Kari's Blog

Well…the end of summer is in sight, and the beginning of another school year is approaching. As I lay in bed last night, trying desperately to fall asleep, all I could think about was how I still have a very long to-do list and have not checked anything off of it yet. It made me feel very depressed and also made me wonder….”what did I do all summer long?” How could I have not accomplished anything on my list???

So, as I awoke this morning, I had a new found zeal for achieving my goal and checking off every item from my list before the summer ends. Today I decided to tackle the closets in our house. We have 5 closets upstairs and most of them are unorganized, messy, and really just drive me crazy. Most days I try not to think of them…but today, they got the better of me! I started with the closet that holds our Christmas decorations, my memories from High School, games, and all of our china (that is still in boxes…pathetic, I know) and other platters/party trays from our wedding. As I looked at the closet I became very sad because I have no idea what to do with all that china! I hate that it is just sitting in the boxes, it seems like they take up so much space! But, I do not have a china cabinet, and there is absolutely no room in our kitchen cabinets to store it. Does anybody have any brilliant ideas on how I can store it all without keeping it in the boxes?

As soon as I realized that there was not much I could do with that closet until I solve the china dilemma I quickly closed that door and decided to tackle a closet I would have more success with.

We have a tiny, oddly shaped linen closet that is also upstairs. At one point, it was neat and orderly, but when our old refrigerator decided to die, and the delivery guys came to pick it up and water spilled out everywhere all over the kitchen floor, and I had to run upstairs and pull out as many towels as possible to clean the water, it suddenly became a very unorganized, messy, oddly shaped  linen closet. I also chose to ignore that closet for a while, but alas, it too has gotten the better of me. I pulled everything out, reorganized, refolded and made alot more space! Whoohoo! Closet #2= Success!!!

nicely organized linen closet

After the success of the linen closet I decided to move onto the 2 closets in the guest room.  When Andrew and I got married and I moved into the townhouse we realized that we had two sets of almost everything. I had tons of decorations from my apartment, plus all the decorations we got from our wedding registry. Most of those have been stored in boxes, and over the months I have riffled through them and made them a complete mess.

As I started pulling out stuff from the closets I was amazed at how much I had jammed in there. Andrew also stored 4 boxes full of stuff that he will have to go through. Most of the things in the closets I have no idea what to do with. There are alot of things that I want to keep for a little longer because when we get a house it will be nice to have extra decorations.

Here are several pictures of how I clean….who knew cleaning could be so messy!!

stuff from the closets

Hopefully by the end of the week Andrew and I will have gone through his boxes and the guest room will be back in order!

Oh! As I was looking through my box of wedding stuff I found a CD that I had never seen (or did not remember seeing) or listened to. So I popped it into my computer and was overjoyed to find that it was a recording of our wedding ceremony! I listened to the whole thing…..it was so neat to hear our vows again….needless to say I needed several tissues after I finished listening.

One more thing…..have I mentioned that I love Sonic???? It just thrills me when I can get a large Diet Dr. Pepper (or as I call it, DDP) for 86 cents.

See how happy I am? Thank you Sonic.

Our vacation in words:

For our one year anniversary Andrew and I decided to celebrate at the Hyatt Lost Pines in Bastrop. Sunday morning (our actual anniversary) we got up and recreated our first breakfast we had in Hawaii. It consisted of homemade pancakes, omelets, tropical fruit salad and a delicious surprise of Coconut syrup. That was something we both fell in love with in Hawaii. It was a delicious breakfast, but sadly I was so wrapped up in eating it, I did not get any pictures of it.

After breakfast we were on our way to Bastrop. The rest of the story consists of eating, relaxing, swimming, sleeping, eating and repeating all that as needed. The Hyatt was absolutely wonderful and we enjoyed every minute of being there. I would recommend that resort to anyone who wants to get away and relax.

When we came back on Wednesday,  Andrew and I decided to do somethign fun for the rest of the week. We slept in, went to a Bible Museum at HBU, went shopping for Andrew, had lunch with some friends and did our fair share of eating.  I mean, it’s vacation, you have to eat alot!

Our vacation in pictures:

On our way to the Hyatt!

Here are some pics of the grounds….they really do not do it justice

ahh..the wonderful lazy river

our fancy pants anniversary dinner

Magnolia Cafe (a restaurant we found watching Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives)

Coffee at Mozart's

silly

Green Mesquite (other restaurant seen on "Triple D")

Before we stuffed our faces at Green Mesquite

You know it’s been a great vacation when you come back with pants that are just a little bit tighter…according to my pants  it was a wonderful vacation!

Andrew and I decided that we needed some special goodies for our vacation. So, we made our list, checked it twice, and made sure there was nothing on it that would be of nutritional value. I mean, really, it’s just wrong to eat healthy on a vacation. So today at HEB I was almost finished with my shopping and decided to check the basket and make sure I had gotten everything on my list. As I’m looking at the basket I couldn’t help but start laughing because the amount of junk food that we bought was almost ridiculous. It basically looked like a little kid was let loose in the store and was allowed to buy anything they wanted……it’s going to be a good vacation people!

My parents are coming to visit tomorrow after mom’s dr. appointment. I am really looking forward to seeing them.

Can I just say how addicted I am to the Next Food Network Star? It comes on every Sunday and around 8:30 you can find me glued to the couch. I CAN’T WAIT to see who wins! Watch it….I know you’ll like it.

Tonight I decided to cook chicken and sausage jambalaya. The recipe looked promising (and easy) and Andrew has been asking for some type of “cajun” meal for a while.

So I start chopping and cooking and mixing and get the whole meal put together really easily. I’m thinking, “ok, this is great…it smells good and it was easy, this is going to be a great meal!”

In the recipe it says to cook it for 40 minutes in a dutch oven at 350. It has uncooked rice in it so of course it has to go that long. So after I stick it in the oven I sit back, relax and wait for the miracle of jambalaya to occur!

40 minutes later I pull out the dutch oven to check on it. It smells amazing and my mouth starts to water until I look inside and see tiny little pieces of rice. It has not cooked!!!! So what does any girl who’s hungry (and impatient) do? Stick it on the burner, high heat, and cook the tar out of that rice!

Finally, after 25 more minutes the rice cooks. It was an ordeal, and a lesson learned: never rely on the cooking times from fancy pants ovens.

You might be asking yourself now…”was it worth it? All that trouble?” Believe me y’all….it was.

So now, thanks to my wonderful dutch oven and Southern Living, we will have jambalaya until Christmas.

This 4th of July Andrew and I spent the day with my Aunt Becky, Uncle Bill and several other various family members at their lake house.

It was so great to have a little get away, relax and swim. We spent most of the afternoon alternating between swimming in the lake, eating and more swimming.

Ben (my cousin) put on quite the fireworks display for everyone. I have never seen so many boxes of fireworks. And we’re not talking about your typical black cats, roman candles and sparkles. These were like the real deal. Like, “stand up and cheer y’all! We just got a free, professional show!”

Anyway..it was a great day and a great weekend. Now, I must get to my working out, cleaning, showering, laundering, busy summer.

Today I was in Target (oh, let’s have a moment of silence for Target) doing a little shopping and I found several things that I needed to try on. I head over to the dressing room and when I walk in I see this older man sitting outside waiting on someone. He had on a T-shirt that said, “This is what the world’s greatest Grandpa looks like.” Needless to say, he was a super cute old dude. I proceed onto my dressing room and start trying on my clothes.

I start to hear a woman talking to someone saying things like, “do you want to try on this swimsuit now? Oh…it looks so nice.” So I”m starting to guess that the woman is a Grandma and is with her granddaughter. So the little girl goes out of the dressing room to show her Grandpa and then it happened….the sweetest thing I have ever heard…the Grandpa starts “oohing and aahing” over his granddaughter telling her how cute she looks in her swimsuit. It was so sincere and sweet…and I just knew that that little girl was glowing.

This happened once more with another swimsuit and I almost burst out of the dressing room to meet that wonderful man. (of course I restrained myself) So many times you hear parents or whoever else griping at their kids (especially while shopping) and it was just so nice to hear that Grandpa treat his Granddaughter with such love and adoration.

THEN after that wonderful, sweet conversation I hear, from a totally different lady, “Oh…..come on honey (talking to her son) we need to go…Mommy is SO FAT. Her booty is really getting big, it can’t fit into any of these clothes!

Oh Target, you clothe me and entertain me all at one time. It doesn’t get much better than that!