Nursery Closet project 2011

My daughter's room has been finished for a while now; however, there was one thing left - her closet doors. They are quite wide and tall as well = expensive to replace... But they really were an eyesore and totally didn't flow with the rest of the room.

A while back we were at Home Depot I forget for what, but while I was waiting for hubby to get his stuff, I noticed this Martha Stewart raised wallpaper stand. I was intrigued! Turns out all you really need to install them is glue. So... I bought a container of ready-to-use wallpaper glue and a roll of wallpaper.

Many weeks later, I got my sister to help glue them onto the nursery closet doors :)

Our supplies:

Before and after:

The pattern:

Now we just have to decide whether or not to paint it...

Liza's Birthday

My little sister turned 23 years old on July 5th. That's right, 23! I know to some of you it doesn't seem like a lot... Or why it would be a big deal since it's not a round age, or that important milestone that allows you to drive, drink legally at bars, rent a luxury car, etc. But to me it was. Why, you ask? Because last time I was with her for her birthday was in 2005 when she turned 17. That's right, it has been 6 years...

So, we decided to make a cake, rather than buy one! And we did just that... well, sort of. We did do a cream cheese icing from scratch, but our marble cake came from a box (oh, well). The thing is, we did search for an easy recipe - and we did have almost all of the ingredient needed. But every recipe we found called for either milk, or sour cream, and we had neither... So finally, we just turned to the marble cake mix. And what's wrong with that anyways? After some oil + water + eggs, it turned out great (we added  blueberries and shaved coconut for a little twist)!

And we're back!

Wow, I haven't blogged for almost two weeks now! Some of you might wonder why. Others know :)
It is because my little sister Liza (well, she's not so little anymore) has come for a 4-week visit! I'm ecstatic!!! She arrived on the 30th of June and we've been pretty busy - you know, Canada Day (her first here, my 13th!), the weekend, and her birthday on the 5th.

So, Canada Day (for those who don't know, it's on July 1st) - we decided it'll be fun to go downtown during the day since we had the Royal couple Will & Kate visiting our Nation's capital. We were determined to get a glimpse. Of course, people said we were crazy to try and go downtown since they were projecting 600,000 people to be there for the Royals, but we weren't as crazy as some of the people that got to the Parliament at 5:30 am to stake out their spots. Anyways, of course we ended up in a huge crowd of people, but we weren't as far back, could've been worse :) AND we did get a small glimpse of what we came for (my Canon got a more zoomed in glimpse, he-he):

After our "brush" with royalty and a serious sunburn on our shoulders we went home to eat and relax a little bit. Later that evening, we decided to go back for fireworks. I've seen the Canada Day fireworks time and time before and I love them! And since the Royals were in town, I figured they would be even better... They lasted 15 minutes and they were GREAT! Check out this video I shot:

I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did :)

The goodness of romaine...

Finally, the time has come to start tasting the "fruits" of our labour! Of course, this first harvest isn't anything special, it's only lettuce... Nonetheless, it's always great to know where your food comes from, how it's been grown, where it's organic.

So first up is Romaine Lettuce, which turned out great!

As fresh as it gets!

 Last year we didn't plant any, but rather went with other lettuce varieties (still have them this year). However, we wanted to have MORE! (Plus, I forgot that lettuce is usually a one-time thing - once it's ready you gotta pull the whole thing out, roots and everything, and then re-seed.) Of course, Romaine is considered to be a dark-green leafy "green" and apparently is REALLY good for you.

Why? Well, it's a great source of Riboflavin, Vitamin B6, Calcium, Magnesium, Phosphorus and Copper, Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Thiamin, Folate, Iron, Potassium and Manganese. And obviously, it's low in all the bad stuff such as saturated fats, sodium and cholesterol. Finally, as with other dark leafy greens, the antioxidants contained within romaine lettuce are believed to help prevent cancer.

All I have to say is that it's tasting GREAT in my salad right now :)))
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In other news, our garden is slowly progressing:

~ tomatoes (cherry) are ready to start reddening

 ~ cucumbers are poking through

~ and so are the zucchinis

~ and finally, our hot peppers are almost ready to be picked

Should be a good harvesting season. Stay tunned!

Quote of the day

"True leaders listen to the voice of their people; dictators jail them for their rightful demands."
~ Jerzy Buzek, President of the European Parliament, on situation in Belarus.

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