini with sauce. Sprinkle with cheese and garnish, if desired, with chopped fresh basil.

Servings: 4


Serve this with a salad and a full glass of iced tea with lemon or lime and it will delight your taste buds.



We finished this yummy meal off with a big bowl of strawberries with a dollop of freshly whipped cream on the side. I whipped the last bit of remaining cream left over from the pasta dish. Almost nothing is better than freshly picked strawberries.



Tonight we are having a lazy evening of family fun. I just have to ask if you all like The Andy Griffith show? We love it. Sitting back watching Andy while waiting for American Idol to come on. Tonight it will be down to the final three. Wonder who will go home? I'm thinking Kris or Allison. Hope you are having a wonderful Wednesday evening.


Christina

An entertainment center and a marriage celebration

1997

Yes, I realize this is a really strange title. :) Bear with me though....

Rhoda over at Southern Hospitality is having a thrifty party and I thought I would share my entertainment center story as well as a bit about my marriage.

12 years ago yesterday my husband and I were married. We were young...REALLY young (20 & 21) and didn't have a whole lot of money. :)

We furnished our apartment with yard sale and thrift store finds, as well as hand me downs from friends and family. It was a cozy happy apartment and I loved living there. One thing I couldn't handle was the black modern entertainment center my husband had. :( Returning extra wedding gifts to Macy's we discovered their Electronics Dept was closing and they were clearancing out their items. Due to this, we were able to buy this entertainment center with money we received from the returns.
(picture that I posted on Craig's List - it sold after being listed 5 days!)

Over the years we bought a house, my style changed and I was ready to move on from this lovely piece. :) My husband is pretty particular about his electronics and we looked at several entertainment centers this year but they all looked so mass produced to me.

Last year at a yard sale I came across a white cabinet that I fell in love with. It had glass knobs...


darling hinges, peeling paint and was just my style!


At that time we were not looking for a new entertainment center and the thought didn't even cross my mind. The dear lady who was selling it was moving and said it had been in her garage for storage. I turned my back on it and walked away but Christina and Sarah persuaded me that I could use it for storage in my basement or even on my carport. The lady was getting ready to close down the yard sale and told me I could have it for $30! Sold!
On the way home, one of the doors flew up and broke off. :( For a year it sat on my carport holding spray paint and misc items with the door propped on.

While my husband was out of town on a work trip, I had my brother-in-law (who is a painter) paint my living room to give it a new look after 10 years. Christina helped me move this piece into the living room to try it out as an entertainment center. It took us about 20 min to get the thing a very small distance because it was HEAVY!


My husband came home, decided he would give it a go, glued and clamped the door then put it back on and voila...here is our new entertainment center for $30! I love it better than the ones I have seen for $300 - $1000 ( there was a $1200 one I would have liked to have had but that wasn't in our budget).


As all you married folks know, most of making a marriage work is the give and take that goes on. We will always have a large TV in our house (and probably our living room since we don't have a family room), complete with large black speakers (not so pretty) and that is okay with me. My husband allows me to have furniture with peeling paint (which he abhors) and I let him have his big TV with speakers in the living room! :) That's just how we roll and one small way we make our marriage work.

~Victoria~

Another Round of Thrifty Finds and a Makeover

I haven't posted a makeover in a long time and those are my favorite kinds of posts. It is just thrilling to see all of the wonderful things you girls do with your thrifty finds.

We found this basket a couple of months ago at Goodwill. It is large and very sturdy. I didn't remember to take a picture of before with the handle on.

While it was a great basket just like it was, there was an idea brewing in the back of my mind--This would be a great basket for my photography sessions of newborns and littles.



This is kind of what I envision with a newborn baby in it or a vintage look with an older baby sitting in it with just a diaper on. Sorry not a great picture, I was doing this quickly and the fur is overtaking the basket without something in it.

I'm pleased with the way it turned out and will enjoy having it in my house also.

We are joining in with Thrifty Thursday. Please head over and see all of the treasures that everyone has unearthed this week.





This picture was $1.55. The frame is a goldish bronze color and not attractive.


Here it is with a coat of cream paint. It's ok, but don't love it. I'm going to try it in black.


These candlesticks are going to get a coat of the same paint as the basket and frame above. I always find lots of iron looking things like these in my searching, but these were a little more unique with the little crystals hanging from them.


I found five of these chairs on a recent thrifting excursion. They were $35.00 total. That is probably thrifty to some and too expensive to others. The cane backs on the chairs drew me right to them. I put the one with the tag in my buggy and was stopped twice on my way though the store by people asking how much they were and telling me what neat chairs they were.
Here I am experimenting with color. My first thought was black, and then cream came to mind. I sprayed the upper portion of the chair just I can walk by it for the next few days and decide if it is going to stay that way or not. Does anyone else every have to do this?

These chairs could be wonderful in so many colors---red, lime green, yellow, pink. So many choices. The fifth one may get a coat of one of those fabulous colors and be used for photography.


Christina

Something Sunny

Hopefully no one will mind if I take a minute to brag on my hubby. He went by the store for me on Monday night and brought home to me these wonderful sunny yellow and green flowers. He does this from time to time. No rhyme or reason. No holiday. Just because. I love that. Thanks dear! You are so wonderful to me.


Aren't they incredibly cheery? Just perfect in my little thrifted pitcher that usually holds my kitchen sink brushes.

Speaking of sunny, I thought with mother's day coming up, someone might enjoy this delicious tasting salad. In our extended family we almost always have a congealed salad when we get together for a special meal. This recipe was given to us at my daughter's Girl Scout meeting a couple of weeks ago. They were learning about heritage and were to make a recipe that has been handed down in their family. We also tasted the recipes. This is delicious. I look forward to making it this year.

Pineapple Cream Cheese Salad

1 pint crushed pineapple
1/2 cup sugar
pinch of salt
cook 5 min.

Dissolve one package Knox gelatin in 1/2 cup water.

Add to hot mixture.

Remove from stove. Add one 1 large package of cream cheese to pineapple mixture.

Add a couple of drops of food coloring then cool.

Add 1/2 pint of cool whip. Pour into mold and let set overnight.

I can just taste the zing of the pineapple while I'm typing.

We will have some more fun finds tomorrow late in the day. Hope you have had a great hump day.

Christina

Thrifty Finds

Who doesn't love a thrifty fun find? Well, I'm sure someone out there doesn't, but they probably don't read this blog anyway.

How about this adorable chair that Victoria found for $3.00. I will be making it over and posting a picture sometime soon. The seat is covered with pollen from sitting on my porch. If you've never met up with pollen---It covers everything and makes people wild with sneezing and itchy eyes. Welcome to good 'ole GA.



I loved this old picnic basket. As with the chair above, it was bought mainly with my photography business in mind, but I do try to incorporate many of these things into my home because I lack a studio and storage.



Some great misc. white pieces. Love these!!


Two plate hangers for 50cents.



How about some soup?


Is this awful? I like it, but I'm also a little scared of it. : ) I will try to link later to a blog that made over something similar in a fabulous way. It is saved somewhere around here. Notice the fluer de lis on the top of the handle.


Some unique white plates for hanging.



New Ralph Lauren tennis shoes---that don't fit the person I bought them for. : (


My most favorite find and the best deal of all is a stack of six dinner plates for $2.72. I guess it doesn't take a lot to make me happy. I called Victoria and said, "I'm hyperventilating." Why was this the best deal? Well, because they are the dinner plates that go with my place settings of Mikasa French Countryside.

One sells for $12.99! This may very well be one of my best thrifting find to date. We had broken one of our plates recently and it is always great to have extra dinner plates.


Make sure you head over to Rhoda's blog, Southern Hospitality, for the Today's Thrifty Finds Party. There are some great things over there.

Linens part 2

Edited to add: We are participating in and Thrift Store Thursday and Thrifty Thursday usually hosted by Tales From Bloggeritaville, but this week while she is out of town you will find it here. Make sure to go visit these ladies and see all of the goodies that others have found. You may want to start here to see Victoria's first linen post.




Linens part 2 by Victoria

I did want to clarify a few things from my linens post the other day.

1) The coverlet that I picked up out of the "trash" was in a very nice neighborhood and I actually know the very clean lady that lives in the house. Just wanted to make sure you all know I'm not picking up nasty things out of the garbage and putting them on my bed. :)

2) My Goodwill doesn't typically have a lot of great items but after a dr's appt in a different part of town, I found a GW and they had all sorts of really great things. I have found, as many of you have, that you have to go often (weekly usually) and I check the linen bin each time I go. Most days I come away with nothing but sometimes I strike gold!

After my Dr appt I found this lovely pillow sham to use in my Sweet Girl's room. Again, hot water and I felt like it was good to go!

It added some interest and broke up the matchy matchy I had going on in here.

Now, I have always steered clear of pillows from GW because HOW do you wash them (unless of course they have a zipper cover)? I recently broke away from this trend when I spotted two of these darling round blue pillows and they were 1/2 off! What I did was look them over really well and sniff them. They looked extremely clean and smelled good and so I bought them. I put them in the dryer and also put them out in the sun for a couple of days before bringing them in.
I had to throw in a shot of the "spring" banner I bought at GW. It has lots of luscious glitter and the colors go perfectly in Sweet Girl's room! It was originally from Target and $9.99. I think I did pay $2.52 for it.

If anyone ever spies a little "George Monkey" in his pj's we need another one!!!!! I'll gladly pay you for it and shipping.

I love this room and the fact that most of her bedding was bought on clearance at Target as they discontinued this part of their Shabby Chic line. I had help from lots of family members who spied things on clearance at their Targets and picked up items for me. To see more of Sweet Girl's room and how the bedding has evolved go here. For part one go here.

Cheers,

~Victoria~

A thankful cake

Emily over at Chatting at the Sky is challenging us to take a moment today to celebrate the small things and see the lovely in our lives (in spite of the food stuck to the floor and the laundry piled high). :)

After I read Emily's post about what she would be doing today it challenged me to pay attention to things around me and especially moments shared with my 3 year old. I knew that today I would be at work and be busy from the moment I hit the door so my moment actually happened yesterday.

I told my Sweet Girl we were going to make one of her Daddy's favorite cakes (Lemon Poppyseed) for him. I explained to her as we were making it that it was not his birthday or any other special day ... we were doing it "just because".

Over the years when I've slowed down and thought about it, I've talked to her and told her how thankful we should be for Daddy and I point out all the things that he does for us. He works hard to provide for us, he protects us, he is not lazy, he keeps the grass cut, the cars running, he plays with her and so on.


Yesterday I did that again and called our cake a "thankful cake" and we talked about all that Daddy does for us. When I got done, I asked her why we made the cake and she said "because it's not his birthday and he tickles us". I thought she caught on rather well for 3 years old! :)


You see, to my Sweet Girl the fact that he plays with her and tickles her IS the most important thing in her world right now and that's why she was making the cake. I thought it was precious and I was so glad that I took the time to slow down and enjoy the process with her! It also reminded me to be thankful for "Daddy" and all he does for us and that's always a good thing.


My sister Beth always has dessert, whether it's cookies, cake or something else, under her pretty glass cake dome at her house and she is the one that shared this recipe with me. I LOVE cakes that use a cake mix and additional ingredients. They seem so much easier than scratch and taste so yummy.

Here's the recipe in case you want to make someone a cake today for no reason at all!

Lemon Poppyseed Cake

1 package yellow cake mix
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup water
1 cup plain or vanilla nonfat yogurt
3 eggs
3 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons poppy seeds

Combine cake mix and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Add vegetable oil and next four ingredients and beat on medium speed for six minutes. Stir in poppyseeds. Pour into well greased bundt pan and bake for 40 min at 350 degrees or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Cool in pan for 10 min. Remove from pan and drizzle with lemon glaze.

Lemon Glaze
1/2 cup powdered sugar
Lemon juice

Sift powdered sugar into bowl. Add 1 tbsp lemon juice and stir. Add enough lemon juice until glaze if of drizzling consistency.


I encourage you to take a moment today and enjoy the small things around you. Put the laundry aside and go cuddle with the little one or call someone just to say "hi". Oh and in case you are wondering, Sweet Girl DID dress herself. ;)

~Victoria~