Aloha friends!

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours! We had a nice day here on Kauai. The temp was pushing 80F, but we still baked...had all the windows open in the kitchen! On the menu was ham, augratin potatoes, sausage stuffing, and asparagus with pumpkin and apple pie for dessert. I was so happy about how well the pumpkin pie turned out. My last few attempts did not go as well. But, this one was nearly perfect. I think I got it down. Here’s a few photos from our day...

I hope that you had a good day and got to spend some time with those you love sharing food and laughter.
As always, thanks for reading my diary!

Aloha Friends!

It’s been a beautiful day here on Kauai. Really the complete opposite of last year’s rained out Halloween. The kids are excited for trick-or-treating but, first we had to carve our pumpkins and pineapple.

Pineapple are fun to carve. I think they have a lot of personality. They’re also tasty. And when Halloween is over I can plant his top in my pineapple patch.

We’ve been doing a little decorating for fall. Last week I made some bunting and hung it up in my kitchen shelves. I used scrapbook paper and ribbon. One of my daughters painted the haunted house. Nothing too scary here. We don’t have much Halloween decor because I purged most of it when we moved. But, I did keep our favorite pieces.

For Halloween dinner I always make chili. It’s a family tradition back from when I was a kid. I like this recipe because it’s an all meat chili. The beans and whatever else you want to serve with it are on the side. That way everyone can make their own bowl. It’s even better with corn bread. Here’s an old recipe card my mom gave me with the recipe...

The kids came home quite happy from trick-or-treating. They got a ridiculous amount of candy! Lots of full size bars. The people offering treats were very generous. The pile below is just one child’s stash!

I hope that you had a nice Halloween and thank you for reading my diary!

Aloha Everyone!

This week I decided to do a little kitchen cabinet renovation. This particular cabinet had been troublesome. It’s in a tight corner and when you opened the doors it just felt like they were right in your face. Since it’s the only cabinet that’s deep enough to hold our plates, we opened it frequently. So, we decided to go ahead and remove the doors and just have open shelving. Here’s before photos...

First, I removed the cabinet doors. Then I pulled up all the old, yucky wood grained shelf liner. I was surprised how much stick it still had! Next step was cleaning all the surfaces thoroughly with soapy water. Then, I filled all the holes with spackling. When that was dry I sanded down the rough spots. Next I painted a coat of cover stain primer. The primer is oil based so I let it dry over night. The next day I painted 2 coats of Behr paint semi gloss in “painters white”. I let the paint dry a few hours between coats.

It was kinda fun putting all of our Fiesta dinnerware back. I love vintage Pyrex and tried to arrange everything in a attractive manner. I use the Pyrex bowls all the time so they had to stay on a lower shelf. The top shelf holds a set of Pyrex casserole dishes, a treasured gingerbread cookie jar and a set of Federal Glass atomic dot mixing bowls.

I really like the way the open shelves look. And it’s so much more user friendly! We saved the cabinet doors and hardware just in case we change our minds one day. But, for now I love it!

​Thanks for reading my diary!

Aloha All!

A lot has happened since my last post. After six months of looking, I'm excited to tell you that we finally bought a house! It's an older, plantation style home with lots of vintage charm. The home had just one owner previous to us. There were very few renovations done, it's nearly all original and we love it!

With much of the house in it's original condition there are some projects that need to be done. The peeling lead paint in the girls' room had to be addressed immediately. And since we were dealing with paint why not pull up the carpet as well? Goodbye aqua blue paint and burgundy carpet! But, the blue paint was stubborn, took one coat of primer and 3 coats of paint to cover! The carpet was much easier. Underneath was beautiful hardwood floor. We're painting and pulling up the carpet one room at a time. After that's finished we'd like put down new flooring in the kitchen that's appropriate for the age of the home and paint the cabinets.

We've done some work in the yard. It's so nice to have a garden again! I woke up this morning to see that the hibiscus we recently planted had bloomed. It was supposed to have an orange flower with a red center. It's not, but it's very cheery... reminds me of a sunrise.

Here's some of the aqua blue paint after one coat of primer. The color on the left side is the new paint. Looks pink in comparison!

Orchids from the yard sit in a jar on the kitchen table. I'm really enjoying my kitchen. It's quite large for a smaller home and has tons of storage. My favorite feature is the 6 foot stainless steel farmhouse sink with windows above. It makes dish washing so much more pleasant! I only wish that the old stove was still there, assuming that it functioned...haha.

With all the rain Kauai has been receiving we've also had some beautiful rainbows!

Thanks for reading my diary!