A very HAPPY week....

It is spring break, so no subbing. A great creative week (but unfortunately, not a paying week).

It may have been a rainy, cool week, but I don't think I've had such a good week in quite awhile. I got to work on a TON of projects that got my creative juices flowing and I found out that two of my photos are going to appear in Kansas! magazine. I couldn't be more excited.

Here are a few things that stood out as making my week extra happy:

Working on my photos

I spent the last few days getting my photographs ready for my April show at Radina's (Aggieville location).

Flowers on a window sill

Last weekend we had a small dinner party, so I went to Dillon's and spent about $14 on 2 bouquets of flowers.

I took the bouquets apart and made my own arrangements in a variety of vases.

They filled about 10 vases, which are now scattered around the house and still going strong!

Signs of Spring!!!!

Blooming redbuds

Dazzling tulips

Bushes of peach flowers

And the hint of the lilacs to come

Being completely caught up on Mad Men!

I am completely addicted! I have always loved the 60's and I feel this is an honest peak into what life was like then (at least on Madison Avenue). I especially love the clothes and decor. I spent the last month watching the first 4 seasons so I could go into the new season knowing what was going on. Ike is baffled at how I can watch so many episodes of one show in such a short time (I usually watched while doing other things around the house.)

Heavy Cream....

I know it is not the most healthy thing, but seriously, adding heavy cream to just about anything, makes it better. It makes me incredibly happy.

Anyway, those are just a few of the things that made my spring break spectacular!

Before and After...

What better way to show the progress of something (and all the hard work it took to get there!) than before and after photos?

I absolutely adore before and afters. One of the design/DIY blogs I read, I read partly because of their awesome before and afters (of rooms or furniture) (but also because of their great DIY projects and the sneak peaks they offer into other 'designy' homes, sometimes a little too 'designy', but still neat.)

Well, I may have mentioned on here before that Ike and I are renovating an old (built in 1910) house. It is really about a 10 year project with all the ideas we have of what we want it to be. We didn't even live in it the first five months we owned it so that we could get the upstairs done before we moved in (the downstairs, with the exception of the kitchen, hasn't even been touched). Of course we didn't spend five months just adding a few coats of paint and a spruce up here and there. Oh no. Countless things were done like rewiring, re-mudding the walls, redoing the floors, building new closets (whose trim matches the original trim because Ike is an artist!), sanding EVERYTHING, etc.

And lucky for me, I took before photos and after photos, and it really is astounding what a great job my sweetheart did (with a little help from me!) I can't wait to see what the rest of the house will look like! So here are our before and afters (with little explanations where needed). Oh, and before you even ask, NO, none of our ideas came from pintrest (since this is a happiness blog, I will refrain from venting about pintrest).

This is our little back porch.

My niece said, "Wow, that is a small garage." I replied, "It's not our garage, it's our back porch." She said, "Well, it smells like a garage."

Ike just built me this little gardening bench out of wood we found in an old building outside of town.

This is the upstairs hallway looking North. No art up here, yet.

The upstairs hallway looking South to the little reading nook.

My favorite part of the whole house, our little reading nook.

We had stripped off the wall paper and decided to leave it as an homage to the history of the house.

I've already spent a few rainy days curled up with a good book!

This is technically the guest bedroom, but we are using it as our living room/guest bedroom.

The actual living room downstairs is our spray room/work room right now.

We tore out the closet and Ike built a new one. We found the doors for it down in the basement, they were original to the house.

We had sanded them down and decided to leave them like that.

This is our bedroom. We love having so much natural light streaming in.

We tore out the little closet and made the entire North wall into a closet.

We lucked out and found these doors at Te-La-Re, here in town. They matched the house's original doors.

Ike built the closets to exactly match the original trim of the house.

Eventually we will renovate the kitchen. Ike wanted to leave it alone, but I had to get rid of that blue paint!

So proud of my find. We got the refrigerator for $9. It works great! Just had to be cleaned up. Suckers!

I also wanted to share a few of my favorite little thing in the kitchen...

These wine boxes work perfectly as shelves for our cook books.

We attached these bread tins to the cabinet to hold all of our fruit.

My dad made this trash receptacle for us. It is made entirely out of materials from the old barn that stood at my parents' house.

Last year, a tornado knocked it to the ground, so my dad salvaged as much wood and hardware as he could.

Even the nails he used to build it are originals from the barn.

It is a really special piece. I loved that old barn.

Anyway, that is a little peak into our home....before and after. I won't even show you the rest of the house because it is all before!

I'll show you the rest of the 'afters' when I have them...in 10 years!

Grilled Eggplant Salad

I have never worked with eggplant before. I've eaten it (and loved it!), but I've never cooked with it. Mostly because it looks like some kind weird Dr. Seuss egg.

Well, a few weeks ago, Ike and I were getting groceries and decided to pick one new piece of produce that we've never really used in a recipe before. So, I decided to face my fears, and picked the eggplant.

These last few weeks have been absolutely gorgeous (especially for 'winter' in Kansas, hello 78 degrees!!!), so grilling seemed appropriate. And this is the wonderful (and incredibly easy, and incredibly healthy, AND incredibly delicious) recipe I found courtesy of the grill master himself, Bobby Flay.

Grilled Eggplant Salad

1 eggplant, cut into 1-inch thick slices

1 large red onion, cut into rounds

Canola oil

1 avocado, halved, pitted and flesh chopped

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon coarsely chopped oregano leaves

Honey

Olive Oil

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 lemon, zested

Parsley sprigs, for garnish

Brush the eggplant and red onions with canola oil and arrange on the grill. Cook the eggplant until soft and grill the onions until they have a slight char. Remove from the grill to a cutting board and let cool slightly. Once cool, roughly chop and add them to a serving bowl along with the avocado.

In a small bowl, whisk together the red wine vinegar, the Dijon, and oregano. Add honey and olive oil, to taste, and blend until emulsified. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Add dressing to the eggplant mixture and toss. Garnish with lemon zest and parsley sprigs.

See I told you, super easy! And really there isn't much better than grilled onions!

We ate this as our meal and between the two of us, ate it right up. The grilled eggplant had a nice meaty quality, so you won't miss any heartiness. (If you were serving it as a side it could probably serve four people.)

I grilled up some naan bread to go along with it (another grilling favorite).

Looking at the forecast for next week (high 70s and low 80s) it looks like more grilling will be in order! Here comes Spring!!!

Grin and Bear It

One of my favorite book series growing up (and still to this day) was/is The Berenstain Bears. We had dozens and dozens of them and I'm still collecting them today.

Each book was so simple and beautiful. There was always a nice moral to help children understand certain things about life (it might do many adults well to read some of them!):

When cubs start to twitch

or to scratch or to nibble

what they need is some help,

not a lecture or quibble.

-from "The Berenstain Bears and the Bad Habit"

One's sense of self-worth

is often undone

the first time one feels

left out of the fun

-from "The Berenstain Bears and the In-Crowd"

"Please" and "Thank you"

Help quite a lot

To make a polite bear

Out of one who is not.

-from "The Berenstain Bears Forget Their Manners"

When the TV is on

All day without rest,

Mama knows it's too much-

And Mama knows best.

-from "The Berenstain Bears and Too Much TV

When Bear Country's cubs

learn pollution's a fact,

they help grownups learn

to clean up their act.

-from "The Berenstain Bears Don't Pollute (Anymore)

Mama Bear was always so wise in how she helped the cubs find the answer to their problems. I really hope that this is a series that will stand the test of time.

As we mourn the loss this past week of The Berenstain Bears' creator, Jan Berenstain, make it a point to introduce a child in your life to the Berenstain Bears (I've started my niece reading The Spooky Old Tree, my personal favorite and she loves it!)

Thank you for your wonderful stories Jan!