Leftover Christmas Ham

Did everyone have a great holiday? I sure did! I spent Christmas day with family & friends, and had a great time.

After everyone went home, I was left with a large ham bone, with TONS of delicious meat still left. I knew immediately what I was going to make. Ham and Northern Beans! This recipe also works great with black eyed peas ( great if you keep up with the new year's tradition!)

I hesitate to even call this a recipe, because it's so simple! Simply rinse your beans(I used one pound Great Northern beans). Then add the beans, your ham bone to your crock pot, and cover with water. I added a generous amount of black cracked pepper, and just a tiny bit of  Lawry's seasoned salt. The ham is already pretty salty, so don't overdo it!

See all that meat? YUM!

I put my crock pot on high to start, for the first 3-4 hours, until the beans look like this:

At this point, the beans have almost doubled in size and soaked up a lot of the liquid, but they are still hard. So I turned the heat down to low, and continued cooking them for another 3-4 hours. If I were to cook these on a week day, while I'm at work, I would have put them on low all day, since they would be on for at least 12 hours.


Make sure you test a bean or two, to make sure they are tender, and then dig in!

Normally I will serve some cornbread to go with this meal, but I realized halfway through my bowl that I forgot to make any! I was so eager to dig in, and it was so good, that I barely missed it anyway.

Someone else made out like a king from this meal too:

This whole bone is for me??!

How many shades of beige can there be?

Happy Monday all! I absolutely cannot believe it is two days away from Christmas! I am not prepared at all. And my decorations this year are very lack luster and not at all blog-worthy, which is why you haven't seen them!

Yesterday we were able to go down to the construction office and choose the colors for our house. Very exciting! Although I feel like there was all together too many choices. I was pretty decided on what I wanted for my cabinets(white, shaker style), but the carpet and tile choices were a little more difficult.

I wanted to go with a neutral carpet, and I think I'm pretty happy with what I chose.



Mohawk "Moonrock"

It's a medium toned beige, with a hint of gray. It's so hard to tell from the swatches, but I think it'll look good.

The kitchen and bathrooms floors are going to be a grayish-stone vinyl. We are just going with the basic finishes for now, and we will upgrade things as we go along. Eventually (in a few years), I'm hoping we can upgrade the main living areas with tile.



Below is our countertops. The darker gray is for the kitchen, and the lighter gray is for the bathrooms. I did the same finishes in both bathrooms. Is that weird? There were just too many choices so I just went with what I knew I would like and would look good.

The exterior of our house is again, neutral gray tones(see a pattern? Gray is my color!).

Main body:

SW Jogging Path

Trim:

SW Intellectual Gray

And Front door:(love this color!)

SW Thunder Gray

And here is our lot! They begin construction in just a few weeks, and I'm sure it's just going to fly by!

Exciting News!

I haven't posted in a while, and part of the reason why is this....



We are buying a house!! It's in the process of being built, and should be ready around the month of May! In the meantime, I'm not really doing much in terms of home decorating. I just don't think there is much point, because the layout in our new house will be totally different. So I'm just scheming in my head potential decor ideas. I have a hard time picturing floor plan as real life, and even though I've toured several models, I don't think I'll really know until we are there and living in it. BUT I have been brainstorming paint colors! I plan on keeping my bedroom the same color:

Granite Gray by Glidden

And since I've tied in golden yellow and aqua with my curtains, I'm thinking of continuing that into the master bath with a shade of light aqua, I just haven't found the right one yet.



Decor Pad

 

 House Beautiful

Then the guest bedroom I'm going with a light, neutral gray for the wall color, and that will be the final home of my coral dresser. I also want to add in some deep navy blue, possibly in some pillows or a rug.

Then onto the living room! I'm really leaning towards a pretty light blue for the living room and adjoining dining room and kitchen. We are planning on investing in some new couches sometime after we move, and I really want dark gray fabric, and I think teal and lime will be my accent colors.

Sorry for the shadow on that last photo. It ended up being the one that was most true to the colors, but my head got in the way!

The top left photo is what I want for the walls in the main living area, Glidden's Icy Teal. It's the perfect cool blue/green/gray that I've been looking for. The dark gray is representative of the couch color I want, and then my accent colors. The peacock blue is a lot more "peacock" in real life and less navy looking, although I also like the idea of navy as well.

I will try to get on and post some more here soon, and I have a few new crafts to share with you! Stay tuned!