Art around our house

Day In.

I wanted to share some of the artwork that Stuart and I have around the house.

Lauren Dunn Designs
My most recent piece of art comes from a local artist in Nashville, TN. I attended an art show at David Lipscomb with my mom, and she bought me this beauty. For now, it sits in my turquoise chair until I find a home for it.

(I really should thank my mom for being artsy and introducing me to these local artists that I now love! She has some wonderful taste.)

Hydrangeas by Lauren Dunn

I love Lauren's work. I like the texture and colors she works with. You can find her work here.

Ron York

Ron is another Nashville native and a good friend of my mom's. We are pretty sure someday that mom will have enough of Ron's work to have an exhibit :).

I have 2 pieces of Ron's...one is a small 5x5" square and the other is a 12x16". I love birds so appropriately, both of these have birds on them.

"Home Tweet Home" and "Love is Blue" by Ron York 

I love how Ron signs his name.

Rebecca McKaskle

I have a very talented family. My sister painted me a trio of art a couple Christmases ago.  She painted food, one of my favorite things. She painted an eggplant, artichoke and an avocado.

Here are two of them on our shelves.

Jan McKaskle

I asked my mom to paint Stuart something for his (then) new house a couple of years ago. Here is what she came up with. I love it! It is currently hanging in our kitchen. Love the colors.

DeAnn Hebert
This is my favorite piece of art. It was a wedding gift from my parents. They commissioned DeAnn to sit at our reception and paint it from her point of view. It is stunning. She used a lot of my favorite colors...grays and orange. It is perfect over our couch because it was empty for a long time. I love it because it truly is one of a kind...

The adorable DeAnn.

In our living room

Stuart Day

Stuart recently made a piece of art for me. It was so sweet of him. He made it out of an original window from our house.

We finally hung it! We hung it in our dining room. We have some other large pieces in there so we thought they worked together. 

Lindsay Williams

Stuart's cousin is very talented and artistic as well. She is a graphic designer. She made us this piece as a wedding gift last year. It is one of my favorite things in our house. The background is burlap and in the shape of the state of Tennessee (where we got married).

And last...
Stuart and I bought these old mechanical gears from a garage sale at our church (ok really, Stuart should get the credit). We like a mix of high and low and a bit of industrial mixed in. So we didn't make these gears but we still consider them art in our house.

Yay for art!

Day out.

Just Dance

We had some friends over Sunday night to eat and play Just Dance! on the Wii. It was a lot of fun, and you actually get quite the workout. (I think I am ashamed to say that I am sore this morning!)

Here is a video of Stuart and I "dancing" to Michael Jackson's Beat It. Stuart has some sweet moves.

(sorry about the poor quality)

Valentine's Day

Day In.

Happy day of love! (I'm a day behind)

This is Stuart and I's first Valentine's Day being married. We decided to have a nice relaxing night at home since my work schedule has been a bit hectic lately. And being home sounded great to me.

I decided to bake a little and give Valentines to neighbors and friends. My mom found this amazing recipe for iced lemon cookies...she made them for us last weekend, and I swooned over them. Recipe to come soon!

I decided to make those cookies and these Red Velvet brownies I found on Pinterest. Sooo good! (The only thing I did different was subbed 1/3 of a cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips for the dark chocolate. My Valentine sadly does not like dark chocolate....)

After sampling some...
You can see the brownie and the cheesecake layers. Yum!

I bought cellophane bags and silver string at Paper Source. Then I cut out hearts from red and pink paper and attached them to the bag. They were easy and fun!

I had some extra hearts so I decided to add them to the dining table. Also, I had to bring down my "Happy Everything" plate!

All the table needed was some flowers......

Stuart knows me so well! He got me red tulips :) Fresh flowers is all I really want on Valentine's!

Here's to love!

Day Out.

Crisis averted...with shelving

Stuart and I were having our Sunday school class over to watch the Super Bowl and eat lots of dips and junk food. We were excited :) The night before, we heard a loud noise coming from our cabinets where we keep our dishes.

We discovered that two of the shelves had fallen and the pieces holding the shelves up were broken! (For some reason, the previous house owners thought it would be a good idea to use plastic to hold up the shelves.)

Here are the shelves after we took some of the dishes out.

And dishes were everywhere...

Luckily, Stuart knew what to do. He cut a small dowel rod and fit each into the shelves using wood glue.

Also, only one delicate glass had a crack in it....nothing was broken!

I can now live in peace.

Happy house discoveries!

AC

Honey Lime Enchiladas

Day In.

These is one of Stuart's favorite meals to eat during the week (me too!). There's usually a lot of moaning and not much talking while we eat these. We get 4 meals out of it (2 each), and we LOVE having the leftovers! You could change this recipe a bunch...I've added red onion and cilantro to mine. I bet spinach would be tasty in it as well.

Enjoy!

Honey Lime Enchiladas
3 chicken breasts
Salt
Pepper
Olive Oil

Medium red onion
1 Tbsp. olive oil
6 Tbsp. honey
5 Tbsp. fresh lime juice (3-4 limes)
1 tsp. chili powder
1/2 tsp. cayenne
Dash of hot sauce
1 tsp. minced garlic
8-10 tortillas
8 oz. Monterey Jack cheese, shredded
16 oz. can of green enchilada sauce
1 cup of heavy cream
1 bunch of cilantro, washed and chopped
Cooking spray

Rub the olive oil, salt, and pepper on both sides of the chicken breasts. Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes. Set aside to cool.

I bought split chicken breasts which work too.
It just takes a little longer to cut around the bones when they are cooked.

Roughly chop the red onion. In a skillet, heat up the olive oil on Medium Low. Add the onion. Saute until caramelized. Set aside to cool.

Whisk honey, lime juice, chili powder, cayenne, hot sauce and garlic together in a large bowl.

When chicken has cooled, slice or rough dice the chicken (I do a rough dice). Add the chicken to the honey lime mixture. Let it sit for at least 30 minutes. If it's too spicy, add more honey. Or add another dash of hot sauce if it needs more heat.

Spray a 9x13 and an 8x8 pan with cooking spray. Pour half of the enchilada sauce onto the bottom of both pans.

Make an assemble line of the tortillas, chicken mixture, chopped cilantro, red onion, and cheese. Layer the chicken, onions, cilantro, and cheese into each tortillas. Roll and place seam-side down into the pans. The enchiladas should fit snugly next to each other.

Once all the tortillas have been stuffed, you should have some of the honey lime marinade left over. Add the rest of the enchilada sauce to it as well the cup of heavy cream. Mix together.

Pour the enchilada cream sauce on top of the enchiladas. Add any remaining cheese to the top.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 20-30 minutes until bubbling. I serve with black beans and cilantro rice.

Adapted from this.

Yum!

Day Out.
AC