Notes From A Hole-y Home: Picking Up The Pieces

Well, things continue to look better this side of Saturday. Every day brings us closer to getting things back the way they were! Now it seems to be just be a matter of waiting. Apparently, we aren't the only people with holes in our roof, so all the people we need to fix things are beyond busy. So, in the meantime- life returns to normal...and I'm back to having the regular stuff to post about.


Exhibit A: Push-Ups (the sherbet kind)

In a sort of last hurrah for summer, I bought a box of orange push-ups yesterday and they've had just the positive effect on the past few afternoons that I expected them to! Second, I baked shortbread yesterday for my Bible study group and it was delicious. My usual recipe for shortbread is actually a Breton Butter Cake recipe I got out of a Martha Stewart magazine once upon a time. While it's deliciously dense and buttery and not terribly difficult to make, I found this mix at Target the other day and I decided to try it instead. It's made by Archer Farms and is called Vanilla Bean Shortbread. All you added was butter. I was very impressed at the way it turned out. It was absolutely perfect and delicious to boot! I served it with an option of Nutella or blackberry jam for spread, but it's really the perfect base for anything or it's fabulous all by itself. Next time I make strawberry shortcake, this is the shortcake I'm using! It made two 8-inch round shortbreads- about 24 wedges, I think. So even though it looks like a little box, it serves a bunch of people.
And finally, I have a few random thrifting finds I've yet to post:
This red thing was actually a centerpiece with a spikey thing in the center of the top tier to stick a candle on and a really tacky plastic flower ring around the bottom tier. I cleaned it up really, really good, removed the spikey thing (with a pair of pliers and surprisingly little difficulty), tossed the flowers, and touched it up with some matching red spray paint (which I just happened to have in the garage). And...Voila! A dessert stand!I'm a sucker for paper lanterns so I couldn't pass these up...plus they were, like, 50 cents apiece. There are three in all. I think I'll add them to the colony of paper lanters already hanging above my desk and work table! And, finally, I don't know where these kind of tins come from or what originally came in them, but I've seen several in my thrifiting escapades. I have one other, but this is by far my favorite.So this is me- signing off from my hole-y home where all the pieces are slowly, but surely, coming back together!! Thanks to everyone out there in blogland for your kind words and support!

sweetly, happily, and artfully yours,

randi