Rainbow

When we got married, we got a TON of kitchen items. Bowls, plates, serving platters, little gadgets. There are some things still in the packaging... that's how much we got. One of the things we have a lot of are wooden spoons. We have them in all shapes and sizes and we use them all the time. But you know, those wooden spoons are great, but they're boring. I had some paint and some time, so I decided to make a little rainbow. It was only after that that I found a very similar project on Pinterest. 

All I did was tape off the spoons, using scotch tape (it was most accessible). After that, I sanded a few of the spoons with a shinier finish and then painted away. The spoons soaked up the paint, so I did two or three coats before deciding that they were colorful enough. I haven't done this yet, but my next planned step is to buy some food-safe finish for them to keep the color from chipping. I think that a nice, shiny finish on them will look great and probably protect the wood! 

It only took about 20 minutes to get out my supplies, tape them off and paint, so it's totally doable. Plus, how cheap are wooden spoons! This would be a really fun gift for a kitchen shower :) 

Coffee Filter Wreaths

My friend Jessie had the brilliant idea to make paper flowers out of coffee filters. She'd already purchased all the materials, so we just searched on Pinterest for a tutorial and there it was. 

We followed this tutorial for the dying of the filters and from the same post, we used the tutorial for the smaller flowers.

The coffee filters were dyed in a mixture of acrylic paint and water.

We then rigged up a "clothesline" of string to dry them on outside.

Then we made the flowers and glued them to a Styrofoam wreath form.

I glued myself to the wreath at one point too. Hot glue is not a joke.

Jessie glued hers to a grapevine wreath and I think it looks precious! I wish I could have done this but on the Styrofoam it wouldn't have looked quite as nice.

Here's how mine turned out. There are approximately 60-75 roses on there. And yes, it took as long as it looks like it took. The flowers weren't hard to make and it was fun, but time-consuming. I recommend doing this while watching a movie or three :)

Jessie (and Tristan) and me after the crafting.

And here's what it looks like on our front door! This and everything else is going into a box very shortly!

Camping

So, it's been pretty hot here. In the high 90s and even in the triple digits.

Because of this, we built a tent in the living room (in front of the box fan). We meant to sleep in it once and call it a day, but sleeping in front of the fan in the cooler air proved to be a really great idea. 

So we've now taken the tent down (it was getting in the way), but we're still sleeping on the floor. Well, I mostly sleep on the couch since it's comfier, but our heads are really close. 

Either way, thought you might be amused to see our most recent sleeping arrangements:

Spam Folder

I checked my spam folder today, looking for an email I was expecting. I'm not sure when or how my email address became so popular, but I found it funny to read the things someone out there thought would apply to me. According to my spam folder:

- I have a career awaiting in law enforcement. Dream job. I can't think of anyone more suited. I'm 5 foot one and super intimidating. 
- I need to remove moles. Ew. And don't you just go to a dermatologist for that? I wouldn't really know, but a "mole removal center" sounds fishy. 
- I must be quite smoker. I need counseling for my addiction AND I can get e-cigarettes with this special offer. Win-win.
- I qualify for really cheap life insurance and 343 jobs in my area. Seems legit. Wait... 
- I have a need to find Asian singles, Christian singles and have been pegged as a "Cougar", all by helpful dating sites. I get these offers on my facebook page too - guess the "married" status means nothing?
- I can take a cruise or attend nursing school for "virtually nothing".
- I have tons of job offers waiting... I just have to send in a copy of a valid credit card and download a helpful tool to upload my resume. I really hope that nobody actually does that.
- Liposuction is something that I can get really cheap... guess I'll need that when I claim my free $5000 from Red Lobster.
- I can get a settlement from a medication I strangely don't recall taking... and how kind! If I provide my account number, they'll just put millions of dollars right in there! Talk about customer service!
- I can get rid of bed bugs... NOW! I have this email several times in there - like I'd check my spam folder for a solution to bed bugs?

The email I was actually looking for never came. But it really doesn't matter... my quality of life is really going to improve once I accept all of these great offers!

In One Month

In less than one month, we'll be living in another state. Another time zone.

I've never been to Ohio, but Carson lived there for about a year when he was a kid, in a city about 40 minutes from where we'll live. Funny, huh?

Just about all the questions that we've been getting are questions that you might have to... so here are the answers:

When are we leaving?
Looks like August 13th. We'll drive that Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday... hopefully arriving Wednesday night. 35 hours of driving in three days? Um, yeah.

Do we have a place to live? 
Almost. We're in the process and we really like the place! More details to come.

What will we be doing, exactly?
Well, Carson has a position as a graduate assistant on campus which is why we're going to JCU in the first place. He'll be working at the school for about 20 hours a week and this not only covers his tuition, but he'll get paid each month too. Huge blessing!
I am still looking for a full-time job - please pray for that. Job searching isn't my exact favorite task in the whole world. I'd like something close to school and possibly something administrative in nature.

Are we packed?
I love this question. It makes me want to laugh. Surely there are people who are entirely packed a month before their move, but we are not those people. We are in the process of packing for sure. We had a garage sale a couple of weekends ago which allowed us to sell some things we didn't really need. We've purged quite a bit (mostly books and clothes) and we're probably going to get rid of more. Our furniture will be listed on Craigslist very soon. But yes, there are things in boxes at the moment. Our books are en route to Ohio where they'll stay at a friends' house until we pick them up.

How will we get there?
We plan to drive ourselves and ship our stuff. The plan is to ship most of our possessions via train and then hop in our car (yep, the Civic) with the breakable things and anything that doesn't fit on the train. We considered a U-Haul but didn't like the sound of being out a few thousand dollars just to get our things to the other side of the country.

Are we excited or nervous?
Yes.
It will be exciting to get to know a new city, to meet new people, find a great church in the area, jobs, and getting to know John Carroll. But we'll miss the familiarity of Spokane, our good friends here, our wonderful church, Carson's great job, and our friends at Moody. We've been here for four years; it feels like longer. We've set up a little life here, and that's going to be hard to leave.

Weekend Fun

Our road trip over to Olympia had a single purpose: sell things. If you know anything at all about Carson, you know that selling things is one of his favorite things to do. This particular sale was a garage sale, to be held at his parents' home. 

The garage sale wasn't until Saturday morning, but we arrived late Thursday night. Because of that, there was quite a bit of set-up for Carson on Friday, but there was also a lot of time to relax. 

It was hot, so we enjoyed the pool. I only ever got as far as my neck, but Carson loves the water.

 We went downtown and enjoyed Olympia's new ice cream parlor. Very cute. 50s music was playing over the speakers and the employees wore old fashioned clothes. 

 On Saturday was the garage sale. I wasn't actually awake when it began, but apparently there were people that came by 30 minutes before the sale began. It started early in the morning and went until mid-afternoon. If you scroll up to the top picture, you can see Carson's badly sunburned leg. He burned everywhere.

 Our wealth.

After the sale, we (and I mean Carson and his dad) put the leftover items on the end of the driveway. They put a sign that said, in effect, "pay if you want to"... and people actually did (which was weird). It turns out that people LOVE when there are items at the end of a driveway... most of these things were gone the next day. 

Carson read a lot on the trip and studied many of his Latin words. He's teaching himself how to read Latin. But because of the rare heat, everyone did a lot of relaxing. It was that kind of weekend.

 We decided to take on a big project and compile frames for a gallery wall. We set them out how we wanted them on Friday night and nailed the holes, but didn't actually place them on the wall until the next day since we had to make quite a few of the frames hang-able. The arranging took a few hours and the marking and nailing took a long time too. 

The finished product. Worth it, and there's even room to add more along the way. 

Most of the frames were sitting around the stove on the right side of the room before... now there's balance since there's something on that big empty wall - plus, it feels so cozy in there now!

I painted a "B" for the wall. It was fun and I think it turned out pretty well (I don't usually freehand).

Another project of the weekend was cutting Carson's hair. This was the first time that I used scissors entirely and not a razor. I liked it better. So did he. 

The best way to remove the hair (it kept sticking to him in the heat) was to hose Carson off... even though he loves cold water, the hose water was way too cold for him. 

The last thing we did before packing up and heading home was to celebrate Carson's mom's birthday. She kept saying that she didn't want to do anything, but I don't see how that's possible (I LOVE birthdays), so we did something small. We went out to rent a movie and returned with a Kahlua Cream pie, animal print candles (a perfect find) and decorating icing. I don't have a career in cake writing, but it's legible.

Carson picked out these flowers for her (and took this fun picture)

She was washing dishes when we came in singing.

And of course there were pictures.

But they weren't all serious...

I really love this one!

And then we watched the movie we'd rented. It was a little ridiculous, but quite funny and harmless. 

The next morning, Carson packed up the car, carried a not-quite-awake Lindsay to the car, and we went home at 6am. No pictures because I basically slept halfway there. 

Salsa and Chicken Packets

Here are a few things whipped up this past summer that I didn't share, but I should have.

Fresh Salsa

The first is this salsa. It's from a cookbook that my mom made for me before our wedding (she used this site, if you're interested). This particular one is adapted just a little from the original, which belongs to Kristine. It's colorful and beautiful and I've had fun making it for Carson on several occasions (I'm allergic to tomatoes, so I can really only enjoy the color and the smells).

Fresh Salsa

2 Jalepenos (Carson likes his spicy, so I scrape the seeds out of one of them, but not the other), choped

1 Red Onion, diced

2 Tomatoes, diced

1 Bunch of Cilantro, diced

1 Yellow Pepper, chopped

1 Red Pepper, chopped

Mix it all together, refrigerate for an hour or so to let the flavors mix and enjoy! This is a great recipe for the summer, when all of these things are fresh and cheap, but thanks to the produce section, it could really work for any time of year. Carson LOVES when I make this and really hates to share it, so it must be pretty great! 

Chicken Packets

The next thing I have to share is this recipe that I remember LOVING as a kid. Somehow, I remembered that I loved it and decided to make it for Carson to see if my tastes had changed and if he'd like it. There are very few things that he doesn't like, so this was a hit with him too. I've only made it once, but it's very easy!

Chicken Packets

Serves 4

2 cups of cooked chicken, chopped

1/2 package of cream cheese (4oz?)

2tbsp milk

2 packages crescent rolls (the ones with 8 in each)

1/4 C melted butter

1/2 C breadcrumbs

Optional: Ranch seasoning

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a baking sheet. Unroll your crescent rolls and create four rectangles (there are 4 already, with a diagonal perforation. Press that perforation together). Set these on your baking sheet

2. Mix first three ingredients together, with the ranch seasoning, if you so desire. Evenly divide the chicken mixture between the four rectangles.

3. Open the second package of crescent rolls and make your four rectangles again, only this time, set those on top of the others. Pinch the two sets of rolls together on the edges like a pop tart.

4. Brush melted butter on top of your packets and sprinkle the seasoned breadcrumbs. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until golden.

Enjoy!