Odds and Ends

Hola my friends! How was your weekend?

Mine was really truly great however as always went by way too fast.

Our basement is almost finished and it is so exciting to see how it has all come together. We (okay, mostly Dana) spent a good chunk of the weekend continuing to work on the basement and move furniture downstairs. Our guest bedroom is officially moved downstairs which means that we can start working on the nursery upstairs now!

We also teamed up and tackled the weeds in the garden. That was a much-needed job and I am happy to report that all of our plants are doing well! We even had two sugar snap peas; one for each of us. They were crunchy and perfect.

Some other odds and ends…

I caved and bought some more maternity clothes. I tried to go with the basics this time around: dark jeans, shorts, black tee, white tee, long-sleeved grey tee, and I got a few other tops as well! Old Navy and Gap have great maternity wear!

melanie

Healing my gut is an ongoing journey, so I made myself another batch of bone broth soup to help soothe and heal. Making bone broth is quite the process in case you didn’t know! I made chicken bone broth but someday I want to make beef bone broth because i think I would enjoy it more (more flavor).

bone broth

I’ve been trying to be creative with foods again now that I am really into all foods again (no real aversions any more that I can think of). I threw together an old salad staple of mine with some minor adjustments based on what I had in the kitchen: spinach, strawberries, chicken, red onion, parmesan cheese, sliced almonds, and poppy seed dressing. I would have preferred feta cheese but we didn’t have any. And I should have added black beans and avocado. But it was still good.

strawberry salad

Dana and I made Saturday night date night and went to Punch pizza for my first time. They serve Neapolitan style pizza and eating their pizza seriously brought me back to our honeymoon in Italy. We got the margherita pizza with olives and mushrooms. We also split a really delicious salad.

pizza date night

The last odd and end:

About the same time I found out I was pregnant, I received a wonderful package from a company called Puro Fairtrade Coffee. As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I stopped drinking caffeine. Not to mention, the thought of coffee made me queasy in the first trimester.

So there I was with three delicious bags of coffee beans along with a sweet little mug sitting in my home to review. I felt so bad I wouldn’t be able to review it myself but asked if it were okay that my husband review it instead, and they agreed that would be absolutely a-okay!

puro fairtrade coffee puro fairtrade coffee puro fairtrade coffee

Puro coffee

About Puro Fairtrade Coffee 

Puro Fairtrade Coffee comes from a company Miko, they are based in Belgium and are one of the oldest coffee roasters in the world (since 1801!). All coffee from Puro is Fairtrade, but uniquely, Puro works in partnership with a rainforest charity called World Land Trust and money from each bag of their coffee is used to buy and protect areas of rainforest in coffee producing countries.

Puro coffee sales to date, have funded the protection of more than 10,000 acres of rainforest across 6 countries.

Although I personally wasn’t able to taste-test the coffee as I gave up caffeine when I became pregnant, Dana, my husband was able to taste and review it for me. He just finished up the last of it a week ago. He really enjoyed the earthiness (but not TOO earthy), bold and rich flavor of the coffee. We both love that the company is fairtrade and feel great about supporting a company with so much compassion and heart.

Sustainability

Their roasting plant in Belgium was placed near to Antwerp, the world’s second largest coffee port and its roof is covered with solar panels providing for all electricity needs. Residual heat from the roasting process is re-directed to power underfloor heating throughout the factory and offices. Coffee chaff generated through roasting is given to local organic farmers for fertilizing their fields.

I love this!

Another partnership in the UK combines used coffee grounds from filter and espresso generated at key client sites with food waste, creating compost. Also….Puro’s coffee foils are even upcycled into bags, flower pots and dresses!

Video

Now you can see why this company is so great! To learn more about their story watch their video: http://vimeo.com/fairtradecoffee/our-story 

Online Shop

They have an online shop if you are interested in purchasing:  https://www.puroathome.com/

Okay, that’s enough randomness for one day. Have a good one! xoxo

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House and Fashion Updates

It’s Monday. Choose happy. I know it’s not always easy but do it. 🙂

happiness

This weekend was very productive around our house. We finished painting the basement! The next step will be putting in the baseboards and the door frames and then the cleaning the carpet by hiring Carpet Cleaning New Albany! Eeee we are getting closer and closer to having a finished basement and it is so exciting!

We also bought flowers for our window flower boxes, a couple of plants, and vegetables for our garden. This year we are going with zucchini, three different tomatoes, sugar snap peas, and red bell pepper. Everything is planted so now we just wait a 2-3 months and hope for a bountiful year! Last year the weather wasn’t in our favor and our veggies didn’t do well at all. I have a feeling it will be a good year this year.

I wanted to let you all know that the dress and shirt I bought from Filly Flair fit perfectly and I will be keeping them. I’m wearing the dress to a wedding this summer and the shirt for kicking around. Yay for cute clothes!

filly flair top 2 filly flair dress

 

Now I just need to find a necklace to go with the dress. I really like how the mint one looks with the dress so I might be on the search for something similar. What do you think?

I still haven’t decided if I’m going to use Rent the Runway for a dress I need for a New York wedding that I’m going to in June. I’m actually learning towards not using it only because I have a girlfriend with a couple of really cute dresses that I could borrow plus I want to go to a couple more stores before deciding. The biggest issues I have with RTR is that 1. I don’t get to keep the dress afterwards (I LOVE dresses) and 2. I’m afraid I won’t like it or I won’t like how it fits and then I’ll be stuck with RTR store credit. IDK. I’m still up in the air about it but my guess is I will more than likely not use it right now. But thanks for helping me “shop” and giving me your opinions on the dresses. They really are adorable! I probably would have gone with this one:

rtr dress

 

 

Moose turned 6 years old on Saturday! We celebrated by giving him a little bite of steak and throwing the ball to him in the yard.

moose

 

Plus mother nature gave him beautiful weather all weekend. It was such a nice treat!

Alright, that’s all the updates I have for now.

I want to know… How was YOUR weekend? What were some highlights?

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Zucchini “Pasta”, Breakfast & A Furniture Makeover

Hello hello! Happy hump day. We’re going to be a little bit all over the place today, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.

First, if you follow me on Instagram or Twitter you may have seen a delicious photo that looked something like this a couple of days ago:

zucchini pasta with turkey meatballs

If you didn’t see it, you should probably double-check to make sure you are following me on Instagram and Twitter. 🙂

Besides putting a little TLC into creating the zucchini “pasta”, this dish came together pretty quickly with the help of some leftover Thai turkey meatballs from the freezer.

For the zucchini: I was too lazy to pull out the mandolin to thinly slice the zucchini and I figured it would be just as easy for me to cut it all by hand anyway, so I thinly cut two fresh farmer’s market zucchini, put them into a strainer over the sink, sprinkled them with a little bit of salt, and let them sit for about 20 minutes to help remove some excess water. I then placed them into a pan on the stove top which I had coated with sesame oil. I let these cook on low for about 7-8 minutes, stirring frequently. Towards the end of the cooking process I added a couple of splashes of coconut aminos, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and at the very end I added chopped fresh basil and cilantro.

Turkey meatballs: You can check out the recipe by looking back at this post if you are interested. I took the meatballs out of the freezer, let them defrost, then placed them on a baking sheet under the broiler. I broiled them for approximately 8-10 minutes until cooked through and slightly browned, turning them halfway.

Onto the plate: Once the zucchini and meatballs were done, I first plated the zucchini pasta, next the turkey meatballs, and finally a sprinkle of sesame seeds. Voila!

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Moose is still loving doing his night time yoga stretching. He took over the yoga mat completely the other night. In his offense, I wan’t yoga’ing too intensely so naturally he thought he should probably take over.

Moose yoga

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Breakfasts

I’ve been changing up my breakfasts from the usual smoothies. I’ve been rotating between my old favorite of banana and nut (almond) butter, over-easy eggs, fruit and nut “cereal” bowls, and smoothies.

Lately the cereal bowl is my jam. In it is blueberries, strawberries, chopped almonds, chopped cashew, almond milk, and a touch of honey. So refreshing and so fun to me because I feel like I’m eating cereal.

fruit and nut cereal

 

Love it.

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Dresser Turned TV Stand

For the longest time, Dana and I have been on the lookout for a new TV stand. The one we had been using was from Dana’s college years and was just that—a TV stand appropriate for a college apartment. It just didn’t look right in our living room now. Neither of us were willing to fork over hundreds of dollars for a new one though, so I decided to get crafty . With the inspiration from my beautiful friend Haley as well as Pinterest, I was going to make my own TV stand and I was going to make it from an old dresser. Project renovation.

It wasn’t an urgent project, so gradually I began looking at second hand stores and garage sales for decent priced dressers.  The one I found was at a garage sale right in my neighborhood. I spotted it while I was driving home, just click to see the pictures here it looked like the perfect size, was in great shape, and was only $20. Sold. You’ve got to love the butterfly drawer knobs too. I mean come on.

dresser turned tv stand

To renovate:

  1. We gave it a good scrub down.
  2. Slathered three coats of paint on it (letting each coat dry in between of course).
  3. Placed a painted piece of plywood on the top shelf to serve as a resting place for the cable box and DVD player.
  4. Cut a hole in the back of the top shelf for the cable wires.
  5. Put new knobs on (I kept the butterfly ones just in case—they’re so adorable).
  6. Moved it into the living room, reconnected the cables, and that was that!

It was a two day project which totaled out to be about $50. Not bad if you ask me! I may have found my calling. 😉

dresser turned tv stand

The color we picked out is a little more purpley than I had thought it would be, but it actually looks just perfect in our living room. It makes the space look more homey and inviting. I love it!

I could continue on this randomness but I think I will stop at that.

I have some super fun plans tonight and I am very excited to share them with you all in the next few days. Be on the lookout!

Are you enjoying the abundant zucchini as much as I am right now?
What’s your favorite breakfast right now?
Have you gotten crafty lately?

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