Monthly Archives: June 2012

Vacation With A Capital V

We’re going on vacation! Thanks to the very generous people of Ohana Camp we are staying for an all expense paid stay in a cabin for the week along with many other military families.

We didn’t get everything done on our list for the house but we are all pretty exhausted and ready for a break so we’re going anyway! Hopefully the contractors will be getting some work done while we are gone.

From what I hear there is no cell service, no Internet, no TVs. Nothing. And we are pretty excited about it!

So until next week, I’ll be enjoying some peace and quiet. Well, except for the three boys that will be with us.

There are a few things on my list of things to do while we are gone:

-Paint my toe nails
-Pluck my eyebrows
-Read a book
-Catch up on hugging my kids
-Laugh

Not a bad list, is it?!

Someone Is Living In My House

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Someone is living in my house.

And it’s not me!

(Turn your volume up!)

And then I found this. It’s too bad we are going to have to sell this house before we get to live in it.

I would have rather it been squirrels.

PS – Don’t the floors look great?!

Recipe: Blackberry Cobbler

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This recipe is based off of The Pioneer Woman’s Blackberry Cobbler recipe. I wanted a bigger serving than hers but doubling it wasn’t quite right so here is what I used to make a 9×13 pan sized dish.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 sticks of butter
1 1/2 cups of sugar plus a little extra for sprinkling on top
2 cups self rising flour (Recipe to make your own Homemade Self Rising Flour)
2 cups milk
5 cups blackberries, rinsed and pat dry (frozen or fresh)
Extra 1/4 cup sugar for sprinkling on top

Melt butter. Mix together the flour and sugar. Whisk in the milk. Pour melted butter in and whisk all together until mixed well. Grease a 9×13 pan. Pour into pan. Sprinkle blackberries over the top of the batter evenly. Sprinkle with additional 1/4 cup sugar if preferred.

Bake at 350 degrees for a little over an hour or until bubbly and cooked through in the middle.

Serve warm with ice cream or whip cream. Who are we kidding, serve with both.

Enjoy!

Breathing It In

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I’m taking a nap with my sick little guy. I’m trying to breathe in this moment.

The window is open. The birds are singing. There is a slight breeze rustling the trees. He breathes deeply. In and out. In and out. A slight snore catches his breath every now and then.

He smells like home. Even though we do not have a place to call our own, this is home to me. Where I can be next to my loves. I breathe in his scent deep into my memory.

“Remember this moment,” the birds sing to me. “Remember it always.”

*I took this picture using Instagram a while back and I wanted to share what I wrote here and expand on it a bit. Mostly because I know this is a safe place to keep my thoughts. And also because I thought some of you might relate.

Paint Brush Storage Trick

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I’ve learned a smart way to store paint brushes during all of our renovation adventures. I thought I’d pass it along as a handy tip!

When you have to put two coats of paint on something it’s a pain to wash the brushes out only to use them again the next day. The old stand by of wrapping the wet brushes in a grocery store bag works great, but with as many rooms as we were painting it was getting confusing! Which brush was which paint?! It was annoying. So we started storing them in clear plastic storage bags and labeling them with which room it was for. Genius! Now we can easily see which paint color the brush is for and it saves us a ton of time when more than one coat is needed!

If you have a big painting job ahead of you, give it a try!

Homemade Self-Rising Flour

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This is one of those recipes that I’ve had around forever and I’m not quite sure where it came from. It’s nice to have when you need self-rising flour for a recipe but you just don’t want to run out and buy some!

Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

*Makes one cup

Fill a one cup measuring cup with all-purpose flour, leveling with a flat surface. Remove 2 teaspoons of the flour. Pour remaining flour into a bowl. Add baking powder and salt. Mix together.

I’m not sure how long this will keep but I imagine if it’s in an air tight container it should be ok for a while. I usually just make a few cups worth and store for a couple of weeks or just make it as I need it.