Echo's Mosaics

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Thank you Mary for hosting Mosaic Monday every week. Please stop by her blog to see all the others!

http://dearlittleredhouse.blogspot.com/

Etched in Echos

This is Echo, my 6 year old warmblood/sporthorse. His dam was a thoroughbred/Clydsdale and his sire was a paint. He was born in PA. My niece bought him as a young colt. She soon decided that possibly this horse owning thing was a little expensive since they were a young family with 2 young children. She more or less gave him to me. She knew he'd have a good home with our little herd. These are some pictures of him from 1 yr. old till now. He's coming along nicely. He has the personality more of the draft. He is funny, inquisitive, nosey and stubborn! I ride him both western and english.

A lot of these photos were taken by my daughter. She is a professional photographer and you can see her exquisite photography here:

http://www.mzezulakphotography.com/

or at

http://www.mzphotography.net

Have a great Monday everyone.

Shirley

Remember This Kitchen!

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I'm joining Chari at "Happy To Design" for her Sunday Favorites. See all the participants at her blog. http://happytodesign.blogspot.com/

I am posting this from back in August so you will remember how my kitchen looks. Because, the day has finally come!! The renovation starts MONDAY!!!!!! This kitchen will be gutted. Don't worry, I'm going to take pictures of the whole thing!!

It's Metamorphosis Monday. Thank you Susan for hosting this terrific event. Somewhere to show people ideas who might just understand! So everyone go to BNOTP to see the participants. Just click this: http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/

See this kitchen? It's not mine!! This is sort of the idea I have for mine. Below this picture are photos of my kitchen now. Don't get scared, it's not a pretty site.

I hope there's a metamorphasis coming here! I have been pretty careful not to show any photos of my kitchen. It is not good. It doesn't go with my 1850 house at all. I have had a contractor out that I want to use and I've had the first meeting with the kitchen designer. I just want the kitchen to look like it goes in my century farm house! I have lots of expensive ideas so I hope I can pull this off. Everything needs changed from floor to ceiling; from cabinets to lighting. Oh My. Gives me palpitations just thinking of it.

My lovely refrigerator loaded inside and out!! And that's the door to my little kitchen porch.

This is the island with a little sink and my dishwasher. You can also see part of the half wall that looks into the family room.

Now, that's all you get to see of the old kitchen. I don't know when (or if) this will all get started but The kitchen designer has some great ideas so we'll see. (If I don't chicken out!)

If I go ahead with this renovation, I will take lots of photos! I want to be one of the ones with the sledge hammer like on HGTV!!

Shirley

Chicken & Broccoli Alfredo

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I'm joining in for Foodie Friday this week. Visit Michael at her blog and see tons of wonderful recipes. http://designsbygollum.blogspot.com/

Chicken & Broccoli Alfredo

8 oz (1/2 box) of fettuccine or spaghetti

1 Cup fresh broccoli flowerets

2 Tbsp. butter

1 Lb. boneless chicken breasts

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1/2 Cup milk

1/2 Cup Grated Parmesan cheese

1/4 tsp pepper

Cook fettuccine (spaghetti) according to directions. Add broccoli for the last 5-6 minutes of cooking time. Drain.

Heat butter in skillet. Add chicken pieces and brown. Add soup, milk, cheese, pepper to spaghetti mixture and heat through.

Serve and top with more Parmesan cheese.

Cut the chicken pieces in half. I always wear gloves when handling poultry. I don't know why because I don't with any other meat or fish!

1 Cup fresh broccoli

Brown chicken.

I forgot to take a photo of the spaghetti but this is the milk, soup and cheese about to be mixed.

The result is super delicious. One of my most favorites that I've made. I'm glad there's leftovers!

Have a good Friday everyone.

Shirley

New Dining Room Floor

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This was my old flooring in the dining room. Hated the parquet and it was water damaged a couple places.

However, that wasn't the worse part! Whoever did this floor before we bought the house only put the hardwood around the edge and just put plywood in the middle where the carpet would be. Can you say CHEAP!!!!!!!!

The first planks go down. This is Oak. Color is "Gunstock". It's an engineered hardwood.

My carpenter laying the floor.

All done. What a difference. I love it.

Looks like it's always been here. (That's the idea :~))

This is the doorway leading into the kitchen. The tear out of the whole kitchen starts on Monday!!!!!!! Same flooring will go all the way through.

Shirley

Decluttering Transformation

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I'm joining in on Tranformation Thursday with Gina because I finally decluttered my sewing cupboard! Visit Gina at her blog here: http://www.theshabbychiccottage.net/

This piece for furniture is actually an antique pie safe that holds all my fabric and sewing stuff. It's been getting messier and messier so it was on my list of things to declutter this week. I'm trying to do the "FlyLady" thing so I set my timer for 1 hour. (I knew it would take longer than 15 minutes!!)

I put out my little bins for "throw away", "give away", and "put away". I dove right in and it worked really well. At the end of the hour I still had a few things to put away but I'll do that before the day ends.

Here it is now!!!! But I think I'd better move that top quilt before it falls on my head!

I did good, Huh? Don't worry, there's nothing in the drawer.

Have a fun Thursday.

Shirley

Can You Believe This One!!!

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Hi all, I decided to post this one on "Outdoor Wednesday". Hope you visit "A Southern Daydreamer" to see all the other posts. http://asoutherndaydreamer.blogspot.com/

See this wire! That's my phone wire coming from a pole across the road to my house. This morning a bigger than normal garbage truck picked up my garbage. I noticed the truck was just sitting out there on the road for like a half hour. Pretty soon another regular truck drives up and a guy comes into the front yard and is taking pictures of my house. (That is never good!!) I went out and couldn't believe what I saw.

This was the phone box and wire pulled off my house. Unfortunately . . . it was behind my vinyl siding. See below!!!!!!!!!!

Can you believe all this damage!

Allied Waste Company assures me that their insurance will be coming out to settle and I need to get an estimate from the company that did my siding!!

I called the Vinyl company and they will be coming out. The hardest part was calling Verizon, who's outside wiring it is, and Armstrong Cable who I now have my phone through to come out and take the wire away. It was laying across the road. I finally had to call the police who called Verizon and they were out in a matter of an hour!!! Amazing!

My poor house!!!!!!

Shirley

Preacher

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I'm showing a mosaic of my one horses this Monday. Thanks to Mary at Little Red House.

http://dearlittleredhouse.blogspot.com/

This is Preacher

He is named after one of John Lyons' horses. John Lyons is my favorite clinician.

Preacher is a registered quarter horse. His papered name is Mr. Deemer. This year he is 18 years old. He's sort of a grouchy old gelding but I love his personality! He was a 4H horse before I got him about 5 years ago. He is pretty well trained and is good on trails. He very seldom gets excited about anything (except food!!) He has his forever home with me.

I'll show you my other horses in another Mosaic on another Monday.

I know this isn't of much interest to non-horse people but it's a big part of my life and I have to show them off every so often : ))

Shirley

Almost there - - kitchen plans

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I went to the kitchen planner this past week and signed off on all the plans; 6 pages of them! We also talked about the paint on the cabinets.

This is how the top of my fridge will be. My refrigerator will not be closed in on the front though. I'm paying for stainless, I want it to show!!!!! (Anyway that was just MORE $$) Also, my white cabinets will not have a glaze on them. They will be like this.

I didn't like how the glaze looked on my sample cabinet doors when they came. It made the middle panel stand out too much.

The blue color shows up a little better here. (Really, it's not quite that dark.) That will be the color of my island.

OK, I'm excited! I want this to get underway already! I'm calling my contractor on Monday to get a definite start date.

UPDATE! Ray, my builder, will start laying the floor in the dining room on Monday! Yippee!

Shirley

Decluttering My Scary Room!

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I decided that I will put this post on "Show and Tell Friday". It probably won't fit in real well with all the cute things and the re-dos that people are going to list this week. But I certainly am showing you a room that no one but my sister sees! and I'm telling you about it, so I guess it will do! If you want to see really nice things visit Cindy and check out the participant list at: http://romantichome.blogspot.com/

Now, don't get scared or shocked or disgusted or anything!

This is my Craft Room!!!!!!!

I'm in the slow process of doing something about this!! Really, I am!!

I have joined the ranks of "FlyLady" to help me with my clutter problem.

If you don't know who she is you can check her out at:

http://www.flylady.net/

I'm taking "baby-steps. (Even though I can hardly walk in here!!!)

As you can see on the shelves, I have already cleared up some space for my dishes : ))

This room is also my eBay boxing and mailing room. I have sold quite a bit of scrap-booking supplies on eBay. The bigger stuff sold very well like Sizzix and Stampin' Up Stamp sets but then you come down to little things, misc. stamps, opened packs of things and paper, paper, paper!!!

I could do give-a-ways but I've never done them before and that would take some time to figure out. Any ideas any of you scrap-bookers out there??? Let me know.

I have come up with one solution since my sister is a scrap-booker and makes a lot of wonderful cards.

I've decided to mail my "clutter" to her!!! : ))

She is actually thrilled to get these surprise packages in the mail!

Imagine that!!!

Here is a box of "stuff" I'm going to mail this next week. She already got her first box!

This is my sister's craft room!

Not to get confused with mine!! : ))

See, neat and tidy, everything in it's place. She must clean up every day after she's done doing a project!!! Now, there's a thought!!!!

She has way, way more "stuff" than I have!! I'm sure she doesn't really know all she has.

I'm sure she probably has some of the same "stuff" I'm mailing her!

The ribbon alone that she has is amazing!

Well, that's what I'll be doing for awhile! If you don't hear from me in awhile, tell them to go look in the craft room!

Have a great Friday everyone.

Shirley

Today's Old House Problem!

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The plumber is here now fixing and replacing the relay thingy and a valve joint on my boiler. I came downstairs this morning and went down into the kitchen, dining room, family room area and it was like stepping into the fridge! No heat was getting to those rooms! I immediately called my plumber. Yes, a plumber. When you have a boiler system your heating is all pipes and water and you need a plumber. Darrell knows this house and boiler well!!

The valve he has to replace is what he's turning there. See, all corroded with my well water because it was leaking. It then dripped on the relay box below (that he already replaced) and burned out the little computer board in there. That made the pump not get the signal to turn on! Thus, no heat was circulating.

The whole thing will cost me $555.00!! Oh My! What I have to pay to keep warm is astonishing because my oil bill is terrible!

My daughter says "I don't understand why you like old houses." Well, they do have their challenges, I'll give her that, but you don't have houses built like this one today or with the old world charm!

I feel like I'm the keeper of this house for now.

Shirley