Apple Tarts and Fabulous Fall

The weather lately has gotten cooler and put me in the mood to bake to my heart's content!  After a recent camping excursion, wine tasting and apple picking with the family, I am ready to enjoy the season.  We had a great time spending time with my parents and my sister, camping for the first time as a family since Jess and I were small.  It was nice to have everyone together, cooking and enjoying the weather and great company.  We now have a bottle of wine to celebrate the arrival of our new addition in December and enough apples to last us at least as long!  Tonight, I've made 2 tarts and am working on plans for more fabulous Fall treats!  What are your favorite fall treats?  Pumpkin bread, apple crisp, pumpkin pie?  Give me some apple-licious ideas and maybe I'll try your recipe/idea next!  Happy Baking!

FRIDAY and Progress

While I normally don't work a full Friday anyway, due to my typically 8+ hour days, today was even better.  I only had to work 2 hours this morning and it's almost like a three day weekend!  Boy do I need it! I've been pretty tired lately and actually sleeping pretty hard most nights, so rest sounds like the right solution.  We are 23 1/2 weeks down, with only 16 1/2 weeks left to go, assuming this Lil Apple comes on time.  We did not find out what we are having in terms of gender and are excited about the surprise.  The unfortunate part of this is that all clothing we have received is green, yellow or some variation thereof.  But it's baby clothes so they are cute either way.  We keep forgetting to take pictures on a weekly basis but there is not much of a bump to share, so you'll have to live without those pictures.  We do have Ultrasound pictures and Ben posted them here: Ultrasound Baby Haylett.  We are looking forward to December already, and NOT for weather related reasons.  We are starting to stock up on diapers and I'm questioning my thrifty store brand theory when it comes to these important items.  Any suggestions from current parents regarding diapers, wipes and if Brand name is worth it regarding these items?  I look forward to hearing the responses!

141 Garage Sale

This weekend is the 8th annual Highway 141 Garage Sale.  Towns all along the highway participate in the sale from Grimes all the way to Manilla.  How cool is that!?!?  While I like the idea of garage sales, I dislike the idea of spending HOURS rifling through someone's trash to hopefully claim something I may see as treasure.  I DO relish in the find, but it's like going to Goodwill extremely hopeful and leaving sad and empty handed if you don't find anything.  I feel that over the next few months, I may really start to get into garage sale-ing, to get some great deals on mom-to-be essentials.  That said, this annual 141 sale, I will a participant, selling off some of our meager items in order to make space in the future tot's room.  We don't have much, but several other homes in our association are participating, so I'm hoping that we draw quite a crowd!  Please spread the word and if you are in town for the BIG event, stop by!  Maybe you'll stumble upon a GREAT find, making your day!  Visit the sale's website to locate sales, check out if they are worth stopping by, and see what the fuss is all about!  www.141sale.com  

The Project

For my mom's birthday, we were going to buy her a tin ceiling tile from West End Architectural Salvage, an awesome little shop under the 9th street bridge downtown.  It's full of all kinds of old treasures from homes and businesses gone by and crafty little art pieces created out of the refuse.  Which reminds me that we NEED to take our friends their next time they are in town because I know that Beth will LOVE it!  Anyway, they wanted $40 for 1 tile that was 1'x1'.  I wanted to buy a set, however, those prices added up fast.  Ben and I then wandered up to the 4th floor where they have remnants of wood, old doors, light fixtures, etc from buildings that you can buy and use to refurbish a place to it's "original" style.  We found a 2'x4' section of tin ceiling tile in GREAT condition.  This whole section was $80, quite a good chunk of change but could easily be made into 8 great pieces of art.  We could make four for ourselves and 4 for my mom's birthday for the cost of 2 already crafted.  We decided to buy it, despite the fact that we didn't really have any tools to cut the tin, anything to make a frame or any means of adhering the tin to the frames to complete the project.  We set out for the local home store and picked up the wood we'd need.  Then proceeded to use a hack saw, yes, no fancy table saw here, and cut the pieces into the lengths needed.

Next, we made yet another trip to the store to find a way to a) make the frames square and b) screw them together.  Mission accomplished after several days, a little arguing, and some good tunes, we filed and sanded our wood and made real, mostly square frames!  We made a final trip to the store to buy some tin snips to trip the tin as we devised a way to wrap the tiles around the frames without using any fasteners or adhesive to hold them tight!  Who knew!                                                  Now it was time to paint.  We scrutinized over colors, where to hang them and other important dilemmas then settled on the colors.  After painting them twice and repainting a final time.  Here is our final project:  4 tin tile art pieces, in the spare room, soon to be a baby's room.  In the time it took and all the extra tools we bought, we probably spent $120 total, the cost of buying only 3 pre-made.  So it was worth the time and effort, however, we plan on buying a table saw if ever we make more...

Jungle Modern

Shelves my grandparents made for us at Xmas.
FINALLY hung them up!

Here are a few more photos of the room in progress as we've decorated and redecorated and will likely redecorate again before December.

Store brands vs. Name brand

So I'm a strong believer in getting more for less.  I don't care about the label on a can of food or pair of jeans.  If it suits my needs, I'll get it and save myself a few bucks, or more, in the process.  Well, today, I had to question my long-standing beliefs.  I had bought a store-brand can of green beans.  I had not bought this particular store's canned veggies before, but thought that off brand is off brand.  Opening this can of green beans, I was excited.  Nothing sounded good all afternoon and upon getting home, my nauseated pregnant stomach said "I could do some green beans."  I quickly responded before said stomach could change its mind, heated up the beans and away I went.  They tasted good too!  After a few bites, I noticed something yellowish in the bowl.  Thinking to myself, it's probably just an unripe bean, I pulled it out to throw it away.  Well folks, it was a dandelion head.  Ew.  So I picked it out, thinking, what a fluke and continued eating my beans.  I mean, I understand that with all the technology and such around today, it is possible to get a stray field green into my beans now and then.  I continue eating and low and behold, along comes another dandelion.  This one has gone to seed.  You know, after they turn into white puff balls and the seeds start to blow off the head and float away, only to infest millions of lawns?  So, now I'm calling my financially savvy decision into question.  Is it worth spending more for green beans without dandelions?  Am I just making a mountain with a molehill?  What do you think?  Should I keep buying my store brand, penny saving foods or should I pony up the dough and use name brand items?  Let me know your thoughts...

Rain, rain, go away!

So it has rained pretty much for a week straight here, so I thought this new layout was fitting!  The news reported 7 inches of rain for the month of June, with yet another storm rolling through as I type!  We've been forced to turn on the air conditioning as we can't have the windows open reliably due to all of this rain!  We went over to Saylorville the other day to look for some driftwood for my mom and weren't able to access the lake at several points due to high water.  The beaches are pretty much non-existent because the water levels are so high, though there were several families attempting to enjoy the hot and humid day.  This rain has put into effect Flash Flood Watches that will last until further notice.  No end date and time...just "until further notice."  That's saying something!
Lately, we've had some time to start researching and pricing all of the things that we "need" to get ready for our family expansion in December.  Figuring out which crib will be the safest and how much you really need to spend for a quality crib has been exhausting!  Did you know that you can spend anywhere from $150 to $800 for a bed!!!  That doesn't even include the mattress!  I was shocked!  So after adding up the cost of a crib, mattress, car seat, stroller, play yard, breast pump, clothes, diapers, the list goes on and on and on....we were SHOCKED and began to realize that we need to start saving now!  While we knew that children were expensive, it made it easy to see how so many families go into debt when they have children.  The "Baby Industry" is driven to guilt you into buying the "best" for your child and in order to get the "best" you need to spend more, more, more.  Thankfully we have another 26 weeks to continue our research and ask lots of questions of my friends with children to find out what is really worth the money and what is not.  I haven't even started talking about finding day care yet.  Another day, another blog.  For now, enjoy the rain.

News

I finally got around to filling the bird feeder this Spring and I feel it was just in time.  We now have finches enjoying the seed and the cats enjoying the view.  Most days, I don't even notice the birds out on the feeder until I start hearing Coda chirping and flicking his tail around spastically.  A quick glance out the window and sure enough, there is a gold finch.  While I hate the mess that gets made with all the seed, I love watching the birds.  I always say that if I could be any other animal, I'd want to be a bird.  Can you imagine being able to fly?  Really, that's my only ambition for life as a bird, to fly.  I would want to still have the same intelligence as I do now, just able to fly.  Maybe technology will make this a reality for me in this lifetime.

In other news, Ben and I are expecting an addition to our family in December!  We are excited and nervous and can't wait to see how our lives will change.  This blog may change focus as the focus of our family changes, but I'm hoping that I get back to posting delicious recipes, which is why I started this thing in the first place!

While we are excited, we continue to think of our friends who are struggling and frustrated with fertility challenges.  We are thinking of you!  Know that we are here to support you and help in any way that we can!