Beauty To Share

The other day I made a trip to Trader Joe's. I love Trader Joe's. Do you? I have a weakness for their frozen food aisle.

Unfortunately, the closest store to me is about a half hour away. Every once in a while I get the urge to make the trip up there though. Another perk of going to this particular store are the beautiful flower beds and containers gracing the shopping center that it is in.

 

 

Even though Fall has arrived, I was fortunate enough to catch their Summer flowers before they are spent. I don't know how they are able to keep them looking this good for so long. The only sign of Fall were the dried hydrangeas.

 

This was a creative display. All the different plants are planted in little "pockets" on a wooden frame. I loved all the little houses.

 

 

Trader Joe's own pumpkin displays outside the store looked lovely too.

 

 

 

 



All the colors were just stunning and I wanted to share them with you. Have a great weekend!

September Chalkboard Calendar Update



Hey Everybody! I hope you all had a great Labor Day Weekend! Did the weekend fly by, or was it just me? Our weekend was full of family get togethers, church, and just hanging around home (recuperating from our first week of school, I think.)

 

I found some time on September 1st to get the monthly calendar up on the chalkboard.

 

 

 

 

That meant erasing our Summer List. It was bittersweet....looking back at all the fun memories we made but knowing that it's time to move on to something new.

 

We did pretty well with our list this year.

 



 

 

 

But now September is upon us. The month is filling up already with cross country meets, our annual "camp" weekend with Hubster's family, a Fall church picnic, hopefully painting the playroom (PLEASE can we get the playroom painted already?!?), and I'm sure more than I can remember at the moment.

 

 

 

 

It's that time of year when we get back into a routine, yet there's a lot of NEW too. How about you? Are you holding on to the last fragments of Summer or you moving full speed ahead to whatever is in store for you?

 



 

 

 

 

Four Things For Friday 8.22.14

Happy Friday!

 

It's that time again! Time to share a few things that have been on my mind or are going on around here.

 

1.  It's back to school time. Our kids return to school next Tuesday. School schedulers know what they are doing when they make Summer Break the length that it is. Summer is a wonderful time to take it easy, do fun things as a family, and just unwind. But there comes a time every year when we are all just ready for a return to the routine of the school year. I think we actually reached that point a couple weeks ago. Even my child who likes school the least said she is ready to go back.

 

And Mom is ready too. I like the being able to sleep a little later and not have such a set routine, but having the kids home in the Summer puts limits on what I am able to accomplish creatively around the house. I crave a creative outlet. As much as I hate getting up at 5:15 every morning, I'm looking forward to projects ahead.....like working on the playroom, decorating for Fall, and...<gasp>....Christmas!

 



 

 

 

 

2.  Our oldest will be starting high school this year. YIKES! I can't believed we've reached this point as parents. I attended Freshment orientation with him this week and I know he is going to do great. (More on this guy next week!) But it just reminds me that graduation and college are just around the corner and every moment is precious. I hope that he will embrace his high school experience and make lots of good memories.

 



3.  This Fall our family is venturing into an unknown area for us...school sports. Our daughter is running cross country this year. Practices began about three weeks ago and so I have been driving her to practice every day either to the school or a local running trail, sometimes heading home, and sometimes sitting in the van through the entire practice for the sake of less driving time. We've also attended a cross country picnic, taken her to a team party to make matching tie dye t-shirts, and we went as a family to a  community event where all the Fall sports teams were introduced.

Phewwww!

I had no idea! And school  hasn't even started yet! Tomorrow is their first meet. We are excited to see how that goes.

 

 

4.  And speaking of the playroom....

It's still waiting to be painted. I referred a while back to an architectural detail that we need to address. It's not a big deal, but where the walls and ceiling meet it is curved. It's hard to explain and I thought about taking a photo to show you, but I don't really think you'd be able to see it well. Anyways. Hubster and I have to come up with a plan on how we will handle that. When we painted the room before, we just used an off-white color so we could paint the walls and the ceiling all the same and it wasn't an issue. But since we will be using Sherwin Williams' Sea Salt this time around, it will need to be addressed. I think we will probably just tape off a ceiling line, but I'm considering the possibility of molding too, so we'll see.


I hope you all have a great weekend! Enjoy what's left of this beautiful Summer we've had!

Summer List Update

Today I thought I would give you a little update on how we are progressing with our Summer List. (If you don't know what our Summer List is, you can read all about it HERE.)

 

 

As you can see, we're making some progress and have already checked off about a third of our ideas. In hindsight, I wish I would've been more conscious of taking pictures of everything we did. I will have to remember that for next year.



 

 

 

Even though we haven't checked off the library, we have been a couple times. And my daughter has already had her turn cooking. This past weekend we killed two birds with one stone, so to speak, and celebrated our daughter's birthday by getting doughnuts at Dunkin' Donuts for our Saturday morning breakfast.

 

 

 

 

If you read my original post, I talked about being intentional. I've am reminded every year when we do this that it takes more than making a list to be intentional. It takes thought and action. It would be easy for Hubster and me to get to the weekend and just take it easy and relax or busy ourselves with so much that needs to be done around the house. It takes planning and sometimes even reconsidering priorities!

 

And now in the interest of full disclosure....

 

As far as the goals I told you that we made for each of our children.....that plan is not going as well as I would have liked. Let's be honest, not too many kids want to spend the Summer working on their Math skills. It takes a lot of motivation from Mom and honestly, that's probably why we aren't making as much progress. On a positive note though, two of the kids have been listening to audiobooks (a wonderful thing for kids with learning issues) and have gotten very interested in a new (to them) series of books. So it hasn't been a total loss. I just think we will have to rethink this for next year and maybe come up with a better plan. We may have bit off a little more than they can chew....at least for our kids.

 

So how about you?  Did you make any goals for yourself or your family? Are you making any progress?

An Easy, Last-Minute 4th Of July Centerpiece

We made it back from our vacation after a REALLY long drive home. We had a great week though. Good weather, lots of swimming, beach walks, playing games....we even completed a large jigsaw puzzle.

The only photos I have to prove we were on vacation are two of us eating lunch at Ben & Jerry's. Yes, LUNCH! We were on vacation after all. I just didn't think much about taking photos all week. I was just relaxing. I know....bad blogger....and bad Mom. Oh well!

I've been trying to post here all week. I wanted to come up with some kind of decorating for the 4th of July. The inspiration just didn't come though.

So here's what I did instead....

* unpacked

* took my daughter to a doctor's appointment

* watched the US play in the World Cup

* tried to eat a little healthier

* made up a new recipe

* took my daughter to the library

And today, I

* ate my lunch out on the deck and watched my son play in the yard.

While I was outside I noticed that our hydrangea bush WAY back near the back of our lot was in full bloom. I ran in and got some scissors and went back and cut a few flowers to take inside.

As I cut the blooms and arranged them in my white pitcher, the inspiration came. Here's what I ended up with.

 

 

So the moral of the story is....you can't force inspiration. Not even for a blog post.

 

 

But if you are having a get-together tomorrow and still need a little decoration for your table, it's not too late to pull something together. Just use what you have.Find some flowers (or weeds) from your yard or grocery store, gather any red, white, or blue container and extras you may have and.....voila! Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!

 

 

 

I hope you have a terrific holiday weekend! Be safe! And don't forget to take some time to think about what a blessing it is to live in a free country. Freedom isn't free. It has come through the sacrifice and service of many. Let's be thankful!



What I'm Pinning Lately {Screened Porches}

I've been on Pinterest again! I notice that I kind of get stuck on a couple things that I find myself pinning for a while. Do you do that too, or do you just pin randomly?

We have a nice deck. But honestly, we don't use it. Mostly because I don't like creepy crawly things. We don't have great deck furniture either, so I've never spent any time trying to make it nice or comfortable. I have this 'someday' plan of screening in the deck. I keep telling myself that we would use it more that way. So lately I've been dreaming of and pinning beautiful screened porches.

Here are some of my favorites.

This first one is from a popular Southern Living Cottage Of The Year. I love the fireplace, the door (which leads to a guest house), and the wicker. It looks so charming and relaxing. Wouldn't a fireplace be great to have on your porch for those cool Spring and Fall evenings?

source

 

 

 

I really love everything about this porch.....the style, the colors, the textures....so pretty! I can just see myself enjoying a quiet breakfast there in the Summer. And check out that framed flat screen TV!

 



                  

source

 

If I ever have a screened porch, I would like to be able to have both a seating area and a dining area. Look at this lovely porch. I love the long wood dining table paired with the metal industrial chairs. What a great setting for large family dinners. The trim and detail are so pretty too. You even get a peek at some exposed brick.

 

source

 

 

One of my all-time favorite porches belongs to Kelly at Talk Of The House. She always keeps it looking so lovely and all decked out for the different seasons. Living in the South, she and her family get to use their porch almost year round. Lucky them! You can read all about the evolution of Kelly's porch HERE and HERE.

 

 



 

 

If you'd like, you can take a look at all the other porches that I've pinned too.


So what have you been pinning over on Pinterest lately? Do you have a porch that you get to enjoy in the Summer? Or do you just dream of one like me?

A Little Summer Decor

I come bearing lots of photos today!

After a class trip, a funeral, and all kinds of end-of-the-school-year activities, I finally got around to "Summerfying" a little bit around here. I was starting to get a little concerned that July 4th might come and go before I got to it.

It all started with this Katie Daisy canvas that I found on mega clearance at Target back in the Fall.

 

 

 

 

 

(Remember these little fellas? )

 



 

 

Some bright sunshine-y pillows.

 

 

 

A little lemonade, perhaps?

 



Some color, some greenery, and a sweet print by The Nester (a birthday gift from my sister) that says, "It Doesn't have To Be Perfect To Be Beautiful."

I tried to keep things colorful and light.

 

 

Summer is in full-swing at our house. How about yours?

Being Intentional About Summer

It's June and so it's time to share our calendar on the chalkboard wall, right?  But since it's Summer, we're shaking things up a little bit around here. During the Summer, our chalkboard becomes our "Summer List."

Summer flies by so fast. There have been years when, once it was all over, I felt like we had wasted so much time and didn't take the time to do some of the fun things we really wanted to do as a family. So, the Summer List was born.

 

Each year when school ends, we sit down together as a family and make a list of all the things we would like to do that Summer. Sometimes they are simple things like going out for ice cream and sometimes we have bigger dreams like going on a little trip. We don't always accomplish everything on the list but we try and it at least gives us some goals instead of just winging it. And the kids love being able to check things off the list.



 

(I couldn't help it though.....I've gotten so used to having the calendar on our wall though, so I snuck in a smaller version next to our list.)

 

 

 

 

Another thing that Hubster and I decided to do is to come up with some personal goals for each of our children for the Summer. They each have a reading and math goal (thanks to a math website recommended by our school district) and then each of them have a couple other goals specific to them. These are things that we would like to see them learn or practice. We're trying to make it fun while sneaking in some skills we'd like to see them develop.

 

Hopefully this will help keep away "I'm bored!" and "There's nothing to do!"  I think (at least, I hope) it will help keep me on track too as far as helping the kids in areas they are struggling with and spending individual time with each one. I have high hopes, so we'll see.

 

But it's all about being intentional with our time this Summer and not letting it just slip by us.

 

So do you have big plans for this Summer? What are you intentionally doing to make this Summer count?

 

** You can get a peek at last year's Summer List  HERE. **