Shoe & coat corner - house stuff

I have been tackling small projects here and there around the house.  It's funny how I thought I'd accomplished a ton of projects being home full time but that hasn't been the case. Mostly because of pleasant interuptions.  The newest interuption is "Mommy, commm here... I show you" as Nicholas grabs my finger and pulls me away from whatever I happen to be doing. Such a sweet boy.

One project I was able to completely tackle was finishing up our shoe/coat corner (basically the command station of the house). We haven't had much luck with coat racks - they kept pulling out of the wall with all of the weight of book bags and stuff.  This will be our third (and hopefully final) attempt.  I had my dad create the wall mount in his wood shop.  Then I painted and installed the hooks.  Chris mounted to as many studs as we could find in the wall.  After it was hung I applied letters above each hook so each person has a designated hook.  One of our previous problems was never finding what we were looking for. We were always sorting through all of this hanging mess and I am hoping a designated spot solves this issue.  I am not sure I love the letters above each hook - what do you think?  They are kind of obnoxious in contrast.  The letters/wall would have been better with a color tone on tone - but I made due with what we had on hand.  If they still bother me in a month or two I'll just pull them off. Easy.

A year ago we hacked and assembled these two Hemnes ikea shoe racks to run against an entire wall. I love how these turned out as they look build in. They have been perfect to house all of our shoes and other random bits and I love how narrow they are.  I wasn't very diligent about keeping the top of these rack clear in the past and so I've added a basket for the smaller items that seem to cluster there. Above the shoe racks I mounted two whiteboard calendars and a small white board to document the boys chore money.  Most of our appointments are managed in outlook or icalendar but it's nice to have a calendar visual to mark the big upcoming events.

Knick knacks... I added two. One vintage finger pointed to the restroom and a hanging vase from pottery barn. Currently it is holding some cute paper daisies.




Hopefully I'll have more to share as projects get tackled.  I have been organizing a ton.  I should take a card from Joellyn's Fung Shei Friday and start posting those feats as well...we will see. If you want to be inspired check out her mad organization skills. She's impressive.

Rhubarb Coffee Cake

A few years back I grabbed all of Grandma LaRue's rhubarb recipes and have been waiting for our rhubarb plant to be mature enough to harvest.  Finally I can try these recipes out. Yeah!  I also discovered you should not harvest rhubarb stalks by cutting, rather your need to pull the stalks by gently twisting at the root.

Here are in process photos of my first try at Rhubarb Coffee cake. I went to take an after baked shot only to discover the cake had been half eaten. Guess it was good.



Grandma LaRue's Rhubarb Coffee cake:
1-1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. marg.
1 egg
1 c. sour cream
1 t. baking soda
2 c. flour
1-1/2 c. rhubarb (cut into tiny pieces) - I added a half cup of strawberries to supplement my rhubarb.


Mix ingredients together, pour into pan. I used a round spring release pan, Grandma suggests a 9x12 cake pan.

Topping:
1/2 c. sugar
1 t. cinnamon
1 t. flour
1 T. cake batter
Mix topping until crumbly - sprinkle over top of cake batter.

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

Cecret Lake hike

Chris took all thee boys on a hike to Cecret lake last Sunday.  Many animals and bugs were sited; 3 moose, coyote, rabbit, and black widow to name a few.  All three boys came home jazzed and I was given a nice break although looking at this beautiful scenery I am regretful I didn't tag along.







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Had a great night catching up with my old team. Dummy me, I forgot to get a photo with all of us together. We ate, made stuff and got caught up. Good times!