Happy 17th Birthday, Ashley!

One positive about being the youngest sibling, BY FAR (the next closest sibling to me in age is 11 years older) is that my nieces are somewhat close to my age.  Yesterday, my niece, Ashley, turned 17 years old.  I still can’t believe it!

I remember very vividly when she looked like this.  I believe this is her 2nd birthday, and from the looks of it, she is really enjoying that cake!  The funny thing about Ashley and her 2 sisters is that they all have different hair colors.  Nicole, the oldest has light blonde hair.  Ashley, as you can see, has dark brown hair.  And Alyssa, the youngest, has beautiful red hair.

Here we are rubbing each other’s shoulders after my brother Erik (in red) finished his first LA Marathon.  I think this picture was taken about 8 or 9 years ago.  It’s funny that my mom (left), my sister-in-law Stacey (middle), and I are all at least 15 pounds lighter now than when this picture was taken.  My mom is actually more like 30 pounds lighter.  She amazes me!  Stacey amazes me too with her Bar Method body!  She is in the best shape of her life.  I’m working on it….I have a wedding dress to look good in!

Ashley has always loved hanging out with the “older” girls, and I can specifically remember one instance when I was babysitting her and a couple of her friends.  I drove them to get some lunch at McDonalds, and I heard Ashley say to her friend, “Isn’t my aunt the coolest?”  That made me feel so special.  Especially as a 17 year old, myself.

And now Ashley is 17!  My how the time flies!

Ashley, you’ve grown into such a beautiful young lady!  I hope you had an amazing birthday!  Keep blessing people with your smile and sweet spirit.  Love you, girl!

~Aunt Joanna

Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Blondies

I love peanut butter!  I’m the type that could eat a whole spoonful (or 2) of peanut butter and say, “More please!”  It’s not a surprise that my favorite chocolate candy is Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.  So when I discovered these delectable treats on Bake at 350, I just knew I had to try them out.  I knew the girls at my Thursday night Bible study wouldn’t mind being my guinea pigs, and they were such a hit that I decided to make them again on Saturday night for our dinner at our friends Connie and Jason’s house.  The way I described these when someone asked what they were is, “They’re like a chocolate chip, peanut butter cookie in the shape of a brownie.”  Yum!

Here’s what you’ll need:

  • 6 tbsp unsalted butter
  • 1/2 cup chunky peanut butter (or you can certainly use smooth peanut butter if you don’t want whole peanuts in your blondies)
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 cup chocolate chips (semi-sweet)

Start by whisking flour, salt, and baking powder together in a medium bowl.

In another, larger bowl, add your peanut butter and softened butter.

Mix until thoroughly combined.  (Note: I accidentally put my butter in the microwave for too long and it was completely melted.  That’s why the butter and peanut butter mixture looks so runny.  It turned out fine, but next time I made sure to only soften my butter, not completely melt it.)

Next, add your sugars.

And mix thoroughly with your peanut butter mixture.

Add your eggs one at a time and mix until combined.  You’ll want to scrape the sides of the bowl to make sure there are no stray ingredients that would rather stick to the bowl than combine with all the other ingredients.

Next, add the flour mixture.

And mix until combined.

Next comes the best part….the chocolate!!  Unfortunately I only had about a half a cup of chocolate chips in my freezer, so mine weren’t as chocolaty as they could have been.  But they were still good!  Fold in the chocolate chips with your spoon or spatula.

Grease an 8×8 baking dish and pour in your batter, spreading evenly.  You’ll definitely want to lick any extra batter off your spoon/beaters/bowl.  Then try not to finish off the unbaked batter in your baking dish.  I know you’ll want to, but a little restraint is good sometimes. 🙂

Bake at 350° for 30-32 min.  Let it cool completely before you cut into squares.  At the Bible study we cut into it when it was still pretty warm and it was VERY gooey!  Didn’t matter to us, though.  We ended up scooping it out and eating it with spoons since we couldn’t wait for it to cool completely.  And, this is why I don’t have any pictures of the finished product for you.  For one thing, I had to rush out the door right when the timer on the oven beeped so that I would make it on time to Bible study, and secondly, I didn’t have my camera with me when we cut into it.  So you’ll just have to settle for the beautiful picture that Bridget took for her Bake at 350 blog.  If you haven’t checked it out yet, I highly recommend popping on over there sometime and spending hours looking through all her amazing cookies and baked goods.  You can get to her site by clicking on either of the links at the top of this post, or you can find her in the “Blogs I’m Following” section on the right of my blog.

Enjoy!  I know you will!

The Smoke House Rehab (Part 2)

It’s been a LONG weekend of rehabbing the Smoke House, but we are finally making some great progress!  Rustin & Elizabeth helped us ALOT on Friday and Saturday, and then Steve and I worked by ourselves on Sunday.  We were able to clean most of the kitchen, rip out all the carpets, and clean all the bathrooms.  (Steve generously assigned the bathroom cleaning project to me).  The bedrooms, hallway, and living room are ready to have their baseboards cleaned, and then all that’s left is to paint and put down new carpeting.  We’re still contemplating if we want to leave the vinyl floors in the bathroom or replace them with tile.  The vinyl doesn’t look too bad, but we’ll probably end up replacing it with tile so that it matches the entryway and kitchen.  Might as well make everything the same, right?

The kitchen has been an adventure.  Elizabeth and I spent the entire day on Saturday cleaning the cabinets and counters.  And what a task that was!  But the difference is amazing!!  Just look for yourself!

They look like brand new cabinets!  And when we add the new hardware, the transformation will be complete.

Here’s a before and after of the drawers in the kitchen.  I’m still surprised at how clean we were able to get them.  Bleach mixed in water is clearly our friend!

The fridge still needs to be cleaned out, and let me tell you, I am NOT looking forward to it.  And yes, I know it’ll be me that has the lovely task of cleaning this beast because there is no way Steve will come near it.  Did I mention that he found a vial of blood in the freezer?  Yah, talk about gagging!

Here’s another look at the nasty cabinets.

Here’s a nice butt shot of Steve scraping the carpet staples off the sub-floor in the master bedroom.

Here’s that awesome shot again of the clean freezer and dirty fridge.  The whole outside of the fridge is clean now.  I just have the dreaded inside left to do.

Here’s the hallway leading from the entryway to the bedrooms and guest bathroom.  The sub-floor is now completely cleared of all the carpet debris and thoroughly vacuumed, as are all the bedrooms.  I didn’t take any pictures today with all the blue carpet cushion stuff gone and all the rooms vacuumed, so just pretend that it is. 🙂

Bedroom #1

Bedroom #2

Master Bedroom.  Those wooden carpet tacking strips are gone now.

Living room.  All the trash and wooden strips are gone, and it’s ready to be painted!  We’re going to sand down the fireplace and paint it white.  It used to be white, but now has a yellow tinge from all the cigarette smoke.  Pretty much every wooden surface in the house has a yellow tinge.

I can’t believe how far we’ve progressed after only 3 days!  Here’s what we have left to do:

  • Wash baseboards and crown molding and paint white
  • Paint walls
  • Sand and paint fireplace
  • Finish cleaning kitchen
  • Rip up vinyl floors in kitchen and bathrooms and replace with tile
  • Install hardwood floors in living room and hallway
  • Install new carpet in bedrooms
  • Hire an HVAC guy to come and assess the AC/Heater and clean out all the ducts
  • Hire tree removal service to cut down 2 VERY large evergreen trees in the backyard that serve no purpose.
  • Redo the front porch (it’s sinking)
  • Replace all hardware and light fixtures
  • Mow yard and clean up the landscaping
  • Pressure wash all the siding on the outside of the house
  • Pressure wash deck, and seal

It seems like a long list, but really I think we’re in the home stretch.  We’ll probably only be working on it for a few more weekends.  At least I hope!  If any of you have done remodeling or rehabbing projects and have any tips or advice, we’d really appreciate it!

Sneak Peek of Tomorrow’s Post

I’m very tired from today’s cleaning adventures, so I’m going to postpone today’s post of our rehabbing the Smoke House until tomorrow.  But here’s a sneak peak of just how dirty it was, and how clean we were able to get it.  I still cant believe: (1) that someone could live like this, and (2) that we could get it so clean!

Look how clean the freezer looks compared to the fridge!

Clean drawers on the top and far right, and nasty ones below.  Every single cabinet and drawer looked like this.  I still don’t get it.  Did he urinate or vomit all over the kitchen every day?  He must have really tried hard to get it this dirty.

Much more to come tomorrow.  Stay tuned!

The Smoke House Rehab (Part 1)

About 2 years ago, Steve and I bought a couple investment properties in Memphis, TN.  At the time, we thought it was a great investment.  I mean, where else can you buy a house for $30,000 and rehab it for only about $10,000 and then rent it out for a nice profit every month?  Well, it wasn’t as easy as we thought.  First of all, finding decent tenants in Memphis is no easy task.  Our first set of tenants in our duplex hardly ever paid rent or even their utilities, and after not paying for over 3 months, we had to finally evict them.  That meant that we had to spend at least another $1,500 to fix it up again for the next tenants.  We fired our first property management company since they were not at all up to par with our standards, and hired what we thought was a better property management team.  Well, they weren’t really that much better.  After finding some more tenants for the duplex and one other single family home that we own, they never followed up with the tenants to make sure they put the utilities in their name.  So for over 3 months, we received and had to pay their utility bills.  When we confronted the property management company about this, their response was, “Well we sent them a bill every month, they just haven’t paid or called us back.”  Go over there and get the money yourself you idiots!!!

So, as you can see, Memphis investing has not gone as well as we had hoped, so now we’ve started investing in real estate here in Nashville.  This way we can manage the properties ourselves and if a tenant isn’t paying, we’ll know right away and will be able to take matters into our own hands.  Also, if something needs to be fixed, we’ll know exactly how much it costs to fix it, instead of our property management company pulling a number out of their butt and then pocketing the rest.

We closed on our first Nashville investment property this week, and today we started the cleanup.  And all I can say is “WOW!”  When you walk through the front door the cigarette smell just smacks you in the face.  Not only did the previous owner chain smoke cigarettes and cigars in the house, but he was a hoarder, and generously left tons of his trash for us to clean up.

When we first looked at the house before we had officially purchased it, the previous owner was still living there and hadn’t cleaned anything out yet.  There were things stacked literally 3 feet high everywhere we looked.  It was as if this guy hadn’t cleaned or threw anything away since he bought the house several years ago.  And the smell!!  It was enough to make you sick.  After 2 minutes in that house I had to get out.

Luckily, since then the smell had dissipated enough that we could clean up the house without gagging.  Obviously, we opened all the windows and let it air out while we were cleaning.  Here are some pictures that I took before we started cleaning.

It’s hard to believe it, but this is 100x better than what it looked like before the previous owner moved out.

This is the living room from the entryway.  Luckily the fireplace is still in good shape.  The wood molding around it just needs to be sanded and re-painted.  There’s a brownish grungy film on pretty much every surface.  I’m gagging just thinking about the kitchen.

This picture does not do the kitchen justice.  Every single surface is CAKED with a mysterious brown layer of grossness.  Tomorrow I’ll take some more detailed pictures so you can really see the filth that we’re going to have to clean.  Yay us!

There were also beer cans and liquor bottles everywhere.  As well as used q-tips and nasal strips.  Gross.  Alot of the q-tips on the floor had brown ear wax all over them.  Bleh….I’m gagging just thinking about it.  Needless to say, we wore gloves while cleaning today.

One plus was that he had left the washer and dryer!  Score!!  Hopefully that will be a good selling point to potential tenants….once they’re thoroughly cleaned, that is.

Here’s another view of the living room from the dining room area.  And there’s Steve. 🙂

Here is one of the bedrooms.  Hey, he left a steam cleaner!  That will come in handy….if it works.

Another bedroom.

A guest bathroom, which is actually in pretty good shape compared to the rest of the house.

Here’s the pretty spacious master bedroom.

The master bathroom, which is also in fairly decent shape.

Here’s the upstairs bonus room or 4th bedroom with an attached half bathroom.

And here’s the front of the house.  It’s pretty cute, right?  Just needs some nice landscaping and a little pressure washing and it should look pretty good.

And here’s what we accomplished today!!!  Yay!  No more trash!

I forgot to take a before picture of the garage, but it probably had the most junk in it out of every room in the house.  So I was really happy that we were able to clean in out so well.  The previous owner had left alot of goodies that we can use, such as a Craftsman lawn mower, a power sander, a couple car jacks, some hoses, a seed spreader, and some other things.

I’ll leave you with this last picture.  See all that stuff in the light fixture?  Yep, those are dead moths.  Chew on that for a little bit, and try not to gag.

Tomorrow we’ll be ripping out the carpet and linoleum floors, sanding all the woodwork that needs to be repainted, scrubbing the kitchen with bleach, scrubbing the walls with bleach, and then probably scrubbing ourselves with bleach.  Stay tuned!

I Guess I’ll Paint

I woke up a little earlier than normal today because Steve was expecting a delivery that needed to be signed for, and I didn’t want to miss it in case they delivered it in the morning.  Well, it’s 5:20pm and it still hasn’t arrived.  Since I stayed home from work to wait for the package (one of the nice things about owning your own business), I decided to make myself useful.  First I cleaned up the house a little bit, and then I remembered the canvases and paint I had bought the last time I was at Joann Fabrics.  What a good day to paint!  I was a little nervous at first because I’ve only ever painted at Sips ‘n Strokes, which is a place that you can go by yourself or with friends and they teach you how to paint while sipping on your favorite beverage.

But I found the courage, and decided that if I messed up, I could always just throw it away.

So I got all my supplies ready and squeezed a little acrylic paint into my plastic paint holder thingy. (What’s the correct name for that again?)  I only bought the basic primary colors because I figured I could always mix them to make whatever color I needed.

First I painted the blue background, making the edges a dark blue, and the center a light blue.

Then I used pure black paint for the tree trunk and limbs.

Next, I combined green, yellow, and white to make a light green, and painted some leaves.

I added more dark green to the mixture and painted slightly over the light green leaves to add some dimension.

Next I made a light pink by mixing red and alot of white, and painted some large flowers.  I went back over the flowers with the same color and just kind of dabbed my paint brush around to make smaller looking flowers.  Then I used the same technique with a little white paint.

The last step was to add small black dots to the centers of the large flowers, and then sign my name!  I hope you like it!  I’ll probably end up hanging this in our bedroom, since it needs a little color.

The House is Quiet Again

We gave little Tinkerbell back to her parents today…..and the house has never been so quiet!  Don’t get me wrong, Tink is such a cutie!!!  She just suffers from a very bad case of separation anxiety.  I couldn’t even go to the bathroom for 1 minute without her crying and barking.  Oh wait….I’ve got one better!  I would be sitting on the couch watching TV with Steve, and the little one would be laying down at our feet nice and quiet, but if I got up to sit at the computer, which is in the same room behind the couch, she would whine because she couldn’t see me.  Steve was still there with her, but apparently he wasn’t good enough.  Which is pretty flattering, actually.  She loved me the most!  Ha!

Actually, with the exception of Kaylee, all our animals love me the most. 🙂  I think it’s because I’m the one that feeds them and takes care of them, and of course, cleans up their poop.  Steve is just there to provide affection from time to time.  Kaylee, however, LOVES her daddy.  She would choose him over me any day of the week.  I’m pretty sure this is due to the fact that I am the one that has to clean out her ears (which she HATES) and clip her nails (which she also hates).  Gosh!  I do all the dirty work, and I get no appreciation!!!

I mean, look at this face!  Don’t let the sweet expression fool you.  Kaylee does what she wants and has VERY selective hearing.  Don’t get me wrong, she is a wonderful dog, and I love her as if I gave birth to her (which would be very weird since she’s a dog and I’m a human), I just wish I could get some appreciation from her!

Doesn’t she know that I was the one who woke up with her 3x per night for over 2 months to take her potty so she wouldn’t have to go in her crate?

Doesn’t she know that I’m the one that cleaned up all her “accidents” on the carpet?  And I’m STILL the one that cleans up her human sized poops in the yard every week.  Not to mention cleaning up all the hair and drool that her body produces.  I get no appreciation I tell you!  She only has eyes for her daddy.  Of course, when I give her love, she’ll pay attention, and paw at me when I stop.  That is pretty much the only attention I get from her.  Sigh….

So I guess it was a little flattering when Tinkerbell would whine when she couldn’t see me.  At least SOMEONE appreciates me!  Here are a few pictures from her stay with us.

Tinkerbell loved playing with Lazarus.

I think he liked playing with her too, even if he won’t admit it.

Hey!  Where’d she go?

Our little cross-eyed boy. 🙂

She also had fun with Uncle Camelot.  He was so gentle with her.  It was kinda weird.  Normally he’s pretty hyper, but with her, he was as calm as can be.  He would even lay down so that she could play with him without being intimidated by his large size.

Haha!  Look at those ears!

Isn’t my big man handsome?

Well, Tink,  I can’t say I enjoyed cleaning your crate 4+ times a day or bathing you every morning, or listening to your yapping all night long, but you sure are a cutie pie!  And I’ll be happy to see you again AT YOUR PARENTS’ HOUSE!

Books & Tornadoes

Well, today was the closest I’ve ever been to experiencing a tornado first hand.  This morning it was raining as we drove to work, and I didn’t think much of it.  It was pretty warm outside, which I knew meant that we would probably have some thunderstorms.  Boy was I right!  Around 2:00pm we started hearing tornado sirens outside our office, but oddly the weather had died down, and there was almost no wind and the rain had let up quite a bit.  The calm before the storm.

A couple minutes later, we looked outside and it looked as if evening had suddenly fallen upon us….but it was only 2:00 in the afternoon.  The wind started picking up, and as we all stared out the window of our office, my heart started racing.  The rain was pounding our cars outside, and the wind was picking up with a speed that I had never seen before.  I am from Southern California, where there is a thunderstorm once every 10 years.  This was not normal for me!  Where was our storm cellar?  Oh, that’s right.  We’re in our office building, and there IS NO STORM CELLAR!!!

We all raced to my office, which happens to be toward the middle of the building and has no windows.  Then the power went out.

More heart racing.

Because my office lacks windows, all we had was the slight illumination our cell phones provided for light.  Why don’t we have any flashlights in the office?  Pretty sure we’ll be stockpiling them tomorrow.

A couple minutes went by, and Steve and Curtis (one of our employees) went back to the lobby to see if it had died down.  It hadn’t.  I heard them yell, “OH CRAP!!” and they came running back into my office.  They said that the wind was blowing so hard that they couldn’t see anything even 10 feet in front of our office.  The wind was carrying with it pelting rain, hail, and debris.

I tried sending texts to my mom and my friend Elizabeth, but of course I didn’t have any cell service.  My facebook app worked, though, and I typed out a couple scared status updates asking people to pray for our safety.

While hunkered down in my dark office, Casey (another employee) and I were worried about our chemist, Jeff, who had gone to lunch only a couple minutes before the storm hit.  We were finally able to get a hold of him, and he informed us that everyone in the Subway restaurant he was in had taken shelter in the freezer.

Several minutes later (but what seemed like hours) it was finally over.  The wind had died down enough that we walked outside to look and see if there was any damage.  Luckily the only thing we found was that a tree had fallen on one of the cars in the parking lot (not one of ours, luckily).  Since the power was still out, we decided to let everyone go home.  Needless to say, while we were driving home we passed countless fallen trees.  Many of which were blocking the roadways.  We had to take a detour through the mall parking lot since several trees were blocking the road we needed to take, and we saw several trees that had been completely snapped in half at the thickest part of their trunks, and the tops had blown completely across the parking lot!

Thankfully, God protected us and our house, and we didn’t have any damage other than some of my patio curtains being blown down.

On a happier note, the 2 books that I ordered on Amazon a few days ago arrived today!

Cake Pops by Bakerella.  If you’ve never visited her blog, do it!  She’s got so many cute recipe’s and tutorials for her Cake Pops.

I also got this wonderful book! 1,000 Ideas for Decorating Cupcakes, Cookies & Cakes.  It doesn’t have any instructions on how to make these beautiful creations, but it does give some frosting and fondant recipes, as well as tell you what type of frosting or fondant was used.  So, if you get this book, you should probably either already have a knowledge on how to do some of these decorating techniques, or get an additional book that has pastry decorating instructions.

Just look at some of these gorgeous ideas!  I’m sure I could figure this out (after messing up quite a few times).

Doesn’t that cake look delicious?!  I’m loving the chocolate ganache that is dripping down the sides.

Umm, Hello gorgeous!  Oh yah, I could totally do that!  Hey, I can always dream…..and practice!  Anyone need a cake?

Look at these adorable wedding cookies!!  I think I’m going to attempt something like this for Elizabeth’s bridal shower that I’m hosting in a couple weeks.  That wedding dress is so cute!

I’m planning on making some cake pops as wedding favors for our wedding in July, and wouldn’t these be perfect!?  So cute!!!

I’m so glad I had these books to entertain me after almost dying in a tornado…..well not really, but hey, it was my first tornado experience!!!  I was traumatized!  But I’m all better now, thanks to these lovely baking & decorating books. 🙂

Crochet Hook Case

I’ve been wanting to make a case for my assortment of crochet hooks for the longest time, and I found a pattern online several months ago, bought all the supplies, and then never got around to making it.  Until last night!  Now I finally have an organized place for all my crochet hooks!  I used to have a small plastic case, but since I have so many, they didn’t all fit, and whenever I needed to crochet something, I would inevitably not be able to find the exact crochet hook I was looking for.

Here is the free tutorial I found online.  That link will take you to a page with several different styles of cases, but I chose to do the one on the top left.  I just thought it was the cutest.

It was my first time using quilt batting, and let me tell you, it’s not that easy to work with that stuff.  First of all, it loses it’s shape very easily, getting stretched out if you pull on it too hard.  And secondly, it didn’t always want to glide through my sewing machine very well.  My bobbin got tangled up a few times as a result.  For those of you that are new to sewing or have never sewn with a sewing machine before, a bobbin is a little spool on a sewing machine that holds some of the thread that is used to sew your stitches.  Don’t worry, I didn’t know that until I was reading the directions on how to set up my sewing machine for the first time.

I was able to figure out how to sew little pockets for each of my hooks.  As you can see, I marked where i THOUGHT I wanted the pockets to be, and then when I started sewing, I realized I had made a few too small, so I had to adjust accordingly.  Which meant that I was left with some pen lines on my fabric.  Hopefully they’ll fade with age.  Or I guess I could always throw it into the washing machine.

Look at the cute ribbon ties and buttons!  I think that is my favorite feature.  If you are a person that crochets alot and doesn’t have a place to store your hooks, I highly recommend making one of these cute cases.  It’ll make your life so much easier.

Our Little Guest

We have a little guest at our house this weekend.  We are baby dogsitting Tinkerbell this weekend for our best friends Rustin and Elizabeth while they’re on a little vacay.  Tinkerbell is only a few months old, so we’ll get our puppy fix (including the potty training) this weekend.  Luckily we are experts in that area!  Haha.  We have raised our fair share of puppies in the past few years, and are quite used to the good and the bad that comes along with having a puppy in the house.

She’s been great so far, and was very brave when meeting the GIANT dogs that call our house a home.  She even went potty outside!  She’s also having fun terrorizing playing with Lazarus, one of our kitties.  He loves the attention, though.

Elizabeth says that she sleeps through the night, so I’m crossing my fingers on that one!  Steve and I like our sleep, and if you know us, you know that is true.  Don’t try calling us before 9:30am or sometimes even 10am.  We will silence your call just like we silence our alarms.

Ha!  Funny side story.  A few days ago, Steve told me that his phone shows a word in a different language when the alarm goes off.  I said, “Really?  That’s weird.  Mine doesn’t.” (We both have iPhones).  Then a couple days later he said, “I remembered what the word is.  It’s spelled S-N-O-O-Z-E.  Snoozie!” (That’s how he pronounced it)  I just about died laughing.  “You mean snooze!?” I said.  “You know, like ‘hit the snooze button’?”  Then he said, “Oh, well I didn’t know that’s how it was spelled.  I thought it was a different language.”

Ahh, these are the things I love about him.  I love that I’m not the only one who has blonde moments or brain farts.

Anyway, we’ll see how this weekend goes.  I’m sure I’ll give you updates along the way, as well as pictures!  I should get some good ones tomorrow of her playing with the Saints.  In the mean time, wish us luck, and pray for a good night’s rest!