Happy St. Patty's Day!

I can't lie, I love St. Patrick's Day! It's not just because I'm a quarter Irish or that I love a good excuse to drink beer (which I do), but it's all about the Corned Beef and Cabbage. I have fond childhood memories of this holiday. I'm pretty sure it started with my grandpa, who is 100% Irish, making Corned Beef and Cabbage every year, which eventually turned into my grandma making it, and then was passed onto my mom. While my mom still makes it every year, I obviously can't get home to enjoy it. So last year, I bucked up, bought a slow cooker the day before St. Patty's Day and made corned beef and cabbage all on my own. Oh and I made these amazingly bad for you wonderful herb buttered potatoes.


This year I decided to keep with tradition and make it again. Besides I own a slow cooker now, so I need to use it! I know it's a little late for anyone to run out to the store and get the ingredients, but I'll post my recipe anyway, in case you want to start the tradition in 2012! :)

All tucked in and ready to slow cook!

I didn't take pictures of the step-by-step because I was running late it's stupid-simple to prepare, but I did snap that picture above right before I ran out the door this morning. I found the two pictures from last year, so I posted them below to give you a little visual! I'll try to get one more picture tonight when I get home, assuming that Rooney hasn't figured out how to knock off the lid and mess the whole thing up ...

2010 St. Patty's Day Meal

Corned Beef & Cabbage
Serves: 4
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 6-8 hours


3 lbs. corned beef brisket, with spice packet
4 carrots, cut into 2-inch pieces
1 medium onion, sliced in 1/2-inch wedges
1 small head green cabbage, cored and roughly chopped
4-7 cups water, enough to cover the meat by 1 or 2 inches


1. Put the carrots and onions on the bottom of the slow cooker and put the corned beef on top. Arrange the cabbage around the beef.


2. Rub the spices from the packet on top of the corned beef.


3. Add enough water to the slow cooker to cover the meat by about 1-2 inches.


4. Cook on low for 6 to 8 hours or high for 5 to 6 hours.


5. Serve with Herb Buttered Potatoes (recipe below)

Herb Buttered Potatoes
Serves: 4
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 15 minutes


1 1/2 lbs. baby red potatoes, quartered
1/2 stick butter, softened
1 tsp. garlic, chopped
1-2 Tbsp. parsley
salt and freshly ground black pepper


Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and add the potatoes. Cook until potatoes are tender, about 12 to 15 minutes. Drain and return them to the pot. Add the butter, garlic and parsley. Gently combine that all the potatoes are evenly coated. Add salt and pepper to taste.

~

One tip, make sure you leave enough leftovers (two cups each of beef and potatoes) for the best part - corned beef hash and eggs! I found the recipe last year on Food Network and it was really good! I'll try to post that one before we head up to PA for the weekend. Cheers to the Irish! :)

Make my day!

I posted a picture on my Facebook wall today that made my day. I thought I would share it with you too, along with the awesome app that I used to edit the picture!

The license plate says "CHFSFAN"

I always smile when I see something that makes me think of Kansas. I know it's 2011 and people travel and move from state to state all the time, but seeing someone with a red truck, Chief's sticker and CHFSFAN planted on their VA license plate just makes my day!

But I'm sure you guys don't care about how proud I am to be from Kansas, so let me tell you about how I got my picture to look soooooo cool using my iPhone. I used a FREE app called Instagram, which I found on one of the blogs I read. Instagram is a neat social-photography application. You can either take pictures using the app or upload pictures from your albums and then add special effects to them. Once you're done, you can share it with the Instagram community. If you have an iPhone and you get Instagram, look for me - lilsuzy - and we can share our picture creations. :)

P.S. St. Patrick's Day is tomorrow, so I hope all my fellow Irishmen (and women) have a great day! And for those of you that don't have any Irish in you, drink green beer anyway, it's fun!

Getting Back on the Horse

Ok, I seriously can't believe that the last time I posted was October! Here's a picture of Jesse and me from last October, sometime after I quit blogging ...

{J and me at the pumpkin patch last fall!}

I guess when people say blogging is a big commitment they mean it. I loved writing over the summer when my workload was light, inspiration was high and the weather was beautiful, but as winter came and went (and it better not come back for another 9 months), I found myself ridiculously busy at work and ridiculously uninspired at home. Something about waking up before the sun comes up and leaving work after the sun goes down isn't as motivating as sunshine and summertime. The good news is it's getting warmer in DC and I've been itching to try new recipes and accomplish a few home projects. So here I am, back to blogging!

To get started again, let me fill you in on the last four months ...

November was football month for the Lentz household. Jesse and I went to four football games and watched all four games end in a victory for "our" teams. While it was a lot of fun, it was also exhausting. We started out in Philadelphia to watch the Eagles take on the Colts and squeak out a 26-24 win.

{Happy Birthday J - tickets to watch the Eagles at Lincoln Financial}

Then we went to FedEx field where the Eagles annihilated the Redskins, 59-28. While it was great to see the Eagles win two weeks in a row, this game was miserable because it rained from start to finish!

{Redskins losing + torrential downpour = awesome seats}

Our last two games were back to back college football games. The first game was Indiana vs. Penn State (Jesse's alma mater) at FedEx field. After that game, we drove up to College Park to watch Florida State v. Maryland, with one of Jesse's best friends, Ross, who drove down from Philly to watch FSU (his alma mater). The last and final game of our tour ended with a 20-16 win by Florida State.

{We're that couple, the ones with the matching sweatshirts}

{Enjoying a day game the only way I know how ... Bloody Mary's}

Once we recovered from the football marathon, we packed up and headed to Kansas for an eight day Thanksgiving break and to celebrate my birthday!

{We ran a Turkey Day 5k ... it was early!}

{Birthday Twins - Em's b-day is the day before mine}

{Out at P&L for my birthday party}

December is usually full of holiday parties and Christmas shopping. While we had our share of both parties and shopping, we also took a big "growing up" step - Jesse and I got a kitten!

{Our little Mac-a-Rooney}

It was the first Saturday of December and we had plans to go to a holiday party that evening. Jesse and I took our weekly trip to Pet Smart to look at all the kittens. We didn't expect to find one with the holidays being so close, but as we walked up to the adoption center, there he was, our own little kitten. We immediately called Jesse's parents to tell them there would be an extra visitor for the holidays, picked up all of the necessary supplies and took him home. It took us all afternoon to come up with a name, but right before we headed out to the party we both agreed on Rooney, after soccer player Wayne Rooney. (According to Wikipedia, Wayne Mark Rooney (born 24 October 1985) is an English footballer who plays as a striker for Premier League club Manchester United and the England National team.) Here are a few shots of our new obsession. I'm sure he'll be making regular appearances on the blog.

{Rooney's favorite spot in the house}

{Christmas kitty - photo by Neil Khettry}

January is when all hell broke loose at work. I spent most of the month working 12 hour days, which meant night after night of Trader Joe's frozen meals, and a few hours of work every weekend. By the end of the month, I hadn't taken a single day off and then I had to fly to Arizona for a(n) seven eight day business trip. I can't lie, eight days in warm, sunny Phoenix, AZ is really nice in the middle of January, but it was so hard to be away from my family and house for that long.

February was another month that flew right by! I flew out to KC to visit my family, where we celebrated my dad's 60th birthday (with lunch at Cheesecake Factory) and my sister Katie's 29th (with an 80's party). Jesse's sister and brother-in-law came to visit us the second weekend and then I was off to Dallas for another business trip. The only plus side to Dallas is that my BFF Kelly came down to help with the conference! By the end of the month, I realized I let another 28 days go by without blogging ...

{iPhone photo in a bar = FUZZY}

{Taking a classic Texas picture in Dallas}

{Enjoying a weekend with Corina and Neil - photo by Neil}

March - Which brings us right to spring ... I started this post on March 2nd, but by the time I got to the end of December it was time for bed, and I'm just now getting back to posting. I'm really hoping that I can start posting at least once a week, but I won't make any guarantees. We have a lot coming up, including a trip to PA for my SIL's baby shower and Jesse's friends are visiting next weekend. I also have another conference for work (in Orlando this time) and then we're heading back up to PA to visit Jesse's college roommate.

Even with my busy schedule and hardly any weekends at home, I am determined to accomplish some of our house-to-home projects this spring. I am planning to re-do our master bathroom and I would love to find a few pieces of furniture to finish off the downstairs, including a coffee table, side tables and a buffet/sideboard. I also just hung curtains this weekend (pictures to come) and had a battle with place mats that I can't wait to share (you're dying to hear more, right??). In addition to the housework, I have every intention of getting back to creative cooking, which will hopefully go beyond scouring the shelves at TJ's for the easiest meal to pull together.

Whew, well I hope you enjoyed my winter recap and slideshow. If you haven't had enough of me yet, you can check out my public Flickr site for more pictures. I'll be back soon ... or at least sooner that five months! :)

Sunroom Makeover Part 3: Before & After

{Before & After}

And now, time for the big reveal!

But first, let me torture you with a before shot.

The 'Before' pictures were taken during our search for a house, so please note that the choice of furniture and decor were chosen by the previous owner.

This room was lacking a few things ... color, character and charm. I'm hoping that I was able to accomplish all three of those things with the makeover below.

Here's the same sunroom after some paint, new furnishings and a power-scrub to the deck (thanks, Jesse!). As you can see from the pictures below, we were able to get everything we wanted out of this room. We ended up with enough seating for four people (the love seat, desk chair and reading chair), a functional space (the computer desk) and cuteness (need I say more?)!

{Before}

{After}

{Before}

check out how green the deck is!

{After}

Ok, enough of the before pictures, here are a few more close-ups of the room. Enjoy! :)

And just for Jesse, here's our deck after the mini-makeover! Jesse took the time to power spray and scrub down the deck. After that, he followed up with a wood stain to brighten everything up. Once that was done, we bought a compact patio set and 2-burner grill. Our deck went from being completely useless to the perfect place for a summer BBQ.

Also, did you notice the colorful mum on the ledge? As usual, there's a story behind it. Let's just say, this might not be the first one I bought this season. More to come next week ....

Interested in seeing how the sunroom makeover came together?
Check out Part 1: The Planning Stage and Part 2: Go Big or Go Home.

This makeover is linked up to HOUSEography's Room-by-Room Link-up Party.

Oh Happy Day!

Ok, don't be disappointed, but this post is not about the sunroom.


However, it is about something VERY important.


(For those of you wondering what's going to happen to the final sunroom post, don't worry it'll be coming tomorrow! Cross my heart!)


Anyway, back to the important stuff ........


drumroll please .........


bbbbbddddddddddddddddddrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr (that's the drumroll)


Buster is 100 days old!


Let's take a little walk down memory lane to see how much he's grown and the hardships he's overcome. (I know, I'm so cheesy!)


Day 1: I spotted this basil plant at Whole Foods and brought the little guy home with me. Read all about my plant challenge and date tracker here.

Day 17: I left my little plant out in the rain and thought I lost him. Read about my total fail in this post.

Day 30: My little plant recovered so I give him an official name ... introducing Buster! And if you read the entire fail post, you'll see how Buster got his name.

Day 45: Buster kept getting stronger so I decided to give him a permanent home. Welcome to your new house Buster!

Day 100: He hasn't been quite as green since summer ended, but he is still growing and every time I check he has more leaves! I've been able to use the fresh basil in so many wonderful dishes, like my grilled margherita pizza and summer pasta creations. I can't wait to see what I come up with this fall! I'm dreaming of the day he has enough leaves to make fresh pesto, but I'm going to have to be patient because he still has a long way to go grow! :)

Happy 100 days, Buster! 
And here's to the next 100! :)

Sunroom Makeover Part 2: Go Big or Go Home

My family lives by the motto Go Big or Go Home! You can guarantee that if we're taking on a a DIY project, it will require at least three trips to Michael's, two cans of spray paint and one full night of working. And if we're going out shopping to decorate my house, then we're going out on a mission and spending the whole day (or 3 days) comparing lamp shades, love seats and wall art. So needless to say, when Jen, Aron and I started shopping for the sunroom, we did as the motto says, we went BIG ........ and then we went home.

{Shopping}
Day 1: Leesburg Premium Outlets
We started our adventure at the Outlets, where we found a 5x8 jute rug and 3x5 blue and green striped rug, as well as a table lamp, huge vase and curtains. Our first trip was successful and we ended up with a great base to tie in the greens and blues.

Day 2: IKEA
Shopping mecca of the world, here we come! We headed out early in the day and it's a good thing we did because we spent all day eating Swedish meatballs shopping. This trip was even more successful than our trip to the outlets. After eight hours of following the wonderful little black arrows through IKEA, we came home with wall decor for my bedroom, a tv stand for the living room, curtains for the dining room and a coffee table, side table, lamp, fabric, pictures, frames, vases, baskets and plants for the sunroom.

When most people hear that we were there for 8 hours, they look at me like I have three eyes. Then I tell them that we had fun doing it and the three-eyed-look is taken to a whole new level (I'm talking horns and purple hair kind of looks). Much to everyone's disbelief, we had a blast and I have the pictures to prove it:

Jen pretending to order an omelet at my "restaurant,"

Made to Order (yes, we made the sign)

Aron answering our "what in the heck is
this for" question -- it's a gaming chair!

Jen was the lucky one who got to cram in

the back seat with all our purchases!

Day 3: Tyson's Corner and Crate & Barrel
We had made significant progress in the room by the time we went on this trip, but we were still missing one key factor -- furniture! We set out to Tyson's Corner where we picked up two chairs, a pillow and some twigs from West Elm and then swung by Crate & Barrel to grab the Sloane Leaning Desk.

In between shopping trips, (read: late at night) we worked on putting together our purchases and setting up the room. While it was three days of never-ending work, it didn't feel like it. In fact, when all was said and done, we felt so inspired we talked about how we could totally do this for a living. It's fun to dream! And in reality, we were all so exhausted that by the time we got everything into the room, we couldn't see straight anymore, but we didn't give up!

{Putting it Back Together Again}
When Jen and Aron left town I had two things left to accomplish. The first was apparent right away. I still needed to find a sofa for the room. We found the perfect love seat at Ikea while we were there, but as it turns out, a sofa doesn't exactly fit in the back seat of a Malibu.

Perfect love seat at Ikea ... if only I could take you home :(

Realizing that I had no realistic way to transport something so large all the way back from Ikea, and not wanting to spend a significant amount of money on renting a truck, I started scouting out love seats on Craigslist. I must've been having a lucky day because I found the exact love seat that we saw at Ikea (originally $479) for just $100! (Bonus: it was only 5 miles north of our house.) Jesse and I rushed out of work that night, rented a truck from Home Depot ($20), loaded up the love seat and had it in our sunroom before dinner time. Victory!

Once I had everything in place, I realized that the second thing I needed to do before the room would feel complete; add color to the walls.

The beginning of my cute little sunroom, begging for some color!

I know, you're supposed to paint before you do anything else, but remember who we're talking about here -- Lil-Miss-I-do-everything-backwards-and-like-to-take-the-long-way-around. So just as quickly as I filled the room, I emptied it back out for Marc to paint. (Check out my previous painting post to see how we settled on the color.) After only a day, he finished everything and left me with the most gorgeous room I've ever seen.

Here's one little teaser to get you ready for the before and after pictures tomorrow ... enjoy! :)

Want to see where my inspiration for the sunroom started? Check out Part 1: The Planning Stage. 

Sunroom Makeover Part 1: The Planning Stage

I know this post is long overdue, but better late than never, right?! I've been meaning to post something on here for awhile now, but when I started this post 2 months ago I didn't realize what it would become. Now that I've finally finished it, I realized that it was way too much to squeeze into one post. Sooooo, I am breaking it up into three sections. I promise I will post all of them this week, but rather than boring you all at once, I thought it would be more fun to drag it out. :) So without further ado ...

Sunroom Makeover Part 1: The Planning Stage

Our empty house before we officially moved in.
The sunroom is the room in the back.

Redoing our sunroom was an amazing experience. I'm not trying to brag or anything, but as one of my first big projects, I think it turned out quite well. :) I started with a plain 8 x 10 white box and now I have a serene, nature-inspired room that Jesse and I use almost everyday.

When we moved in, I decided to start our design adventure by setting up the bedrooms and kitchen/dining room. Since our focus was on those main rooms, we left the very blank canvas of our sunroom exactly as it was, blank and empty. With not much design experience, I felt overwhelmed by the white space, not sure where to start!

I wish I could take the credit for transforming the empty space into such a wonderful room, but I got a lot of help from my sister, Jen, and her husband, Aron, who helped me make this house a home!

In February (yes, that's how long ago this started), they came out to visit and help Jesse and me pick out a few things for our still barren house. The intention was to focus on the dining room and living room, but as it turns out, my sister was inspired by the very same blank canvas that terrified me. We managed to work on the dining room and found a few things for other rooms of the house, but most of the focus was on the sunroom. Jen works for Pottery Barn and was born with an eye for design. She's had a lot of experience setting up room displays so she knows all the design rules, like the rule of three and anchoring furniture in a room. Not to mention, when you put Jen, Aron and me in an Ikea for 8 hours, anything is possible!

{Needs Assessment}

Before our shopping adventure began, Jen asked Jesse and me what we wanted this room to be, so we tried to come up with a few things to lead us in the right direction. When thinking about how we wanted to use the space we knew it needed to be functional, but we also wanted to make sure that it had nice visual appeal because of its central location in the house. Moment of honesty: Jesse wanted function, I just wanted cute!

Here is a list of the three main goals we had for the space, as well as pictures from a few rooms that inspired me along the way:

1. A Space to Relax: We wanted a space where we could get away from all the craziness of life and put up our feet. Our TV is in the living room, so while one of us (read: me) is watching a show (read: Project Runway or Glee), the other one (read: Jesse) needs a little quiet space. We wanted the sunroom to become the perfect room to do just that.

I really love the colors in the room below and all the windows make me think of our sunroom. Since they didn't have space to hang art on the walls, they chose to make their furniture serve as art - gorgeous! With all of the available seating and bright colors in the room, this space feels very livable.  (photo courtesy of: www.housebeautiful.com)

2. Function: While a sitting room sounds all fine and good ... who really just sits around all day? We needed a room where we could get work done. We setup an office in one of our guest rooms, but since it's upstairs, we haven't gotten much use out of it. It feels very secluded from the rest of the house, which is nice for conventional office uses like working from home and paying bills, but we were looking for something close to the living room that we would use everyday. We thought it would be nice to setup a smaller office space in the sunroom where I could easily run to look up a recipe or upload pictures.

Below are a few home offices that take up minimal space in the room. I like how each office is setup in the corner, so they don't feel like the centerpiece of the room. (photos courtesy of: www.apartmenttherapy.com, www.realsimple.com, www.realsimple.com)

3. Welcoming Appeal: We tend to have a lot of visitors throughout the year and while we really enjoy hosting people, we felt like we had limited space to entertain. We wanted a room where we could go with guests to hang out and not be planted in front of a huge TV. This meant that somehow we needed to get seating for four into this very small space.

Each of the rooms below are setup around an open layout, meant for seating several people. While we didn't have nearly as much space to work with, we wanted to make sure that it felt welcoming and had plenty of options for seating. I also love the blues and greens in both of these rooms! (photos courtesy of: www.housebeautiful.com)

{Inspiration}

Once we identified what we needed to get out of the space, we moved on to deciding what we wanted the space to look and feel like. If you don't start with something in mind, shopping tends to be frustrating and unsuccessful or, on the flip side, you'll come home with a hodge-podge of items that don't go together. So, in order to prevent either of these things from happening, I focused on finding inspiration for the room. After perusing several websites, I realized that the inspiration was sitting right in front of me.

Jesse and I went to Jamaica for our honeymoon and while we were there we picked up this hand-made vase. I love the look of the green and blue against the terracotta base. I showed it to Jen and Aron before we ventured out and told them I wanted this to be the inspiration for the room. So, with the vase in mind and our needs identified, we headed out for three full days of shopping.

Unfortunately, you'll have to wait until tomorrow to see what we picked up on our shopping marathon! I PROMISE you'll get to see our entire makeover by the end of the week, but you'll have to be patient. :)