Freshening Up

I am in love with this black and white ribbon! I love tying the bottom of my urns with a cute bow.
This angel vine is my favorite, I put it in my favorite urn and sat it on our dining room table.
I love my jars, I change them out frequently, this is my nest theme, cute eggs and moss, I love moss!
This jar is pretty large and one of my favorite $15.00 finds, this one is large enough to house a birdie and her little nest.
I love this tiny topiary, for $5.00 I thought it would make enough of a statement if I put in in this urn and placed it on our mantel.
I love our fresh white mattlesse bedding that we got for Christmas. My sister gave me this canopy to use years ago and I just now put it over our bed, so pretty and romantic!

Our bedside table even got a makeover, with my China doll plant and an old silver bowl that I found for $3.00 to hold our honeymoon sea shells.

I love this time of year, I get really geeked up about opening windows and playing outside, I call it coming out of hibernation. I try to freshen up the inside of our house as well, I love cleaning out closets, especially our front hall closet. I remove heavy winter coats and store them in the basement, I replace them with lighter jackets. I hide hats and mittens in the bottom compartment of my hall tree, hoping that I don't have to pull them out until Novemeber! I have a shoe organizer hanging on the inside of the door and I trade out dark winter shoes for our filp flops and sandals. I also keep a few umbrellas in here as well just in case we are running out the door and it is pouring outside! My favorite Vera Bradley bags are kept in here as well, I am always on the go in the spring and summer and having a back to pack close by saves me from running upstairs to find a bag. I keep a bag ready for the baseball games as well, certain toys, markers, coloring books, snacks, bottled water, camera, etc. in this closet so I can just grab it as we run out the door. I feel so much better when I am prepared.

I also love to freshen up the inside of the house, we spend so much time outside, and I try to bring bits of spring inside as well. I love to have fresh plants, although I get neglectful, I like to find plants that are inexpensive so in case I have a fatality, I am not out lots of money! Here are some pictures of some very inexpensive ways that I have freshened up the house. Many times I am just moving things from one room to another or taking a shopping trip to my basement and giving new life to an old favorite. I have a sickness about constantly moving things around until I love it. My house is constantly changing, same stuff, just different place.

Milk Glass

I am lucky enough to have a collection of my Grandmother's milk glass. I love the simple elegance of it. She used it for all special occasions. I will pick up a piece here and there if I find a pretty one at a garage sale or while I am thrifting. They are actually pretty inexpensive.. My favorite piece is one that she gave me years ago, a cake stand with beautiful ruffled edges. I love to display it in my vintage cupboard.

Old Cookbooks And Recipes

Both of my grandmothers cookbooks side by side
This is the German Cookbook from Mark's family
A few new cookbooks that I have added to my collection just for desserts!
I have these sitting on my kitchen counter, new and old!
This was my grandmothers secret recipe stash. This is my secret recipe stash from my friends and family, I treasure all of them!

I love to collect old cookbooks from my family. I have been luck enough to receive the same Better Home and Gardens cook book from both of my Grandmothers, one from each side, I treasure them both. They were both very loved! I also have cookbooks that my family members have purchased for me from their local hometowns where they grew up. I even have a very well used cookbook from Mark's family and it is all in German, boy if I thought I was a bad cook now, just try cooking with German directions! I also treasure recipes that I gather from my family and friends written in their own handwriting. When we got married my mom wrote me out all of our favorite recipes and gave them to me with little hints that a new bride needs to know. If I am somewhere and the particular dish is really good, I will always ask for a copy, then I know it is something that I love and I think of that person every time I make it for my family. I am not one to look through a cookbook and try new things, I love having a tried and true recipes that I know we will like. I am trying to break out of that mold a little bit now that I have to watch what I eat a bit more closely. Do you have a treasured recipe? I would love to try it!

R.I.P. My Dear Sweet Autum Clematis

Myah loved watching the birdies that had built their nests in our clematis
We live on a very windy street, we are kind of out in the country and our subdivision is built on an old pig farm, nice huh? So there is lots of open space out here. A great place to fly a kite but not so friendly to anything that I keep outdoors. We have had our glass patio table shatter into a million pieces, our front storm door blew open, was ripped off its hinges and shattered into a million pieces as well. I now have a "living room" type patio set with ceramic tiles on the top, a fixed up screen door that you have to slam every time you enter my house because I am too cheap to replace it just to be broken again. Yes, the wind can wreck havoc on anything we keep outside but this past winter the wind claimed my favorite sweet autumn clematis. This is the only clematis plant that has actually survived my gardening skills and it was so beautiful, pretty white lacy flowers that bloomed around the time that school starts in the fall. I loved it because it was on the trellis that I had dug up from my grandparents home before it was sold. A huge windstorm broke it right at the base. I was sick when we had to carry it down to the fire pit in the back 40. The other day I was cleaning up my flower bed and I saw little green shoots coming up from the ground where it once stood so I am hoping that maybe it will take off once again.

My new favorite chewing gum!

I love this gum! I usually chew Orbit but have jumped over to the Ice Breakers Ice Cube in the Raspberry Sorbet flavor! I am always chewing gum and I love the way this cracks and pops while I chew it! No, I do not do that in public but in my car I sure do! I love to blow bubbles too!

Add these to your Library!

Quite a few years ago I was watching a program and this woman was on there promoting her new little book. She was so perky, beautiful, well spoken and most of all passionate about praying for her children. I quickly ordered her book and it has been one of my favorites ever since. It is called Praying the Scriptures for Your Children and it is by Jodie Berndt. Now that Myah is in our family, I find myself using all the parts of the book, especially about siblings. She gives particular scriptures that relate to raising children and the situations that they encounter in their lives. It is a small devotional book that provides me with prayers and scriptures to support the prayers. I love this book. I was so excited to learn that she has a book out for teenagers as well. Being that in less than a month a teenager will live under our roof, I think I need to order this one for my collection as well. Perfect timing! I found the book on Amazon but I am sure you can find it other places as well. You need this one if you have children!

Back to our regularly scheduled program

I am so excited that The Office is brand new tonight! I am so glad that the writers strike is over!

An Apple A Day will keep the Dr away!

I finally did it, I went to my doctor today. I have been struggling with getting nauseous after eating dinner and I am miserable the rest of the night. Not easy to take care of the kiddos when you are sick and hubby works midnights. Dayton has been a huge helper lately. The last few weeks it has been getting more and more frequent and I have had it with taking Pepto. So this morning I called and got into my doctor. First of all she asked if I was pregnant, I laughed as usual but she really was hoping that is what it was. Of course it was negative but we had a good giggle about it. She seems to think it is acid reflux. So I am starting some meds tomorrow that will hopefully help me. Please God make this work for me! Dayton has baseball practice every night, it would not be fun. She also ran tons of bloodwork to help diagnose my hormonal issues. She thinks alot of it could be due to my thyroid, I am hoping that is the case and she can just up my daily dose. She did mention the menopause word, we'll see. I do not like to take any medications so this will be different for me to get used to needing drugs in my system but I know it is what I have to do to feel good. I have too much life to live right now to be bogged down with health issues. She also said my bloodpressure was borderline high. Now there is a big surprise. I could have told her that! And the best news of all was that she is sending me to the spine clinic for my back. I told her that I would love to work out and when I try I always end up laid up for a week after I pull my back out. I broke my tailbone when I was 11 and growing, this screwed me up bad. I pointed this out to my doctor today and she said that she could tell by looking at me that I was crooked. Yes, my legs, hips, shoulders, are crooked, due to my back. I cope with chronic back pain daily, hourly and every single minute. I am prayinig that this spine clinic will be just what I need. So until I get my bloodwork back I will not have any answers. Hopefully soon I will know what is making me miserable. I have given up caffeine and I am doing pretty good now. I also have to figure out what foods are making me ill, I think I have it narrowed down to greasy and tomato-y foods. I love things with tomatoes so this is going to be tough for me. As long as I don't have to give up chocolate, I will be happy! I will keep you posted!