The Gift of Cooking

Today was a pretty ordinary Tuesday for me. This morning I put a roast in the crock pot so that it could cook all day and be tender and falling apart delicious in time for supper. I went on with my day keeping the possibility in mind that I may make mashed potatoes to go along with the roast. Afternoon came and I decided I'd do just that. The menu would include my crock pot roast, homemade mashed potatoes with homemade gravy, peas from our garden, & sauerkraut for Chris (since he's crazy and likes that nasty stuff). That was definitely NOT homemade. It's bad enough smelling that stuff when I heat a little bit up on the stove. ;)

Of course it took a lot of dishes and some extra time to get everything made so that it was ready to eat and still hot when Chris arrived home from work which is never the same time each day. Thankfully he always calls when he leaves work to give me a heads up. :) He arrived home and we devoured everything in no time flat compared to how much time it took to prepare. 

Inevitably my kitchen somehow experienced a tornado while we were eating and all the dirty counters/pans were staring me in the face. So I proceeded to dig in and restore my kitchen back to normal state.

Chris normally helps me but instead he took Pyro out, filled up the bird feeders, and moved the truck to the top of the driveway in case it actually does snow a bunch tonight. Alone in my kitchen to clean up my delicious mess, I started pondering just how blessed I am.

I can cook. I don't post this blog entry with pride or arrogance. I debated not posting but I decided to do it anyways. My mom deserves a shout out for taking the time and energy to raise me up learning precious lessons right beside her in the kitchen. Rest assured at the time I was expected to learn all these lessons, I didn't think they were near as important as  she did. :) But now as I try to take my role as a wife and homemaker seriously, I am so very thankful for those years of stretching and learning. So many women didn't grow up with this blessing and I hope that I never take it for granted.

Tonight I am very grateful for this blessing and counting all my others that are truly never ending. Mom, the gray hair wasn't in vain - I love you!! Thanks for not giving up on me.

Good Deals & Free Things

Who doesn't love a good deal? In my early teen years I saved up my hard earned paper route money to buy myself a trampoline. I made sure to scout out the best deal possible and when I finally had enough money saved, Scott took me to get my long awaited trampoline!! A few days after I made the large purchase I had a dream (nightmare actually) that I found the trampoline cheaper at another store. :( Needless to say I was relieved when I woke up and realized it was just a dream! Whew! Haha! To this day I still try to scout out the stores for the best items/place to purchase things as to spend my money as wisely as possible.

Last week I received this entire case of Biscoff Spread absolutely free!! A few weeks ago they advertised this opportunity via their Facebook to the first 4,000 participants and I was one of them. What fun!

It's interesting to me all the things that you can get for free in this day and age. A lot of companies host contests on Facebook or simply give away free samples via their website, etc. Sadly, a lot of them are at specific times throughout the day or random times that you need to just "happen upon". This is where deal blogs come in very handy!! I have compiled a collection of blogs that I check several times a day when I have the chance. They take most of the work out of keeping up with the giveaways and have been so helpful to me. Here are my favorites:

Hunt4Freebies - "Your One Stop Shop For Freebies & Deals"

For the Mommas - Real Savings, Real Solutions

Sample Stuff - Saving Money, Made Easy

Bargain Blessings - Save Like Never Before

Money Saving Mom - Helping You Be A Better Home Economist

Hip2Save - So You Want To Save A Buck? You're In Luck!

Because of the information I read on these blogs we get several free magazine subscriptions, a subscription to the Wall Street Journal newspaper, tons of shampoo/lotion samples, lots of razors, a few reusable shopping bags, oodles of tea/coffee samples, many t-shirts, two pairs of Nike sneakers, roses, and so much more! ALL FREE!! I've always loved getting mail and when the mailbox is filled with these special surprises several times a week it's even cooler. :)

It does take some time to keep up with some of this stuff but if it's something that interests you, hopefully these blogs will help you out as much as they have me. 

While the blogs have deal information as well as free stuff information, there are some other websites that I check regularly that are specifically for deal finding. Chris and I have found many great items on both of the following websites that have enabled us to purchase things for our home or ourselves that we may not have been able to purchase at full price. They can be found here:

slickdeals - The largest and best community driven deal sharing site for deals and coupons!

Woot - One Deal A Day

And last but not least, I have been blessed to win some free cabin stays in Tennessee via Sugar Maple Cabins Facebook page. We stayed with this cabin company on our honeymoon and have been back several times since. We love the Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg/Sevierville area. Last April I won a two night stay in one of their cabins that Chris and I are planning to take advantage of next month!! We are so excited to get away for a bit.

Table Makeover

About 5 years ago my aunt informed us of a friend she had who was downsizing and moving. This friend was in the process of selling various things in her house for very reasonable prices just to move things quickly. Chris and I were living at our Fayetteville duplex at the time but knew that we would be moving in a few months since we were planning to buy our current home in the spring of the following year. We decided it may be a good idea to just go check out what she had and see if we could find any new to us, fun pieces to add to our home collections. We had a successful trip that included this small accent table...

I fell in love with the table right away but not so much the colors. I never was a huge fan of peach or gold but thought the table could have some future potential somehow. And so the years have gone by (quickly I may add) and I hadn't found the perfect spot for this table until recently. When Chris and I remodeled the basement area, we relocated the water softener and water heater out of the bathroom/previous utility room so that it wouldn't be so cramped. When the bathroom project was complete, I knew the table would be a great fit for the newly opened space.

So I had finally found the perfect spot to put it but the colors just weren't working for me. Thanks to a few Pinterest ideas and a new find of 'Valspar's Antiquing Glaze' the following pictures will walk you through my table transformation process.....

(All primed and ready to paint.)

(Painted one coat - Ready to sand down some of the edges before the antiquing process.)

(Antiqued and ready to put a coat of Minwax Wipe-On Poly on to protect it.)

(All finished and put back into place! :)

Over all I was pretty excited with how well it turned out. I wasn't sure what I was doing at first but it was fun. :) Now I'm eyeing up more pieces in my house to antique......:)

Pinterest, Baubles, & Bargain Fun

About a month ago while I was perusing the vast library of Pinterest, I stumbled on a picture of a very colorful and uniquely decorated Christmas tree. I was instantly drawn to it and pinned it right away thinking that it may be a fun idea to do some year down the road.

Last year Chris and I purchased an artificial Christmas tree for our upstairs living room so that we could enjoy the holiday lights much longer than the amount of time a real tree allows. In the meantime we finished our beloved basement space where we spend most of our time now and were sad that our Christmas tree was so far away this year and on a different floor of our home. We attempted to make the tree fit in our basement but with the suspended ceiling, there just wasn't enough space between the floor and ceiling to make it work. We decided to put it in the upstairs living room just like last year and enjoy it anyways.

Fast forward to this past Friday. Chris got off early and we headed for Hagerstown to run a few errands. We stopped at Target and everything in the Christmas section was 50% off. I knew I was in trouble but we had to at least breeze through and take a look. It was really busy and of course everyone was bustling around trying to grab up all the best deals they could find. Then it happened. I spotted these...

ONE HUNDRED glass ornaments that instantly took me back to the Christmas tree I had found on Pinterest. The box of 100 originally sold for $30 but now it was only $15. There were two boxes left on the shelf. Chris said I should get them. I quickly pulled up the Pinterest picture on my phone and we tried to figure out roughly how many I would need. We decided that it would be best to get both boxes. $30 instead of $60 for TWO HUNDRED ornaments. "Baubles" as Chris calls them. I'd never heard them called that in my life. HAHA. :) I was so excited about my new bargain find that I wasn't even really intentionally looking for.

We looked at the artificial Christmas trees they had left but there wasn't much of a selection anymore so we decided that we'd probably try to get one on sale next year so that we could use these fun new ornaments and have a second tree in our basement.

Now fast forward to Monday (yesterday). Chris and I were in Chambersburg running some other errands and we decided to stop at that Target to return some pants we got the day before that didn't fit well. We went to the Christmas clearance area and would you believe everything was now 70% off?? I'm a sucker for a good bargain. They had a perfect looking slim Virginia Pine tree that was originally $185.00 marked down to $55.50. We couldn't pass that one up either so the tree was bought and away we went.

And I forgot to mention that before Target, we stopped at Hobby Lobby and found some pretty ribbon that was 66% off! 90 feet of wide wired ribbon for $3.33!!! I had all the pieces to my project puzzle.

By the time we got home I could barely contain myself. I suddenly and VERY unexpectedly had everything I needed to complete the Pinterest project I had fallen in love with but had no intentions of it falling into place so soon. So today, I was faced with a dilemma. Christmas is over and this project was definitely something that would have been best to do a month or so ago but there was no way I was going to be able to put my mind to rest until next Christmas as it was on overload wondering if I would be able to recreate the Pinterest creation.

The Pinterest Inspiration:

I went for it. The following pictures show you the results of my afternoon...

~Fluffing the new tree.~

~Adding the reds.~

~Reds are done. Hera checking things out.~

~Adding the pinks.~

~Pinks are done.~

~Adding the purples.~

~Purples are done.~

~Adding the blues.~

~Blues are done.~

~Adding the greens.~

~Almost finished! One last step.~

~Adding the ribbon.~

MY Finished Version:

So Chris and I are enjoying an extended Christmas in our basement now for at least a few weeks. :) As I was finishing up the lengthy process I threatened that the tree will just have to stay up the entire year. I'm sure that won't be the case but for now we will enjoy it and hope that I can recreate it later this year when Christmas time rolls around again. :) What a project! Special thanks to my talented hubby for photographing each step of the process for me and for taking some finished project shots. :)

Random fun facts about this project:

1. Only 1 ornament hit the floor and shattered during the entire process. Thus the smart move of blankets covering the floor after I realized just how fragile they were and how hard the floor was.

2. I ended up using 165 of the 200 ornaments.

3. The project cost me $88.83 instead of $254.99 which would have been the non clearance total price.

New & Fresh

So it's been a little while. I've been wanting to post about life and give my blog a makeover but just never took the time. I'm way too picky when it comes to this sort of thing. I have a vision in my head of what I'd like it to look like but it takes me forever to make it work. It's good for now. :) At least it's something new and exciting!

2012 is coming to a close and I'm still not sure where the last six months went (or the entire year for that matter). Life has kept me busy and I'm looking forward to hopefully a bit of a slower paced winter. We had a white Christmas and it's finally been consistently cold so I guess winter finally decided to show up. I'm looking forward to 2013 with anticipation of hopes and dreams waiting to be fulfilled. This past year has been a challenge for me in many ways and I'm praying for a different direction for my new year's adventures. God is teaching me much about patience and faith and I'm doing my best to hang on for the wild ride that life takes me on at times.

Will I be back more faithfully to my blog in the coming year? I'm going to try. I was never big on new year's resolutions so I don't think I'll make that one of them but we'll see. :)

My "Acting" Debut

A week and a half ago as Chris and I were leaving his parent's house, I was walking out the front concrete steps and thought I was stepping onto the middle of one of the steps when in reality I was on the edge of it. Chad was walking towards me and in a random moment of trying to be funny I threw out my arms and said to him....."YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!" (Lord of the Rings reference) Apparently I'm not able to act and walk at the same time because that is the same moment I was on the edge of the step planting my foot forcefully. This miscalculation threw me forward to the ground with a popping sound in my ankle. When I got back up it became obvious to me that I was in some pain and that my ankle twisted to the side and back in a way it's not supposed to move! I hobbled to the car and Chris and I checked it out when we got home. I've never broken a bone in my life, nor have I really injured myself with sprains or anything else of the sort. Yes, I'm thankful although it provides a disadvantage when you have no idea what you are dealing with when you hurt yourself. :) We quickly came to the realization that with the movement I had in my ankle, it most likely wasn't broken. I've been told that sprains can be worse than breaks and I was determined that this wouldn't plague me for months to come. I spent last week hopping around and taking it easy so that it had a good head start on healing properly. While I still have some discomfort when I turn my ankle side to side, it's feeling stronger each day and I'm very thankful for a family who prayed for me to heal quickly! I'm still being careful that I don't overdo it or twist it funny ways and re injure things. I guess the moral of the story is that God thought I needed to slow down a bit. It sure did take a lot of patience to lay around inside when Spring had DEFINITELY sprung outside. If you look closely you can see some yellowish bruising and swelling around my ankle area taken a few days after the fall.

With the rental project taking up most of the winter months and the mild weather we had, it feels like we've gone right from Fall to Spring. The ground never really froze consistently enough for the weeds to die and our garden was proof of that!! My amazing husband spent practically his entire Saturday tilling our garden mass of weeds. :( I was beginning to think I'd never see freshly tilled brown dirt. He still has the one end to tackle but at least he got a head start on things. Monday night we were able to get out before the rain and plant red onions, carrots, and peas. Soon after we got things planted and came inside to clean up, the rains came! Perfect timing. :)

The garden BEFORE Chris worked his awesome-ness:

The top half of the garden tilled and ready to plant:

Our basement project is continuing to show signs of progress here and there. We are trying to complete half of it and then move furniture into place and finish the other side as a second phase of the project. I'm so excited at how it's coming together that I can barely stand still and be patient for things to finish up. There's that patience issue again. Okay God, I'm trying. :) The new flooring is going in as Chris and I have time. Soon we'll have furniture in this "new" space!

Fast Forward 3 Months

Has it really been over 3 months since I last blogged? Oh dear. I'm fired.


On October 30th, Chris and I celebrated 7 years of marriage. What an amazing, wild ride it has been so far! I'm so blessed to be married to my best friend. I'm excited to see what the next 7 years and beyond will hold for us. God has blessed us greatly.

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I won a 2 night cabin stay in Tennessee early on in 2011. We were able to take advantage of this getaway in the middle of November. Over my epic 11-11-11 birthday even!! We had a wonderful time away making new, fun memories in a place that we both enjoy so much. Some highlights included Krispy Kreme doughnuts, amazing mountain views (including watching the sun come up from behind those mountains the morning of my 27th birthday), hiking to Clingman's Dome which is the highest point in Tennessee (6,643 Feet), and shopping!!!! :)

At the end of September, one of our tenants informed us that he was in the process of purchasing a house and would be moving out at the end of November. This tenant had been living in half of our duplex since before we bought the property in 2005 so we were sad to see him go. With his upcoming departure, we knew we'd have to bite the bullet and do some fixing up. Our plans were to give it a good cleaning, fix up the major issues, and repaint everything so that it looked more presentable. Did I mention we wanted to have it done in a month? Sadly, that one month turned into two and our December/January months were insanely chaotic. With the exception of a few, we spent every evening and every Saturday working at the rental. We still haven't found a new tenant and we just have a few things to finish up tomorrow morning. We will be SO very glad to call it DONE and get a new (hopefully decent) tenant. What a wild journey. Now that both sides of the duplex are remodeled, we can hopefully rest easy for awhile in that aspect of our lives. While it's a lot of work, I am very thankful that Chris and I are able to work together to complete the tasks and for the income it provides. Maybe someday I'll post pictures of the transformation for those of you that don't have access to them on Facebook.


Somewhere in all that chaos we celebrated Christmas! It all just seems like a blur to me now. There hasn't been much snow this winter at all and we've been having an abnormally large amount of rain. The ground is so moist that I wonder if it will ever dry out for Spring garden planting! I know it's only the beginning of February (and there is currently a little bit of snow on the ground) but I find myself getting excited about planting things and warmer/longer days ahead. I still love snow and I'm hoping for at least a whopper that keeps Chris home a day or two yet. :) We shall see!


Now that the rental remodel is nearly complete, our energies will get back on task with our basement project. I've been slowly working on things during the day while I have some free time here at home. Major items left for the project include refinishing the steps, painting trim/walls, and putting down the new floor. So excited to see our basement transformed into the space we've been dreaming about since we moved here almost 4 years ago. I will end with a picture of the wood stove area progress. Nothing around the area is finished but at least the new stone and wood stove look great. My husband really outdid himself this time!!! :) LOVE this "new" space!