Saturday Stops at RRIE and Seven Stars Bakery

Such a typical Saturday. Slept in, walked Ed, and experimented in the kitchen before heading out to gather materials for a little DIY project.In an effort to streamline breakfast for T now that he is getting up often earlier than I am, I tried the miniature omelettes shaped like muffin tins that are all over Pinterest. I sauteed kale, broccoli, onions, and peppers on the stove before cooling them slightly and adding them to 7 whisked eggs and a few tablespoons of almond milk. Then I seasoned the mixture before pouring about 1/4 of a cup into each muffin cup. Notice I only filled up 8 cups? That is because I wasn't sure how far I wanted to go just yet and I also didn't want to totally wipe out our supply of eggs. They cooked at 350 for 20 minutes and I sent four with T on his way out the door to work. Just protein and veggies. Perfect.

Next I painstakingly removed the staples from the bottom of our dining room chairs. They were hand-me-downs which I am all for. Seriously, 99.9% of our furniture is from someone else.

The seats.

The frame.

Good thing I have my handy dandy tool bag from Dad. 

These chairs had seen better days though. The seats were beige so they easily showed every mess that had ever been made on them and the bottoms of a couple were molded from sitting in a basement. Why the manufacturer decided to put fifty staples in the bottom of each I'll never know. Once those suckers were out I bleached and scrubbed the moldy ones and left to go find fabric. I wanted to try my luck at RRIE or Recycling for Rhode Island Education because I had heard good things about it and it seemed like my kind of place. It was a little tricky to find because my GPS took me to the listed address which is actually blocks away from the entrance.

The directions on their website are much better. Live and learn. If you're familiar with the Dane Cook bit where he gives instructions to the Whopper Lair, you'll understand my feelings as I tried to get into RRIE. First you park in a snow covered parking lot whose sign this time of year is literally hidden in a snow bank. The building is a gigantic brick industrial mill I'm guessing.

Patrons walk through a chain-link gate and walk up a steep set of (icy) concrete steps and through a set of yellow double doors. Directly ahead is another yellow door. I paused a moment before walking through it, unsure exactly where I should be going.

Just inside that door is a booth that although closed was next to a sign-in book and membership flyers. Yes, it was at this moment that I realized that in order to purchase the magical recycled items within you had to have a personal or corporate account.

They do have day passes available for $10.00. Unable to do any purchasing I just signed in under my employer's name because I saw that some of my co-workers had been there already that day and walked around, taking a mental inventory of the goods. RRIE is literally AWESOME if you are into any sort of crafting, DIY, or work in an environment that requires constant creativity. They have an endless supply of odds and ends, old text books, name brand stationary products that were over produced or didn't make it to stores, yarn, glue, fabric, felt, containers, poster board, you get the idea. I will be back and next time with the power to purchase anything I want at 40 cents per lb.

After I struck out at RRIE I went to the Savers in East Providence because I hardly ever go to that one and its been good to me a few times. Sure enough, jackpot! I found a perfect scrap piece of fabric that was the same color as our walls and for about 5 yards came to a total of $2.99. Relax, I washed it when I got home.

Before I headed back to the apartment to do work on the chairs I had to swing by my brother's house to pick up a staple gun, a crucial piece of the DIY puzzle. En route, I needed my afternoon caffeine fix. Stopping at Seven Stars Bakery seemed like a perfect solution. At 3:00pm on a Saturday it probably wasn't my smartest move. Seven Stars is usually busy but on a weekend afternoon when everyone needs their fix, it was packed. I must have waited behind twenty people before I got to order my small coffee. I also bought my brother a bag of whole bean New Harvest coffee roasters.

Deep Seven Stars thoughts.

Piping hot.

When I finally made it home I set to work refreshing my dining room chairs. Knowing next to nothing about upholstery, I just wrapped the seats in the fabric like I would wrap a present and stretched the fabric as much as I could over the edges before stapling it down.

This is the yucky "before."

This is the yummy "after."

And now I have four beautiful new dining room seats that are primed for seating when we have guests in a couple weeks. Please note the grey on grey action.

After my DIY itch was scratched I wrapped baby presents for one of my future nieces/nephews. Wrapping presents is therapeutic. Then T came home and we spent a romantic Saturday evening grocery shopping. It is one of the best times to shop because no one is there. Monopoly is back at Shaws and since I love a good coupon I love games like this. Dork, I know.

And to round out our grocery shopping date we stopped at Nikki's Liquors and picked up a delicious pint of Foolproof Revery which is a dark Russian imperial stout.

Cheers, have a wonderful rest of your weekend!