A Titanic Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has been weighing heavily on my mind, for so many reasons; baby is soon to be hear(any day now) family is coming to stay, and how will we do tradition in a vegan style!!

My biggest concern is making everything interesting and fun but still sticking with our new way of life. While my husband and i are devoted to this, my family may not be so excited about breaking out of traditional turkey dinners and sides to complement the TURKEY... or ham and pineapples, and tons of dressing made with chicken broth or brisket and rice and gravy... or even one year we had a Turducken.

When i think of this, my mind starts playing Everybody loves raymond... the episode where Deborah tries to start a new tradition by cooking fish, and Marie is appalled by the idea. I dont think my family would ever be so difficult, we are all pretty open minded... but i still would like them to enjoy themselves. So i was thinking maybe a formal setting with a few different dishes to try, but without the main focus of turkey it would be like we were just having a bunch of sides(though each dish we have had for an entire meal at some point)

So my next thought was each dish should be presented separately, and this lead to the idea of a five course dinner... We have been to the marine corps ball plenty of times, and the meals are generally set up in a 3 course fashion, but that is about a fancy as we get, so we looked it up

from the wiki:

In formal dining, a full course dinner can consist of five, seven, eight, ten or twelve courses, and, in its extreme form, has been known to have twenty-one courses. In these more formalized dining events, the courses are carefully planned to complement each other gastronomically. The courses are smaller and spread out over a long evening, up to three, four or five hours, and follow conventions of menu planning that have been established over many years.

Most courses (excluding some light courses such as sorbets) in the most formal full course dinners are usually accompanied by ("paired with") a different wine, liqueur, or other spirit; today, craft beers and sakes are increasingly being integrated into the pairings.

So very intrigued by the twenty one course meal we read on, and found that the more courses a meal has the smaller the serving are, for example on the 21 course meal one course was nuts, another caviar. Wiki also drew out the TEN course meal that was served on the TITANIC: 

of course this was served to the First Class passengers

First Course

• Hors D'Oeuvres
• Oysters

Second Course

• Consommé Olga
• Cream of Barley

Third Course

• Poached Salmon with Mousseline Sauce, Cucumbers

Fourth Course

• Filet Mignons Lili
• Saute of Chicken, Lyonnaise
• Vegetable Marrow Farci

Fifth Course

• Lamb, Mint Sauce
• Roast Duckling, Apple Sauce
• Sirloin of Beef, Chateau Potatoes
• Green Pea
• Creamed Carrots
• Boiled Rice
• Parmentier & Boiled New Potatoes

Sixth Course

• Punch Romaine

Seventh Course

• Roast Squab & Cress

Eighth Course

• Cold Asparagus Vinaigrette

Ninth Course

• Pate de Foie Gras
• Celery

Tenth Course

• Waldorf Pudding
• Peaches in Chartreuse Jelly
• Chocolate & Vanilla Eclairs
• French Ice Cream

At this point i am hooked, we shall have a full course meal, complete with non alcoholic beverage pairings!! Who can resist that!! Regardless of our meatless situation i believe this to be a thanksgiving to remember... I also put together a menu, that will be set on the table so that our "first class passengers" can have a reference to what they will be enjoying!!

It started as a 5 course menu and evolved into an 8 course meal! we have some very simple things on there and some courses that can easily be made ahead of time. Thanksgiving meals usually take a few days of cooking anyways this one will just mean i wont have to wake up at 2 in the am to put a turkey in the oven!! Though i am planning on making pumpkin donuts the morning of out of our yummy new bread book "Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day" ... actually it is such an amazing book we are making three other breads in preparation for our Titanic meal, some for bruschetta some for rolls, and some bread pudding(maybe). All in all I CANT WAIT... now if only i can push a baby out before then!!!

Dining Rooms, Not Just For Dining

It all started with the purchase of a new dining table...

We originally went to the furniture store(every one in the county) to look for a bunk bed, but we found this amazing dining room table!! Hubby worked his negotiating magic and got it for way cheap!! SCORE

I have hated this arch since the beginning of time... seriously the moment i walked into our newly bought never before seen house, i thought to myself that arch will have to go... and then i thought that built in cabinet will have to go. We took out one of those things the next week. The other had to wait 2 years.

It was going to be a simple project, pound out the arch and put molding up. But nothing is ever simple in our house NOTHING!! The arches were apparently meant to last through the nuclear holocaust, so i took a few swings at it, and then relinquished the hammer to husband. It is not only concrete and plaster but also wrapped in a metal mesh and reenforced with couple blockes of wood, hammered into the studs with 4 inch nails (if these nails were hand forged it would not have surprised me)

Then, my other half points out that if we nail up some molding now his head would probably hit it... Devastated, thats what i was!!! he must have saw this on my face because he continued for the next two hours pounding out all the plaster and cutting out the metal mesh from the bottom of the header! We are still finding chunks of plaster hiding places!

I was so excited about the color i had original picked out for the hallway wall. I got the little sample cans and painted up some patches expecting to love it, but wound up HATING IT. We went back to the drawing board, and completely changed our paint pallet!!

This is what we wound up with after moulding and paint!!

So the obvious next step would be to paint the dining room (not finish the room upstairs)

We move all of the stuff in here to the basement and the "storage room" and begin prepping the walls, and pulling off moulding... I would post a pic of the blue we painted the walls but i hated it s much that we had to go back and paint it a darker shade.

 AFTER we built in some book shelves of course... the room looked so empty and our OLD book shelves didnt match our NEW table

So after 2 and a half months of building and painting, this is what we got!!

We had to move an outlet, from the left wall, it was going to be half way covered by the cabinet, so we re wired it to the first shelf on the back wall, and now our printer has a new home!

the door is still a work in progress.. and probably will be for quite some time, after about three layers of paint we got down to paint that will NOT submit to the chemicals and sanding and scraping. We did however fix the structural problem of the whole door frame falling out of the wall... locking the door was kind of silly, because turns out all you had to do was yank it really hard and the whole think would fall out :P 

Then there is the bench... i have decided to call the window seat/bench, the banquet!! it sounds so formal that way.

We have not yet ordered the doors for the banquet so we cannon finish it up until those are hung, but we plan on staining the seat the same color as the table top and chairs!!

Now our new fantastic dining room can be used for dining... and sewing... and painting... and joy school,  and storage,  and office space,  and growing herbs, and well anything really, it is so functional!!!

The doors we ordered from Here, and they are beautiful!

And the plans for the bookshelves were drawn up using THIS tutorial

We modified it quite a bit, and wound up building our own cabinet boxes but still a very helpful tutorial!!

My Dream Nursery

What makes my Dream Nursery, so dreamy? The fact that i have one! It only took me three babies to lockdown an actual nursery but by golly i got one, and it is pretty awesome, in my opinion :)  This one came more out of necessity than from a desire to have one. We have a reasonable sized house (perfect IMO hehe) a nice amount of square footage, but the rooms are very segmented, which is pretty common in older houses, cape cods in particular. That means we have no master sweet. We plan on having two rooms and a bathroom morphed into one master suit, but this is pretty far out in our renovation plans. So what we have here is a little tine bedroom next to a little tiny bedroom, and neither have enough room for our bed and a crib... THUS a nursery was created!!

The room had been deemed the Multi-purpose room, and we have used it for just about every purpose we could come up with since moving in: guest room, office, storage room, playroom, back to guest room, sewing room, room that houses a knitting machine, back to play room, then lastly a tool shed/lumber yard(for the dining room project, not yet blogged about) Now the room can lovingly be called a nursery, after 9 months of envisioning it, and planning and gathering furniture, we put it all together in 2, thats right TWO day.

Most of the rooms in this house... well who am i kidding, ALL of the rooms in this house have been beat to h***, we are pretty sure that the previous owners rented out individual rooms, and they didnt do "home improvement" more like "throw on some spackle and a boat load of caulking and call it good" so every room we remodel, we have to sand down the plaster, fix the cracks, patch huge holes, redo base boards and window casings and undo the previous "home improvements". All before we can start painting and it is usually a two week process.  This room was needing to be done fast, so hubbs did a bit of light sanding (with a belt sander) I did a few wall patches (used a whole can of plaster) and then we taped the best we could(over the excessive amounts of caulking) and painted the room green. Unfortunately this was the worst room in the house so it really should have required a month of work... but now that the paint is on and all is said and done it is not to bad!

My plan was to have a functioning nursery, as well as a place for the kids to sit and play quietly while I am busy tending to baby... it sounds like a tall order, but i think we may have accomplished it for the most part, i guess i will see when baby gets here!!

Here are some pictures!!

The view from my Glider.  kids sitting on their home made floor cushions,  playing with puzzles and books. The white quilt was a last minute project i will explain later. Take a look at the quilt hanging on the crib... this quilt was made by my awesome friends, and quilting companions, they each picked out fabric that made them think of me or that they thought i would like(because baby 3 is a surprise) and then they quilted it together... i just love it!! They really went above and beyond with that! Then made a diaper bag to match!!! i know what you are thinking... i need some friends like that :) 

View from the door. The repurposed target bookshelf that we've had for like 5 years,  fits in pretty good to hold some quiet toys and books!!

The aqua Doodle, this is the kids favorite feature! they can play with it only when i get the 'markers' down, and i intend on doing so sparingly... to keep it exciting! Right now if allowed they will play with it for at least an hour

Future big sis and big bro!!

Baby G had to take a picture since i was taking pictures, she did a good job... except i am swollen and ridiculously pregnant, we will just blame it on a bad camera angle :/

Now alls i have to add is a baby!! Then our family will be one child closer to complete, hehe!! More to come on our current series "catching up" join me tomorrow night as i blog about THE DINING ROOM (you are not gonna want to miss that)

So Much, in So Little

            Since my last real post was in june, i have been stuck trying to figure out where to start with my updated post...uhhhh..........hmmmm..... i still am not sure where to start, so i guess we could just catch up on whats been happening. After rivers bday was My Glorious 25th!!! No big deal just the age i have been looking forward to since turning a very inglorious 18, and then a mildly exciting 21. Every one raves about the coming of age birthdays, but really the only change is at one age your can smoke, and the next you can drink... but TWENTY FIVE, that gives you 'street cred'. Some kind of personal satisfaction/confidence accompanies the words "I am 25", like being a quarter century old gives you all the wisdom in the world, i know this isnt so, and it sounds silly now that i have said it, but this is what i have been looking forward to for, well, 25 years, STREET CRED! it was either get all tatted up and start a bad addiction, or turn twenty five. Soooooo incase you guys didnt hear ::clears throat::  I am 25 years of age! thats right old ladies at knitting shops, i have crows feet now you can stop frowning at me when i walk through the doors and head for the marino wool... did you hear that, nay sayers of "already being married at 18/19/20/21", i am no longer "just a baby"... walmart you can stop carding me for white out and duck tape, and Lowes can just let me buy aerosol paint without the disapproving looks, it really is for a side table, i am not some crazy kid looking for a cheap high.

With all this approval of years owned... also comes some cons, i am old enough to buy a time share, and EVERY Time share out there apparently has direct access to my credit report, also credit card offers have seemed to double. Unfortunately an increase in age did not increase my income so i am not really sure how "they" figure i am more willing to submit to these things.

For my birthday Hubby got me the best gift ever, and i mean it(after almost 6 months i am still excited about it)!!! i use them EVERY day. Every time i use them i think of the man in my life that listened to me talk about this for months on end until eventually conceding to never having them, and then remembering how much he loves me and getting them for me anyways... what is this wonder gift you may ask... lets see if you can guess

Like i said before, i use them every day
.......
you have likely seen them on tv
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but not in a commercial
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they cost more than 50 dollars
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less than 100
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they sell it on amazon (not much of a hint there)
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i use them in the kitchen
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there is no way you can BAKE without them
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made out of metal
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there is 4 in the set
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they fit in my hand
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they hang on my wall but it also could come with a stand
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this is all the clues i can come up with
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did you figure it out yet?
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....
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....   SPOONS, pewter measuring spoons!!

yup, i saw em on paula dean like forever ago, and fell in love!!! Hubs got me the fleur de lis ones and they are perfect :) such a silly thing for me to set my heart on but let me tell you i hate digging in a drawer for measuring spoons only to find every spoon but the measurement you actually need, of course you can just eye ball things, which is okay with spices and such, but as for baking( especially since i am not a chef) they are indispensable!

So all this excitement was in june and now that i have been 25 for a few months, i think i'll stay this age for a good while. I was actually asked my age a while back and in saying 25, i had to stop and think, "am i really THAT old?" talk about an eclipse of the heart.

So this is a start on catching up... i had to devote a whole post to street cred,  and the next post will be mo betta i promise... the next few days will be alot of catching up because there is only a short while till baby 3 will be joining us, so stay tuned!!