Green is making a come-back!

The yard is starting to grow again :-) It makes me so happy to see progress in the garden beds /trees, especially after the crazy winter we had! 20 year record for bad winter in NH for those keeping track!

lilacs and daffodils along the garage

flowering pear tree w/dogwoods in the background

iris and possibly flox (against the rock) in the triangle bed

buds on the maple tree in the triangle bed

iris in the all-but-empty raised flower beds along the back of the house

This is going to be completed this spring! I can't wait!

lilacs planted last summer along the back fence

Salmon and Kale in coconut cream sauce :-)

it was SUPER delish

and not all that hard either

kale was steamed, salmon was baked in the cream sauce

TA DA!

I've been pretty good about keeping up with my new recipes every week. I don't always use a new one every night, but I try to incorporate them in each meal - the sauce was new for this meal :-)

Dinners last week

My goal last week was to have something different every night. It sort of worked? We managed to try 3 new meals/recipes. The two pretty ones are shown below. The third, while it tasted delish, didn't photograph well and looked kinda like mush - LOL!

 Monday: steak w/yellow pepper, onion, pineapple over romaine hearts

 Wednesday: chicken fajitas in bib lettuce wraps

Thursday (not shown): cauliflower risotto w/mushrooms, chicken sausage, onion and broccoli

For those curious people, Tuesday was leftovers and Friday was Thai take-out!

I'm Calling IT!

DONE! stick a fork in it - DONE! FINITO!
Yes, the basement has a few more tiny projects - putting up shelves, adding some storage behind Matt's desk, but let's face it, that stuff is kinda boring anyway ;-) What's more exciting are before and after pics - WAHOO! especially when they are almost 6 months in the making!!  Can you believe it's been 6 months?!

I apparently didn't take any good photos of the stairwell before
so here's partway thru construction

AFTER :-)

bottom of the stairs before

part-way thru construction

AFTER :-)

Before

AFTER :-)
Isn't my double pantry beautiful?

Before, but cleaned for construction with none of our mess!

AFTER :-)

Before
(Is it wrong that throwing out those carpets
made me incredibly, unbelievably happy?)

AFTER :-)

Before 

AFTER :-)
LOVE that Matt can work on grad school and work from home
without being wrapped up like a mummy in blankets to stay warm!

pardon the messy desk!
I don't touch it or he'll never find anything again - LOL

This was an amazing project for us in so many ways: learning how to juggle work, holidays, family, Reese and all those workmen in our home (communication with all those workmen too!), not to mention all the shoveling and the freezing weather we had this winter. Some stuff we did ourselves and I think we made good choices on what we could handle vs paying professionals to do the work which saved us money! We both agree that trying to live in an unfinished space and then move everything to finish it and then put everything back is a huge pain. We should have left the basement as dead space until we were ready to renovate because over the years it became our dumping ground for all kinds of stuff. Stuff that had to be cleaned out/organized/given away/sold/donated before only the items we truly wanted went into storage during the reno and then moved back into the finished space.
All of that aside, this was our first construction project, in our first home and we ended up with all these experiences to put towards future projects and a BEAUTIFUL new space that we both absolutely LOVE!