Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day! Hope your day is filled with snuggles, hugs and kisses, chocolate, wine, and flowers.  To Mr. J, I saw on a Hallmark commercial that Valentine's Day is not about saying "I love you" (because you know I do)...it's about saying "I love US" (and I do).  There's no one else like you, and I love you, our little family, and the little home we've created together. So, Happy Valentine's Day!  Smooch!

Sarah's House

I think I figured it out...I'm obsessed with Sarah's House.  I love watching.  At first, I was like, man this crazy Canadian lady is so high maintenance, can never stay on budget, she's totally OCD, and oh. my. gosh....her rooms are beautiful.  Behold...her orange dining room, which, you may notice, inspired my choices for my own dining room. This lady's got a way with fabrics.  I wish, I wish I could post more photos of the room in all its glory for you, but I can't pull them off the site. Promise you'll go check it out here.

Orange Color Pallete

I'm hatching plans to do some quick and easy work in our dining room, and I've come across a fabric dilemma!  I'm absolutely married to the orange chevron in the top left corner, and am planning to make six chair cushions out of it. 

Here's the question...I have a bench in the dining room that sits under a window, and I'd like to make a cushion for it as well.  Do I go with (clockwise from top) the aqua-orange fabric to complement/contrast with the chevron? Or the more tone on tone complement of the orange/brown/yellow floral? Or do I stick with the same color and just switch up the print, with the orange and cream floral. 

Heeelp!  I'm leaning toward the aqua-orange print that sits right next to the chevron (top right).  Thoughts??

Do you remember?

The first time...you saw snow??  This is L. Belle, and this is her first time seeing snow. 

Magic, huh? Happy New Year, here's to a year full of fun, happiness, and all the firsts you can handle.

Christmas Cookies

Mr. J and I undertook a time-honored tradition the night before last.  We made Christmas cookies!  And behold, the beauty of our work:

Truly, I am in awe of our skills:

Here are all the goodies:

Ok, seriously, they might not be THAT beautiful (oops), but they taste PERFECTLY delicious.  It took us quite a bit of time to figure out how to actually roll out the dough, cut out the cookies, get them OFF the counter and onto the cookie sheet without the whole thing turning into a nasty mess.  I am truly proud of us!! 

The key is to keep the dough cold, cold, cold.  Flour the heck out of your work surface and the rolling pin and work quickly.  We rolled out the dough straight on our countertops--that seemed to work best.  We first tried a Silpat nonstick (HA!) mat and it was a disaster, FYI.  The other tip we learned was that you have to cut the cookie, pick it up and put it on the sheet right away.  If you cut a bunch of cookies out and try to remove the cookies when you're finished--DISASTER!  I think the dough warms up too much or something--the result is messy, sticky cookies on the countertop.  Ugh. 

Anyway, without further ado, the recipe:

Sugar Cookies

Cream together 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup butter, 2 eggs and 2 teaspoons of vanilla.

Add 2 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 4 teaspoons baking powder.

Wrap and chill for AT LEAST 2 hours.

Bake at 375 for 6-8 minutes

Frosting

Mix powdered sugar, milk and a small dab of butter together to desired consistency, add food coloring!

Happy Decorating!

Smells Delicious

The smell of the Christmas season is one of the most delicious. It's a combination of Christmas trees, hot chocolate, vanilla, gingerbread, cookies, frosting, candy canes, oranges, spices....yum. A quick and easy way to bring this scent into your home is to throw a few spices into a pot, add some water and simmer away on the stove.

My recipe of choice for this simmering spice blend:

A few pieces of orange rind
A few pieces of lemon rind
3-4 cinnamon sticks
2-3 bay leaves
A handful of cloves
A dash of vanilla

Add a few cups of water to the mix and you're on your way.  Remember to watch the pot--the water evaporates off very quickly. And don't worry if you don't have all of the ingredients in your cupboard--just get as close as possible, and it will smell delicious!

'Tis the season!

Merry Christmas

So it will be no surprise to you all that I have been pretty lax about the old blog lately.  It will also not surprise you that one of my New Year's resolutions will be to bring back the blog.  Maybe a few changes will be in store.  Ever since we've moved, lots of things have changed at Casa J, so I want to be sure that my blog reflects my new priorities.  Two students (that's right...I'm one now, too! Told ya things have changed) = no funds for home decor.  Sad face.  But, not to despair.  Outside of my focus on interior design, I also want to focus on what makes a home a home...the people in it, the things we love to do, and, of course.... the food.  Yum.  So, that being said, have a very Merry Christmas, and stay tuned for more from me in 2011!

I am not Martha.

Just when you think you have this whole cooking/baking/decorating grown up business under control, THIS happens:

Baaaahhhaaaaahaaa haaa! THAT, friends, is zucchini bread.

Faced with loads of zucchini from our garden, and feeling super confident, I decided to bake a  loaf last night.  As Mr. J studied away in his little room, I turned on the radio, preheated the oven, grated the zucchini, mixed it all together, poured it in a loaf pan and popped it in the oven.  La la la!!!  One hour later, I pulled it out, and it looked like this.  WTF?!

It was all sickly and sticky on the top, and crispy brown on the bottom and the sides.  Deflated, I started to wonder what I had done wrong.  First things first, I used a loaf pan that was way too huge.  Not sure what it was appropriate for, but it sure wasn't meant for this.  I found another pan in our stash that was probably half as big as the one I used.  Whoops.

I'm not going to let a little funky zucchini bread get me down.  Oh no. I sliced it up and ate it with my coffee this morning.

Seriously, how bad can something with chocolate chips be?  I'll take another crack at it (so.  much.  zucchini.)
and let you know if it turns out any better!

Wanna see my living room?

So it's been a month since we've been here in California, and I figured it was high time I showed off our new place.  Here are a few shots of the empty space, right before we moved our stuff in.  Uhh.  Please excuse the image quality.  It was hot, I was tired, the movers were waiting to get in with our stuff.  So I ran around and snapped a few photos before all hell broke loose.

The living room:

The corner of the living room:

The living room from the dining room:

And, the finished space:

A bit of a close up:

And dear god, help me out here, our new TV:

It's enormous, ginormous really, and totally ridiculous.  My dad was getting a new TV, and asked us if we wanted it....I said NO!  Mr J, predictably, was super enthused.  And here we have it.  Though I must admit, now that I've been watching it for about a week...I'm sort of into it.  Who knew I was a big screen sort of gal? 

So that's it, my living room for the next two years.  I gotta say, I'm not crazy about the paint color--never would have picked it myself--but we're too lazy to proposition our landlords with the idea of us repainting.  It'll work for now.  With that huge TV taking up most of the wall, you can barely see the paint anyway, huh?

Hello California

Mr. J and I are officially Californians now.  Moving is a crazy, hectic, umm....kind of a traumatic experience, and I don't recommend it for the faint of heart! But, the dust is settling here, and things are getting back to normal. 

We found a small house to rent while Mr. J is in school, and as a bonus, we've inherited a sort of neglected, but super productive vegetable garden. There's a horseshoe pit, and the previous tenants even had a chicken coop.  Not that I'm into that sort of thing.  A couple of friends who've come over called it our little farm.  Awww.  We've always wanted a farm!! 

Check out our cherry tomatoes (there are literally zillions of these):

And our heirloom tomatoes, ripening away:

Lemons!

Corn!

Squash!

Horsehoes!

Sunflowers! Bees!

And our lone farm animal, chewing sticks in the shade.

We have so much produce, it's kind of ridiculous.  We've barbequed corn, onions, squash, zucchini, and made salsa, pasta and bruschetta with the tomatoes.  What do you even do with that many tomatoes??  Help!  I'll keep y'all posted on some of our successful summer recipes.

It's good to be back!