Britt Bee

May 12, 2017 6 Comments

Friday Things 5/12/17

Hey friends! How’s it going?

1. Things have been pretty darn busy these last couple of weeks– Will & I were spending most of our nights & weekends preparing for & planning a HUGE garage sale fundraiser for our adoption, which just took place this past weekend!

You guys.. the Lord SO had his hand over this event! Three weeks before our garage sale, Will and I looked at each other and said “What the heck are we going to sell!?” Little by little, it all started to come together as friends and strangers donated all types of items to us—from bedroom sets, to baby clothes, to pots and pans. We had so many different things! The night before the sale we had a garage FULL of items, 90% of which weren’t even ours!

On the day of the sale, we were also blown away by how many of our friends came out to help. My goodness… It was just one of those moments when you wonder how you managed to deserve to know so many fantastic people.

Our yard and driveway were FULL of stuff!

By the end of the day we ended up making just over $1,000! Praise God! We were blown away!

We really had no idea what to expect because we don’t live on a street that gets a lot of traffic, but it was amazing how people just kept showing up one after another. Popcorn also had a blast greeting all of our guests and we had several people ask how much he cost!

I said a million dollars 🙂

2. I spray painted this small oval mirror in our living room, and it made a WORLD of a difference. Before the mirror was a 70’s style gold-ish bronze. It really made the room look outdated, but I didn’t want to spend money on a replacement. I ended up settling on some $2.00 dark brown spray paint at Home Depot and called it a day.

Once the paint dried, I sanded the edges a bit to bring some of the gold coloring back through and am SO happy with how it came out. Without the sanding it still looked nice, but a little too much like it was dipped in chocolate 🙂

Now I think it looks great, if I do say so myself!

3. This sign that Kelley posted on Instagram. So encouraging & such truth!

4. We’ve been eating really good around here! Some of our recent favorites include these cilantro lime drumsticks—

Salmon with dill sauce & cauliflower rice–

Angela’s glowing lentil soup (SO good!!)

and a chicken + lime soup that I loosely based off of this recipe (minus the avocado because we didn’t have any 🙁 ) I’d never guess that chicken & lime would go well in soup together but hey, it strangely works!

5. This weekend we also went out to celebrate Will’s dad’s birthday at Kobe, his FAVORITE restaurant. It’s basically an unspoken tradition, if you didn’t notice already 🙂

Because Will’s birthday is at the end of May and his dad’s is in the beginning, we typically end up celebrating both birthdays while we are there. Gotta love them samurai hats 😉

6. My new job is going oh SO well! It’s been a huge blessing to transition out of a stressful environment into one full of flexibility, kindness and teamwork. I’ve almost been working there for three months now, and have already felt a world of difference. Will says that I left my last job just as much for him as I did for myself because of the stress that I brought home. Haha! No bueno!

Last week my new job surprised me with a delivery of flowers, just to say “thank you”. It’s all in the little things 🙂

And with that, I am done and ready for the weekend! Tonight Will & I are heading to a marriage Q&A at our church and are super excited! Tomorrow I’ll be photographing at a local mom’s event, and on Sunday morning we serve in the kids ministry. Sounds like a packed (but super fun!) weekend to me 😀

Make it a good one!

Any fun weekend plans? Have you ever had a garage sale?

April 18, 2017 3 Comments

How To Make a Compost Bin for Less than $5.00

If gardening and yard work are not your thing, feel free to skip this post. We all know about 8 months ago I would have skipped this post myself, however—once I inherited a terrible yard that needs loads of work, I fell hard and fast for all things green <3

…Or in this case brown 🙂

We are currently in the process of reviving our grass and will soon be in the process of building a raised bed garden! Central Florida is definitely not known for it’s lush soil (it’s more like sand…if I’m being honest) so I knew starting a compost bin would be beneficial for us. Plus—it would give us a way to put all those veggie scraps and egg shells to good use—score!

How did we do it? All you need is a few items that you probably have lying around your house!

A large storage bin (I bought ours at Old Time Pottery on sale for $4.99)
A handheld drill
The “brown” carbon rich materials of the compost—which can be dead leaves, shredded paper, hay, etc.
The “green” nitrogen rich materials of the compost—veggie trimmings, tea bags, coffee grounds, etc. (click here for more brown & green ideas)

Step 1: Drill holes in a scattered pattern on the top, sides and bottom of the storage container. Air is one of the key ingredients to create compost, so be sure that your bin is well-ventilated.

Step 2: Fill about 1/4th of the container with brown materials, which in our case were dead leaves– but you could also use shredded newspaper or wood chips.

Step 3: Add a few scoops of potting soil or dirt from your yard.

Step 4: Take a break to check out your husband who is looking mighty fine as he demolishes that random backyard sidewalk. Use those guns, baby.

Step 5: The fun part! Add the “green” materials you have on hand, which in our case was a banana peel, some coffee grounds, eggshells and veggie trimmings. Be sure to do some research about what items you can and can’t compost because it might surprise you to find out things like weeds and animal waste should not be used.

Step 6: Stir the compost with a shovel and water it lightly. You don’t want the pile to be soaked, but wet enough that there aren’t any dry spots.

Step 7: Cover the compost with the lid and place the container in a shady area where it wont get too many rays and be dried out by the sun. We hid ours near some bushes on the side of our house, but kept it close enough to the garage door so that we don’t have an excuse not to walk outside to add more materials 🙂

Also, each time you add more green or brown materials (we’ve been trying to add both to make sure carbon and nitrogen are available), give the pile another good stir and add more water if its looking dry.

Step 8: Let it “cook” for 2-3 months, then enjoy the benefits of rich compost!

We are also keeping a small sealed storage container (aka, an old coffee tin) under our kitchen sink to temporarily store scraps until we have a chance to make a trip to the outside bin. So convenient, cheap and easy!

Have you ever composted before? Do you enjoy working in the yard?

March 27, 2017 3 Comments

Office Fix Ups & A Crying Lawn

Happy Monday folks!

There’s been a lot going on in the Borda household—mostly in the house project department! I recently showed y’all some of the renovations we made when we first moved in, and more recently we’ve been trying to get the yard in somewhat decent shape, as well as our office.

The past couple weeks I’ve been working on painting this Ikea bookcase that used to be dark brown, which went against my plan to make our office light and bright 🙂 Nothing that a couple coats of paint couldn’t fix!

I plan on writing a future post about how to correctly paint Ikea furniture—I was clueless about it until I tackled this project! Let me just say that this baby has gone through PLENTY of coats of multiple products.

Additionally, we are planning to paint the walls in the office, which has been an interesting process to say the least. Who knew there could be so many different shades of gray!? Or should I say “greige”? And is it just me, or am I the only one who can NOT imagine what a room would look like with a paint color by looking at a teeny tiny swatch. Maaayyyyybe it is just me 🙂

The previous owners painted over some peeling paint, which led to bumpy looking walls, which = no bueno. So far we sanded down the wall, filled it in with some spackling paste, primed it with peel-resistant primer, and the next step will be to paint the actual paint color on top. I will let you all know how it turns out!

(So in other words, don’t try this until I report back 😉 )

This weekend we also tackled our first yard project by spreading some Southern Lawn Turf Builder in our front yard in hopes that it would repair some of our pathetic lawn. When we bought our house in July of last year, we didn’t look closely at the grass and after moving in realized that our front yard was probably 50% weeds/50% grass and our backyard was more of a 25% grass/75% weeds scenario.

We knew that the yard would need work, but didn’t expect it to be so much! Our front yard is not in the worst shape (hence the simple application of Turf Builder), but our backyard is TERRIBLE. Like, so terrible I am hesitant to show you a picture because I’m scared it will burn your eyes.

…But for the sake of accountability, I will.

AH! I told you it was bad!! That’s just one corner of our backyard where there apparently used to be a big tree, but is now covered in dry mulch and weeds. And to further the imagery for you… those weeds are now brown because I had the brilliant idea to go out and attack them with Round Up. So now we have a big brown backyard and a hopeful front yard.

..Wish us luck.. 😀

Soooo.. let’s soften this house-heavy post by ending with some pictures of Popcorn in his igloo. Shall we?

Ah.. that’s better 😀 Let’s make it a great week y’all!

Are you currently working on any house projects? Do you have any advice for my sad lawn?

March 16, 2017 4 Comments

Asian Veggie Quinoa Salad

Clearly I’m on some sort of quinoa salad kick lately—between last week’s sweet potato, edamame and kale recipe, to this weeks Asian variety. Who knows where this trend will take me next!?

To be truthful, I’ve been LOVING easy peasy & filling “one tupperware” recipes for work. These are perfect for days that I don’t really want to a) mess around with packing an elaborate lunch the night before, or b) pull out a bunch of containers of different foods the next day at my desk. On Sunday afternoon, I have been whipping these babies together and don’t have to think twice about what I’m going to have for lunch during the week. Hence, the quinoa salad variety show has begun!

Ingredients:

Salad:

2 cups chopped cabbage
1 cup broth or water
1/2 cup quinoa (dry)
2 cups frozen edamame
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 carrot, shredded
2 green onions, chopped
1/4 cup cilantro
3 tbsp chopped cashews

Sauce:

1/4 cup soy sauce
1/2 tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp sesame seeds
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp peanut butter
1 packet Stevia

Directions:

Cook quinoa according to instructions. For me, this consisted of boiling the quinoa on the stovetop for 15 minutes. While quinoa is cooking combine all sauce ingredients in a small bowl.
Chop up your cabbage, red pepper, green onions and cilantro at this time. Shred your carrot.
When quinoa has finished cooking and has soaked up all of the water or broth, add in edamame, pepper, carrot, green onions and cilantro. Stir to combine. Pour sauce into pot and mix well. Add cashews and enjoy!