I'm still here...

Short version, I intended to catch up on blogging while we were at the cabin 2 weeks ago, but we were too busy at the cabin to run up the road and get on wifi at one of the places in town.

Then I came back to work (dreading the amount of work because we were down to 2 people) to find out that this coming Wednesday is my supervisor's last day. So our department of 4 is now a department of me. Needless to say - i'm going to be a little busy...and productivity for our (ha...I mean MY) department is going to tank. I simply cannot do all of the work that was previously divided among 4 people. 

On the plus side...I guess my job is safe for the time being. There just isn't anyone else to do the work at this point. Lucky me...

On that note...i'm going to try to get caught up. I certainly have plenty of material to choose from...

Here's a sneak peek at some up coming posts...in no particular order:

Hope everyone is having a fabulous weekend -

Cream of Pumpkin Soup - low carb! And a short update.

First up - yummy fall soup!

Cream of Pumpkin Soup

1/2 c. chopped onion
1/4 t. cinnamon
1/8 t. ginger
2 T. butter, melted
2 (14.5 ounce) cans chicken broth
1/8 t. black pepper
1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
1 c. heavy whipping cream
1 t. salt

Saute onion in butter in a medium saucepan until tender. Add 1 can chicken broth; stir well. Bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat, and simmer 15 minutes. Transfer broth mixture into the container of a blender or processor. Process until smooth. Return mixture to saucepan. Add remaining can of broth, pumpkin, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and pepper; stir well. Bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in whipping cream and heat through. Do not boil. Ladle into individual soup bowls. Top each serving with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkle of chopped pecans, if desired. 6 servings. 27 net carbs. total, 4.5 carbs per serving 

Thanks to Kellie on the Pea Board for sharing this delicious low carb recipe. I've already printed it and have it in my crate of vacation materials. I can't wait to make it!

Now for the update - 

Once again I haven't been around for awhile. Well, I am around...just haven't had time to sit down and blog. I thought I better post something before someone in blog land thinks I ended up dead under a pile of crap in the guest room.

Things are crazy busy, the living room is STILL not done, however JC Penney had a big 4 day sale on window coverings and I made a mad dash to the Florida Mall to snag 5 sets of 2" blinds (2 for the living room, 2 for the office, 1 for the guest room - poor guest room has only 1 window...). I can't deal with mismatched window coverings on the front of a house. Makes me crazy! So 4 were a must since the living room and office both have a front facing window and a side window. What's one more? Might as well get the one for the guest room too. $120 for all 5 36" wide blinds. Yippy!

Of course Mr. Paisley put up the 2 in the living room last night and yes...I now have mismatched window coverings. ARRRRRGH! With any luck at all I can get him to at least do the front window in the office tonight. Right now he's laying in the driveway under the truck. Remember my BRAKE! issue? One of the brake lines is leaking. The one above the fuel tank. So that's what he's working on right now. Yesterday he actually had to work (woo hoo for OT! Covered the cost of my new blinds and then some ).

Today is G.O.R.G.E.O.U.S.! It's a true Florida Fall day - sunny, cool breezes - the Yankee Harvest candle is burning on the stove, the windows are open, the AC is OFF (if only for the afternoon) and I'm attempting to cross a whole bunch of stuff off my to do list so I can get this show on the road. 

Yesterday was interesting - I thought I'd get a lot done with Mr. P at work half the day. I actually got to sleep in a little (8am is "late" for me LOL) and when I got up and started the "chores" I kept thinking I was hearing a siren chirping. At one point I was walking thru the kitchen toward the front door and I notice there are a couple of sheriff's deputies at the end of the street in the cul-de-sac. Interesting. Let me put my shoes on and think of something I need to do outside real quick (ha!) so I slip on my flip flops and head out to the truck to get one of my bales of wheat straw ($4.99 each at Old Time Pottery - these are smaller than what you'd get at the feed store, but way bigger than those mega rip off little bales they sell at the craft stores). So as i'm throwing straw bales...here comes one of the deputies. He wants to know if i'm missing a pig. There's a cop joke in there somewhere I just know it! Ummm no sir...I don't own a pig, therefore I am not missing one. Don't know anyone around here that owns one either. He's suspiciously eyeballing my bales of straw. How do I  always manage to pick JUST THE WRONG thing to be doing when the cops are around? My nosy butt needs to learned to stay out of things. 

Really - it's not my pig. Evidently there was one running loose down the road by the lake. Haven't heard anything else about it, so I guess the wayward swine must have been corralled and ... whatever.

On that note - we have one VERY annoying iguana right now. Midori is driving me nuts. He's young. He's currently pretty darn orange...which means...he's been eating too many carrots. No, not really...none of them have had carrots lately. Better yet - it's mating season. Lord have mercy on this small creatures soul because i'm ready to wring his little green scaly neck! His new favorite thing to do is sit in the bottom of his cage and scratch at the plexiglass walls. You know that nails on the chalkboard noise? See where this is going? I couldn't take it anymore yesterday so I closed the bedroom door and put up the gate to block the kitchen and just turned him loose in the family room for a couple of hours to try to use up some energy. That was all well and good until he decided to climb a lamp and then some artwork hanging on the wall (which of course came down, along with the lamp). The girls are laying in the sun on the screened porch...I put him out there twice and he totally flipped out. FLIPPED OUT. So rather than let him hurt himself, I put him back in the cage. So he's making me nuts...I will be calling Dr. Bruce next week to find out how much it costs to neuter an iguana. He's not being aggressive at all - he's still very sweet, he's just CRAZY. 

I'm off to bake the pumpkin bread that I didn't get to yesterday - chances are I won't get any blogging in this week, but we'll see! Hope everyone is having a fabulous fall!

Florida Fall Sunsets are pretty cool...I caught this one coming home from work a few days ago.

Buckets o' fun...

One project done - probably 50 others to finish up. One at a time...one at a time.

I picked up some Army Green Rustoleum spray paint at Big Lots a week or so ago when I was out with my friend Sabrina. I knew exactly what I would be using it on when it landed in my big orange plastic cart. Buckets!

A long long long time ago I bought 2 sets of these hanging buckets from one of those cheap catalogs - maybe ABC Distributing. One set was solid pastel colors - blue, yellow and green. The other was the same pastel colors, but had been hand painted with dragonflies and butterflies. They have a big curved handle on them so they can be hung on porch railing or the top of a fence rail. I just happen to have some lovely (rusting) wrought iron around my screened porch and that is where they ended up.

Here's the before...

Yep, I forgot to take photos before I went to town with the spray paint. I can't help it...I get so excited when I have a spray can in my hand!

This is the solid blue one...not really blue any more. There is actually another one below it, but I didn't  feel like climbing into the ginger that is growing like crazy to get it when I took the pictures. Mr. Paisley fished it out for me. 

Here is what one looks like with it's new coat of army green paint.

As you can see...the Gloriosa lilies are still growing like weeds...pardon my rusty wrought iron...I gave up keeping it painted years ago. They've been wire brushed, treated with Ospho, sealed and painted with Rustolium and it is literally a matter of week before rust starts coming thru the paint. I embrace the rust and let it be...

I thought the green would coordinate nicely with my recently (May) recovered patio cushions, chairs, etc...

Now I need to decide what kind of plants to put in them for the fall...

Pumpkin Cookies

Soft Pumpkin Cookies

• 1 (15 ounces) can pumpkin
• 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon maple extract
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 4 eggs
•  pecan halves

   Preheat oven to 350°

Measure all ingredients except pecans into a large mixing bowl. Using a hand held mixer on low speed, beat ingredients until blended, scrap bowl occasionally. Beat 1 minute longer on medium speed. Using 2 tablespoons of batter for each cookie, spoon batter into mounds on ungreased baking sheets, keeping mounds about 2 inches apart. Press a pecan half into the center of each cookie dough mound. Bake cookies for 18 to 20 minutes, until golden brown. Loosen cookies with spatula and move to wire rack to cool. Store in tightly covered container for up to 4 days. Makes 6 - 7 dozen cookies. These can be frozen! Oh and they're really good if you top them with cream cheese icing and the stick the pecan half on AFTER they're baked. I love cream cheese icing... Enjoy!

Fall makes me want to purge...

as in get rid of stuff, not sticking my finger down my throat. Ugh! That's one kind of purging you'll never catch me doing! There are few things I dislike as much as revisiting my last meal. Blech!

I had to work today. I was out the door at 7:15 this morning and rolled in just before 3:00 this afternoon. My feet were KILLING ME. Been up and running all over since I got to work just before 8:00. The dogs were barkin'...and I was exhausted. So I crashed...about an hour later Mr. P rolled in from work and woke me up to tell me he was home. Really? Of course I couldn't go back to sleep. So with the dogs still barkin' I got up, lit my Yankee candle on the stove (Harvest of course) and turned the AC down so it felt a little more fall-like in the house. Far too hot and muggy to open the windows. I spent the afternoon doing laundry and pitching stuff left and right. WOO HOO. Granted NONE of it came from the dreaded guest room. It's on my list for tomorrow though. Not that i'll get it handled, but there will be progress made.

I've said it before, but i'll say it again - my house has pretty much zero storage space. Fact of life for the time being. I will admit it here in blogland...my guest room looks a whole lot like a scene from Hoarding: Buried Alive.  It's making me crazy. It's making me very anxious. It's causing me not to sleep at night. I can close the door, but I know it's still there. I will never claim that the Paisley Cottage is always company ready. Two adults with full time jobs live here. One of the two wasn't taught to pick up after themselves...most of the time, the other one is just too dang tired to do it every single day after work. One of the two is fixin' to get a very specific chore list...in order to keep the other one from going bonkers. Stay tuned for how that works out.

Some of what is in there is from the living room...which is still "under construction". Mr. Paisley is still not done painting. He swears he'll get the inside of the front door, the rest of the window frames, the ceiling in the hallway and the FOUR doors in the hallway painted tomorrow. 

I have half a dozen projects going on at the same time. One is a quick one and I will use it as tomorrow's post. Some of those are in the guest room...maybe I can get them done after work this week and get them movin' on out of there.

Today I filled the orange recycle bin to the halfway mark (from empty). We just got a notice from the county that in addition to newspaper, brown paper bags, cardboard and paperboard, we can now add catalogs, junk mail, magazines and office paper (not shredded). Excellent! Needless to say, I found plenty to put in there. Out out out AND recycled. Go Green when possible!

I'm pretty sure i'm not a hoarder. I like to be organized. I have no problem getting rid of things. You will not find empty water / soda bottles, empty pizza boxes, rotting food, dead animals (except maybe a poor lizard that got in and couldn't find it's way out and is now laying behind the dresser all crispy) or any other straight up trash in my guest room. I often wonder why they just can't throw away the garbage. Sometimes I see those rooms on TV and think "dude, once you throw out the garbage, there isn't that much crap in there".  Aside from the mass quantity of paper, I also tossed some clothing, added some more clothing to the donate bag and wrapped up 2 Housewarmer size Yankee candles for birthday gifts for people at work.  This was after Mr. Paisley turned Midori loose and then left the room...he (Midori) promptly made his way into the closet in the master bedroom. When Mr. Paisley dug him out, he left everything he took out of the closet on the bed and or floor...for me to deal with. Really? I'm your wife, not your maid...so since it was out, I dumped the laundry baskets and went thru the stuff. Toss toss toss...maybe i'll post a before shot of the guest room. Maybe not. Maybe I will when it's done.

Yard sale anyone?

giddy giddy giddy!

I am a geek when it comes to crafty stuff. Today has been somewhat of a roller coaster of emotions. Sad really, now that I think about it. Sad that I get stupid over stuff like this LOL.

Last night I was checking the free section of Craig's List. What did I see? OH MY!

F R E E

I immediately emailed the poster of this ad. 

What part of Apopka? I'd love to have these, but wouldn't be able to pick them up until after work tomorrow (Wednesday). I work in Maitland, off at 6:15...

Went to bed not long before the response came back. Checked my email this morning, nothing. Evidently the ol' iMac didn't pull my new email when I opened my mailbox this morning. I'm really NOT a fan of this thing...people love them. I'm not one of them. So around lunch time I checked my mail from work...and there's the reply from last night. CRAP! 

I won't be home after 6:15 but will be in the Winter Park area near
Fairbanks/17-92. If you'd like to meet around 6:15-6:30, I'll bring them with me.

So I reply while saying a little prayer "please please please still have these and I hate that *%&^@ iMac!"

Crud - I checked my email this morning and I guess my computer mail program didn't pull my email down as i'm just now getting this (already at work). I'm assuming you're already out and about for the day. If not, I'd be happy to meet somewhere in that area. My office is in that area and I usually avoid I-4 going home and take Wymore down to Fairbanks and cut thru the backroads of Winter Park so totally on my way :-)

If you happen to have taken them with you - let me know and i'll be more than thrilled to meet you. My cell # is XXX (call or text) and my work email is XXX.

A few minutes later I get another message...

A lady is suppose to come today by 2 pm and pick them up. If she doesn't show, getting them to Winter Park still may work today.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Curses you stupid stupid iMac!

A little while later "spindle lady" texts me "call about spindles" - dialing...quickly. She tells me this woman is supposed to pick them up and hasn't shown up and that there's another one as well who also hasn't turned up. If they're still here when she leaves at 4, she'll bring them and meet up with me.  Awesome...more prayers that these ladies don't swoop in just as she's getting in the car to leave...nervously I watch the clock and try to distract myself with work...which I have PLENTY of at the office. 4:00...sweating bullet.  She calls again "it's me the spindle lady" they haven't shown up so i'll meet you on the North side of the church...6:15 or a little after. GREAT! I will be there! 6:15 rolls around and I am OUT THE DOOR. 

Get in the truck and as i'm pulling out of the parking lot I get a red light on the dash. What the heck? It says BRAKE and under it there is a red exclamation point in a red circle in red parenthesis. Seriously...WTH does that mean? Other than "somethin' ain't right wit'cho brakes" Grand. So I call Mr. Paisley because (of course) there is no owner's manual in the truck to look up what the issue may be. The fact that it's a RED light and not a GREEN light tells me it's not good...but beyond that I have no idea. He asks me if i'm driving with the parking brake on. Really? No. In fact i've never used the parking brake in the truck because it's an automatic...in the mustang? Sure...every time it's parked. I said "well go look it up, i'll be home soon" to which he replied "hopefully..." Really? So maybe the brakes will go out and i'll rear end some schmuck in a Smart Car - yes, I know they have great crash test ratings...but really, did you test it against a turbo diesel powered land yacht (Ford F350 Super Duty Crew Cab with the 8' bed) doing 60? Seriously...I could put 2 Smart Cars in the bed of the truck...you think you're going to make it out of a crash with this thing? Mental note, keep good distance between truck and vehicle ahead...just in case. Not 2 minutes later, Spindle Lady calls again - she's running late. That's ok! I'll be there waiting! I don't really know if she was late or not, I was only there waiting for her for less than 10 minutes. No skin off my back...and I made it home without rear ending anyone and the brakes worked just fine. Mr. Paisley called right as I turned onto our street to ask how the truck was...the truck is fine. So am I thanks for asking since i'm the one strapped into the death trap on wheels. I just turned onto the street, be there in a sec. Goodbye... pull in, he's there in the driveway - as I get out he said "it's not even listed in the Haye's manual and the stuff online was pretty generic" So he pops the hood and pokes around. You know what it was? It was low on brake fluid. Filled it up...no more light. AND I got my spindles...

Stay tuned for spindle craftiness! I'm makin' plans, but if you have any spindle projects, share them in a comment! As you can see, I have plenty to work with and the more ideas the better!

I gave Spindle Lady my Paisley Pumpkin card and pointed out my blog addy on the back "check it out - you'll see these turn up there in their new life!" so Donna the Spindle Lady - if you're reading this...

THANK YOU (again)! I'm ridiculously giddy over these beautiful pieces of wood...can't wait to start a project! Oh and I told my husband...he just rolled his eyes. LOL

Trying to usher in Fall in Florida...

It's mid September and aside from my year round pumpkins, I have nothing decorated for fall. It's just been too darn hot! 

Last night actually started to feel like fall. I made a late night run to CVS and there was a great breeze and *gasp* it wasn't HOT! Dare I say it was ALMOST cool enough to open the windows and turn off the AC...almost. Not quite. 

Yesterday I mentioned picking up the Hobby Lobby acorns that I had seen on Tracy's blog. She dry brushed hers with mint green paint and the glazed them brown. They are fabulous! Of course, I am #1 not that talented and #2 sometimes a bit lazy when it comes to crafting. I admit it...that's always the first step right?

Of course I didn't have mint green paint. So I dug around in my office trash can and found a mixing bowl. Ok, it's the end of a 12 pack that had a My Coke Rewards code on it that I already entered. Whatever - it works.

Where I mixed up some Vanilla and Leaf Green to make something somewhat mint-ish.

They were in my stash...

So here is an awesome totally staged photo (right) of 2 with way too much paint, 1 that was pretty good (changed technique) and 2 untouched.

Here we are (yep, we've moved to the kitchen because Mr. P needed the computer because he just cut the end off his new clutch cable because he wasn't paying attention to what he was doing and thought it was the old one...gotta love a waste of money!) Pardon the schmootz on the side, hadn't cleaned up from another project this morning (more on that later). I whipped out a sanding block and cleaned up the two that were overly painted. Somewhat better. The small one that looks more green already had a coat of "glaze" (this is where lazy comes in). I have glaze...it's out in the shed. It's a long walk from the back door to the shed. So I watered down some dark brown paint.

In this photo the middle large one is also glazed...

Not feeling it.

Now we're all glazed and they look ummm like crap.

Favorite brown Crystal ink pad to the rescue! Yep...the two that look better were inked.

Voila!  I don't know why two of them look like they have metallic copper caps...must be the finish with the flash. They're just brown like the others. A little more contrast between the cap and the acorn than the original finish. Works for me! Now if only I had my mantle here...it's still a bit warm, but the wind is blowing (maybe because of Igor? I dunno...I think it's still more than 300mi off the coast, but i'm sure it's causing changes in our weather). Since I was feeling festive, I even whipped up a new fall bow for a picnic basket (rescued from the trash) that I situated some silk mums in on the front porch. Nothing to get excited about...it'll be going to the cabin next month.