Bin For Your Buck

The other day I was Pincrastinating (procrastinating on Pinterest, can I trademark that?) and I found this pin from my friend Meghan. Now, I know that isn't food, but it's something for the home and we can't forget that's the whole inspiration for this blog in the first place!









I'd like to say that I'm just sitting around in the sun enjoying summer every day and have plenty of time for random projects, but that's not really the case. That being said, I obviously had to make this. And obviously I went to AC Moore the next day. If you know me, you know that once I want to do something, I do it. Like as soon as possible. And this time I dragged Nate along. As luck would have it (shocking, I know) my wood crate was on sale for $8 and I saved an extra 15% with my teacher discount. Score! Now our crate has handles, and if you actually click on the post, you'll see that theirs did too and they did so much work to cover it up. I don't know about you, but covering handles with wood just to add handles seems crazy pants to me. I made the executive decision to skip that step, unless we could find handles that covered up the holes.

So we popped over to Lowes to scope out the stains and handles. No handles big enough so we scratched that. We browsed all the stains and samples and decided on this one: Rust-Oleum Ultimate Wood Stain in dark walnut. We liked the color best, Rust-Oleum is a great brand, and really it was the cheapest at just $4.47. Score again. Then we grabbed a cheapo paintbrush for $1.12. We already had sandpaper, some plastic drop cloth, and polyurethane for another project, but honestly, because the crate was totally unstained I really didn't use it much, just to smooth any scratchy edges. And here's how it went down...

(It's important to remember that we have 2 kitten cats so you can remove the cat steps when you replicate this process if you don't)

1. Lay down plastic to protect area. Remove cats from rolling on plastic.
2. Sand the crate in any places that are rough or too smooth.
3. Find an old rag. An old white T-shirt with pit stains will do.
4. Open and stir the stain. Leftover paper wedding straws work great.
5. Chase down cat to get used, sticky straw back.Throw away straw.
6. Paint on the stain and apply it "liberally" as it says.
7. Give it a minute or two to soak in and then wipe down with shirt.
8. Repeat steps 6 and 7. It dries pretty quickly so I did the whole outside of the crate and left it for a couple hours and then did the whole inside.
9. Let dry over night so you can sleep and wash the stain off yourself.
10. Apply a coat of polyurethane and let dry.
11. Enjoy the glory and success of having completed a Pinterest project that looks good and didn't cause you to want to murder anyone. Ta da!

For about $13 we have a sweet new bin that looks old. Swoon. It's going to hold pillows and blankets in our new house and make Nate so glad he doesn't have to keep fluffing them on the couch. Victory for everyone! I just might need to give it a sibling.

Once Upon A Time...

Once upon a time there were two married bloggers who got very, very busy and turned into terrible, horrible, no good, very bad bloggers...

Clearly you've figured out that story is about us. We haven't forgotten about our blog at all, we just can't seem to find enough time to sit down and share our exciting news with you all (no, we are not pregnant, calm down). Between school ending, two vacations, multiple jobs and snuggly kitten cats, we don't even have five spare minutes (okay, fine, maybe we have five, but we need more)! But, we're back from the good ole southern lowcountry and pinky promise to update this week. Stay tuned.

You Can Get Anything You Want At Annabelle's Restaurant

As should be obvious to everyone, we are trying to buy a house, and thus trying to save money. It's one of the reasons we started this blog in the first place (even though I am a bad blogger and have been neglecting our creation of late). As part of this search for our own home, we've been spending a LOT of time looking at properties. Sometimes this happens on a weeknight, and by the time we're done it's almost 9pm and the concept of cooking dinner is a nightmare - even more so than it is for me generally.

This confluence of events, and a handy-dandy Groupon, led us to Annabelle's in Hyde Park last month. This is a relatively new place as they just opened in 2010 and that newness is evident as soon as you walk in. The whole building is clean, modern, updated and open, providing a very welcoming atmosphere for a meal. They have ample seating both in the sizable bar area and in the rest of the restaurant, with TV's interspersed throughout the venue (which was key for us me this particular night, as I was able to catch the end of a Bruins playoff game while we ate).

The food here was very good as well. They advertise themselves as serving "traditional New England fare" but they have something for everyone, along with some interesting twists. Basically, they have a standard American dining menu, with everything from sandwiches to seafood and many cultural foods as well. Hard to not find something to eat when you dine here and more options are a plus in my book (though not necessarily going to get the Restaurant Impossible seal of approval, with their penchant for one page menus).

Sweet & Spicy!

About those "twists" on the menu.  One of the specials was Chicken & Waffles the southern-style staple. Liking both chicken and waffles, and never having had them together before, I obviously took the plunge. I was not disappointed. A delicious, flaky Belgian waffle was topped with crispy, succulent fried chicken with sides of maple syrup and hot sauce. While putting all these things together in one bite may sound odd, the flavors and textures all melded really well together. I'm sold on chicken and waffles and may need to explore other southern creation. My only beef is that one of my pieces of fried chicken was essentially just batter and bones though, which was disappointing.

Kendra got the wild salmon with jasmine rice and baby spinach over greens with a vinaigrette sauce, but in typical fashion subbed in rice pilaf for jasmine rice and added a side of asparagus. I had the leftover rice pilaf and it had excellent flavor, which was a nice surprise. The vegetables and salmon seemed to be good as well, as they didn't last long on the plate. Also of note, they bring delicious fresh baked bread before your meal, which melts in your mouth [not pictured due to the speed with which we devoured it]. It was like the peasant loaf of Joe's American Bar & Grill but we didn't share it amongst friends.

Now, given our Groupon, which was worth $35, we ended up paying about $7 bucks for the whole meal including tip. Not buying beverages goes a long way to keeping costs down. All in in, it was a nice dinner out at a new place that we'll likely go to again sometime. If you ever find yourself in Hyde Park, we'd recommend checking out Annabelle's - IF you can score a coupon. No sense paying full price for anything.