Liz, Queen of the Crock

I am taking my first step today becoming a crock pot diva stay tuned…

Classy...

Dumb move on my part to wear a white scarf on the day I decide to start drinking coffee...

Martha Stewart Got Nothin on Me!

Check out my new craft endeavor! I was so frustrated cause I couldn't find a Christmas wreath that matched my decor or didn't cost forty dollars... So I made my own for less than ten! I love it!!!!

Domestic Diva Disaster

Garbage disposal FAIL... Thank god for tongs!

Home Ec Dropout Does Thanksgiving

I had the opportunity to cook our own brand of thanksgiving dinner with my gram today. One of the few "heirloom" recipes my mom's side of the family has is called chicken pot pie though it hardly resembles a pie. It's been in my family since before my great grandma and has always been one of my faves. Grandma hasn't made it in awhile because it's too hard to roll the dough for the pasta. I was thrilled to take it on and learn from her- and I think we did pretty ok! Even Alan was impressed- he'd never had homemade pasta before! It was a great day!

On a separate note, this year has brought a lot of change to my life and I could not be more thankful for it! I now have a new house that I adore and two "new" jobs in teaching and coaching that I simply cannot get enough of! Furthermore, I have had two of my favorite people move closer to me and I'm do lucky that I get to see them often!

Joining the 21st Century!

Finally got an iPhone! I love it! And there's an app so I can blog from wherever! Stay tuned!

Home Ec Dropout Recipe

I don't really know how many people read my blog (how does one get followers?) but my friend's mom shared this recipe with me. It kicks ass and is delicious as well as healthy- which is basically all you can ask for, right!?

Pink Salad (compliments of Nancy and Lindsay Good!)
1 box sugar free raspberry Jello
1 bag frozen raspberries, thawed (I have best luck with Dole)
1 tub cool whip (I use fat free)

Directions: (written how I understand them!)
Mix the Jello mix with 1 cup boiling water (who am I kidding- "boiling" means 3 minutes in a mug in the microwave) until dissolved

Stir in the raspberries (really drain out the bag)

Fold in the whipped cream

Refrigerate

Eat it!

Enjoy!!

You know you're a lazy homeowner when...

Your first thought when it rains is- "Hey! Maybe it'll rinse off the big hunk of bird crap on the skylight!"

(FYI- it didn't. Boo.)

Should I be offended....

Kick. Ass.

or pumped about the large amounts of dust my new vacuum just picked up on it's first run around the house? I mean it's been while... but it's not like I don't use plates or anything...

No, I'm not trying to install a pool... but that could be fun, right?

Sometimes I feel like God is like laughing at me...

I got a call from my neighbor Wednesday night- "Hi Liz, we just wanted to let you know you have a steady stream of water coming from your garage. We're not sure what's going on but you might want to come home and check it out." Great. Just flippin' great. So I fly home from work thinking of all the things it could be... Refrigerator? Air Conditioner? Toilet? I road raged the whole way home to find this:

So not only was God laughing at me, he apparently laughed so hard he choked on his pea soup and shot it out all over my driveway... The garage? well this is what we're dealing with: 

  

So yeah. Just over an inch of standing water... how did it all get there? (Yes, that's the pink beer pong table in the back yard. No one said I was 100% adult).

Well a few weeks ago in the midst of my gardening frenzy I bought a hose for the garage and installed it myself (It was beige! It matched!). I also bought one of those apparatus that you hang a hose on, but in typical Liz form, I decided not to drill that into the wall just yet so I hung the hose on one of the little hooks already in the garage.

It appears that the hose fell off the hook at some point during the day and when it fell it hit the spicket and turned the water on! After running for a bit the water got backed up in my hose cause I have a sweet 7-setting nozzle for it and the hose burst! 

So much for that hose... right to the trash...

Of course, it was also grass cutting day, and one of the windier spring days to date, so every grass clipping, every piece of loose garbage, every leaf blowing around the 'hood ended up stuck to the pile of water.

It took just over an hour of raking up the grass and shoveling (yup, with a snow shovel) the standing water out of my garage, but I learned my lesson. Don't let your hose crash onto the ground and let it hit that water so it floods the whole garage. Yup... just laughing...

Mug Shot!

I received this as a gift from London... I asked for anything tack-tastic of the wedding And. I. Got. It.

If you look on the other side you can see where the image was clearly printed off and stuck on the mug. Needless to say it holds a place of prominence on my mantel. :)

Thanks Alan!!!

Just call Me Rachael Ray....

OK, well Lindsay helped... but it was yum!

obviously... there was Funfetti cake for dessert!

Pretty in Pink...

Finally started painting the guest room... got halfway done with the edging and decided I like my original shade of pink better... who knew there were so many levels of pink????

Is it B&E when you own the place?

When I started blogging about being a new homeowner, I was worried I would not have enough ideas or stories to share, but I had heard someone say, "Don't worry, they stories will come to you." Someone must have thought I had a really boring week, then!

Boo I'm stuck outside!!

Today was one of the first really nice days in about a week or so. I got home from work pumped up to "tend to my garden." I spent well over 2 hours, weeding, planting, and watering, so when I got home from dinner, I wanted to enjoy the nice evening with a glass of wine outside on the new porch. I latched the screen door then went about my business. When I was ready for a refill, I went to open the door. But it. Wouldn't. Open.

Now this is not the first time I've ever been locked outside on my porch. Days after I moved into my first apartment I ended up locked on a second floor balcony in 95 degree weather. This was much more comfortable, for sure.

I called my dad and started off the conversation with, "How much does a screen door cost? Cause I might have to break it down linebacker-style!" He gave me some tips and off I went. Serious, who does this stuff happen to?

Almost got it! (What- you don't take pictures of your crises?)

Luckily for me I didn't have to use any NFL skills, and I did almost break my arm, but with a little reaching and pushing, I somehow popped the door off it's track and shimmied inside. Success!

Except now I have a screen door in my hands. Well who knew, apparently I'm Ty Pennington! Door's back on and functioning as well as it ever has! Well, except that I'll never be using the latch again...

...aaaaaand we're in!

I'm sorry, can you not see cause it's not HD?

So here's a good one. The day I moved into my house was quite possibly one of the worst weather days of the winter. Picture 40+ mile an hour winds, snow, and us dragging all my stuff from the apartment into the house. Hella cold. That also happened to be the day the satellite guy came to install the dish. Because of the weather, we just let him get in, get out, and make sure the cable worked.

Funny thing about that was... he installed the dish on the wrong roof.

As much as we could roll our eyes over the situation, it took the Homeowner's Association approximately 24 hours to threaten my life if I did not get the dish moved. So now who looks like the moron? How difficult is it to walk in one woman's front door and the remember to put the dish on the right roof!? (bad weather aside...) This would happen to me... Here's hoping all goes as planned Wednesday and it get moved to the correct spot...

Adventures in Tack-tastic Lawn Decor, Part 1

Check this beaut out in my next door neighbor's yard. Took forever for me to find a way to capture this and it has to be seen either live or in video for you to fully understand the essence of this. 

Basically, my neighbors love crap. They are super nice, but if there's a crappy lawn ornament in this world, they own it. Don't worry, I'll take some daytime sniper photos as soon as I think I can get away with it so you can see the rest! I don't understand it, cause overall, I feel as if our neighborhood is kind of classy?

Don't get me wrong, this is still a HUGE step up from the apartment life where "patio decor" included a cooler, ashtray, and baby trike. Excellent. But it's just hilarious that people go to the store and look at some of these items and actually think, "That is adorable- I certainly must drop ten dollars on that piece of crap cause it screams class."

Who sees a solar-powered color changing hummingbird as a good idea? The neighbor is question has yet to be seen outside in the darkness hours where she could even see it. Also, you have to be on top of it to see what it even is. From the driveway, it just looks like a color changing orb. "E.T.? Is that you?"

Needless to say, I have started my own retaliation on the crap-tastic arts. I refuse to be shown up by these people... stay tuned for updates...

Painting Ceilings is for the Birds... or whoever else is willing to do it for me!

Sooo... As the first step of Operation: Decorate the Guest Room, I opted to paint the ceiling first to kind of brighten up the place before real paint came in. I figure, Dad painted my whole bedroom in just a few hours, and this is a much smaller room so it should be easy, right? Well that was a FAIL. An hour later, I had covered 25% of the ceiling and 100% of my face! Plus, it must have been freshly textured, cause I got about 20 of the little texture tips (I don't do technical terms) in my eye. Classy. Worse yet, I was clearly gonna run out of paint.

How did Michelangelo do it? I.Would. Die.

I took the obligatory trip to Lowe's (don't move unless you're moving near a Lowe's, cause you'll spend more time there the first few months than your actual house) and returned with a new energy and new paint. But, sadly it was not enough and the grand finale consisted of me using the Perfect Pour to scrape out every last drip out of the cans and slap them on the ceiling.

Well by then my neck was completely shot and I couldn't see on account of the paint in my eye, so I settled in to watch a few hours of RuPaul's Drag Race and go to bed. Unfortunately, the cieling did not get the memo that it was supposed to look nice when it dried. Another trip to Lowe's, another gallon of paint, another afternoon shot, another pain in my bum!

Needless to say, the grand finale of the event involved me stepping on a sunny-side-up lid of paint and scraping remaining drips off of the floors. Class. Act.

Ummm... I know I'm new at this...

but isn't that kind of not how a gutter is supposed to work?

Welcome to the Home Ec Dropout!

Hi everyone! At the suggestion of one of my friends who is also a blogger, I have started another blog. The intention of this blog is to share my many adventures as a first-time homeowner. I purchased a townhouse recently and for those of you who may know me, the term "adventure" is an understatement! I have always been very book smart, but I sometimes lack what many refer to as "street smarts!"

Here we go!!!!

I am 27 years old and single (gulp) living in Westerm New York. I am a teacher and a coach and have a Master's Degree. I have an incredibly loving and supportive family, however except for my grandmother they all live down South. My friends are wonderful, however sometimes they have fewer answers than I do! My whole life, I have been able to read novels in other languages and solve complicated math problems... but I could never make sense of a loan application or a recipe for Rice Krispie Treats (yeah- that's what I said- Rice Krispie Treats. We're in for a wild ride!). This homeowning experience has been certainly one of trial and error!

I imagine through this blog, you will see me hopefully learn some things- most likely through my mistakes! I'll laugh, you'll laugh, I'll cry 'cause everyone's laughing at me.... just kidding!

Enjoy!

~ Liz