Shutters

I am in pursuit of shutters. Not to buy of course; my husband would never think of such when he is perfectly capable of making them himself. So I have some time to think.

I love French style in all it's forms - French Provincial, Rococo, Empire,... so when we were working on redoing the outside of our house I looked at as many images of French cottages as I could find. The shutters were certainly a big part of that plan; however, here we are five years later and still no shutters. I am in hopes this will be the year.

So I thought I would share a few images with you that I love.

More on the Kitchen

OK, so I have gotten a few questions from my last post regarding the kitchen where I shared some pictures of my kitchen.  For starters, yes that is my kitchen. It photographed really well. I was happy, but in reality it is much smaller than it appears.  Second, that is what my cabinets look like, for the most part.  I do periodically go through and clean my cabinets, reorganize them, and such.  Obviously I took the pictures right after I had tidied up - come on, we all want to look our best for photos.

But really, I do keep my pantries looking like that for the most part.  For me I need order to feel calm, and for a period of time I was a bit under the weather and I had a lot of different people in my house helping.  If I kept my pantry in order, it was much easier for them to figure out where things went. Not to mention much easier for me to find when I needed something.

This week I thought I would share some kitchen's I found online that I love.  They helped give me some inspiration on how to put mine in order.  Hope you enjoy!

From the Martha Stewart Studio Kitchen

Another great blog post from Food for My Family

you should check it out!

More from Martha Stewart

source Martha Stewart

Burgers

I am the sister who lives on the east coast – Florida to be exact.  And about once a month I get to go up to Jacksonville.  Sometimes I have a pretty full schedule, but sometimes I have a little bit of time to explore.  Yesterday was one of those days.  I also had the pleasure of having my husband with me.

I have mentioned that we like to eat and lately I have been in pursuit of really good burgers.  Not sure why, but I just have been craving them.  As we were scanning some of our usual favorites on beachside we noticed a new place – M Shack Burgers, so we thought we’d give it a try.

I am so HAPPY we did!  This was a great little place.   

Only open for a couple of months, it is the newest in restaurants by brothers David and Matthew Medure (they have other restaurants in the area; Matthew's Restaurant in San Marco and Restaurant Medure in Ponte Vedra Beach, plus Take Away Gourmet in San Marco).
 I can’t say I have ever eaten at the others, but I will certainly put them on my list of must tries.

As for the M Shack Burger, it was very crisp and clean, simple menu, and great prices. 

 I tried to take a few pictures, but only had my phone with me. Sorry…

 I had the Bacon Cheeseburger and Sweet Potato Tots

Sorry honey!

If you are ever in Atlantic Beach stop in for a great burger,
yummy sweet potato tots, and a real milkshake – we shared the Banana Foster!

Many Faces of the Kitchen

We thought it would be fun to share our kitchens with you.  So I get to go first!  I like to have a place for everything and everything in it's place, it doesn't always work out that way, but I have found that when my kitchen is in order it makes things so much easier.

I hear people complain that it's too much work to cook or it takes too long.  I think if you have a kitchen that is well stocked with the basics, along with some fun stuff, it makes all the difference in the world.  I have a "Galley Style" kitchen.  For those of you not familiar with that term - it refers to a kitchen that has a center walkway with the counters, appliances, and such along either side.  It can be a pretty tight kitchen, but it is also one of the most efficient kitchens - for one or two people.  After that, well let's just say it isn't pretty.

When I designed my new kitchen (compliments of a tornado, yes tornado), I wanted to take advantage of every inch.  So I chose to have the cabinets go all the way to the ceiling.  I also opted for wide deep drawers instead of all bottom cabinets.  Because I don't have a lot of counter space I try to keep it as clutter free as I can.

I thought I would share some photos of my kitchen with you;

Now that you can see the basic layout of my kitchen

I'll give you a peek of how I have it stocked.

By the sink and dishwasher I try to keep all the items that can easily be unloaded and put away.

Beside the stove, I try to keep the things I need at hand.

Not to mention a few things in the oven warmer!

 ~
I  also have  an area just to the left of my stove that I use as my "Baker's Center".

Here in these cabinets and drawers I try to keep all of the items I need when I bake.

This is the work horse of my kitchen - I use it for just about everything!

Above my refrigerator I keep things like my crock pot, fondue pot, and roasting pan.
Things that I need, but don't use on a weekly basis.

Under my sink I keep my cleaning supplies
and of course we need food, not to mention a few junk drawers.

Now I do have a variety of my pantry items in my garage, but I'll save that for another post.

I also should tell you that with the limited space in the kitchen
I have an amazing hutch in my dining room
that I use to house a lot of my other kitchen items.  Mostly things I don't use on a regular basis.

Game Party

Our family loves to play games when we get together.   Phase 10 and Dominoes are two of our favorites, but last March we were introduced to a really fun dice game called "FARKLE".  So when my son's birthday came around, just a few weeks later, we took our inspiration from;

I wasn't sure how that would work out for twelve, twelve year old, so we just evolved to a Rotating Game Party. 

I will share that this was a very last minute party idea, so I was going for something that was simple.  Game boards are so colorful and fun all by themselves, that I kinda let that be the decoration.
I did say I wanted something simple, right?!

 

So here was how it went...

As the kids came in they drew a color chip (red, green, yellow, or blue).

Each color chip had a number on it - 1, 2, or 3. So there were four 1's, four 2's, & four 3's.

The number corresponded to a particular game table already set up. 

The color was the chair they sat in.

As they began to play a timer was set for 10 minutes.

When the timer went off they rotated to the next game - 

sitting in their color seat and picking up exactly where 

the previous player left off.

After about 40 minutes or so of this we ate and did all the usual birthday hoopla. 

To finish the party they all played 

Apples to Apples together.

It was really fun & the kids laughed the whole time.

I am sure I could have gotten more elaborate, but this was great for a fast and EASY party.

At the 3 tables we played; SORRY!, Yahtzee!, & Pictureca!