Kitchen Makeover

Ever since we moved into our house a few years ago, I never decorated the top of the cabinets. It felt so plain and boring. I really didn't know where to begin on decorating. I wanted to paint the kitchen green like the rest of the house, but the hubby said no. He wanted to paint it an orange color.

So how do you narrow down a color? You pick out all the colors that you like, regardless of the color, then put them on the wall.  It looks something like this.

Every so often we would take down colors that we didn't like, until we got it down to around 3 or 4. One of the colors just so happened to be the orange that we painted it.

As you can tell the background is white with a yellow haze. That's from the wall paper that we took down. Then I bought texture in a can and sprayed the walls. There are 4 walls that we took down the wall paper.

After we got some of the paint up, my parents and grandma came over for thanksgiving. We celebrated it on Friday with them and mom said they would help us decorate the kitchen. I was so excited. I waited several weeks for them to come over and help decorate. Here is what the final look. I need to finish painting but other than that, I think it looks pretty good.

Check it out!!

This is one side of the kitchen. The other cabinets are to the left, just out of the picture.

Here is the other wall of cabinets. I really love how it all came together.

Here is a more detailed look at what's on top.


This is actually a candle holder that I put ivy in and there is still a candle in it. I got that from a lady's Christmas exchange party a few years ago. My mother-in-law bought the home sign for us a year ago. (It says: Home is where your story begins).

I bought the cake plate in East Texas at a Flea Market. The sphere came from TJ Maxx.

I bought the lantern from Big Lots a few years ago. This wall color will be a light tan to match the rest of the house.

Here is the other wall. Again, I need to finish painting.

I got the basket from my mother (which is on loan) and the pears came from TJ Maxx. The greenery came from Hobby Lobby and the owl came from a friend. I was going to make a wreath out of the greenery but I think it looks better here.

This is an old coffee grinder that my mother-in-law gave me when she was cleaning out her house. I love it. It's got some character. 

I don't remember where the square plate came from, but I bought it a few years ago right after getting married. The other plate I bought this week at a resale shop. It came with a cake stand and a larger plate. I gave the stand to my mom as an early Christmas gift.

The bottle came from a friend as a Christmas gift. The white owl came from my mom (it's an early Christmas gift) but she got it at TJ Maxx.

The S came from TJ Maxx as well, but a year ago. I'm going to paint the tray a yellow and then paint a pear on it. The orange owl came from the same friend who got the turquoise owl.

It might be hard to get the whole picture and maybe the unpainted walls don't help, but in person I think it looks good. It certainly looks better than before, with nothing up there. I can't stop staring at it.

Now to finish painting the walls. :)

Monday: Themed Dinner

Over the weekend the Hubby and I went grocery shopping. While we were perusing the meat department, we bought three different types of sausages. One was a kielbasa, bratwurst, and a knackwurst. We cooked four of each along with German potato salad and red cabbage (that was store bought).

It turned out great. I really like that potato salad. It's a warm salad and has bacon in it. You can't beat anything with bacon in it. Bacon just makes everything so much better. I took left overs for lunch and they were still delicious.

Well, this got me thinking. We should have a themed dinner every night this week. What way to spice up dinner than to make each night a different theme of food. So I texted the Hubby to see if he had anything in mind for dinner tonight and he replied back, stir-fry. So tonight I guess is going to be Chinese night.

Here is a picture of the plate. It was as good as it looked.

 

Then it got me thinking again about eating healthy. Not sure where that came from, but it popped in my head. So then I decided that while I was going to eat healthy that I wanted to run a 5K. So now, I'm going to try to eat healthy and get in shape for a 5K.

I know what you are thinking. We're getting close to the holidays. How are you going to make it. Well, here's how. When I think about the holidays I don't eat a lot of sweets. I might have a cookie or two a day, or maybe a slice of pie, but that's about it. I've stopped being a huge sweets person. Don't get me wrong, I love my sweets, but I don't gorge myself on them like I used to. Then when you look at the actual holiday day itself, I don't gorge myself then either. I eat whatever meat we are having, some mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and a role. THEN if I have any room left, I eat a slice of pie. I've really learned the key to moderation.

I also figured that if I do really good, then on those days I can afford to eat an extra slice of pie or cookie.

So, I've decided in order to get into shape for the 5K (whenever I sign up), I will eat healthier (more fruits and veggies than I am now) and start to exercise more. Last year I had an iPhone and downloaded the Couch to 5K app. Then I went to an Android phone. Well, now I'm back to an iPhone and I still have that app. So I reinstalled it on my phone. So I thought I would use that as a starting point to get into shape.

New York: Chittenango Falls / Skaneateles

Yesterday we drove around some more of New York. My father-in-law wanted to take me to Chittenango Falls to see the big waterfall.

It was so cool. You could hear the roar of the waterfall. It was so powerful and thunderous. Is that a word, thunderous? Oh well, it is now. :)

Here are the beautiful pictures of the fall. Again, I played with the aperture to get that silky affect, with the water flowing.

Enjoy!!!!

The top of the falls.

Looking down the falls at the bottom.

Some flowers along the path way.

Some tree limbs that were laying along the river.

We stopped at Beak & Skiff's. It's an apple orchard. You can actually pick apples.

In the silo, they had a gift shop and some bees. You can watch the bees work.

They made a chain off of each other. It's hard to see, but it was cool to see in person.

I saw this owl and thought he was super cute.

Here are the apples you could pick. If you wanted to, you could just buy the apples that were already picked that day.

You could get Apple Cider from them too. And it was delicious.

The apple trees on the property where you can pick apples. 

Then we drove to Skeneateles. 

Then we ate Doug's Fish Fry.

We saw these boats in the dock. One said Wood Not and the other said Wood Too.

The night sky over looking the bridge we walked out on.