Labor Day Antiquing

Be prepared to see a lot of photos.  Is this a plog?  What do you call a photo blog?  Hmmm...I like plog.

We spent the day in beautiful Dahlonega, GA antiquing.  I am lucky to be married to a man who appreciates beautiful old things and like me, wants a lot of them in our home.  When we were dating we used to go over to Red Barron's Antiques and Antiques and Interiors in Sandy Springs for date nights.  In fact, we found we found Ava Marie in Antiques and Interiors.  There are many things in life that get me going, in fact I would say that I am quite easily excited.  However, not many things make me giddy like antiques.

Here are some of our spoils from the breezy, beautiful, pre-fall, labor day in Dahlonega.

New Eagles album

These were vintage Phonics Spelling Cards.  I think I am going to frame them all and hang them above the bed.

The rest of these pictures are just some really beautiful things that we wanted but couldn't buy.  Someday we will be rich and have an antique store for a home.

Playing dress-up.

We found a "Best of" Otis Redding Album.  It broke our hearts to leave it behind but it was too expensive for us.  Maybe I will get it for John for his birthday, don't tell him.

After a long day of walking around shopping we got a mid afternoon snack at Connie's.  I had the caramel cake and John had a cookies and cream  milkshake. (not on the P90X plan.  I guess that will have to wait til tomorrow...again.)

Hope you enjoyed the plog.  We will post what we decided to do with the phonics cards and J and R letters.  I am working on a little bed room decor redo. Any suggestions?

Happy Labor Day...no more white.

The Mother of Invention

"Necessity is the mother of invention."

That is what my good friend Lisa would always tell me.  I used to be her "sous chef" before she left on her mission to Finland.  Yes, Finland...that's a weird place to go.

So, after church today the Mr. and I arrived at our humble abode with the thought, "What are we going to eat, we have nothing in the house!"  So, I went searching and found several vegetables and some chicken and rice.  I picked up my "go to" cookbook...

...and we found a skeleton of a recipe to work with.  We had the basics, chicken and brown rice.  So, we went from there, throwing in a little bit of everything in as we went.

We agreed that tonight would be our "last supper".  We are starting P90X tomorrow...We have mixed feelings.  

We love food, a lot, a whole dang lot. But we also want to be healthy and attractive people.  Hmmm...what to do?

So, we started throwing things together. 

Chicken with salt, pepper, and paprika. (about 3 breasts)

Add 3/4 cup brown rice

1 cup chicken broth

1 cup BBQ sauce (we did the homemade kind because apparently ours is an escape convict from our fridge...nowhere to be found.)

1 8oz. can of tomato sauce

2 tbsp of apple cider vinegar

After throwing several ingredients around in the kitchen we felt satisfied with what was in there.  It smelled yummy and we wanted a nap.  So, we turned that awesome crock pot on high and went for a snooze and a snuggle.

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3 hours

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We had this delicious new creation.  Sometimes, NOT having a recipe is the best thing.  It allowed us to get creative and do some freeing hippie cooking, where anything goes.  HOW LIBERATING!

It tasted kind of Caribbean, so we put pineapple chunks on top and used tortillas as our utensils. OH. My. Gosh.

(next time we won't use 4 JALAPEÑOS!)

So, then it was time for our "last dessert".  One of John's favorite things I make are my fruit crumbles.  So, I used up the leftover frozen berries from our smoothies and made a quick quadruple berry crumble.

Then, the real gluttony ensued.  I tried to make homemade cinnamon whipped cream.  I made the mistake of buying half and half instead of heavy whipping cream.  All that stuff did was foam about 4 inches up!  So, we thought fast and decided to try and make it in to ice cream.  (Necessity really IS the mother of invention.)

In order not to shame ourselves, I will not include the contents of what we had to put in to the half and half mixture in order to make it ice cream ready.

We used our homemade ice cream recipe to make Cream Cheese Cinnamon Ice Cream! Oh, just kill me now!

John, right before he went in to diabetic shock from all of the sugar.

I think I will just throw away the rest of this...unless someone wants to come over and eat it for us?


Lesson learned: you probably have more meals in your kitchen than you think.

The Weight

There are many reasons why I love John Murphy.

One of my favorite things about him are his hands.

I love his hands because...

they take out our garbage

they massage my shoulders when I have have a long hard day at school

they drive us everywhere we go

they have worked hard for him all of his life, like working with his grandparents building fences and working cattle on the ranch

they wipe my tears when I cry for silly reasons

they always help me put the dishes in the dishwasher, always

they hold me close and hug me tight

they play me beautiful music

someday they will hold our babies, I think that's my favorite thing of all.

All of these things are manifested in his hands and his fingertips.  He says that ever since he got an "office job" his hands have gotten soft.  He did manual labor on both sets of grandparent's ranch his whole life. But I think his hands are still rough and tough.  I love to run my fingers over the callouses on his finger tips.  He has them from playing Hannah so much.

Here we are holding hands at dinner last night. I love his married looking hand.  That means he belongs to me...forever. 

Now, what you have all been waiting for...

John's vocal TUNES AND SPOONS debut.

The Weight by The Band

and me...being ridiculous on the side.  I make a crazy face towards the end, that's because John's computer was on it's last breath and alerted us that we only had 6% left 'til the computer killed over.  We were full of anxiety until we finished.

First Official TUNES Post!

Despite what you may think, one of the whole reasons we created this blog was so we could share some of our music too.  We aren't just fatties who like to try cool recipes.

So, tonight we were feeling rather musical after our Mexican dinner. (for more reasons than one)*wink

 So, we got out our girls (our children) and made some sweet music.  I have recently picked up the Uke and John is always a natural at the guitar.  We were feeling pretty chill and did a Norah Jones cover of, "Sunrise".  Hopefully you like it, and hopefully my voice teacher doesn't see this.  (I probably shouldn't be singing this low, no one tell Mrs. Stephenson!)

Like it, love it, hate it, whatever...just listen to it!

We had a recording session this evening in our bedroom.  The acoustics are actually quite nice!  Stay tuned for more tunes...

ATTENTION: THE BEST CORN YOU WILL EVER HAVE

Before we begin this post, we need to have a chat.
A serious chat.
If you try to make this Jalapeño Lime Butter it may become extremely addicting. Extremely. So, approach with caution.

"Hi, my name is Rachel Murphy and I'm addicted to Jalapeno Lime Butter."

"Hi, Rachel."

Ingredients:

1 sick butter
1 lime, juiced and zested
1 small jalapeno
1 clove garlic
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
6 ears corn on the cob, husked
1 slice of bread, any kind
coarse salt

Directions:

Combine butter, lime, jalapeno, garlic, and paprika in food processor and pulse process until smooth
Place on waxed paper or plastic and roll.
Place in freezer until ready to serve.
Cook corn by boiling, steaming, or grilling.
Cut disks of butter and rub onto corn, nesting the butter in a slice of bread to apply it to the hot corn.
Season ears with salt (and fight over the hot buttered bread slice!)

* I don't get where Rachael Ray is going with this bread thing. I didn't do it.

We coupled this incredible corn with Blood Orange Italian Soda and pasta with Vodka Sauce and fresh grated Parm.. You would think it a weird combo to do a mexicany thing with Italian stuff, but it was delish. Plus, it was another one of those, "whip something up fast" nights. John's blood sugar was rapidly dropping, and he gets fussy when that happens. I may have to start sending him bags of cheerios for a snack during the day.

Next up in our Jalapeño obsession are...

Jalapeño poppers!

We are going to try them very soon! Our cheddar cheese molded so I have to go get some new cheese...

I'll be sure to let you know how these go!