This is why I should have had little girls...

A precious pink knitted hat and matching leggings to go with it!
Sewing and knitting for little girls is so much fun!

Thrift store finds

It was a pretty hard week last week so I decided to treat myself to a little thrift store shopping. It was just the right medicine for me! It was a cool Fall day and it got me in the mood for the upcoming holidays...truth be told, I've been ready to decorate for Christmas since Halloween!

I found these sweet vintage containers for .75 a piece!

I've had a fetish for those old glass ornaments for years. They just don't make them like that anymore and they remind me of childhood Christmases! I found two boxes of gorgeous ones.... for less than a buck!

Somebody squeeeel with me!

I also snagged this pretty handmade quilt.
It's the perfect picnic size, and soooo soft!

You won't believe what I paid for it:

I know!

Meatless Fridays

This week's Meatless Friday meal is
LENTIL TACOS
These are so good and flavorful that you won't miss the meat at all! Plus, this is a great budget buster meal. A large bag of lentils is less than a dollar and by making your own tortillas you'd save even more! Definitely give this a try!

1 cup finely chopped onion
1 garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 cup dried lentils, rinsed
1 tablespoon chili powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 1/2 cups vegetable stock or water
1 cup salsa
12 taco shells or make your own homemade tortillas
shredded lettuce
chopped fresh tomato
shredded cheddar cheese
sour cream


In a large nonstick skillet, saute the onion and garlic in oil until tender. Add the lentils, chili powder, cumin and oregano; cook and stir for 1 minute. Add broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cover and simmer for 25-30 minutes or until the lentils are tender. Uncover, cook for 6-8 minutes or until mixture is thickened. Mash lentils slightly. Stir in salsa.

Fill taco shells or tortillas and top with your favorite toppings!

Please excuse JoAnn...

Please excuse JoAnn from blogging this week.
She burned her hand cooking this weekend and it makes typing very painful. She spent the weekend lying around and milking her injury for all it was worth. She is now back at work and not quite sure how she is going to manage once this "crispy fried tater-tot" begins to blister and peel.

Nasty, right?
See you all next week...

Meatless Fridays

I thought it would be nice to add a Meatless Friday feature to the blog. We have meatless meals a few times a week, but always on Fridays. Not only is it good for the pocketbook, but it's good for the soul!
This week's meatless meal is perfect for crisp, cool Fall evenings.
It's broccoli cheese soup and french bread!

(Recipe serves four so you may want to double it-
it also freezes beautifully!)

1 tablespoon butter, melted
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1/4 cup melted butter
1/4 cup flour
2 cups half-and-half
2 cups chicken stock
1/2 lb. fresh broccoli
1 cup carrots, julienned
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
8 ozs. grated sharp cheddar

Saute onion in butter. Set aside. Cook melted butter and flour using a whisk over medium heat for 3-5 minutes. Stir constantly and slowly add the half-and-half. Add the chicken stock whisking all the time. Simmer for 20 minutes.

Add the broccoli, carrots and onions. Cook over low heat until the veggies are tender for 20-25 minutes. Add salt and pepper. The soup should be thickened by now. Pour in batches into food processor and puree.
Return to pot over low heat and add the grated cheese; stir until well blended. Stir in the nutmeg and serve.

To make the easiest french bread, see my blog post on
Food Processor French Bread

With 10 broccoli plants in the garden, I have a feeling we'll be making plenty of this soup for the freezer!

Danny says...

"I'm the Boss, applesauce!"

"Understand rubber band?"

"Don't get wise, beady-eyes..."

"Or I'll cut you down to peanut size!"

I'm thinking of adopting it as my new catch phrase.
Should go over real well at work, right?

Apparently, I can't tell the difference between a pecan and a pear!

We've been in our home for a little over three years. All that time I thought we had four pecan trees in our backyard. Apparently, I can't tell the difference in two totally different species of trees!
This year, one of our 'pecan' trees sprouted some small pears!

And just for the record, it wasn't just me!
Doug also thought it was a pecan tree!
He even thought about cutting it down because we thought it was dead when the other trees were in full foliage and that lone little tree was not. Little did we know that it was just dormant until spring....like all pear trees!

Yeah, we're special that way.

So now I'm all giddy with excitement about this new, fully mature tree we have! It only produced a handfull of really hard yucky fruit. Once I figure out what type of pear it is and how to properly feed and care for it, I expect to harvest baskets full of lovely pears for preserves, deserts, and eating right off the tree!

Until then, the boys are enjoying them as projectiles (along with pecans)
in their daily war games in the backyard.

CRAP! I just realized that Christmas is next month!

Pretty darn smart, 'ain't I?
Christmas is always such a rushed time of year for me. Between working, gifting, decorating, and cooking, it seems like I never really enjoy the holidays.

I'm changing that this year - I have a plan!

I am NOT running around like a mad woman this year shopping for gifts! It's going to be a handmade/homemade Christmas this year. I have several things on my agenda like:

Tote bags
Crayon rolls
Knitted hats and socks
Market bags with accompanying produce and bread bags
Picnic blankets

...and lots of treats from the kitchen like pretty bottled vanilla and apple pumpkin butter.

I know all of this seems a little ambitious and like even more work than holiday shopping, but sewing and crafting is like therapy to me. I have wonderful visions of setting up the sewing machine in the den by the Christmas tree, brewing a pot of hot tea, putting on a little Christmas music or Gregorian chant, and making useful things for the ones I love.

Even the boys are getting into the spirit of our handmade holidays. We'll brainstorm and they'll make and bake gifts for our family, friends, and neighbors as well.

Yep, simple is best...I'm really hoping to keep it nice and simple this year and avoid all the stress of holidays past. It's time to really focus on the real 'Reason for the Season!"

A lovely night out...

Every year Doug donates his photography services to a wonderful organization, the Houston area Foundation for Life. Once a year they host a huge gala to raise money to help mothers and their unborn children. Their services range from emergency aid like food, shelter, and clothing to ongoing support like educational classes, legal aid, and spiritual/emotional counseling.
For the past 26 years FFL has worked faithfully in the Houston community to educate the public about the humanity and value of life from conception to natural death. The Foundation has also sought to reach out to others with truth and the life-changing message that God loves them, that there can be changes to destructive lifestyle choices, healing for psychological and spiritual effects of abortion, and answers to problem pregnancies when there seems no way out.

The gala was wonderful! Not only did it allow a lovely evening out with my husband, but we got to see and meet some incredible people. Michelle Malkin was the keynote speaker this year and her speech was inspirational and uplifting. We came out of that place feeling like real Americans...not right wing "extremists" as the so-called media likes to label us!

But at the end of the evening I was still left with one question...

What level of hell were these shoes invented in?

Cooking collards

The collard greens in our garden are ready to harvest!
I planted 10 plants to keep us fed through the winter. By harvesting just the outer leaves, the plant will keep producing all winter long. They even say that a good frost improves their flavor!
Here's my recipe for cooking collard greens.
You just can't get any more "Southern" than this!

1 bunch collard greens - rinsed, stems trimmed, and chopped
1 smoked ham hock (could substitute a smoked turkey neck OR 4-5 pieces of bacon chopped.)
half an onion
1 box of organic chicken stock
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 tablespoon brown sugar
salt and pepper to taste


Place meat and chopped onion in a large stock pot. Heat on medium/high to render fat and cook onion until just translucent. Pour in stock and bring to a boil. Put in collards and reduce heat. Stir in vinegar and brown sugar and cook for one hour. Salt and pepper to taste.
Serve with hot cornbread!

A beautiful Fall morning!

I had the unexpected, but nice, surprise of being called off from work today! Doug let me sleep in, but when I woke up, I found that it was a beautiful Fall morning outside. I brewed a pot of tea and went out to the back porch to take in the crisp fresh air. I was soon joined by my two little monkeys who kept me entertained!

Very grateful for these moments of peace and laughter to start my day!

Thinking about next growing season

I have so many plans running around in my brain for landscaping the backyard. I would love to have pretty beds surrounding the property filled with lush plants...who wouldn't, right? But tilling, weeding, and bedding all take money, time, money, sweat, and did I mention money?
I found a cheap and easy way to get the flower beds you want with little of all the above mentioned!

We've been saving old news papers for quite some time. Using those papers, we layed them out pretty thick where we wanted our garden beds to be. Spray the paper with the water hose to make it adhere to the grass and dirt. You want the grass to be suffocated. You could also use cardboard from old boxes, really anything that will decompose.
Cover your wet papers/cardboard with 6-8 inches of hay or straw and wet that down as well. Leave it to decompose and kill off grass over the winter. Come spring time you'll have a nice, soft, rich soil to work with!

Garden stores have most plants marked off half or more during this time of year. Stock up on what you can and winter them in your garage...just don't forget to water them every once in a while!

I've used this method several times on the most hardened soil and it never fails! For about 24 bucks we were able to make a bed the length of the back of our house!

Preserving medicinal herbs

The little herb box that Doug built me is in full growth with our medicinal herbs. I'm not sure what type of growing season they tolerate, so I decided to go ahead and harvest them now before much cooler weather sets in.

I cut the leaves off of our elecampane, all heal, fever few, and evening primrose and placed them on the drying trays of our food dehydrator.

In about 24 hours they'll be dry enough to store in zip lock baggies, or pretty little apothecary jars.

When sickness comes around, a simple tea will help us get back to health!
To stave off illness, I'll crush some of the herbs into our soups and salads.

God has given us a pharmacy right in our backyards if we take the time to find out what is growing around us. I am thoroughly convinced that the use of herbal remedies is what has kept us well all year long thus far (knocking on wood!).

How to photograph a ghost!

Oooo, scary isn't it?

To make your own ghostly image, set your camera on a table or tripod. It has to be steady and still to take two of the same photo.
Take a picture of your background. Have your "ghost" come into the same area and strike a pose - take his picture,too.

Now open a photo editing software like Photoshop. Drag your ghost photo over your back ground photo. Now reduce the opacity of your ghost photo until it is to your liking!
Pretty easy, huh?

Hmmm...now I know how all of our cookies have been mysteriously disappearing!
It was the ghosts who ate them all!

Meal Plan Monday

I have my four day (12-hr shifts) work week and Doug has a week FULL of editing shoots from the previous weeks. Meal prep is the last thing on our minds! I've got some quick fix/low prep meals planned so that we can slow down at the end of the day and enjoy each others company as a family...

Monday: Tortilla Soup. All the ingredients will go into the crock pot before I leave for work to simmer all day. Prior to serving, all Doug has to do is shred a little pepper jack cheese and open a bag of tortilla chips.

Tuesday: Amish Breakfast Casserole. I'll fry up the onion and bacon Monday night and then assemble this casserole before going to work. I also think I'll tweak it a bit by adding half cheddar/half swiss and adding some peppers from the garden. Doug can just pop it in the oven before I get home. Serve with fruit.

Wednesday: Classic Pot Roast with Carrots and Potatoes. Everything gets seasoned with garlic, rosemary, salt, and pepper and then into the crock pot! Man, the house is going to smell soooo good by dinner time!

Thursday: 15 Bean Soup. Another great crock pot meal! Will have Kyle make some artisan bread to go with this one.

Friday: Rich Pasta for the Poor Kitchen. A very easy pasta dish that I'll tweak by adding some fresh spinach.

Saturday: Doug and I are going to the Foundation for Life gala in Houston. Kids are getting pizza ordered and going to the grandparents.

Sunday: Something on the grill....get your thinking cap on Doug, mama ain't cooking tonight!