What a turkey

My husband, John, teaches Special Education.  At Christmas his department had a Festive Dinner with all the classes, and John contributed turkey.  However, he did not factor in how long it would take a frozen turkey to thaw, so the original turkey that he bought was brought home, and fresh turkey was cooked at school.  Last week I decided it was high time to roast that turkey, so I put it in the fridge to thaw, and a couple of days later opened up the package to make sure it was ready to be cooked, at long last.  I did not see what I expected to see:

Is that what YOU expected to see?  Okay.  Either I did not understand John when he explained what was in the bag that he was putting in the freezer, or he did not understand what the Educational Assistants were saying who handed him the bag to bring home.  [When John arrived home later that day it was determined that the latter condition was true.]  Further prodding and investigation revealed not one, but two turkey carcasses in there.

Turkey Frame Soup it is!  Fortunately it was still early enough in the day to produce some french bread to go with the soup.  The only photo of the bread in question is abstract; use your imagination.

Yes, there is dough rising under that tea towel.  And yes, of course I meant to include a shadow of my hands holding my phone.  This is high art, indeed.

At any rate, I found enough odds and ends of vegetables lurking in my fridge to make a fine soup.

 Why did I wait so long to buy a good stock pot?  Ridiculous!

In the end, the final product was so delicious that I forgot to take any photos.  But rest assured that I doubled the batch, and there is now soup in the freezer where the bag with the label "utility turkey" used to be...

Jumping In!

"Farmers who wait for perfect weather never plant.  If they watch every cloud, they never harvest."   Ecclesiastes 11:4 (New Living Translation)

So, rather than spend countless hours researching how to do this blogging thing, I'm jumping in and just doing it!  I'm Dana Lynne, and I am a procrastinator.  I also love starting things;  I loathe finishing them.  However, I also desire a home which is not completely chaotic, so currently I am trying to just complete a few things every day and develop routines (I always thought "routine" was a vile word, being eight letters long - that's twice as bad as a four-letter-word!) that allow things to run smoothly.

After all, what says "love" like making sure your loved ones can find a matching PAIR of socks in their actual sock drawer...

One current project is painting the bedroom that my husband and I share.  It is not the Master or Principal Bedroom - we gave that over to our sons to share.  Our room is just big enough for our needs, and works quite nicely - when there aren't overflowing laundry baskets everywhere, necessitating that my husband navigate carefully toward the bed and then do a complex flop thing onto it...although that is entertaining for me...

Okay, just one more of the "before" shots, to give you an overview of what we're dealing with:

 Nota Bene:  I cleaned!

The star of the show is the gorgeous quilt that a friend made for my husband and I as a wedding gift.  she hand dyed all of the fabric, in all the colours of the rainbow, plus black.  It is a traditional quilting pattern done unconventionally, which she felt reflected us well.  We agree.

Keep studying that beautiful quilt, so the torn blind and markings on the walls (this room was formerly occupied by our daughters) don't hurt your eyes.  Of course, then you might also not notice the step-like effect that the arrangement of furniture creates.  Or the note that one daughter duct taped to the wall just above our "artwork".  It is a loving note, and I do like the caption on the "artwork":  "In a world of copycats be an original."  However, I believe there is room for improvement.

So, during March Break, when our two youngest kids (the boys) were at a Day Camp, we began.  Did I mention that I love launching a new project?  Yes?  Well, here we are, at the beginning.

And when I say "we"?  I mean John, my husband.  Here he is, wiping away 4.5 years of grime off our walls using good old TSP.  You see, I've often read about TSP, while researching how one would go about cleaning one's walls...I've never actually USED it.  (And I still haven't...)

Anyway, I've never chosen a paint colour before.  Since this is for our bedroom, which is not often viewed by people other than my husband and I, our four kids, and miscellaneous close relatives, we decided we could go for anything WE liked.  Eventually I decided to go with either my favourite colour (yellow) or John's (teal).  Now, decision making is not my forte, but John asked me to choose so I made myself choose.  And here it is, along with my youngest son who is "helping" me tape so we can paint the trim.

 Isn't he adorable?  The colour is called "Lagoon" by Beautitone.  And I love it!  And yes, we John painted a few weeks ago during March Break.  And yes, it is now past Easter.  And yes, we still are sleeping in the smallest bedroom...Did I mention that I like STARTING things?  Yes?  Okay then.  Here's something new you may not have tried with your painting tape:

 Wall painting:  complete.  Trim taping:  in progress.  First blog post:  complete.