9.23.2016

autumn inspirations.. and a mixtape!

Ohhhhhhh, how I love this time of year....Yesterday, the official first day of Autumn, did seem slightly milder and this morning it is cool and breezy out.

I have been feeling the excitement for Fall with the days getting shorter and the mornings being a bit cooler, but to have the official first day here already makes me super excited about all things Fall. Yesterday I finished up my painting project - well, the only thing I have left is the porch swing, and that will happen in time. The house looks so lively though with the new turquoise trim...


A few things I am looking forward to this Fall...

a few beach trips... Last year was my first ever trip to Jekyll Island and it was amazing and beautiful - I will be taking another trip down there again with my mom and brother!! I love the beach in the off-seasons.....so quiet and beautiful....

soups, chilis, roasts, and crock pot meals.......

the shorter days.... I am always excited for the onset of Fall when the days get shorter because that means that I get to start a new routine. When it starts getting dark at 5:30 or 6 in the evenings, I get to finish up animal chores earlier than in the Summer, and start indoor fun stuff that I never normally have time for - like sewing, blogging, baking, reading. When I get home I spend pretty much every minute of daylight outside. I just can't help myself! Of course when the Spring comes and the days get longer, I am ready for a change once again, ha!

no sweating!!

pecan pie!

French toast, pancakes, grits, and waffles! Yeah, yeah, I know you can eat these all year round, but we don't really have them much (if at all) in the Summer months. Hot breakfast foods are definitely a staple of cooler mornings around here!

Indoor painting or mini-facelifts for the indoors. This is the time of year I do my most sewing. Last year I made a beautiful set of blackout drapes for the livingroom out of a bolt of vintage blue velvet I found at an estate sale. This year I think I may paint the kitchen, hang some curtains in the bigger kitchen window and make some little curtains for the smaller window in front of the sink.

Fire! I have been collecting and piling limbs and brush all Spring and Summer to be burned this Fall. I love the smell of a burning brush pile and always look forward to the burn ban to be lifted!

Oh! and one last thing off the top of my head - YARD SALES! I love grabbing a hot cup of coffee from a gas station and driving around looking for yard sales. Walking around digging through other people's junk is always so much nicer when the mornings are crisp and cool...

Happy Friday! What are your Autumn 'routines'?

xoxo

-s

9.19.2016

weekend snippets

I just realized I haven't been here allllllll weekend! I got a wild hair Friday after work and decided to give our little house some new attitude! The color has always been a little too blah for me, but money is tight, and what I decided to start last weekend was gonna be relatively inexpensive.

I started taking the shutters off the house Friday night, washed them and then went to Lowe's before they closed. Got a few swatches of color, then decided on a turquoise. I headed home with paint, and because it was dark, imagined how easy of a job this would be!!

Early Saturday morning I started...but first, did y'all see the amazing moon last weekend???? Wow! Pictures just never do the actual sight justice, but I did happen to snap a few pics early morning while it was still hanging in the sky....


Now onto the painting.... I painted the front door first, then started on the shutters..... then realized there was trim and iron work to be painted. Eeeeeeesh. A little more work than I had planned, but still an easy facelift. Then I realized the porch swing was also painted the blah greenish color that I wanted to rid our house of... 



Well, Saturday, I managed to get the front porch trim, the shutters, door, and also the left side shutters all painted - even manicured that bush! It had gotten out of hand so bad that it covered the shutter completely on that side! I felt a little like Edward Scissorhands bringing the overgrown tress/bush down to a nicely sized shrub-ball....

..this little guy made several appearances throughout the day and even clung to my arm and crawled up my pants at one point... I made sure to tell him that he was welcome to stay and that my disruptions to his normal routine wouldn't last long... that he could carry on staying on the porch and eating all my bugs. He was a cute fella!




Sunday my plan was to get the other side of the house and the back doors. Rain rolled in and that did not happen, so I met up with a few friends at the coffee house, then went out to my other friend's goat dairy farm for some milk, then stopped in to visit my mom for a bit.

Since it was raining, I decided to get lost in a little binge watching of True Blood. I hadn't watched it since 2008, and my head was in a whole different place then. Christian was in LA, I had a roommate, and I had no animals or farm.... It has been more fun watching it this time around. I made it through season one last week and watched a few episodes of season two yesterday.... 

Now I am off to the gym to get this Monday started right.... I have gone back and forth in my head about taking this morning off... now procrastinating long enough, and getting a later start than usual, it is almost 6am, and I know good and well, if I go, Monday will be better.... ha! So toodles. 

Happy Monday and I will have pics of the finished house facelift sooooooon! Here are some I took while working Saturday...




xoxo!

-s

9.15.2016

want/ need/ hear/ read

So yes, it is Thursday. Almost Friday..... Yesterday was good. It was Christian's 39th birthday, and I have been celebrating birthdays with him since we were both in our early 20s!!
I am not sure if you have noticed, but I have been trying to blog more regularly these last few months. I just cannot seem to get around to posting anything on Mondays or Tuesdays. My guess is that the weekends are so fun lately, that I just have a harder time once the workweek starts back... ha!

Last weekend was full of 'me time' and it was AWESOME. No real farm work. Just a few little chores here and there, but it was a rare weekend of pretty much all fun-for-me things. I did a little sewing, a little visiting, a little lunching (and got to spend a little time with my brother and sis-in-law!!), and a little vegging out with Christian.

We have had a bit of a dry spell here, so that is the biggest reason for no work. No rain equals no growth equals no mowing, which is the biggest time consumer of having acreage... I picked up hay a few weeks ago, so I didn't have to do that either!

So here we are, Thursday. A typical work week.... and all these ideas for when I am not at work...

want:
I have been thinking of doing a little inexpensive facelift on our house. I am thinking that since the siding is a light yellow, the shutters and accents might look good with a little pop of bright color. Right now, the accents and shutters are a light green color. Blah. Borrrrrrrinnnnnnnng. Now to figure out what bright color I want to use.... I am thinking something along the lines of turquoise. I need to wash the house first (the not so fun part before painting), but then I think that bright pop of color will be perfect!!


need:
Fall foods! The leaves are already starting to fall, the mornings are cooler, and I am already getting excited for cool weather foods! Soups, chili, freshly baked bread (I am going to give this another go this year!), Mexican hot chocolate, and ginger snaps!!! Eeeeeeek!!! Anyone have an y tasty soup or chili recipes you wanna share?? 

hear:

read:
this is the book I got for Christian for his birthday... I flipped through it a little this morning as I sipped my coffee, but cannot wait to really dive in this weekend!






Xoxo!

-s

9.14.2016

HBD to my guy!! Step by step galette.....

It is Christian's birthday today and last night I asked him about cake, food, or treats for the big day. I offered to make fresh donuts for this morning to go along with his coffee, but he wanted a galette. He said it's his favorite thing that I make because he can only get them from home... *happy sigh* <---this is what makes a home a home, right?? 

That worked for me, because I like to make them, they are easy, and I am not very likely to eat any of it! Donuts, on the other hand would have been devoured for sure after an early morning workout! 

I woke up a little extra early to make it to the gym earlier so that I would have time to stop by Kroger for some apples...all of ours are too high to pick now! We picked all the ones on the lower branches a while back ... boo. 

When I got home, I started the oven, made my crust, and peeled and sliced the apples. The recipe is so simple and easy and can be whipped up in no time, so here ya go:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Pour 1 C flour into a med bowl, and add one stick of very cold, grated butter. Fluff with your fork until it looks like this:

Add maybe 1/4 C milk - just enough to get it all to stick together and press into a ball....

Put some flour on parchment paper, or a pastry cloth and roll it out....

I have found the best way to remove the crust is to fold it over like this, then place it into your dish...

At this point, I sprinkled some cinnamon and sugar in the bottom, then went on to slice my apples...

I made a deeper dish galette because I could not find my pie dish! 

I sliced one apple, then topped with some sugar and cinnamon.....

then sliced the other and put a little butter and more sugar and cinnamon....

folded the edges over, 

sprinkled a bit more, then popped in the oven for 25 minutes...
Then, when it was done, I set it on top of the stove, woke up the birthday boy, and headed out the door for work! I forgot to take a pic of the finished product, but I got a text saying it was deeeeeeelish just before lunch! 

No big plans, just some good food and cake when I got off, and a really cool gift!

Anyway, I hope you all have a lovely Wednesday! We have made it halfway!!! 

xoxo

-s

9.11.2016

Sunday Sweet Stuff!! Chocolate Glazed Cake Donuts

 Sorry I am so late in posting today! I made these this morning and then went and met up with my brother and sister-in-law for lunch, my friend Holly for some birthday week celebrating, and then stopped by my old farm neighbor's house where I used to be located (a sweet couple, William and his wife - they helped me with so much at the old place before I got my own little slice) to drop off some of my famous Sunday sweets! I got home, did evening farm chores, ate dinner, and here I am! 

So...... here is the recipe - they were DEEEEEELISH, btw. 

what you will need for the doughnuts (or donuts?):

a 24 count mini muffin pan
1 C all purpose flour OR Cup 4 Cup (GF flour)
1/2 C sugar
1/4 C cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1/3 C sour cream
1/4 C milk
1/4 C sunflower oil (or vegetable oil, I just used what I had)

what you will need for the glaze:
2 C confectioners sugar
1/3 C milk
1 tsp vanilla


Preheat oven to 375. combine dry ingredients in a large bowl:

 then in a medium bowl mix together the egg, oil, sour cream, vanilla, and milk:

 Add the egg, milk, cream mixture to the dry ingredients:
 Mix well....
 Then grease your muffin pan. I use real butter, put a little pinch in each muffin cup and pop in the oven to melt it...

 ...spoon out your batter, about one small heaping spoon for each cup, and it exactly fills one whole muffin pan...
  ..pop in the oven for 10 minutes and check. They are ready when they are springy to the touch.
..now get your glaze ready, and I put wax paper under a cooling rack for easy clean-up....
 when the donuts are ready, they will easily pop out of the pan....


 I picked up each donut and dipped upside down (top of donut into bowl of glaze), and then set right side up on cooling rack...

 ...and there ya go!!! Delicious and easy!
 
 Good night y'all!!! I am off to dreamland for silly dreams before Monday comes....

xoxo

-s