A FAVORITE QUOTE~

go sell crazy somewhere else...
we're all stocked up here.

(i'll send you a prize if you know what movie this is from)

DELISH ORZO SALAD

On Sunday night this past weekend i decided to utilize my newly planted herb garden (blog post soon to come) and make a fresh, summery salad to accompany our pork chop dinner. I had seen orzo salads before (my favorite being from WholeFoods) but had never made one myself. I took my favorite things from each salad i had tasted and combined them to make this super yummy, light side dish.

ENJOY!

1 lb of orzo pasta (cooked according to the box instructions)

1 package of grape tomatoes cut in half

1 package of low-fat sun dried tomato and basil feta cheese

1/2 cup Zesty Italian Salad dressing (perhaps more depending on your taste)

3 TBS chopped fresh basil

1/2 cup toasted pine nuts

salt/pepper to taste

Toss all ingredients together and you have yourself one super yummy side dish or lunch!

...and as a bonus, it will keep for up to a week in the fridge.

DEE and LISH!

BTW

it is alomst IMPOSSIBLE to format these blog posts! the interesting checkerboard arrangement of pictures below is not what i had envisioned. I am a perfectionist when it comes to that kind of stuff and its driving me batty that its not doing what i want it to! WHATEEEEEVS

i want to talk to whomever is in charge of formatting over at blogspot! STAT!

A SIMPLE WAY TO REVIVE A FLOWER ARRANGEMENT

i am a lover of flowers. anyone who knows me, knows this about me. at any time my house has at least two arrangements...maybe more. on Friday night tom and i had a mini dinner party so i was planning on going out to buy some flowers to arrange for the table. since we are doing our best to save a little money right now i thought i would instead try to re-arrange the roses i had already picked last week from my dad's garden.

my dad has an amazing rose garden, one that rivals the Huntington Library, the botanic gardens, possibly even the Pasadena rose parade. ya, he's that good. it is not rare to find me putting through his garden, smelling his flowers, and stealing some (ok, a lot) for my house. last week his red roses were out of control! i cut a bunch of them and loosely put them in a vase. sometimes an unorganized bundle of a single color rose can make the biggest impact. i tend to stay away from mixing too many colors in any one arrangement of roses, limiting myself to one or maybe two different colors.

here is a picture of the flowers which were cut over a week ago..i know, they aren't looking so hot. just you wait...

i began by preparing three small vases with a mixture of water and a few droplets of bleach. i love the look of using small, identical arrangements in odd numbers. it creates a very chic, polished look. i added some river rock to the bottom to add some interesting detail and to avoid seeing any scum that so often accumulates at the bottom of clear glass vases.

i removed the salvageable roses and trimmed off a good portion of the stem, leaving only about 3 inches. i removed the outer petals which were wilted and brown, revealing a brand new beautiful flower underneath and placed them in the vases using the rocks as a frog to keep them in place.

Once i had all three arrangements completed, i thought they needed a little something extra...

so...i moseyed (yes, that's how you spell it, i looked it up) outside to my most favorite plant EVER...our asparagus fern! its been getting a bit out of hand lately so i thought it could use a little hair cut.

(isn't this plant FABULOUS!!!)

not only did the new hair cut look fabulous, but the lime green fern added the perfect amount of punch to the vases. i love the contrast of the deep red roses with the punch of vibrant green!

and here they are perfectly positioned on our coffee table...

Simple. Dramatic. Chic.

A LOVE AFFAIR

I'm having a real love affair with chairs these days. I had been on the hunt for the perfect chair for our smallish living room but had gotten frustrated with how expensive they are. i mean, you might as well be buying an entire sofa for what you have to pay for ONE chair! i had almost lost hope until i stumbled across a little blog called http://www.thisyounghouse.com/. As i was touring through their online home tour i noticed they had the most perfect armless, contemporary, clean, goes with anything, slipper chair. i almost fell out of my chair (not a cute chair like the slipper i was looking at) when i saw where they purchased it from...TARGET! i clearly have been looking in all the wrong places. I love nice, high end things but I'm a sucker for a deal! the chairs i had been looking at were anywhere from $700 to $2,500 EACH but this chair was only $106.25 after the 15% off coupon code that i found! at this great price i could afford TWO! without further delay... i give you the perfect $106 slipper chair...

toss a throw pillow on there to spice it up and you've got instant style! I'm also loving these accent chairs which are a bit bolder (and a smidge more expensive) but in the right room they would sing!

I guarantee i could find the right room for these lovelies if we get the house! (fingers crossed, no jinxing!)

FRIDAY

Friday, oh how i love thee...

friday means... saturday is almost here. it means no suit pants, no stiff shirts, no heels. it means "casual friday" comfortable pants, cotton shirt and flats. it means my husband and i are going out tonight, eating some yummy food, having a cocktail and looking forward to what the weekend brings. i wait all week for fridays.

and then my favorite...saturday morning:)

CROSS YOUR FINGERS

So the big news in our life right now is that we are under contract to buy our first house!!! yes, that deserved 3 "!"s. Tom and I have been looking for many months and have finally found what we think is our perfect house. It is only one block from the house we are renting, steps from the most adorable town you've ever seen and just minutes to my parents house (which is a good thing:)

We remain "cautiously optimistic" and will not allow ourselves to get too emotionally attached because the house is being sold as a "short sale". This means that the process can take anywhere from 2-3 months (not so much a SHORT sale now is it) and maybe even longer. Our fate lies on the hands of the seller's lender which is super uncomfy.

we both have been decorating the house in our dreams and i have already been discussing paint colors with my mom. I hope hope hope this doesn't jinx us!

I wont post a picture of the house (again because of the jinxing thing) but here is a picture of a bathroom i drool over complete with chandelier, a splash of black, and fab lighting.

maybe minus the eliptical machine.

A CAVEAT IF YOU WILL...

i want to make a few things clear before i get started here. this shall serve as a disclaimer...
by writing this blog i am in no way thinking i am a good writer, lead an interesting life, or have anything insightful to offer you. i am writing this in an attempt to keep my sanity during my 10 hour work days, driving in my car, sitting at a computer, looking at numbers, and talking to people who have oodles and oodles of money but still want to call me to complain about why their distribution checks are being cut. hello! we are in a recession people! ive already gotten side tracked.

here is a "candid" photo taken of me at work.


ONE MORE THING- please excuse spelling, punctuation, grammar etc. im not the grammar police, nor do i pretend to be.

I FINALLY DID IT

well i finally did it...ive started my own blog! I have an uncanny amount of creative juices flowing through my body and i just cant seem to get them out of me while sitting at my corporate desk job. this should help me unleash the inner gardener, cook, decorator, and crafter within me! well it cant hurt right?

oh, and here is a picture, because every post should have a picture.

meet harry, my 4 year old norwich terrier. no, he's not for sale.