MY REMODELED BATHROOM

I have been wanting to remodel my "hall" bathroom forever, it seems. The bathroom isn't very big and I just always felt so cramped in it. I found an antique washstand at an estate sale probably close to a year ago that I wanted to use for the vanity. It was smaller than the vanity in the bathroom and so much prettier. I had planned to buy a new toilet, but decided the one I had was too nice (even though I could have gotten a smaller one that would have given me even more room). 

Well, I finally got it done before Christmas (that was the main reason I ended up not decorating for Christmas - if you follow my blog and read about this fact earlier) and I am so happy with the results.

Here is a picture of it before....

Everything out and ready for new tile on the floor...

We also had the entryway at the front door retiled with the same tile. Love it too. Wish I had a before picture of it.

Now for the finished bathroom....AFTER...

Friend Janice and I found the mirror in an antique mall. It goes perfectly with the washstand.

Trying to decide on a towel to hang on the rack...

The other wall...

The wall cabinet above the toilet was made by my maternal grandfather. (He was the village blacksmith in the town I grew up in.) In the picture below you can see how he stained it. I didn't want to mix the two different wood stains, so decided to paint it the Betsy's Linen I used on the wainscoting.

Here are pictures of that ordeal...

I set it on pint jars to raise it up to paint...

The three drawers, each unique for the slots... so unique that after they dried, one would not fit in the slot with the several layers of paint. I ended up having to sand the sides and edges to remove as much paint as I could so that the drawer would slide into the slot. (That's why I referred to it as an "ordeal".)

I shared the "after" picture on Facebook on a post from a group I am in called HGTV Fixer Upper Show Followers and someone asked me to show pictures of the inside.

I loved the results of the top drawer that Marcus, my contractor, did so that I still have use of most of the drawer. (I am still deciding how best to utilize the space.)

Did you notice the different shower curtains? I made them from quilt tops I made. I didn't need another quilt so just decided to make my own shower curtain. Since the first one, I have made these two more. The one in the "before" picture is my favorite quilt block, churn dash. The other one is a disappearing nine patch. I hope to make one that would be "fallish" before fall this year.

CHEWY GRANOLA BARS

This week we are being blessed with friends from CA visiting us. Phyllis was one of our ministers at our church in Ventura when we lived there. It is good to keep in touch with friends after you move away. 

Today, my husband and I took her and her husband Marshall to 18th and Vine Street to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and the American Jazz Museum. What a fun and informative day! Then we feasted at Jack Stacks BBQ not too far away. Our afternoon ended with a visit to Hillcrest Thrift Shop so they could see where I have been volunteering for the last 5 years. Not sure what we are going to do tomorrow during the day. I'm excited they will be here tomorrow night and will get to hear our church's talented music director Walter entertain everyone with New Orleans style jazz. I think that will probably be the highlight of their visit with us.

I quickly wanted to share with you a recipe I made Sunday afternoon called Chewy Granola Bars. It is a recipe from Georgia Varozza and Kathleen Kerr's The Amish Baking Cookbook - Plainly Delicious Recipes from oven to table. I hope you will try them and let me know if they worked out well for you. Normally I don't share recipes that don't work out as planned and don't get me wrong, this recipe tastes great. It just didn't make "bars" for me. I cut them into squares as instructed, but there just wasn't enough "glue" to hold them all together. SO I just broke it up and made an excellent granola! It is so good with my yogurt! We all enjoyed it at breakfast this morning. 

I considered just retitling the recipe Granola, but I thought maybe someone else making it would be successful. The one thing I might have messed up on was the instant oats. I used quick oats and maybe that wasn't what the recipe was calling for. I am familiar with instant oats that come in the little packages. Does it come differently? I just wonder because it would take a lot of packages to make 3 cups. One other thing I did was I made an Amish Homemade Sweetened Condensed Milk.

I hope you will try the recipe with the idea that if "bars" don't work out for you, you will just crumble them and make "granola" and store it in an airtight container. 

CHEWY GRANOLA BARS

3       cups instant oats (I used quick oats.)
1       14 - oz can sweetened condensed milk
2       tablespoon butter, melted
1        cup shredded coconut (I used unsweetened coconut)
1        cup sliced almonds
1        cup dried cherries (a 5 - oz package)
1        cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used 60% cacao chips instead)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9 x 13 - inch pan.

In a large bowl, mix together all of the ingredients. (I cut the dried cherries in half and the large ones in quarters.) I started with a large glass mixing bowl and ended up transferring the mixture to a large tupperware bowl I have so that I could work through the ingredients to make sure everything was well distributed.

I dumped the mixture into the pan and then pressed it down.

Bake for 20 minutes or until the edges are just browned.

Immediately cut into squares and let them cool completely before serving.

As I said, if the so called bars won't hold together, just crumble baked and cooled mixture and store in an airtight container. 

Add as topping to yogurt or even ice cream.

They recommended you try any combination of fruits and sweets in the bars such as dried cranberries, pecans, walnuts, m&ms, peanuts, raisins, and chopped dried apricots.

THURSDAY - ANTIQUING AND YORKTOWN VICTORY CENTER

Thursday was my husband's last morning to play golf.  I got up and took him to the golf course and then returned to the condo to eat breakfast.  The leftover bacon (2 slices anyway) tasted really good with my oatmeal.  

Because our tickets to Colonial Williamsburg had been multi-day- passes (good for 3 days), we had considered going back for a little while to shop in some of the stores we didn't have time to visit on Tuesday.  But Wednesday night Janice and I decided we would like to go to some antique shops (since that is one of our favorite things to do together) before we left. 

Checking out some tour booklets we had, we decided to check out the Williamsburg Pottery.  We could have stayed there for hours.  It was really neat -- the part we got to see anyway.  Will definitely be revisiting that store when we go back to stay at King's Creek Plantation again.

But we had to leave if we were going to make it to the Williamsburg Antique Mall.  It was also really big, 45,000 sq. ft. and over 400 dealers.  We started out just going down every other aisle, but actually had enough time then to go down the ones we skipped.  I got a couple of things that would fit in my suitcase.  The hanging candles are now a part of my hanging ladder and the flameless tealight also.

After we went and picked up my husband, we stopped at Subway and got sandwiches to take back to the condo for lunch.  We planned to go to Yorktown Victory Center for the afternoon and also to eat dinner at High Tide Bar & Grill on Riverwalk Landing so we didn't want to eat a big lunch.

At Jamestown Settlement, we "experienced" the start of colonial America 1607 and then at Yorktown Victory Center we "experienced" the end of colonial America 1781.  Here we explored the gallery exhibits, stepped into the boots of ordinary soldiers (at least my husband did), and walked through a 1780 farm.  The costumed interpreters demonstrated the tasks and chores of daily life in 1781.  

At the re-created Continental Army encampment, they asked for volunteers to show how to load and fire a canon.  I talked  my husband into volunteering.  I got several pictures of the group.

  You can see everyone was taking their jobs very seriously.

  Everyone is in his or her place waiting.

 

Finally my husband gets to "light" the fuse.

Then the interpreters did it "for real" (wearing ear plugs...we were told to put our hands over our ears.  It was really loud.)

Here is one log building in the park.

At the 1780s farm, I took a picture of brown cotton.  I grew up surrounded by cotton fields.  I have never seen brown cotton growing.  I forgot to ask about it though.

We enjoyed another great meal for dinner...this time at the High Tide Bar & Grill on the Riverwalk Landing.  It was perfect....sitting out on the patio overlooking the York River.  I had breaded shrimp that was really good...not like any I have ever eaten before.  I asked them how it was made and was told it was made with crushed saltines.  Leon and Wayne had fried oysters.  Janice enjoyed grilled shrimp and scallops.

After dinner we walked around the area, and decided to enjoy dessert (ice cream) at Ben and Jerry's.  What a perfect way to end another perfect day!

On our way out of town, we drove out to the Yorktown Battlefield National Park.  It was closed but we did get to see some visitors (or would you say we were the visitors?) just before leaving the park.

This was just two of them.  I made the picture large so you could see them better.

It was dark by the time we got back to the condo for a quite evening.  Tomorrow we will be spending our last day before flying back home on Saturday in Norfolk, but more about that later. 

Wanna start with the beginning?  Click HERE.

"JU JU ing in the WEST BOTTOMS

The first weekend of every month, the West Bottoms District in KC comes alive and is the largest populated area in the whole state of MO.  (No kidding!) In spite of the triple digit temps today, I think there were more people there than we have ever seen.  With plenty of water, Janice and I sat off prepared to see as much as we possibly could, knowing that we would have to skip some places because we have been in them when the outside temp was in the 90s and by the time we got to the 3rd floor, we were regretting it.  I feel really bad for the venders when they are only open one weekend out of the month and that weekend turns out to be the worst one weather-wise in the city. The area has grown so much from one business, Good Ju Ju,(thus the name "Ju Ju ing" to explain the experience) to at least 3 blocks in one direction and 3 or 4 in the other direction.  It has revitalized, if that is what you want to call it, a warehouse district off 12th Street in what they call the West Bottoms.  It is impossible to try to describe this to any one who hasn't experienced it so I just decided to take a lot of pictures today (until my camera battery died) so you could get an idea.  I hope you enjoy them.  If you live in the area, and have never been.  You haven't lived!

   Enjoy my pictures that I took.....

I

(I have to be careful how  I trim my pictures.  I can really distort people.  Sorry Janice and Jessica.  I'm still learning.)

This has to be probably the cutest thing we saw all day.  It was so well done and any little girl or yes, even a boy, would have hours of fun playing with it.  It is made from a cabinet if you haven't seen them on Pinterest.

 Did I say it was 104 today?  The only good thing was the humidity was very low.  Hopefully next month it will not be as hot and we will be able to visit more of the shops.  We probably didn't even get in half of them today.  I almost forgot to show you one of my picture.....

Janice was so proud of me.  I had to ask how much it was because there was no price on it.  I told the man in my book, that meant it must be free.  He didn't agree with that.  Anyway he told me $17.50 AND I asked him if he would take $15.  He had to think about it....said, "I have to remember what I paid for it."  Then he said, "OK.  $15." After he walked off to get a price tag to put on it, Janice said, "Good for you.  You usually pay what they are asking."  I don't know what got into me.  Maybe it was the heat.  

You'll have to wait to see what I turn it into.  Anybody know an easy way to get rid of RUST???????