Photo of the Day: Something I'm Listening To

Today's photo of the day was actually a little hard for me.

Sorta

I'm not a big music person.

Don't get me wrong, I like music.  I like to listen to music in my car. I like to sing along.

However, I really only like to listen to it in the car.

I don't like to have music on in the house during the day.

I don't remember always being like this, it kinda getting worse as I get older.

My daughter and husband love to listen to music.

They always have all the newest CD's to listen to and they like to turn it up loud.

Very loud!

They love when I'm not in the car with them and they can crank the stereo as loud as they want.

I'm not sure how they hear themselves think.

I did recently stumble across this CD.

It's Wildflower by Lauren Alaina.

It's country and I really like to listen to country music.

Which seems strange coming from a girl who grew up listening to Metallica and AC/DC.

We won't go there!

It's a really good album and I've been listening to it in my car. Only.

I know, it's weird.

If your a country fan and haven't checked out the Lauren Alaina CD, check it out.  I think you'll like it.

Photo of the Day: Smoked BBQ Pork Sandwiches

In January I started the Photo a Day challenge with Fatmumslim.  I love this challenge because Chantelle gives a guideline for everyday of the Month.  It isn't just a "take a picture every day and post it" kind of challenge.  She gives ideas.  A game plan, if you will.

I love that because if I'm just told to take a picture of something, I will keep waiting around all day for that something and before I know it, it's time for bed and I hadn't taken my picture.

So, Chantelle's plan works for me.

Yesterday's photo was to be taken of Something I Ate.  I've been doing eMeals for a while now and while all their recipes have been good; sometimes I get one that is fabulous.

Last night's recipe was fabulous.

It also took forever.  My forever, I mean all day in the oven.  Not just 4 or 5 hours but all day!

It was well worth it, though.

You start out with a 6-8 lb Boston pork butt.  I used a 6 lb and had tons left over.  I can't imagine how much would be left over with 8 lbs.

Put the pork butt in a deep baking dish and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Cover with aluminum foil, put it in a 280 degree oven all day.

Then you just sit back and wait.

About mid day, you will start to smell its deliciousness and want to get in there and have a look.  Try to refrain from doing that.

It won't be ready till dinner time (or supper, depending where you are from).

Once it is finished cooking.  {I put mine in about 9:30am and took it out about 5:00pm.}

Take the aluminum foil off and let it stand for a minute to cool.

Remove the fat and bone then shred the meat with a couple forks.

The recipe calls for 4 TBSP of liquid smoke.  I left that out and just added in the BBQ sauce.  Mix it all together and use it to make sandwiches.

I so wish I had some coleslaw to add it my sandwich.

I served it with fried red potatoes and egg noodles.

The best part is that there is plenty for leftovers.

And so, here is the recipe:

SMOKED BBQ PORK SANDWICHES

6 - 8 lb Boston pork butt

Salt, pepper

Aluminum foil

3-4 T liquid smoke

18 oz bottle BBQ sauce

1 bag hamburger buns

Place pork butt in a deep baking dish.  Season with salt and pepper.  Cover tightly with foil.  Bake in 280 degree oven all day.  Uncover, cool slightly.  Remove all hide, fat, bone and liquid.  Shred pork in dish.  Drizzle liquid smoke over meat.  Toss.  Serve meat on heated buns.  Top with BBQ sauce.

ENJOY!

I'm linking up with these parties....

Master Bedroom Floors are Finished

The master bedroom floors are finished!

I am beyond thrilled with how they turned out.

We did the bedroom and upstairs hallway with the same flooring so it's a nice flow.

Hubby finally got to work on putting in the corner round.

The pneumatic staple gun that we got to finish my dining room chairs came in very handy for this project.  We're not sure what we every did before owning this great tool.

Hubby finished off the ends so we wouldn't have to come back and paint.

I love the look of the finished clean lines.

This is the view from the hallway into the master bedroom.

I really like having it all one surface.  I just flows and makes it so easy to use the swiffer on it.

We changed the layout of the bedroom back to how we had it originally when we first moved into this house.

When we painted and tore out all the carpet, we put the bed and night stands in front of the windows.

It was ok, but with Winter coming, we thought it would be better to put the bed back on the other side.

The curtains also got very dusty being behind the night stands.

This is my side.

I like being able to see the curtains pool onto the floor.  With the night stands in front of them, we weren't able to see that before.

Note: we finally got rid of that 13 inch tv that we have had in our bedroom for 17 years.  Hubby just bought me a new 32" flat screen.  It's fabulous!!

This is the view from the green chair in the above picture to the door.

Hubby's side.

So, that's pretty much it.  I may add/change some of the accessories and maybe add some photos to the walls;  but the floors are done.

I love them.

I love walking on them with my bare feet.

So we just need to finish the carpeting on the main stairs and the basement stairs and all our floors will be done.

I cannot wait for that day.

I'm linking up with the following parties.....

Stuff be gone....

I have jumped in on the challenge that Ann Marie is having over at White House, Black Shutters.

It's a great motivation to get some stuff cleared out that I've forgotten I even have.  I did the challenge last year.  I was able to clear out lots of stuff in my closet, master bathroom, the kids rooms and then I stopped.  I think I had jumped in too hard.  This year, I decided to take things a little slower and smaller.  Instead of tackling an entire closet in one day, I decided to do some drawers to start off.

I haven't cleaned out my nightstand draws in several months years.

I had so much stuff shoved in there.  To be honest, I don't even really know what nightstand drawers should be used for.  Mine were used mostly for holding stuff that I didn't know what else to do with.

I found some old journals.

I had started writing in this one when I was pregnant with my daughter, 14 years ago.

I found 3 journals total.  Two that I had started writing in, but they were only half full.  One was empty and I gave it to my daughter so maybe she could start writing down some of her thoughts.

I have no idea what that white stuff is in the top drawer.  Probably some lotion that got spilled and never wiped up.

I love having the drawers almost empty.

This baby doll was mine when I was a little girl.

I managed to get 1 bag of trash out of the drawers.  I didn't get anything for Goodwill but gave a couple things to my daughter.

My 2nd set of drawers to tackle were the drawers in my china cabinet.

They haven't been cleaned out since I got this piece of furniture almost 2 years ago.

Somehow the top drawer ended up as a junk drawer.  I hate junk drawers so this definitely needed cleaned out.

I found these cute Easter towels that my mom gave me.

I had forgotten that I had them.

I took everything out and put it on the dining room table.

I then sorted through everything and made a pile to go to goodwill and a pile that needed to go to a different location.

I had more linens than I needed and some of the things that I just don't love anymore.

I'm now able to use the bottom drawer for my Christmas dishes and serving platters.

The top drawer is organized and no longer has weird random stuff thrown in it.

I ended up with a small bag of trash and started a box to go to Goodwill.

Even though you can't see inside the drawers all the time, I love the idea that they are cleaned.  It'll be a nice surprise when I open them and they aren't cluttered.

I'm linking up with White House, Black Shutters

It's time to get rid of stuff!

Last year about this time I found Ann Marie over at White House, Black Shutters.

Ann Marie had a little challenge going called 40 bags in 40 days.

The idea was to clear your house of unnecessary clutter.  We all have it, some of us keep it hidden better than others; but we all have it.  I immediately jumped on board.  I hate clutter.  My favorite thing to do is throw things out.  {Or hide it in drawers, but we won't go there just yet}

I started in on hubby and I's  master bedroom closet.  I was so excited to have gotten rid of so much stuff.  Clothes that I didn't wear anymore, purses that I had been hanging onto, shoes that were shoved into the back corners of the closet.  It felt so refreshing to see those things go to a good home.  Someone else's home!!

The next day, I got busy in the master bathroom.  I couldn't believe the clutter that I found in there.

I got it all cleaned up, looking nice and wanted to go ahead and get to painting and adding some nice touches to that area.  Obviously I wasn't that motivated because the paint is still sitting in the paint cans waiting to go on the walls.  Maybe my fairy godmother will come in one of these nights and do it for me??  No?? Well, it was worth a shot anyway.

After tackling the bathroom, I moved onto the kids bedrooms.  They loved that I had decluttered their rooms.  Probably mostly because they didn't have to do it.  Well their rooms have since been filled with stuff.  I swear I don't know where these kids get all their junk from.

I guess cleaning and decluttering the kids bedrooms was too much for me (or maybe I thought I was done) but that seems to be where I stopped.  I don't know why.  Maybe I thought I had tackled all the clutter in my house.  Maybe my ADD kicked in and I forgot what I was doing.  Whatever the reason, I never finished.

Sad, very sad!

Well, Ann Marie is at it again.  It's a new year and a new challenge.  Same general purpose, to clear clutter, but new.

New year, new challenges; I like it.

I wasn't sure that I was going to join at first.  I mean I did this last year, we should be good, right? Wrong!!

Completely and totally wrong!

I'm not sure why we have so much stuff.  I'm not sure where it all comes from.

It's everywhere.

So I am using this new challenge to get busy.  I'll be posting my updates weekly (on Friday) and linking to the linky party over at White House, Black Shutters.

Be sure to check back and see if I'm actually making a dent in our clutter.

Floors are Installed

I can't believe it's been 2 weeks since I last posted.

I've been meaning to, but have been busy kicking off a new business.

I launched my Longaberger Basket business the end of January and have been trying to learn all the ropes.

Everything here at the house and on the blog have been at a standstill while I figure out what I'm doing and try to get off to a good start.

For those of you who don't know, I will be selling baskets and pottery, like these:

Source

Source

Source

I was first introduced to Longaberger in 1993.  My soon to be sister-in-law was selling and I fell in love with the baskets.  I started collecting all I could get my hands on and my in-laws were great about getting me a basket for my birthday and Christmas.  It only seemed right that after 18 years, I would start selling them.

So, before my new business adventure, we did manage to get our hardwood floors installed in the master bedroom and hallway.  We looked and looked for what kind of floors we were going to put upstairs.  We wanted something to kinda match the floors downstairs but weren't certain that we wanted to go with 3/4 inch hardwoods.  Our kids bedrooms have a laminate on them, because kids spill stuff, we didn't want to go with anything too expensive.  We were not planning on replacing the floors in the kids rooms so we wanted something that wouldn't be too much thicker than what was in their bedrooms.

We decided to go with a locking laminate (which looks like real hardwoods) and we put a nice padding under it.

We started by clearing all the furniture out of our bedroom that we could.  Of course, we couldn't take down the bed, we still needed a place to sleep at night, so we just had to work around it.

We then put down all the padding.  It had a sticky strip that held the pieces together so it wouldn't move as we walked on it.

Once the padding was down, hubby took some time to measure and lay out the part that would flow from the hallway into the master bedroom.  We wanted a clean line looking from the hallway into the bedroom and vice versa.

We're pretty sure you would have been able to tell had it ended up even just a little bit crooked.

We started in the hallway right at the top of the stairs.  This part took some time with all the cuts that were needed.

We then extended it straight into the master bedroom.  We pushed the bed and my big dresser to one side and worked the wood toward the other direction until that side was finished.

Once all the corner cuts were finished, the process actually moved fairly quickly.  Each row, we only had to make 1 or 2 cuts.

After that side was finished, we moved the dresser and bed to the other side of the room and put down that padding.

That side really went fast.  We had become sorta pros at this point and luckily we didn't have anymore of those crazy corner cuts like in the hallway.

I was so excited to get them done and I love the way my curtains look with the new floors.  We still have to put down the quarter round and get the furniture put back but this is a huge improvement.

I'll be sure to share the finished room very soon.