Wordless Wednesday

Some Words About Wordless Wednesday

I got this brilliant idea from a high school friend of mine, Jessica, over at ...Because the West Wasn't Won on Salad.  She writes an awesome blog about her life in agriculture as a woman.  Check her out!

Anyway, she started a Wordless Wednesday and I was eager to jump on the bandwagon.

I will post just one single photograph.  Sometimes one I found in a book or magazine, sometimes one I found online, and sometimes one I took with my own camera.

I will always post something that I believe is beautiful.  And usually it will be a photo that makes me think, intrigues me, or makes me laugh!  If you click on the Wordless Wednesday tab on the right, you will be able to see the archive of Wordless Wednesday photos as more and more Wednesdays go by.  I would really like if the photos were used as a kind of "conversation starter".  If something about a particular photo strikes you, please talk about it in the comments!  I would love to hear if the photos reached someone else in the same way they reached me!

Click on any photo to enlarge it.

Enjoy!  Anyone else want to start a Wordless Wednesday?

A Soldier Will Fight Long and Hard for a Bit of Colored Ribbon

--Napolean Bonaparte

Yeah, he quoted that.

***Disclaimer: No, I didn't actually do this project while on vacation in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  I wrote this post a few days ago and just didn't get to post it until now. Enjoy!

On to the point... there is a blog called young house love that is all about home improvement and design.  I read it occasionally because there is some really cool stuff and the husband and wife that write the blog are hysterical. I found this post about a ribbon chandelier that the mom made for her baby daughter's closet.  So I gave it a go.

I wanted to find some ribbons that would go with my spring green theme and still coordinate with the ribbon that I used on the flip flop hangers.

So, as usual, I went to Michael's.  I happened to be at my mother-in-law's house at the time of the proposed project, so she joined me for our outing to the Michael's in York, PA.  We looked only in the $1 clearance ribbon basket and found these goodies:

Looks pretty good, huh?  I also found a 9-inch embroidery hoop while I was there.  I only used the inside piece and painted it white (on my MIL's ironing board).

After the paint dried, I strung some thin, clear bead ribbon around it from both sides.

I tried to cut the ribbon in the general length that I wanted, but still making them all different lengths. 

I used glue dots and little green sparkle things and hung it in my closet so it is the first thing I see when I open the closet door.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking.  I sound like a little girl, right?  This was originally something that was supposed to be for a baby's room, right?  Yes, yes, I thought of all of that.  And I dismissed it completely.  Because I smile every time I see it :-)

Beach-y Baking

We are headed to the beach today with Josh's family and friends of family.  yeah, we are leaving in a moment.  Yes, I know it's 5am!  Got to beat the traffic!  Outer Banks!  I baked these goodies for breakfast and snacks on the drive!  I will share recipes when I get back.

These are Pillsbury Funfetti Cookies.  Nothing special, but very cute and very delicious.

I tried an interesting new blueberry muffin recipe.  You make them with yogurt believe it or not. 

Wow.  Look at those beautiful blueberries.

And for Josh's brother, the chocoholic, chocolate chip muffins... you can't really see the chocolate chips but there are a ton of them!  I made these with sour cream!

Tell me that doesn't look amazing?!

I may not be posting a whole lot this week while we are at the beach.  I'm taking a real vacation.  Well, except that my final project for my grad class is due on Monday.  Okay... the vacation starts on Monday.   Have an awesome week!

Uh Oh... I Went Back to Michael's

And I bought some awesome spring-green stuff for my closet. It's kind of like contact paper and my shelves needed a face lift.

Easy and quick project.  All I did was apply it right to the shelves and add my shoes and clothes back on!

It's All in the Cards

When I was a little girl, I was a pen pal... with my great grandmother.  It was my mom's mom's mom.  She lived over an hour away so I didn't get to see her often.  So we would write each other letters.  I always used a goofy Lisa Frank type of stationery and she would always use the same flowery white card.  I was probably between the ages of 6 and 10 while I was writing and receiving letters from Great Grandma Dot.  Because of my young age, I wasn't thinking ahead very well and either lost or threw away all of the letters she ever sent me.  I didn't think much of it at the time.  She died when I was a senior in high school.  I remembered the letters and searched high and low for them but never found them.  A while later, my grandma (mom's mom) was going through all of great grandma's belongings and found a stack of all of the letters that I ever sent her, full of brightly colored stickers and even some silly jokes:

Yes, that is Pocahontas.

I still have all of them to this day.  Which is why it is hard for me to throw away cards.

Every year you get what seems like millions of cards for your birthday, Christmas, Easter, and any special events like a wedding or graduation.  Some of them are lame (let's face it), and some of them are really special.  But you always seem to keep them for a little while because you just feel like you have to.  For goodness sake, some of them cost as much as five or six bucks!  But... eventually you realize that there's really no point in keeping them and throw them out.  That's what I have a hard time doing.  So I have a ridiculously large box of cards from all sorts of events and from all different points in my life and from all different people.  But, because I am really weird, I keep the most special of all cards in a file in my filing cabinet.  Yep, I know it's weird, but it's true.  See?

And to this day all of the cards/letters I ever wrote to great grandma Dot live in the special card file.

When I saw this spring green beauty at Michael's (of course), I knew immediately what would go on it and where it would go.  It had to go in my closet and I had to put some of the most special cards I have ever received on it so I could see them every day.

Some cards are from family, some from Josh, and one from my best friend.  And I don't feel bad about keeping them anymore because they are special.  And my "card" file is a tiny bit lighter :-)

Wordless Wednesday

Here's The Mail, It Never Fails

...finish that song!

In addition to getting a sunburn today, one of my projects was the jungle that was our mailbox:

There was an enormous giant plant growing from beneath it.  You could barely see the numbers on the side.  To top it off, the name on the mailbox was from TWO owners ago!  Not us, not the people we bought it from, but the people who built the home!

So, obviously it needed a "haircut".

I pulled the plant out.  That took about 35 minutes.  Then I realized that if I didn't dig the roots out that it would probably come back.  Ugh.  I literally spent the next two hours digging every last root from ground.  I also discovered that if I dig 4-5 inches down I hit pure sand.  I knew our soil was supposed to be sandy and all on the shore, but geez I didn't know it was all pure sand below the surface!  I ended up with about 40 pounds of roots, weeds, and dirt.  After all of the digging was done, I was left with beautiful loose soil on top. Then, I planted two new flowers that I got from Lowe's.  I bought yellowish Chrysanthemums.  Mainly because they were cheap.  But also because they are perennials and they can stand the sun all day long.  And also because I love that book by Kevin Henkes:

  

Have you read it?  If not, you definitely should.  It's an excellent children's book.  Anway, after I planted the flowers I added a layer of brown mulch.  Last but not least, I scraped the letters off the front and spray painted the mailbox after sanding the rust away.  Here is the mailbox before:

 And the finished product:

Before:

And after:

Not too bad, huh?

Green Monster!

In an attempt to eat healthier, I have been making "Green Monsters" for breakfast every morning.  I have been doing it for about a month now.  I used to eat oatmeal or cold cereal for breakfast but I got bored and got to reading about the green monster fad.

It's pretty easy and it tastes amazing and it's SUPER good for you so I thought I would share.  I've been meaning to get back into the swing of posting recipes since I have been trying a lot of new ones lately.

Green Monster:

• ~8oz milk.  Sometimes I use skim, sometimes 1%, and I have even tried almond milk, which is very good for you and very pricey tasty.
• ~1/2 c. original greek yogurt.  It's FULL of protein.  Don't taste it alone, though.  It's gross.
• A handful or two of spinach.  Yeah, it sounds weird, but once it's blended up I promise the only remains will be the green color.  The flavor disappears.
• Fruit!  My staple is blueberries and a banana.  Sometimes I add/substitute strawberries.  I have also tried raspberries, avocado, grapes, and even watermelon.  
• Maybe peanut butter?  I really like putting natural peanut butter in it, but I don't always.  Depends on my mood.  Almond butter or sun butter would also be delicious.
• Ice.  I always add ice because I like it super cold.

There you have it.  A nutritious and filling breakfast.  I wish I had discovered them last year during school because my lunch break was always really late and I was starving by the time my break rolled around.  These shakes keep me filled up for quite a while and they are super delicious.

Can I Get a Flip Flop?

Remember how I talked about my flip flop dilemma here and here?  Well, the solution is finally 100% complete!  I added little ribbon jackets to the hangers I created using the tutorial I found.  They went from drab:

to FAB:

Please ignore the fact that I just said that.  Please. I gathered all of my materials from Michael's.  Officially the best store ever!

 I loved the springy-green feeling of this ribbon!

And although the tutorial originally used big buttons, I found these beauties at Michael's and couldn't resist.  Plus, in my control-Type-A-paranoid-perfect organized world, I could use a little randomness... but not too much:

 

After folding the ribbon around the hanger and fastening it with the ever-amazing glue dots...

...I cut off the excess and hot glue-ed the little buttons on.

 Ta-da!!!

I am quite pleased with the final product!

FYI--I have a feeling that this blog is going to turn into a home decoration kind of thing for a while, as I am really excited to be making our house a home... over time.  It's mostly so our families (and friends) can see the progress of our house from afar.  Enjoy :-)