Tour of Homes - Get Real combo

BooMama is hosting a Tour of Homes (the actual list of participants is at that link, the image links to the explanation of the Tour) which sounded like fun. What is more fun than visiting other people's homes? So here is my (typically overly verbose) entry.

But I have to admit, artsy-fartsy as I may be, I don't have the knack (or the decisiveness & need for closure) to decorate, so my house is, really, undecorated and I'm not sure what to do with it. The artsy in me would like to decorate it, but I never make any plans for what I want. (I'm hoping Tracy, my SILLY (LOL that's a joke just for her) might step up to an over-the-net decorating job?) ANYWAY ... I forgot to take these pix when the house was cleaned up, and then discouraged to think I'd have to clean before taking pictures, and that today was the day to post them, and if I started cleaning-to-welcome-guests I'd never get around to POSTING ... So I decided to be brave and do a "lets get real" home tour.

What would you see if you dropped by this morning?!

I used to have CHAOS - Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome. I used to suggest people call, maybe months in advance, to give me time to clean up. You know what? No one ever came by. When someone DID come, I would, seriously, take DAYS getting the house ready. But learning to practice hospitality has been important to me, and so ... I'm learning!

So what you will see today ... well, by the standards of many of you might look undecorated and untidy. And ... it is. But it's much better than it used to be, LOL. And I could whip it into better shape in just an hour or two, which is much better than my former DAYS. And, believe it or not, it's less cluttered than we used to live. I really am making progress. And we DO have people over, and I DO invite them in now. So to me that's important progress. So grab your cup of coffee, and do come in.

Have I put enough disclaimers in here? LOL! Okay. Here we go:

#1 Coming up to my front door:
Take note of the flowers I haven't yet killed, hanging on the gate. The front door is tucked off the side of the house in a little nook, across from the garage. I think it has a little of a cottagey feel, and someday I might try to figure out how to paint & plant so that my house looks like a little cozy cottage. At the left edge you'll see a corner of our cool mailbox and a funky number 8 -- two small bits of very slowly making things "ours".

The front door itself (bonus picture):
I especially like the big glass window of the storm door, so we can see out towards the road. It lets a lot of light into the front hall. I would like to replace the solid front door with a paned glass door, to let light in even when the door is shut. In the winter I have a nice Christmas wreath to hang on the door, but I haven't figured out what to hang there in the summer to be "welcoming" ~ the potted plants on the gate were my attempt this year. Note baby Buzz in the doorway, angry at me for momentarily abandoning him while I took the picture. The right side window looks in to out front hall and you can see the edge of the stairs if you look close.

I put the pictures in the Tour of Homes order, but if you came to visit I'd bring you in, through the kitchen, to the living room. :)

#2 Where I Blog:
As you can see, i didn't tidy up my blogspace for you. To the left of my desk (which is in an armoire purchased with the hopes that I could make it tidy if I wanted, by closing it, not anticipating my piling junk on TOP) is the kids' computer desk. See the top of little D's head, there? Here you can see my Messies tendencies thriving, what with the stacking, piling, and stuffing.

#3 Main Living Space:
This is our living room. I love that it is large, bright, with wood floors and built in shelves. Although you can, again, see my tendency to pile and stack and stuff. The windows at the upper left of the picture have sheer curtains with little flower appliques on them, and those make me happy. The TV hides in the big armoire. We no longer have access to "real" TV (no cable, not much for local reception) but we watch our videos here. I fold laundry on the futon to the left, and dh and I sit on the dark blue love-seat-recliner on the right. The other chairs, the black ones and wicker ones, are light weight and move around a lot. We tidy them all up for when our small group Bible study or other company comes, but on any given day they are sort of pushed around willy-nilly. We can pull them close around the fire for cozy reading in the winter, too. Someday I plan to decorate this room, but ... I have no idea how. That's my 9 year old son peeking out at the lower left. The living room is also the main indoor play area, at this time, and I'm pleased to see the toys are mostly in their "home" (I used to not get the idea that everything should have a place). They live in the cupboard in the corner to the right of the armoire, under the bookshelves.

#4 My Kitchen and Dining Room:
While we didn't do a "full renovation" this is the room where I've left my mark. I worked hard (over several years, I'm a slow worker) to paint over all the brown and beige. Can you guess what colors I like? I really like the bright colors now. As you can see, I have not cleaned the kitchen yet this morning. At the time I took them, the children weren't done waking and eating, it's a slow day. The mixer isn't usually out, but we made brownies last night. The dining room has a bay window with a window seat, looking out into the back yard.

#5 My backyard:
We really have a great back yard. It's fenced, it has about 10' deep "woods" where the children can explore and play, it feels private, and it's very kid-friendly. There's even a cement pad (put down for a future garage?) with a basketball hoop, which we mostly use for bike riding and chalk drawing. On the deck you can see my tomato plants which, miracle of miracles, I grew from seeds. Although, if you do your garden math and realize it's the end of July, you'll see will never be big enough for tomatoes before it gets cold in Michigan. So sad.

So! That's my "Get Real" tour of my house as it looked during breakfast, before chores, this morning. We are blessed and thankful for God's provision of a house with plenty of room for our growing family, where we can live and play and grow! Thanks for coming!

If I get* fat, it's Rosanne's fault

Yesterday Rosanne mentioned she'd like to know more about the brownies I'd mentioned. And I thought "What's a recipe without a picture?" So I went to take a picture, at 9 in the morning, before I'd had any breakfast. And, I tell you, those brownies looked so sweeeeet and pretty. So I had one for breakfast. Then the other. Then all the little leftover bits that had crumbled. 'Cause you can't just leave a mostly empty pan sitting around. Right?

Independence Glazed Brownies

Ingredients

• 1.5 cup all-purpose flour
  
• 1 tsp salt
  
• 1 tsp baking powder
  
• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa
  
• 2 cups (1 14 oz bag) white chocolate chips
  
• 2 cups sugar
  
• 2 sticks (1 cup) butter, softened
  
• 4 large eggs
  
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
  
• (optional (and we omitted this) 1.5 cups chopped walnuts or pecans)

Preheat oven to 350°

Mix sugar and softened butter in mixing bowl until blended. Beat in eggs and vanilla until creamy. In a separate bowl, mix all of the dry ingredients thoroughly and then add them to the sugar mixture. Stir with a wooden spoon until well incorporated (we used the KitchenAid mixer), Fold in the white chocolate chips (and nuts) (again, we used the mixer). Mixture will be stiff.

Original instructions: Drop brownies by 1/3 cup measures into lined cupcake pans and bake for 20 minutes or until brownies are set. Cool before removing from pan. (it doesn't say how many it would make, my guess is 24)

What we did:
Spread mixture in greased 9x13 pan and bake ~25 minutes until brownies are set.

Powdered Sugar Glaze:

• 2.5 cups powdered sugar (or icing sugar, if you're Canadian)**
• 2 Tbsp water
• 1 Tbsp butter, melted
• 1 Tbsp light corn syrup
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, optional

Combine powdered sugar, water, butter, corn syrup and vanilla in a small bowl; mix until powdered sugar is moistened. Beat at medium speed until smooth, adding additional water to reach desired consistency. Glaze*** cooled brownies. Let stand until hardened.

These brownies were really good, especially as batter!! :-D I thought maybe they were good enough to become our "new" brownies, but dh said, "They're pretty good, but different from boxed mix." -- box mix being his favorite-reminds-me-of-childhood type of brownies. Which, all in all, is good because boxed brownie ingredients are less tempting to have in the house than things like sugar and butter and white chocolate chips. So I'll save these for now and then, lest I get* fat making them.
___

*GET fat. Ha.

***Because we were sooo pressed for time, ours didn't glaze all pretty like the picture. We also mixed up some store bought white fluffy icing to pipe stars on the top in red and blue. The recipe we started with showed this, as well as some snowflake-star-icing-decor, but did not mention it in the directions :really: so ours weren't pretty like their picture, in their little red white and blue liners with their tidy and artistic glaze-and-frosting, but they were cute enough.