new windows!

Finally! After 6 weeks of waiting, our new windows were delivered last weekend. My husband and my father-in-law started to install them the next day and they got my craft room done! Yesterday, with my father-in-law on the Cape for Memorial Day, Tim and I installed a couple more ourselves. We got our study done and decided to do the interior trim as well since we wanted to be able to put all the furniture back. It's hard to tell in this picture, but these are the old windows and the old trim:


And here is the new window installed, before the trim was put up:



and our pride and joy, the new trim that Tim did himself - we LOVE it. So much better than the old flat stuff we had:

and a shot of the whole room again:

Hopefully within the next few weeks we can get the rest of the windows installed so that we can get our contractor out here to put up the vinyl siding. We also need to go pick out a new front door (again - the other one didn't have the right jamb size) and we need to order our patio door.

our house

Since I wasn't blogging when we bought our house last year, I want to dedicate a post to our humble abode. We bought our house on May 16, 2008 - so we've been here just over a year. It's a 4 bedroom Cape style home on a nice quiet lot. The house has great bones but was built in 1962 and looks/looked it. We bought from the original owner, who at 83 years old, obviously hadn't spent any time or money updating the house in the last 40ish years.
This is what our house looked like when we bought it:

Before this summer is over, it should look completely different! (see below paragraph)

We may have been a little crazy buying a home that needed a lot of work only 4 months before our wedding, but it worked out just fine. By the time the wedding rolled around at the end of September, we had stripped wallpaper in 2 rooms plus all the hallways and had painted 3 rooms. Within the months after the wedding we painted another 2 rooms plus the hallways and stripped wallpaper and painted another room. We are in the process of replacing all of our 1960s single-paned windows with brand new, ultra-insulating beautiful Andersen windows. Immediately following the window installation will be new vinyl siding. We can. not. wait. to have these 2 projects done. Next year we'll be gutting the kitchen and renovating it and will also rip up all the carpet and refinish the hardwood floors that are underneath it.

To see more pictures of our house and the progress so far, visit our house website HERE.

Tune in for pictures of our new windows; we have 1 room completely done - including new interior trim - I just have to upload the pictures.

good news for Sox

Sox barely ate at all, all of last week, so I took him to the vet on Tuesday and they did a full blood work-up. Of course, he has since started eating ALL of his food, so she thinks he may have just been a little under the weather. But, the bloodwork came back and she told me I could decrease his insulin dosage from 2.0 units twice a day to 1.5 units twice a day!

When he had his blood drawn he was in hour 11 of his 12 hour dose so his blood sugar should have been high (when he was diagnosed, he was around 300 at his peak), but it was only at 102 (which google tells me is at the low end of the optimal range for a diabetic animal). I'm so thrilled! It doesn't necessarily mean he'll ever be able to get off his insulin, but it does make me a little hopeful!

and on an unrelated note, my friend April went into labor this morning - 11 days early! Her water broke and she's currently at home waiting for some regular contractions, but her little boy will be here soon!

chicken quesadillas

This is a recipe that's kind of DIY. Very easy and very delicious :)

Chicken Quesadilla
prep time: ~40 minutes (depending on your marinade)
cook time: ~20 minutes
makes: 4 quesadillas

~1.5lb boneless, skinless chicken breast
Marinade of your choice (I use Caribbean Jerk)
8 burrito-sized flour tortillas
2-4 cups of packaged shredded Mexican-mix or Cheddar cheese (depending on how much cheese you want on your quesadilla)
1 Red Pepper (optional)

1. Cut chicken into thin, small strips (about 2" x ½") and place in a Tupperware or large baggie and coat with marinade. Follow directions on marinade for how long to let it sit.

2. Once chicken is done marinating, cook in large pan over medium heat until cooked through.

3. Meanwhile, slice pepper (if including) into thin slices and saute in small pan until tender.

4. Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Place 2 tortillas on the middle rack and bake for 2-3 minutes. Repeat until all tortillas are done.

5. Spray bottom of a large saute pan (large enough to fit one tortilla flat on the bottom) with cooking spray. Heat on medium heat. Place 1 tortilla in the pan, sprinkle with desired amount of cheese (I used ~1/3 cup), then place desired amount of chicken on cheese. Sprinkle with more cheese (equal to the amount used the first time). Place other tortilla on top. Let cook for 2-3 minutes, then flip (this can be difficult, make sure you don't lose any of the contents in the middle!) and cook another 2-3 minutes. Remove from pan and keep warm until all quesadillas are cooked.

6. Repeat step 5 until all quesadillas are made.

Serve warm and with salsa/sour cream/guacamole for dipping! I usually eat these with corn and rice as well.

new front door

We bought a new front door at Home Depot this past weekend. We got a great deal on it - a $300 door on sale for $180. I can't wait to get it installed and painted! It will either be a dark red or black, depending on what color siding we decide to go with.

beef stroganoff

One of my husband's favorite meals is Beef Stroganoff. The recipe comes from my mother-in-law and it's a little long and looks complicated, but it's actually not too difficult. You'll probably want to read through the recipe once or twice before attempting though because timing is key for this recipe.

Beef Stroganoff
cook time: 70 minutes
servings: ~4

1½ pound round steak
3 tablespoons flour
½ teaspoon paprika
4 tablespoons butter/margarine/oil
½ cup chopped onion (optional)
10.5 oz beef bouillon (about 1½ cubes prepared as directed)
2 teaspoons dry mustard
2 teaspoons Worcestershire
¼ teaspoon marjoram
½ pint (8 oz) sour cream (full-fat sour cream is better for this recipe!)

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Trim fat from steak, cut into julienne strips, dredge in flour and paprika. Heat oil in saute pan and brown meat. Move browned meat to dutch oven or ~1 qt. covered casserole dish. Set aside.

3. Saute onion, place over meat. Add bouillon, mustard, marjoram, and Worcestershire in pan. Simmer for a couple of minutes. Pour over meat (reserve 3 tablespoons for rice).

4. Cover and bake for 55 minutes.

5. Add sour cream with 5 minutes remaining.


1½ cups uncooked rice
3 cups boiling water
3 tablespoons bouillon

6. Boil water, meanwhile putting the uncooked rice in a separate dutch oven or ~2.5 qt. covered casserole dish. It's good to add a little oil and stir it into the uncooked rice (enough oil to coat the rice - about 3 tablespoons) or else it will stick to the dish when it's done baking.

7. Add bouillon and boiling water to rice. Cover and bake for 30 minutes. Stir and bake 10 minutes more.


Timeline:
- Meat in at 55 minutes
- Rice in at 40 minutes
- Stir rice at 10 minutes
- Stir meat and add sour cream at 5 minutes

Enjoy!

baby shower

This is a bit delayed (ok, almost a month delayed), but I realized I never wrote about my friend's (her name is April) baby shower last month! She's due in just under 4 weeks (May 18th) with a boy. For her shower, another friend (and her name is Kristen) and I made a diaper cake and we thought it turned out really well!


Those are real newborn diapers rolled up. Unrolled they are tiny - about the size of my hand (when folded in half). It's so hard to believe that there will be a baby small enough to fit in them! I can't wait for baby to be here! I foresee a lot of lunch dates at April's house this summer so that Kristen and I can play with the little boy.

24

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

I turned 24 yesterday! For some reason it's sounds so much older than 22 and 23 (at least to me!). I mean, my mom had me when she was 24! Crazy!

Birthday was good - my husband came home from work early and made us Chicken Fettucine Alfredo for dinner, then we just watched some of our TV shows together. My gift was my dressers that came 2 weeks ago :) We celebrated with my parents and sister on Easter and we are having dinner with my in-laws on Sunday!

Better Business Bureau complaint...FAIL

As I've mentioned, we've had a bit of a bat problem in our house - we had a bat in August, paid $525 to have the house bat-proofed by Company A, then 6 months later, in February, had another bat. Called Company A and set up a time for someone to come take a look at the house (they never showed up), we got the bat out ourselves and we never tried to contact Company A again because we figured it was a fluke. 3 weeks later, in mid-March, there was yet another bat (or the same one, but still). Multiple calls and messages to Company A go unanswered so we called Company B, they came and took care of it (for another $850). We called Company A one more time after Company B left with their $850 and this time someone answered - my husband explained what happened and that because of their lack of response, we want our $525 back (they have a 3-year guarantee on their work "no questions asked" according to their contract we have). Man on phone told Tim "keep dreaming" so Tim quoted the warranty and man said "screw you buddy" and hung up on him.

So, we turned around and filed a written complaint with the BBB (knowing that they have no real authority to get anything resolved). Well it's now been 32 calendar days since we filed our complaint with the BBB about the exterminators who we originally hired to take care of our bat problem. The business has 30 days to respond and it hasn't (which I expected) and since the BBB has no real authority to get anything resolved, they suggested we contact the state Attorney General since they have more pull.

Sooo, it's off to email the AG and see what they can do for us!

some updates around the house

I finally got around to taking pictures and updating our house website with pictures of our couches (which we got in December), family room window treatments, bedroom furniture (just got it Friday!), and the bedding we got from my grandparents for our wedding.






AND - we finally ordered our windows! Home Depot happened to be running a 10% off all Andersen window orders so that pushed us to get that done this weekend. All 24 of our windows should be delivered in 4-6 weeks. And we saved a little over $600 thanks to the sale!