Fishing with Dad
I’ve been having more than my fair share of those moments lately. The moments that take your breath away. The moments you want to savor and memorize so you can replay them later in your mind. I think I’m more in-tune with these moments because I feel a season is ending for our family. In August both of my kids will be in school all day. They aren’t babies any longer and it’s time to move on to the next phase of life. I can’t freeze the clock, so I figure I have two choices. I can either go kicking and screaming into the next phase or I can relish the present…
Tie-Dye Cleaning Rags
Earlier this week I declared a “stay at home fun day.” This is mom-speak for “we need to stay at home and do some laundry or we will be starting a nudist colony soon.” However, my kids took my declaration literally. They expected us to have fun and for me to provide the entertainment. Luckily, my daughter had received a tie-dye kit for her birthday. I had been procrastinating saving it for such a day as this. The tie-dye kit included a tote bag to tie-dye. My daughter then asked me what a tote bag was. We were off to a great start. Thankfully, the kit also included plenty of…
Fresh Triple Berry Pie
We went berry picking last weekend. It was 90 degrees at 10 a.m. and we were probably a week too early, but we did come away with a nice haul of blueberries and blackberries. We just had to work a little harder to find the ripe ones! I froze most of the berries, but couldn’t resist enjoying a few of them right away. Since it has been so hot here in Georgia (they don’t call it Hot-lanta for nothing), a fresh fruit pie sounded way more refreshing than a baked fruit pie. So, that’s what I did. Now, my definition of a fresh fruit pie is one that uses a baked pie…
Dreaming of a Lake House
I’ve said for a long time that my “forever” house is somewhere on a lake. I envision a place with a big deck and a screened-in porch. A place where wet feet are always welcome and towels hang on the deck railing. A place where my grandchildren will come and visit during the summer. I can picture them laughing while they jump off the dock and go for a swim. Maybe after dinner they’ll get out the fishing poles and catch a huge fish. We had one of those days today. You know the ones? A day where you just want to freeze time for a moment because it is so…
Flour Sifter Hack
Warning: This post contains bad lyrics, cheesy rhyming and unnecessary descriptive details. You may want to avert your eyes. I totally understand. When my husband and I got married, we received many wonderful wedding gifts from our friends and family. Since we were really young when we got married, those gifts were definitely helpful in setting up our house. One of the items we received was a flour sifter. I’m pretty sure it came bundled with some other baking supplies, but I cannot remember who gave me that gift. I feel bad about that. I also feel bad that I only used the flour sifter a dozen times. Okay, it was more…
Pane Bianco with Basil, Sausage & Sun-Dried Tomatoes
An alternate title for this post could be everything sounds better in Italian. Pane Bianco. If you want to hear it pronounced, click here. What is pane bianco? Well, in English it means white bread. See? I told you it sounds better in Italian! In this case, it is fancy-schmancy looking white bread filled with deliciousness. I stumbled upon the website Never Enough Thyme…When Lana’s Cooking the other day and could not get her recipe for Pane Bianco out of my head. I mean, look at it! It’s gorgeous! Here is my dough all rolled out and sprinkled with fresh basil, sun-dried tomatoes, sausage, garlic and an Italian cheese blend.…
An Unsponsored Blue Apron Review
I read a fair number of home and lifestyle blogs and lately you don’t have to try hard to stumble across a Blue Apron sponsored post. What’s Blue Apron? Blue Apron is a meal ingredient delivery service. They deliver pre-measured ingredients, along with the instructions on how to cook an entire meal consisting of a main dish and side. From what I can tell, they have a 2-person program and meals for a “family,” which is about 4 people. I have a friend who uses Blue Apron and she received a free meal trial to “gift” to a friend. Peer-to-peer marketing at its best! She gifted it to me. So, Blue Apron…
Kindergarten Sight Word Flash Cards – Free Printable
I’m a mean mom. I make my kids do reading, writing and arithmetic during their summer break. My son just finished up Pre-K and earlier this year I noticed he was starting to put sounds together and showing interest in learning how to read. So, we dipped our foot in that water and lo and behold, the little stinker knew more than he was letting on! He’s started reading the Bob Books, but I asked his Pre-K teacher about what sight words he would need to know or would learn next year in kindergarten. For some reason, I imagined she would give me a handy deck of flash cards to…
Repairing Nicks and Scratches in Linoleum or Vinyl Flooring
If you were to play that game “which of these things don’t belong,” well, the flooring in our kitchen would definitely win the prize. It does not fit in with the gorgeous wood floors throughout the rest of the house. It is a big sheet of chipped, scratched, dinged and maybe-burned linoleum. I really have no idea what could have caused so much damage to one section of flooring. While this was not the overall ugliest linoleum I had ever lived with, it was certainly the most damaged. I couldn’t wait to tear it out. But then I couldn’t decide what to replace it with. So, I sat there staring at…
