Chicken Should Taste, CHICKENY!

Monday. Worked all day, What perks up a day of office work? That's right, Julia Child's Roast Chicken. It tastes so CHICKENY! And my very own butter and port wine drenched red potatoes, baby carrots and sweet onion. It is the homey-est taste I can think of besides soup or stew. My sweety loves chicken and taters so I baked it before he got home. And here it is.

I also baked some home made Italian spiced bread in bug shapes! Clayton got my this Nordic Ware bug shaped pan for Christmas. I've made brownies and little cakes but this was the first bread attempt and it came out great! Crunchy outside, soft and fluffy inside. Perfect!

 

SO cute! He was pleased. Another home cooked meal achieved. I can't believe my friends don't cook!?! Its relaxing and you have so much pride and love making something from nothing for the one you love.

Antiquing!

So I got a new job and its M-F. Sunday is finally here! My husband was given the day off as well so we had ALL DAY together! It was so nice! Okay, I'm going to try to stop using exclamation marks. Just know through out this entire post I am very excited. Anyways so my husband took me thrifting and for the first time ever, antiquing. I used to think old people were so boring and, well...old, for antiquing. CHILDREN KNOW NOTHING. I had so much fun! We're going to do it again as soon as we are off together. We got the first item for the vintage man-shelf. I am going to put a little shelf in his bathroom with vintage shaving supplies and other products. Today we found a badger hair shave brush from England. It is so cute.

 Remember those egg cups I wanted so badly? Well today at the Goodwill I got three for only $1.16 each! Which is great because NONE of the antique stores had any. She said that egg cups have been really popular lately and she didn't know why, I told her it was because backyard poultry keeping was sweeping the nation! Yay urban chicken owners!

I also found the EXACT stained glass turtle shell for my turtle lamp. I got this lamp at a garage sale for $5 a year ago in the hopes that it would work when I got home. It did, but the stained glass had a hole in it and several cracks. It did not secure to the base because the metal part was missing. Well, at the antique store today we found the same, same one! With no cracks, no holes and it clicked on perfectly! I could not be happier!

*WARNING NOT CHILD FRIENDLY*

Below is the Tanooki, which is "A Japanese raccoon dog." With HUGE BALLS. If you want to see them in action, go watch Pom Poko. Anyways apparently he is a mug, but I'm going to use him as a terribly tacky Tanooki tulip vase...with huge balls, if you didn't catch that before.

So thats that! Antiquing is fun! I also got some sweet shelves on clearance from Bed, Bath and Beyond WITH a coupon! I have several treasures in it now. We put my old green horse shaped Avon bottle in it, and with it the 'new' Avon bottle I bought today antiquing! Its a buffalo and smells like my dad's cologne inside. It is called "American Buffalo Country Aftershave"

 

Thanks for reading, have a great day! Not that anyone is following me, but here in the south we have manners.

Rain, Rain Go Away

So, it has been raining for weeks now. Just storm after storm. My garden is pretty much obliterated. Every time a green pepper would make a bloom, the heavy rain pour would detach it. All I've gotten out of my entire spring garden is some small tomatoes. No beans, no lettuce, no radishes, nothing. Its terribly disappointing. My husband has swore to me we shall begin anew come August to start preparing for our Fall beds.I  will hold him to it! We WILL become gardeners!

Lift the Veil, If Only For A Moment

You know? I figured out why I like cooking so much. Like anyone else my age, the book series 'Harry Potter' got me through my childhood and lent an escape from school and chores and puberty into a magical world so close to our own. As if only hidden by a veil. I bring this up because I feel like cooking is as close to mixing potions as I'll get.

Don't Have A Hairy Canary

I am thinking about cutting all of my hair off like Emma Watson in Perks of Being A Wallflower (terribly sad movie, could not finish it, but her hair was cute)

Below is her picture, I don't own it, and her hairstyle. I was worried about looking too masculine with a short 'do but since I'll be at a sit down office job soon wearing pretty skirts and blouses and accessories I  think I can pull it off. Plus it is Florida, and it is hot. Hotter than hot and m-u-g-g-y. The less hair I have to deal with the better. Plus, this is the first time my husband has been on board for short hair! Like most men he likes it long but he liked it on her (who wouldn't?!?)

Handmade Booth

I have finished putting the glaze and protective coat on the booth. I have been hired pending background check. Luckily for me I do not have a dark and twisted past so we should be good to go! So besides the usual catch up on bills and buying an ac unit for the house (because its 90 degrees outside on a good day) I am going to buy the materials to make a table. I think it should be triangular. Any thoughts? Rounded corners of course because u am quite accident prone whilst running manic from room to room trying to accomplish all of the household chores. Anyways here's a pic!

Yellow, It's Whats For Dinner

What do you eat for dinner when you are poor as hell? Yellow. Yes my friends, yellow is what you have for dinner. Mac and Cheese and that can of corn from the back of your pantry that you forgot was back there and is a month out of date. It's not Julia Child but it'll have to do. I sure do hope I get hired soon.

Yard Cat

I have decided that come August I will be selecting a cat from the humane society. I want a yard cat because I have seen 2 mice so far. And what do farmers do when they have mice? They get a cat. So thats what I'm going to do. Until then I'll be looking at pictures of other lucky people who already have their yard cat(s).

Kitchen Revamping

Here is or kitchen when we bought the house:

No backsplash (except for the tiny, ugly veggie tiles behind the sink.), Green counters and walls, No fridge, no oven, and a hole where a light should be.


Here is our progress so far:


First we painted and bought a dining set.

 

Then I put in a glass tile mosaic backsplash.

 

Then I built a booth with just 2x4s and Plywood with no instructions or anything! Just straight out of my head into the physical world! I am so proud of it!  When I bought the kit to stain the cabinets, I bought 2 so I could eventually build this. It will have a matching table with matching tiles from the backsplash inlaid in the center once I have a bit more more to spend.

And here are the beautiful cabinets restained! I also painted the countertop but it will be granite eventually. Also our "new" flat top electric oven! We adore it!

Front Yard Fun

So we are chipping away at the front yard. Slowly but surely making progress. Adding a few new plants each week. I am trying to make an actual entrance to our home. Instead of the random square of concrete connecting the driveway to the porch. Currently I have time but no money to keep improving things. Hopefully I will be hired at the new job soon and that will be bigger paychecks and weekends off for home projects! I will include a pic of the overgrown state it was in when we bought it.

EEEEeeekkkk!

Who Wants to Make Their Own Laundry Detergent?

I got this great Laundry Detergent Recipe online from "Happy Money Saver". It is not my recipe but I sure do use it! The website with the instructions and cute pictures of the process is http://happymoneysaver.com/making-your-own-laundry-detergent-worth-the-cost/

Ingredients:
1 Box of Super Washing Soda 3 lb. 7 oz.
1 Box of Borax 4 lbs 12 oz. size
1 Box of Pure Baking Soda 4 lb.
3 bars of Fels-Naptha 5.5 oz.
1 container of Oxy-Clean 1.3 lb
 Purex Crystals 28 oz. for scent

All you do is grate the Fels Naptha and then add all the other ingredients into a tub and mix it up and BAM! For 20 bucks you have 500+ loads of laundry. All it takes is a TABLESPOON per load! Isn't that neat? And the little Oxi Clean comes with a small blue Tbsp scooper in it! My husband has sensitive skin when it comes to the harsh chemical detergents we used to use. But so far this has been great! He used his manly muscles to grate the soap for me! What a guy! In return he's got super clean shirts now for work. He works as a deli manager so there is grease and stains everytime he comes home. But this gets his clothes super clean for not a lot of money. It only cost us 20 bucks for everything and that is with no coupons. We'll probably be set on detergent for a year with just the two of us. That's great since the usual liquid sensitive skin type we buy is $10 a bottle and only last about 4 months tops.

Woah! Catch-Up, Ketchup, Catsup...whatever

Wow! It has been 4 months since my last post. Sorry about that! Real life got in the way of course. So to recap, I got deathly deathly ill. I had to go to the hospital. For anyone who has read George R. R. Martin's "A Dance With Dragons", just know the pale mare rode its way into our cast of Lysistrata. After that we got 2 new baby chicks. We got a Brahma and a Ameraucauna. Keeping with our floral names for the other chickens, we have named these two Sunflower and Gardenia. But my adorable husband was quick to christen them "Sunny and Gurdy". We have begun the process of introducing them to our other 2 girls Daisy Mae and Poppie. It has not gone well. Daisy Mae was pecking them til their feathers were falling out and Poppie was aiming for their eyes. So they are separate now. The big girls free range full time and have their hen house and the babies are locked in the run portion. That way they see each other but cannot touch! The internet had me believe if I stuck the babies into the hen house at night while the big girls were sleeping everything would be okay in the morning. LIES! So we're going to keep them like this until the babies get full grown which should only be a few more months. More to come I promise! I am hoping to get a new job soon which means more money which means more projects can be completed like a fire pit, a pergola, painting the house, rainwater catching system, replacing the broken sprinkler heads, tiling the hideous bathroom and the building of a big new coop! Also we plan to add three more veggie patches and several fruits. All will be documented here which should be good since I am positive we will make mistakes. But triumphs as well!

Lobster from Main to Maime in the Name of Love

Happy Valentines Day! In celebration of our first Valentines Day together as a married couple, Clayton covered the house in candles and roses when I got home. Very romantic! Then we bought a lobster to make dinner at home! Here are some pictures. Why traumatize a sea creature for love? No clue. But it seemed exciting (and delicious) so we did it! Also, the line at Red Lobster was RIDICULOUS. And we saved 25 bucks doing it ourselves. All we did was choose a specimen with the most fight, and then brought a pot of salted water to a boil, then shoved him in there! He squirmed a bit, and hooked his tail on the side of the pot. Just like "Julie and Julia" (which we watched after because Clayton is the best husband in the world) he had to save me with some tongs to dunk him all the way in. 15 minutes later we had bright red steaming lobster!

Bush Removal; It's not the 60s Anymore!

This is the GIANT bush I removed out of the yard by myself on Saturday. It is HUGE! Now you can see the house! We removed an even bigger one last week so there are two pictures of two big clear spaces in the front yard. We are going to put in a vegetable garden in the front because it gets a nice amount of sun and the chickens can't access it! Become part of the revolution! Don't waste precious yard space on bushes! Grow your own delicious food! Look at these example from HGTV below.

Busy, Busy, Busy!

I am currently spending time in the real world by being in a play and a showcase. The play is based of Lysistrata but it is set in the future! I play a sex robot (think Stepford Wives) who is a twin. Almost all lines are in unison. Its crazy! Then I'm in a Valentine's Day Showcase at my campus. We are doing Seasons of Love (which I am starting as a solo then the group joins in!) which is coming together beautifully. I have ALWAYS wanted to perform this song ever since high school. Our marching band did a half time show and we had four singers chosen out of the band. I was not one of them. I was on vacation. I was too young to drive back into town to audition. I was murderous. So another girl filled the fourth slot annnnd needless to say, it was not so great all put together. So this is REDEMPTION! For me. We are also doing something I've done in my underwear in front of a mirror in the privacy of my own home, but never thought I would ever perform on stage.........we are doing........suspensssssssseee.......Cell Block Tango.

Pause for reaction.


I know its so cool! I can prance around on stage, in beat, with 5 other girls, in lingerie and not lose an ounce of dignity! Its so awesome. I am the innocent Hungarian girl. In case you're wondering, yes, her part is mostly consonants. Hahaha! It's going to be pretty cool though. We are all very excited!


So that's whats going on around here. School, work and rehearsals in heels. I am tired but delighted!

All About Leela!

Leela Turanga Croyle is our dog. She is 3.5 years old. She is pug mixed with a mystery. We've been told Italian Greyhound, Boston Terrier, or Beagle. We have no clue. But she is special and she is ours! Her favorite thing to do is chase the chickens now that their grown. She used to like to put them in her mouth and watch me scream when they were younger. Now she just runs around them like a psycho. Above are some puppy pictures of her at about 6 months old. Below is her today!

Backyard Chickens!

A fad flying through right now is keeping backyard chickens. They are fun, make you breakfast, fertilize your lawn and teach kids that food doesn't come prepackaged in the grocery store. We got our two chickens (Poppy and Daisy Mae) as 1-week-old chicks from our local feed store. We kept them in the garage until they were old enough to be outside. Now they have started laying eggs! Between the two of them we get one to two eggs per day right now. We enjoy their antics! They are fun to keep and a beneficial pet. Our dog Leela only steals food, she doesn't make any. Our chickens are good egg-laying hens. Daisy Mae is a Orpington and Poppy is a Wyandotte. They lay brown eggs. So far they have laid 10! Above are some pictures of the coop in progress. Below is the completed coop.

The Newlywed Homestead

Hello! My name is Samantha. My husband is named Clayton. We just got married and bought a house from 1950. I started this blog to keep track of our growth as a married couple and the progress of our property. We hope to update the inside, and to drastically change the outside. We learn more and more each day about the stress we humans are putting on the world. We hope to change our ways and become more in tune with nature. We will be gardening for ourselves and our families. We will cut back on our consumption level. We will include pictures, stories, tips and recipes. Enjoy!