OK, so about a year ago I blogged about some of the projects I had lined up to keep me busy and happy. I like my projects!

Well, since the kitchen remodel forced me into the backyard more with the house being a mess and unusable for much of the summer, I kept bumping into this project. You may or may not remember I had rescued this from the sidewalk dumpster and brought it home. There it was day after day. I couldn't wait to get started on it, but the remodel kept taking priority.



I finally got to it. Here it is refinished and reupholstered. It looks better than I dreamed it would!











And, found the perfect spot for it at the base of the stairway!

Project completed, I'm feelin' good!

My camera was SB (sans batteries) so this weekend in "Cooking Class" with the twins, I have no photo presentation. But, imagine the ladies working around the peninsula! They are stuffing pasta shells. Not hard to do, now that you've seen it quite a few times. Imagine this week they have color matched their outfits magically again in peach! Now, we were putting together the dinner and somehow the conversation switched to whatever happened to all mom's old recipes. The "recipe box"? Well, mom reached into the cabinet (where it always was kept) and out came the recipe box! So, here this week I present Mom's Spaghetti Sauce. It is like nothing you will find anywhere else! She tells about the Italian family she got it from, old family recipe.

It's been awhile since I've blogged. . . busy I guess. We've changed the kitchen lighting from Title 24 crap to what we wanted (shh!) now that we've passed final.

This is the new lighting here.








and here. . . the new pendants are up! Oh, they were a family project. First, I ordered them, wrong size and so reordered and returned them. Then, we put them up and since they were mounted on a beam, the pan was shallow and some custom work had to be done by Terry. Also, being mounted on a beam, the canopy had to be special ordered, twice, by me. Very complicated since it involved a different light fixture, a guy named Phineas, and a feud this guy has with Lowe's and vice versa. . . ultimately ending up with us getting two canopies free! Not to mention that the glass was frsoted after purchase by Taylor, who custom frosted to our specs! Sean helped with the custom wiring that was needed for the shallow pan! Two weeks later. . . Voila!


And the stools! This could take forever. . . quick story, after 4,000 stools, literally, I found the perfect one! Then, had to deal with managers not wanting to part with their clearance merchandise, pick up and delivery disorganization, and ultimately assembling them ourselves once in our hands and WOW! They are perfect! And I got them on sale! And avoided the pick-up charge! Yes, there was a pick-up charge!

Then, the painting. . . another blog!

Sean turned 24 on the 25th! We had the twins and Grandma Pat over for the inaugural dinner in the NEW kitchen!

Terry made bbq ribs and shrimp scampi per Sean's dinner request. Accompanied by broccoli and potaotes, the dinner was a complete success!

The highlight for Sean was the dessert! He requested a banana split after seeing it prepared on the Food Channel, he knew that was what he wanted for his birthday!




He delicately prepared it and instructed us on the procedure as he went along so we all could follow for the perfect dessert.

Here, he finished with 3 cherries on top!

Happy Birthday!










Excellent!











Then, on the 30th we celebrated Terry's birthday!

One of his favorite restaurants dating back to his college years is El Cholo!

We enjoyed margauritas and table-made guacamole!








Terry had a taste of history and we enjoyed every bit of it!


Happy Birthday Terry!