Dec 20, 2009

Dining with Alasandra

Mediterraneo great atmosphere and delicious food I enjoyed DOLMADES ~ grape leaves stuffed with lamb, rice, and Mediterranean spices; PIQUILLO PEPPERS red Piquillo peppers stuffed with honey goat cheese and SPANAKOPITA spinach and Feta cheese stuffed in a Phylo pastry. All three Tapas were yummy and I look forward to going back and trying other things on the menu.

Dec 12, 2009

Floored


The floor is down now and it looks really nice.




Unfortunately to put the floor down Hubby had to take the hot water heater out. I wound up taking a COLD bath the day my eldest son graduated from the University of South Alabama. Hubby was able to temporarily install the hot water heater and he takes the washer and dryer in and out so I can wash clothes during the week when he is at work and unable to work on the laundry room. The first coat of primer is on and it makes a HUGE difference. The walls had never been painted so anything is a huge improvement from when we moved in.

Dec 10, 2009

Promotion day arrives for white Conn. firefighters

Promotion day arrives for white Conn. firefighters - Nation Wire - SunHerald.com

A group of white firefighters who persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court to sanction their promotions over black colleagues are receiving their new badges Thursday in a ceremony that provides symbolic recognition of their victory.


The high court ruled in June that New Haven officials violated white firefighters' civil rights when they threw out 2003 test results in which too few minorities did well.

The case became an issue in confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who ruled against the white firefighters when she served on a federal appeals court.

So glad the guys who earned the promotion finally received it.

Dec 5, 2009

The Laundry Room Gets It's Turn FINALLY



We have finally gotten around to remodeling the laundry room (sigh, it is the last room to be remodeled). This linoleum is what was originally in the dining room, kitchen and the bathrooms. We replaced the floors in the dining room and kitchen with laminate flooring and now we are putting the same flooring in the laundry room. We put tile in the bathrooms.

This is the flooring that will be in there. Unfortunately the renovations required taking the hot water heater out, so we are currently without hot water.

For some reason the walls were never painted in here. After seeing Barb's Raspberry Mud Room I was inspired. I took myself off to Lowe's to look at paint chips. And settled on you guessed it Raspberry. It matches the strawberries and raspberries in the border I have in the kitchen nicely not that it matters but depending on what we do with the kitchen cabinets I may use it in the kitchen too. We are going to leave the pantry door open. A folding door, which is what was in there when we bought the house, takes up to much room to open. We are going to paint the pantry the same (off-white) blue that is in the rest of the house. I think the contrast will look nice.

For those of you wondering why we are going to do anything with the kitchen cabinets as they are fairly NEW. We had them custom made by a local cabinet maker. He did a HORRIBLE JOB! The paint is peeling off the cabinets and all the trim he painted and some of the trim (that was suppose to be white is a dingy yellow). I am furious every time I look at them he didn't even bother to PRIME the cabinets before he painted them. They were a total waste of our money and IF I had it to do over I would have gotten the cabinets at Home Depot, somehow some way. You can read all about the nightmare here.

Nov 29, 2009

Alasandra's Cranberry Pumpkin Bread


1 small can, canned pumpkin
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup butter melted
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 cup frozen cranberries
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 cups self rising flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup chopped walnuts

In a mixing bowl, beat pumpkin, sugar, milk, eggs and butter. Combine dry ingredients; stir into pumpkin mixture. Fold in walnuts and cranberries. Pour into a greased 9" X 5" X 3" loaf pan. Bake at 350 for 70 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes; remove to a wire rack to cool completely.