I read about Blue Apron for the first time last week on a blog I follow frequently. The blog had a $20 off coupon so I wanted to try it. It's a food delivery system that drops off 3 meals for 2 or 4 people ($9.99 per person/meal) at your door with fresh ingredients, pictured instructions, spices, everything. The box comes refrigerated also, so if you aren't home when it gets delivered (between 8am-8pm on your designated day) it stays fresh. So far so good.

So I decided to try it out since I had the coupon because the original price of $60 (for 2 people) a week for 3 meals seems crazy expensive to me but the great thing is you can cancel or skip weeks as many times as you want with no consequences/expenses. Right on schedule the box arrive at my house at 11:30am. I didn't get it until about 2 pm, and the ice surrounding the box was still frozen. It could be because it actually feels like winter outside, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

Everything is eco-friendly and the ingredients are all fresh and farm grown. Each week, the meals change and you can choose your preferences of meat, or the vegetarian option if needed, and the meals are designed according to your choices. 

They include pictured directions and notes about each meal and its prep and cooking. 

This week is 

-Roast beef with a Treviso-pear salad and horseradish sour cream

-Chopped chicken and brussels sprouts salad with blue cheese, currents and crispy shallots 

-Cioppino tagliatelle (whatever that is, sounds fancy) with Bay shallots, toasted baguette, and garlic aoli. 

It sounds complicated but the directions seem to make it quite simple. 

And all the ingredients come in cute labeled bags

The little brown bags are all the spices that go with each meal

"Knick Knacks" how cute! 

Since Ry and I have plenty of Christmas dinners/plans etc, I won't be able to cook these delicious looking meals just yet, but I'll make a post when I do. I'm so excited...to cook! This might be a new hobby! 

Major Project Coming Soon

Hint: I've played this for 13 years of my life. It comes in all shapes and sizes, but is always black and white. 

Do you know yet? It's a PIANO duh. Introducing my next, very large, very heavy and time consuming project. So my parents have been harboring my piano since I've gotten married and moved out. They have no use for it, and I haven't played it in years (terrible, I know) so my dad and husband agreed to move it to our house. I started when I was 5, played competitively for years, and have 100% neglected the beautiful sound for a couple years now.

If you didn't already know, they piano is pretty old and definitely needs a tuning and a face lift. Don't get me wrong, it's beautiful the way it is. I don't have a picture of it now, but I'll get one soon! But I'm really down to paint it something super crazy and bright. Plus, I want to starting practicing and playing again because Ryan hasn't really seen and heard me play actually. I know, I've hidden 13 years of my life from my husband, just call me Mrs. Smith.

So I've been pinning/googling/whatever-ing painted pianos lately. Because I REALLY don't want to take apart the whole thing, sand all the parts, and paint 3-4 coats, I've decided to use Annie Sloan chalk paint. I know people, I'm late on the Annie game, but I haven't painted anything is a while. In due time folks, in due time.

I don't know the color just yet. I originally settled on a bumblebee yellow, but because Sloan's colors are SO incredibly limited, I had to change my mind. Now I'm into a red, maybe blue even? I don't know. I just know I want a fun pop of color since my house is pretty neutral.

Annie Sloan is expensive indefinitely, but everyone says that a lot goes a long way, so I'm willing to make the investment. The major downfall? The color selection. There is only 30 colors to choose from, none of which jumped out at me, but again we're going for a matt finish, so it can't be super vibrant anyways. See below

This isn't the updated version, but the colors are the same (plus a few more).
I'm gravitating towards Emperor's Silk, Antoinette, Scandinavian Pink, Florence, English Yellow, uhmmm pretty much all of them. This picture quality is terrible and here is the full list:

http://www.anniesloan.com/acatalog/United_Kingdom.html

Inspiration coming to you now!

Granted, the more shiny and polished pianos are not chalk paint but with some paint wax and poly, I can pretty much achieve the same look. So many good ones, I can't decide. HELP! 

It's all about the LOFT, 'bout the LOFT: Superheroes

Ok, ok, I'm no Meghan Trainor, but those play on words were awesome! 

Although its not nearly done, I wanted to share these super cool vintage superhero pieces I got from New Orleans! They arrived weeks ago and sat on our kitchen island forever until today. I know folks, I'm really on the ball with this. Feel free to compliment.

DC:

-Green Lantern 

-Wonder Woman

-Batman

-Superman

Marvel:

-Iron Man

-Thor

-The Incredible Hulk

-Spiderman

-Wolverine

-Captain America

I decided to separate the Marvel and DC heroes, mainly because I'm evil, but also because of the color pallets and number of tin pieces we had. We originally almost bought 12, but 2 of them were horizontal and we didn't want it to be all uneven and junks, so we settled on the 10 most important to the world. 

At just about $10 a pop, it would've been stupid NOT to get them. Plus we always try to get some kind of art/thing (I use the word thing loosely) from the different places we visit. I can't remember the store we bought them from, but when I find it, I'll update the post because they have an online catalog you can pick a bunch of different vintage pieces from. Not only pictures either and at SUPER affordable prices! 

I just mainly arranged them by color. I didn't want all the yellows/greens/blues together but I made sure each side had 3 DC heroes so the fight would be even. ;) 

[LOFT] List still to do:

-Art

-Pillows

-Throw blanket

-Figure out how to make the dog kennel hidden/appealing to the eye

-Coffee table decor (books, flowers, vases, something???) Its currently empty. 

-New TV stand, or mount the TV on the wall. I haven't decided that just yet. 

Again, the loft is hardly finished. But at least the art is done. There is an American flag on the left side above the couch, but I didn't want to take a picture of it just yet because I haven't added pillows to the couch yet. The TV is on the opposite wall of that. The loft is pretty much the boy's area now, but I have to at least make it somewhat appealing and cute. SOMEWHAT. 

Boy, that dog cage is an eye-sore. Ugh. 

Now That's What I Call Loyal

So this week has pretty much been hell for me. To bring you in the loop a little, being an Education major means that there are less traditional "tests" (midterms and finals) and more research papers, large/heavy project expectations, and LOTS and LOTS of in-class presentations. I am beyond thankful that I only have 1 real in-class test, for English of course, but beyond stressed with all of the papers and projects that are due. On top of that, I'm teaching at a middle school on average 4 times a week, sometimes more, sometimes less, which means lesson plans, good creative content, and not much sleep. So it's to no surprise that my body went into complete shock yesterday. I was bed ridden for at least 8 hours with the chills, heat sweats, headaches, and severe nauseous stomach pains. It could be all the turkey and bad food I ate over the long weekend (because I was on a 30-day diet challenge that I rocked btw, which ended on Thanksgiving conveniently - post on that soon) but I'd like to blame my school work as any student should. 

In honor of my sickness, I wanted to express my love for my dogs. To my absolute surprise, Homer, my youngest pup, stood by my side the ENTIRE day. Normally when Ryan gets home, or someone comes to the door, or Baxter, my oldest, runs outside because he saw something, Homer usually follows. But I think it's true when people say that dogs can sense when you are sad/sick because he didn't even blink an eye the whole day. He slept for hours with me, put his head on my lap, kept me warm, and cuddled with me when I was cold. He was there and I mean really there. I've never seen something so amazing and he may not know it, but I appreciate his loyalty and love. And that's the truth.

I think I understand, at least partly, the love people have for their kids. I'm in no place to say how much someone loves their own kids, or that dogs can equal that, but I really believe that the bond my dogs and I have, is something similar to those parents and their kids.

Why am I totally reading this post and thinking that I sound absolutely mad. lol oh well, what do you expect from me, good content?

So in all of this, I would like to thank my little baby. (Of course I love my oldest Bax, but he was acting normal, checking on me ever so ofter lol he's Ryan's child).

Ps. Bax is literally so black I can never get a good picture of him. LOL, ya that's his problem. He's thinking "I'm so black, y'all"

New Site!

If you couldn't tell already, I'm updating my blog site. Don't worry, same URL and content, just new cover. I guess I didn't realize how much work it is to redesign and fix all the little details when doing the blog. I've been thinking about this for a while, but I've decided to switch back to Blogger. I originally started with Wordpress, which let me just say was amazing and had all of the bells and whistles. But even though I've gotten used to it and the formatting, it just has too many gadgets and gismos for just a simple ol' blogger like me. I'm always having trouble figuring out how to put certain things in the posts and the extra links on the sides. Maybe in the future if I decide to blog more often or use it for purposes other than my life [lol] then I'll switch back because Wordpress definitely has more options. But I like to think I'm simple, although my husband might disagree, so Blogger is perfect for me now.

So just a fair warning, if some of the links on the page don't work, or if you see the header/texts/pictures switching back and forth or not showing, don't fret. It's just me trying to mess around with your head! Just kidding, but really, I'm still a noob at all this blogging/technology stuff. What a learning curve.

But really...you like???