It's become a tradition around these parts to have breakfast for lunch on Sunday. It's cheap, filling, and fast. Who wants to spend time cooking after being at church all morning? The menu for today was biscuits, eggs, and sausage.

I'm still trying to perfect my biscuit making- all attempts to date have only been slightly above the "edible" mark- and Richard is a discerning critic. He has a long history of critiquing biscuits. TCU's biscuits were deemed "cut-throat," while McDonald's are nearing perfection. Forget about anything pre-made or frozen.

Imagine my delight when Richard suggested that we put the sausage IN the biscuit dough, rather than having it alongside the biscuits. He was very proud of his new idea for biscuit perfection, but turns out, it's been done before, but usually with some type of cheese situation.

The verdict on today's biscuits? Perfect! Here's the link to the recipe I used. I just added precooked sausage bits, added in with the buttermilk.

I actually DO live in California. And yes, sometimes you DO see famous/semi-famous people here!

Alright. So I'm still working on the bathroom update. But in the meantime, here is a ridiculous story.

At my place of employment, I often see a particular woman who is waiting to pick up her child. Every time I've seen her, I've thought she looked awfully familiar. I could never place her which I thought was strange since we maybe know 50 people in CA (give or take). Tonight, I heard that woman speak, and suddenly, I realized who she is.

She is the actress who plays Joey Lucas on The West Wing.

My first real LA celebrity sighting, and it's a woman who had a recurring guest star role on only the best television show of all time (maybe). People, I almost wet my pants trying to contain my excitement. As soon as I got out to the car, I called Richard and told him the story. He was as excited as I was, though he seemed a little perplexed as to why I didn't actually, you know, SAY anything to this woman (I figured she'd rather not be accosted by a random person). He immediately started thinking up lame excuses to come to work with me so he could tell her how wonderful he thinks she is.

Reason #427 I know I married the right man.

Bathroom remix

Here is the revamped bathroom, in all it's glory.

A few notes. I did in fact switch out the shower curtain, and I like this one much better here. The yellow and white curtain definitely brightens up the room.

The first step I took was to reorganize under the sink and in the medicine cabinet.

Just those steps alone have made the bathroom feel so much more functional. A bonus is not being hit in the face by flying objects when opening the medicine cabinet.

Next, I added some hidden storage on the shelf with a big basket, purchased for $13 at Home Goods.

All of Charlie's treats, bath supplies, extra collars and medicine are in the basket. You can see into the basket a little bit, but not really that much. At any rate, it's better than the giant bottle of vinegar that was there before, right!?

Next, I added some accessories.

The candlestick was $4 on clearance at Target, and the bud vase was $.50 at Goodwill. The tealight holder was free because we already had it.

The top of the shelf is a handy place to store cotton balls, q-tips, and things that are too tall to fit in the medicine cabinet. I already had these cups as well as the crystal pineapple. The white tray was purchased for $4 at Home Goods.

I added shelf paper that I already had, as well as a third (non-matching) basket that was lying around. Scraping problem solved.

These two small pictures are hung above the toilet. The frames were on clearance at Home Goods for $2 each, due to their unfortunate peach color. I slapped on a coat of paint (that I already had), and they are as good as new. The "artwork" inside is from Ikea- I bought several 5 packs of art cards a while back that were on clearance for $.10. I'm not crazy about the prints here, so maybe I will change it if I ever think about it again.

All in all, I just made a few small changes that make a big difference (to me at least). Which room should I tackle in February?

Month 1: Master Bathroom, before

So, I promised an update on my room a month challenge, but another project I'm working on got in the way. When I found out Amanda (my sister) was pregnant, I offered to make her custom bedding for the nursery. It turns out that making a quilt is rather time consuming. I don't want to post pictures yet, but here's a sneak peak, chalk lines and all.

Okay, on to the bathroom! The master bathroom in our new apartment is substantially bigger than the one at our old apartment.

Honestly, this has been more of a curse than a blessing, as our smaller bathroom required that we stick to some very strict organization. In this bathroom, we had so much more space, I didn't organize things quite as well. For example, our old vanity was less than half of the size of this new one.

When we moved in, I remember telling my mom on the phone, "We'll never be able to fill up all of the space under the sink!" Oh how the mighty have fallen.

We also have a rather unruly medicine cabinet. I hate mirrored medicine cabinets. How does one keep a mirror clean if there are new fingerprints every morning?! Whose dumb idea were these things?

We also have some little cubbies right next to the shower. Rich and I each have a cubby and the third is used for washcloths.

The baskets work great for hiding our stuff, but black baskets on tan paint means a big mess.

The last area I plan to spruce up is this shelf. It sits right next to the shower, opposite the toilet. The top shelf is used to store towels, and the bottom shelf is used to store, well, whatever else I put there. Little known fact about us: when we got married, if we already had something, we didn't register for it. Since we already had fully functioning (albeit non-matching) towels, we decided to just keep them. I often regret that decision, especially when I'm faced with this view. Sadly, new towels aren't in the budget for this little spruce up.

So here's the plan.

1. The shower curtain is in perfect condition, but I'm tired of looking at it all the time. So, I'm going to switch this shower curtain with the one in the guest bathroom.

2. I'm going to add shelf paper to the cubbies, after scrubbing them well, to prevent any further damage.

3. Reorganize under the sink. It's really not that messy under there- it just looks crazy!

4. Add some hidden storage to the bookshelf in the form of a big basket on the lower shelf. This basket will house all of Charlie's stuff (from the other bathroom).

5. Add accessories and artwork to tie the whole room together.

So, yesterday I went to buy all of the fabric for the quilt I'm making for my newest niece-to-be. Thank goodness a friend came along- I would have been completely paralyzed by indecision. I'm hoping I didn't promise too much when I told my sister I'd make this, but so far, so good. I've only done the easiest parts, but they've all worked!

I started my new job on Monday- I won't say much about it here, except that I'm a tutor, and I'm really enjoying it. It definitely keeps me on my toes, since I tutor in almost every subject. And it turns out, yes, I am smarter than a fifth grader.

In other news, a lady whose blog I read has started a project called A Room A Month. The basic idea is, you choose 12 rooms (or areas) in your home that need some attention, and tackle one area per month. Now that we've settled into our apartment, I have a pretty good idea of what's working and what's not. I wasn't sure I'd be able to list 12 rooms in our small-ish (but huge to us) apartment, but sure enough, I did. Here's my list:

1) Kitchen
2) Dining Room
3) Living Room
4) Hall
5) Hall Closet
6) Guest Bath
7) Laundry room
8) Guest room/office
9) Guest closet
10) Master bedroom
11) Master closet
12) Master bathroom

That's not actually in order, because I'm starting in the Master bathroom for January. Expect an exciting post about my plan for doing some minor things to make major improvements to our bathroom, possibly including embarrassing pictures of our messy under-sink storage!

Year in Review

Typically, Rich and I send out an annual letter with Christmas cards. I always call the letter "Our Year in Review." For a number of reasons, we didn't send out cards this year, so I thought I'd post the letter here instead. We'll miss you, 2009 (sort of)! Welcome 2010!

January- We took a three week long trip to Hong Kong and Taiwan. The trip was wonderful, but Sarah vowed never to take an 18 hour flight ever again, no matter how wonderful the destination. We also vowed never to leave our dog, Charlie, for that long again. It was rough! One neat thing about the flight back- we spent over 36 hours in transit, yet somehow arrived less than 4 hours after we departed. Time stood still.

February- We can't remember a single thing we did in this month. Yikes! Maybe because we spent the whole month trying to recover from jet lag.

March- We spent Spring Break in Dallas. Nothing really exciting happened, except Sarah had a birthday.

April- We took a trip to California to visit Claremont Graduate University, Rich's top pick for a PhD program. While Richard met with professors and developed terrible blisters on his feet from exploring Claremont on foot, Sarah visited twenty (!) or so apartment complexes, looking for a place to live.

May- Richard graduated from Perkins (sort of). He actually had one last class to complete over the summer, but they let him pay the $100 to walk at graduation anyway! How generous of Perkins! Both sets of parents came to visit for the graduation shenanigans, and we got to show them all of our favorite Dallas haunts.

June- Sarah spent most of June in Taos, NM for work. It turned out to be a better term than last year, but it was still rough- especially knowing about all of the packing to do once she got home!

July- Richard finished his last class for Perkins. We took a transcontinental trip, with all of our belongings in tow! It turned out to be a great trip. We stayed with friends one night and camped one night. We had planned to camp the next night, but we got lost in the Mojave desert, got frustrated, and decided to

August- We spent most of August trying to find a grocery store and getting acclimated to our new surroundings. We visited several local churches- one that we almost had to leave early because Sarah got the giggles over a certain hymn. We did find a church that we both like, one that does not sing ridiculous songs. Sarah joined the choir.

September- Richard began his PhD program in earnest. Due dates started rolling in, and Richard spent more time reading and writing than he thought was humanly possible. Sarah became an official "PhD widow," but was lucky enough to get to eat with Richard every single day. We also found out that Sarah's sister, Amanda is pregnant! This was an unexpected blessing after Amanda's three year battle with ovarian cancer.

October- We took a weekend camping trip to Joshua Tree National Park, where we saw exactly 0 Joshua Trees. We did take a hike that we fondly have nicknamed the "death march." The hike was rough, but the weekend was wonderful.

November- Our friends, Abigail and Brett, stopped by for a visit on their cross-country drive. We had a great time catching up! Sarah's parents came to visit later in the month for Thanksgiving week. We wore them out, showing them all the sights of LA. Sarah also cooked Thanksgiving dinner for the first time, including a turkey (spatchcocked a la Martha Stewart). There were no fires or inedible dishes. Success!

December- Richard finished his first semester of PhD coursework, and we had a junk-food-palooza to celebrate. We headed to Houston for the Christmas holiday, and we spent some quality time with both sets of parents. We got bumped from our flight on the way back to CA and got to fly first class on the way back- a first for both of us!

Also- I got a job!!!! Can't believe it.