My First Giveaway!!!

I am so super duper excited to share This Life of Our's first ever give away.

You may remember my grouping from a few weeks back that I absolutely adore.

Do you remember I told you about my super adorable "R" monogram that I ordered off of Etsy?

Here's a closeup to jog your memory:

It has gotten loads of compliments...I love compliments :)

Well, the amazingly talented Arian of Font Supply over on Etsy has graciously agreed to send one This Life of Ours reader a print of their very own. Woohooo!!!

Monograms are so in these days and with the holidays right around the corner, what better time to buy? Arian's store is even offering a buy one get one free special so check her out for some great holiday gifts.

Here's how to enter:

Must be a This Life of Ours follower.

Comment back with your favorite print and who you would give it to.

I will pick the winner using Random.org and announce it on Wednesday.

Happy Shopping!


PS- Don't forget to join in on the fun at What's Cookin' Good Lookin' and bring some friends! Recipe swap closes at 12pm on Saturday and I will review one recipe on Sunday!

Starting at the beginning

Well Hey All! Don't forget to participate in What's Cookin' Good Lookin'? I can't wait to see (and taste) what you all come up with!

It dawned on me that I've been showing you all of our home decorating, but I've never taken the time to show you the last year of house work. From tiling, to painting, to cutting down walls...we've been busy. Today, I will start with the story of our home, which is on my "Our House" page and follow up daily with a tour of each room in our home. Get ready!

Here she is- home sweet home! Built in 1959, our house is twice our age, but we treat her like our very high maintenance child. Over the last year, Paul and I have put everything we have into her and the work is still going. She is high maintenance but we love her nonetheless.

How our house came to be ours is actually pretty interesting. During our first year in Virginia we rented a home as we did not know if we would stay in the area once Paul completed flight training. In April of 2009, we got the word that we would be staying here for at least three more years. We were so tired of throwing money down the hole every month in rent so it was time to take the next step...purchasing a house. Yikes!

We started the home search in May and narrowed it down to two neighborhoods, though our hearts were truly set on one. Truth be told, the city in which we live has some pretty rough spots so location was key and we were determined to move into the neighborhood of our choice.

Throughout the search for our home, which brought us into over 100 homes (picky much?), Paul and I always liked one particular street. The houses were quaint, it was less than a 1/2 mile from my work, there was no traffic, and it was set back in the corner of our dream neighborhood. We also had the style of house picked out that we wanted: a smallish, brick cape cod with shutters. During our home search, a hobby of ours was to drive through our desired neighborhood and to look for new "for sale" signs. On one occasion, as we drove down our favorite street, I picked out a house and said, "I want a house just like that one." Too bad it wasn't for sale.

Fast forward two months. Our lease was about to run out, we'd looked at every home in our price range and came up with nothing. We were desperate to find a house or we would be forced to sign a new lease for another year. Another year of money down the hole. Knowing how desperate we were, our realtor sent out a letter to everyone in our desired neighborhood to see if they were willing to sell by the end of July. She had one response. One. A couple who had grown too old to care for their house. A house that was a brick cape cod with shutters. A house that was on our desired street. A house that was in our price range.

The house that I had picked out months before that made me say,

"I want a house just like that one."

You know the saying, "it's too good to be true," well, this time it wasn't. To make a long story short, that house is now our house and we could not be happier. Not many people hand pick their dream home when it's not even for sale and end up living in it. I loved our house before it was even ours and I still do.

Stay tuned tomorrow for kitchen before and afters!

What's Cookin' Good Lookin' - let's try this again!

With a few more readers than the last time I tried this, I want to give What's Cookin' Good Lookin' another chance!

What's Cookin' Good Lookin' is my attempt at a blog recipe exchange. I get tired of making the same things over and over again, and am looking to my blog friends to help spice up my life...in the kitchen. So please participate in this recipe exchange in return for some great recipes!

Here's how to join:

1) Must be a "This Life of Ours" follower to join

You can follow by clicking on the "follow" button over there ------>
 

2) Blog about what's for dinner in your house or share an old post with a recipe that you love!

3) Scroll down to the bottom of this blog post and click on the link to enter.

4) Post your recipe and you're ready to go!

5) Every Sunday night I will make one of the entered recipes and blog about it.
(entries must be in by 12:00pm on Saturday)

***For extra super cool bonus points, put a link to What's Cookin' Good Lookin' in your blog post to help get more bloggers and recipes to join! Our kitchen's are about to get a lot more fun!***

Here's my entry, and oldie but goodie and the hub's favorite meal!

Spinach Tortellini Bake

 Serves 4 (or 2 really hungry people- don't judge)

• 1 lb cheese tortellini
• 1 tablespoons butter or margarine
• 2 (or more if you're like me) garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1 1/2 cups fat free half and half
• 1 bag of baby spinach (I use organic, not that it matters)
• ground black pepper
• 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese or to your liking
• crushed spicy red pepper (optional)

Directions:

1. Pre-heat the broiler.
2.  Place a large pot of water over high heat to boil. Once boiling, cook the pasta according to package.
3. While the pasta is cooking, place a large skillet over medium heat with the butter. Cook the garlic in the butter until aromatic, about 1 minute, then sprinkle the flour into the butter and cook for another minute while stirring. Allow to thicken
4. Whisk the half and half into the mixture and add parmesan little by little. Stir until mixed and add red pepper if desired. Allow to thicken.
5. Add spinach. Cook until wilted
6. Once sauce is thickened and tastes to your liking, add the tortellini. Coat the tortellini in sauce and mix it all up.
7. Transfer everything to a large casserole dish and sprinkle with additonal parmesan and pepper if desired.
8. Place under the broiler to brown, about a minute.

Enjoy!

Muffins anyone?

This weekend I hit up my favorite store, Ann Taylor Loft to see what was going down in the land of petites. I was so excited when I saw these jeans on sale for $19.99. Add in my 25% of coupon and teacher's discount and that dropped them down to $13.99!

$13.99 for hot new jeans? Yes, please!

Well, there was one issue and it was sort of a big deal. The jeans were one size too small.

When I tried them on  the dreaded muffin top reared it's ugly, jiggly head.

This is not me! Got it here

I instantly pictured myself strutting down the block with my flub hanging and being cat-called...bowchichabowow!

Are you kidding me? Muffin top is the worst. But, guess what I did? I bought the jeans anyway....I'm such a masochist. Truth is, I decided that if the jeans don't fit me, well gosh darnit, I'm going to fit the jeans! I was this size not too very long ago so it's probably time I get my rear in gear (a smaller gear of course!)I've enjoyed every second of indulging but now it's time to get a movin', literally.

So wish me luck that I can get myself comfortably into these jeans in the not too distant future. Until then ladies, flaunt it! Muffin tops and all.

A sad, sad first...

I wanted to take a moment to show you the world's longest mirror project. By world's longest, I mean, the most annoying and tedious project ever.

Shall we continue?

I had a vision of a set of sparkling, yet subtle mirrors to replace the seashell picture in our dining room:

Pardon the image, it's the only one I could scavenge up on this computer and the main focus was the light fixture, but you get the idea of the seashell pic.

Anywho, back to my vision. What I intended was to make a super trendy and sparkly, yet classic and subtle group of mirrors as the focus on our back wall in the dining room.

I started with eight of these $3 pine mirrors from Ikea:

Not terrible on its own, but I had a plan. I would add those glass bead things that fill vases. Sorry for no pics....

Over the course of two weeks, 10ish hours, 1 bottle of white spray paint, about 60 glue sticks later, and a crippled had from gluing each.individual.bead, here's what I ended up with (click on the pics for better detail):

I have to be honest with ya- I'm feeling "eh" about them, but they'll do. This is the first project that I've completed that I'm not head over heals in love with. I think even this post lacks the usual enthusiasm I have when I complete a project. But, it's better than the seashell pic, right?

You better say yes or I'll have to whip my glue gun out on ya :)

SO excited!!!

I've been featured on Simply Sunshine and Daisys- check it out! Don't forget to send some blog lovin' on over to Liv Kit!

I'll be back later to show you my new mirror project! Ah...the suspense.

Inspiration at the commissary

Earlier this week, I took a quick trip to the commissary- one of my favorite places ever. For those of you who are not familiar with the commissary, it's a military grocery store. But it's not just a grocery store, no, no, no. It's a grocery store where nearly everything is about 20% cheaper than your average Harris Teeter or Food Lion. Cha-ching!

Most people hate going because it's usually crowded, but I LOVE me a commissary trip. Infact, food shopping with Paul is one of my most favorite things to do. Seriously. I'm crazy about food, what can I say?

While most commissary trips are uneventful, this week's trip inspired me. Check out what my hubs spotted:

A girl walking around with a four inch binder, itemized by aisle, full of coupons. I've never seen anything like it. A-mazing. Are you green with coupon envy? I am.

I stink at coupon clipping and, to be honest, wasn't sure where to even find coupons outside of the commissary aisles. So I had to inquire as this girl was obviously an expert. If you know me, you know I have no fear in going up to a stranger and striking a conversation. Clearly, I also have no problem asking someone if I can take a photo of their coupon binder. So, faster than you can say "buy one get one free," I made a beeline to pick this coupon phenom's brain.

Here are the minutes from our interrogation convo:

-Most people use a two inch binder for their coupons, my guru uses four.
- The best way to store the coupons is in baseball card sheets.
- If you have a numbered and itemized coversheet with the aisles of your grocery store, you can number your binder to find your coupons quickly.
 - The best place to get coupons is in a Sunday newspaper and if you hit up the dollar store early, you can get the newspaper for $1 instead of $2.
- Websites for coupons include www.coupon.com, www.redplum.com, and www.smartsource.com

I am absolutely in awe and am completely inspired to make a coupon binder of my very own. So, I have to know, are you as inspired as I am or do you already have your own way to organize coupons? Are you a coupon clipper, or just suck it up and pay full price? Any other tips to share? Help a girl out!