Bawk bawk bawkaw!

I want chickens.

The obsession started about a year ago when Chris and I went on the Henside the Beltline Tour d'Coop.  We thought it'd be fun to build our own coop and house some chickens and being the nice folks that we are, we (stupidly) asked the homeowners association if we could build a coop.  What do you think they said?

Yeah, that was a no. 

More specifically, when we submitted our coop plans, the response was, "Coop is inconsistent with neighborhood."

Then we put the house on the market and kind of dropped the issue, but now we're in a house without an HOA, so anything goes!  I'd love to build a coop, but this 90+ degree weather has to ease up before we take on building a coop (which means probably October at the earliest).

There are all sorts of different shapes and sizes of coops (check out http://www.backyardchickens.com/), but something simple is what I have in mind to house about 4 hens:

And look at all the varieties of chickens you can get!!!

Cochin

Dominique

Hamburg

Orpington

Plymouth Rock

Seabright

Plus, look how cute the baby Silkie chicks are! 

Ridic. 

Bulletin Board Project

A few weekends ago I made this bulletin board.  I took a regular bulletin board and spray-painted the frame a light green:

Then I used some scrap fabric leftover from my chair makeover, cut it to size and glued it to the bulletin board with fabric glue.  I had some leftover pink ribbon that I used to cover the imperfect edges.  (Again, just used some fabric glue.)

Ta da!  Total cost:  $15 (for the bulletin board and spray paint--the rest of the materials I had laying around)

This cute little bulletin board now lives in my sewing/craft/workout room, which I'll show later this week.

Weekend Agenda

Farmers Market
Weed front yard
Plant flowers in back yard
Make coffee ice cream
Paint windows and baseboards upstairs
Coffee with a college friend on Saturday
Hang curtains and artwork
Gym (twice)
Relax

This may be a bit ambitious, but if the weather's as hot as it has been, the gardening certainly won't be happening.

I am that crazy cat lady

Our cat is special.  She's very ladylike as you can see:

She also has excellent grooming skillz:

And she helps herself to any food or drink left out.  (This is why we drink out of water bottles in this house.)

Can't be mad at a face like that.

Boys being boys

After we moved in to the new house, Chris discovered that the former owners had left behind a bb gun in the shed.

Bryan thought no one was looking:

Busted!

Banana Ice Cream

Continuing my love affair with my ice cream maker, I made banana ice cream this weekend.  Why can you not find this in grocery stores?  I honestly have no idea; it's ridiculously good.  I stuck with plain banana ice cream, but you could add in some rum flavoring, toasted walnuts or peanuts, or dark chocolate and I think it'd be just as good.

I always use the same standard vanilla ice cream recipe for all of my ice creams, only with this one I omitted the vanilla and instead cooked the mixture with three pureed over-ripe bananas in it.  If I were going to add toasted nuts, I'd add them at the last step as I was pouring the mixture into the ice cream maker.  If I were to add rum flavoring (I'm afraid the alcohol in straight rum would keep it from freezing properly, although I'm not 100% about this), I'd add it as I was cooking the base, probably just a little at a time until it tasted right.
The Best Recipe's vanilla ice cream recipe:

1.5 cups heavy cream
1.5 cups milk
4 egg yolks
3/4 cups sugar

First, combine the cream, milk, and 1/2 cup of the sugar (and 3 mashed over-ripe bananas) in a pan and heat on the stove until it reaches 175 degrees.

In a separate bowl, combine egg yolks and the remaining 1/4 cup sugar and whisk together.

Once the milk/cream mixture has reached 175, ladle a bit of it into the egg/sugar mixture and whisk quickly. Add more milk/cream little by little until it's a soupy consistency, then slowly add the egg/sugar/milk/cream mixture back into the remaining milk/cream on the stove. Continue heating it (while stirring) until it reaches 185 degrees, at which point the eggs are cooked and you can stop.

Remove the pan from the heat and put the mixture into an ice bath to cool. After it's cooled to room temperature or so, cover the bowl and stick it in the fridge for a few hours or overnight until it's sufficiently cold. Once it's thoroughly chilled, you can then make the ice cream in the ice cream maker.

Tom's Shoes

This weekend my mom visited and treated me to a pair of Tom's.  This pair, to be exact:

I'd seen them online before and thought that they were cute and liked their mission and all, but I didn't really think they'd be comfortable.  I was wrong.  They're comfy and I love them.  So much so that I'm tempted to order these:

For every pair purchased, Tom's gives a pair to a child in need.  I can totally get behind that.  Read more here.

Fantastic!

The hubby and I just watched this on Monday night and it was...fantastic.  Totally loved it.  Very Wes Anderson (Royal Tenenbaums, Darjeeling Limited), but with animated animals.  Very entertainin and I highly recommend.

Copy cat

I may have to copy this look: 

Photo:  What I Wore

I think I know what I'm wearing tomorrow.

Weekend Recap

Another productive weekend!  Whew!

Our upstairs bathroom gets used the least.  Mostly because we don't use the bedroom upstairs and we mostly live in the first floor of the house.  And also because that bathroom is was really, really ugly:

My dad likened it to an airplane bathroom and I can't say I disagreed: it was beige, small and no frills.

I'd been wanting a really dark room ever since we moved and inspired by this image from Lonny magazine, I ran the idea by Chris, who approved, then we went for it.

I loved the green garden stool in the room above, but I needed a bit more storage in this bathroom since there was none, so on Friday during my lunch break I purchased this little nightstand and figured it'd be perfect:

Some sanding, primer, paint (Martha Stewart Hummingbird Blue), and a little Brasso and we were in business:

Then it was time to prep and paint the walls, which got two coats of Martha Stewart's Wrought Iron paint (a dark navy blue) in a high gloss finish, so the light would reflect as much as possible in this tiny space.  Then a few finishing touches, and the bathroom is pretty much done in less than 48 hours!  Ta da!

The shower curtain still needs to fine tuning, but to be honest, I'm wiped out.

And what's a blog post without a cat picture?  Grizabella Windexed the mirror when we were done:

All clean!

Look what I found!

I did a bit more unpacking the other day and unearthed a box of my grandmother's antique teacups! My aunt gave them to me several years ago, but we never had space to display them in the old house, so they hung out in the attic for the past several years. The yellowed newspaper indicates they've been stored since 1990 and now they'll get to be used and displayed again. So excited. There are a bunch of different sets, but I think this turquoise and white coffee set of 12 is my favorite:

The rest of these are individuals. I'm not sure if they were ever part of a larger set or if they were collected individually. I should ask my aunt sometime.

This one is beautiful and super old:

This one is the least interesting on the outside, but the pearlescent inside is beautiful (and pretty impossible to capture on camera):

This one is really cool and I have no idea how old it is. 50's? 60's?:

This one is gorgeous. It's rimmed in gold and I'm going to put it on my antique secretary desk where I will store paperclips in it. Hooray.