home is where my story begins...

Herbs in the Garden

May 9, 2018 By Becca Leave a Comment

For the past 20 years I’ve been experimenting in the garden. I’ve learned, the hard way, that veggies need lots of sun. Unfortunately, the gardens I’ve had at my last two houses, have not had very much sun. This year, I promised myself that I’d grow the things I know do well in my yard. My garden is filled with herbs and I have lots of different potted herbs around my yard and on my deck.

I know that lavender spreads, so I usually buy a pretty plant at the nursery and keep it in a pot. The plant in the front is a yellow variety of lavender. I can’t wait to see what it looks like. I’m hoping this one grows quickly and I will need to move it to a bigger pot.

I have two different varieties of oregano this year. I planted a traditional oregano and a golden variety last year. These plants have been extremely happy in my garden. I think I have enough oregano to share with the whole neighborhood.

Parsley grows very well in my garden too. I use parsley, in my cooking, when I feel like something needs a little color. My bunny is a huge fan of parsley too, so she gets a handful once in a while too.

I’m just starting to use chives in my cooking. I had always pictured chives on baked potatoes, but I’m starting to come around to using these oniony flavored stems in other dishes as well.

Lemon Balm is my newest herb. I bought 4 small plants last year and they didn’t even grow as tall as the top of the planter. Once the warm weather hit this year, these guys took off. Lemon Balm is a relative of mint, so I planted them in their own container to reduce unwanted spreading. I can’t wait to try this in salads and teas.

Last year’s Rosemary plant is still going strong!

Just because I love it, I planted another container with Oregano. I really will be able to feed the whole neighborhood.

All of these herbs are leftovers from last year, so I didn’t even need to spend any money in my garden. I have lots more to show you in another blog post. So many herbs, so little thyme. Sorry. It had to be done.

Happy planting!

Garden Planning

April 11, 2018 By Becca 1 Comment

Ok, friends, it’s time to turn my attention away from the things I can’t do and toward the things I can do. Yesterday I may have had a few teensy tiny moments of feeling sorry for myself. I’m dying to get things done and I’ve been told by my doctor, “If a piece of paper falls on the ground, you’re not allowed to pick it up.” I tried to spend a bit of time on the computer and ended up needed to take anti-nausea medication. (For those of you who don’t know, I’m recovering from a stroke and I’m trying to follow doctor’s orders for.) Knowing that, please excuse any grammar or spelling errors. I won’t be able to go back and re-read before pushing publish. I’ve found that about 45 minutes on the computer is my max. This is awesome therapy for me though. It gets my left hand working and makes my brain work a bit. By the way, a post-stroke brain constantly tries to spell knowing as noing, and computer as cumputer. Multi-syllable words? Don’t even go there. It WILL get better though, right?

So, here I sit, on a rainy Wednesday afternoon. I wouldn’t really go out in this weather anyway, so I might as well do a little indoor garden prep. My friend, Diane, said she’d take me to Flower World on Friday. OMG, I’m getting out of the house and I get to have my doctor-allowed afternoon stroll t Flower World. Poor Diane will have to pull my cart and lift my plants, but she’s a friend who doesn’t mind getting dirty. Heck, we pulled a tree out of her front yard one day, on a whim, and she was wearing a skirt! Ok, back to the garden. We have a big “roundy-round”, as I call it, in our back yard. The right side is mainly perennial flowers. It gets quite a bit of shade from the big maple trees.

The left side of the roundy-round is used for my herbs and veggies. I divided it into 4 quadrants and this is my herb and lettuce quadrant. Sadly, this area has seen less and less sunlight over the years, as my neighbor’s tree has grown taller and added more shade to my yard.

This year, I’ve decided to focus my gardening efforts, in this area, mainly on things we really and truly eat and that I know grow well here. Every single year I try to plant corn and every single year my cousin, who is a farmer from Eastern Washington, laughs at me and reminds me that we don’t get enough sun on this side of the state. So, corn is OUT this year. For some reason, pumpkins don’t like my garden either. I plant them and the vines grow but I never get past the flowering stage. I’ve thought about going out in the morning and cross-pollinating the flowers with a small paint brush, but that seems like a bit more work than I’d bargained for. Pumpkins, you’re OUT too! I’ve given potatoes one last chance to prove their worthiness, but it’s now or never with those little guys. That means I’ve freed up an entire quadrant of my garden for more herbs.

We use a lot of parsley and cilantro at our house. I’ll plant about 5 plants of each. In addition, I’ll sprinkle some cilantro seeds so all of the cilantro won’t be ready at the same time.

We do eat a lot of lettuce, so I’ll plant plenty of that. I already found some Romaine starts this year and they are in the ground.

I love basil with all of my heart! I plant as much as I can fit in my garden. This year I’m thinking 5 basil plants in the garden and 5 basil plants in my planter up by the house. I cook with basil all summer long and my kids also love pesto. I think I made 6-8 double batches of pesto last summer. This year I’m going to remember to freeze some so we’ll have it in the winter too. I don’t buy basil starts until May. In the Pacific Northwest, basil will rot in your garden with all of the rain we get. I’ll resist the temptation to buy this when I go to Flower World… ok, maybe just one little plant that I could bring inside!

There are a few plants I put in my garden just because I think they are pretty. Whenever I run across white or yellow lavender plants, I snatch them up. I love the way they look. I usually put these in pots because they spread so fast.

My oregano, sage, mint, and lemon balm come back every year. I use those in cooking, baking, and in tea. I bought a few books about herbs last year and I’ve been trying to use my herbs more frequently in the kitchen.

Here are a few of my favorite herb books:

Happy garden planning!

My Stroke

April 9, 2018 By Becca 3 Comments

I don’t have any pretty pictures to go with this post, except the iphone photo I took of the view from my hospital room.

You read the title of this post correctly. I had a stroke at 44 years old. My stroke wasn’t the typical stroke that our grandparents had. Specifically, I had a Cerebellar stroke with vertebral artery dissection. In the hospital, they told me that this makes up 1% of all strokes. Basically, I won the stroke lottery!

Here’s a little of the backstory first:

***Disclaimer: It’s really hard for me to read, write, and type. I’m hoping this makes sense and I didn’t make too many spelling or grammatical errors! I’m just putting this out there and asking for grace.***

A few years ago, I had back/neck surgery to fix a herniated disc. They inserted a cadaver bone between C5 and C6, in my spine, and fused them all together. It fixed most of my intense neck pain, but I had come to the realization that I would always live with some pain. A few weeks before my stroke, my neck pain really intensified. I waited it out, hoping it would go away, but it just got worse. Luckily, I had an upcoming appointment with my neurologist for Botox injections related to my migraines. In addition, I had about 10 days in a row of headaches before my appointment. I told my neurologist about my 10 days of headaches but we attributed it to the fact that the Botox had worn off. She was also convinced that if we focused a bit more of the injections into my neck and shoulder, the pain in my surgery area would subside. I had about 40 Botox injections in my scalp, neck, and shoulders, and she sent me on my way. That was on a Thursday.

By the following Monday, I couldn’t stand the pain anymore. I made an appointment with the spine specialist I had seen many times before, but they couldn’t get me in until Friday. I also went to the walk-in clinic after work. They read up on my history of back problems and the doctor said, “I know you have a very long history of back problems, so what are you hoping that I can do today to make this better?” I told him that I’d really like him to schedule at MRI so that I could get some answers on my Friday visit. That request was a no-go because he was sure the other doctor would want specific images that he didn’t know to request. I also said that I needed to do something about the pain so I could make it to Friday. They gave me some pain meds and an anti-inflammatory, which worked fairly well and I could make it through the day of teaching before collapsing onto the couch.

This was a SUPER exciting week for me because I was going to a three day workshop in Seattle. This wasn’t any workshop. This is my DREAM workshop about Reggio Emilia inspired early childhood education. To most people, I know this doesn’t sound like an exciting topic, but this is #1 on my list of learning I’d like to do. The conference was Thursday, Friday, and Saturday from 9-5. I paid over $500 out of my own pocket to attend and had to use my “personal days” that our district gives us. Thursday was great and I made a few new friends from Wisconsin to have lunch with. I was going to be a little late to Friday’s conference because of my appointment with the spine doctor, but I planned to be in Seattle before the tours of early childhood centers and the 100 Languages of Children exhibit took place. (Ha! Little did I know!)

Now, here’s the stroke story:

I woke up feeling pretty decent. My back wasn’t throbbing and I didn’t feel like crying because of the pain… that makes it a good day in my book! I got in the shower and turned the heat of the water up a bit to loosen my neck muscles. I had just put some conditioner in my hair (this is an important part of the story) and started tipping my head to the right and left to see where the pain was the worst.

BAM!!! I’m telling you friends, when I say I got a little dizzy, I really mean that it felt like a 10.0 earthquake hit my house and I was spinning in circles. This dizzy spell was not like any other dizzy spell I’d ever had in my life. I leaned up against the wall because I thought I might fall through the glass shower doors. When the wall didn’t even feel like it could hold me up, I sat down on the bench in the shower. At that point, I stared dry heaving (another thing that I’ve never experienced). I still thought I might fall over, so I got down to the floor of the shower. At this point, I was thinking, “No!! There is no way my husband is going to let me go to my conference now!” I was still spinning and dry heaving but I had knocked the shampoo bottles over in my dizziness. I was worried that I actually would throw up, so I started trying to put shampoo bottles back so I wouldn’t throw up on them. (Seriously? Who tries to clean as they are having a stroke?) At that point, I decided that I could use the shampoo bottles to try and get my husband’s attention. He was working downstairs in the office. I started pounding the shampoo bottles on the walls of the shower, but he didn’t hear me. (He says, hindsight, it sounded like I was trying to get my makeup out of a bottle and was banging it on the counter.) Somewhere along the way, I had turned the shower off. I knew I needed to call 911 but I couldn’t even crawl out of the shower. There was no way I could make it to the phone. I kept banging and finally I tried yelling for my husband. I felt like I barely even spoke his name, but apparently it was loud enough for him to hear me.

My husband came upstairs and I was still in a puddle on the floor of the shower. I told him to call 911 because I had a really bad dizzy spell. You know when you have those times when you are thinking, “Should I, or shouldn’t I, go to the doctor? I feel pretty bad, but maybe I’ll be ok.” Well, this wasn’t one of those times. This was big and I could tell. The whole time I was on the floor of that shower, all I could think was that I needed to get to a hospital and make this stop. My husband told me that they were on their way and he helped me crawl out of the shower, onto the bathroom floor, and got some towels for me so I could warm up. This was the point where I yelled, “Oh, my gosh! Get me some clothes!” I had just had a stroke but, I was going to get my bra and underwear on, darn it!! Come on, now, you all know you are with me on this!

I was still flat on the bathroom floor (with bra and underwear on… phew) when the paramedics got there. They knew they didn’t want to move my neck, but I tried really hard to convince them that I could put on yoga pants and a sweatshirt without hurting my neck. After multiple attempts, I decided that this was not going to happen. Then, I realized that I still had conditioner in my hair. Do you know how gross that would be if I didn’t get it out? I was really hoping that they would let me rinse my hair when I said, “Oh, no. I didn’t rinse the conditioner out of my hair.” The nice paramedic got a towel, put water on it, and started trying to get the conditioner out. Not only that, but he also started talking in a French accent and was telling me I was at the spa. I think this was the only point I laughed during the whole ordeal. It lightened up a tense situation. I convinced them that I could walk down the stairs and didn’t need to be carried. They let me put a robe on, and I was on my way to the hospital in the back of an ambulance.

Thank God for medicine, because in the ambulance they gave me morphine for the horrible pain that had started in my head, anti-nausea, and anti-dizzy shots. I’m still not sure how they managed to get an IV going in my arm, while in the back of a moving ambulance. Those guys are amazing. I got to the hospital and they put me in a room in the ER. I knew this place VERY well because my mom had been in and out of that same hospital for the 4 weeks just before. (That’s another VERY long story.) I swear my husband beat the ambulance to the hospital, but I must have fallen asleep, because he told me he didn’t. They gave me something for anxiety and told me that I was going to the MRI waiting area. That area was so great because Winnie the Pooh and Friends appeared on the wall! (You know you’re a kindergarten teacher when you hallucinate storybook characters.) My husband said I was gone for 2 hours. I remember nothing else, but Winnie the Pooh and Friends, and then waking up back in the room with my husband. MRI’s are very loud and tight. You’d think I would remember having an MRI on my head and neck, but nope.

We waited a bit longer and the doctor came back in. He said that when people come in with dizzy spells, they always have to check this one area of the brain. He said that it never comes back showing that someone has had a stroke, but it’s protocol for them to check. He said, surprisingly, my MRI showed I had a stroke. This type of stroke is so uncommon that it makes up only 1% of all strokes. I looked at my husband and said, “We can just chalk this up to the fact that I get really weird stuff.” If you’ve known me for any amount of time, you know that I get anything and everything that comes along when it comes to injury and illness. Sometimes, I wonder if people think I’m a hypochondriac. But, then I go to the doctor and they tell me I have Swine Flu, Strep (again), a gene mutation that makes me sick, a herniated disc, or mold growing in my sinuses causing a massive breathing condition. You name it, I’ll come down with it. It’s how I’ve been for my whole life.

Once I was admitted, the tests started. They needed to figure out why the stroke happened and if I was at risk for this to happen again. They told me that the stroke was in the Cerebellar region of the brain. That’s the back part of the brain, close to your neck, that is in charge of balance, coordination, and movement. They told me that I had earned at least 48 hours in the hospital. I tried watching tv to pass the time between tests, but I couldn’t concentrate that long. I couldn’t focus on magazines either. They came in every 4 hours, night and day, to do mental and physical tests with me. Many of the tests were the same tests they do for people with DUI’s (so they told me… I’ve never been in that situation). They had me touch my nose and then touch their finger. My right side was fine, but my left side was a bit sloppy. I could never actually touch their finger and always missed by about an inch. They had me read out loud, which was really hard for me. The word ‘know’ was always a challenge and the words didn’t make sense to me. They had me do mental math problems which I totally nailed, except for the multi-step problems that they were giving me at 2am. At that point I said, “It’s 2am! Nobody does mental math at 2am!” When the occupational/physical therapist came in, I got to go for a little walk. I was a bit wobbly, but did ok. If I walked and turned to look over my left shoulder, I’d get really dizzy and start to sway. I did ok on stairs. Basically, walking, reading, and moving my head were my issues.

After a few more tests, they saw a vertebral artery dissection. They told me that at some point, an artery in my neck got a tiny tear. That can happen by picking up the garbage to go out, grabbing a heavy purse wrong, lifting a box, a car accident, or any other thing that happens every day and we think nothing about. They think that my neck pain was totally different and not related to my stroke, but when I was rolling my neck around in the shower, the blood clot on that artery came off and caused a stroke. I told the doctor that I had been suffering with 10 days of headaches but he didn’t think it was related. I had fallen and sprained my ankle two weeks before, but he didn’t think that was related either. One really weird thing, they also told me wasn’t related but I don’t believe them, was that I was having a twitching problem for several months. Any time I sat with my eyes closed, I would jerk. It was kind of like that feeling you get when you fall asleep but then you dream that you are falling off a cliff, but mine happened every 10-15 seconds. My husband said it happened all night long too. I had talked to many doctors about it, but they all said it was normal. I’m telling you, this was not normal. It would happen every 15 seconds and start immediately after closing my eyes, even when I wasn’t tired or trying to fall asleep. Well, here’s the weird part. After my stroke, they disappeared.

So, where am I now? When I left the hospital, the neurologist told me that I was not allowed to do ANYTHING for several months. No dishes, no vacuuming, no changing the laundry, no cooking, no gardening, no activities that get my heart rate going, and if a paper fell on the ground I was not allowed to pick it up. I was allowed to do self-care and after a week I could stroll like a grandma, outside, with supervision. There was one teensy tiny problem. We had booked a vacation for Palm Spring and were scheduled to leave exactly one week after my stroke. I explained that this was a relaxing vacation and not a sight seeing vacation. I promised to do nothing but sit by the pool and relax. He gave me the ok, with many rules to follow, and I did get to enjoy a week doing nothing by the pool. Let me tell you, doing nothing in the sun is MUCH better than doing nothing in the Seattle rain. We got home last weekend and I’m doing ok. I need a lot more sleep than usual, I get headaches, and still get dizzy spells. Walking for any length of time is a trigger for headaches and dizziness. My left side is still clumsy, but not nearly as bad. Typing, pushing buttons with my left hand (that’s really hard for me), and playing guitar are my prescription for therapy. Reading is still hard. Sometimes I forget my words as I’m talking or the wrong words come out of my mouth. I can watch a full tv show at home but I can’t go to a movie. I tried that in Palm Springs and I spiraled downhill pretty fast afterward. They told me I will never be able to go to a chiropractor and will never be able to put my head in the shampoo bowl at the hair salon. I will be taking aspirin for life. I am wearing a soft neck collar, right now, to remind me not to move my neck in any direction. The artery needs to heal and any movement can cause progress to go backward or even another stroke. My personal neurologist was much nicer than my hospital neurologist. My neurologist told me that I needed a full month of doing absolutely nothing and then we could revisit my orders. The other guy had told me “several” months. I’ll be out of work for two more weeks, but if I’m being honest, I think they’ll probably tell me I need to stay out a bit longer because of the headaches and dizzy spells. Who knows, maybe I’ll be as good as new in two weeks and ready for a class full of kindergartners! I’ve been pretty amazed by my progress so far. The brain and its ability to heal is fascinating.

When things like this happen, you are really reminded how much people care. I got cards, flowers, and well-wishes from people I hadn’t seen in years as well as close friends and family. Facebook was flooded with prayers and people just reaching out to say they were thinking of me. I can’t say it was worth having a stroke for, but I really do appreciate people reaching out. I’m on the mend, and that feels like a really good thing! My husband and kids are picking up all of the slack while I’m on do-nothing-orders. I know it probably drives them all crazy, but I love them for it.

Thanks for reading! I’ll be here doing nothing but thinking happy thoughts!

Favorite Hobbies

February 3, 2018 By Becca Leave a Comment

There was a time, when my kids were very young, when I put aside absolutely everything I enjoyed doing in my free time. “Free time” was the craziest phrase I could imagine. There weren’t enough hours in the day to work full time, feed my family, keep a fairly clean house, bake cookies, and still have enough time to do something for myself.

Now that my kids are older (my son turns 17 tomorrow and my daughter is 13), I’ve taken back a little time for myself. They are off doing their own things, spending LOTS of time at sports practices, plenty of time chilling in their rooms, and a good chunk of time doing homework. Sadly, when they have spare time they don’t usually say, “Hey, mom, do you want to play a board game?” Nope, those days are gone.

So, how do I spend my time? I really love to cook. I enjoy looking through cookbooks, Pinterest, and blogs to find new recipes. If I can cook with ingredients grown in my own garden, this makes me even happier. As much as I love to cook, I must confess something. There are days when I ask myself, “WHY, oh why, do my children want to eat 3 times a day EVERY single day?” I try not to use too much processed food as I’m cooking, so that makes things a bit time consuming, but I have a hard time keeping every meal on the healthy side. I really love cheese, and cooking with butter and cream just makes things taste better. It’s a work in progress to find healthy meal options, but I’m trying. (If I don’t try hard enough, my naturopath gently reminds me at every appointment.)

I’ve always loved to bake. Cookies and bread tend to be my favorites. Lately, I’ve tried to change things up and try whole wheat breads or flourless cookies. When my kids were younger, we’d have Cookie Friday. Our district dismisses early each Friday and I’d always have cookies ready for the kids when they got home from school. There would usually be a handful of friends and neighbors and sometimes a cousin or two. Those were the good old days. Now the kids just hurry home so they can take naps. Ah, teenagers.

Sometimes (most times) I really wish I lived in a sunnier location so I could happily enjoy my garden day in and day out. To say that I love to be outside is an understatement.

Most of my edible garden space consists of herbs and veggies that don’t require full sun. My neighbor’s trees have grown so tall that they shade my veggie garden. I’m barely able to produce tomatoes any more, so I’ve just given up on things that needs tons of sun.

My basil and mini tomatoes have been moved to a plant stand on the deck. The deck gets a good amount of afternoon sunshine and the heat reflects from the house onto the plants. Basil is probably my favorite thing to grow and we eat a lot of pesto in the summer time.

I have my fair share of perennials in the center of my yard. I love that I don’t have to replant them every year. Every few years, I get to divide them. Score! Free plants!

The best part about gardening is the end of the day. I love the “golden hour” in my yard. After spending the day getting my hands dirty, I absolutely love putting my feet up and enjoying the view. I do miss the days of the kids playing on the swingset or jumping on the trampoline, but there is also something incredibly relaxing about the quiet of the backyard.

Sewing and quilting are my winter hobbies. When I can’t spend time outside because of the relentless rain, my sewing room is my happy place.

My mom taught me to sew when I was about 7 years old and I insisted that both of my kids learn to sew. I make all of my own home decor items. I love making curtains, valances, pillows, and quilts. I love the personal touch handmade items have on a home. I’ve even been designing my own quilt patterns with a quilting program for the computer.

I’ve had to start changing pillows and quilts out seasonally because I’m running out of space. I’ve started putting zippers into my pillow covers so they are each to wash and change out frequently.

This was one of my favorite projects. When my daughter was younger she picked out a fabric line that she thought was pretty. I bought the fabrics and she chose a pattern that she liked. We painted her room a color that coordinated and her new room was born.

I love looking through blogs and seeing cohesive quilts that all have the same feel, but I can’t seem to stick with one theme. I love vintage/scrappy, French General, warm and cozy, and also whatever is new and trendy. As much as I like the cohesion, I also like to try new things when it comes to quilting.

I don’t even know where to begin when it comes to photography. I love trying new things with my camera. My favorite subjects are my own kids and my YoungLife kids. My YL kids are Juniors in high school and I feel so lucky that they’ve allowed me to follow them around with a camera on my neck, capturing memories of Summer camp and school dances.

Of course, these two have my whole heart and they know to always pack “picture clothes” every time we go to the farm or the beach.

How about you, friends? What’s your hobby?

I’m sharing a few of my favorite photography items that are sold through Amazon. I’m part of the Amazon Affiliates program and if you choose to purchase through Amazon, I get a teensy-tiny portion of the sale.

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Family Bibles

January 21, 2018 By Becca Leave a Comment

It’s probably because I love antiques and I’m fascinated by family history, but somehow I ended up being the keeper of the family bibles. They are tattered and worn, but so beautiful. I love that each one tells its own story. Most of our bibles tell who they belonged to and the year they were given inside the cover.

My grandma and grandpa, on my mom’s side, both had fathers who were preachers. I can just image how they must have lived with their bibles at their sides. To hold something that belonged to my great grandfather, and is over 100 years old, feels really special.

Every time I look through them, I find little treasures tucked inside. Today, I found a letter that my grandpa wrote to his father for Father’s Day in 1941. He described the job he had just taken in a garage in downtown Seattle and assured his father that he was living a Christian life that he could be proud of.

I know I’ve written about this before, but my favorite thing is that there are notes written in the margins of the bibles. There is something about handwriting that makes me feel a bit more connected to my past. Seeing handwritten notes, always in cursive, helps me to see what was important back then.

Being the keeper of the family bibles has inspired me to start Bible Journaling. If you are not familiar with this, check it out on Pinterest. My hope is that someday my great grandchildren will love to see my notes, doodles, and art (if I can even call it that) left behind for them.

Happy journaling!

Apple Crisp

January 18, 2018 By Becca Leave a Comment

It’s been forever since I’ve felt like a blogger, writer, or photographer. I kind of fell off the blogging wagon and can’t seem to crawl my way back on. I made some apple crisp today and decided it was photo-worthy. I didn’t bother to get my fancy camera out. I just used my phone, but the pictures didn’t turn out horrible.

Apple Crisp

The perfect treat for a cold and rainy day.

CourseDesserts

Servings

Apple Crisp

The perfect treat for a cold and rainy day.

CourseDesserts

Servings

Ingredients

6 medium apples cored, peeled, and sliced
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup oats
3/4 cup Brown Sugar
3/4 cup flour
1 stick butter softened

Servings:

Instructions

Core, peel, and slice the apples. Add lemon juice and cinnamon. Stir together until apples are coated. In a separate bowl, combine oats, brown sugar, flour, and butter until crumbly. Pour the apples into a greased baking dish. (A 9x13 is fine. My favorite baking dish happens to be round.) Top with crumb topping. Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes.

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Christmas on the Front Porch

November 26, 2017 By Becca Leave a Comment

It’s time to join the fun! Blogland is full of beautiful pictures of Christmas and I couldn’t wait to join in! I kept the same wreaths and greenery on the front porch this year, but added a few new things to the little chair. I absolutely love my sled shaped door mat but it has seen better days. I can’t find a replacement, so if anyone has a lead on a cute doormat please send ideas my way!

I found that cute little black bag, with picnic items inside, at Thorp Antiques over Labor Day weekend. I’ve always wanted a small thermos collection and now I have my first two antiques! For those of you who like my cute little bag, and live near Snohomish, I saw a similar bag upstairs in Joyworks for around $25 over the weekend. I pictured my plaid bag looking nice near the Christmas tree, fireplace, or even by the coat rack in the entry. I should almost run out and grab the bag from Joyworks myself!

I realized, as I was typing this, that I forgot to get my old sled out of the rafters in the garage, and I still haven’t been able to find my plaid wool blanket. I’ll find those next weekend.

That’s the beginning of the of Christmas at my house! There is so much more to come. We had a fun weekend of decorating, Hallmark movies, and family.

Merry Christmas!

Big Changes in the Living Room… BIG Changes

November 21, 2017 By Becca Leave a Comment

Over the past few years, we’ve been having a difficult time deciding on a room arrangement in the living room. I found an arrangement I liked, but the kids said there was too much glare on the TV. We found an arrangement that worked for TV, but I really didn’t like the way the room felt. It just seemed crowded. Recently, our big couch in the living room broke and we decided it was time to seriously think about new furniture. The couch and love seat set was the first thing we bought when we purchased our first home, almost 20 years ago. That couch and love seat had a good run. The pressure was on! We had to think like designers, which we clearly aren’t!

Here’s what we decided and you can see why it’s a BIG change.

We decided to go with a giant sectional. This is the Radley sectional from Macy’s furniture. It comes in just about any size and configuration you can think of. Friends, I’m in love with this. This room is mainly used for two purposes. First, we use this room for family get-togethers. Before we had the giant sectional, several people had to sit on the floor. Now, I think we could probably put 20 people on this sectional and there are still three more chairs in the room. The second thing we use this for is as a teenage hangout. We don’t have a bonus room in our house, so the formal living room was to transformed into our bonus room a few years ago.

Here are a few more pictures so you can see the rest of the room

This room is very cold, compared to the rest of the house, so I bought that little space heater that looks like a fireplace. It’s small, but it works to warm this room.

The big wall above the sectional needs something more. We bought a lamp to put in this corner, but the base didn’t fit under the couch. I’m not sure what we are going to do now. I may have to find a few more pieces of art to put on the wall.

Now, let’s talk pillows! I decided to start out getting some Christmas and Winter pillow covers. I love Courtney’s (Golden Boys and Me blog) pillows and I emailed her to find out where she finds them. She told me she shops at H & M. I had no idea they even carried pillows. Their online selection is amazing and the prices were awesome! I think the Christmas covers were both $5.99. I bought a couple to use in Spring that were only $3.99 each.

I loved this star pillow. This may stay around well after Christmas. I’ve always loved the sweater pillows so I bought three of these covers. I bought my pillow forms from Jo-Ann Fabrics and used my coupon.

I found this shelf on Wayfair. I think it’s slightly smaller than I want and I think I mounted it a bit too high. This area is still a work in progress but I knew I needed a place to put cameras, antiques, and pictures.

We may find ourselves some barnwood boards and make these shelves a little longer.

Yay! If I make the shelves longer, I’ll have more room for old cameras.

So, that’s the story of the BIG change in the living room. We still have changes to make and work to do, but I’m in LOVE with the giant sectional. The kids are going to have to fight me for use of this space.

Happy decorating!

Cookie Friday

September 23, 2017 By Becca Leave a Comment

Yes, I know it’s Saturday, but I needed to share my love for Cookie Friday.

I’ve been baking cookies on Friday for as long as my kids have been in school. I thought it was a great treat after a long week, and my kids usually had friends over after school. My kids go to school with their cousins, from both sides of the family, and they’d often find their way to my house on Friday afternoon for warm cookies. I tried to time it so the cookies were still warm when they all arrived.

When I went back to work full time, I started baking on Thursday night so cookies would be ready for the kids after school. Some weeks, I just couldn’t do it. Teaching full time is exhausting and, for those of you who don’t know me in-real-life, I’m sick ALL the time. Sometimes there is no energy for cookie baking. Well, I’m back working part time this year and I’m happy to say that Cookie Friday is back in full force! (I’ve also been trying to LIMIT myself to only baking on Friday. I’ll let you know how that goes. I really love to bake!)

This recipe is my classic Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. This time I just swapped out the chocolate chips for M&M’s. As a side note, I don’t do this very often because the M&M’s have dye in them and there is one member of our family who does not react well to dyes.

Here’s the recipe:
1 Cup Crisco shortening (original, not butter flavor)
3/4 Cup brown sugar
3/4 Cup white sugar
Mix until soft and fluffy.

Add:
2 Eggs
1 and 1/2 tsp vanilla
Mix just until blended.

Dry ingredients:
2 and 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 and 1/2 tsp salt
Mix it up and add a bag of M&M’s or chocolate chips. With M&M cookies, I find that they are prettier if you also add a few candies to the top just before baking.

Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes

Welcome back, Cookie Friday. Welcome back.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies – WITH NO FLOUR!

August 28, 2017 By Becca Leave a Comment

Ok, friends. I think I should just change the title of this post to Magic Cookies, because they HAVE to be magic. They have no flour, no butter, and no shortening… and they’re amazing! Magic, I’m telling you!

My naturopath shared this recipe with me because she know that I’m obsessed with baking.

**Side story. My naturopath is amazing. Her name is Dr. Rhian Young and she owns Purity Health. Any of you who have know me for any amount of time, in real life (outside of the web world), know that I’m CONSTANTLY sick. I can’t seem to catch a break between illness and injury. Well, I’ve been doing better and better each year. She’s been helping me figure things out one by one.**

Ok, back to the story. Dr. Young shared this cookie recipe with me and I was skeptical. How good could this cookie be without butter, shortening, or flour. She said her family said it was the best cookie she had ever made. So, I tried it. Ummm. Wow!

Flour-less Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie

CuisineCookies

Flour-less Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie

CuisineCookies

Ingredients

1 Cup Peanut Butter
1 Cup Brown Sugar firmly packed
1 egg
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 Cup Chocolate chips

Servings:

Instructions

Mix peanut butter and brown sugar together. Add egg. Mix. Add baking soda. Mix. Add chocolate chips. Mix. Use a cookie scoop to put balls of cookie dough onto baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-9 minutes.

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