do you ever wish you could trade places with your dog, just for a day? jackson’s most difficult task all day is readjusting to stay in his sun spot. it is a hard life he leads.
blooming in my living room


and then into my mason jar collection.

on a bookcase and 2 end tables.
the photo effect used is “1960s” on picnik.
weiner dog wednesday – the one where jackson imitates a seal
welcome to texas. let’s make breakfast burritos.






frugal friday – estate sale decorating
we love estate sales, and have had a lot of luck with great finds lately. here’s the big one…isn’t she lovely?! we had an ikea ektorp couch that was great, but we needed more seating. jed loved the back support of the ektorp, and wasn’t liking anything else. please excuse the ugly rug. it belongs to our landlord and she makes us keep it to “protect the floors”. u.g.l.y. you ain’t got no alibi…
at an estate sale in a ritzy neighborhood, we found this bigger 2×2 ikea ektorp sleeper & storage couch. it is $1200 new, and the people bought it one year ago. they had an extra brand new cover for it worth $200. they wanted $800. we bought it for $600. cash works. we loaded that sucker in the back of the truck, stuck the wicker set up front, and rolled through the ritzy part of town like the beverly hillbillies. it’s ok, i’m from arkansas.
we called a friend to help us move the couches, and he bought our old one on the spot for $300. so, we basically got my dream couch for $300. amazing!
what is your favorite estate sale/thrift store/flea market find? what would you love to find? now i just need some new throw pillows…
frugal friday – dinner @ home
last august we made our very first budget as a family. to figure out how much to budget we had to look at what we actually spent in a month. whoa. it was disturbing. the biggest shocker was how much we spent dining out. oh. my. goodness.
we are both work full time, and often when we come home we are too tired to cook, and dallas has so many great restaurants. the combination was proving to be destructive to our finances. we decided to set a relatively low dining out budget at $150 per month. you can spend that much on one good meal in dallas pretty easily. when the money is gone, we are done dining out. we have stuck to it since then, and it has been good for us. it is very difficult, as i’m sure you know, but we are trying to cook at home as much as possible. here is a meal we had this week:we had a big batch of fresh strawberries that we sliced up, for 99 cents a lb at aldi. i looked at bagged lettuce and it cost $6.99 for red lettuce and spinach. i bought a head of each for $2.69 total, and they made double the salad. i added some low fat feta and black pepper. we used balsamic vinaigrette one night and raspberry vinaigrette another night.
we also tried the barilla plus pasta this week, and it was actually good. i’ve had bad experiences with whole wheat pasta in the past, but i’m loving this kind. it has to cook a little longer, but that’s ok. we browned some lean ground turkey and added it into the mix. we tossed it together with organic vodka sauce and fresh parmesan. the whole shebang took way less than 30 minutes, and unlike rachel ray my lettuce does not show up shredded during commercials. i love dinner @ home.



to the one i love….
today is my sweet husband’s birthday. i love him more than i ever thought possible. he is so good to me and loves me so well, because that’s how jesus loves him. he is a godly man who sacrifices his time and energy so that high school kids can know the love of jesus. he is the hardest working person i know, and will make an amazing father when the time is right. i am so thankful for him. happy birthday jed!
picket fence wall art, finally finished
remember that piece of picket fence i picked up off a curb, cut into pieces, and hung on my wall? you can see that project here. my crafty to-do list is approximately 9 miles long, and i’ve been meaning to finish this piece off by adding hemp clotheslines and some of our favorite pictures. the inspiration was this: this is the barn where we held our wedding reception. we had clotheslines hung throughout the barn with our favorite pictures attached with little wooden clothespins. one line held my pics, another held jed’s. at the end of the barn were 2 lines hung with the pictures of our dating and engagement story. my life, his life, and now our life together…
we still have all the hemp cord and pictures mounted on cardstock. we picked out 6 of our favorites and i hung them with the same cord and wooden clothespins. now we have a piece of our wedding reception in our bedroom, just in time for our 2nd anniversary next week.
i love it! we’ve included pictures from my baptism, our engagement at disneyworld, jed with his brother and daddy, jed and one of his best friends, our first date, and me and one of my best friends. we can always change them out later and mix things up.
it cost absolutely nothing, and is so personal for us. it makes my heart happy every time i look at it. that, my friends, is my new decorating rule. what in your home makes your heart happy every time you see it?







i heart avocados… so let’s make some guacamole!
almost every thursday we head over to our friends’ house for tacos. typically a big crowd shows up, anywhere from 8 to 20 or so folks come over, and the berres always host. how do they host this dinner each week with out going broke? they ask everyone to bring one item, and do tacos every time to simplify things. the last 2 weeks we have been in charge of the guacamole, so i thought i’d share my method.i use fresh ingredients, no mixes or pastes. for our group (which can put down some guac) i use 8 large avocados, 2 tomatoes, half an onion, and sometimes one bunch of cilantro.


the golden touch – new sandals inspired by anthropologie
i found these lovely “rosalita” sandals on anthropologie last week. i fell in love, but they cost $148. that, my friends, is not in the budget. here they are: i then went to old navy and found these beauties for only $19.99. that is a little more in my price range.
i made 4 fabric roses using this silky vintage fabric i bought at an estate sale. i backed them with felt, and attached them to the sandals.
here is the finished product. they are a little different from the inspiration shoes, but i love them. i especially love that they didn’t cost very much. that makes them even more fabulous. if you want some lovely vintage fabric rosettes to add to your favorite sandals, let me know.





