Homemade Salsa

Yesterday we learned a new thing...how to make our own salsa and can it. We've been really excited about canning and freezing our own vegetables this year. We have quite the stash of vegetables in our pantry and freezer. We have green beans, corn, zucchini, rhubarb, and now homemade salsa. It started out being a lot of fun, but by the time we were done, we were REALLY ready to be done. We spent six hours making the salsa and canning it. It probably wouldn't have taken the average Joe six hours, but Aaron had to work on his trial for tomorrow which left me (Miss Perfectionist) to do the cutting and dicing of the tomatoes. Imagine how long it would take a perfectionist to dice up probably around 40 or 50 tomatoes. No one can try telling a perfectionist not to spend so much time on it and just go faster...it just doesn't happen in my world.

The end result was delicious! Needless to say, we had nachos for dinner last night, and just so you're aware two people can finish off one whole bag of tortilla chips all by themselves within an hour.

Here's the recipe we used: (compliments of Ma Kaney)

2 cups of peeled and chopped tomatoes
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped green pepper
1-2 jalapeno peppers - seeded & minced (add more for more spice)
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of corriander
1/2 teaspoon of parsley
1/2 teaspoon of oregano
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 tablespoon of fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon of vinegar
1 tablespoon of fresh cut cilantro

Combine all the ingredients and heat it to can it or refrigerate it if you'd like it fresh.
(We did four times the amount of this, but you obviously don't have to do that if you're only making it for yourself and a couple people.)

It's been wonderful harvesting all the vegetables in our garden this year. I think it's even made my husband like vegetables when he wouldn't touch them before. He says "it's different when you grow them yourself". I just laugh. Vegetables are vegetables. The only difference is ours are more work, but they're a lot cheaper and organic. I shouldn't complain though...at least he's eating them.

A Recap of Our Week

I've been neglecting to blog for the past week...well, let's be honest almost two weeks. We had a housewarming party at our house last weekend, so we were busy finalizing things around the house for that and then after it was over we just wanted to do NOTHING. The housewarming party was a lot of fun, and we were very blessed to have everyone make it to the party (especially those from out of town). We kind of felt like we were getting married all over again. We received a lot of presents which we feel so blessed to have received. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone that came! (Don't worry...you'll get an official thank you card sometime next week now that I've passed the "do nothing" stage after the party.) We really do feel like we're starting a new adventure in our lives. It's nice to be able to settle down for a change. We've had so many "stages" in our marriage over the past six years that it's nice to know that this one will be for a while...or at least until winter when we'll be changing our minds and moving to someplace warm. (just kidding)

Amongst all the "doing nothing" time, we celebrated Aaron's 27th birthday (yes, I am 6 months older than him and he insists upon reminding me that I'm older than him for 6 months of the year). We had a pretty quiet evening at home on Wednesday for his birthday. Aaron did not want to go anywhere for his birthday which I was completely fine with. We had Culvers that I brought home with me from work, and we had a concrete cake (yum!). We just sat around the house all night. I'm sure next year he'll be asking "what did we do for my birthday last year?" and neither of us will be able to remember.

(I hope you had a great birthday sweetheart. I love you so much! I am so blessed to have you as my husband.)

Now...after all the "nothing" that was done this week, I have make up for it today because my house is a disaster, and we are in desperate need of some clean dishes and clean laundry...it should be a fun Friday.

One Simple Change

It's Sunday, and we were busy yet again, but I made time to make a simple change to our master bathroom tonight. I made my first set of curtains!! I'm so excited about them! It's the simple things in life that excite me. One simple change made the room look a ton better (in my opinion). We eventually want to redo everything about our master bathroom (paint, tile, vanity, etc.), but until then I thought I'd give it a little pick-me-up. It was looking a little blah before. It cost me less than $10 and didn't take me very long at all.

Before...

 
After...

Fair Fun

We went to the Carroll County Fair last night, and we had so much fun! (Sorry, no pictures. We were in Aaron's "stomping grounds" for work, and I knew he'd be extremely embarrassed if I even tried to take a picture in front of all his court house co-workers.) It was a great start to my three day weekend though. I think we're starting to appreciate and fall more in love with our roots and where we've come from. Last night was the Jason Michael Carroll concert at the fair, so we went to the fair early to enjoy some fair food for dinner. (I know...we enjoy all the major "American" food groups including grease, sugar, and fried dough.)

The concert was great! I'm not at all musical, but I enjoy music SO much. I always listen to my music too loud in the car. Aaron's always wanting to turn it down (although he's getting more and more lenient on this every day). Aaron and I both sing in the car ALL the time, and I always have music on when I'm at home. You'll either find country or Christian music on where ever I am. So even though I'm not musical in ANY way, music adds so much to my life. It just makes it more fun!

I love how music can create so many emotions, but my favorite songs are the ones that make you appreciate life and smile, that make you laugh, that tug at your heart and make you want to be a better person, or that make you lift your hands and praise God. Christian music does that, but there's a lot of country music that does too. I know a lot of people don't appreciate it, but it's got so much about life...I just love it!

I'm still singing Jason Michael Carroll songs in my head this morning...

(Where I'm From)

I'm from the front pew of a wooden white church
The courthouse clock it still don't work
Where a man's word means everything
Where moms and dads were high school flings
Gave their children grandmothers maiden name
Yes it may not sound like much
But its where I'm from...

(Livin' Our Love Song)

Baby just look at us all this time and we're still in love
Something like this just don't exist
Between a backwoods boy and a fairy tale princess
People said it would never work out
Living our dreams has shattered all doubts
It feels good to prove 'em wrong
Living our love song

After last night though...I'm desperately wanting some cowgirl boots. I've been wanting them for a while, so I think I may see if I can find a pair today while I'm out and about...although I'm not sure my selection in the "big" town of Freeport will be very good. We'll see...but if not, it's a great idea for a Christmas gift (hint, hint).

60 More Days...

Today marks 60 more days until the Chicago Marathon, and believe me...I've been counting down for a while. Andrea and I did our 16-miler on Sunday, and it was brutal. We only have two more mile markers to go before race day (our 18-miler and 20-miler), so I am feeling more and more like I'm in the home-stretch.

Despite how awful the 16-miler was, I was very thankful to be able to run it with my sister. It made it go by so much faster. To be honest, it's kind of lonely running by yourself for long distances. Your mind plays tricks on you, so I praise God that she was able to run with me and help me keep my sanity. Plus, I got new running shoes, so I got to try them out.

The Lord has taught me a lot through my training, not only for this marathon, but my last one too. I know He has great things in store for me as I continue to train for the race, but sometimes while I'm in the middle of it, it's hard to see how that's possible.

Just like your walk with the Lord, you have to spend time reading His Word and worshiping Him in order to grow, and the same thing applies to running a race. You have to be able to dedicate the time and energy to it in order to grow. Today, I'm thankful that there's only 60 more days until completing 26.2 miles, and I praise God for all He's taught me and continues to teach me along the way.

Now, I'm off to get my 4-miler in for the day...

Simply Sunday

So Aaron and I thought our house needed a more welcoming front door...

We decided it needed an inexpensive "face-lift". The wreath and rug that were hanging and sitting by my front door were from the previous owners of our home, and we just hadn't taken them down. Needless to say...they were, for lack of a better word, nasty. We went shopping for a new welcome mat and a new wreath, and in order to get one that stood up to my "standards" I was going to have to spend at least $15 on a welcome mat (and that was the lower end) and between $30 and $40 on a wreath. We lucked out on the welcome mat and got one on sale at Kohls for $10, and I had a 20% off coupon. Plus, for some reason this weekend Kohls is giving you a "tax break" and giving all their customers an extra 10% off their purchase. Sales tax is really only around 7%, but hey...if they're willing to give me an extra 3% off on top of that, I'm all for it. A ten dollar welcome mat then cost me only seven dollars...yay! So that fixed our welcome mat issue, but that didn't fix our wreath issue.

In order to save a few extra bucks on the wreath, we decided to make our own or rather I decided to make our own. Hobby Lobby was having a sale in their floral section (50% off). We picked up a plain twig wreath for $2.50 and three bunches of accenting floral for our wreath at $1.50 for one piece and $3.50 for the other two pieces. This made my wreath only $11 instead of $30 or $40. I was totally excited, and this was the result:

Not too shabby for my first time...

It was a really simple project, and it made my Sunday simply wonderful after seeing the finished product. I'm in love yet again, but then again...I say that about pretty much everything. :)

Friday Fun

Fridays are my favorite! I only have to work four days a week (Monday thru Thursday)...praise God for that...and Fridays are my day to catch up on my week or relax. It really just depends on my mood that week as to whether or not my Friday will be a productive one or a non-productive one. Either way...they are just plain wonderful!!

I thought for my Fun Friday post I would post an update on our latest redecorating project. We recently redecorated our sun-porch, and I'm in love! Aaron's in love with it too because almost every night I have to wake him up out there because he's fallen asleep out there relaxing reading a book. It's really the most relaxing room in our house. We had a lot of fun choosing the color scheme for the room and picking out the furniture, but I wouldn't exactly call it "fun" when we had to paint the one wall. It was the most awful thing we've ever painted because with all the detail on the wall you had to paint the whole wall by hand. Literally almost a whole week of painting went into one wall. I missed my paint roller desperately. But I'm so excited about the result, so that doesn't matter anymore....life goes on, and we now have a fabulous sun-porch!

Before we started on the sun-porch, it looked like this:

Not everything was changed, but notice the blue floors and the blue wall on the right. Not to mention...the previous owners painted all the windows blue. Yes, they painted all of the windows blue. Who does that? It was awful to paint. Note to self: NEVER paint windows a non-neutral color. It's such a pain to fix.

So here's the finished result:

We painted the floor with deck stain/paint.

 I replaced the purple and green flowers in the arrangement on the wall with red and yellow to tie in both of the main colors of the room (red & yellow). Added two new rugs from Menards (super cheap too...only $20 a piece).

 We painted the one wall yellow and repainted the windows white. We had one "major" expense which was the furniture. We'd been watching the furniture for a while and waited for it to go on sale. It was a bit of a hassle getting it, but we ended up getting it for $150 cheaper than we would have in the store. It turns out that you  can buy the furniture online and pick it up in the store for a cheaper price. Who would have thought you'd get a discount just for paying for the furniture online instead of in the store? I wouldn't have, but it worked out to our benefit. I now have $150 extra dollars in my bank account. Yay!!

So...that's our new sun-porch. We love it! And we love how relaxing this room is. We could sit out in this room for hours...reading a book, talking, or spying on casually watching the neighbors. This room makes Fridays even that much more FUN!!