Halloween is almost here.

This year I have decorated for Halloween very little. With me unemployed, we have no money for any extra decor-related items. Next year I will hopefully be able to purchase cute baskets, lots of pumpkins, and various other things at thrift stores and sales and such. This year I used two skulls and some creepy candlesticks my guy had in his collection and then two orange candles I had on hand.

Ta da!

Another peek inside.

Eventually I will return to posting on a regular basis. For now I will give you another peek into our new home!

One corner of our living room:


A photo of our dining room in the evening and now featuring our lucky bamboo plant. It has grown quite a lot, thanks to my constant care of it.


I need to take photos of the somewhat organized/cleaned up craft space and of the attempt at a Halloween mantle I created recently. Then I will post pics of these as well.

All domestic and stuff!

I have been finding great recipes online for ages, but I never took the time or made the effort to cook them. I bookmarked them, pasted them into word docs, and sometimes printed them, but that's it. I decided to change this after I recently came to a few blog posts people had written about weekly menu planning.

I found and printed recipes that were easy and that we had most ingredients for and then shaped our weekly grocery list around the remainder of the ingredients. I intend to continue to create weekly meal plans and grocery lists. Of course, I may not plan five meals/recipes for the week. Cooking every meal is not our usual way here and I can use his contribution. He doesn't mind our sharing the cooking duties and I don't mind letting him. *smile*

I have so far made the fab taco salad below, a mac and cheese recipe, and garlic chicken with sauteed mushrooms and a side of parmesan asparagus. I give a thumbs up to two out of three of the new recipes I tried. My guy? He gives a thumbs up to all three of the new recipes, he says.

A new phase.

I had little to write about in terms of décor or gardening since I created this blog some time ago. I focused instead on cards, layouts, and my photography (on rare occasions). We are renting a house now, though. You can anticipate a number of posts throughout this lovely blog on our new home, our big yard, and, in time, décor and gardening.

In the coming posts you will see pictures and thoughts on our new home and a couple of our big backyard as well. Here are just a few pictures of our new home.

Kitchen

Dining Room

Living Room Bookcase

The kitchen has only one wall to hang a picture. I hung up an 8x10 frame of a photo print done by a local St. Louis photographer. We had one additional framed piece I wanted to hang above the stove, but the space above the stove is covered in some sort of splatter-proof material. I would imagine it would be a bad idea to put a nail through it. I hope to bring some color and personality, but am mulling on what I could do to make that happen.

The dining room is rather minimalist and modern: an IKEA dining room table & chairs and two bar chairs we bought off of Craigslist (purchased for the previous space).

Once I get a job I intend to invest in frames & mats and make some prints of my work. I would like to put two to three framed prints across the larger wall in the dining room. I am not sure what photographs I want to put in the frames, yet. I wish I had made the effort to shoot more of the beautiful brick buildings and houses in St. Louis when I lived there. I would love to frame some photographs of them. When I have the time I will be sure to make the time to do it.

We have more books than what you see on the bookcase in the above picture. I wanted to leave some shelf spaces free for art and framed photographs. I had several framed photographs on our fireplace mantle, but it was too cluttered for me. So I took the framed photographs off of the mantle, but one on an empty shelf and four on top of stacks of books. The rest are put away until I find a better place for them.

More pictures to come soon!