Gossip Bench Makeover

I've never really been super organized, and one thing I am especially bad at is dealing with is stuff that comes in the door with me- mail, jackets, shoes, you know. It's like it explodes off of me when I walk in and then I can't bring myself to pick it up. My new apartment has a strangely wide hallway, which has lead me to decide to buy an actual standing coat rack for the first time in my life, and that's been a game changer, but there are still purses and shoes all over the place. A few years ago I decided that part of becoming an adult is realizing that while you might not actually change these things, you can get a lot of mileage out of working around your weaknesses. Like, I just CAN'T bring myself to take my shoes all the way to the closet, but I CAN chuck them in a basket. So, the next to the door shoe basket was born. I just needed one more thing....

I found this on Craigslist while looking for some kind of bench. It's a "telephone bench" or "gossip bench". You're supposed to sit on it and chat with the phone sitting on the table. I suppose I could have put my cell phone on there but it might have been overkill.

This thing didn't just show up like this:

When I got it, it was cute, but there were these kind of cheesy looking flowers on the back, and a lot of the finish was wearing off, especially on the desk (due in no small part to historically enormous telephones, I'm sure).

It sat around like this for a few months, while I spent an insanity filled 6 weeks full of Thanksgiving and Christmas and 2 conferences. Then, I finally decided to take action. I bought some semi-gloss paint at Home Depot, upon recommendation of the extremely patient Home Depot man who didn't even roll his eyes when I got completely stymied by the approximately one million shades of light greyish blue paint available. I then sanded it lightly with very fine sandpaper, but didn't do any primer because he said I probably didn't need it. I thought the bench seat looked pretty good, so decided to leave that as is.

The hardest part, by FAR was dealing with the spindles. I had to wrap them all with blue tape and then construct an elaborate drop cloth out of taped together kitchen trash bags (these pictures are extra bad because I was covered in paint and it was night time)

 I love how it turned out, it's the perfect size for dumping things, and I can hide the shoe basket underneath. Plus, I like how it's kind of unique. PLUS, I had never heard of these things before and got to spend time getting all obsessed with finding other people's super cute telephone bench makeovers like this one  and this one  and this one. It's really about the most I could expect out of any one piece of furniture!

Collard Green Wraps- Who Knew?

As most of you probably did, I spent December in an orgy of cookies and candy and delicious cocktails. I'm not going to lie, it was spectacular. BUT, now it's time to get things back in hand. I decided to do a modified version of a Whole 30 (modified to include the vegetarian options since I just can't stand eating that much meat everyday), which has been great for getting me back into cooking and I've tried a bunch of new recipes.

This one isn't really a recipe so much as a concept. Sandwiches are pretty much off the table for the time being (which is a little rough given that I'm a sucker for a good sandwich, and even have a series of past posts called "The Gallery of Sandwiches", chronicling the best sandwiches I have encountered). Honestly, though, I normally just eat leftovers for lunch so it's not actually any kind of big deal. But, if the craving strikes, this trick is worth a try. I learned it from YJP over at Broccoli is for Lovers.

I have never given collard greens a lot of thought. I've had the Southern side dish version of them and just never liked it. BUT, they are super cheap and have gigantic flat leaves that it turns out are totally perfect for a wrap. The only prep I did was to cut down the spine a little bit, because it's kind of big.

Then, just lay out your ingredients. This was tuna, but it would also be good with the avocado chickpea salad, or really anything else you'd do in a wrap.

(immediately after taking this picture I realized that everything has to be oriented in the same direction for better wrappability, but this was more photogenic)

Then, you know, wrap it!

I will say that one of the perks of these things is that the leaves are really pretty :).

I was surprised at how well this worked- the leaves themselves have a really benign flavor that doesn't have much of an impact on the flavor of the filling, but they also make it taste really light and a little crunchy. It's good I liked it, because my grocery store sold these in ENORMOUS bunches (for  only 59 cents a pound!), so I have wraps for weeks (some of these may become green smoothie fodder). Anyhow, sounds weird, but totally worth a try!