We were planning on heading out the Avalon Faire, our local Ren Fest, but it rained on and off on Sunday. It seems like every Easter we get rain. Since Donny had the day off we decided to switch dining tables once again. I absolutely love the drop leaf antique table we have been using, but honestly, it’s just too big for the space. Everyone fit around it, but it wasn’t comfortable getting seated. The door is in a weird spot and was always hitting one of the chairs.
I had seen a parlor table on FB marketplace that I really liked, but when I measured it was going to be way too small. So we decided to bring in the rectangular table that we had used at one point during our years here. I still can’t believe that we have lived in Longview 7 years and in this house for 5 of those.
It was nice having Donny here to help me move everything around.
I plan on painting the bottom part as we’re out of the turquoise phase.
There is just so much more space. If we have more people for dinner we can always eat outside on the dining table there.
I have put the other table to good use. I was outside gardening most of the day today and it makes the perfect potting table.
And just because I am embracing my low maintenance style, this is how my hair looks when I just go to sleep with it damp. I do not miss my long hair one little bit. Now I can get ready in about 15 minutes. That’s definitely a win.
This morning I needed to make more sweet potatoes. I keep roasted ones in the fridge because I eat them everyday. They are so easy and so good. Anyway, I thought I’d throw in the recipe I use.
About 2 pounds of sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
2 T olive or avocado oil
1 T pure maple syrup
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp cinnamon
!/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp black pepper
Put everything in a bowl and stir it until everything is coated evenly.
Spread it out on a baking sheet lines with parchment paper.
Bake for 15 minutes in a preheated 425 degree oven.
After 15 minutes give them a flip and continue baking for about 10 minutes.
They are so good and so good for you.
Remember the eggs I froze? I thawed out two of them for cookies and you couldn’t even tell the eggs had been frozen.
I quit buying cookies a while ago. I will bake something sweet and that’s the choice my family has until the jar is empty and then I’ll bake something else. It seems to be working out pretty well. Truthfully though, we are not really snackers so they last over a week at least.
My mustard pickled eggs were finally ready to eat. I had one with an apple for lunch and it was so good. I’m trying not to eat a whole lot of meat so this is a good way for me to get protein.
The seeds I planted are sprouting. Donny is off for the next two days so we’ll be working on the garden.
Hopefully something will come of these. Fingers crossed.
The garlic, green onions and celery are growing also. Green onions are so easy to grow. I just stuck the white part in the pot and the green part grows like crazy. I just walk outside and cut off what I need.
Last year our hostas didn’t really take off. I guess they just needed to get used to the pot.
And last, but not least, we have a semi new member of the family.
His name is O’Malley and he is a feral cat that I have been trying to get close to for months. One day he just decided that we weren’t out to kill him and has hung around our patio ever since. He has come into the house 3 times but it still very leery of the indoors. As soon as he gets more comfortable with us I’m going to get his vaccines and neuter. Baby steps.
Our chickens didn’t lay many eggs during the colder months. That’s perfectly normal, but when it started warming up they started producing like crazy. We were getting overrun with eggs. We knew that it was time to start giving them away. I took them all out and did the egg test to see if they were all still fresh. We don’t wash them until we use them because it keeps the bloom on them and they stay fresh much longer.
We ended up having 107 eggs. We gave them to neighbors and co workers. We still ended up having too many so I decided to freeze them. Did you know that you can freeze raw eggs? The method I used was washing the eggs and then cracking them into silicon muffin pans.
After they are in the cups you just sprinkle them with salt, this keeps the yolks thinner, cover them with cling wrap and freeze. When they are fully frozen, you just pop them out and store them in a freezer baggie. They can last up to a year.
I also made soy marinated eggs. They were so good.
I did a batch of pickled mustard eggs also but they need to pickle for about 10 days so I haven’t been able to try them yet.
I save all of my glass jars to reuse so if you happen to look in our fridge that’s what you’ll see most of. I use them for sauces, leftovers and pickling.
I also have a new favorite meal. I keep roasted sweet potatoes in the fridge at all times because they are a healthy snack and I eat them every day with fried eggs. If you haven’t tried it yet I highly recommend it.
It only takes about 25 minutes to roast a whole pan and they reheat well.
I am extremely late this year starting my seeds. Will they sprout? There is no telling. I don’t know why I was putting it off, but yesterday I began the task of getting them all done.
I have no room in the house so I put in the enclosed garden.
After this was taken I went out into the shed and found trays to put them in so that I can keep them moist.
I had picked up some garlic at the Asian Market last week and it had already started sprouting so I decided to go ahead and plant those.
I didn’t get all of them planted so they are sitting with damp paper towels on them in a pie plate. I did manage to get 8 of them done.
I cut up our celery for the week and decided to plant the “celery butt”. I can’t wait to see if it will grow. I did it last year and it did grow but it got too hot and it died. Hopefully I’ll have better luck this year.
I also planted the white part of some green onions. I have a lot of luck with those. They grow fast and you can just snip off the green part to use in cooking. I didn’t take a pic of those. I just forgot.
I was pleased to see that our hosta is coming back in full force. I swear it grows at least an inch a day.
The plant we got when we got the Hosta is coming in. It’s a bit of a slower grower but, I’ll take it, because at least it’s coming back.
We still have the construction going on. They are actually moving quickly, but it’s a mess. They are digging on the opposite side and our side will be next.
It’s hard to believe that today Hannah turns 19! It seems like just yesterday she was having to wear a cape everywhere because she was obsessed with Underdog. We would spend hours outside in swinging. She went through a phase of wanting to wear her moose antlers everywhere.
She has always been just the sweetest person.
Since we had gotten her gifts over the past week tonight she got to choose where she wanted to have dinner. She chose the Fun Noodle Bar. That girl is a sushi lover. Gavin was such a good sport because sushi is his least favorite food.
Instead of getting a cake we decided that it would be more fun to let everyone pick out a dessert at The Butcher Shop, who has the most amazing array of sweets.
We all had the hardest time choosing what we wanted. I ended up getting the carrot cake.
One last picture outside of the Butcher Shop before Hannah and Gavin headed to the carnival.
I hear parents saying how disrespectful their teenagers are to them but I can honestly say that we don’t have that problem. Hannah likes to spend time with us and we love spending time with her. She was definitely a gift from God and I hope that she always knows just how much she is loved.
A few months ago Jackson had asked for tickets to see Tyler the Creator for his birthday gift. I can remember seeing Billy Idol for about 9 bucks back in the day so purchasing tickets that cost more than my car payment came with a sticker shock. Tyler is his favorite artist and he’ll only turn 18 once (even if it isn’t until the end of April) so I bit the bullet and got tickets for him and Hannah.
Monday morning we headed to Dallas. When I tell you the wind was blowing us all over the road, along with the 18 wheelers, it was just so bad. If you ever need a good, basic motel to stay in, the La Quinta on 75 is the one. It was super clean and looked like it had been remodeled recently. It had 2 beds in the main area and then a separate bedroom. Not to mention it was only 4 miles from the American Airlines Center.
Donny rolled the desk chair outside to watch the cars go by.
They let us check in early. We didn’t want to sit around the room for hours so we decided to take the kids to the Galleria. I think if we could have just dropped them off at the concert venue Jackson would have preferred that. He was so ready. I am not a mall person. I don’t like shopping or crowds, but I had forgotten how pretty this particular mall is.
If we would have had time I would have loved to have gone ice skating.
Hannah did find a cute dress and some jewelry so it wasn’t a complete bust. Her birthday is actually the end of this month. We went back to the motel and let the kids rest for about 45 minutes and then headed out. The reason you could not pay me a million dollars to live in Dallas again is because it took us almost 45 minutes to get to where the concert was. The traffic was SO bad. Living in Longview you tend to forget just how bad traffic can be. We finally made it and were able to drop the kids off a little after 6. Jackson texted me a picture from their seats.
He said the seats were awesome. There was only one snafu, Hannah needed to go to the restroom and couldn’t remember what area the seats were in. She asked one of the concert workers to help her and they wanted her to call Jackson but she didn’t have her phone. The tickets were on his phone. She remembers a “J” being in part of the ticket. They finally found the right area and she saw Jackson and he showed them the tickets because apparently that area was roped off and you had to show your ticket to get back in. But all ended well.
While the kids were at the concert we had discovered this cool little pub called the Old Monk. Since it was St. Patrick’s day it was slammed. We were meeting Nikki and Brandon there and we were afraid we wouldn’t be able to find a table, but we managed to find one outside of the patio which worked out perfectly because it wasn’t as loud as being on the patio or inside.
What made it even better is than it was only 1 block from where we were staying so we just walked so we didn’t have to mess with parking. It was so good to see Nikki and meet Brandon. We had so much fun.
Jackson texted me about 11:15 to let us know that the concert was almost over so we headed over to get them. They had so much fun, were able to get the concert tshirts that they had both wanted, so it was money well spent. They will always remember going to this concert with each other when they are older.
We slept in a little and were back on the road by 10:45 the next morning. If I thought the wind was bad coming up, it was nothing compared to going back home. We had cars swerving everywhere. When we stopped at Buc-ees to get gas the birds were having a hard time flying. I was never so happy to get back to Longview than I was when we pulled into our driveway. Now if they could just turn off the wind tunnel it would make it even better because holy cow it has not stopped blowing since we got home.
For a while my hair has been bugging me. It was about 4 inches from my waist in the back. It was catching on everything and when I would put it up in a clip or ponytail I would get a really bad headache. I knew with the Summer heat, that is right around the corner, I would be just putting it up everyday. So I decided to make a major change. Here is the before hair.
My hair is curly, but not in the “oh wow your hair looks so good curly” way. This means I have to blow dry it and that, to me, was a pain. My wonderful, hair magician, Desiree did such a fabulous job.
I got almost 10 inches cut off and she razor cut layers. It’s kind of a modern shag. My head feels about 10 pounds lighter and now I don’t just look like a ball of hair. It even looked okay when I woke up this morning which a normally have a tangled mess.
After the flood in 2016, where we lost almost all of our furniture, I found this little table at a thrift store in Baton Rouge for $3. It has served as an entrance table, Hannah’s desk and an accent table. It started off white with paint wearing away, then turquoise and finally a bluish gray. It now sits on our patio right by the side door that we mainly use. It had gotten quite ugly. It was chipped and stained so yesterday I decided to give the poor thing a makeover.
I used a sander on the top and drawer instead of paint stripper and it seemed like it took forever. I stained the top and drawer in dark walnut because I just love dark wood. I painted the rest of it green. I didn’t do white because I am not a big fan of the farmhouse look and honestly prefer colors over the gray and white that was so popular.
The patio needs to be repainted and Hannah needs to redo her chalkboard art for Spring, but I really like the way the table turned out. I added lights that I already had. I like the way they look at night.
I did more work on the patio, but nothing is quite finished yet. I moved the rooster out from the yard and the plants that we moved inside during the winter have now found their new home outsides.
We still need to work on the outside gardens and will hopefully get that done soon. The weather has been cooperating lately, thank goodness.
I have not wanted to go to the grocery. Aldi has completely rearranged their store and it’s so confusing because items are not grouped together like they should be. I decided that we really need to use up what we have before I actually forced to go shopping. Because the weather has been absolutely beautiful these past few days we have been eating outside and I’ve been sprucing up the patio. The hens have been laying again so that means more meals using our eggs.
Dinner was a hit with everyone. I whipped up a ham and cheese quiche. I pulled some spiral sliced ham out of the freezer and I had cheese in the fridge.
We also had some strawberries and blueberries that needed to be used for something so I added sugar and some water and cooked those down to make a compote for waffles.
It does take a while for the berries to cook down, but it’s so worth it.
I just make the waffles while the quiche is cooking.
I found the best recipe for waffles.
While I was cleaning out the pantry I found a can of sweetened condensed milk and made some cookies. I had never made these before, but they were so good.
I feel like I’m really late getting my seeds started, but I was able to get a plant table done. We got the mini saw horses at an estate sale last year. I had the boards so I just stained them all dark walnut. I plan on painting the saw horses, but I didn’t have enough paint.
I love sprucing up getting ready for summer. I try to use what we already have. I am planning some fun, funky additions to our little patio. It basically serves as another room since we tend to eat and spend a lot of time out there. I can’t wait to get started.
Night before last I stayed up until 2 am watching a limited series. It was so good I didn’t wanted to finish it. It’s 6 parts and I got to the 4th episode before I had to call it quits because I just couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. The next morning I finished the last two. It’s called The Undoing. It stars Hugh Grant, Nicole Kidman and Lily Rabe. It’s a murder mystery with twists and turns. Hugh Grant is amazing and so is Nicole Kidman. This was filmed when Nicole Kidman’s face actually moved and showed emotion. I had watched the series The Perfect Couple that she was in recently and could hardly stand it because her face is so frozen and weird looking now. Anyway, The Undoing is on Max/HBO and I highly recommend it, especially if you like murder mysteries.
Last night I watched The Heretic also starring Hugh Grant. I have been waiting for this to come out on a streaming service and when I saw that it was releasing Friday on Max I planned my evening around watching it. I love horror movies and this particular one was highly rated on Rotten Tomatoes. It was good, but I wish I would have watched this movie before I watched The Undoing because I think I would have liked it so much more. The Undoing was just that good. Hugh Grant was very good in this role. I think the older he gets he can get away from the romcoms that made him famous when he was younger and I like these grittier roles for him.
Before I settle in to watch The Heretic I made Instant pot ribs, baked potatoes and brussel sprouts. It was such a beautiful night that Gavin, Hannah and I decided to dine al fresco.
I picked up this tablecloth months ago at a thrift store and it turned out to be the perfect size. Hopefully we’ll be using a whole lot more since the weather is warming up. We ended up staying outside for quite a while because no one wanted to go inside. I just love nights like this.
The Funky Frugalista 