valentines and weekend review...

So, I'm not super giddy when it comes to Valentine's Day, but I must say this year was pretty special.  Our night in was wonderful.  For us, there's nothing better than to turn on some tunes, and get in the kitchen to start cooking.  We did just that, and this was the result:

Crawfish Etoufee...so delicious!  The flowers in the background were a gift from Chams.  I love all the different pretty colors mixed together.  They were coupled with a much needed gift certificate for a pedicure.  These toes have seen better days!

For what was in Chams' goodie bag:

Candy, Penzey's spices and Hoover Sauce.  For those of you who have never heard of Hoover Sauce this is the scoop:  it's a marinade/sauce that you can only get in Louise, Mississippi and a few other towns in the Delta.  Chams and I had seen it in his Wild Abundance cookbook, and I made a mental note to put that on his gift list.  Good thing I've got a dear friend from the Delta.  Liz set it all up, and I had the sauce just in time for Valentines!

Now, on to the weekend review.  It was a busy one.  The newest project at the Chambless Ranch is this:

It's a corner cabinet that my parents gave us.  It was in their dining room until Bon got great new built-in cabinets and it had no home.  It's a great piece.  I love the glass doors.  Oak really doesn't go with the look I'm going for in the guest room, so we're going to paint it White Dove by Benjamin Moore.

To start the process, we went to 3 stores to get their opinion on how to prep the wood.  Sherwin Williams won with a simple sanding and good primer.  So, guess what I did on Saturday...

This is no easy process, especially with the little sand block I was using.  After 20 minutes with this thing and no progress, Chams brought out the big guns...

This little guy did the trick.  After all the doors were sanded, it was time to move on to taping. 

This part took entirely too long...much longer than the sanding process.  It didn't help that I'm somewhat of a perfectionist, and wanted to make sure the tape was all the way to the edge.  After 5 hours outside just me and the cabinet, my feet and back were hurting and I only had sanded and taped doors to show for it.

So you might ask...where was Chams during all of this??

Yep, that's right.  He and Puddin were just milling around, cleaning up outside and overseeing the cabinet project.  It's ok though...the cabinet is my little project, that I'm already anxious to complete.  Once we have it painted, the dresser in the bedroom is going to take a trip to the city dump.  It's been a good one, made it through 3 1/2 years at Alabama, and 5+ years in Birmingham.  It's just time for it's retirement.