Birthday or Holiday Gift Alternative

Maybe it's just me, but trying to dream up the perfect birthday gift year after year can become a real challenge, especially for those friends you've known the majority of your life. With one of my friends, we've started giving each other the gift of time, rather than "stuff" and it's made celebrating our birthdays a whole lot less stressful, and much more meaningful. This year, I made her two home cooked meals that could be eaten immediately or frozen for another day. This concept works well for a holiday gift too! Who wouldn't love a home cooked meal during the crazy holiday season?

I tried one new recipe Zucchini Pizza Casserole, and used an old stand-by, Northwest of the Border Enchiladas.

My process, in pictures, for the Zucchini Pizza Casserole:

A few pictures of the enchiladas below. These have the perfect amount of spice, and the sauce has incredible flavor.

To maximize my resources and time, I doubled both recipes to have extra meals on hand for late nights or unexpected guests. Total preparation and cook time was about 2 hours per doubled recipe.

Guest Room Mini Makeover

Hello friends! I thought I would share some pictures of a mini makeover that I did on our guest room a few weeks ago. Nothing too fancy, just some paint, a new light fixture, and pared down and rearranged furniture.

As you can see below, the walls had been chocolate milk brown since we moved in five years ago. Chocolate milk is a perfectly nice (and delicious) color, but I never would have picked it, and it didn't go with our stuff. 

The room was a sad hodge-podge of storage and guest bed. Lauren is our most frequent guest, but we've had quite a few guests over the years. I've always wanted to give this room some attention so that it would be a pleasant place to stay, and not just an okay-ish place to crash. 

Halley thought it was ho-hum, and I have to say that I agreed with her. 

It's bright and cheery now! This room has the best natural light in our house, with southern exposure and a window facing east as well. Two gallons of bright white paint really makes that light shine. Instead of shutting the door and pretending our messy guest room doesn't exist, I'm drawn to this room! I've started working at the guest room desk regularly, and Halley and the kitties like to keep me company on the bed (just not at the same time.) 

I decided at the last minute at the paint store to give the closet a fun pop of color. I love how it turned out. 

The very first step in redoing this room was making my lone star quilt. I could see the brightened up guest room in my mind as I put it together.  Grayce's beautiful Hooray For Rain quilt was also a very welcome addition! I've been having trouble deciding on a head board, and I realized the Hooray For Rain quilt would look perfect above the bed. It was a missing piece to this room. 

If time and resources were unlimited, I'd love to do a lot more to this room. That said, it feels like a pretty dramatic change for just a weekend of fix-up effort! Friends, let me know when you're coming to visit - our guest room is finally ready for you! 

Turkey Place Cards

The inspiration for this project started in the early 1980's, otherwise known as our family prior to my existence. As the story has been repeatedly told to me, Jen and our mom were busy making place cards for Thanksgiving day. Jen was practicing her printing, and started to fill one out for our Aunt Edith May. She got the letters in May backwards and wrote "Edith Yam." There couldn't have been a better spelling mistake for this holiday, and although she corrected the place card, Edith May will forever be known lovingly as Edith Yam.

As I was helping our mom with the Thanksgiving decorations this year, she pulled out the set of place cards and I was slightly offended not to find one with my name on it. I decided to dismantle one of the originals so I could make a new set more inclusive of all the members of our family.

I traced the turkey body outline and beak, and cut out the shapes by hand. I used my Silhouette to speed up the process for the feathers and wattle.

The template for the turkey can be downloaded here.

My regular glue stick wasn't tough enough for the feathers so I ended up using my hot glue gun.

To make the pipe cleaner feet, I cut pieces about 2 inches long. I placed one pipe cleaner across the other (like a plus sign), then twisted multiple times until secure. If the three strips were significantly uneven, I just trimmed them with scissors.

I used my hot glue gun to attach the feet to the turkey, and then again to attach the turkey to the card.

All of my turkeys turned out a little bit different from one other. There are endless possibilities with turkey feather colors and patterns.

What I look forward to most each Thanksgiving is watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (yes I love each and every marching band), and helping my mom make rolls. Happy almost Turkey day!

Dog Days of November

When it's 60 degrees and sunny on a November day in Oregon, you put your responsibilities on hold and you take your dog to the beach. 

Vail

In early October, I was lucky enough spend a few days in Colorado visiting my amazing friend Lauren and her boyfriend, John. I flew into Denver, and took the Colorado Mountain Express to Vail. When I pulled into the transit center, this was my first view of the city. The trees were bursting in oranges and yellows and the sky was such a bright blue. Since it's the off-season, there was hardly anyone in town. It was so picturesque and quiet. It felt like I was in a fake town on a movie set.

I checked into The Sebastian, which I highly recommend. The beds are ridiculously comfortable. Lauren and I joked we felt like we were sleeping on clouds. There's a lovely pool and multiple hot tubs. The staff were friendly and helpful, and the location was perfect for getting around town. While waiting for Lauren to get off work, I wandered around the gorgeous, well-kept streets, and in and out of the fancy shops and resorts. Warning... I took lots and lots of pictures of trees. I just couldn't resist. Everywhere you looked it was so beautiful!

(Changing over the grassy play area to the ice skating rink!)

Piney Lake

One of my favorite excursions was to Piney River Ranch at Piney Lake. It's a pretty treacherous drive through rocky terrain but well worth the views. See the moose in the center of the picture below? Watching him was definitely a highlight!

On the way back from Piney Lake, we took a detour to an outlook point to watch the "alpen-glow." The sun setting behind the mountains creates this outstanding pink hue.

Lauren and John were kind enough to drive me around to surrounding cities and landmarks since this was my first time visiting Colorado.

Some of the places we drove through included:

1) Gilman, Colorado - an abandoned mining town, evacuated by the EPA due to pollution.

2) Camp Hale - a previous military training facility with so much history.

3) Leadville - a beautiful town near Twin Lakes and Mt. Elbert (see below)
* I loved all the signs noting the elevations of the locations. It's definitely a different concept when you live at sea level. I had a little bit of altitude sickness, but drank lots of water which helped immensely.

4) Mt. Elbert - the highest point of the Rocky Mountains (14,433 feet)

5) Twin Lakes, Colorado

6) Independence Pass (12,095 ft.) & the Continental Divide

7) Apsen - I was too busy ogling the fancy houses that I forgot to take pictures other than this back yard.

8) Georgetown
Lauren and John took me to Georgetown on our way back to Denver. It's an adorable town with the best bakery I've ever visited. The family in front of us came in for the cinnamon rolls. The owner sold the last one just before we all arrived. Apparently, they're the size of your head. I hope to try one some day. We settled for the incredible cupcakes and shared one of every flavor -- chocolate, vanilla and red velvet. The cake was moist and fluffy covered by the sweet and creamy frosting. YUM!
 

I absolutely loved my time in Colorado. The people were genuine and kind, and the views spectacular. I'm so looking forward to the next chance I get to explore it further.