Living...Strawberries, Rock Bowls and Quilting

This past week has gone by so fast!  We have been having so much fun living in our area that life just seems to fly by.  This week Maggie had some work done on her and she got some new tires.  Cory did the work on the truck and we are grateful for his willingness to do that.  This is a lot of pictures but this will show you what we have been up to this week .  Yes, I did a lot of food this week.  For the recipes you need to visit by fan page on facebook at Simply Gourmet Photography or my cooking blog: http://thethriftygourmetcooks.blogspot.com

Isabella helped me with a shoot this week of some Italian Parsley flowers and this is what she did when we were done.  Threw them like a bridal bouquet.

I bought these from GW.  Love the red.

My favorite salad, Caprese.  the tomato was so cool...heirloom and full of ripples.  You can kind of see the edges of the tomato.

I make lots of bread at our house. 

This is my favorite.  It makes the best sandwiches and toast very nicely.  Served warm with honey..oh yeah...it's good!

I made several soups with Ham.

My friend Natalia finished quilting my quilt.  Visit her blog at Piece N Quilt.  She is amazing!

I am participating in a block exchange and these are the blocks I designed..Santa.

..birds and holly...

...snowman...

...and finally, a tree.  Should be fun to have for Christmas.

I bought a fish bowl to put our treasures from the beach in.  We love the idea of having the out doors brought inside. 

I love the tatted doilies I found too.

I bought a turtle charm to live with the rocks.  Yes, we are that cool...LOL

I made a new recipe using coconut and almonds...so good.

 

We went to the Farmer's Market in Severna Park, MD.

We played outside and the butterflies are everywhere.  This little guy was the perfect model.

 Our weeks are full but so much fun!  Enjoy this coming weekend!

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LIVING...Father's Day

The kids and Dad...cute family!

What a perfect day we had.  Perfect?  YES.  The reason is that time seemed to slow down which allowed us to enjoy the day even longer.  We woke up early.  Cory was able to enjoy his day by reading, playing games, going to the beach, eating his favorite foods and spending time relaxing.  He works very hard and sometimes our weekends are sooooo busy that they are not enough time for him to rest and relax, until yesterday.

Cory loves Red Velvet Cake.  I found a perfect pancake recipe that was "oh, so delicious".  We could not get enough of them, thank goodness I made a double batch and we were able to squeeze a couple of "snacks" out of the left overs.

For dinner, he wanted his "little piece of heaven", what is this you ask...WELL, for Cory it is open-faced grilled cheese sandwiches with fresh tomato slices on top.  Our whole family loves this too.  He was happily stuffed by the end of the day..LOL

I loved this image of Cory playing on the Scrabble board, we have  a lot of fond memories playing this game.

We did venture to the beach for a short stay.  The whole time we just were so amazed that we lived so close to so much water.  It did start to rain which was okay.  We came home and played Scrabble.  We love word games and we often play on our phones together when we go places or even right before we go to bed.  The difference between playing a board game and the phone is that we did not have the dictionary built in...this was a bit of an adjustment at first.  We laughed at how technology has even changed the way that we play games in our family.  We really want to find someone to play Settlers with in our neighborhood.  We shall keep looking and asking...yes, we are game stalkers...LOL


Overall, the day was great for our family.  Cory is an awesome fella, Dad and companion.  It's hard to believe that we are going on 24 years of marriage.  He is still my best friend.  We have had a very blessed life with very few bumps along the way.  I am so lucky.  The kids are even luckier to have such a gentle soul as a father.  This year we made home made cards and the kids wrote such sweet memento's.  They love their Dad.

Cory's home made jerky.  Recipe can be found on FB at the Simply Gourmet Photography fan page.

I hope that all of the Father's had as special a day as we had.

Living...Our Maryland House

I can't believe that time just flies around here!  I am scrambling trying to keep up with my life.  I started a new blog about food, new recipes, gluten-free cooking, food photography and tips/facts.  This has been a lot of work trying to cook, take pictures, make notes on top of doing everything else that  being a Mom and wife entails.  My hope is that through my blog and fan page I can use this to start my photography business up again here in Maryland.  I won't start actively pursuing clients until I have a few more months under my belt to obtain a variety of pictures to showcase.  My new fan page is titled:

The Thrifty Gourmet  and it may change to The Thrifty Gourmet Photography..it's still a work in progress

and the blog is:

 http://thethriftygourmetcooks.blogspot.com

I do miss the trailer for the simple life it offered and the small space, but I know that my family is very happy being back in a home with private rooms, showers and a larger refrigerator...LOL  I have enjoyed having my office back and being able to spread out and leave my sewing machine up.  I have been sewing everyday, this makes me happy.  I am currently participating in a Christmas block exchange.  I have designed 4 really cute applique blocks: santa, tree, snowman and birds with holly.  I will post pictures when the quilt is all done.

We love it here in the DC area.  We live in Maryland, but this area is often referred to as the DC metro area.  We are under 30 miles away.  Baltimore is close too.  We take every opportunity we can to explore our area.  The east coast is always alive with so much to do.

Our house is coming together slowly but surely.  We decided that this time around we would use recycled and used furniture.  We plan on being on the road again and we know that this stuff is "just stuff" and will be sold again in a few years.  Although, the pieces that I have found I LOVE and it will be hard for me to sell some of them.  I love antiques and "real" wood furniture.  Drake cannot believe how heavy things are. Wood makes a difference in the furniture and there is an abundance of "old" pieces here that people practically give away.  I will share a few pictures with you.

We are so happy and our lives are always blessed.  Cory came here for a specific job, which turned out to be a short term project for him.  He was promoted and now works from home again.  He is so excited for this new position.  He is still with Pepperweed Consulting. Drake will register for school on Monday and Rye has an appointment with the community college to start in the fall.  Isabella starts preschool on Tuesday.  The kids are anxious to meet friends and to start having some FUN!  We have had fun this past year, but hanging with your parents is not cool (so I hear).  LOL

I just can't express my gratitude that we have been able to have this time with our kids.  The time flew by and we had some incredible experiences thrown in with some boring ones too..LOL..but we gained so much from being together pretty much 24/7.  This time will be one of my fondest years spent with my kids.  I hope that some day they will be able to reflect on this time and realize how special it was too.

Life is good!  We are living in a fantastic place.  I hope that we see some of our friends that are still living on the road as they come through this area.  Please don't be strangers.  There are some friends that I would never have met had it not been for us living on the road this past year.  There is something endearing about sharing this unique experience with others.  We know how it feels to leave, how it feels to be traveling and now, we know how it feels to complete our journey (hopefully for a short time).  It is this bond that immediately makes you friends, binds your family and creates a "family on the road".  We will miss this.

I will still update and post on this blog about the kids, places we visit and things we do.  Send me a friend request if you want to know what is going on more with the day to day of our lives.  I update FB all the time and of course the new blog will get food related updates.

It rained so much when we first got here that the potential for making mud pies was always there.  Isabella made mud pies almost every day.

I remember making mud pies as a girl and it immediately warmed my heart of times past. 

Muddy hands...awesome!

China town in DC..date day..LOL

This is what I love about down town, the architecture on the buildings and churches is amazing.  You can see so many influences from all over the world.  I know that when the early Americans came here to settle they brought with them their skills and ideas, this makes me happy to know that their work is still preserved after so many years. 

Cory in front of the White House.

Sherron in China town, DC

This gallery was huge.  It took us 3 hours and we rushed through three floors.

Drake, 14 years old

Our beach, about a mile from our house.

Isabella loves the sand.

Rye, 16 years old

Isabella, 4 years old

Below you will find pictures of our home and some furniture that I have bought.  I have included the prices, not to brag, but to prove that you can find good pieces in excellent shape and quality, for bargain deals.  We are trying to reuse and recycle.  It's been so much fun for me and I love trying to find the "gem" among the "used" items, and I have!

The front of our house.

This is the furniture we had for about 2 days..LOL

We found this couch and love seat..paid $60 for the set.  My neighbor sells janitorial supplies and gave us the cleaner and it turned out like brand new.

DISHES!  Yes, I have missed them.  We don't use paper plates.  Goodwill  was a fun time on this day.  

Before...

...after.

In use...love the tables.

These rugs were out in the garbage for recycling.  This is common in Maryland that people put furniture and stuff out on the curb for people to take.  We snagged 3 area rugs and 2 runners...ALL in perfect conditioned and very good quality.  FREE is good, 

This piece cost me $60 dollars at Goodwill.  I hated to paint it, but there were some deep scratches.  The handles are  real silver.  They cleaned up beautifully.  Keep in mind that this GW is centered in the middle of the historic district of Annapolis.  I have found some of the most beautiful pieces here. I am a regular...LOL

I painted this red and cleaned up the handles.  I have it in my sewing room.

This table and chair was $125.00 at GW.  The only thing wrong with it was the drawer was broken on one end, other than that it's a beautiful set with 6 chairs.    I will probably paint this at some time, but I was not ready to tackle this project yet.

Our back yard.  She has discovered climbing trees and this is her favorite spot to read.

I picked up this old wool rug.  I love it!

Another GW find, $20.00 for this cute childs dressing cabinet.  I will paint this too eventually.  It's in the sewing room too.

Isabella loves her play dough.  $20 dollars for the small table and 4 chairs in perfect condition at GW.

Our kitchen.  I like the white.  The cupboard on the far left that you cannot see  are glass doors.

Living Room, empty

This is what the front room looked like when we emptied the trailer...three truck loads full.

The living room, filled with furniture.  The red chair is a set, the other one is upstairs.  I paid $60 for the set.  I covered the arms because they were a little bit worn.  The ottoman, I paid $3 for and recovered it with some fabric I got at a flea market.  All of the lamps we picked up at garage sales.  It finally is feeling like a home.

Have a great weekend!  ENJOY