Happy Halloween!

If you were to ask me growing up what my favorite holiday was-the answer would surely NOT be Halloween! How could a child pass on Christmas or Birthday? Even the girly girl in me loved Easter more then Halloween because of the pretty dresses and white gloves we got to wear to church. Now don't get me wrong, Halloween wasn't my least favorite holiday by any means especially when we were younger. Aunt Susan would come up from San Diego and we would make the best Halloween shirts using men's undershirts, googly eyes, orange and black ribbon and puffy paint. Talk about an exciting afternoon-encouraging creative juices and having a fashion show to display our masterpieces! Fast forward several years to when Steven and I buy our first house together. Our closing date happens to be October 30, 2009. An empty house is obviously the best place for a Halloween Party, right? Yes! That's where it all started! So now October 2011 is our 3rd annual Halloween Party.

Cali of course had a costume!

Erin and Will

Ashley and Will

Emily and John & Austin and Tempa

I think you know who these folks are

Scott and Sally

The candy bar and party favor

My FurBaby

Cali is almost 18 months now! Every day it feels like we've had her for longer then just a year. She has truly developed a personality that exudes German Shorthair. Steven and I like to say that she still is a puppy as our excuse for her "ooops(es)". That being said, we're very proud of her and thankful she hasn't taken any of the destruction cues from Mom and Dad's previous 2 GSPs Boo and Schnee. Cali knows a few tricks up her sleeve to woo the attention from others. Her latest is "shake". In true lady like form and pointer instinct the front leg comes up with the paw flopping down and eyes saying "OK folks, you gotta meet me half way here".

German Shorthairs are not new to our neighborhood, in fact- there are at least 7 others just in a couple block radius around our house. She has a favorite, named Lily. Sometimes Lily's parents stop by on their evening walks and Cali and Lily will run around in the backyard. As everyone knows, these dogs can ALWAYS use more exercise!

Because of our work schedules, Steven and I found a dog day care place where Cali goes 2 times a week. Diamond Dogs is great! Aunt Dodie (as she calls herself) loves Cali, in fact just this morning she met Cali in the office with a very loud "YAY, Calidoodle is here today" and got down on the floor with her for a second. Aunt Dodie knows what she is doing! She runs the dogs like crazy! Cali's participation has helped with her socialization and has made new friends.

It's not just about the pepperoni :)

What could be better on a summer sunday night for dinner then something on the grill! One of the D'Antonio favorites is pizza on the grill! We love using Tyler Florence's dough recipe-you can find it on Foodnetwork.com

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/pizza-dough-recipe/index.html

I'm a big fan of tomatoes, goat cheese, basil, caramelized onions, and mozzarella

SO DELISH!

A pizza stone on the grill.

Steven's man pizza-italian sausage, pepperoni, roasted red peppers and mozzarella 

My Job

Put yourself in my position: it's college graduation, you look down at your diploma from Sweet Briar and see the little sticker on the outside that says Salyer/BA Philosophy and Sociology. Panic starts to hit-What the HELL am I going to do with a degree in Philosophy and Sociology. What does this mean-well it means I know how to think and interact with/study people...hmmm. OK Folks! This is my first attempt with writing a blog entry on a topic on the complete opposite end of the spectrum in terms of house renovations! I’d thought I would start out with by talking about my job! Why? Well for several reasons-I love it, I love it, and I love it. When you meet someone new one of the first questions either you ask or “new person” asks is “What do you do?” My response 9 times out of 10 warrants a raised eyebrow and a head tilt in either confusion or what I like to call the “uh oh” face. My title here at The Virginia Community Healthcare Association is “Government Affairs Specialist”. I think the reason for confusion or the “uh oh” face is that people think I’m going to dive right in to politics-especially the future of health care. I’m not going to lie-I might give someone the “uh oh” face to if I was in a public setting, having a pleasant conversation and someone told me they wanted to discuss the future of healthcare in this country! I’m not going to go ahead right now and give you my opinion (that’s for another entry) but mainly because I’m straying from the topic. So what does a Government Affairs Specialist do at the Virginia Community Healthcare Association? My quick answer is A LOT! The state of Virginia has 29 Community Health Centers that operate in 110 sites all over the state. VCHA is the same organization for our state that Oregon Primary Care Association is to Oregon. Each state has a PCA (primary care association) that assist the FQHCs (Federally Qualified Health Centers) with grant writing, policy updates, establishing clinical programs, and technical support to maintain the high quality of care that each CHC (community health center) provides! My job has 2 avenues: policy and advocacy. The policy side of my job is challenging but people say-there is no better way to learn something unless you get thrown into the lion’s den! That is exactly what I’ve had to do! I spend time downtown speaking with the General Assembly, specifically the health care and appropriations committees. I need to make sure our Association is aware of every budget/healthcare bullet point in each brief, statement, amendment etc. I also hang out with VA’s congressmen and 2 senators. If you follow closely, VA Senator Marc Warner was one of the original “gang of 6” as they called it on the hill several months ago when 3 republicans and 3 democrats first started working on a budget agreement. Like I said before this part is very challenging but there are a lot of perks! I mean not everyone gets to hang out in Washington or Richmond with the suits that run our country. Can you say you’ve had a conversation with Eric Cantor? (Most of you know me well enough that he’s NOT someone I brag about talking to if you catch my drift…) So in short I communicate legislative updates to our 29 health centers. The other part of my job is the reason I LOVE working here-Advocacy. Most of the time (especially in this current time) our health centers are fighting for funding from state and federal levels funding to these health centers means more clinical programs, more staff, more hours, more up to date technology. I’m going to digress and talk you through what is in a typical health center. Central Virginia Community Health Center is located about an hour and a half away from Richmond in a small town called Buckingham. Buckingham is 50 minutes away from UVA medical center and 1 hour and 45 minutes away from VCU medical center. So where do people go when they need to see a doctor? CVCHC! One of the philosophy’s of CHCs is to provide quality primary care services over a long term period to prevent patients driving straight to the emergency room at a hospital if they don’t feel well. Some of the primary care services include: diabetes management, smoking cessation, weight loss management, mental health services, and dental services not to mention well child visits, pre-natal care, mammograms, school physicals and immunization days. CVCHC provides all of these and more including their very own pharmacy! One of the advocacy words we throw around to people is access. It’s very important to me as a “lobbyist” to let people know how many rural areas that Virginia has! We use the terms MUA and MUP standing for Medically Underserved Area and Medically Underserved Population because there are more than you would think here. The other portion of advocacy is to educate people on what an FQHC is-you would be surprised about how many people think CHC’s are the same as a Free Clinic. WRONG. We just updated our website –this particular page describes more in depth what I’m trying to say. I strongly encourage you all to read over the lists. http://www.vacommunityhealth.org/about_chcs.cfm

I hope you enjoyed reading this and got to know a tiny bit of what I do.

Future of this Blog

After many glasses of wine and walks around the neighborhood I've come to the conclusion that I'm going to use this blog to voice my opinions about relevant topics, craft projects I'm working on, recipes I'm trying and yes, continuing to post pictures of home improvement projects and even some of our travels! I hope I don't loose any readers! Please continue to share your feedback!

Baby Shower Success!

So from the last entry you now know that I hosted a baby shower about 4 days after we moved back into the kitchen! Here's a few pictures of how it went!


I want to start out the photo display with a few pieces of advice. I will be the first to admit I broke the BIGGEST NUMBER ONE RULE OF EVENT PLANNING! Always Always Always have a solid plan B if you're hosting an event outside! June 18, 2011 came and went. A day to put in the record books, not a cloud in the sky, perfectly sunny (not too hot and especially not too humid!) I thought to myself I was in the clear for my party to be held outside on June 19th! I had arranged to borrow 4 of my neighbors' patio tables and chairs to set up on the lawn for my perfect garden party themed baby shower! I had almost everything set up outside and by noon (party is starting in 2 hrs-curlers still in my hair) I was  racing to get everything moved inside before the skies opened up into a huge thunder storm.


Not a huge deal, do not panic! I moved the drink table into the kitchen, the desserts in the breakfast nook, and the food on the dining table and the guests gathered round the coffee table, on the sofa, dining chairs and a few mixed matched chairs from bedrooms and the study.

After all that description here are my 3 pieced of advice
1. Keep the party to a certain number of rooms/contained amount of space. This is actually very easy to do when you live in a cap cod style of home! I closed of all the doors and kept the guests to the living room, dining room and kitchen. By no means did I feel like I needed to keep an eye on everyone but the certain space allowed people to mix and mingle with each other resulting in many new friendships!
My second piece of advice is
2. Don't be freaked out to move furniture around! This doesn't sound like a big deal but for those with type A personalities like myself, putting a chair from the guest bedroom that only matches the colors in the guest bedroom was extremely horrifying. I had a panic attack when i moved the sofa back 3 feet and I saw that it wasn't centered on the fireplace and there was no 2 inch seam of rug visible anymore! I wanted Greer to be the center of attention and the only way for her to be surrounded by everyone was to play the "where am I moving to game" with the furniture!
3. My last piece of advice are for those hosting parties that involve a buffet. I originally had a place set at each table for my guests but once everything had to be moved inside-buffet style became the only option! Group utensils and napkins together. I love this idea for many reasons but the best reason is this: every buffet line gets backed up while people are reaching for a napkin then a fork and then a knife. Here's what I did: I took yellow utensils and wrapped them in a green napkin then tied it with yellow ribbon and vice verse color scheme. Not only did this make it 10 times faster at the end of the buffet but it added some extra decorations to the table!

Greer is a very dear friend of mine and this is her first child so I wanted to make this as special as she deserved. She and Hugh have decided not to tell people the sex of the baby so first thing for the party I had to stick with neutral colors! Yellow and Green with hints of pink and blue. I picked these invitations out to set the tone of the party.

I stuck with a simple menu of homemade chicken salad sandwiches, ham biscuits, pesto pasta salad, arugula salad with beans and potatoes, watermelon salad with feta and mint, cheese and cracker display and an assortment of fresh fruit.

The beverage station with a champagne punch (in Nannan's milk glass punch bowl), Peach iced tea, and lemonade.

Dessert was an assortment of homemade red velvet cupcakes (ina's recipe), and a lemon pound cake. I love stacking cake plates on top of each other to make improve tiered stands!

The favors were terra-cota pots with raffia and sun flower seeds tied with yellow and green polka dot ribbon. Total cost for this project: 18 terra-cota pots $0.89 each + 2 spools of ribbon $1.49 each + 18 seed packets $0.20 each + 2 bags of raffia $1.00 each. =$24.60 translating to $1.37 per person!

Finally, here's my creative touch! Everyone says that people remember a party by the food that was served. To a certain extent I agree with this statement, which is why I spent a lot of time on the menu and ingredients. I follow a tip that my mother told me several years ago "elegant portion control is a budget cook's best friend". However, that's not my creative touch to the party. When I host a party I naturally tend to spend more on the things that I know the guests are going to keep for her scrapbook or toss in a memory box. I started with the invitations. The picture above however is my version of a DIY/Budget friendly guest book. I found these cut outs of bibs and bottles and outfits at a party store intended to be a garland. Each guest signed a message and let me take a picture of her with Greer. My gift to Greer is a scrapbook with each note and picture of her friend/family member at the beginning and all the pictures taken at the party followed.

40 days later...

40 days from May 9th we returned to our house to find peace (well not really) and quiet! No more phone calls from contractor, no more paper all over the hardwood floors, no more questions about where I want outlets! Now comes the hard part! MOVING EVERYTHING BACK IN! Well, what you don't know was 4 days after this "ah hah" moment- I WAS GOING TO BE HOSTING MY VERY FIRST BABY SHOWER! Yes, I'll admit a little poor planning on our part and yes, I was scared out of my mind- but hey! I can be easy going every now and then! (I think?)

Let's take a trip down memory lane and look at some of the before pictures!

OK! NOW HERE ARE THE FINAL PICTURES OF OUR NEW AND IMPROVED KITCHEN!!

KITCHEN Update 2

Here are the first 3 days of demolition!

DAY 1: cabinets out/countertops out/sheetrock down

DAY 1

DAY 1

DAY 1

DAY 2

END OF DAY 2

END OF DAY 3

END OF DAY 3

KITCHEN!

Here is our BIG announcement! We are remodeling the kitchen! After much thought and planning and discussion with our realtor (who we have become good friends with) we are taking the plunge and expanding our kitchen space out into the deck area! It is going to be a 6 week project (estimation from our contractor). We started the project on Monday. Here are the before pictures! As you can tell from the pictures we have a U shaped kitchen.

More Weekend Fun!

We started the spring season off by painting the living room a light yellow to brighten the space up which then sparked moving furniture around which then turned into a spur of the moment trip to IKEA! We came home with a big project to put together!

It's a good thing Steven knows what he's doing!

Finished product!

Steven and I celebrated Easter together this year, and since we both don't like ham very much-steaks on the grill sounded much better!

The bunnies came out to hang out on the mantel

traditional pose after church by the dogwood

Lara turns 24 :)

I had a very nice birthday, thanks to my family and friends. I had a very nice display of cards from family members! Steven took me to my favorite restaurant for dinner and I ended the night with Cocktail Club with the ladies in the neighborhood!

Birthday tiramisu!

As part of the celebration we went to an 80's cover band concert! My shoes were the best part of my outfit, 3 1/2 inch heels were killer!

Let the spring garden projects begin again!

It seems like each weekend we always find a spot in the yard that we want to spruce up! Last weekend it was the flower bed next to the shed. For starters we called the stump grinder to dig up the roots from an overgrown boxwood. After a lot of hard work in the sun we decided to go with roses and hydrangeas.

I've always wanted to have a vegetable garden so this year I said "why not!" We started out with 3 inch seedlings. Along the railing there are onions, watermelons, cucumber, basil, peppers and tomatoes.

This is after 2 weeks. Tomatoes in the back, peppers in the yellow pot on the left, beans in the pot on the right, watermelon and cucumber in the terra cotta pots.