Of Phantom of the Opera Music/Guest Rooms, Birthdays, and Valentine Pretties....

Hello there!

How is everyone surviving this weather? We got about a foot of snow overnight. Yeah. I'm thrilled! (that comment was just dripping with sarcasm) More shoveling. More wind. Bleh.

On the bright side, the weather is so nasty that I get today off! YAY! 

I've had so many blog post ideas floating around in my head, but every time I've tried to sit down and write about them something else needed to be done instead. Oh, the joys of life.

So here I am. And I have a boat load of pictures to share with you!

Here is what went on in January:

            The celebration of my 19th and Robert's 22nd Birthday. Yes, we have the same birthday :) I made Robert a chocolate cake with snowflake sprinkles and I attempted to make petite fours. Neither turned out as planned, but they tasted good.

              Yeah, we're getting old. One candle for each of us. Don't judge us, we wanted to eat cake!

Mom gave me this :) It was yummy!

This is me after I had my wisdom removed...oops...I mean wisdom teeth removed :D All four of 'em and all were impacted. I look horrible in this pic :P I'm glad it's over. Cross that off my list of "The fun things you get to do once you're an adult".

Most of January was spent recovering from this, and being cooped up in the house and at work due to the lovely weekend winter storms we've been having lately.

"The Cold Never Bothered Me Anyway" Ha! Rub it in, Elsa. Want to use your magical powers to remove the snow off my driveway? Oh wait, I already did that.

And here is what I've been up to so far this month:

This is a project I began in September: Our Phantom of the Opera themed Music/Guest room! I'm so happy with how it turned out! Despite how long it took to paint :P

Before........

 Prepping and Painting.........

  Don't mess with this woman. I was tired of painting at this point.

 After..........I made the felt wall hanging in the pic above.

  I love how the red turned out!

              Robert and I painted the mirror black and silver, and the candle stand was also spray painted black. I painted a black design on the candles too, just to add some artwork. They looked a little bland by themselves.

I got the idea to cover light switch covers with scrap book paper from Shealynn at Shealynn's Faerie Shoppe. Here's the link to the tutorial: DIY Switchplate Covers.

 I love barbies....so obviously there was going to be a Christine/Erik combo in this room! I need to make a mask for Erik.

 I printed off some sheet music from the Phantom and modge-podged it to this magazine organizer.

 My Egyptian shelf. I love Ancient Egyptian history. I wanted to be an Egyptologist when I was little, after watching the Mummy movies.

 Two wedding gifts from two different people that go together perfectly!

     I had the idea of using my guardian angel picture with the idea of "The Angel of Music" in mind.

 I even decorated the trash can. I cut out a mask shape with scrapbook paper and stuck it on using double sided tape.

    My caged "lark". If you've seen Sweeney Todd, you'll understand.

   My brother found this music box for me. It plays "The Music of the Night".

 My Christine costume I made for Halloween.

                  And here we are as The Phantom and Christine during our Halloween party!

This room was an awesome project and it took about a month to complete. Some of the decor I already had, and some things I repainted or made from scratch. I love designing rooms :) There are so many themes to choose from! This one was no-brainer though :D Music room? Definitely POTO.

    Here is what I'll be working on today...Valentine decorating! It won't be a mess for long............

Here are some pretties I've found lately: FROZEN valentines! I love the one with Olaf on it :D The two mailboxes are for my niece and nephew. They like hello kitty and star wars at the moment. These were too cute to pass up! The girl outfit is for my other niece. I love the leggings. Babies in leggings are adorable. The skull and crossbones outfit is for my future son, whenever he comes along. I'm not pregnant, yet. But hopefully sooner than later! I tend to buy baby clothes every once in a great while. If I see something I like and will probably never find again, I'm going for it! I dislike a lot of boy clothes out there right now, so when I saw that this was the last one on the rack, I grabbed it and ran :D

So that's what I've been up to lately. Besides shoveling :P

Hope you're staying warm. If you live in a tropical climate....PLEASE TAKE ME WITH YOU!

Cheers!

~Mary

A Gluten and Dairy-Free Lunch - Welcome To My World

Hi again!

You are probably thinking: Wow, two posts from her in two days? Crazy, I know! I aim to do more blogging this year ( might as well call it one of my new year's resolutions), just maybe not every day blogging, but just whenever I have something interesting to share. Now is one of those times.

I happen to be off for the first two weeks of January (YAY!) and since I have some extra free time now, I decided that today I would make myself an extra healthy lunch. Something I need to do more often :P

I mentioned in my last post that my husband is allergic to gluten and dairy, and I have just recently started having suspicions that I may have a dairy allergy too. Since we've been married, I basically adapted the gluten and dairy free lifestyle. It keeps me from buying junk food that I shouldn't have anyway, and helps me eat healthier! Plus, sometimes my eyes are bigger than my stomach, so it's nice to have a hubby who is willing to finish whatever I couldn't fit in :D So I might as well just make things that he can have all the time, right?

It's really not as difficult as it sounds. It was a little daunting at first, but as time went on, I got used to it. More and more restaurants and stores have been bringing in more options for people with those kinds of allergies. The prices on the other hand, suck BIG time, but you come to find that a lot of the stuff that you used to have, you can learn to live without.

So, today I'm going to share a little recipe that we make frequently:

~The Gluten and Dairy Free Wrap~

Here is what you start with:

In place of regular tortillas, we've found that Rudi's Gluten Free Bakery (Their products can be found at Krogers in the Natural section) has the closest recipe to the norm. And yes, they happen to be green! The spinach tortillas actually hold together better than the rice flour tortillas we have also tried out, and they don't crumble as soon as you fold it.

For lunch meat, I always use Nature's Choice, regardless of allergies. The more natural the better. Here, I used their Salami, and their new ( or new to me) Sun-dried tomato Turkey.

For lettuce, just get whatever you want. I happened to have the Private Selection Artisan Lettuce from Kroger on hand.

For cheese, we usually get goat or sheep's cheese, since he is allergic to cow's milk. I haven't really searched for a lot of different cheeses yet, I just get whatever is available to me locally. Here, I used Aldi's Honey Goat Cheese. It is unbelievably delicious! It isn't terribly expensive either, which makes me happy :)

And finally, a tomato. It's a kind of fruit, by the way ;)

All you have to do is spread the goat cheese onto the tortilla. Then place however much meat you want on your wrap. I used three pieces of each meat. Then put the lettuce on, and slice the tomatoes as thinly as you can without destroying them. This will make the wrap less bulky and less likely to break when folded. You can also put Italian seasoning on top of the wrap, but I felt that it was flavorful enough without it.

This is what it will look  like when its folded! Some (or all) of the tomatoes WILL plop out onto your plate while eating.

I also made a smoothie today, as you can see. It was really simple. It is also gluten and dairy free! I kind of made the recipe up as I went.

Strawberry/Banana Smoothie:

1 carton of fresh strawberries, chopped into rounds
2 ripe bananas
And about a cup of Orange Juice. (I didn't really measure with this one. I just poured it in until I liked the consistency.)

Put all the ingredients in a blender and blend until everything is mixed well. You will end up with a delicious smoothie!

                                 And here is myself and the half-eaten wrap. It was yummy!

See? Simple AND delicious.

Cheers!

~Mary

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year (2014)!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! 
I hope everyone's Christmas was wonderful! Mine was awesome. Robert and I had Christmas at our house with my family for the first time! It was great. Everything turned out perfectly and I wasn't hyperventilating in the kitchen. No cooking disasters or anything!

Here are pictures of our winter festivities:

                                                                  Our Christmas Tree

                                                               My winter/themed desk

                                         
 My decorating theme was inspired by Narnia (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe), The Snow Queen, and The Polar Bear King. Some of my favorite fairy tales. And of course I had to get out my Narnia bookends :)

 

 This is me and my husband, Robert, at a local performance of "The Nutcracker". I hadn't been able to go in years and I'd never been to one with Robert, so that night was really special for us.

This is a better view of my dress. I found it at a thrift store earlier this year. It was a bit long for me, so I cut it and was going to hem it but my sewing machine is having issues at the moment. I waited until the day of to do this (of course) so I ended up just wearing it without hemming, and hoped no one would notice :D I think I'm just going to add some black lace to the bottom edge, instead of simply hemming it.

                                          The Christmas Day spread on our Dining room table.

I made gluten and dairy free gingerbreads and peanut blossums. Robert is allergic to both, so over the years I've learned to substitute. The chocolate chips I used do have butter in them though. Robert tested better with butter, so he is able to have it, just not a lot. There is white cotton candy (or fairy floss!) to the left, and dark chocolate non-pariels ( or snow caps as I prefer to call them) to the right.

                                                             The Winter Place Settings

                     Our stockings, above the little fireplace my sister created when we were kids!

A ball of mistletoe! I found this at Lowes and originally it had red velvet ribbon with a bell dangling from it. The bell hung at just the right length, so that tall people passing under the doorway would get bonked on the head. A.K.A. -  Robert.So, I found some blue snowflake ribbon I had laying around, cut off the red ribbon and the painful bell, and glued on the new ribbon. Voila, a bunch mistletoe to match the rest of my decorations!

Some of the Snowflakes we made together.

This was a Christmas gift for my sister. I bought a plain white plate and mug at the dollar tree and drew on them with a black sharpie. After drawing, preheat your oven to 350 degrees and pop it in for 30 min. Design is permanent and safe! I got the inspiration off of Pinterest. They are both Narnia themed. The mug says "How would it be if you came and had tea with me?" and the plate says "It's only just 'round the corner, and there'll be toast and sardines and cake." She loved them!

Well that is all for now! Today I've been taking down Christmas decorations and thinking about New Year's resolutions. Keeping life simple and trying new things are some of them :) I think my brother plans to take us to see The Hobbit DOS tonight...I know, I haven't seen it yet!

Enjoy your Winter! You shall hear from me soon :)

~Mary

Catching Up and Catching Fire

Hello world!

My blog has been pretty quiet for the past few months, I'm sorry to say. I had every good intention of blogging (at least) monthly, but life caught up with me. There was always something else that needed to be done :P Like dreadful housework! It's never ending. I need to learn how to juggle things better or at least set a time or day to do this and that.

But, here I am now! I'll just fill you in on a few things that happened these past few months....

The Halloween party was a success! I'll try to post pictures soon, even though it's December already! Yikes! Where does time go?
I was able to throw a costume together for myself and Robert. I was very pleased with the result. I mostly used things I already had for both of our costumes. Robert's Phantom costume consisted of his black wedding suit w/ a black dress shirt, a black cloak I had made him several years ago, black gloves, a black tie that I tied to look like a cravat ( I wanted to make one, but ran out of time), his black dress shoes, and a phantom mask I made out of plaster cloth to fit his face. That was a bit of a challenge, but it turned out all right for my first one :)

For my costume I used my white lace cami from Maurices, a medium length, white slip, my white nylon stockings, a lacey sleeveless, V-neck shirt that I found at a garage sale for 25 cents (SCORE!), a 2 yds. length of lacey white material my Dad brought home for me, which I used for the skirt ( I just pinned it where I wanted it) and finally, a dressing gown made from leftover lace from my wedding and my nieces baptism. I made my own pattern out of newspaper for that. I LOVE it!!! It came together so perfectly AND I didn't have to spend much on it!

So yes, pictures. SOON!

Thanksgiving was nice and relaxing. We went to my Mom and Dad's on the day, ate far too much, and watched behind the scenes on "The Hobbit - The Extended Edition". We also played games.
The Saturday after we went to Robert's family's Thanksgiving and did about the same thing except for watching Hobbit stuff :D

We also saw two movies in theaters over the weekend.

Number 1: Frozen

I LOVED it! Lots of singing and I especially liked that it was roughly based off of Hans Christen Anderson's "Snow Queen", which is one of my favorite fairy tales :)

Guess who my favorite character was?






Did you guess yet?






How 'bout now?








If you guessed right, then yes, it was Olaf!

                                                                  He is hilarious!



Number 2: Catching Fire

I liked it and I THINK it stuck to the book pretty well. I read it over a year ago so it's hard to remember.
I loved the costumes! There could have been a bit more coverage on some of Katniss' outfits but that's Hollywood for ya. I didn't really like the wedding dress they picked for her though, it looked really uncomfortable.

         I loved their entrance costumes in both 1 and 2. The hair and make-up were awesome.


So after a fun weekend I'm back to the grind. I'll be working on Christmas presents for the next few weeks and other decorations. I need to finish decorating tonight. This year we are doing a combination of themes: Snow Queen/Polar Bear King/Narnia.

 It shall be epic.


~Mary