A review of this week's new recipes:

I swear, I have not fallen off the face of the earth. Things have been a bit chaotic in my house. But, it's been a good chaos, so no complaints from me! More on that later.....

First, the recipes:
T made the Creamy Basil Chicken on Tuesday. I got home from work to find my brother (K) had arrived for a visit - and a friend of ours had popped in for a visit. Good thing our dinner plans changed (I was originally supposed to make it on Monday) as we had plenty for everyone. It received raves all around.

The spinach/mushroom/Alfredo pizza was also unbelievably good. K loved it - and T made more than one comment about how much he enjoyed a white sauce pizza. I'm planning a seafood Alfredo version for the near future, now.

I goofed with planning on the Beef Carbonnade. This, too, is a slow cooker recipe. I did not realize this until I was checking the recipe in the afternoon to see what time I needed to plan on starting dinner. Oops. (We swapped pizza night because of it.) K and I both enjoyed it. Monkey did as well, though she didn't eat much. T had to work late so ate at work and has yet to try the leftovers.

Now, on to the chaos!

T found a Hire a Hubby (HAH) through a coworker. We've hired him to come finish our bathroom remodel that has been in progress/half done for (I'm ashamed to say this) 3 years. It was all kind of last minute and we've arranged for him to come while K is visiting so K can help with any heavy lifting I'm useless for right now. I found a new paint this week (Copper River by Behr - out of my comfort zone, but I think it will look nice when it's all done). HAH came yesterday to scope out our new vanity and install our new medicine cabinet/mirror. That gave me the opportunity to prep the walls for painting now that the old cabinet is gone - and I finally took the time to rip down the wallpaper border I've hated since we bought this place. He'll be coming back early in the coming week to install the tile flooring and swap out the vanity.

Our other bit of chaos is K has been helping me with paint projects. Our bedroom still needed the baseboard heat radiators and the closet doors to be painted. K moved heavy furniture out of my way so I could get to the radiators and has one of the closet doors downstairs set up on the saw horses. He (or T) will put it back in today and bring down the other one to get it's paint.

I've also had an idea on how to make our entryway more inviting (less hideous!). When you walk into our house, you are facing our basement stairway. There are shelves above the steps we've been using for extra kitchen storage that I've had hidden with a curtain up until this point. K demolished the shelving in my basement stairway and got the walls all ready for some new paint. He said he'll paint them today. I'm going to paint the shelves themselves. I'm cutting the active/useful storage from 2 shelves to 1 - the other will be used for display.

We'll need to find a couple projects to keep him busy in the basement because he'll do the stairs themselves after the walls are finished (probably tomorrow or Monday) and will have to hide in said basement until the stairs are dry and he's able to walk on them to come back up!

I've been to TJMaxx/Home Goods in search of decorating items to help finish the looks I'm going for, though I'm sure it will take some time for me to get everything the way I want it. Those are small, easy things I can do on my own. K & T are doing all the big stuff I can't or shouldn't be doing on my own.

I've been taking pictures of progress, but I haven't had a minute to upload them yet. I will share them this week at some point!

I hope you are all enjoying the great spring weather - and eachother!