Turning a Closet into Bookshelves

I have been planning this project for a while, but we just have not made the time to do it. We went to work yesterday on it and I was so excited. I measured the closet to get my shelves evenly spaced out. I wanted to have four shelves to fully use the height of the closet. We started with the top shelf putting in the brackets and making sure it was all level. Then we put the shelf on.

So now I need to decide to cut the shelf and make it more shallow. To cut the shelf in half from front to back and make a shelf on each side. Or to lower the shelf and just have three shelves. So we stopped for the night last night. Putting that shelf up took almost an hour. I don't know if you can see but there are already some holes in the wall. If we decide to lower the shelf I'm going to go back and fill in the holes and possibly give a coat of paint. 

On to Round two

Georgia Post Walk

Chicken, Spinach, and Black Bean Enchiladas

I found these from Good Life Eats . According to my husband this has been the best meal I've made yet and I've made some pretty good ones. Katie said she reached perfection with this recipe I think I have to agree. Mine did not turn out as pretty as hers so I'm linking her pictures. I had plenty for multiple meals so I'll try to make it look better next time and get pictures.

Ingredients:

• 3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (cooked and shredded)
• 1 cup black beans, drained and rinsed
• 5 ounces baby spinach, chopped
• salt and pepper to taste
• 3/4 cup monterrey jack cheese, grated
• 12 corn tortillas
• Tomatillo Salsa, recipe follows
• Sour Cream Sauce, recipe follows

For the chicken, I like to cook it in the crock pot with salt, pepper, a chopped onion, garlic, cilantro, lime, chili powder, and cumin. The chicken becomes so tender and moist that it is incredibly easy to shred. Alternatively, you can bake the chicken or used leftover rotisserie chicken, but I recommend seasoning it with the above listed spices and flavors.

Spray a 9x13 inch pan with spray oil. Set aside. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Combine the chicken, spinach, salt, pepper in a medium to large bowl. Stir until ingredients are evenly distributed. Add the beans and carefully stir in so as not to mash up the beans.

Steam the tortillas using a tortilla warmer. If you don't have a tortilla warmer, see the bottom of this article at Food & Wine for alternative methods. Set tortillas aside and keep warm.

One by one, fill a tortilla with a small handful of filling, about 1/4 - 1/3 cup. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of cheese on top of the filling and roll tortilla up, placing the seam side down in the previously prepared pan. Repeat until all tortillas have been filled. Drizzle sour cream sauce on top, followed by the tomatillo salsa. Cover with foil and bake at 375 degrees F for 20 minutes, or until tortillas are heated through. Makes 1 dozen enchiladas. Serve with a tomato and avocado salad.

Alternatively, the enchiladas can be assembled on individual oven proof plates for a prettier look (as pictured). Tent the plate with foil to cover the enchiladas; bake for 10-15 minutes and serve.

Tomatillo Salsa

This tomatillo salsa is simple to prepare and can be served alone with tortilla chips for dipping.

• 6 tomatillos, husks removed
• 1/2 - 1 jalapeno, remove seeds to adapt heat
• 1/4 cup onion, chopped
• 1/4 cup cilantro leaves, packed
• 2 cloves garlic (I actually forgot the garlic and it still tasted good)
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper

Place tomatillos in a medium sized sauce pan. Cover with hot water and bring to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes. Remove tomatillos from water and place in a food processor with remaining ingredients, starting with only half the jalapeno. Process until smooth. Test for heat and add the remaining half of the jalapeno if desired. Set aside.

Sour Cream Sauce

To save on fat and calories, feel free to substitute low-fat sour cream. However, I would not recommend fat-free sour cream.

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 3/4 cup sour cream
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper

Melt the butter in a skillet over medium high heat. Add the flour, whisking until golden and bubbly, about 2-3 minutes. Slowly whisk the broth into the flour mixture. Stir in the sour cream, whisking if necessary to remove any lumps. Simmer until sauce is thickened. Season with salt and pepper.

Natalya

For those of you who don't know her. Natalya is one of my dearest friends. We met our first semester at Samford in Communication arts and it has been a pleasure getting to know her better since then, especially as a roommate. After leaving Birmingham and going to Miami to study and be closer to family I discovered Nat had a talent. She can sing. This came as a shock, not becuase I had never heard her sing before, but because I had never heard her sing for real before. What I mean is I heard her sing around the house and in the car, but not with her guitar and her own music. She is incredible. Check her out here . Recently she came to Birmingham to visit and opened for Erica and the Soulshine Band  at the Rare Martini. Most of you who know me know I am not a club or bar person, but I wanted to see Nat sing. She was wonderful and I was able to get some great shots of her.

Buffalo Chicken Wrap

I made these the other night and they turned out well. I think I will have to do some tweaking on them but overall it was a good new recipe to try. The recipe said it made 16. I guess I put more into each tortilla because I only made 8.
5 cups boneless chicken breast, cooked and diced (I boiled mine so it was  more shredded than diced)
2 cups celery diced (Josh was not sure he liked this in there so may try something different next time)
2 cups bleu cheese crumbles
1.5 cups ranch dressing (this seemed a little much for me so I may use less next time)
6 Tbsp buffalo wing sauce (I used more)
16 each flour tortillas, large

Directions:
In a small bowl mix together the ranch and buffalo wing sauce. In a large bowl combine chicken, bleu cheese crumbles, and celery. Add ranch mixture to chicken mixture and stir. Add 1/2 cup mixture to each tortilla and fold like a burrito. Wrap in plastic wrap. (If you are concerned about soggy tortillas later, just put the mixture into a sandwich bag and then into a gallon freezer bag to assemble when ready) Place tortillas in gallon freezer bags and freeze.

To serve : Thaw and cut in half (I also toasted them using a grill press)

From Onceamonthmom.com


This recipe did not take long at all and since it made for several meals that made me happy.

Only in the Movies

Today seemed surreal. It seemed as though it was something that only happens in the movies. I drink a lot of water at school and normally have a student get it for me with ice from the lunchroom. It went as normal and I drank most of it immediately. I went on with first period trying to cram in all my content before testing. At the end of class a quiet student politely came up and told me another student spit in my drink. Yes I said this person spit in my drink. I only thought that happened to teachers in movies. Apparently not. So now I will drink my water in a bottle that I drink and do not let go of.

Snow Day

I live in Alabama, snow days are not usually common, but this is our third one of the year. So far it is still accumulating. Georgia, still recovering from surgery has not had much interest in the snow this time. I am amazed though at how people panic when it snows, I feel sure that in the states further north, there would have been school today. So for that I am thankful I live in the south.

A year

Its been a year since Mima left. It doesn't seem that long most of the time but sometimes it does. When I think how many holidays have passed this year, it seems as though it has been forever. She would always send me a card for most every holiday. She lived such a long life, but it is hard to not have her there. Her humor and smile.

I miss her.

Georgia, Bedford, and jackson

Our friends have two labs, Bedford and Jackson. Georgia (now almost 9 mo old ) likes to play with them and they usually like to play with her. Bedford (7) enjoys playing and getting rid of some of his energy. Jackson (5) just does not like my puppy usually. He tends to bark at her and go in the opposite direction. Bedford eventually gets tired and puts his paw on her back to hold her down, like you would see a tall person hold back a short person by pushing on their forehead.

The Present

I should have expected it, she is a hound. When I came home from getting myself some food today (as my husband was still recovering and is on bland food) I found Georgia in our bedroom chewing on something. I assumed it was a stick-she loves sticks and brings them in all the time. I am constantly vacuuming up tiny bits of chewed up stick. This time however as I got closer, I realized it is not a stick but a bird. Georgia found a dead bird on the porch or in the yard and brought it into my bedroom. I was already planning to spend the day disinfecting to get rid of the sickness in my house, but now even more so that a bird has been in my room.

I did feel sorry for the bird and angry at the dog. They are supposed to bring animals in as a present to show they love you. They are NOT supposed to chew on them. Lets just say we will not be getting any kisses from Georgia any time soon. I even gave her one of the dental bones to help clean her teeth and breath.

Thanks for the present Georgia, next time just keep it to sticks

Sick time of year

Flu season and though we have thankfully not gotten the flu, we have managed to catch the 8 hour stomach bug. I had it last weekend and have finally been able to eat real food by this weekend. Fuzz did such a great job of caring for me but unfortunately he got it this weekend. This means that tomorrow will partially be spent in disinfecting everything in my house.

Oh the joy

Georgia and Buddy

For Christmas, my mother got my dog a toy named Buddy. Buddy is an orange "stuffed" dog. The belly opens up and you can put in a plastic bottle (Georgia's favorite toy ever). So Christmas morning she played with it as we all opened presents. Now several weeks later she is still playing with buddy, though the tail has been removed. I caught her sleeping on the couch with Buddy and thought is was too cute not to photograph.

To the left is is the cute picture. Below shows the damage that she has done to her toy.

Baking Day 1/2

Alright, the baking day this month did not go as planned. I managed to make a few meals over a few days but most of them are put on hold. Some of the meat went bad--boo money down the drain. But next month I will have one full baking day. Hopefully we will have a garbage disposal by then to help things along.
List that was made:
-Sausage & Shrimp gumbo
-baked ziti (1 with sausage/1 without)
-bananas (on sale for .39/lb) for smoothies

still planning to make farmhouse chicken this week, and spinach and rice casserole, then I will start over again in February

Baking Day Disaster

Well it is not a full disaster, but as the baking day has not yet occurred I consider it one. I had planned on my once a month baking day for this weekend, but sadly Friday night our kitchen sink backed up. We have been working on it over the weekend with little success. I am now going to purchase a drain snake before we take the sink apart fully. I am hoping for the best and then to be able to cook all the food I purchased on Wednesday.

2010 challenge

My family has made it a goal this year to begin to be more frugal with what we have been given. We would like to make some major savings this year for a few goals not in any specific order:
1. new car for the husband
2. begin saving for land we plan on buying to build a house
3. fix things around our house to help save more money such as new doors and weather stripping, insulation, new carpet in the bedrooms.

With a small change to our witholdings we have been getting more money back each month, rather than one lump sum around tax time. We hope to be able to use this to reach some of our goals.

2010

Another new year begins. Feels like a new start. Well I did not get to that reading list in 2009 so I am making a new one for 2010.

Jane Austen books:
Pride and Prejudice
Persuasion
Sense and Sensibility
Mansfield Park
Northanger Abbey
Emma


The Host – Stephanie Meyer
Dracula: The Un Dead - Dacre Stoker
Eragon - Christopher Paolini
Eldest - Christopher Paolini
Brisinger - Christopher Paolini

I will add more later. To add to our year of new starts I am going to try to have a baking freezer day once each month. I had one in November and it was very successful. I will post soon what I will be making.