Homey touches

WELL…I’m a year older today and we’re all still alive and now the days are starting to get lighter and longer every day!!!  Lots of things to be happy about!  I had a wonderful birthday!  I feel overwhelmed with thankfulness for my friends and family!  What would I do without them?  Here are several pictures of the day.

Our 3rd annual birthday run.  Rain, snow, wind, cold, or shine (hardly) we run on my birthday!

My friend party.  They are the BEST!!

I thought I’d give an update on the progress of the house.  I finally decided on our colors.

Slate-Restoration Hardware

Palladian blue-Benjamin Moore

Swiss Coffee-Benjamin Moore

Here is a small sample of what our cabinets and flooring will look like.

Construction pictures!!

future kitchen

New stairs!

We’re thinking of flooring ideas for the entryway and a section of our great room.  I’ve been so pleased with the tile and carpet in our current home that I want the same thing for our new home.  The entryway will be chocolate brown travertine tile like this:

And the carpet we will use is LEE’S.  I will never buy anything else.  I looked online and they sell it at Carpet One.  We’ve had the carpet in our upstairs now for 11 years and it looks better than any other carpet in the house and it’s in a very high traffic area.  IT IS THE BEST CARPET EVER!!

Someday…I love this living room.  I think we want to do something similar to our fireplace.  Our living and dining room have tons of windows with trees outside that I LOVE!!  Lots of work to do!  For my workout today I even helped out a little!  I moved about 25 boxes of food storage to the new house!

It’s a great adventure and will be so beautiful very soon!!  Warmest, Happiest, holiday wishes!

A breath of fresh air

I have many “breaths of fresh air” in my life and I am grateful for each one!  First off, a NEW month is a breath of fresh air to me.  I don’t know why.  It’s mental in my mind, but I like fresh starts!  Saturday was DECEMBER 1st and my friends and I were blessed with a WARM morning, so we took off up our favorite trail!  We are all VERY much alike.  Trails are our favorites!  We commented on the rising sun, the woodsy smell of the leaves and trees, and of course the feeling of exhilaration in running up the trail and then especially flying back down.  We came across a few ice patches, but we had no casualties!  Here are a couple funny pictures.  We only passed 2 people on the trail so we didn’t have anyone to take our picture.  We skillfully piled in this picture and had to take it 3 times since we kept cutting our heads off.  It was so funny!
Here’s another one!

I have so many running friend pictures I think I’ll make a quilt out of them!

My next breath of fresh air is the COLORS for my new kitchen and living area.  I finally decided on them and I WILL NOT change my mind again!!  Lately I have been loving the sea green/blue color and I’ve been trying to find the perfect one.  Funny story, my husband and I were shopping at Target over the weekend and strategically placed near the check out is this beautiful sea green sweater that keep calling my name.  Finally after all the groceries were scanned, my husband goes to the rack and asks me, “Medium or small?”  So nice!

Sea green Target sweater. Love!

Here are my COLORS:

Benjamin Moore Sea Glass

Benjamin Moore Shale

Here are a few room examples:

The kitchen will be sea glass and the living area will be shale.  I will definitely add splashes of color!  This will be my SEA and the yellow and orange bits of decor I add will be my SUN!

For my MENU item of the week I want to post a baked oatmeal recipe.  My friend has made these for me several times.  She cooks them in muffin tins and freezes them!  Genius idea!  How nice it is to grab my ready made oatmeal muffin from the freezer, heat it up in a bowl, add a little almond milk and cinnamon and that’s it!

Baked Oatmeal

Combine: 2 c. oats, 1/2 c. agave nectar or honey, 1 t. baking powder

Add and stir: 1 1/2 c. water, 1/2 c. applesauce, 1 T flax, 1/2 scoop protein powder

Scoop into greased muffin tins and add raisins, nuts, and coconut on top of each one.

Bake at 375 for 20  minutes.

I will be making this today!  I have much more to post later this week about my INSANE Eat to Live diet, New Year Resolutions, and workouts!  Till then, find a breath of fresh air in your life, keep it there, and remember how nice it feels!!

Last night I was reading to the kids as they dressed up my hair.  Silly fun!  Sometimes exercise is fine only 3 days a week.  Keep Smilin’ (: