Healthy Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

In my seemingly-lifelong quest to become healthier (I guess that's not a bad thing), I have gathered a few favorite healthy recipes.  This is one of those that originally came from the Hungry Girl blog and one of the cookbooks.  I've altered it a bit and have made it yummier, I think.  But objectively it is definitely more garlicky than the original.  You could make them as a side, but I like to make both just for me and they are the main course and the side dish all in one.       

Ingredients: 

2 large portobello mushrooms
1 zucchini or yellow squash
1 Tbsp finely chopped onion
1+ tsp minced garlic
2 laughing cow cheese wedges (I like herb/garlic, but the swiss would work, too)
Salt
Pepper
Garlic salt
Grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375° F.
2. Clean mushroom tops, cut out stem (save stem), dry tops.
3. Finely chop stems, onion, and squash
4. Mix chopped veggies, cheese wedges, garlic, some parmesan cheese, and spices.
5. Spray tops and bottoms of mushroom tops with non-stick spray
6. Place mushroom tops on piece of foil
7. Stuff with veggie/cheese mixture.
8. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese.
9. Sprinkle with extra salt and pepper if desired
10. Put piece of foil over the top and seal edges well.
11. Bake for 25 minutes or until mushroom is soft.
12. Allow to cool for several minutes.
13. Carefully cut open foil packet and serve.

Reading Challenge Update

The interaction between Blogger on my phone and on my computer continues to ruin posts.  This is particularly annoying.  This time, it is the fact that I had been updating my reading challenge list as I went, but at some point in June the post reverted to its original form from January.  I lost all the book descriptions and comments.  Boo.

So, I decided that what I needed was an update post, entirely separate from the original.  Since it is slightly more than halfway through the year, it also makes sense to just check in on how I'm doing in reaching my goal and maybe ruminate on how to be sure to finish it by the end of 2015.


Here's the list:

1. A book with more than 500 pages
Kushiel's Dart (Phèdre's Trilogy #1)by Jacqueline Carey (1015 pages, published 2003, read in hard copy from my collection, finished March 21)
This was a reread, but I'm thinking of reading the whole trilogy and the world is just *so* complicated (places, religion, politics, ethnic groups, etc.).  Had to read it again, just to remember what all was going on and who the characters were.

2. A classic romance
My Pleasure by Connie Brockway (384 pages, published in 2004, read in hard cover, finished in April)
This spring I decided that it made sense to start at the top of the list and work down.  I got #1 and #2 read in order before I was distracted and read something else.  oops.  This book I picked up as the "get one" in a buy two, get one free offer at an airport used book store when I was on my way home from my UNC job interview.

3. A book that became a movie

4. A book published this year
Red Queen (Red Queen #1) by Victoria Aveyard (383 pages, published February 2015, read in hard copy, finished 22 July 2015)
I picked up this book at the ALA midwinter conference in Chicago this year.  It is a young adult novel, and it reminds me of a lot of the other kinds of things that have been published in the world of young adult books: sort of a future-post-apocalyptic-but-also-a-throwback kinda thing.  It was pretty entertaining.  When I found out that the woman who wrote it was a script writer as well, it made lots of sense.  

5. A book with a number in the title

6. A book written by someone under 30

7. A book with nonhuman characters
Charming (Pax Arcana #1) by Elliott James (366 pages, published 2013, read in hard copy, finished 19 Jan 2015)

8. A funny book

9. A book by a female author
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling (222 pages, published 2011, read on my phone, finished 11 July 2015)
I've wanted to read this pretty much since it came out in 2011, but never got around to it.  Now that it is readily available to check out from the library (in both regular and ebook formats), I finally did it.  I always suspected that I would have a lot in common with Mindy Kaling, and I was right.  She is officially on my "celebrities I wish I could actually be friends with" list.  And on my "would they make a good next door neighbor" scale for judging celebrities, I think she scores extremely high.  People tell me I'm funny and sometimes I actually think I am, and this kind of book is basically what I wish I could write and have people want to read.  And--who knows--maybe I could.  But she already has!

10. A mystery or thriller
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie (322 pages, published in 1934, read on my phone, checked out from 3M ebooks, finished 17 July 2015)
Read this for my book-club's book-movie-pie event.  We ate pie, discussed the book, and then watched the movie.  I really think that the story holds up well for being over 80 years old.  This is at least partially because of the setting: snowed in on a train with no communication from the outside.  The mystery has to be solved while they are isolated and nobody can use any fancy technology, so it seems plausible to figure it out through interviewing the people on the train and using psychology.

11. A book with a one-word title
Vicious by V.E. Schwab (364 pages, published 2013, read in hard copy checked out from library, finished 3 January 2015)
An interesting take on the idea of super-powers: what constitutes a "power," who has them, how they get them, and what powers people end up with. This was the Dec/Jan book for the Amazing Book Club of Doom.  

12. A book of short stories

13. A book set in a different country
Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks (308 pages, published 2001, read in hard copy, finished Jan. 2015)

14. A nonfiction book

15. A popular author’s first book

16. A book from an author you love that you haven’t read yet

17. A book a friend recommended

18. A Pulitzer Prize-winning book

19. A book based on a true story

20. A book at the bottom of your to-read list

21. A book your mom loves

22. A book that scares you

23. A book more than 100 years old

24. A book based entirely on its cover

25. A book you were supposed to read in school but didn’t

26. A memoir

27. A book you can finish in one day

28. A book with antonyms in the title
Inside Out by Maria V. Snyder  (320 pages, published in 2010, read on my phone, finished 8 Jan. 2015)
I was a fan of Snyder's Study series (starting with Poison Study) and thought the idea of Inside Out was very cool.  It is her first book written for a young adult audience and the main character is a young woman living in a dystopian reality where there is a literal hierarchy.  She is one of the "lowers"--the workers--but she works cleaning the air vent system, which gives her the opportunity  to explore higher levels.  I described it on my Goodreads account as "Sort of Cube meets Snowpiercer meets Hunger Games/Divergent."

29. A book set somewhere you’ve always wanted to visit

30. A book that came out the year you were born

31. A book with bad reviews

32, 33, 34. A trilogy
32. Trilogy Book 1
Divergent (Divergent #1) by Veronica Roth (487 pages, published 2011, read in hard copy, finished 8 Feb. 2015)
33.
34.

35. A book from your childhood

36. A book with a love triangle

37. A book set in the future

38. A book set in high school

39. A book with a color in the title
Written in Red (The Others #1) by Anne Bishop (433 pages, published 2013, read in hard copy, finished 24 Jan. 2015)

40. A book that made you cry

41. A book with magic

42. A graphic novel
Ms. Marvel #1: No Normal by G. Willow Wilson (author) and Adrian Alphona (Artist) (120 pages, published 2014, finished 21 March 2015)
Read this one for Book Club o' Doom and I've decided: I want to like graphic novels, there are elements of graphic novels that I like, and there are movies/shows based on comics/graphic novels that I love.  But I still haven't found a graphic novel that I actually enjoyed reading.  sigh.

43. A book by an author you’ve never read before
Kindred by Octavia Butler (264 pages, published 1979, tried to read in ebook on my phone and ended up reading in hard copy from the library, finished 19 June 2015)
OK, I've read at least one Butler short story, I'm pretty sure.  But I'm really not sure which one.  And I know I've never read one of her books, so I think it is fair to count this hear.  Kindred is a book I've been meaning to read for years, and I'm glad I finally did.  Thanks goes to the Book Club o' Doom for pushing me to read this one now!  Really good, really interesting.  The racial aspects are most often talked about, but I thought the gender aspects were really where she shines.  She writes a great main character in Dana, but the men are nuanced as well.  They have fears, weaknesses, control issues, emotions.  Something that you don't often see: a sci-fi writer who can actually write male and female characters.  That this was published in the 1970s makes this story even more amazing.

44. A book you own but have never read

45. A book that takes place in your hometown

46. A book that was originally written in a different language

47. A book set during Christmas

48. A book written by an author with your same initials

49. A play

50. A banned book

51. A book based on or turned into a TV show

52. A book you started but never finished

Total read so far this year: 13 of the 52 categories

I'm far less than halfway done, which bums me out.  Not that I'm not on track to read 52 books this year; I've already finished a total of 35 books this year.  It's just that they aren't books that fit with my whole "trying to read different and new things" category.

Also, I'm in the middle of 2 books that can go on the list: The Mazerunner and Mayflower.  Both start with M, but they are extremely different.  And I'm really reading 3 books at the same time, something I always used to do and something I'm glad I'm back to doing.  (The third book is Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed, a fantasy novel, but one set in a fantastical land based on the Middle East rather than being set in some fantastical version of Europe.  Not sure if it'll make it on the list, though, but it might.)

Obviously I need to concentrate on the list so that I can finish it by the end of the year!  I'm going to try to work from the top down, for the most part, and see how that goes.  I also solicited suggestions from friends on Facebook for a few of the categories like Book Set in High School, Book Set During Christmas, and about 3 more.  Now I have some to-read books that are on-deck, so to speak.  

I'll probably check in with my running total some time in the fall.... And here's hoping I finish!

Cross-Stitched Design: pillow featuring a snarky and cool Firefly quote

Quite a while ago, I noticed that there were people cross-stitching fun phrases or samplers onto things and then selling them on etsy and places like that.  In particular, I always thought that the juxtaposition of phrases with bad language in them that used really pretty, flowery letters were pretty funny.  I also really like that some people have made their pop culture favorites cross with their stitching hobby.

For a friend for Christmas, I decided to do the latter.  Since she is a big Firefly/Serenity fan, I decided to use the Captain Malcolm Reynolds quote "I swear by my pretty floral bonnet, I will end you"(while wearing a floral bonnet, obviously!).  I made up the pattern for the cross-stitch myself, using some graph paper, a pencil and two websites for inspiration: an online site with fonts that helps with spacing for words and a site that had a few floral corner patterns for me to improvise off of.

After the design and sewing parts were done, I gave it to my friend for Christmas and then I asked my friend if she wanted it framed or made into a pillow.  She went with the pillow (smart choice!), which meant that I had to figure out how to do that.  After a bit of research, I decided to go with something that would frame the stitching in front and would have a flap/envelope in the back.  Basically, so that the pillow would look nice, but wouldn't require a zipper or to be sewn closed.

I managed to finally get the pillow finished by May...it took a while but it turned out really well.

I looked at a lot of instructions online, but the most useful pages I found were these two:

• https://tinymodernist.wordpress.com/2014/01/21/how-to-make-a-cross-stitch-pillow-cushion/ (for the front)
• http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Envelope-Throw-Pillow-Cover/ (for the back)

Basic steps were:

• Iron (on the reverse), then measure and cut the panel for the front
• 
• Iron, then draw out pattern on blue fabric for the "frame" on the front of the pillow
• Cut out frame pieces
• 
• One at a time, pin and sew frame pieces to the front center panel 
• Then sew angled corners together to complete the frame
• Iron corners so that they lay flat
• 

• Cut out two pieces for the back
• Sew the edges of the envelope in the back pieces
• Lay back pieces and front piece out, right sides together
• Sew back and front together
• Turn pillow/cushion case right-side out and insert 12 X 12 inch pillow
• Finished!

Angel Food Cake is for Birthdays: 1950s Sunbeam Recipe

[Note: I wrote this post once, saved it and published it.  Then it was erased when I tried to upload a photo from my phone to another post.  I don't know why and I'm pretty annoyed.  So much for the cloud and the wonders of moving "smoothly" from one device to another.  Anyway, this is the recreation.  Probably not as good, but the best I can do under the circumstances.....]

In my family, angel food cake is the standard for birthdays.  As a kid, I preferred mine slathered with frosting-from-a-can and decorated with those sugary-candy letters and shapes.  As I got older, my preference transitioned to no frosting, but served with ice cream and/or whipped cream and some kind of fruit--berries, peaches, etc.  (Although, I still love me some frosting-in-a-can...)

Last week I made an angel food cake from scratch for my grandma's 89th birthday, using her classic recipe. And it was delicious!  Now, don't get me wrong, store-bought is fine and angel food from a mix can be really good, but Grandma's recipe makes a cake that practically melts in your mouth it is so good.  

The original recipe came from the book that came with Grandma's 1950-era Sunbeam Mixmaster stand mixer.  My grandpa gave the mixer to my grandma as a gift after my aunt was born, back when the Sunbeam *the* in-demand kitchen appliance, pretty much like today's Kitchenaid mixer. She used that mixer for decades, and when it finally died, my aunt gave her hers: a late-1970s/early-1980s yellow model.  That one is still going strong!  

One of the great things about the Sunbeam Angel Food cake recipe is that when you are done, you have a dozen egg yolks to use, which is perfect for the Golden Sunbeam Cake.  The recipe was in the Sunbeam Mixmaster cookbook with the Angel Food cake recipe and it makes a lemony, dense, moist cake that is super delicious.   

For the birthday celebration, I actually had to make two cakes to get one to turn out right.  For the first, I used a hand mixer.  It took half of forever to get the batter to form soft peaks, but it wasn't enough.  Sadly, that cake turned out to be only about half as tall as it should have. It tasted OK, but it was dense instead of light-as-air.  

So, I borrowed Grandma's good ol' Sunbeam and tried again.  The stand mixer worked much better and more quickly than the hand-mixer. This time, I beat the batter until it was more like medium-peaks.  It turned out wonderfully....so delicious, just like Grandma always makes!   

Ingredients:

• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sifted cake flour (the original called for Swans Down and I used Softasilk, just DO NOT use a non-cake flour)
• 1 1/2 cups sifted sugar
• 1 dozen egg whites (aka 1 1/4 cups) Tip: Remove eggs from refrigerator an hour or two before using.  They will whip up better if they aren't cold.
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/4 tsp. almond extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375°F
2. Sift flour once and then measure
3. Add ½ cup of the sugar and sift together 4 times
4. Place egg whites and salt in large stand mixer bowl
5. Beat at No. 10 speed (out of 12, I think) until foamy
6. Add cream of tartar and continue beating until eggs are in soft- to medium-peaks.  They should be stiff enough to hold up in peaks, but still moist and glossy. 
7. Add remaining sugar, one Tbsp at a time, beating constantly. 
8. Beat only until sugar is just blended, then add vanilla and almond
9. Remove bowl from mixer and add flour-and-sugar mixture in four additions, sifting it over the egg whites. 
10. Fold in each addition by hand, using wire whip or large spoon, turning bowl gradually and use 15 complete fold-over strokes each time. 
11. After the last addition, use 10 to 20 additional strokes to mix in all the flour/sugar mixture.
12. Turn batter out into ungreased 10-inch tube pan. 
13. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until top is golden brown and toothpick inserted comes out all or mostly clean. 
14. Remove from oven and invert pan on rack or plate.
15. Let stand 1 hour or until cake is cool. 
16. Loosen cake from sides and center of pay with a sharp knife.
17. Sprinkle powdered sugar on plate or cake holder.
18. Turn cake out onto the plate.  
19. You're finished!  

Back-Deck Container Garden 2015

Last year I started an adventure in container gardening (see photo below).  It went OK...but more importantly I learned how to do better.  Although, to be fair to myself, one of the main problems was that I went on a work trip at the end of June last year. While I was in Las Vegas, the weather at home was equally desert-like.  I think that my plants took the whole no-rain-for-a-week thing pretty personally. They did bounce back--sort of--but I never managed to harvest more than a few cherry tomatoes before the cold struck and my flowers were never what I would call "lush." 

Container Gardening 2014

This year, I have to go on the same work trip at the end of June, so I decided to do two things differently.  First, I wanted to get my plants in a little earlier so that they would be more established when I leave.  Check!  As of today, everything has been planted for at least a week and a half, and some have been in for nearly three.  Second, I wanted to use bigger pots for most things, rather than lots of smaller ones.  This way the soil in the pots would have the potential to hold more moisture.  Happily, Menards had window box planters on a super-sale a few weeks ago and I bought a big pot for a tomato plant at the end of last season.  So...check!

Container Gardening 2015 

Since I now have some beautiful, matching flower pots (thanks to my very own completed painting project!), my deck now looks lovely...and I'm all set to grow the following:

• 2 varieties of cherry tomatoes (Sugar Gloss and Supersweet 100)
• A mixed-color assortment of snapdragons
• White alyssum
• White Nicotiana
• Pale yellow and white-and-purple petunias  

The one thing that makes me a little sad is that my hanging pot holder--purchased at last year's Renaissance Festival--is much too heavy to safely hang from the hooks on my deck.  I don't think the hooks are really anchored in the beams of the porch ceiling, so I don't want to risk it.  However, I think that the "hanger" actually looks pretty good as a "vertical-rack-thing-leaning-in-the-corner," don't you? :)

Matching Flower Pots: Variations on a theme!

Last year I did some container gardening, with a whole bunch of pots on my back deck.  It was pretty fun and I wanted to do it again this year, but I also wanted this year's set of plantings to help make my back porch/deck a bit classier.  Last year was for experimentation, but this year is for the cool version, or so I told myself.  I figured that the best--read that cheapest and easiest--way to do this was to color coordinate my flower pots.  Since last year I had a turquoise seat cushion and matching turquoise holders for my movable lights, this seemed like a legit choice for a color scheme. 

So, I went to the home improvement store and bought a can of ridiculously bright turquoise spray paint.  I went with a glossy Rust-oleum paint that is advertised to adhere to plastic and work well outside.  Then I rounded up the planters and pots that I wanted to use, spread them out on a plastic drop cloth in my garage (it was raining outside) and started painting.  Oh, yeah.  And I decided that it would be super-fun to have my tomato cages match my planters, so I painted them, too.  

To get a nice, even finish, I needed at least two coats of paint and a few pieces needed three.  I also painted the sides and bottoms first, then flipped them up and painted the tops and inside edges.  All this crazy painting meant that I ended up going back to get a second can of spray paint.  I forgot to write down the name of the color, but luckily the one I picked was such a wild and notable color that I didn't have to worry about getting the wrong color of turquoise on that second store trip!  

  

I painted almost all of the pots/planters, with the exception of two of my four smaller pots that were a darker turquoise already. I left these their original color to add what I'm thinking of as a "sophisticated color contrast."  And then when I think that, I laugh inside.  :)  

After the base coat was done, I decided to add some more "sophisticated color contrast" [hehehe!] to a few other pots.  These were the terra cotta and plastic pots and saucers for my hanging plant holder.  For these, I bought a sample of a contrasting color of paint.  I could have gone to a craft store, but those are far away.  For less than the price of the gas for a round trip drive to a craft store plus the cost of a small bottle of craft paint ($3.75 to be more exact), I bought a small jar of lighter turquoise Behr Satin Gloss house paint.  I used that to paint some designs on the terra cotta pots (some free-hand and some with painters tape) and saucers, and to paint one plastic pot completely.  Fun note, painting the plastic using a sponge brush made it more textured and suddenly it looked like a ceramic pot, rather than a cheap $1 plastic version.  Cool, huh?  

After the designs were done, I coated the pots and saucers with 3 coats of indoor/outdoor glossy varnish (left-over from use in my Coaster and Glitter Shoes projects, actually). Then they were ready for planting.  Here are a few pictures, but you can see even more of my new and *very* sophisticated porch decor in my up-coming post about this year's container gardening.     

Mint Julep Bars: Bourbon-pecan blondies with white chocolate-mint-bourbon frosting

The most recent Nom-Nom Food Challenge at work was mint themed, selected by Sonja, the winner of the last Golden Spatula challenge.  As soon as I announced the theme people started asking about mint drinks: both juleps and mojitos.  In fact, the topic of mint-flavored drinks was so popular that I added a column on the the entry spreadsheet entitled "Team Julep or Team Mojito?"  In reality, I just think everyone wanted to have a giant happy hour!

After the initial "Can we drink at work?!" questions (Umm...well, no.  You still can't.  Sorry about that?)  the early suggestions of entries seemed to imply that many people would be making things that were chocolate-mint.  I decided to look for something that matched one of the drink themes.  I stumbled across this recipe from Good Housekeeping for Mint Julep Blondies.  They looked pretty awesome, but I decided to up the specialness-factor by upping the bourbon content, so 1 Tbsp became nearly 2 1/2 Tbsp.  I also fiddled with a few things: notably a bit less salt, swapped the peppermint for regular mint extract in the frosting (Juleps are made with spearmint, not peppermint, after all), and put both a bit more mint and some bourbon in the frosting.  Result is pretty addictive and even initial testers who weren't huge mint fans enjoyed them, too.  (And one person who is a bourbon fan declared them to be "f@#%ing amazing!")  I was feeling pretty good about my chances of reclaiming the Golden Spatula.

Regretfully, I didn't end up winning the challenge....but the recipe is still a keeper.  The blondie part, in particular, is delicious.  I think if I make them again, I'll leave the extras out of the chocolate and will just drizzle melted white chocolate over the top.


Ingredients for Blondies 

Thanks for sharing the good stuff, Dad!

• 1 cup flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• scant 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 6 tablespoons melted butter or margarine (I used the second, because that's what I had in the fridge)
• approximately 1 3/4 cup of packed brown sugar  (I used a 1 cup measure and totally estimated, it was probably a bit more than the 1 3/4 cup.)
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten 
• a bit less than 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• a bit more than 2 Tablespoons bourbon (I used a very nice Evan Williams Single Barrel barrelled in oak for 10 years.  Yum!)
• 1 cup coarsely chopped pecans

Ingredients for Frosting

• 1 cup white chocolate chips
• 1 1/2  teaspoons vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons mint extract (NOT peppermint, but mint, which is a combo of spearmint with a little peppermint)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons bourbon

Directions for Blondies

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Line a 9x13 inch cake pan with parchment paper.
3. In a small- or medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
4. In a different bowl, whisk together melted butter, brown sugar, bourbon, vanilla, and eggs. 
5. Add flour and pecans, and stir/whisk together.  
6. Spread batter in prepared pan.
7. Bake 20 to 25 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean-ish (though not necessarily completely clean).  Mine definitely took the full 25 minutes.
8. Let cool.

Directions for Frosting

1. Melt white chocolate with oil, mint, and bourbon in the microwave. (Slowly, at a low power, stirring until smooth.)
2. Spread on cooled blondies.

Note: The liquids cause the white chocolate to seize up.  It makes the melted chips more of a frosting consistency in the finished product, but it also makes it incredibly hard to spread.  As I said above, if the mint addition isn't super important, I'll probably just drizzle melted white chocolate on these in the future.

I know they look a bit homely, but they are so tasty!

Blog Anniversary!

Exactly one year ago I started this blog to keep track of my personal projects, baking experiments, etc.  It isn't private (which, if you are anyone but me and reading this, should be obvious) but it being public isn't the point at all.  In fact, at the time I just felt like I needed to record things so that I could prove to myself that I can--and do--do things, sometimes really well.  Putting these things out in the world rather than in a journal of some kind was just a way to share with a few people.

One year later, the original impulse is working! It's incredibly good for me to see some of the non-job things I've done all in one place--even if they were small and/or silly things.  And especially in a year that has been incredibly challenging in all sorts of ways.  

Moral of the story: the greatest pleasures in life are the little things we do.  So, do things that make you happy and give you a sense of accomplishment... And then remember those things and how they make you feel! 

Front Garden: 2015 Edition

My townhouse has a small front garden area.  When I moved in, it had a bush and 4 hostas in front, and a clematis climbing up a little trellis in a rocked in the back area with my air conditioning unit.  Since I moved in, I've had potted plants out front on my steps, trimmed the bush (well, my dad trimmed it for me, actually), and added a little bit of rock on the side closest to the steps.

Rock and mulch look good for a while, but they just seem to sink into the ground over time.  Which means it has to be replaced periodically.  This spring, it was obvious that I needed a bunch of rock and to add some mulch.  And since I was at it, I figured I would add some annual plants, too.  Luckily for me, Menards was having a big sale that included annuals, the white rock I wanted, and a bunch of other things.  

I cleaned out leaves from the back corner, then weeded, and then added some mulch in the front and white garden marble in the back.  Originally I bought 3 bags of rock and 1 of mulch, but I had to go back and get another 2 of rock. They are awfully heavy, but don't seem to cover very much ground.  Since the rock was only on sale through yesterday, though, I had to do it the same day. Nothing like a sale to motivate a purchase and some action on a needed project!

I also added 2 rubber paver stones, one on each side, and put a small urn-shaped pot on top of each one.  (I bought the urns on clearance last year at the end of the season.)  I planted "spikes," yellow rose moss, and purple petunias in them.  Hopefully they will fill in nicely and add color to the front of the house throughout the summer.

The final touches were:

• a hanging pot of purple and yellow pansies on a shepherd's crook hanger (both purchased at a significant savings from the Menard's sale)
• my weird little, plastic hedgehog outdoor figurine
• a solar-powered decorative light globe
• the larger rocks previously located by the air conditioner 

Everything looks so much better: neater, cleaner, and more home-y.  This is my first spring/summer house project, and I think it turned out nicely.  Here are some before and after images:

Glitter Shoes... Let me repeat: GLITTER SHOES!

I had a pair of high heels that I always really liked--comfortable, cute shape, nice height--but were a little torn up.  Specifically, the insides were fine, but the heel parts had been damaged by my clumsiness.  They were badly gauged and scratched, and since they were made of a synthetic material there was not really any good way of repairing them.  They looked terrible, but I still loved them.  

I looked online for ideas and found a lot of neat images and instructions for adding glitter to shoes.  Glitter makes everything awesome, so I decided to try this myself.  Best case, I'd be able to wear my cute shoes again.  Worst case, my unusable shoes would still be unusable.     

I first took the top layer of the heels off the shoes, so that the surface would be even.  Then I very, very carefully taped up the shoes so that the heel guards and actual shoes wouldn't get any glitter on them.  

Since my chosen method involved modpodge (because I already had some, from when I made the tile coasters), I mixed up some fine glitter in some modpodge.  Basically, I added glitter, stirred it up, then added some more glitter and stirred it up.  Then I painted a thin layer onto the heels of the shoes.  Just like always happens with modpodge, it went on white, but the modpodge dried clear...leaving the glitter shiny and the surface pretty smooth.  

I added 3 full layers of the glitter mixture, letting the layer beneath dry before painting over it.  This was enough to completely cover the black of the shoe underneath.  

Once the layers were all dry, I carefully took off the tape.  The heels themselves looked really good.  However, because the original shoes were black with pink accent stitching, the silver heels looked a little weird overall. I probably should have picked either a pink or a black glitter.  Oh, well.   

With the shoes looking strange, I decided to just go big and glitter the shoes completely. (Isn't cool how I just used "glitter" there as a new kind of verb...you know "I glittered the shoes," rather than "the stars glittered in the sky.")  I didn't add any more tape back on and just tried to do an even and neat job with painting on the modpodge/glitter mixture.  I did three coats to match the heels and made sure to get in and around the little decorative embellishment of the front of the shoes.  I also used a toothpick to clear the holes that originally were riveted holes on the shoes.  

After all the layers were applied and finished drying, I added two coats of a glossy indoor/outdoor sealer on it.  This is to make the shoes more waterproof (because modpodge isn't waterproof) and to make the final texture of the shoes really smooth.  

Here are some photos of the final product.  My shoes are certainly wearable again, which is great!  They are also really glittery, without being rough or risking any glitter flaking off on clothes or making a path of glitter when I walk.  And sample wearings around the house seem to show that the coatings are flexible enough to bend and work with the shoes as I wear them walking around.  

I think this is a great technique and I may have to try this again to make some Wizard of Oz-style ruby slippers at some point.  I also think it would be cool to do some shoes that are modpodged with stuff from comics, books, or magazines.