LIGHT!!!

My heart is simultaneously broken by this and at the same time OVERJOYED!

Darkness is overcome by Light!!!

Kelly

p.s. The link is to yesterday's post. Be sure to read today's too.

this cute couple . . .

has been married for 60 years today!!!

Thank you Sweetie and Poppy for being such a wonderful foundation and example for our family. Thank you for your faithful prayers for all of us. Thank you for your love, laughter and wonderful memories of times spent together!

I love you! Kelly

pretty food

I don't like sushi.

But my husband does.

And I can always find something else to eat. :)

And I do like pretty food. It is so much fun to see how sushi places present their food.

If you live in Dallas and like sushi, may I recommend Asia Mint. It's a fun place to go and they even have dollar sushi night on Tuesdays I believe.

there's got to be something . . .

I was at Wal-mart and I spied this in a dusty box on a bottom shelf in lawn & garden. I love the fact that it is vintage looking and from the looks of it it may have been sitting around awhile for real. Anyway, I like the colors and the stripes and just feel like for around $2 a package, there's GOT to be something wonderful and creative and fun and crafty to be done with it, but what????

Kelly

travel Tuesdays - home

this post is originally from Easter 2009 but I am linking to Reluctant Entertainer in 2010 for an Easter memory

to read a little about our Easter 2010, click here

I got all giddy inside this week over my new

Southwest frequent flier card with my new married name on it.

Travel books are one of my favorite genres.

I love to experience new places.

But . . .

this "Travel Tuesday" is a little different.

It's about traveling home.

Because, of all the great places there are in the world,

where else can you play in a box from the new water heater?

and spend your first married Easter together?

and appreciate the beauty of a plastic egg in the crook of a tree in your uncle's garden. Different garden, new house, but same uncle and same memories from that Easter when you were a child and you hunted eggs in his garden?

and where else can you be together?

and appreciate the wonder?

and walk barefoot in the yard?

and be with the boy?

and giggle with your grandparents?

HOME!

Thank you wonderful family for always being there! No matter where the path leads, we're family and home is not as much a place as it is the tie that binds.

Kelly

oatmeal pie update

It was sort of like a very soft oatmeal cookie on top and pecan pie filling next to the crust.

It was pretty good but nothing spectacular. But then I'm not overly partial to pecan pie.

I probably won't make it again but I am so glad that now I know. :)

Happy Monday!

What did you do this weekend? Kelly

oatmeal pie

Have you ever heard of oatmeal pie?

I hadn't until I was flipping through one of the cookbooks Adrian brought into our marriage. His grandmother had given it to him and it's a cookbook from New Mexico.

Oatmeal pie was intriguing to me but I didn't know of any occasion or reason to make it and the two of us certainly don't need an entire pie to consume on our own. (Although we could!)

When I found out this morning at church that the items that were still needed for tonight's crawfish boil were chips and desserts, I knew I would be making oatmeal pie this afternoon.

Creaming the butter and sugar!

(Can any recipe that begins with this step go wrong?)

Stirring the oatmeal in with the rest of the ingredients.

It has been baking for the last hour and the apt. smells WONDERFUL!

We'll see how it tastes. If you're at the crawfish boil tonight you'll have to chime in if it was any good or not. It's an experiment. We shall see . . .

Kelly

remember this plate?

I hung it on the wall.

I like it's softy faded yellow roses.

I'm very into yellow right now.

I wish I had a huge forsythia bush outside my window.

Do you have a forsythia bush? Do those grow well in Texas?

Here are my plates on my dining room wall hung with plate hangars I bought for 25cents each at an estate sale a year or so ago. Sure beats $1-2 a piece!

Hanging from the scrap of yellow lace is the milk glass plate I also bought at that thrift store. Three more treasures to go.

plain to pink

I don't really enjoy mailing things in yellowish-brown envelopes.

I really like the shiny metallic bubble wrap envelopes and there are so many fun colored and patterned envelopes you can buy but they're not that cheap.

Plus, on this particular night, I did not have any of them in my possession.

But . . . thanks to my craft room, I was supplied with pink paint. :)

I covered the table with saran wrap and then went to town. ;)

Might as well do two while I'm at it . . .

Never know the next time you'll be wanting a pink envelope.

Have you done anything lately to make it "just so" for what you wanted?

What color would you have painted the envelopes?

Kelly

a yellow plate

Remember this plate from my thrifting goodies?

I like the wheat but to me it's more fallish not springy.

So . . .

here's what I did.

found a photo of my family

cut it in the shape of a circle

cut some leftover wedding scrapbook paper into a little bigger circle

taped it on

set it up in an easel

and that's what I needed that little bow for . . .

Kelly

Travel Tuesdays - Chicago

I have two friends making trips to Chicago in the near future and digging out my guidebooks for them, etc. has made me excited about Chicago all over again.

If you've never been I would definitely recommend a trip at some point.

I love this fun Chicago sign. It is great for photo ops!

Here are some fun things to do in Chicago:

The Shedd Aquarium - beluga whales, poisonous dart frogs, all sorts of fish, penguins . . . it is a beautiful and stunning environment to spend some time in. Especially if you go to Chicago when it's cold, it's a great place to stay out of the weather. Last time I went I found out via a little internet research that teachers get in free to the aquarium everyday with their school id! How cool is that?

Filene's Basement for bargain hunting fun

fun & funky shops on Armitage Ave.

Paper Source - I could spend hours in this store

Garrett Popcorn Shop - I couldn't believe the line out the door but when we made it to the front of the tiny establishment, ordered our brown paper bags of popcorn and began munching, I could understand. wow.

Marshall's - believe it or not I would spend time on vacation shopping at Marshall's. :)

I'm partial to the one on State Street and I have found really great stuff there at great prices.

H&M - course I love this in any city that has one. :)

foodlife in the Water Tower Mall - first the fountains that greet you as you walk in the doors off Michigan Ave are just fun. Take the escalators up, up, up and you'll find yourself at the food court. This isn't just any old mall food court. You get a card when you go in and then can visit any of the MANY food stations with all different sorts of things to try. They swipe your card when you leave to see what all you've gotten and then you pay.

The Bongo Room for breakfast. Let me just say chocolate tower of French toast.

And there's so much more that I've never even done yet that I'd like to do and see:

Navy Pier

Rockefeller Memorial Chapel

CB2 - an off shoot of Crate and Barrel

photo: me in front of the river

What are your favorite things in Chicago? Have you been to any of the places that I haven't yet?

Double Birthday!!

Today is a very special day!

My Sweetie (my grandma) and my cousin Jenny share a birthday today!

We had a very fun birthday party and time together this weekend.

I hope they both have wonderful, wonderful birthdays and many more!

I love you both! Kelly

a bow maker

Do you have a bow maker?

My Poppy made this for me.

It can be pretty handy at times.

Kelly

lived in a little

This is one of the very first pictures I took of our new apt. when I moved in last August. Two months to go until the wedding, lots to do and that "just moved in" feeling of things being awry.

Fast forward to this spring. I've had time to feather our nest and we feel at home here.

photo: mantel decoration, "Harding swing" replica, white dishes "shopped from the house" as the Nester would say, a candle holder from one of my showers, one of the apothecary jars from our wedding now holding springy nests, eggs and flowers instead of rock candy.

in this shot you can see way over to the left that we finally bought some furniture!

I need to post about that excitement!

vintage hat bought several years ago in McKinney where we were married, white dishes, a white feather, a bouquet that my mom gave to me, mini latte bowl from anthropolgie, spool of crotchet thread given to me free at Canton when I asked how much, a little piggy bank that I've had since childhood

look what I got at the thrift store

I thought this was a great pile of stuff for a day. Less than six dollars for the six items total.

In the process of finding new homes and uses for it all . . .

Stay tuned. Kelly

happy birthday, Aunt Kim!

Look at these beautiful sisters! My Aunt Kim is on the left and my mom is on the right.

Today is Aunt Kim's birthday!

She reads my blog. She e-mails comments to me. :)

I have been blessed to grow up near her. We have gotten to hang out lots. She is great for shopping, eating, laughing and talking. One of the things she's "famous" for is buying her nieces pjs. How fun is that to be your "trademark"?

Happy Birthday, Aunt Kim. I hope you have a wonderful day! love you, Kelly

Wedding Wednesday - rock candy

Fairly early on in the wedding planning process I decided that I'd like to do a candy buffet.

Well, as time went on it became less of a priority to me budget wise as well as time wise. We decided on just doing lollipops instead of individual little candies that would need scoops, bags, stickers . . . on and on and on.

I snagged these apothecary jars at Marshall's for $9.99 each, bought the rock candy in bulk, got the ribbon at Canton and the paper (which was reversible and was used for many, many different projects) from J. Caroline Creative and made the signs myself. These were the kinds of projects I had so much fun with.

photos: Rachel Debell Photography