Category: 100 Days

Day #88 – Best Enchiladas + Best Stain Remover

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Yesterday was the first day of Fall so, of course, we donned our jackets and went to the orchard to pick apples and have hot cider. After that we lit a fire and had streaming hot chili. That would be my dream, but we live in Texas and it was in the 90″s so we are still in shorts sweating our butts off. Hopefully before it officially becomes Winter we will have a few days of Autumn.

Anyway, I did not make a meal plan for this week. It was getting time to start dinner and all I had were chicken breasts defrosted. I went into my cabinet pantry and found a large can of green enchilada sauce. Mexican food it is. I got out my Instant Pot and started some pinto beans that I’d make into refried beans. I cooked them for about 90 minutes and then put the two chickens breasts on for about 30 minutes. I seasoned them with my powered broth and my badia seasoning. Then I added garlic and onion powder, paprika and cumin. After those cooked I shredded the chicken and added some of the broth to make it juicy. I got my pan out and added oil and put the tortillas in for about 5 seconds each. Added some of the green sauce to the bottom and rolled the chicken up in the tortillas. I poured the rest of the green sauce on top and added shredded colby jack cheese. Popped it into the preheated 350 degree oven while I made the rice.

I don’t like chicken enchiladas. I think it’s because I don’t trust restaurants to take out all of the fat. Same reason I don’t ever do chopped beef sandwiches at a BBQ place. These were probably some of the best enchiladas I’ve ever had. The green sauce was just what they sell at Aldi.

The two chickens breasts make 12 enchiladas. I don’t know why but I always seem to make enough beans to feed our whole street. We don’t do the canned refried beans because to us they taste metallic and these are so easy to make. The rice is just my go to mexican rice that I always make.

They were so good I had to have some for breakfast.

For being a spur of the moment, what the heck am I going to make for dinner meal it’s now one of our favorites.

Donny found that the employee that quit had an accident in one of the chairs in the clearance area. Donny had been off all week so he wasn’t sure how long that stain had been there. We went to Walmart and got this stain remover.

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It’s in the automotive section.

He didn’t know if it was going to work, but he sent me this picture.

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Holy stain remover Batman! Neither one of us could believe how well it worked. So If anyone needs this miracle product you know where to get it.

Day #86 and #87 – Fall Prep

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I am putting two days together again because yesterday was laundry day and finishing The Summer I Turned Pretty, which was so good and totally not my usual watch.

Today I decided to start getting the little things done around the house that I have been wanting to get to. I have been changing out the light switch plates from beige to white. We had so many left over from when we had to gut our house in Baton Rouge and since our walls are white it just looks better.

I have also been itching to get the stereo stand cleaned out. I bought it to use in my house in Austin as a kitchen island. It’s also been a TV stand and a changing table. But the drawer and the cabinet was stuffed full of stuff.

It had gotten to where we could barely close the drawer.

After everything was put where it was actually supposed to go.

The cabinet area was stacked to the brim.

I found so many seeds that I had forgotten I stored in here.

It’s still stacked pretty full, but now I know everything that’s in there and got rid of the stuff that wasn’t supposed to be there.

I have some projects I need to get started this week.

Donny and I ran down to Sherwin Williams on Friday and picked up a gallon of our interior paint. Dang but paint is so expensive. We did get a deal because we are buying though our landlord and they buy A LOT of paint from SW. Sometimes I wish that I could paint our walls something other than white, but I really don’t mind it too much. When we bought our home in Baton Rouge I painted all of the main rooms white. I love to have the extra paint on hand so I can touch up where it’s needed. It just makes everything feel so much cleaner.

I am also going to paint our metal chairs that we use outside. We decided to go with the same color as our kitchen table chairs because it’s just such a great color. That’s going to be more of a project since I’ll have to sand them down first.

I got a new coffee mug at the thrift store the other day. I love that it is my favorite color and is perfect for Fall, especially since I don’t really decorate for Fall.

Day #85 – They’re Back

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Today is Donny’s last day of staycation. I think it’s done him good to just chill out and get things done around the house. He got the cana lilies planted.

Not a great picture because I had to take it through the kitchen window because while he was doing that I was cleaning out the fridge because we needed to make a big Aldi run.

Donny saw them first and called me over because he knew how excited I was going to be.

My very favorite snack that Aldi only has once a year and they sell out so fast. We have tried to find dupes of these but have never been successful. I swear I could eat a whole jar in one sitting they are that good. I’m going to be so sad when I run out of these and then have to wait a whole year to get them again.

Day #84 – TSITP

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I really messed up yesterday. On the way home from Kilgore yesterday afternoon Donny suggested that we stop off at Sonic and get a drink. Well, the kids had been at school most of the day so Hannah was hungry, Jackson said he could eat a snack so we all kind of decided to eat a snacky late lunch early dinner and then just graze when we got home. Here’s the problem with Sonic, they have nothing food wise that I can eat. Did that stop me? Uh, nope. So I had a chocolate banana milkshake and 4 cheddar peppers. I knew. I really did, but I was caught up in the moment of having fun with the fam. That fun led to me not feeling well at all today. BUT, there was a silver lining.

If you have ever read an Elin Hildebrand book and you loved it, you need to watch The Summer I Turned Pretty. I am very late to the trend, but my oldest daughter told me to watch it and now I’m hooked. It’s only 3 seasons and the reason we were discussing it is because the cast was on the today show after the series finale aired. It’s one of those shows where you really want to find out how it turns out but know that when it’s over you will miss the characters so much.

Donny and I have been debating what to plant on our fence line in the back. We had toyed with the idea of a bamboo fence, but there are so many plants that we want to keep that are growing right up against the fence that a bamboo one would be almost impossible to attach. We saw that cana lilies are good because they are so prolific and are the right height that we need. I looked into buying them online and they were $10-$15 a bulb. Donny went to Super 1 today and sent me a picture asking if this is what we were looking for and sure enough it was

These were about 10 bucks a piece, but there are so many shoots in one pot. We’ll hopefully get to plant them tomorrow.

And just because O’malley and Baby Ruth looked so cute together.

Day #83 – Do Something Nice

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I have two kiddos who are in their first year of college. My son, Jackson, does not get overwhelmed easily. He is more of my go with the flow type kid. I ask him if he gets his work done and he always has it done. Hannah, my daughter, can get easily overwhelmed. She is a perfectionist and sometimes that can be hard. One of her classes is speech which, of course, requires her to, well, give speeches. I think this class is going to be so good for her. She is learning that there are a lot of assignments given and due rather quickly. They both have a design class together and a project was coming up. She was getting overwhelmed and burning her candle at both ends. I believe that as long as they are doing their best I will help them in all ways possible. Like, for instance, I make them breakfast every morning. It’s just a small thing, but I believe that it helps them start their day off in a positive way.

Today I decided that I was going to clean their rooms. It’s normally up to them to maintain their spaces, but sometimes it’s nice to come home to something that is already done and you can have that one weight taken off of your shoulders.

Her room is small, but cozy. Just the way she likes it. But you can see how if it gets a little unorganized that can be a problem.

Jackson is my collector of many things. I try not to touch any of his electronics or gaming systems because, with my luck, I’ll unplug something important. I did get his sheets changed and gave his room a good vacuum.

We did figure out how the wasp got into his room. While I was dusting the blinds I saw that there was a big wasps nest on his window.

Luckily Donny only worked half a day today so he went outside and gave it a good spray. I also think he’s going to finish his vacation days and take the next two days off. Hopefully.

I found out the coolest thing today. SiriusXM has Dateline on one of its channels. I love Dateline.

I don’t know why I never knew this before.

Donny came in to tell me that my tomato plant has a tomato!!!!! He can always find the vegetable where it takes me forever to see it. I finally found it. It’s a little thing and might not grow into a full fledged tomato, but it might and that’s what counts.

My pumpkin vine is still going strong but I can already tell there will be no pumpkin by Halloween. Probable not even by Thanksgiving. It’s trying though.

Day #81 & #82

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Donny rarely takes vacation days. Even when he does he gets many phone calls and more often than not he has to go back into work at least for a few hours. This week he took Monday – Friday off. We had decided that we really needed to work on the yard, especially the backyard. That’s why these two days are one post.

On Monday I decided to weed the front beds and around the gardens. Luckily when I started it was early and the weather hadn’t gotten to unbearably hot. I still sweat a bit and our cat Monkey loves to rub against me and meow for pets when I’m weeding. Every. Single. Time.

While I was weeding I noticed that the house needed to be washed down. Every north facing house has a mildew problem when it rains and then gets hot and humid. Nothing that a little soap, water and elbow grease can’t fix.

I only have to do it a few times a year, thank goodness.

I had an audience while I was scrubbing.

One thing about Donny and me is that we can’t resist running some errands. We had to go to Walmart for a few essentials and found something that makes me so happy.

We had the carpet type floor mats that the dead grass just clung to for dear life. You can see the dead grass I still need to vacuum out. The blue is the same color as the inside trim on the seats.

I had been desperately needing some new gardening gloves since mine were getting holes in the fingers. Scored these on clearance for a buck.

Tuesday morning I started on the backyard. If you haven’t heard of Poke Weeds you are lucky. They have these berries that stain everything magenta and are poisonous. Well, we had a whole orchard of these beauties that we had to dig up.

I also found out, the hard way, that we had devil vines. That’s just what we named them because they look like harmless ivy vines but they have the most wicked thorns. I have scratches all over me.

With my trusty pick ax we got it all done.

While Donny was carrying all of our weeds to the front I started weeding this area. I only found one snake, it was a smallish grass snake.

Now we can start working on fixing the shed.

It was such a productive day.

Now for the sad news. We had been planning to go away for a couple of days either back to Lone Star or to this cabin I found near Tyler. Something held up back from making reservations and it’s a good thing we didn’t because one of Donny’s sales guys had to quit due to medical reasons. So, guess who goes back to work tomorrow? Which means he probably won’t even get his Thursday and Friday off. I’m trying to show some grace, but sometimes I have to dig deep to find it. It’s not Donny’s fault and he’s just as disappointed as I am.

But we did find this cool wind chime lol

Day #81 – Back to My Roots + A Little Thrifting

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I was born and raised a Methodist. I was christened as a baby and went through confirmation in 6th grade. I went to the same church until high school when I decided to switch to a smaller Methodist church because the pastor was amazing and I loved the youth group. Donny is Baptist. When we had children we started going to Brazos Fellowship, a non-denominational church, in Bryan, TX. We LOVED that church. Hannah and Jackson were dedicated at that church. When we moved to Corpus I thought I would love to go back to the original church I had grown up in. They had just started a non-traditional worship service and we tried it. I don’t know if it was just because it was so new, but it just didn’t feel right. An older woman there pulled me aside and told me that she thinks what we were looking for was more like Bay Area Fellowship. We tried it the next Sunday and absolutely loved it. The kids and I spent many hours there every Sunday. (Donny had to work so he only went to the worship service). Hannah was baptized there and, even though I had already been through confirmation with the Methodist church, Donny felt like I should be “properly” baptized by submersion, so I was.

When we moved to Baton Rouge we found another church that we loved and Jackson felt it was time for him to be baptized. I loved that my kids went to church and enjoyed it so much. When we moved here we tried out several churches, but none seemed to fit the way the other ones had. I ended up just watching Bay Area Fellowship’s service online. Plus with all of the controversies surrounding the mega churches I have to admit I was turned off by all of it. We still believed in God, I just didn’t know if I believed in organized religion.

With the turn of events this past week I decided that I wanted to go back to my Methodist background. I’ve said it before that I am a not all the way to the right conservative and I’ve always felt that the Methodist church aligned more with my beliefs. So today we went to the early non-traditional service at FUMC.

Jackson wasn’t feeling well, but Hannah was up and ready even though she had a late night. We all really liked the service. It was laid back and friendly. The music was good and not overly loud and the female pastor that gave the sermon was impressive. We will definitely be going back. It’s also nice that they have an 8:30 service since Donny has to work on Sundays and it still gives us time to have brunch.

Jackson was feeling a little bit better so we picked him up and headed to Fuzzy’s. It’s so nice to have a meal together as a family after sharing your faith together.

This necklace was one of the very first gifts Donny gave me over 20 years ago when we first started dating.

With Donny at work and Jackson back in his room Hannah and I decided to hit Hope’s Closet. They had just put out their Fall items. I got 3 sweaters that I’ve already put away because, even though I need them for Fall/Winter, it was 96 degrees here and just thinking about a sweater made me cringe.

I did find this amazing mirror.

I needed one where I didn’t have to hunch down to put on my makeup.

I had to attach the top shelf to the wall so it would fit. It was a small sacrifice for such an awesome mirror.

The mirror was only $5.99 and that is a steal. (I saw the exact one on Etsy that had already sold for $68)

Hannah talked me into getting this purse because she said it looks like our house. She right, those are all of our colors.

I have decided that it is perfect for my laptop and planner.

I love Sundays that are so full of family.

Day #80 – Memories + Bread

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Today I decided to go through some of my old pictures. I am very lucky that a lot of my pictures that we had stored in our shed in Baton Rouge were in big Sterlite tubs and just floated around and never got really wet.

I love the old pictures of my Mother and Daddy. Yes, I have always called my dad Daddy and my mom Mother. Maybe it’s just a southern thing, I don’t know.

The woman with my dad is his mother. My dad graduated from Sul Ross University. His best friend was Dan Blocker who played Hoss on Bonanza.

My mother went to UT and was a Bluebonnet Belle. The Smithville picture was taken in 1946.

My grandparents on my mother’s side. She died when I was 7 months old and he passed away when I was 12. I called him Papa and everyone referred to her as Muddie. I told Donny that my love for animals must be genetic because look at all of those cats Papa was feeding and Muddie had a skunk.

I was a late in life baby for my parents. I only have one sibling, a sister, and she is 14 years older than I am.

I was 100% tomboy if you couldn’t tell.

The only think I wanted this Christmas was a Dallas Cowboys football uniform. See what happens when your dad is a football coach and has only girls.

My mother made sure I had the plastic animals in the parking lot pictures though. Did anyone else do this? They had a buffalo, cow and a whole bunch of other animals that you’d get put on and they photographer would take your picture. I do like how my mom’s beetle is in the background while I’m riding the trails.

It amazes me how fast time flies by. I found this picture of me with my first born who now has 3 kids of her own. I was living in Florida and had flown down to Texas to see my mother.

I almost panicked when I couldn’t find my favorite picture of Donny. It was his first time holding Hannah after she was born.

I am happy to report that I found gluten free bread that didn’t look like it was made of paper mache.

I haven’t had a sandwich in months and I wanted to make paninis tonight.

It was actually really good. Either that or I was just really wanting a sandwich. Don’t worry, I did not force this on my family, they had rye bread.

Can we have a What the Hell are They Thinking minute?

Oh, but you save 50 cents. The grossest candy that is just pure sugar for $7.98? It’s not even a big bag.

Tootsie Rolls, you know the candy that no one likes to eat so it just gets thrown away after Halloween. I think they’ve lost their minds. I don’t know why I was shocked that normal, not even collector item, magazines are $14.99. For a magazine!!!!!!! If you ever wonder why I stick to Aldi, this is why.

Day #79 – On the Mend

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I finally woke up this morning without a raging headache. I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m not 100% yet, more like 75%, but I will take it. I even made it out of the house. Donny and I had to run to Drug Emporium because we are almost out of body wash and I’m down to below half a bottle on my laundry soap. I think that I have a FORO (fear of running out) of my Zum because during lockdown I had such a hard time finding it.

I am almost out of my body lotion so I decided to go ahead and get the same brand just a different kind.

I love it! I put some on when we got home and it’s the same rich formula that soaks right into the skin and leaves your skin so incredibly soft. Plus the smell is amazing. It’s got an excellent rating on Yuka. It’s cruelty free, ethically sourced and has third party authentication. It’s a win-win in my opinion.

I actually ate my first real meal in 3 days. I’ve been living off of all natural fruit pops and spoonfuls of peanut butter. Luckily we had some chicken fried rice in the fridge.

I managed to get the flowers potted.

That’s my lowly pumpkin fine in front of them. They aren’t going to stay right there, but it was 93 degrees today with humidity through the roof. With just feeling better I didn’t want to overdo it.

I had to tie up the tomato plants because they had started to just fall over. I can finally acquiesce that it is nearly time to just pull them out. I’m still holding out to a tiny bit of hope that the mums will help get the blooms pollinated.

My biggest accomplishment today was getting all of the laundry done. We just folded the last two loads of towels.

Everything has been hung up and put away and that makes me feel so much better. I might be up to 75% now. I also did not cook tonight. We got a family dinner from Texas Roadhouse. I was craving their salad and it did not disappoint.

P.S.

I saw the live broadcast of Erika Kirk on CBS. My heart breaks for her. If you could, please send a prayer up for her and her two small children. I cannot even imagine how hard this is on them.

Day #78 – Shakespeare Garden

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I’m on day 3 of feeling unwell. Yesterday I had to go pick Jackson up from school and ended up getting there a bit early. He had told me about the Shakespeare Garden that was right by the art building. I decided to take a look while I was waiting.

You pick up a sheet that’s on the gate and just follow the path.

It’s so pretty and serene. There are benches placed throughout the pathways.

I loved the butterfly house.

Because it is later in the season there is not a lot blooming right now.

I just love that they have this on campus.

Today was Donny’s day off (yes, he did have to go in for a few hours due to some unforeseen issues) but before that we decided to stop by an estate sale that he had seen online. It had a clown painting that he thought I’d like. Oh, and I did. Too bad it was $140. We always go to this company’s estate sales that they put on, but lately the prices have gotten outrageous. We ended up leaving empty handed. However, as we were walking to the car I saw the first Halloween decorations of the season.

I love Halloween, but Fall doesn’t begin until September 22nd. I just cannot get myself to put up Halloween decorations when it’s still technically summer. It just feels so wrong to me. These were really cool though.

Since my pumpkin vine is getting longer we decided I needed some pollinators. We went to Home Depot and picked up some mums and marigolds. My marigolds are still growing and not yet near the bloom phase. I need so insects to have something sooner so maybe when the pumpkin vine flowers it will get pollinated.

I had to get yellow since it’s my favorite color. Fingers crossed I’ll feel well enough to get this planted tomorrow.