National Friendship Day - Sunday

Anyone else missing their friends, the gatherings, the hanging out, the in person conversations?  Well Sunday can be your day!  This Sunday is



Photo credit: holidayscalendar.com

Maybe through some virtual platform or email or text you can take the opportunity this weekend to reconnect or at least check in on each other.

We may not be able to visit in each other's homes or even share a meal at a restaurant BUT we are going to have to find new, innovative ways to keep those connections.

It has been really fun to watch my daughter and her friends actually write letters to each other this summer......way to go girls!

Maybe this celebration of National Friendship Day will be just the prompt we need to send some love to special folks in our lives.

Please allow me to be the first to say to all of you

HAPPY FRIENDSHIP DAY!!!!!

Thanks for staying connected with me here.

Have a wonderful weekend.

If Walls Could Talk.....

We've all heard the expression....if walls could talk....well maybe they do.  I have said before I am a huge word person which, of course, is why I enjoy a good book and detest a bad one.  I also really like word art because it is good way to put out a positive message.

So what are your walls saying about you?  Lots of my walls are saying....zzzzzzzzzz (totally boring).  But a few walls are speaking exactly like I want them to.

Here is a canvas I had made for our bedroom

It is kind of the hinge-pin of marriage, right and we thought it would always be a good reminder to us.

I used this company Great Big Canvas. You can create a canvas in the size and color you want with any wording you want.  So if you have a favorite scripture or quote it is a good way to get that done for your walls.

This is what we call our memory wall.

It is in our breakfast area.  It also has a scripture canvas.  We decided on this scripture as a family and had it made.  We also have several momentos from different trips - a photo from Hawaii, a cross from Italy, a wooden G from Magnolia in Waco, a starfish from Nantucket.  I also have a painted pictures of a couple of cows in honor of my dad.  He always raised cows as I was growing up and I spent a many a day in the pasture with him.  It always gives me a smile when I see those cows.  The tree is for my mom because she loves trees and can always spot an unusual one or pretty one.  I have to say I don't notice enough, but I am always amazed when she says look at that tree and sure enough it is a beautiful creation that I almost missed.  And my resident artist painted the simple grace we all grew up saying on a canvas for me. This has been a fun wall to add to.

I shared with you guys here about the inspirational wall we did in the hall bathroom

And I found this sign at Sugarboo and Co. and it is what we see as we exit our house every day.

It may be hard to read in the picture, but it says "Your day will go the way the corners of your mouth turn". I thought it was perfect to read going in and out of our house.

See you back on Friday!

Wrapped and Ready

Well July 25th was quite successful.  We started the day with a little Christmas breakfast

Ham and cheese quiche and some blueberry muffins from Publix.  I prepped everything for the quiche the night before and got up about an hour before everyone and popped them in the oven.

Then I got all the fixins in the slowcooker for our traditional chili.  Fortunately, our baker was on duty and she made about 6 sour dough loaves to contribute to the day.

We pulled out all the tables, the supplies and got busy

QVC was kind enough to be selling Christmas stuff all day so we tuned in......and only ordered a few things.

By five o'clock we had wrapped about 200 presents

This year was a little different.  I always do 12 days of Christmas for my daughter and her college roommates.  Usually it is a fun little treat for them all because they are leading up to finals and who doesn't need a present to open every day leading up to finals.  But the college has decided finals will be over when they come home for Thanksgiving.  There are 4 girls so I normally wrap 4 of the same items in one box, but this year I wrapped each girl's items individually.  They will each take all 12 of their presents home with them and they can zoom or Facetime to open them.   Anyone else already planning on virtual Christmas celebrations.......yeah, we are hoping not but planning just in case.

I always get a lot of questions about storage of all these wrapped presents.  Here's how we make that a success

1) tiny packages all go in a storage bin with a lid for easy storage

2) Use quality boxes.  Good quality boxes will stack nicely and not cave in or smush

3) Carefully stack the packages from heaviest to lightest

4) Stack in a Jenga fashion.  You all know the Jenga game, right? 

Well that is exactly how I stack the boxes.  One layer going one direction, the next layer turned in the opposite direction. 

5) I have one closet in my house that is truly the gift closet.  All my gift wrap supplies are here.  I have talked about my Elfa organizing system before.

All the gifts I buy through the year are stored here as they wait to be wrapped.  Once wrapped they go right back into the same closet.

When it is time to put up the trees, we will pull out the presents, put on ribbons and embellishments and we are ready to go!

Thanks to you all for sending me sweet Merry Christmas messages on Saturday and all the nice comments.  Nothing makes Christmas better than enjoying it with friends!!!

Wishing you a great week!

Getting Ready

Short and sweet today, girls, because tomorrow is a big day.....

And you know what that means.....

We will be watching Christmas movies

We will be wearing fuzzy PJs

We will be eating chili

We will be WRAPPING CHRISTMAS GIFTS!!!!

That's right, we will be dragging out all the bins and we will be surprised by some of the things we find that we don't even remember buying.  I got a new shipment of boxes. We are fully stocked in tissue paper and tape.

And all this quarantine time has given me more online shopping hours.  I am probably 95% done with all my shopping this year.

It is going to be great!!!

I'll give you a full report next week.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend too.

My Latest Netflix

I am a bit of a multitasker.  I am watching or listening to something while cooking, cleaning the kitchen, folding laundry, writing blog posts......So I have spent quite a bit of time with Netflix.  It is challenging though because I do hate bad entertainment.  And then if I start watching something bad it still shows up in my "continue watching" section. I can't tell you how much that annoys me.  So if anyone knows how to fix that, please let me know.

But here are some shows I started and actually liked
First up



This is an absolutely beautiful story.  Of course, it is based on a true story which makes it even more intense.  We watched this as a family and it was so good.  It is a movie so you don't have to get invested in multiple episodes.  Highly, highly recommend this one.

Next up



The Stranger.  Now this one is suspenseful and does involve several episodes.  The writers of this should be crowned the king and queens of cliff hangers.  At the end of every episode I wanted to immediately watch the next one.  I was literally guessing all the way through.  I watched this one solo.  There is nothing too graphic in it but it is slightly dark and does have some violence in it, but no more than a Law or Order show.  I enjoyed this series.

On a much lighter note



This is an Australian Show about four ladies who are either divorced or widowed and looking for new love.  I watched this one solo too.  But it turns out that it was not very grabby, overly physical.  I cannot watch most dating shows.  Two thumbs up to Australia for having a reasonable about of decorum in producing a dating show.  I was invested in these ladies and cheered for some of them and cringed at one of them.  I was definitely interested right through to the last episode.....and a little surprised by the conclusion which is also good.

This next one may be my favorite



These are all couples that have some interesting history together.  They are thrown a surprise wedding by these three


That's Jeremiah Brent who takes care of the venue and decor, Thai Nguyen who takes care of the attire and Chef Gabriele Bertaccini who takes care of the food.  The stories are so personal and they make the ceremonies very specialized to the couple.  Fair warning, if you are a crier you might want to get some kleenex ready with your popcorn.  These are such touching stories.  We are only up to episode 5 in this one but I don't mind it being in my "continue to watch" section.....because I actually plan to finish it.
I do love a sweet love story.

Send me suggestions.....I need them.

Recent Amazon Buys

Amazon and I have always had a good relationship, but we may be corresponding with each other even more lately.  Today I thought I would share with you a few of the standouts I have ordered, tried and fallen in love with

We burn a lot of candles around here and we are always hunting for one of those disposable lighters that will actually work.  So we ordered this

RONXS Lighter

It is a USB rechargeable lighter.  No more clicking to no avail. It plugs right in and charges right up.  We have really enjoyed having it.  It does not produce a flame.  It produces more of a spark but that spark lights everything just like a flame.  It also has a safety switch.  This has been one of our best buys lately.

I also needed some spray bottles.  We have been trying to cut down on all the bottles of stuff we recycle.  Honestly, our recycle pickup used to be every week and now it is once a month.  We are big recyclers, but we fill that bin up quickly.  So I grabbed these

Glass Spray Bottles

These were packaged super nicely and are very good quality.  The first thing I mixed was some Young Living Thieves Essential Oil cleanser.  We kept one bottle on the main floor and put the other on the second floor.  The counter tops in this house have never been so happy.

I showed you these the other day

Spice Jars

If you missed the post with all those details, just click here.  I just ordered my second set to finish out all my spices.  I have been grabbing these and cooking with them and they are performing wonderfully.

The last thing for today is these

E-Cloths

We have found these to be quite good in cleaning mirrors and glass.

Now as you can imagine we've had several other boxes delivered and I am in the process of giving them all a go right now.  If any other products rise to the top, I will be sure to report back here.

I have been bonding like crazy with Netflix too.  On Wednesday I will share what good things I have found there.

Have a wonderful week!

"Indoor Camping"

You all know I am not an outdoor kind of girl, but I do like a good s'more.  I ordered this little guy

Flikr Fireplace

It is a little personalized fireplace.  It is Cement, sits on a quartz base and the fuel is isopropyl alcohol. The best part is it generates a food safe flame so you can make smores on the kitchen table

We lit it up and gave it a try.

And the results were just lovely

It is really a fun little thing.  Of course, you can use it outside as well.....you know if you are in to that kind of thing.

Have a great weekend.  See you back on Monday.

Cookbooks and Recipes to Try

I have mentioned before that I read a cookbook like a novel.  I enjoy sifting through the pages and deciding new ones to try.  This is the new Joanna Gaines cookbook that my girls gifted me for Mother's Day

Magnolia Table, Volume 2

We have loved making so many things from the first cookbook.  This second volume is just as good.

We cooked up this pasta dish

It was supposed to have some fancy pasta, but that was not on the pandemic grocery shelves, so we just used good old fashioned spaghetti.  To say this was delicious would be an absolute understatement.  My goodness was it good.  A great sauce, pancetta and peas......so good.

The newest Pioneer Woman Cookbook is also a great one

The New Fontier

There are so many good recipes in the book and so many pictures.  She did a picture of just about every step not just the finished product.  We made this for breakfast

It is her Tater Tot Breakfast Casserole.....there's frozen tater tots, sausage, cheese and all kinds of other goodness.  The good news is you can assemble it the night before.  I put it in the oven while we watched virtual church and it was hot and ready for our post service brunch.  I will definitely be making this one again.

This last cookbook, I think I have shown you before.....but I absolutely love it

A Place at the Table

Even if  you don't cook you would enjoy this book.  It has wonderful stories all throughout.  If you do cook, you'll be glad because it has some really good recipes too.  We made this

It is a Mexican dip that you serve with tortilla chips.  The base of this is cream cheese.....enough said....what can wrong when you start with cream cheese? Add in some green chiles, ground beef and other great deliciousness and you have a real winner.

Love all three of these books and the dishes we are cooking up from them.

If you are cooking more these days, give one of these or all of these books a try.

Kitchen Product

I have all kinds of little fix-up projects going on.  I have spent the last 17 weeks bonding hard with my house.  And I figured out there were a few things I could do, relatively inexpensively, to make things a little nicer.

I have these built in spice cabinets. They are nice.  They are convenient and I do own quite a few spices.  Here's a look at the cabinet in its before state

Here's the thing.....I shop on sale.  So sometimes the round jars are on sale.  Sometimes the rectangular tins are on sale.  The end result is all manners of different shapes and sizes of spice containers which makes pulling them in and out a bit like working a jigsaw puzzle.

So I ordered these from Amazon

Aozita Glass Jars

There are 24  jars with the accompanying labels.  I wanted to give them a spin first before I ordered multiple sets. I washed all the jars and lids and left them to dry for a day on the counter and then I went to work filling them.

Here's all the jars filled and ready

They come with a nice little black round label for the lids and a clear label for the side of the jar.

Here they are all tucked back into the cabinet.

Literally I have so much room now.  The uniform jars make all the difference.

Plus now that all the jars are clear, I can actually see how much of each I have left.

Apparently, I need more Thyme.....ha! ha! yes, I could always use more thyme. :)

If you have ever thought about redoing your spices.....go for it.  It felt so good to get all of this done.  I may order one more set because I do have a basket in the pantry with 'extra' spices.  I might actually be able to eliminate the need for that.

Happy organizing, friends!

Refreshing Sorbet

I finally had time to sit down and read this month's


The cover was covered in cherries.  We like cherries around my house.  They had a recipe for a cherry sorbet.  It sounded simple

Frozen cherries and a simple syrup

On my last grocery run I picked up a couple of bags of frozen tart cherries.  It was as easy as making a simple syrup and mixing it up with the frozen cherries in the blender

Once blended we put the mixture into a glass casserole dish and put it in the freezer overnight.  It was really light and rich and delicious.  The next day we used a ice cream scoop and dished out individual servings.

A great finish to a hot day!

Hope you are staying cool and enjoying some great summer desserts too!

Have a wonderful weekend.

The July Gift Guide

Hey, do you need a gift this month?  Or maybe you are getting ahead on that Christmas shopping.  Listen, if this quarantine has taught us nothing else, it surely has shown us to not leave things to the last minute.  I have been so thankful that I purchased, addressed and stamped all my birthday cards for the year back in January.  It has been wonderful to pull out the cards and pop them in my curbside mailbox.  And, yes, we are gearing up for our annual Christmas gift wrapping on July 25th.  We have no idea if we will be mobile or not come December (praying we will) regardless, we will be ready.

I am little proud of my minor hoarding.  I have been able to celebrate 3 family birthdays, Easter, Mother's Day and Father's Day primarily with stuff I had in this house.  My little great nephew is taking some online camps and I've been able to pull out glue, popsicle sticks, paint and all manner of things around here.....no need to go to the store.....I have it in a bin.

Anyway, back to gift ideas.  Many of you have mentioned wanting to diversify your retail endeavors, shop locally owned, small businesses and give some other folks some financial love.  So this month's gift ideas is full of minority, locally owned options for you......let's get started.

For the Beauty Lover on your lists check out Mented.  I tried this lipstick

Matte Pretty in Pink

and this lip gloss

Mauve Over Lip Gloss

Their products are not just for women of color, but for all women. They have a really nice feature on the website called the Shade Finder.

Now if you need a gift for a Guy on your list check out Hot Sauce Shero

Summer 5-Pack

This set allows the experience of all five flavors.  Individual bottles are also available if he doesn't need a whole hot sauce assortment. But don't most people need a hot sauce assortment?

I think your Gal Pal (or you) would like these

Macaron Variety Pack

Aren't these the prettiest little macarons you ever did see?  They are from Tier Couture Bakery in Georgia.  She has such fun varieties including wine infused macarons and even carrot cake macarons.  This would be such a fun gift for someone.

If you need a Home gift for a family or housewarming check out Stewart Town Coffee.  

Coffee

They sell all kinds of coffee in whole beans, ground and K-cups.  Brighten up some family's morning with some of this delicious coffee.

And lastly a little something for the Kids on your list 

Sulwe

Every Little Thing

I am Magnificent

Hope you find some things you love.

See you back on Friday!

June Book Review

Welcome to this month's book review.  I have four books to share with you this month. I liked them all but I really loved a couple.  Here we go....

First up,



The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult. I like Jodi Picoult books.  I like this book.  But literally when I finished it, I went back and read the description to see if I had missed what this book was really about.  Um, no.  The description is very vague and, dare I say, slightly misleading.  Again, the book is good, but I wasn't mentally prepared for the subject matter.  So let me warn you. It is about the holocaust....and not just a mention of it, or a survivor's tale.  It is very detailed, very in depth, very descriptive.  I have read lots of stories around this subject matter and it is important to understand and important these stories be told.  All I am saying is I just wasn't quite aware or ready when the story took this turn.  So it is a good story, well written but I would not recommend as a beach read.

Next up



Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center. I really enjoyed this book.  It revolves around a female fire fighter who is battling some things from her past.  She faces a job transfer and has to prove herself in an all male station that does not welcome women.  Of course, all manners of things go on around the story.....family dynamics, love interests, personal challenges.  It is wonderfully, well written.  I totally bonded with the main character and cheered her on through the whole book.  Every now and then I need just a good basic story with sane people....and this was it.

Then I read



Dear Carolina by Kristy Woodson Harvey.
This is a sweet story of a baby who is adopted and all the people in her life who love her.  It is not life changing and won't stick with me for weeks.  It was just enjoyable and entertaining....and that is quite okay.  The end wraps up nicely and that is always a good thing.

I ended with a suspenseful book





Woman on the Edge by Samantha M. Bailey.  An unsuspecting woman is handed a baby on the subway platform and then the mom jumps to her death.  The rest of the book gets us up to speed on how and why all the players got to the fateful day.  I always like to warn people of potential triggers so you can decide if this is a book for you.  This book has postpartum depression and suicide.  It is a well developed story that kept me interested.  I have to say about two zillion times I found myself saying to the characters, "why would you do that?"...but they were not listening to me.  This is not a book about wise decision making, but kept engaged.

Well that's what I read. Be sure and give me any recommendations you have.

Have a wonderful week!

July - Worship Focus

Welcome to July and our opportunity to Focus on a fresh perspective of Worship.

Here is our inspiration verse for the month of July

Printable click here

I was trying recently to help someone who was mentally in a bad place understand how much God loves them.  It can be difficult.  Not because He has not shown us over and over again.  Not because His mercies, grace, kindness, provision, generosity, protection, forgiveness and so much more are not enough.  No, it really came down to feeling unworthy. And this person just kept saying but I don't deserve any of those things....I don't deserve this love.  I had to agree with them, none of us deserves that kind of love.  But the mere fact that we know, we realize, we accept that we don't deserve it is the perfect opportunity, time and place to open our hearts and accept it.

I hope no matter where you are and what you are going through that you feel loved by God today.

I hope that you will speak words to glorify Him today.

I hope that this month will be filled with opportunity after opportunity to lift your hands in praise.

Here's to July......a month of hand raising, praise speaking, love accepting!!!

If you have 4 minutes and 56 seconds enjoy Love on the Line by Hillsong Music

Also, I have a Worship bracelet for one of you subscribers......this month the winner is 

vwam.....@gmail.com

I will message you and get your bracelet to you.

Have a wonderful month of worship!