Category: homemaking and decor

A Sense of Accomplishment

On By Bethany DattoloIn confessions, homemaking and decorLeave a comment

Do you ever put off a small task for so long that by the time you actually complete it such a big weight is lifted off your shoulders and your feeling of productivity is disproportionate to the rather small size of the job itself? No, just me? Okay. I can accept that.

Example: We have a very small dual fish bowl with a divider for our 2 betta fish. I HATE cleaning it. It takes all of 5 minutes, but I still don’t like doing it. So when I intend to clean it out, I move it to the counter by the sink. And there it sits. Just staring at me every time I go to the sink. Taunting me. And still I let it sit for a week or more before I finally clean it out. Then, I feel an immense amount of accomplishment and as if I don’t need to do anything else that day. That 5 minutes of cleaning really took a huge weight off my shoulders. I’ve done so much today! Cereal for dinner, everyone!

When I was a girl, my mother taught me how to cross-stitch. (She taught me many other crafty things as well.) I really enjoyed completing little embroidered pictures until the day I picked one that was way too tedious for my child-level of patience! I’m pretty sure she warned me that it would take too long, but I wanted it anyway. It was a picture of a little girl in a pink dress holding a pot of roses. And she had dark, curly hair. So much dark curly hair! And that’s where I started. After weeks of working with just brown tones and feeling no sense of nearing any kind of completion, I gave up. I put the piece aside and again, it taunted me every time I looked at it. It was a reminder that I had quit, I failed, I shouldn’t have picked it, my mother had wasted her money on it for me, and I couldn’t move on to a new project or I REALLY would have quit. It sat there all four years of high school. Then, when I was packing up to start my freshman year of college, I secretly packed it in my car. I was an adult now, gaining my independence. I wasn’t going to let this uncompleted task hang over me. I finished the piece that year and paid to have it custom framed and presented it to my mother for Mother’s Day, or her birthday, or a combination of the two! 😉 It now hangs on the wall in my parents’ bedroom and I’m pretty sure she changed the entire color scheme of the room to coordinate with the picture.

I love the feeling of accomplishing something–no matter how big or small! Don’t we all? I can’t stand to see a task truly go uncompleted and since the cross-stitch project, I can’t recall a single project I haven’t completed. Although, I also haven’t picked up any new cross-stitch since! Ha!

IMG_2052Last week I got to experience another sense of accomplishment when I completed Elijah’s baby blanket! He’s almost 6 months now and I started at the beginning of my pregnancy, but at least it didn’t take 4 years! It’s actually not the longest it’s taken me to do one of my children’s blankets, either. Noah was about 9 months when I finally finished his. Abby was 3 months. Emmalyn is the only one whose blanket was actually finished before she was born. And in the process of completing my own children’s blankets, I made 6 others for friends’ babies! We don’t plan to have any more children ourselves so in a way, I feel like this chapter in my life is closing, though I can’t say that I’ll never make another baby blanket or crochet anything ever again. And I still enjoy the process, thankfully! Or maybe I’ll pick up a new hobby soon…

 

Either way, I’m glad to have this particular blanket done because it was a brand new pattern for me and quite a challenge. “Why did you decide to pick something new to you for your FOURTH baby when you have way less time on your hands?!” my husband asked. “Because I like a challenge.” And even more, I LOVE completing a challenge–even if that challenge is 2 bettas staring at me from the countertop for over a week. 😉

Pumpkin Cheesecake with Candied Pecans and Homemade Caramel Sauce

On By Bethany DattoloIn food, homemaking and decor1 Comment

10801666_10155062170015221_7583895898096585140_nThanksgiving is the food holiday. We all know this. It is the quintessential day for cooking, baking, and eating all sorts of autumn foods. It is the ideal holiday for me to host because I LOVE to cook and bake and I love fall. The problem is, I don’t have a house big enough to host my whole family… yet. But my husband and I have always said that when we buy our next house, it will be big enough to host Thanksgiving. That’s one of our essential criteria. I did host one year when we had a “fluke” year and the whole family couldn’t be together. I loved it. People came and went and we got to see lots of friends and family for different parts of the meal. It was fabulous. But I still long to host my entire family for a beautiful Thanksgiving feast.

Until then, I enjoy experimenting with different recipes for my “would be” Thanksgiving. And instead of having one big meal where we stuff ourselves too full to really appreciate all the aspects of the feast, I try something new here and there and we break it in with a simple meal where we’re already familiar with the other components. Then we can really appreciate and critique the new recipe. We have Thanksgiving “month” in a way. Here is one of the recipes I tried lately. We love ourselves some good cheesecake so why not make it pumpkin? And I frequently make homemade caramel sauce, so why not combine the two? I added the pecan component in the crust and topping because it’s another flavor of Thanksgiving and one of my favorite nuts. So if you’re looking for something different to try for your Thanksgiving dessert, look no further! It got our stamp of approval! And although I’m not in charge of dessert this year, my mom is and after she tried this cheesecake at our house, she decided she’s going to make it so I passed along the recipe.

I so wish I had a good picture of it, but I don’t. A new camera is on my Christmas wishlist! 😉 Just close your eyes and imagine the cool, creamy cheesecake filling in a nice, crunchy crust just dripping with luscious caramel sauce and toasted pecans! The handy printable is at the end of the post for your convenience.

Crust:

  • 1 cup graham cracker crumbs
  • ¾ cup pecan crumbs
  • 3 tablespoons light brown sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 stick melted salted butter

Filling:

  • 3(8-ounce) packages cream cheese, at room temperature
  • (15-ounce) can pureed pumpkin
  • 3 eggs plus 1 egg yolk
  • 1/4 cup sour cream
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
  • 2 tablespoon all-purpose flour
  • 1 ½ tsps vanilla extract

Salted Caramel Sauce:

  • 1 cup butter
  • 2 cups brown sugar
  • 2 cups heavy cream
  • 2 tsps vanilla
  • ½ tsp of kosher salt

Pulse the graham crackers and pecans in a food processor until ground together. Add the brown sugar, cinnamon, and melted butter and pulse until combined. Press into the bottom of a greased 9” spring form pan.

Whip the cream cheese until soft and smooth. Add the pumpkin, eggs, sour cream, and sugar and whip until combined. Add the cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, flour, and vanilla and whip together until smooth. Pour over the crust.

Cover the bottom of the pan with aluminum foil and wrap it up the sides of the pan. Place it in a water bath of warm water and bake at 350* for an hour and a half, or until baked through.

For the caramel sauce, start by melting the butter on the stove in a medium saucepan. Add the brown sugar and stir until smooth. Add the heavy cream and simmer (stirring occasionally) for about 10 minutes, or until thickened. Add the vanilla and salt and let cool.

Toast some pecans in a skillet on the stove. Pour over some of the caramel sauce to “candy” the nuts. Cook down for a few minutes. Pour the pecans (and extra caramel) over a slice of cheesecake!

Here’s your printable: pumpkin cheesecake

Old into New: My Latest Refinishing Project

On By Bethany DattoloIn homemaking and decor1 Comment

About a month ago I decided to take on a “little” project (I use that term loosely) of refinishing my kitchen table and chairs. What better time to do that than when you’re 8 months pregnant and about to start another school year as a homeschool mom? I had honestly been meaning to do it all summer but couldn’t seem to get around to it until the end of August. It definitely stunk that it was our first week of school and we didn’t have use of our kitchen table, but it was the first week in a long time that no rain was in the forecast, so you do what you have to do! Here are some notes from my journey and some things I learned along the way…

IMG_20170826_114449495My collection of DIY finishing or refinishing projects include a bookshelf, a toy box, kitchen cabinets, bathroom cabinets, and a couple dressers. This table and chair set was definitely the most difficult and I don’t know if was all the spindles in the chairs, or the fact that I was 8 months pregnant. But it was probably a combination of both. 😉

THE PLAN: I wanted to create a “farmhouse” looking table–something leaning on the white and distressed side, but since we bought this house 3 years ago and I wanted to refinish our table all along, I couldn’t quite picture it perfectly in my mind. Then, as if out of the blue (or thanks to pregnancy brain or hormones or something) it came to me: I wanted a light gray table with white legs. And I wanted it distressed. And I also didn’t want to spend too much money on paint or supplies. So that was the plan.

IMG_20170830_145932487THE “HOW”: Did I really want to take the time and effort to try to fully strip the table and chairs? Nope! Never mind the fact that being pregnant meant being careful of chemicals and fumes, but chalk paint is the new trend in the paint world and I’m a sucker for trying new trends! (Check out one of my summertime posts about trying a new coffee trend!) Chalk paint is used on pieces to create a “chalky” appearance, can be distressed pretty easily, and best of all can go right over any finish without needing to strip the piece down first! And here’s an even more fun product: chalk paint powder! (Something a friend pointed out to me!) This is a powder mix that you can add to any paint to turn it into chalk paint. Bingo. Found my winner and my “how.” Now I could use the light gray and white paint I had in the basement and save a little $! The popular brand of chalk paint powder can be found on Amazon (hello, 2 day shipping!), but I also found a slightly cheaper brand (do I sound like a cheap-skate yet? I do love a bargain!), so I went with that instead. Did it make a difference? I guess I won’t know until or if I try the popular brand someday!

IMG_1686HOW IT WENT: I started with white and painted the table legs and the chair legs and spindles first. Right away, I could tell that the coverage was pretty good and I’d only need two coats. 🙂

The light gray I chose was the same that I have on my kitchen and bathroom walls. It IS pretty light, but it looked WHITE on the table outside. I was hoping that it was just the bright sunshine making it appear that way. Even though the color wasn’t as dark as I wanted, I kept going, hoping it would look better inside, like my walls and trim contrast that you can actually see in my house.

Time to distress! After a little research, I discovered that the best and easiest way to distress chalk paint would simply be with water and some elbow grease! I used a microfiber cloth and some wet sandpaper sponges (the cloth didn’t give me quite the drastic look I was going for). It was a little tough going, but I ended up being pretty happy with the results. If I had more energy at the time, I might have kept going and distressed the table more than I did, but at that point, I was ready to get the project done!

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I like the distressed look along the edges of the table leaves!

FINISHING: The problem I had when thinking about using chalk paint was that it would have a matte finish, which I figured would be difficult to keep clean. Three kids (almost four) and a white/gray table equals messiness and fingerprints! So I wanted to polyurethane the table so I would have a shiny finish that I could wipe clean and would also “seal” in the distress marks and prevent any more paint from chipping down the line. This was the disappointing part of the project. Not only was it difficult to get an even coverage that wasn’t too thick and didn’t drip, but I found that the “clear” polyurethane turned out to not be as “clear” as I thought. It dried with a yellowish tint, which made the gray of the table and chairs lose any look of actual gray, it just looked white and the actual white, ended up looking off-white. This bummed me out, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. It was probably my own fault for being a little careless with the polyurethane, but oh well.

Our “happy accident!”

The table itself is very old and was passed to my grandparents from their parents and from my grandparents to us. It wasn’t perfect to begin with in our house, and it’s certainly not perfect now. But Randy and I agree that any imperfections that came out of this project have added to its character. One “happy accident” was that the sun crackled some of the white paint on the chairs as they were drying and gave them a unique look that we LOVE! This probably won’t be our “forever” table, but it definitely brightens up our kitchen, looks more like it “belongs” in there now, and is serving us well for meals and homeschooling! Another fun and learning project behind me!

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