reviving a hobby or two.

Hello friends.

Remember me?

It takes much patience, creativity and desire to regularly blog and to blog well.

I didn't have any of those things for a while, but I have been sitting on it a lot lately 

and I think I am ready again.

A few weeks ago I was given a tremendous gift from my parents and it sparked that new fire under

my bum to take on the blogging world, once more.

My parents gifted me a new Nikon d5100.

These days, I know nothing about photography beyond an iPhone. 

I used too, but not anymore.

When I was middle and high school I loved photography. I always had a camera in my hand.

I took a class through Ozarks Technical Community College and embraced 35 mm for awhile, until

other hobbies and interests came my way. Most everything I learned has fizzled since then so I am

reading up and asking all of my photographer friends to share little tidbits of knowledge. 

I wanted to show you my first round of photos. 59 taken, 10 chosen.

It is really hard to take a good photograph!

I suppose I have hopes that with my new camera, I can accomplish great things.

I hope I learn to take beautiful photos and video.

I hope to take up writing again because I am inspired by what my eyes are seeing through the lens.

I hope that my attention to detail and appreciation for the world grows daily.

Revival of old hobbies can be a wonderful thing. I think.

pump up the jam.

I'm in need of some seriously cute black pumps. 

any color for that matter, but let's start with black.

and as always, Zappos.com will be my go to shoe source.

Fish tacos with chipotle adobo sauce

With a new budget and some health goals on the line, Ryan and I decided to also revamp our eating/grocery shopping habits. Along with shopping at Sam's club for staples and bringing our lunch to work, we also decided to make one dietary restriction... Red meat. We can still eat it, heavens no I would never quit eating cheeseburgers for good! However we want to limit our rd meat intake because we just ate it all the time to be quite honest. Burgers burgers burgers, tacos tacos tacos, brisket, stew and so on. We had a large bag of tilapia in our freezer that hadn't been eaten because last time I failed so terribly at baking it that even the mention of the word tilapia practically made us cringe. Time has passed and those days are behind us. In attempt to start our week off with no red meat, we turned to tilapia and the hobby of summer time grilling to create a festive feast of fish tacos with fresh corn salsa, and creamy chipotle adobo sauce. it was so good we made it all over again tonight!

And I'm here to teach you!

What you will need (serves 2 people):
4 tilapia filets
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
1 half lemon
4 medium flour tortillas
1/2 cup plain Yogurt
2 Tablespoons Mayonnaise
2 teaspoons of Chipotle pepper in adobo sauce (the sauce portion)
1 small can of corn
2 Roma tomatoes
1 thick slice of onion
A small handful of cilantro
2 limes
1 cup shredded lettuce


 And here we go... Thaw filets if frozen and place on plate. Rub with olive oil, salt, pepper and lemon juice. Let soak while preparing other toppings. Turn grill on medium and if you have a grill plate, it is preferred. In a bowl mix mayo and chipotle adobo sauce.

 In a strainer with a napkin or paper towel let yogurt sit for 15 minutes to thicken. After yogurt is thickened, place in bowl with mayo and adobo sauce and stir until smooth. Place in fridge until ready to serve.

 In a medium bowl mix half can of corn (drained), chopped tomatoes, chopped onion, finely chopped cilantro and all the juice from the lime and stir lightly, but until well mixed with fork.

 Put tilapia on grill plate for 4 minutes and then flip and grill for another 4 minutes. After it is done, place on plate and flake apart for best texture! Place tortillas on grill plate after fish is taken off and let warm for just a minute or minute and a half.

 Place all fish, tortillas, salsa, shredded lettuce, lime wedges and sauce on table and serve it all up. Fix it however you like with whatever proportions you like! Have a side of tortilla chips on the side for any extra corn salsa you may have because it is amazing and so dang fresh! I do hope you enjoy. Actually I hope you enjoy it so much you eat it two nights in a row like we did. Oh and just for a helpful hint, we had enough adobo sauce for both nights from this serving so you won't need as much prep time, Yay. Lo.

Back Porch Diary // all before eight thirty.

Most Saturday mornings start around 9:30 a.m. for us. 

We tend to not set alarms and hope we get up at a reasonable hour. 

We do not like to waste away our day with eyes closed. 

However, with big trash day upon us, we were woken this morning at around 7:45 a.m.

I didn't mind one bit, knowing a delicious breakfast would soon be devoured.

Breakfast and coffee are a must. This morning I made a cheese omelet 

and I also had some banana bread that I made from scratch last night. 

I made cinnamon nut coffee from Archer farms and chowed down on the front

stoop while Ryan mowed the lawn. 

It has been so rainy off and on lately that between our schedule and the weather

it has been hard to find a good evening after work to actually mow.

It was getting awfully long so Ryan took advantage of the early sunny morning and

made our yard into a pristine little green space, trimmed perfectly.

He is such a good man.

Arlo might do okay in the front yard but with a ceramic mug in my hand,

full of hot liquid I didn't want to take my chances. So Arlo bear got to enjoy the morning 

on the other side of the glass door. He did a good job. Just laying there

being a big panda and watching intently at his puppy daddy whipping that lawn 

into shape.

and it was all done and over...

before 8:30.

Love living life in the early morn.

-Lo

headboard // diy

When Ryan and I bought our house back in November, it was move in ready with very few "major" changes that needed to be made. Most changes were preferential. In the past few months the only projects we have done besides decorating, were painting one wall in my office, painting Ryan's basement studio, and screwing in our hanging nightstands.  That way of life however, is starting to change.  We are finding more inspiration now that our house is a home and we are finally finding agreement in style choices.  


Ryan is obsessed with Evernote, so one night we decided what we were going to do, was make a list for each room in separate evernotes. We would write exactly what we expected the outcome to be and find photos to make note of what we were visualizing in our minds.  We started with our bedroom. 


Our bedroom is the one room in the house that we have put off all together. As long as there was a bed to sleep in, it didn't matter what it looked like, because no one ever saw it.  False! We saw it! And we were starting to feel antsy about how cold and mis-matched everything in that room was.  Here was our checklist for the new space:

Paint the walls grey. Possibly with a purple undertone.

Build a head board out of plain jane lumber. Stain it and hang it.

Change the knobs on the built ins.

find a beautiful basic rug, preferably a nice creamy color of some sort.

get rid of clutter and pick out matching lamps for our night stands.

and make a pillow for the window seat.

Now I present to you steps one and two of our list! As always my photos are iPhone photos and the lighting in our house is low and not always the most forgiving to house shots. Okay okay, I am making up excuses for finishing our project at night, never a good time to take indoor photos with poor lighting. It's all my fault.

1. Tape and patch and paint.
what used to be the common robin egg's blue is now...

behr perfect taupe

2. Welcome puppy to the new grey room. 

3. Stain 20 1x2x8 framing lumber slats and 2 1x6x4's.

we used Minwax Red Oak // 1 coat

oh and don't let this photo fool you. we stained all of the wood in the basement with poor ventilation.

we were kooky, thats for sure. 

4. Line up all of the lumbar in the room you will be building in.

it's easier in our case to build in the room, rather than outside, because of the angles and measurements

of the hallways and doorways.

5. Measure inward from the ends of the 8 foot lumber 

to find your perfect placement of the two base boards.

We chose 21.5 inches in.

Make sure the top of the 8 foot lumber is flush with the top of the base boards and nail in.

We used 1 and 3/4 inch nails.

6. Using one of the 8 foot pieces of lumber on it's side, place against first nailed in piece 

and place the second piece to be nailed in on the other side of the sideways lumber.

This will insure that each slat has the exact same space between it and it's neighbor. 

7. After all of your pieces are nailed in, find the placement on the wall that pleases your eye.

For us we had two nightstands already in place 

and knew that we wanted it to look like it was all one piece.

We allowed the headboard to rest 8 inches on both nightstands.

We used 3 screws on the right and 4 on the left and made sure there were studs in the wall to screw in to.

The headboard will not budge, ever!

8. Our bed is on wheels and was pushed to the opposite side of the room

so once the headboard was hung we just had to scoot our big ol' bed back to where it belongs.

and voila a $55 dollar headboard that took a little bit of time, a lot of patience and 2 Hisers to create...

and since we haven't found matching lamps, I used this sweetie from another room.

We fell in love with how it looked with the bed, so now we are searching for just 

the right statement piece to put on my night stand.

any questions?

Just email me. Laurenwhiser@gmail.com.

I will gladly answer any how to, need to knows.

love

Lo.

Back Porch Diary // Massage Therapist

after four years of going to school,

trying to start a business,

changing paths,

moving north,

moving south,

moving north again,

and getting a job in the health industry...

I have FINALLY become a Licensed Massage Therapist.

I am in the process of opening my very own business from home,

giving the greatest massages to probably the greatest of clients.

If you are interested, feel free to email me at

villagehomemassage@gmail.com

yup, thats right Village Home Massage.

That's my business and it's name.

I can't stop smiling, I finally did it.

Thanks to a whole lot of people who believed in me,

never let it go and lifted my spirits when I wasn't so sure.

That means you Ryan, that also means you family! 

and of course my best friends, who just so happen to be fighting for the first massage.

Back porch diary. Day One.

April 17 2012

The day your taxes better be done!

Also the day I submitted all of my paperwork for licensing in Prairie Village to be able to massage.

The lady at the clerk's counter told me it'll probably be a week before I get an answer. 

I hope I filled out everything right so I can go onward and upward with this thing.

The weather was perfect, yet again...

so Arlo and I went on a nice long walk. We met a fan of Sheepies, 

who I spoke to for about 15 minutes. I love people that love dogs.

I took photos of the lavender in our front yard and these little purple flowers in

our backyard. Colorful plants are popping up everywhere and it makes my days 

seem more sunny... and delicate. That's a good word, delicate. 

You know... like it's so small and fragile and it only lasts so long so we better

find the goodness in it all.

Yeah that is how the purple flowers make me feel.

Not how the bumble bee that ran me off made me feel.

Lo.