GB #1: Lights, Floor, Action

Installing this mini chandelier and medallion was definitely a labor of love. It's up now and we have to love it. I don't think Mi Miguel would accept any disapproval after fighting with it to get it installed. After all the hard work it's staying up, so please when you visit, tell us how great it is for this room.

Now that the walls are painted and the light is up, we will move forward with the floor. All the tile has been cut for the hallway and the bedroom, now to thin set, place the tiles and spacers and grout.

Mi Miguel does most of the tiling. While he works on that I'm going to move forward with the colors from our fabric remnant for Guest Bedroom #1. 

The bed from this room in our Indiana home will go in the Florida bedroom. It will be painted cream along with the baseboards and trim.

This shower curtain will be the inspiration for colors for the bathroom and the hallway that leads to both bedrooms and the bathroom.

I've selected the color swatches and the paint was purchased yesterday. Don't panic, the photo of the shower curtain has a blue tint that's just the photo. The paint actually does match. Starting this evening we will be incredibly busy working on the rooms. So, last night I thought I should make us a healthy meal and do some stress reducing office cake baking.

After we picked up our paint, we shopped for groceries. I'm on a strict, well kinda strict, chicken, fish, vegetable, fruit, nuts and beans regimen. We are going to get back into juicing a few nights a week. While picking out veggies to feed to our juicer,  this recipe card caught my eye. We flipped it over and shopped for the ingredients. 

After mentioning that I would be making collard greens on social media, a sweet friend, suggested pressure cooking the ham hocks. I remembered that the previous owner of our home that we just bought, gave me a pressure cooker. 

With the hocks in the pot, we were ready to roll.

While ham is not on my list of foods that I should be eating, it would just be wrong to make collard greens and not put ham, bacon or some other flavorful meat with this wonderful recipe. 

While the greens, onions, ham and such were getting tender, I mixed together this chocolate Bundt cake for Mi Miguel and his co-workers. It's triple chocolate. My friend Patty suggested going with caramel icing due to the richness. This time I didn't have the ingredients for caramel but I did for the chocolate. I hope Mi Miguel and his co-workers enjoy it in spite of it's richness. I'm talking to Mi Miguel as I write this blog post, he just stated that his co-worker from New Zealand gives my Bundt cake a thumbs up!

My friend Karen sent me a recipe for Preacher Cake. Even though I'm obsessed with making Bundt cakes right now. I think I'll deviate next week and make this unusual cake. South Your Mouth looks like an interesting site for recipes.

Elsa, you were right, pressure cooking the ham hocks and preparing it all with the pressure cooker was a wonderful idea. If you've never eaten collard greens before, I highly recommend that you google the nutritional value of this delicious vegetable. Just don't overcook it, that defeats the purpose of the eating it for the nutrients. I added half an egg to each of ours though. Tonight we will have the leftover collard greens with ham and beans, fried potatoes and corn bread. All that good food isn't on my regimen but changing the way you eat is a process.

I've been trying to come up with colors for our house and entry door. I think this screams Florida without being the same 'ol, same 'ol that you see with the aqua, yellows, peach and so on. I've got to come up with some version of this. What colors do you think of when you think of a Florida home?