SOME ORGANIZING & THE THINGS WE EAT

You might remember me telling you a few weeks ago about the evil floating shelf that kept falling off the wall.  They are both down at the curb as we speak and hopefully someone really handy will rescue them.  I will be looking out the window laughing.  So these are the shelves I made by buying some pine boards from Home Depot and staining them a light gray.  

The Husband popped them up the night before the shower, you know...the 11th hour.  I was biting my nails and when he was finished, I scurried around the house finding and arranging treasures I had tucked away.  I think it might be a tad cluttered now that I'm seeing it in a photo.

I wanted a few personal things; pictures and books that tell a story.  This room is decorated with pieces I fell in love with and some greenery that makes me happy, but you have to have that very personal element somewhere.  For me, that's family pictures, this is my spot for them.  Here you see a rare framed picture of The Husband and I taken in Las Vegas about 8 years ago,  Pics of the kids and even the dogs are in and amongst the other treasures.

A few days before the baby shower, Emily came over to help me sort of clean things up to make room for the food and candles and candy dishes,  pretty much our only party decor.  She proceeded to take everything off my kitchen counters, island, coffee and end tables, the whole time me protesting,  "I have to have some of my stuff', Em.  This is me!"  Oh no,  She wouldn't have any of that.  The food and pink candles and pink candies had to take center stage, my "stuff" would be distracting.  Bingo, she was right as usual.  And until today I was sort of liking the extra space.  I kept those counters clutter free and actually rolled out some pastry on the marble topped island (which is what it was meant for). 

Today I caved and went downstairs to my storage room, which is starting to look like a garage sale in the making.  I found a cloche and some pinecones for my coffee table and added some of my decorating books.

A pretty tray with my Christmas hurricane was re-purposed for winter with a white candle.

I found these S & P shakers at Terrain a few years ago.  If you look closely, they are mini Mason jars.

Do you remember that episode of Friends where Chandler, Joey and Ross discover Monica's secret closet?  Monica was the perfectionist, always after everyone to be neat.  And then they found the closet, broke into it and found something like the above.  Gasp!  Well, welcome to my linen closet.  It reminds me of my "junk drawer" in the kitchen (you have one of course?).  After you sort it out and it's perfectly organized, someone searches for something and it all flies out the window.  That's what happens here.  I do have to say, the balled up sheets were shoved in during a fit of anger.  I despise folding fitted sheet.  I even watched a demonstration by Martha Stewart on You Tube and I just couldn't grasp it.  And if you think this is my only dirty little secret...no no!  I have a habit of using the sheets and pillow cases on the top of the piles.  One day I pulled some pillowcases out from the bottom and I got a whiff.  They smelled like something wickedly old and musty.  So I had been putting this off knowing that everything had to be washed and that I had to delegate some of my shower curtains (yes, I'm a fiend and love to switch them out), bath rugs and duvets to another location.  Ditto for the heating pad and iron which rarely get used.  So...I have a load of wash going and I'll give this a go again tomorrow.  Are you interested in seeing the after?  Do you have any dirty little secrets in your home?

I've been back on my low carb/no carb diet since January 1 and so far, so good.  Abby on the other hand decided to go with whole foods and little dairy or excess fat.  She has been making smoothies with our new Magic Bullet (a Christmas grab bag gift).  I can't have fruit but I've tasted a few.  The strawberry/pineapple/banana/Greek yogurt is a winner.  Anyway, she wanted to go to a restaurant we've recently discovered called The Harvest Room.  The food is farm to table, organic or organically raised.  They make their own biscuits, jam, syrups, soups and pastries.  The menu was incredibly interesting...if you are curious and want to scratch your head in confusion a lot as I did, here is their website.  

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Abby ordered the Slider Trio; ground beef, chicken and beef brisket.  They were each dressed in a different way, and look at that presentation.  The Husband had Chicken and Waffles.  We were intrigued.  Sorry...he frowns on me when I take pictures of food in restaurants, so no peek.  Basically it was chicken pieces fried in Panko crumbs with small bacon infused waffles and a maple caramel sauce.  He was in heaven.

I had the Slow Braised Pot Roast which came with charred organic carrots, confit potatoes, roasted pearl onions and...   

...English "sphere" peas.  I had no idea what they were.  When I tapped one with my finger, it broke apart and oozed like some sort of alien egg.  When the waiter came by, I asked that he enlighten me on these before I tasted them.  Apparently, after these type of peas are cooked, they are dropped in cold water and they just pop!  Okay.  So I spooned that gooey goodness on top of my organic carrots and roasted pearl onions and I think I may be switching up my old standby pot roast recipe!  Now...where to find these peas...

I read the most hysterically funny book yesterday...yes, it's only about 100 pages and I really didn't do much else.  This is not so much a diet book as it is a fun look at the eating habits of the "Fit and Famous".  The author, Rebecca Harrington, who is also a columnist for New York Magazine, has researched and tried fad diets going all the way back to the celery loaf Great Garbo subsisted on.  She tried Gwyneth Paltrow's strictly organic diet which includes goji berries with quail eggs, and Marilyn Monroe's go~to breakfast of raw eggs mixed in warm milk.  "The egg without the nog." the author writes.  

Today as I made my own go~to lunch, I wondered about the things we eat, the many ways we try to stay healthy with the foods we choose.  I sometimes want to laugh when someone says they can eat everything they want by just trying "a bite".  Ah, The Painful Restraint Diet.  According to this book, Sophia Loren wrote a cookbook filled with pasta recipes and said she eats pasta with every meal.  When the writer made the recipes, she read closer and apparently SL only eats a palm~full of pasta at a time.  The recipes were out of sight and the author couldn't help but kill the whole pot each time.  

So who eats tuna salad simply because they love it?  Crave it?  If you crave more it can only be because you are still ravenous.  Still, here is my tuna salad recipe.

1 pouch of tuna in water (one serving size)

2 T mayonnaise 

1/2 stalk of celery sliced thin

1 green onion, sliced

1/2 t onion powder

1/2 t Mrs. Dash

A pinch of parsley flakes

Mix all and chill one hour (preferably...I never plan ahead and usually devour it as is).  Serve on a few iceberg lettuce leaves.

My four 'o clock snack was cucumber slices with hummus.  I SO wanted more. Not.

January means organizing and goals to eat better and be more active for so many of us.  Dr. Oz, whose new magazine is just terrific, wrote in the January issue, "So many New Year goals fail because we expect immediate results.  When that doesn't happen we throw in the towel."  I agree that we have to be in it for the long haul.  Be patient no matter what your plan is. 

I was going to go back to the gym this week.  I found that I just needed more space between the chaos of the past few weeks and a true commitment.  It's pretty easy to have that goal shimmering in front of me full of promise.  Then there is the harsh reality of completing that first run around the track and remembering how much I hate to exercise!

Off I go to work on that closet.  Maybe I'll burn a few calories while I'm doing it.

Jane x