Pomegranate Juice...Sort Of

That right there is about 10 seeded pomegranates...give or take a few

My idea of juicing since I don't have a pomegranate press yet.  I couldn't fit all of the seeds in on one blend, so i did two.

Looks more like a smoothie to me:)

It was kind of like one because of the texture.  But the seeds took away the "smoothe" aspect of a smoothie. It was still rather tasty.  This juice is THE best juice from a fruit I've ever tried so far!  I had never had any before.  Now I am noticing at the grocery store, they do sale pomegranate juice for like an arm and a leg, and you only get like two cups!  But I can understand why the cost is so high now that I have slaved away at seeding the darn things.  I'll bet I spent a good two hours seeding those pomegranates and I only yielded about two quarts of juice, but boy...I'll tell you what, that juice was worth it!!  Now I just really need a pomegranate press:)

Pomegranates Anyone?

We had ourselves a Fall Harvest of Pomegranates!!

  So, after I took this picture, I realized I still had another box full outside!  Can you even believe this!?  My kids are loving it!  Their clothes?  Not so much. We have lots of stained shirts because of these bad boys.  I'm going to have to designate clothing to such eatery;)

The blue tote is all of the fruit that was cracked.  I am going to make juice with those tomorrow.  The rest I will be sharing and I am going to attempt Pomegranate Jam.  My kids hate store bought jam and I've heard Pomegranate Jelly is pretty good. So hopefully I can figure it out.

Yay for the pomegranate tree!

Remodeling The Family Room

Here are some before pics of the family room in stages:

Some of these are poor quality pics taken with my phone.  Dave started demolition before we moved in and I didn't take a true before pic.  So I wasn't thinking when I stopped by to see his progress and forgot our good camera.

Just imagine the room before the wall was taken out with stinky, ugly brown carpet, oh and don't forget all the rabbit poo on the floor.  Eeek!

Dave started with ripping all of the carpet and baseboards out.  Then he took down this wall that divided the large family room.

Had to take a pic of Dave triumphing over the wall:)  Teehee...

In the pic below, you see he has started with the crown molding and baseboards.  He also wired the place for a smokin hot surround sound for the time when we can buy our smokin hot flat screen ;) 

It's not done yet, but almost:)  We Dave still has to install the lighting, do some touch ups, install the speakers for the surround sound, make a flat screen purchase(*cough* *cough* just kidding), and figure out a way to fit my pretty armoir downstairs:(  I was so sad when it wouldn't fit.  So as you can see, we have improvised with a kids dresser for a TV stand.

View from the soon to be hallway.

By the way we lucked out with this carpet.  Dave comes across all sorts of things at his work.  Most everything just goes to the dump, unless someone wants to take whatever was left.  Every now and again, Dave will come home with miscellaneous shelving, and just way random stuff if we need it or if he knows he can use it at a job.  Anyhow, at one foreclosure he found this unused carpet.  It even had the plastic still on it!  When Dave found out for sure they couldn't use it for the houses they fix up, he got to keep it! It is a kind of berber.  Not exactly the color or style of what I would have chosen, but it was free!  We just had to pay to have it installed.  We felt pretty blessed to come across it.  

View from the basement entrance.

Eventually, we will replace the doors with a more modern style.  But Dave is going to wait and order all of the doors at the same time.

So yay!!  It's livable and it is a fresh and guaranteed clean room for visitors!!

Life Is:

cRaZy!!!!!  I don't ever even have a few minutes to spare for my blogging to ever stay current.  Between school, scouts, swimming, Lila starting a once a week "preschool" (its more like a two hour play date without mom so I can try and get some kidless things done around here), me working, and endless projects around the house, I am just lucky if the kids get a decent meal these days.

I am at the boys school waiting for an assembly to start, so I have a spare min to write a few of my thoughts. Yay for the internet on a phone;)

My husband is Da bomb! He finished the family room, well made it useable at least. There are some touch ups to do and speaker installations, but then it will be completely done YAY!!!! I will get some before and after pics up in the next week or two.

Lots Goo.g on this weekend, so until I have a spare min at home or a slow night at work, the blog will be slow to publish

Xoxo,

Maranda