Disclaimer: I know that today’s post is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. I’m fine with that. I respect your right to a different belief system or lack thereof. Really. No judgement from me. If you do choose to comment (which I would LOVE), I just ask that you be respectful and remember that this is me, sharing a very personal side of myself. Be kind. I never, ever write about my faith. Why? I don’t know. It seems really personal. It’s definitely controversial. There is nothing simple about my faith. And yet, here I am – writing. All thanks to the She Reads Truth community (and my good friend Eva). I hope this goes well. Oddly, that’s the entire focus of this post. Hope. For the last two weeks I’ve been participating in a She Reads Truth bible study on the book of Ruth. If I’m honest, I wasn’t…
4th of July Tablescape Inspiration and Simple Decor
Hey y’all! And a special hello to those of you popping over from the Summer Fun Series at Nap Time Creations today! If you’ve never been here before, I’d love it if you’d poke around some! Today, in honor of the 4th of July next week, I thought I’d share with you how I decorate our home for the holiday on the cheap! What you need to know first, is that I was raised by a Southern mama, who would never have left a table un-“scaped”. (I’m going to say that’s a word…just trust me.) As a result, I’ve become quite the tablescaper too! There’s just something “homey” about it to me. It helps that it reminds me of my mom. Anywho, thanks to that lovely lady, I have tons (and I do mean tons) of table linens that I inherited from her when she passed. I rely heavily on those…
Kitchen Command Gallery Wall
Hey y’all! As part of our “catch up in June” goal, a few weeks ago I decided to turn this hot mess into a functional command center wall in our kitchen. Forgive the mess, we’d just torn apart the pantry too and things were a bit, well, a lot messy. I got started by patching and painting the wall in our favorite neutral, Behr’s Bungalow Beige. You can find it at Home Depot as part of their Home Decorator’s collection. We’re planning on remodeling the kitchen hopefully this year (hopefully…) so I didn’t paint the rest of the kitchen yet, which means it looks sort of wonky, but this end of the kitchen is lovely now! 😉 Over the last six months or so I’ve been collecting pieces for this wall. I didn’t want to buy a “set”. I wanted to break out of the mold I’m usually in and…
Six Sisters Stuff – Slow Cooker French Dip Sandwiches – A Review
Y’all, I’m going to cut right to the chase on this one. These were Adam’s words exactly, “We should really do this more often.” This is from a man who LOVES his Steak’ems. Huge endorsement from him. For reals. While I like the flavor of his beloved Steak’ems, they probably aren’t the healthiest thing to be shoving down our gullet, which is why I love this recipe from Six Sisters. They couldn’t be easier to make (um slow cooker anyone?) and you can literally pair them with anything! We’ve done chips, potato salad (his mom’s recipe – I’ll share that on the blog soon), regular green salad or a steamed veggie. So easy! And best of all, it’s all real, identifiable ingredients! No weird processed, flattened meat something. You can find their recipe here: 8 Slow Cooker Freezer Meals: Make 8 Meals in One Hour! Since it’s just the two of us around here,…
Taming ticket stubs with Project Life
In the last couple of weeks, I’ve been going through and cleaning out my craft room (again). In the process, I’m finding a lot of memorabilia in the way of ticket stubs, business cards, etc that I want to eventually include in my Project Life layouts but right now just seem to be sitting around getting shuffled into stacks of papers, projects and, well, mess. One set of tickets even went through the wash. Yeah. I really needed a solution to store them safely without filling another box of stuff. Then it hit me. If I’m going to include it in Project Life then why not just attach them to Project Life cards? Ah but then, how do I know how do I know what kind of cards I’ll get around to using when I do the actual layouts? I turned to my PL stash. I wanted to find the core kits…
Easy Homemade Spanish Rice Recipe
Hey y’all! A quick, but scrumptious post today – I’m sharing with you my go to recipe for homemade Spanish rice. We don’t have taco or fajita night without it! We originally found a similar recipe online, but over time we’ve tweaked it and made small changes to suit our tastes. I hope you’ll enjoy it the next time you have taco night at your house! Ingredients: 2 tbsp oil (I use olive oil, but any oil will do) 1/4 medium onion, diced 1 1/2 cup rice 3 cloves finely chopped garlic 1 can Rotel with liquid (I generally use mild, but any will do. If you have kiddos, I would recommend mild.) 2 1/2 cups chicken broth OK here’s how easy it is: Heat up the oil and saute your diced onion. Once you can smell them cooking, and they’re beginning to become translucent, add the rice and cook…
Easy Fourth of July Mini Garland and FREE Printable!
You guys! I have literally the easiest Fourth of July project for you today! And the best part is that it will be even easier for you since I did the heavy lifting with the printable. I’ll admit that I don’t do a ton of holiday decorating for the Fourth, but I wanted something festive that would compliment my tablescapes for the holiday (sharing those soon) and be fun at the same time. Here’s what you’ll need: baker’s twine in either red/white or blue/white red and blue washi tape a picture frame of your choice (document sized) my free printable (see below) My twine was from the Target One Spot and my washi came from Target (in their office supplies section) and A.C. Moore (the blue stars). I already had these on hand but if you don’t it’s not much of an investment. Cheap and easy? My kind of project. Here’s what you…
My New Elfa Pantry
Y’all, I had planned on writing out a big, long post and get everything just perfect before sharing the before and after of my pantry with you, but I just can’t stand to wait any longer. No, it’s not exactly the way I want it yet, and I haven’t labeled anything but oh my! Check it out. I honestly thought my system was pretty darn good. I loved all of those labeled baskets and the pantry itself was so big and roomy! So much better than the tiny, black hole we had in the apartment. Everything had a place. We could find what we needed. But… Well, the more we used it, the more we knew that we wanted something more custom. Those big wide shelves were OK, but you couldn’t adjust them so tall things like bottles of oil and vinegar which I buy in bulk were kind of a…
Simplified Goals for June
Ya ever just have a week (or two) where you’re so busy with life that things are kind of trucking along and you have no real concept of time? Yeah, that’s what happened to me. The good news is that I have a lot to share with you – fun stuff! Useful stuff! The bad news? I’m behind around here. 😉 Ah it never ends. Oh well. Let’s get back on track. If you recall at the beginning of the year I was giving up resolutions and instead setting easy goals for myself each month. It’s honestly worked quite well, even if I missed posting here about it while I was rebuilding the site. This month, I realized that we needed to look back and see what isn’t completely done. Life happens, ya know? Nothing wrong with taking some time to finish up a few things before setting new goals. So,…
BBQ and Grilling Recipes Round Up
Y’all, I love a good barbecue. For real. It’s a good thing that I have a husband who loves to grill – like love, loves. And he’s really good at it. We’ll definitely be grilling on Monday, and I can almost bet you or someone you love will be grilling too! So why not get some yummy new recipes to try out, if not on Memorial Day, then throughout the summer. Lucky for you I’ve pulled together some amazing recipes from some amazing bloggers around the net that I’m eager to try and I know you will be too. Um, is there anything better than bacon? Yep! Bacon wrapped pork. Oh yeah! So I knew when I saw this Bacon Wrapped Jalapeno Pork Loin from Miss Information it had to go on our “to make” list. Sometimes, I want the barbecue flavor without having to heat up the grill and these Buffalo Wild…