Problem Solved

Years before I met my husband, I purchased a piece of furniture that started it’s life as a kitchen island in my Austin home.

It’s moved everywhere with me and even survived almost 4ft of water in the 2016 Baton Rouge flood.

It’s been an island, bar, tv stand and entry table, but the one thing it’s always been is a scratching post for the cats. I’ve tried everything to keep them from mauling the legs, including wrapping the legs in foil. It worked as long as the foil was on, but it wasn’t the prettiest solution.

This is what they’ve done to it.

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It was bad! And made me sad until I came up with a solution that I thought might work. So I gathered up what I needed and spent the entire morning getting busy.

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And guess what? It worked.

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It just took a LOT of jute rope, a staple gun and a hammer to tap in the staples securely. I just wrapped, pushed up and pulled tight. I have a nice friction blister on my finger to prove it. The cats can now scratch to their heart’s content, although now they don’t seem to want to.

On another note, Donny took over cooking for the day.

 

 

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That’s over an inch of flies. They just flock to this smelly contraption and once inside they can’t get out. It’s truly been a game changer. A gross one, but hey, I’ll take it. If you have outdoor fly issues, this is 6 dollars well spent.

So after grilling and watching fly death, we came in and Donny made pickles. He makes the best pickles ever! Puts the store bought ones to shame.

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Evan’s Corner

Have you ever read a book that changed your life?

When I was in the very early years of elementary school, we read a book as a class. I loved it. I read and reread it as much as I could. Little did I know, at the time, that this little book, would stay with me forever.

Even as I grew into an adult and had children of my own, I always referenced this book. I couldn’t remember the name of it, but I knew the story by heart.

Today while I was in the shower the story popped into my head once again and I knew I had to find out the name of this book.

And, thanks to an extensive Google search, I found it.

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It’s about a little boy living with his family of 8 in an overcrowded apartment. He just wants a place to call his own so his mother lets him pick out a corner that he can call his. He finds some old crates to use as a desk. He paints pictures to hang on the wall and even gets a pet turtle. He loves his little corner until he realizes he misses playing with his brothers and sisters. He invites his little brother into his corner and they end up picking a corner for him and Evan helps him fix it up. Evan realizes that it’s good to have your happy place but it’s even better when you share it with others.

It dawned on me that my home and this blog is my corner. Just like Evan’s corner, I use what I have to make it work. To make a place filled with the best parts. A small cozy reprieve from the craziness that is happening around us.

I won’t write about breaking news or politics. I’m well aware if what’s going on, but this isn’t the place for it. There are a million blogs out there about those subjects.

When I look back and re-read my posts, I want to remember the good stuff that happened. So yes, if you happen to stumble upon this blog, it might seem hokey and optimistic, but that’s okay by me. I keep it public because sometimes we all need a little hokey in our lives.

You Deserve a Donut

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I love breakfast food, just not in the morning. This household tends to eat brunch. I love brunch. It covers two meals with one, but teenage kids tend to be hungry in the mornings (all the time) and I honestly hadn’t planned a thing for breakfast. Oops.

I got Donny up and we decided donuts were in order. Only problem was, since we moved, we didn’t know where the closest donut shop was. I suggested going to Jimmy’s Donut where we used to go before we moved. Donny wanted to find something closer.

Disclaimer: Jimmy’s is roughly 2.5 miles away, but when you live in a smallish town, anything over a mile seems FAR.

Problem solved. Less than a mile away we found this.

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I judge every donut shop by their eclairs. If they can’t make a good eclair, it’s a no for me. Eclairs are my all time, I should just chew them up and plaster then on my hips, pastry.

I spied some in the very back of case. Whew, we didn’t have to go anywhere else.

Another problem I have is wanting to choose a little bit of everything. Donny is MUCH better at ordering so I just stepped back and let him do it so we wouldn’t have a 50 dollar donut tab. Not kidding, it’s happened before when I went by myself.

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Let the feast begin.

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For the record, us hungry adults had already taken ours out when I took this.

But the best part was…

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My oh so delicious, completely passed the eclair test, breakfast. Didn’t you know that weekend breakfast calories absolutely do not count.

While the kids were just hanging out and Donny and I were watching Harlen Cobin’s mini series Safe. (He’s one of my very favorite authors and if you like a good, twisty, who done it, you should definitely watch it on Netflix) I had an idea I wanted to try and that meant a trip to Hobby Lobby.

I’m hoping it’s going to work. I’m going to work on it today and if it does I’ll share it. It includes this.

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900 feet of jute rope!

It doesn’t include this, but when you find your favorite candle that you thought was discontinued, and it’s 50% off, you add it to the cart. We had a 40% off coupon so it’s kind of like the candle was free. (My frugal rationalization kicking in)

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It smells clean and fresh and is not over powering to where it gives you a headache.

We ended the evening picking up Taco Bell (I know it’s not real Mexican food, but it’s my guilty pleasure and I’ve loved it since childhood) chilling on the couch and finished watching Safe.

I normally skip the intro, but the theme song was SO good, I listened to it every single episode, then I even looked it up on YouTube.

You really should listen to it. You can thank me later.

Backyard Campout

With the quarantine being lifted more and more each day, we decided to let the kids each invite a friend over for a backyard campout.The weather has been so iffy lately, but today there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

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The guests were due to arrive at 3. Donny and I decided to work on the yard before everyone showed up. I finally repotted some plants, got my planters hung up and found a useful place for our chalkboard that no longer fit in our house.

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When the kids arrived they all piled into my son’s room to play jackbox. It’s a super fun interactive game. You buy game packages and everyone plays on their phone. Hours can go by and you don’t even realize it. It’s been a great distraction with being stuck at home.

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With the sun getting lower, it was time to set up the tent.

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After we chowed down on hotdogs I asked the kids if they wanted to walk to the park. It’s half a mile away and I fully intended to go with them. Donny was pressing me to let them go by themselves. I was sure, 100% positive, that they’d want me to go. Nope, they didn’t. I have to admit that I was a little crushed. The helicopter parent in me was panicking. Thoughts were running through my mind about everything that could and surely would happen to them. Thanks to Donny, the sane more rational one of the two of us, he talked me off the ledge. For the record, they did call me to come pick them up, so that’s a little win, right?

When it got dark we made the quintessential camping dessert. Smores for the win.

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By this time it was getting late. Donny and I were tired and the kids were ready for parents to go in so they could hang out. Yes, there are both boys and girls staying in the tent, but they are all just really good friends. Remember, helicopter parent here. I watch and listen very closely.

They wanted the giant, bright gulag-ish interrogation light that we have in the backyard off. I’m sure my neighbors were happy about that too because I’m pretty sure it illuminates their bedroom pretty good. We left them with glow sticks, flashlights and I left the twinkle lights on in the patio (aka carport).

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Now it’s bedtime and morning is going to be here before we know it. I hope we get some sleep.  I’ve checked on them more than I care to admit.

Speedy Delivery

I’m not someone who regularly orders products online. I’m always a little leary of it not really being the same as what’s advertised. With that being said, I took a chance and was pleasantly surprised.

The first item was a flea collar from chewy.com.

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We have tried SO many different flea prevention products and the Seresto collar was the winner. It last for 8 months and doesn’t cause skin irritations on my dog. We used to get ours at the local pet store, but they are expensive. I googled it and chewy had it for 30 dollars cheaper! I jumped on that deal. That’s a good chunk of change.

My mom had given me a purse that she’d had since the 50’s/60’s. It’s a leather mock crock handbag. I love vintage purses, but the handle was so small it just wasn’t practical. I’ve had it for so many years and it just sat in my closet.  I was going to donate it when I had a great idea.

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You can see in this picture how small the handle is.

I found a leather purse strap on ebay. I could pick the color, length I wanted and the metal finish. I chose the 24″ length, brown color with antique brass finish.

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It matches almost perfectly. I’m SO glad I didn’t donate it.

Also, if you have a Big Lots near you, next time you’re there check out this soap.

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I use it to wash my face. It’s a castille soap with aloe Vera. It takes off all my makeup and leaves my face clean and soft. Most importantly it doesn’t dry it out. At big lots it costs just a little over a dollar. It’s a little more expensive online, but not by much. Totally worth the money.

Now I’m going to go get things ready for the kids backyard campout we’re having this evening. We worked on the yard yesterday and just have a little tweaking to do today.

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Happy Friday! ❤

The Same But Different

Yesterday I realized that I do the exact same thing every morning. My dog Marty wakes me up around 5:30. I let him out, make coffee and then either read or watch a documentary on Netflix. I’m an morning person, so I try not to wake the rest of my family who is definitely not.

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I’ve been watching Dark Tourist. It’s really good, if you need something to watch.

When Marty comes in, he knows he gets a treat and will not let you forget.

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He then gets his bone, tries to bury it under the rug, realizes he can’t, so he puts it against the wall so he can guard it because he just knows the cat is trying to get it. Every. Day.

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When Donny wakes up we decide what we’re going to do for the day. He grabs coffee and goes and checks on the garden. He loves the garden. It is a mobile one and he grew it from seeds.

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And I finally have flowers on my morning glories that we also grew from seed.

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When the kids wake up we normally go for a walk. It’s been rainy so lately we’ve had to go between rain showers.

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I am not a huge fan of shopping. I know what I need, try to find the best deal I can and get it. I needed a pot to grow my pineapple top in. I was pretty sure I could find one at Ollie’s. We hadn’t been to this one since it had opened, but I managed to find the perfect planter and for a steal.

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Natural Grocers is right next door. Have you tried the Mad Hippie skincare line? I love it. It’s not too expensive and works really well. I was out of my vitamin a serum and picked up some night cream too.

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How great is that packaging?

Winding down the day, I make dinner. We’ve been trying to eat cleaner and lighter. I’ve stopped doing heavy side dishes. Sometimes we don’t even have sides. Tonight I made a bacon, onion and cheese frittata. We just had watermelon and pineapple for sides. Super easy and everyone liked it.

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I had made a big batch of berry sauce to go with pancakes for brunch. There was some leftover, so I baked a pound cake to use the rest of the sauce. Turned out like a scone and although if you let the sauce absorb into your slice it was ok, I wouldn’t use the recipe again.

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But the sauce was delicious!

I can’t wait to see what today brings ❤

Crazy Weekend

This has been a crazy weekend. Friday started off pretty normal. We ended the day by walking to the park and letting the kids hangout.

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IMG_20200521_195102 Saturday morning my dog woke me up at 4:30 to go outside and when I was letting him in, my son’s cat Monkey, ran outside. I couldn’t catch her. She still hadn’t come back when we woke up. He was devastated. I asked all the neighbors and put her picture up on the Next Door app. Nothing.

We had disconnected our horrible, terrible satellite internet service we had at the other house. Our 2 year contract was finally over. We received the boxes to send the modem back and lo and behold, we had to have a part off of the actually dish that was on the roof of the other house. Donny called them to explain our situation, but they said if we didn’t have it they would charge us $200!

So guess what we had to go buy.

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The house had already been rented again, but luckily they hadn’t moved in yet. We just kind of snuck in and took the part off.

On the way home we found this little guy just standing, head out, in the middle of a busy street. I got out, stopped a car before they ran him over and brought him home with us.

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Still no Monkey and the weather is getting bad. After the rain storm, guess who comes wandering up?

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She’s been following my son around like a puppy and is now napping in my laundry basket. We are all so relieved because right after she showed up the most evil looking clouds started rolling in. The wind picked up. Then the rain started and it began to hail. I thought it was going to break our windows. Donny and I were scheduled to work Waitr in 45 minutes. It finally quit hailing, but it was pouring. The only thing that saved me, because we had 14 deliveries and I looked like a drowned rat, were Belly Flops.

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They are the irregular Jelly Belly jellybeans. It’s VERY important to have snacks when you’re delivering food or you will be starving from all the delicious smells.

I do not like working in the rain, but it’s so busy when there is bad weather. I guess this week is going to be very busy.

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I hope your Memorial Day is sunny and warm. I’m watching the rain pour down out our window and I don’t think it’s stopping any time soon.

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One Tiny Bathroom + A Family of Four

I know some of our friends thought we were crazy when we told them we were downsizing from a 2000 sq ft home to one that was 1008 sq ft. To make it even crazier, there was only one bathroom.

I don’t know about you, but I’m always interested just how people can downsize from 2 bathrooms with a total of 16 drawers and 3 big cabinets between them to this.

 

IMG_20200521_095853 With a little creative storage and a lot of purging, we have managed to make it work.

We are fortunate that there are 3 cabinets behind the door.

The top one holds our first aid kit and medicines, toilet paper and beach towels.

IMG_20200521_095947 The shoebox holds the extra that doesn’t fit in the storage tote. I’m sure I could use a fancier box, but the whole point of downsizing was to save money and spending on something that hides in a closet really doesn’t make sense to me.

The middle cabinet holds our day to day items. My son and husband have the top shelf and my daughter and I use the bottom. The lazy Susan helps me find products quicker. I had it in our last bathroom so it isn’t a new purchase.

IMG_20200521_100547I still feel like there are too many products, so we are using up what we have and will only be replacing what we really  love.

The bottom one is where we keep our laundry basket and extra bath mat.

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We still had more items that I needed to find a place for. I had used this idea at our home in Baton Rouge and it seemed like a no brainer to use here.

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Clear shoe bags make it so easy to see what you are looking for. After we’re here for about two months, I’ll go through it and if we haven’t used a product I’ll toss it.

In our sink area we have a mirrored medicine cabinet. It houses our deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrushes and the kids face treatments.

IMG_20200521_100049 I’m still trying to come up with a better solution for our toothbrushes, but for now this is it.

I found this countertop cloth holder 2 years ago at Tuesday Morning. I added the towel hook on the cabinet.

 

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The under sink cabinet holds our towels and cleaning products.

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I still needed a place to store hair equipment, extra toilet paper and items you’d normally have on a countertop.

I just used some sturdy baskets I already owned and just nailed them to the wall.

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Our bathtub has built in shelves, a huge plus and I bought the suction hooks at dollar tree.

So there you have it. It is possible to only have one bathroom and not lose your mind. Strangely enough, it hasn’t been all that difficult. Everything has a place and the space is easy to keep clean.

If you ever decide that downsizing is  for you, don’t overlook a property just because of it only having one bathroom. We almost did and we would have missed out on a very special place. ❤

 

 

 

Hidden Gem

Moving to a smaller home has so many more pros than cons. Donny and I went on a walk yesterday and realized that this neighborhood is SO much more walker friendly.

 

IMG_20200519_085158 the streets in our new neighborhood are so much wider. Longview has no sidewalks, like none, anywhere. So wide streets are important.

Just a little ways from our house we turned onto a dead end street and this is what we found.

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IMG_20200519_090528A great little neighborhood park. But it’s not just a park. It leads onto the hiking trail with a nifty little bridge.

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Longview is full of trails. I used to have to drive when I wanted to go trail walking. Now I just walk down the street. There’s nothing better than the scent of all the trees and foliage. It’s so shady it makes it about 10 degrees cooler. Huge plus since it’s already hot and humid here.

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I guess Donny wasn’t ready for the picture. I look like I wasn’t even ready to leave the house.

I did realize something really awesome when we got back home. I can now clean my house, like REALLY clean it, in an hour. To me there is no better feeling than a clean, calm space. Am I right?

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Even had time to make a lasagna. I used a spring form pan and was a little nervous it would fall apart.

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It came right out! No leftovers, so I’m pleased.

While I was cooking, a childhood friend sent me a very old photo. I was either in the 5th or 6th grade. When I showed it to my kids they thought I was a boy, except when they realized I had on a bikini. I’m the one on the far left, but it’s pretty obvious.

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I can’t believe how fast time flies by. That’s why it’s so important to squeeze all of the good you can out of each and every day. 🌞

Strawberry Sauce + English Pancakes

As a family, we had a discussion about eating cleaner, healthier and simplifying our meals. We also decided that it would be fun to add some foods that  we might not eat here, but that other countries enjoy regularly.

Today I made strawberry sauce to spread on some English pancakes. Again, this is not a formal recipe, but more of a guide.

I needed to use up some strawberries we had that were going to go bad in a day or so. For some reason, we had two containers a little less than half empty.

First I cut off the tops and cut them up and threw then in a sauce pan. I added 1/4 cup water and 1/4 cup sugar. Next time I’ll probably add a little more sugar. I squeezed half a lemon into the pot and then set it to boil.

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Now for the not so fun part. Stir, stir, stir, stir and repeat. While it’s bubbling along you must stir it so the sugar doesn’t burn. It is interesting to watch the sugars and citrus all break down and become one. And I should add that the smell is pretty darn good.

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IMG_20200517_092453I cooked it for about 30 minutes. There’s no set time, just when you feel like all the sugars are broken down.

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That’s it. It’s basically just a dump and stir. You can use blueberries, raspberries, apples, whichever fruit you prefer. You can eat it warm or cold. I just moved mine off if the stove while I mixed up the English pancakes.

English pancakes are not like American pancakes. They are not fluffy. They are very much like crepes. There are a lot of different recipes out there. I just read a few and then made my own.

I sifted about 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour and a pinch of salt into a mixing bowl.

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Made a well in the middle and added two eggs.

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Start pulling a little bit of flour into the eggs. It’s going to be a little sticky, but that’s ok.

Next I added 2 T melted butter and stirred it all together.

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Now add 2 cups milk and whisk it all until it’s blended. You can also use a hand mixer or blender. It’s going to be runny. VERY runny, but that’s what you want. Let it rest for at least 15 minutes. If you want to make it the night before, you can. Just keep it in the fridge.

When it’s time to cook, have a stick of butter and a hot pan ready. Melt some butter in the hot pan and then pour about 1/4 cup of batter in and swirl it around until it’s VERY thin. Let it cook then flip it over. You have to judge when to do this. I wrecked the first two until I found the timing sweet spot.

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Before it’s flipped.

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After it’s flipped. You need to make sure the first side is set before you flip it or it will tear. These babies are really thin. Also, don’t forget to butter that pan between pancakes. I almost went through a whole stick.

I like mine folded into thirds, but you can eat then however you want. The traditional English way is with lemon juice and sugar.

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And here’s the finished dish. I spread the strawberry sauce on top and sprinkled on some powered sugar.

The whole family loved them. There were no pancakes or sauce left. The batter makes about 12 pancakes.

Just remember when you’re cooking, no recipe is set in stone. Be creative. We like to try to use what we have. Some might be failures, but that’s ok. That’s how we learn. ❤