WIAW #2 & Crockpot Apple Cinnamon Steel Cut Oats

I really liked participating in WIAW last week so I’m back this week. This is a very typical day of eats for me so I thought it was a good day to share. I received a few requests for the Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal recipe I showed last week, so I’ve included that info below. It’s a really easy recipe that guarantees a healthy and hearty breakfast on the fly.

 

Breakfast

Speaking of Apple Cinnamon Oats…I was in a rush for breakfast this morning so I grabbed one from the fridge. I added a dash of coconut milk and microwave it for 2 minutes, I find that it revives really well. Coffee was necessary and I’m currently loving the KCup Mocha Coconut from Donut Shop with frothed organic milk, topped with a dash of cocoa powder. Then I grabbed a handful of Rainer cherries on the side.  Cherries are my FAVORITE fruit so I eat them in bulk during their limited season.

 

 

Apple Cinnamon CrockPot Steel Cut Oats

Serves: 4

 

1 Cup uncooked steel cut oats

1 T Ground Cinnamon (adjust this to your personal taste, 1 Tablespoon is quite strong)

2 medium apples, cored and chopped (I left the skin on)

1 Cup Vanilla Coconut Milk

2.5 Cups Water (I like my oats drier, if you prefer, you can increase the water to 3 cups). You can also use all milk or all water for this recipe.

 

Add all ingredients to the Crockpot and cook on low overnight. I put mine in at about 11:30pm and it was ready when I came down for breakfast at around 8am. That’s it, super simple and delicious.

 

Snack

In between morning calls I grabbed a small apple (anyone else love those bags of little apples at Trader Joe’s?), sliced Rotisserie chicken, and a glass of VitaminWater Zero in Revive. I tend to run incredibly low on potassium and the Revive water has no calories, no sugar, and 880mg of potassium. So lately I try to drink one bottle over the course of the day.

 

Lunch

Lunch was my go to salad. Trader Joe’s sells cooked, seasoned chicken breasts in their prepackaged food case. They’re a little higher than I like in sodium, but they’re are incredibly convenient. This salad had one chopped chicken breast, about 3 cups of Romaine lettuce, 2 Tablespoons of grated parmesan, and 2 Tablespoon of Trader Joe’s Cilantro Dressing. Sometimes I add some black beans, but today I kept it simple, and paired it with a big glass of unsweetened iced tea.

 

Dinner

This dinner was a total win and really very simple as well. It’s a bed of brussel sprouts (sautéed with a bit of coconut oil), black beans, and feta cheese tossed with a little Italian dressing. I topped the sprouts with a piece of (premade) Macadamia Nut crusted Mahi Mahi. I buy the fish in the freezer section at Costco and they are DELICIOUS! I know frozen fish can get a bad wrap in terms of taste, but this is the best I’ve ever had, I absolutely love them. Not pictured, I had another glass of the VitaminWater.

 

Dessert

After dinner, I had the last of my angel food cake topped with fat free whip cream and fresh blueberries. Too good for words.

 

So that’s it. I did have an eBoost around 5pm and I finished the VitaminWater after working out later that evening, but otherwise this was everything I ate. Oh, and I don’t usually take pictures of the water I drink, but I down a lot of water over the course of the day in addition to the beverages above, usually around 12+ glasses. For those that know I’m trying to lose weight, this is very typical of what I eat, though I usually leave out the angel food cake. This was about 1500 calories, 32g fat, 110g protein, and 30g fiber. If you want to see more of my daily eats, let me know…or you can follow me on instagram. I don’t post every meal, but I share quite a few.

 

Follow @AddisonShaw on Instagram

What I Ate Wednesday (WIAW) #1

Ok, I give in…I’m jumping on the WIAW bandwagon (a bit late). I don’t know why I find it so fascinating seeing what other people eat throughout the day. Perhaps it’s because I love to cook, so I feel a bit inspired…but it also gives me alternate ideas for snacks and quick meals. Here’s a foodie snapshot into my day yesterday.

Breakfast

I tried a new recipe this week and made a batch of Cinnamon Apple Steel Cut oats in my Crockpot. It was so nice to wake up to hot oatmeal without lifting a finger. I also made enough to reheat throughout the week. I like to get a lot of protein in the morning, it keeps me full throughout the day, so I paired the oatmeal with a few egg whites.

Snack

I broke away from a meeting to grab a quick snack later in the morning. I filled a bowl with fresh pineapple, some Pineapple Flavored Greek Yogurt and a scoop of grape nuts. Most of the time grape nuts tastes like little rocks, but the yogurt softens it perfectly and it adds the best crunch to a creamy snack.

Lunch

Lunch stumped me yesterday. I only had a few minutes between meetings and I didn’t want another salad (which is my go to quick lunch), so I made a few chicken & cheddar quesadillas. I topped them with a bit of mashed avocado and downed a sparkling water just before I had to dial in for my next meeting.

Dinner

Since I was lacking some veggies for lunch, I  made a whole bunch of green beans for dinner. I tossed them with a Tablespoon of parmesan and baked them at 425 for 10 minutes. Crispy and cheesy! I also threw a baked potato and Feta chicken burger on the plate. It looks a little boring, but it was oh so delicious.

I also had my standard glass of eboost around 3pm, and a (not so standard) brownie as desert which I forgot to photograph. I may have also eaten half the green beans before I remembered to snap the picture above. How do the daily eats bloggers do it?

Green Spring Smoothie

I’m enjoying a rare Monday off and I thought it was a great time to try out a new smoothie recipe. With the warm weather, this cold fruity smoothie is a delicious start to the day. I added whey protein powder since this was my breakfast, but you could leave it out if protein powder isn’t your thing. I actually like the texture with the protein powder since it thickens the drink, I haven’t found it grainy at all. I use Tera’s Whey Organic brand, Bourbon Vanilla for this recipe.

 

Adapted from the Vitamix Recipe Booklet

Serves: 1-2

 

1/2 Cup Vanilla Coconut Milk

1 Cup Frozen Grapes

1/2 Cup Fresh Pineapple

2 Scoops Tera’s Whey Vanilla Protein Powder

1 Medium Frozen Banana

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

3 Cups Baby Spinach

 

Blend all ingredients until smooth.

Enjoy straight up or with a little granola on top.

Costco had the Vitamix blender in stock about 2 weeks ago. The last time I saw them there was nearly 3 years ago and I didn’t have the cash to pick one up back then which was a bummer. I’ve been duct taping my magic bullet together lately, waiting for it to die, so I couldn’t pass up the chance to score the super blender at a great price.

 

This recipe make one very large smoothie which I use as a meal replacement or 2 smaller smoothies which can compliment a regular meal. I built the recipe in the MyFitnessPal tool and the large smoothie has about 334 calories, 5g fat, 25g protein, 7g fiber, 53g carbs, and 40g sugar.

Easy Lentil & Quinoa Side Dish (Customize With Your Favorite Flavors!)

I have a new toy! Recently I purchased a rice cooker at Target because I wanted a way to make cooking grains easier while I’m at work. I don’t eat rice very often, but I do eat Quinoa, Oatmeal, and Lentils all the time. The Rice Cooker has made the whole lentil/quinoa cooking process so much easier.

I never knew these Green lentils could be so easy, versatile, and delicious!

 

Easy Quinoa & Lentil Side Dish

Makes: 8 Cups

 

1 Cup uncooked green lentils

1 Cup uncooked (rinsed) Quinoa

3.75 Cups Water

dash of salt (you can always add more later, so go easy)

 

This recipe will make the basic Lentil/Quinoa mix. Once cooked you can add anything you want. If you want more flavor to the basic mix, you can use chicken/veggie broth in place of the water.

Add all the ingredients to the rice cooker.

I set my cooker for the ‘Brown Rice’ setting then went back to work. I believe it only cooks for about 45 minutes, but I can’t tell you exactly because the rice cooker takes care of that for me. When it’s done, it switches to a ‘Keep Warm’ mode until I turn it off. I actually left it for a few hours since I had several back to back meetings. It wasn’t overcooked at all when I finally unplugged the machine.

Follow the instructions for your specific machine when deciding what setting to use.

I store it in the fridge and eat it over the course of the week. It goes well with so many things. The flavor is a little nutty, but otherwise very neutral.

• Add salsa and eat it with eggs
• Added cinnamon and mixed it with oatmeal
• Mix with a little feta and roasted veggies for a vegetarian main course or serve along side Fish/Chicken/Steak
• Throw a scoop into your favorite salad or soup for a protein/fiber boost
• Use it as a replacement for rice in a Stir Fry 

Today for lunch I mixed it with some grated parmesan cheese, a little bit of extra virgin olive oil, and some chopped cherry tomatoes. Next time I might even mix in some sausage to add a bit of spice.

Absolutely Delicious!

Nutritional stats are pretty damn awesome too. 1 cup of the Lentil/Quinoa Mix has about 170 calories, 29g carbs, 1g fat, 9g protein, and 9g fiber. I used the MyFitnessPal recipe creator to get these stats and it doesn’t account for any other ingredients you may mix in for flavor.

 

Bon Appétit!

Grocery Challenge – Nov 12-18

Budget $50

Paid $48.18

Amount put into Savings: $1.82

I’m eating down the fridge this week so I didn’t need much in the way of dairy or meat. I have a stash of frozen ground turkey from a sale a few weeks back that will turn into chili later this week. I’m also making use of several other freezer staples that I already had such as; shrimp, fish, turkey meatballs,green beans, and a premade butternut squash risotto from Trader Joes. I should also point out, this weeks haul is lacking green because I still have fresh broccoli and spinach from last week, and some frozen green beans that I’ll use.

This week I’m also trying my hand at making homemade bread and homemade flour tortillas. I also bought ingredients to make a grain free granola that I want to use in oatmeal and yogurt.

Last week I got pizza for dinner one night so I used money from my grocery fund to pay for it. ($6.97 – not listed but added into the ‘Paid’ calculation)

Oh…and yes…my dog really will eat all 5lbs of those carrots. I’m not allowed a single one, unless I like getting the evil puppy eye. (I don’t, by they way).

This weeks dinner menu:

• Pesto Potatoes with Runny Eggs
• Baked Risotto with Bacon and Peas
• Honey Shrimp over Brown Rice & Roasted Veggies
• Spaghetti with Pesto and Turkey Meatballs & Salad
• Sea Salt Mahi Mahi & Butternut Squash Risotto
• Honey Dijon Grilled Chicken & Roasted Veggies
• Homemade Chili

Groceries purchased (from Target, Henrys, Albertsons):

• Cheddar Cheese
• Refried Black Beans
• Raisins
• Chocolate Shortbread Cookies
• Granulated Sugar
• Garlic (3)
• Onion
• Avocado (3)
• Oranges (2)
• Mushrooms
• Banana
• Turkey Bacon
• Plain Greek Yogurt
• White Sesame Seeds
• Unsweetened Coconut
• Sliced Almonds
• Unsalted Pepitas
• Raw Sunflower Seeds
• Chili Beans (not pictured)
• Chili, no beans (no pictured)
• Taco Seasoning (not pictured)

Grocery Challenge Is Back!

Earlier this year I stared a grocery challenge to keep each weeks grocery cost under $40. At the time my company was going through layoffs and I didn’t know if I would be directly affected, and left without a job so I thought the most responsible thing was to start reigning in expenses.  Now that I’m starting my own businesses and trying to transition into a new career, I feel I need to do the same. So I’ve decided to bring the grocery challenge back.

A few things to note:

• I currently have a decently stocked pantry so the weekly shopping does not include everything that I will eat that week.
• The budget is for 1 person (& 1 pup). For treats, my dog eats carrots and homemade snacks, so those ingredients will be included in my grocery budget until he starts bringing in his own dough (ha!). It’s ok, he pays me in kisses.
• I do coupon when possible and paid for 2 Sunday papers at the start of the year. LA Times offered a great deal around Christmas last year that cost $10 for a year’s worth of Sunday papers. I bought 2 subscriptions which are delivered to my house each week.
• I do most of my shopping at Trader Joes & Target (I get the 5% off at Target using my Red Debit Card + coupon savings). Occasionally I shop at Albertsons, Henrys, Fresh & Easy, and Costco.
• Weekly budget is $50. Any money left over goes into a little savings jar at home to be collected at the end of the year. That money will be either put into savings, used for holiday gifts, or given to charity. If I were to spend only $45 each week and tuck the remaining $5 away, I’d have about $260 at the end of a full year. That would cover most if not all of my Christmas shopping/shipping, or provide a little holiday relief for a local charity.

 

So without further adieu…this weeks grocery shopping. I spent a total of $43.36 and shopped at Trader Joe’s and Target. $6.64 went into the piggy bank at home. Here’s the haul.

 

Healthfull 10 Grain Bread

Whole Wheat Naan

Roasted Garlic Hummus

Multigrain Pita Crackers

 

3lbs Russet Potatoes

Fingerling Potatoes

Broccoli

Acorn Squash

Baby Spinach

 

Cage Free Eggs

Albacore Tuna (3)

Tyson Grilled Chicken

Tyson Grilled Steak

Cooked Chicken Breasts

Quart of Milk (not pictured)

 

I don’t typically purchase so much ready made chicken/steak/tuna, but I expect this week to be busy with work and I can ensure I eat healthier if I have some pre-made options on hand. I do want to say that the Trader Joe’s Cooked Chicken breasts are great, I do buy those regularly. You get about 4 in a package and they are easy to add to a salad, sandwiches, and pastas throughout the week.

 

Anyone else doing a grocery challenge? I’m considering hosting a link party for others to share their posts, so we can all learn from each other, if there is any interest.

 

For any US readers out there, if you are of voting age…make sure you VOTE tomorrow!

Recipes Gone Wrong

Sometimes a picture is only telling you a half truth. For fun, here are two recent meals/recipes I made for the blog, that didn’t quite make the cut. I like you guys too much to have you eat the first one.

I made this pasta about a week ago. It was a mix of whole wheat pasta with a Greek yogurt based avocado and cilantro lime dressing/sauce.

Looks delicious and I had high hopes since it seemed the perfect cool pasta salad on a hot day. Unfortunately, it was pretty bad. Bland, blah, and I ended up only eating a few bites.

The delicious looking picture is mighty deceiving. I don’t know how the ‘healthy living’ bloggers do it, posting their food each day. It took a ridiculous amount of time to make this pasta and take pretty pictures. I’d eat my own arm before being able to post every meal. Kudos to those blogger for making it look easy.

More recently I’ve been playing around with various ways to use fruit butters. My favorite so far has delivered a really good cookie, but it didn’t look so hot. I wish I would taken a picture of what it looked like straight from the oven, but instead I was playing with my camera and the picture itself doesn’t look too bad. Friendly blogger tip: when faced with a bad cookie, tilt it and find decent lighting.

I basically wrapped sugar cookie dough around a bit of apple butter and half a caramel. Concept was to create a caramel apple butter stuffed sugar cookie. It worked, but the center of the cookie fell a lot after removing from the oven due to the melted caramel and apple butter.The finished cookie was delicious, just not very pretty.

I also tried making a sugar cookie ‘cup’ to fill with the apple butter and caramel, but I…umm…burned the cookie dough while trying to make the cup form so that recipe will have to wait for another day.

In the end…why mess with perfection, just a dollop of apple butter on a plain sugar cookie is the way to go. It’s a match made in heaven…trust me. I ate WAY too many, ya know, making sure they were good enough for the blog. Yeah, that’s why.

 

CSA Box Pickup

I have sadly skipped a few weeks of CSA posts; usually because my camera never seemed to be handy when I was shoving things in the fridge putting things away. This week I made sure to have my camera nearby…and charged…since I knew there was something special in the delivery.

 

Now is probably the best time to mention that I’ve made a difficult decision to suspend my CSA pickup for a short while. While I’m trying to actively lose weight, I’m sticking to certain foods which don’t always fall in line with what I get in the box. If I had a little more time to try new recipes more often, it wouldn’t be an issue. All the CSA goodies are incredibly healthy and delicious, but I find myself not eating them fast enough lately to justify the cost. My hope to to take a short break and pick back up with the box in a few months. So, this will likely be the last CSA pick up for a while. However, I do plan to continue using my farmer market to purchase healthy food. I’m sold on the fact that the fruits/veggies coming from my local Farmer’s Market is far superior to my big box grocery store so I plan to continue using them as a resource.

 

This week was full of great stuff like tomatoes, strawberries, lettuce, chard, basil…

and green beans.

Wait, what’s that you see?

Hello Lovely Watermelon!

That sucker was HEAVY, probably a good 5-7 lbs. Turns out it was also a little different than the classic watermelon.

It’s YELLOW!

I had never seen a yellow watermelon, but it had the same great watermelon taste, just a little milder.

It was a big haul this week. However, here lies the problem. I had to pick up this CSA box, throw it in the fridge and then run to my parents house for a birthday celebration. The next morning I pulled out the lettuce to package it up properly so it would last the week and it was ALL wilted already. I had to throw out 2 heads of lettuce, a bunch of chard, and basil. Half my box was in the trash within 24 hours. Bummer.

Aside from the fruits and veggies, I will miss the handmade bouquets they create for me to accompany my pickup. There is a part of me that feels so special when they start building the bouquet when they see me.

Although, Trader Joe’s has some amazing flowers too…so all is not lost.

Seriously beautiful mums from TJs this past weekend. 

Easy Patriotic Layered Cake

It may come as a surprise, since this is the second time I’m sharing a cake recipe with you, but I don’t really like cake. Nope, I’m more of a ice cream or cookie girl. However, I’m finding that I really enjoy making cakes for other people. The golf cake was a huge success earlier this year, and this cake was too.

Added bonus, my mom LOVES white cake and vanilla frosting and this cake was going to her house. Although she may have hated me a little for leaving whole cake in her fridge for her to eat. I told her I could take the rest home and throw it out (since I won’t eat it), and I’m pretty sure her heart stopped beating for a moment.

Turns out making those fancy colored layered cakes are not that hard. Granted, I’m far from a good baker/decorator, but with a little help from my dear friends Duncan Hines and Pillsbury, it was a cinch. In fact the hardest part was being patient during the actual baking process. I only had one cake pan, so I had to bake each layer separately. Do as I say and not as I do, and it won’t take you 2 hours to bake a 5 hour layer cake.

It was worth every minute. 

Ingredients:

• 1 Box White Cake mix
• Vanilla Frosting (I ended up using almost 2 tubs)
• 2 egg whites
• 1 1/2 Cups Diet Sprite/Sierra Mist
• Red and Blue Soft Gel Paste Food Color (I learned from the golf cake fiasco, and purchased some more professional colors which were AMAZING. I strongly recommending use paste/gel coloring instead of the liquid you can buy at the grocery store. I purchased the kit via the link above, but you can also buy individual colors through Hobby Lobby and Michaels)
• 8 in cardboard cake ‘plate’ (Optional)

Since I only wanted to use one box of cake mix, I used a 6 inch cake pan. Using the smaller cake pan allowed me to make thinner, smaller layers.

Step 1:

Add 2 egg whites to the boxed cake mix. Tip: Throw a rubber hot pad under you mixing bowls and they won’t budge while you’re whisking.

Step 2:

Add the diet soda. The batter will foam up a bit and give a lighter textural appearance, similar to angel food cake. After baking it may have more ‘holes’ than a traditional cake, but it won’t taste like the soda. In fact, I don’t think anyone would have known, had I not told them I made it with Sierra Mist. Added bonus, it gives you a light and fluffy cake without the added calories of the oil.

Step 3:

Set out a bowl for each layer. Then using an ice cream scoop, evenly split the batter among the bowls. I had about 4 scoops of batter in each bowl, for a 5 layer cake.

It still looks a little lumpy here as I knew I would be whisking it more when I added the coloring.

Step 4:

Oil and flour the cake pan and bake the white layer first. I baked each layer per the boxed instructions. Since my oven tends to run a little hotter than most, I took them out at about 12 minutes.

Step 5:

While the white layer is cooking, color the other layers. I wanted an ombré style cake, so I colored one layer dark blue, and the next a light blue. That soft paste gel is no joke. The dark layer was just one drop of color and the light was about a quarter drop, just a little bit goes a long way with these.

Do the same with the red.

Tip – Don’t feel like you need to buy red and pink gel coloring. I used just the one red to make both colors, you just need to vary how much color you add to the batter to make it lighter or darker. 

I had to bake and cool each layer separately since I had only one 6 inch pan. (I wasn’t opposed to purchasing more, but they only had one left in stock at Michaels, so I was stuck with just the one pan). If you have more than one pan, this process would obviously go much faster. If you are also using just one pan, make sure you wash it and flour it between each layer so the next color doesn’t stick.

After each layer cooled, I’d gently slice off the top with a sharp knife, dipped in flour, to make it flat. If you’re feeling ambitious, turn the remnants into cake pops! In fact I froze the bits I cut off so I can do just that.

 

All the layers are done! Now that wasn’t so hard, right? Think of all the different color variations you could do.

I put the cake in the refrigerator over night, covered with a towel. The next morning, I started assembling.

Step 6:

I built the cake with layers of the plain vanilla frosting.

Then used the same frosting to crumb coat the entire cake. I popped it back in the fridge while I prepped the rest of the frosting.

To take the ‘packaging’ taste away from the store bought frosting, I almost always add vanilla. This time I used a fresh vanilla bean and added it to the frosting. If you don’t have any beans, then vanilla extract will work too. However, I implore you, please don’t waste your money buying 2 vanilla beans at the grocery store for $7, that’s ridiculous. You can purchase a bag of about 50 for $25 from Amazon. Partner up with a few of your friends and split the cost if you want. It’s a great deal. You can use them for dozens of things and I promise adding a fresh vanilla bean to your baking will make everything taste amazing. You can also use a few to make you’re own homemade vanilla or throw the empty pods into sugar for Vanilla Sugar. 

Step 7:

Frost. I added a lot of frosting since that is my moms favorite part. Then I added a little more to the top to make a swirly design.

I used the back of a large spoon to make a circular swirl pattern.

Step 8:

Decorate!

Now that I had a soft swirl on the top, I wanted to add some sparkle. I’m sure there is a much fancier way to do this, but I used a standard funnel to direct the sprinkles. It worked great to keep everything exactly where I wanted it.

Simple, and Sweet.

It really is such an easy effect to create using store brought products. I’m sure homemade cake and frosting may taste better, but it won’t trump the accomplishment I had from making this.

I felt like a cake making ROCKSTAR!

 

*Disclaimer: Product links are affiliate, but all opinions are my own. All items were purchased with my own money and I liked them enough to share them with you.

CSA Box #6

I’m BACK!

 

Although, my return is not nearly as exciting when you realize that I didn’t actually go anywhere. I did spend some time dreaming about a cabana on a tropical beach, but reality is that life became so busy that I just needed to step away for a bit. It wasn’t a planned thing, I kept meaning to draft a post each evening, but it just didn’t happen.

So let’s catch up a bit…

My favorite little beagles stopped by for a visit.

I love this picture because my little lab looks so mischievous as he was sneaking up on Shelby. Luckily they all got along very well, no alpha dog fights this time.

One weekend I spent a ton of time (with some family help) on homeowner chores, like changing air filters, changing water filters, tinkering with the Air Conditioner (which is broken), ripping out the grass in the backyard and laying new sod, sweet talking my parents to come over first thing on a Sunday to take me to Costco so I could buy a new car battery, and building a temporary workbench for the garage. 

I’ve also rekindled my love affair with peonies which have been in abundant supply at both Trader Joes and Fresh & Easy.

I’ve also been focusing A LOT on my eating and running which has been going REALLY well. I’m down 21 lbs as of Monday and I’m loving the food I’ve been eating lately. I’ve also signed up for a few races, but I’ll share more about that in a separate post.

Delicious yogurt and berries which only looks cool because of Instagram magic.

This leads me nicely into my CSA haul from this past weekend, including another gorgeous bouquet which they crafted on the spot at the Farmer’s Market.

Goodies:

• lettuce
• spinach
• cucumbers
• string beans
• summer squash
• kale
• basil
• blackberries
• oranges
• avocados
• strawberries

Fresh Blackberries!!

As I do with all my CSA boxes, I took a little time to wash, chop, and ‘save’ all the lettuce, berries, and basil. You can read more about how I extend the life of my veggies for the specifics. It’s the coolest trick, and a total money saver since I can’t go through all that lettuce in one week.

I also ‘vacu-save’ berries and yogurt into personal sized jars. I agree it looks a little OCD in my fridge, but it really doesn’t take much time. It makes meals during the week so easy. I just grab a yogurt and a berry jar, toss them together and I have a healthy breakfast/snack. The lettuce will last nearly 2 weeks this way and I can use just what I need on a daily basis. I have plans to turn some basil into fresh pesto as well as try my hands at Kale Chips this week.

Around the house, I’ve started on the foyer, the wall is painted and I’m working on painting the bookcases. I’ve also made progress on Spare Bedroom. As a reminder, the room looked like this…

The blinds are now down, window and wall moulding has been installed.

By the way…Frog tape sucks!

I put this stuff up and within 20 minutes it had peeled completely off the wall and fell to the floor. Such a waste. 

I still need to finish caulking the top of the window, then it’s time for paint! I can’t wait, I finally have a vision for this room and I’m excited to see it how it turns out.

Oh, and I recently celebrated the 2 year anniversary of moving into my first home. I plan on drafting up a recap of everything I’ve done to the house in those 2 years in the coming week.