Demolition and a New Room

So I used to live in a room with wood panelling. I hated it. (see picture above) It was gloomy and dark, and not to mention UGLY. So, one night, before school started, I started ripping down the wood panels. It all went smoothly until... I got to the concrete foundation wall. Not so good. It had a wanna-be framed wall nailed very tightly, into the concrete. I pried off the wood and looked at the damage.

Looks like fun huh? It was worse to begin with. Next I added some spackeling to texture the concrete. Then primer. Then paint. Now you get to the see the progression of the project!

Final Project... except without wall hangings or actual things in the room - but you get the picture! I had fun doing it and am SO happy with the outcome!!

My Gourmet Cooking

Turkey Dinner with Homemade Mashed Potatoes
Golden Turkey... Beautiful huh?

While I was (again) unemployed during the month of November, I started to love to grocery shop and to cook. I started with things I already knew how to make; stroganoff, tacos, and enchiladas. Then, as I got better at those things I wanted more of a challenge.

Did you know that the library is a great place to find cookbooks?

For Christmas I got a fantastic new set of pots and pans (see picture). I haven't had a lot of time to cook since school started, but I still will do something here and there. In the past couple weeks I have made homemade spaghetti sauce and meatballs, broccoli sauce with linguine (not very good), oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, sushi, mashed potatoes (Tyler made them and I supervised), and Chicken Curry. This past Sunday I roasted my first turkey!

Needless to say, I'm proud of myself for just going for it. I like to cook, it's fun and I learn a lot. Photos of gourmet meals to come!