Strikes my fancy

So as stated in the earlier post - I found 3 black bookshelves on the side of the road on Saturday (free!). While I was waiting on the roomies to help me load them a lady pulled up. We nicely gave her one of the shelves (and helped her load - cause they were heavy!) Here is part of my inspiration for what to do. And here is the start of mine: KTL snagged the other one and did this:

Finally got some good stuffs at sales this week! Been looking for these for awhile... I'm going to make these into napkins. I also got a 12 pack of Diet Coke for $1 at this sale (crazy!) Check out one of the photos I got in the frame....this is who supplied my coffee in Brooklyn! Crazy! And my best find was free on the side of the road on my way home. I had to call for help loading. There were 3 of them total, but another woman came while I was waiting for help. So we helped her load one in her car. These are higher grade than Ikea/Wal-mart. But now I need to figure out where to put them....

Finally found some material I liked for curtains. I had been looking for dining room curtains for awhile and was amazed to find they were going to cost $70-90 to buy! The material for these was on sale: $35! The room before curtains (or a table or anything else for that matter!) And with curtains! I still have some work to do in this room...but it getting there for now.

The new penny that is. I don't now how long I was carrying it around before I realized what it was. But it's SHINY! I'm surprised that we're making pennies in the midst of a recession. A coin that costs "us" more to make than it's worth. And that no one uses... but it's here!

Once I got used to the texture, I really started liking quinoa. I like my pasta kinda crunchy and quinoa kinda seems like the pop-rocks of pasta. Last night I made this to have for lunches. One of the things I like about quinoa is that it's good hot or cold (can't say the same all the time for pasta). I like this recipe because you don't have to cook the quinoa on it's own before adding (one pot!) Quinoa and Black Beans 1 tsp vegetable oil 1 onion, chopped 3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped ¾ cup uncooked quinoa 1 ½ cups vegetable broth 1 tsp ground cumin ¼ tsp cayenne pepper 1 cup frozen corn kernels 2 (15oz) cans black beans, rinsed and drained ½ cup chopped fresh cilantro Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the onion and garlic and sauté until lightly browned. Mix quinoa into a saucepan and cover with vegetable broth. Season with cumin, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper. Bring the mixture to a boil. Cover; reduce heat and simmer 20 minu...

So small....and do you see the St Louis Arch in that one? weird

I went to an Atlanta institution recently - Eats! Hey - when you live with 2 lifers, they know where this stuff is at! I got all that food for less than $7. (All that food = I should have had leftovers....). The food was YUMMY! The "free" corn bread should be skipped to leave room for the delicious part of the meal. The place is by Home Depot, Whole Foods, a nail place and a car wash. Yup, pretty soon I'll be making a full day of it here :-D

I plan to post more pictures as I get stuff done, but only one project is complete...and I didn't even do it! One of the things that KTL HATED about the house was the exterior color. Dwin and I were like "eh, whatever". We've had this amazing guy working on our house for about a month. His main priority was the structure of our house, but he's shored up our deck (which needed some reinforcement), added drainage to our garage (dad, I'm sure your jealous...I should've helped him and learned!), painted most of the interior, added a back splash to our kitchen and fixed Dwin's bathroom. (I'm telling you - the guy is pretty awesome). On Thursday he mentions to KTL the outside color and says, "pick a color and get back to me in a day or 2." In 10 minutes, he had picked the color (ironic for me because I"m on day 5 of staring at those little paint cards to pick a bathroom color). By the time I got home from work on Friday the first pass...

Tilapia Baked in Couscous INGREDIENTS: * One 10-ounce box couscous * 1/2 cup slivered almonds * 1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes, finely chopped * 1 tablespoon ground cumin * Salt and pepper * 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil * 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice plus 1 lemon, thinly sliced * Four 8-ounce tilapia fillets * 3 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley DIRECTIONS: 1. Preheat the oven to 375°. In a large bowl, combine the couscous, almonds, sun-dried tomatoes and cumin and season to taste with salt and pepper. Stir in the 1/4 cup olive oil and the lemon juice. 2. Drizzle 1 tablespoon olive oil over the bottom of a 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Arrange the tilapia fillets in a single layer in the dish, season with salt and pepper and drizzle with the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil. Cover the fish with the couscous mixture and arrange the lemon slices on top. Pour 2½ cups water around the fish, cover with foil and bake until tender,...

it looks like this (I think, you can tell the boys picked it because I can't even remember!) I'm looking forward to making potatoes and chicken and grilled corn and kebobs. KTL is looking forward to inventing the best signature burger and I'm sure Dwin will cook up something that neither of us would order in a restaurant. The inagural cooking was a burger. Here it is in all it's glory: Yes, that is a portabella mushroom on the top. I think I'm gonna like the summer! :-D