House Tour Part II: Upstairs

Welcome to the second part of my house tour! Let's go upstairs.

This bookshelf  is one of the first things you see going up the stairs.
It has a lot of knickknacks and things I have no place for.

The Knickknacks on Top of the Desk

The Bathroom

We run a dehumidifier because our apartment gets horribly humid and my allergist said that to combat dust mites and mold (things I am allergic to) we should keep the humidity below 50%. I can run that dehumidifier all day and the humidity hardly ever gets below 50% and it is so loud! It was nice gift from my BIL. He found it and gave it to use for Christmas one year. In the summer we run it in the basement but in the winter it is too cold for it in the basement, the coils on the back freeze solid so we move it upstairs to the bathroom.

The Bathroom Sink, Clean

The Bathroom Linen Closet.
 It's been taken over by my cosmetics and lotion.

My Husband's Messy Desk

Going into the Office/Guest Bedroom
The flowers are above my desk are from by bouquet.

A Bookcase from College
Hubs' Childhood Desk

The Overflow Closet

My goal is to clean out my closet enough that my in season close fit in my bedroom closet and my out of season clothes fit in here. Right now my summer clothes are folded up in plastic tubs in the basement. And our spare closet is full of things of things that I might eBay, work shoes, purses, a filing cabinet, and my steamer. It is just a mess and it drives me crazy.

Looking at My Desk

The cork board has been amazing! I am so glad I put it by my desk. My sewing machine is sitting on my now full comic book drawer so I've got to sort through my comics and figure out what to do with the over flow.

There is just enough space on the floor for our air mattress so we have plenty of space for a house guest!

Another Bookcase Left Over from College

Into the Bedroom . . .

Looking In

I have hurt myself on that red chest so many times! Hubs got it from one of his grandfathers and he used to use it for storing toys. We use it as a linen chest now.

The chair left over from college, it was gift to Hubs from his ex-girlfirend. I put my Star Wars pillows on it and sometimes use it to air out my sweaters before putting them back in the closet. I usually don't wear shoes in my OOTDs because I hate wearing shoes in the house, especially in my bedroom and my only full length mirror is in our bedroom.

Looking into the Bedroom Closet
My green dirty clothes hamper from college has three sections for sorting Laundry.
The plastic bin has light weight sweaters that I usually don't wear during the depths of winter.

I don't wash all my clothes after every wear because washing your clothes wears them out faster and washing things when they're already pretty clean wastes water. So I hand up sweatshirts, shirts, and pants things that I've only worn once on the closet door at the end of the day. If they still look and smell clean I put them back in the closet on the "not dirty but not fresh from the washer clean" side of my closet. Please tell me I'm not the only one who does this. I don't want to be that filthy person who wears dirty clothes but especially in the winter when I wear long underwear under everything and don't sweat because I'm always shivering it doesn't quite make sense to wash all my layers after one wear.

The Top of the Closet

My closet drives me crazy. Hubs takes up about two feet of closet space and I take up the rest but it's to enough. Right now I'm in an awkward place wardrobe wise. I am unemployed but I want to be employed. So I can't get rid of my casual clothes because I wear them pretty much every day but I can't get rid of any work clothes and I'm not sure what kind of work clothes I will need for where I end up working. So all my suits and nice dresses are just taking up space and I can't find anything to wear since I'm not going to lounge around the house all business formal. Also, I forgot to pack up my shorts for the winter. I also feel like I can't get rid of clothes that don't fit because I plan on having a baby at some point and maybe after that the clothes that don't fit now will fit or they'll make good maternity wear.

I love my Star Wars Sheets! I need someone to get me some flannel ones.
The go crazy poster is from our wedding.

Our "dressers"

You may have noticed that we've kind of got a nautical theme going on in the bedroom with all my sail boat prints. My favorite is my "Summer on the Lake" print from Marshall Field's.

My Jewelry Storage
Both Jewelry Boxes were gifts from Relatives

The hand my necklaces hang on was a surprise from a college friend/roommate. Hubs got a package in the mail one day with no return address. Inside was a replica of a human hand. Later we found out that it was from our friend who we helped move to Chicago. Later he sent us a Styrofoam head that I now store hats on.

I forget to put deodorant on if I leave it in the bathroom. So it lives by my jewelry box.
Steg (a rare Beanie Baby) and Mrs. Steg.

So we have too much stuff and I need to figure out how to get rid of some of it before we move but it looks like I've got a couple of years to figure that out. One thing that I'm really curious about is how other people store their clothes and how many other people have. I guess if I have about as many clothes as other women then I probably don't need to ruthlessly edit my closet.

So my question for you: What do you guys do with your closet? How big is it? How do you keep it all organized? Do you swap out for seasons or do you keep all your clothes in your closet all the time?

Apple Crisp in a Pie

We buy apples when they're on sale. Sometime we get more than we can eat before they get yucky. When they get yucky I chop them up, add sugar, and cook them! Also, we had whipped cream that we needed to use up.

This recipe is a mix of my grandma's apple crisp recipe, my mother-in-law's apple crisp recipe, and Muffy at the Daily Prep's apple pie recipe (I really like this crust recipe because it does not have butter).

Ingredients

Crust

1/2 cup white flour
3/8 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon salt (don't leave out)
1/4 cup canola oil
1/8 cup milk

Filling

6 or so apples peeled and diced

1/2 cup sugar 

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Topping

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup oats (I used quick oats)

1/2 cup brown sugar

6 tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Instructions

Grease pie plate. Mix ingredients for pie crust and roll out between waxed or parchment paper. Put crust in pie plate, it will be crumbly. Peel and chop apples. (I prefer my apple pieces very tiny.) Mix apple pieces with sugar and cinnamon.  Mix dry ingredients for the topping. Cut cold butter into 6 or more pieces and cut into topping. Add apples to the pie crust and cover with topping. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until apples are soft.

Update: This pie is just as good with half the sugar.

Step by Step Photos

My apple peeler in action.

The apples in the crust.

Making the topping.

The Finished Topping

Ready to Go into the Oven!

Opps!

I was so excited about preparing for the two job interviews that I have tomorrow that I forgot to edit the pictures for the post had planned for today. Not to worry though I'll have a fresh post for you guys on Thursday.

-eHa

House Tour Part I: Downstairs

I figured I'd do a "house tour" since I tend to stay inside my house in the winter. We rent. I describe our apartment as being like a townhouse. We have an unfinished basement, a downstairs, and an upstairs. We share walls with two neighbors, one nice old lady and a crazy old dirty hippy couple who blast loud music and drum and dance loudly at odd hours. Our landlord won't let us paint our walls. I took these pictures right before we had a house guest so things are a little neater that usual.

So with that let us begin the tour in our kitchen . . .

Our first floor is all open so our kitchen and our living room blend together. This is good during baseball season so we can listen to games while eating dinner. (My husband has a mistress, the Red Sox, and it's okay by me since I knew about it when we started dating.)

Walking in the Back Door Into the Kitchen

Most of our stuff is from his parents' basement, yard sales, or our dorm rooms. Our TV stand came from Walmart and the black shelves next to it from Target. The Big dark cabinet that holds our board games is from Big Lots. The wire shelves with the cookbooks, pots, and microwave came from Target.

A Look Into the Half Bath Off the Kitchen

Having a half bath downstairs is great. I hand my dishwashing gloves up in it because there's no good place to do so in the kitchen. We have a calendar hanging in the kitchen so that hypothetically we can write down things that we plan on doing to keep the other informed. Hubs started doing this but he has stopped

The Sink in Our Half Bath

There is hardly any storage space so we have a rolly bin from target to hold vitamins and toilet paper and things like that. We use the top for guest towels, lotion, and hand sanitizer.

A View of the Kitchen, Showcasing the Appliances

We have an electric stove. It doesn't work when the power is out. I think wood stove or a gas stove or a generator will be something I want to look for when we go house hunting.

The metal shelves hold a lot. Like my oatmeal, fruit that doesn't need to go in the fridge, all our pots and pans, our cook books and phone books, my mini food processor, my hand mixer, and the bottled water I got for free. I've got my aprons hanging off the side of the big cabinet. They used to live in our downstairs closet but they were so close to my shoes and so far away that I didn't use them as often as I should.

The fridge is well decorated. We have a white board for writing down what produce we have in the fridge so we can remember to use it before it goes bad and another space for writing when leftovers are from so we can eat them before they go bad. We have a chore chart so hypothetically I don't have to nag Hubs about helping out with chores, I hate the thought that I might nag him, so hypothetically he can look at that and see if there's anything that needs to be done and do it.  I also keep our meal plan on the fridge and I'll use a magnet to hold up any recipes that I plan on cooking that week.

Our fridge is so old. The label on the inside with the instructions directs people to contact Sears in the Sears Tower, Chicago, IL. Sears completely moved out of the Sears Tower in 1995 and eventually the building was remained the Willis Tower. This fridge is at least 20 years old. I wonder how much we would save on our electricity bill if our landlord  put in a newer more energy efficient fridge.

A Look at the Kitchen

I stack our dirty dishes on the left side of the sink. I also keep a small trash container to keep really smelly trash in until there is enough to take to our trash bin outside. We generally wash dishes once a day since we don't have time in the morning and there aren't really enough dishes to make it worth doing in the morning.

I had just cleared the cabinets of the mugs we never used and I hadn't taken them down to the basement. We have no space for dishes and cups in our kitchen cabinets because we do not have a pantry so we keep our dry goods in our kitchen cabinets. As you can see our pantry has spread to "above" the cabinets.

I keep my recipe card box, a fresco I painted, paper towels, and a knife block from Marshall Field's that my maternal grandmother gave me as a handle down on the counter. We have hardly any counter space. I wish we had enough space for a stand mixer or real food processor.

We have no dishwasher or garbage disposal. This makes me super sad.

Walking in the Back Door Into the Kitchen
Another Over View of the Whole View

Hubb's Video Game Collection and DVDs

I hate our "entertainment center." Mr. H collects old video game systems and it's just so hard to keep them by the TV and neat looking. There are wires everywhere the cords for the controllers always end up all over the floor! Plus the old game systems are so hard to dust around. Since the entertainment center is black it really shows the dust.

A Close Up on the Video Game Systems

Do you have any suggestions as to how better organize all these old video games? The really old ones (the NES, the SNES, the Sega System, and the PS One) don't get used that often. And we also have too many DVDs.

You can see the door to the basement/our coat closet on the right.

In Side Our Coat Closet/The Top of the Stairs to the Basement

I think shoes are gross so do not allow them in our bedroom at all and I try to keep most of mine down stairs. So our down stairs closet is full of all my shoes. I'd like to get nicer containers for to store our hats and gloves in but for some reason that is a low priority.

The Bottom of Our Closet

The big plastic tub is our worm bin. We compost with worms. In the winter it gets too cold for them in the basement so they come up to our closet. It does not smell at all. Unless all the worms die like they did this summer.

We have hooks for hanging things.

Now, back to the living room . . .

The Other Side of Our Living Room

The couch is one of the few things we bought new when we moved into our apartment. The wooden thing behind the papasan besides the couch is a folding table that my maternal grandfather made for me as a wedding gift. It is beautiful.

The top of the Cabinet

I put random nicknacks on top of the cabinet that holds our board games. I have dried flowers from the centerpieces at our wedding and other random things.

One of Our Side Tables

I love the doughnut scented candles from Bath and Body Works. The potted plant on the table has died in between now and when I took the pictures. I kill everything. The airplane diorama with dinosaurs in the glass bowl was a gift E2 made for me. It was originally in an ornament but since that kept getting knocked over I put it in a bowl.

The Other Side Table

We are still looking for a lampshade, green, for the pineapple lamp.

The Stairs!

I'll show you the upstairs next week. I hope you enjoyed the tour. I will say that I'm kind of disappointed with my decorating because it's so haphazard and unplanned. We have so much random stuff that I don't particularly care for that we use because it was free or very cheap. I would also like to put more photos and prints on the walls because they seem so bare and I am so upset about how none of the wood in our apartment matches. But I keep telling myself that it doesn't make sense to really invest in things just for this apartment since it's only temporary. Instead, I should save up my money for buying a house that I can really decorate.

My Sister Visited! It was Fun!

My littlest sister, E3, is one of those unlucky college students whose school has finals after winter break. She came to visit Mr. H and me after he finals at the end of January. She drove over six hours by herself!

The Grape Slushie I Got Myself because You're Only
Exactly 10,000 Days Old Once

She arrived on Thursday night in time to celebrate my 10,000 Day Birthday!

The Cake I Baked and Decorated for Myself

She was pretty tired when she arrived so we ate dinner and cake and headed to bed soon thereafter.

I baked the cake using cake flour! And I tried out strawberry frosting for the first time. When I went to the grocery store with Mr. H he asked me why I was getting plain vanilla frosting again so I shook it up. I almost got purple vanilla frosting but Mr. H likes the strawberry frosting so I went with that. I will go back to plain vanilla for the next cake since I thought the artificial strawberry flavor was off. The sprinkles and green icing on top were found items in my pantry. I am so glad they did not make us sick. We've had the sprinkles forever and I'm not sure when the green icing was purchased and used the first time.

E3 didn't want to do much other than chill. But, on Friday, she help me resolve my Gap Dress Dilemma. I had tried on this Gap dress in December at the store (and tweeted about it before anyone else did*) and ordered the tall size online because I'm kind of tall and this dress was short. It came and I was convinced that the regular in the store had fit better. I went back to the store and bought the regular size. But I still had no idea. E3 isn't much of a clothes person but she thought the Tall looked better on me and the internet agreed.

Please Help! Which Gap dress is better on me the regular size or the
tall size? The regular's waist hits closer to my natural waist but it three
inches above the knee so I think it's too short to ever wear to work. The tall
hits an inch above my knee but its waist hits at my belly button, several
inches below my natural waist. I'm only 5'8" but I usually go with tall
sizes for pants since my inseam is 34" or  35".

Tall was the winner.

We managed to see catch Catching Fire at the theater with E3 and my brother-in-law on Saturday.

On Sunday we went out to eat dinner. We to Mr. H's favorite place first. It was closed on Sundays. Then we went to our favorite place, usually open on Sundays, but closed that particular day. Finally we went to the Sea Dog. I feel so-so about eating there because it's an old mill and noisy inside and the food is good but not great. But in the summer they have the best outdoor patio around. We enjoyed our dinner. They had fried pickles.

The best part of E3's visit was Monday morning--a doughnut taste test extravaganza! Mr. H had brought home some leftover doughnuts from his doughnut club at school. (The teachers take turns buying doughnuts for their teacher meetings.) They were from the local place, Frosty''s. E3 said she didn't think it was the best doughnut she had ever had.

On Monday morning before she left I went out to Dunkin Doughnuts, Tim Horton's, and Frosty's and bought chocolate doughnuts and other doughnuts besides.

#myrealselfie #nofilter Pre-shower, early morning doughnut
 run to Dunkin, Timmy Hos, AND Frosty's for a taste test
with my sister #afrosandbaseballcapsdonotmix

I cut up the doughnuts into halves and kept track of which doughnut came from which place.

The Key to the Doughnuts and the
Ranking of Doughnuts on the White Board

The Dunkin' Donut Was Double Chocolate
(Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Frosting)
The Tim Horton's Doughnut Was Chocolate Cake, Glazed
and the Frosty's Doughnut was Chocolate Cake with Sprinkles

Somebody had to eat their words. In the blind taste test, E3 thought the Frosty's doughnut was from Dunkin' and she thought it was the best. She thought the doughnut from Dunkin' was the worst! This confirmed my assessment of the various doughnuts. To confirm the results we also had a glazed chocolate doughnut from Dunkin' because we suspected that the coating of glaze might trap moisture in the doughnut and keep it tastier longer. But we declined to change the rankings after trying more doughnuts.

The Instagram Record of the Event

I sent E3 on her way with a doughnut from Frosty's and a blueberry doughnut from Dunkin' and she made it back to her school safe and sound despite the impending storm. (I kept the cookie dough and brownie batter filled doughnuts for myself because I am the most selfish sister ever.) She said she was happy to be some place other than school and to eat home cooked meals. I hope she managed to get some rest before she starts up her last semester!

*After I bought the dress it exploded on social media. I am kind of afraid that people will think I bought it just because I saw other people with it even thought that's not true. I kinda feel like I am channeling my middle school/high school self with this concern but for some reason it's bugging me a lot.