Wednesday, February 29

Oh Joseph!

This guy! I love him. Not like I think he is the hottest, sexiest thing on the planet! I just think he is such a great actor. He is so cute and lovable in all of his movies. I will literally see any movie he is in...now I find this video and it pushes my Joseph Gordon-Leavitt fascination to a whole new level. 


Am I weird? Please tell me I am not the only one who sees it. 

ps i just love that he can sing too! so cute. 

Chris, I love you most of all! 

Get Away!

I need a vacation! Like NEED in order to keep my sanity. Living in Salt Lake, like the 3 of you who occasionally read this can attest to, is mentally draining. The multiple days of no sun, the cold cold winds, the horrible air quality, they start to take their toll. Even though this winter has been extremely mild, those nice days are such a tease that spring is on its way. I am craving this place. It is not far away but somehow it is. I just need to be somewhere a little warmer where I can do something active out side without uncomfortable ski boots and hopefully see the sun for two consecutive days! Whew! That felt like a long sentence. I mean look how cool this place is:








Ok Zion's we have a date coming up real soon and i'm excited!!

Wednesday, February 15

Love is in the Air




There is nothing as fun as having someone to love on Valentine's Day! Chris made me feel very loved. Oh Sunday it snowed and snowed and snowed. So, when we were getting ready for bed Chris said "do you want to ski tomorrow or tuesday?" I was pretty excited to ski since I haven't yet this year but I was mostly excited to spend a whole day with my love minus all the fur balls we have at home. Watching my mom's dog has been a bit stressful to say the least and when we are together, one of us is yelling at the damn dogs!! 

Isn't he handsome! He even makes goggles and a helmut look sexy!!


We saw the sun a little bit but we had a good time being together all day doing something fun!

Usually when Chris calls me cutie, I am in trouble. "CUTIE!!!" is a name that i know means business, if I fit I would run and hide under the bed like Ralph does when he's in trouble. But this time I wasn't, so I had to take a picture.
Look how beautiful these flowers are. He came home from work and I could smell them when he walked in. So pretty. 



Ralph was very interested in these flowers. He followed me around while I found the perfect place for them. I also got a new pair of BOOTS! He does listen to me, if only on occasion. :)

Chris, thank you so much for making our first Valentine's, as a married couple, perfect. I love you with all that I am. You are the best!!!

Tuesday, February 7

Hot Rod Remodel!

Some of you may know that Chris bought "Hot Rod" Hundley's old house. It was the ultimate bachelor pad. I have never seen a house so specific to a single guy. When we got married and I moved in, Chris was kind enough to agree to some updates. So the Monday after we got home from our honeymoon we decided it would be a great idea to start a remodel. We originally were just going to do the master bathroom but as you will see below, we went overboard. Unfortunately I didn't get any before any demo so you won't get the full effect. 

This is to be a crappy bifold door into the master bedroom. We closed it off and made a pantry. It was the best idea, this kitchen has no storage. 

Sigh...So nice. 


These are the old washer/dryer on the very lovely and very stained light grey carpet. 

Old laundry area



New laundry are. (don't mind the bra hanging, thought i would show you what we really live like)


this is the view from the kitchen into the dining room. There was a weird glass space light hanging here. 

A few little things out of place but you get the idea. 

My mom's dog is pretty much in the rest of the pictures because he wouldn't move and was very curious. 
This is the beginning of the master bathroom. it used to just be a weird shallow tub in the middle of the bedroom, not in the bathroom.


The shower.
ahhh. a heated bench in the shower is awesome. no more heating up the seat before you sit. 

vanity, his and her sinks, we haven't quite decided who's is who's yet but we like it so far. 

Some accent baskets for toiletries. From KUDU of course. 

This is the entrance to the bedroomit used to be a foggy sliding glass door, like one you would see in a bathroom. That little wall on the right used to be the other door into the kitchen, which is now the pantry.
Here's that finished view, notice the dog. We had some custom closets and storage built in. So nice to have so much storage. I was watching Law & Order, one of my favorites. 


That little half-circle on the floor, outlined in white was the old bathroom. It was so tiny and only had a sink and toilet and one of those magnetic mirrors. HUGE improvement!!

The dog bone is not new nor will it ever not be in the middle of the floor somewhere in this house. 
We still need to hang a lot of our art and finish decorating. 




This lovely gray carpet made the house so cold. At this point we had already scraped off the gray FELT wallpaper. Oh it was lovely. That foosball table was the only furniture in the front room for a long time, too long. 


The front room with a little of everything shoved in there. We kept that mirror for now but I think there is a really cool red-brick wall behind it and if so we will expose it and finish it. That will be awesome. 


Here is the front room now. SO much better than living in that mess of construction. 

No more bachelor pad here, we finally have a home. 


There was a really dark tile on the floor but this is the new stuff. the old door was read with a giant oval and a ugly red, glass screen door. 

The new entry. We still need to get some art on the walls here too.

This was a hideous purple built in love seat....now i love purple, it's my favorite but this was heinous!! So we built in a nice desk which we still need to organize. 

This room was basically empty so we turned it into the gym. It is sort of a loft area with a steam room in that bathroom, we thought it was perfect. 



Here is the bar area during construction. it was mostly  white and really cold so we organized and painted it. 

Much warmer and cleaner. Those are chairs we inherited from Hot Rod. I'm sure you can image what the rest of the house looked like with those chairs being the only thing worth saving. 

We are finally getting some of our art up and loving how cosy this place is getting. I honestly never thought we would make it cosy but it really is now. 

Well that is our house. Chris and I had so much fun picking all of this stuff out. We have completely different tastes so it was pretty interesting and there were lots of compromises, but we are really happy with the results. 


Thursday, February 2

We had friends in town this last weekend (Pictures will be here shortly, as soon as someone emails them to me. My camera had no sim card dag nabbit). ANYWAY, they showed us this video and I can not stop laughing, quoting, and watching it. Yes, I quote the dog. Enjoy! 


My favorite part "covered it in what"

Wednesday, February 1

Food For Thought!!

 I was sitting here and wonder why in the hell I can not shed a single pound, as i was looking through the pics on my phone and figured it all out... I love to eat and I love to cook + being happily and plumply in love...Oh boy! Longest sentence ever!

This wasn't so unhealthy, sausage stuffed jumbo shells. SO good. Chris loved these. You can find the recipe on my Pinterest under DELICIOUS. There are lots of subs to make this very healthy. I did a few of them. 

Chris's friends came into town (pictures of this trip to come) and they make these Jalapeno Poppers. These were a little heart attack all wrapped up in bacon. So you cut Jalapenos in half and de-seed. Then fill with cream cheese, wrap in bacon and top with cheddar cheese...Good GRIEF. Then bake until the bacon is too your liking, i like it crispy. Immediately transfer to paper towel, otherwise the bacon soaks up all that grease and will never have a crunch. 

A Clissold family favorite. Chicken Broccoli Casserole. So delicious, this picture doesn't do it justice. I serve mine over white rice. 

I had to make some thing somewhat healthy. Spinach salad with mushrooms and red peppers with homemade ranch.
This one was healthy and delicious, Pot Pie stew with puff pastries. I made them hearts since valentine's is around the corner. This was so good.



'
Also i had my brother and his fiance over for a little sunday brunch. So fun. Don't mind the goofy pic of my bro, i stole this from Tiff's blog and she thinks he's cute and I couldn't shake him...haha. 
For brunch we had a veggie scramble, consisting of onions, red and green peppers, mushrooms, red and yellow cherry tomatoes. I also made cranberry orange scones with and orange glaze, and what is brunch without fresh coffee and BACON. Hello. Yummy. My scones were from Barefoot Contessa  they were much easier than i thought they'd be. 

Whole living is a great place to find some healthy fun and easy recipes. If you would like to try any of the above, please leave a comment with your email address and I'll send them on over. 
Next things up on the cooking list, skinny macaroni and cheese from here and we got a ham for christmas that i may tackle this weekend. I've pinned the recipe I think I'll try.