Countertop Renovation

Well, when the husband is away, the wife will renovate... Matt told me while we were dating that when his grandpa was away at Daytona, it wasn't unusual for his grandma to renovate, add on to, or do updates to the house. Well, I suppose I am starting small, but I decided to take care of our kitchen countertops. They were kinda icky. So here it goes!

When we moved in the house, the kitchen counters were a fabulous shade of light blue with yellow bleach stains. I tried to find an old picture but I couldn't find one. Just use your imagination...

About 15 months ago, I got a kit from Lowes that was a paint cover-up for formica countertops. It looked fabulous. It was a dark brown that complimented the red/beige kitchen. And then about 3 months later it started chipping away. :(

Well, after much google-age, I found that I obviously couldn't afford new "real" countertops, but there are many blogs, videos, tutorials, etc. that showed you how to create faux granite counter tops. All you needed was acrylic craft paint, papertowels, and a sealant. It seemed too good to be true, but then I kept finding more posts that backed up this insane claim. The dark brown paint I had used before, had a primer in it, so I opted to use it as the base rather than priming the entire countertop. Here is what it looked like all taped up and ready to go. I started by cleaning the entire counters within an inch of their lives.

When I started painting, I started with the darkest color. I picked three brown in the craft aisle at Walmart that complimented eachother, a dark, a medium, and a light brown. Then I also bought a metallic gold to highlight with. The picture below is with the darkest brown... It was slightly terrifying... sponging away with a wadded up paper towel.

Here is after the second brown (medium brown was added) It was a caramel-like color.

And now here is what it looked like with one layer of each color.

Yikes! It looked like a disaster. From here you just keep layering the same colors over and over until it gets where you want it to be. Some of the blogs I read suggested trying to match your colors and style to granite samples... I just went for it.

It's as simple as that, wad up a paper towel and dab at the counters with each color, changing to a new paper towel one the old one gets dense and soaked in paint.

Getting closer.

The above and below pics are when I was done completely with the acrylic craft paint. It is kind of dull, and un-granite like since it hasn't been sealed.

I then used polycrylic sealant, gloss finish, to coat the countertops. I just followed the instructions on the can. One coat of sealant, sand it down after a few hours, then add the remaining layers. The can recommended 3 layers, I did 5 ... using the whole can. I figured it was the kitchen and the extra traffic it wouldn't hurt to have some extra buffer.

Here is the finished product after being sealed and adding everything back in.

Close up of the pattern. I like it a lot.

 

What do you think? I will be 100% happy with it if it remains durable. Here's hoping. Also hoping Matt loves it ... haven't told him! We will know soon!

Egg Droppin'

I had several folks send me facebook messages asking how I made egg drop soup. Well,  let me be very clear, that I did not come up with this on my own. I just happen to be able to follow directions. :)

I decided a few weeks ago that I would begin following the paleo diet, so the original recipe came from a paleo diet website. However, I have to be very careful of my cholesterol right now according to my doc, so I'm not following it strictly (because of all the meat). I'm eating a ton of fresh fruits and veggies, and learning about paleo is showing me how to cook with natural ingredients -- so hopefully that will help as well. I just can't do a ton of meat right now. Side note, the doc says I'm very healthy otherwise! I want to fight against some of the genes given to me and take care of myself! I don't want any heart issues later on down the road.

Anyway, what can beat a bowl of egg drop soup when your Chinese food craving kicks in?

Here is the link to the original recipe if you are interested. Then I will show you what I did.

My Recipe's Ingredients:

• 1/2 medium yellow onion, diced
• 2 celery stalks, diced 
• 1 Tbs Olive Oil (I didn't have coconut oil from the original... I do now and will try it next time around)
• 8 Cups Water
• 6 Beef Boullin Cubes (to make broth -- I didn't have chicken flavored from the original)
• 1/4 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tbsp balsamic vingegar
• 1/4 tbsp white wine vinegar -- not sure where all the random vinegar came from in my pantry, but I used the above two vinegars in place of coconut aminos
• 1/4 tsp flax oil (I had flax oil <for heart health> and Matt is allergic to sesame and the original called for sesame oil)
• 3 Tbsp cornstarch + 4 Tbsp water (I didn't have arrowroot powder, and cornstarch IS NOT paleo, but I needed a thickener)
• 6 eggs (Next time, I will use egg beaters. I know, gross (and NOT paleo/natural), but I am trying to eliminate cholesterol where I can)

Directions:

Finely dice the onion and celery, and saute in the bottom of your soup pot in the olive oil for about 15 minutes on med low heat, until the veggies are translucent-ish

While veggies are cooking, boil your water and dissolve the boillin to make broth.

When veggies are done add the broth and bring to a boil. While heating add the ginger, vinegars and flax oil.

Dissolve the cornstarch in the water in a small bowl. Do this before adding into the soup to prevent clumping.

While heating the soup, whisk up eggs. After soup has boiled about 5 minutes, start adding the whisked eggs a little at a time. I did mine in three sets about 3 to 5 minutes apart. Megan and I were setting the table and such while the eggs cooked.

After the last of the eggs were added I left it about 3 more minutes then put it on the table with a ladle.

Hopefully that was clear as mud. You can probably change any of the oils to another flavor. You can also use chicken broth rather than beef. I'm all about using what I have on hand. Like I said before, this wasn't truly paleo, but it was a start. You can see the original recipe at the link at the top of this entry. Mine was really tasty and it was even good reheated as leftovers the next day.

Fame and War

Well, if you have read my first post, you know that I promised I was going to write a lot. Well you can obviously see that this is the first post since January. I guess if it's as important to me as I thought it would be, I would make more time for it.

I do enjoy blogging, however, I have just entered the world of having 2 children, and it has been the craziest thing I have ever done... And I'm sure all the many mothers of multiple children are smirking or laughing out loud at the remembrance of embarking on such a journey... but more on that later!

Since my last post was about Megan's (my pearl) name, I thought this one should be about our newest addition, Katelynn Louise.

As you may remember names are important to me. I know in bible times people used to give their children names that had a meaning that resembled their personalities. However, living in the 21st century we have to be quicker on the draw, you know social security numbers, etc. and name them quickly. So we needed to use a name that had a great meaning. My husband likes using family names as the middle name, so since Megan has a family middle name, we wanted to do the same. Megan's middle name is after Matt's grandmother, Julie.


Katelynn, has approximately 293,847,928,347 different spellings and we debated the spelling of her name for quite some time... but we figured the two names "Kate" and "Lynn" put together was the most straight forward. Katelynn means "pure" -- and as the mother of a daughter, I can't think of many other lessons that are more important than the lesson of purity, and don't mean just sexually. (Although that will be an important lesson later) You are handed this beautiful baby, and you love them so much and even the thought of something bad happening to them is terribly frightening. You wish you could shield them from all things bad, but you know it can never be that way living in a sinful world. The best you can do is to lead by example, bring them up in a Godly home, and teach the importance of a holy and pure life. That's one of the reasons we wanted to use the name Katelynn. It's such a vital part of life, why not build it directly into her name?

Katelynn's middle name is Louise. Her middle name is my Granny's middle name as well. Not only is her middle name a family name, but it means "fame and war" or "strong warrior" -- at least those are the most common translations that I have found. Something Matt and I have talked about a lot in our relationship, partly because of his occupation and training, is war. Whether it is the current war our nation is fighting or the war that Christians are engaged in throughout the world, and how we firmly believe that we are going to have to be extremely rooted and outfitted in the armor of God to withstand the coming years, even here in America. If it is going to be tough for us, it is going to be even harder place to live as a Christian for our children. That's a scary thought to new parents for sure.


Unintentionally, we saw later that Katelynn is a derivative of the name "Katherine" which also happens to be my Granny's first name... So we essentially used my grandmother's entire name without realizing it! But I digress.

So to tie up the loose ends, we want Katelynn to be a warrior, maybe not literally, but a warrior for her LORD. If she is to have fame, we want it to be for her strength and stand in the LORD, for holiness and purity in a world that severely lacks it.

Hopefully that makes sense to you. It makes sense in my head. I'm not a fantastic writer, but I like to put them out there. In other news, Katelynn so far in her 9 weeks, has been quite the warrior! She suffers from severe reflux, but her major adversary and foe is SLEEP! She sleeps well at night, but getting her there is a major battle. But I am happy to report that sleep seems to be winning more than Katelynn these past few days. I'm loving my little girl and she is teaching me so much and I haven't really enjoyed all the lessons the Lord is teaching me through her, but I'm better for it. (Remember that verse, "no discipline is pleasant at the time... and the other, "God disciplines those he loves") But I will save those lessons for another post. Hopefully it will come sooner than later.

P.S. -- Megan is pretty much the best big sister EVER!

Pearls

My daughter brings me so much joy. It's hard to believe how much time has passed already since she came into our lives. I go to work and see kids that are already in school and think... oh my goodness, she isn't going to be a baby forever!

I have always said that you realize when you are pregnant that you are going to have a baby in your arms soon. And somehow, no matter how prepared you think you are, you are never prepared for them to grow up. Even though you know in your brain that you will have them under your roof for the foreseeable future, you don't ever see that far. At least I hadn't! I celebrate all the milestones... but she's still a baby to me... and I suppose she always will be in my eyes.

We were at church on Sunday, and because of all the illness going around, we did not have nursery care. It was fine, one of our great friends has no trouble watching her in the sanctuary, and she is pretty good and not very disruptive. Anyway, I looked back to the back of the sanctuary where they were sitting and the first song began and as I was leading the congregation I saw my little princess raising her hands and moving her lips along with others around her. I don't know how much she understands but it just warmed my heart to see her raising her hands and participating in worshipping in song. I had to hold back the tears from where I stood.

When Megan was born, we didn't name her until after her birth. We knew the gender, but we waited until we met her face-to-face before we gave her a name. (And we will be doing the same for the second Connor baby! Although we aren't publicly announcing the gender because we have family and friends that want to be surprised. You can message me if you really want to know as long as you can keep the cat in the bag!) Back to what I was saying, Megan wasn't named until birth. It was a name we had only considered once or twice before-hand. As soon as she was born and they handed her to us, Matt looked at me and said, How about Megan? (We already had a good idea what her middle name would be) I said, ok, she's perfect. We couldn't have been more right in our name choice! Name meaning is very important to me. I know so many people that are an accurate depiction of what their name means, and it truly is the first gift that you give your child...
"A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold." Proverbs 22:1 ~ and a name is one of the few things in life that you can't take away from a person.

Megan means "pearl" -- All pearls, from my understanding, are perfectly unique, something that God forms in a dark place inside an oyster. I know every child is a gift and my Megan is no exception. She has so many unique quirks and they all make up my beautiful baby girl.

PSALM 139

¹³ For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
¹⁶     your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
    were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.

I want my baby to know that all her quirks and imperfections are ok because she is absolutely priceless. She is the world to Matt and I. And it's hard to imagine but she is even more so to her heavenly father. I want her to know everyday when she looks in the mirror that she is perfect, flaws and all, and that she is loved by the King. I pray she never settles for anyone or anything in this life short of what God wants for her life. 

Matthew 13:45-46
"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it."

Lastly, my pearl is a reminder that it's my job to bring her up in the fear and knowledge of the Lord, and to protect her.

Matthew 7:6
“Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces."

If you didn't notice, I'm spoiled rotten by my baby. She is full of energy and joy. She is inquisitive and I love watching her grow and learn each day. Maybe it's just the sentimental side of me coming out since I am going to be the mother of two soon, but I just wanted to reflect on some of the thoughts that were going through my head as I was getting her ready for bed this evening. I can't even imagine how I'm going to love two babies as much as I love my Pearl, Megan. But I know the blessings and provisions of my Lord and I know he will give us another wonderful miracle that will be the world to me as well.


So, I suppose that only leaves one question... What in the world will we name the next little one?? I suppose we still have a few weeks to start contemplating names to take with us to the hospital. 

Testing the Waters

Well it appears that I want to attempt to join the blogging world again. We'll see how it all goes!

I have no formal plan for this blog... I have had some family members tell me that I need to document all the blessings in my life as they happen so that I can look back and praise God and share them with my children and family. God has been so good to us, why should I keep it to myself? The title of my blog in and of itself is a reminder to myself that we are given blessings, curses ... all kind of things will be put in our path, but it is our choice as to how we will handle each scenario and if we will choose to truly live or to allow our circumstances to dictate our lives.

I'm sure that I will of course be sharing some random ramblings, possibly some products/recipe reviews, and of course the occassional pinterest success or epic failure.

I would like to think that I would have enough time to update this each day or every other day, but let's just be honest, this is real life and it will probably not happen! Our family is about to grow as well, so I'm sure it will be sporadic once this little one makes their appearance! I hope that you enjoy reading.