11 Things I Learned From My Mom – Happy Mother’s Day!

May 12, 2013 by · 4 Comments

Happy Mother’s Day Mom!

So much of what we do or who we are in life comes from our Mom. I was reading an article earlier this week that was talking about how people say that children are so resilient and can overcome tragic events early in life. The article rejected this notion by pointing out that our childhood is the most formative time in our life and the good or the bad that happens to us during our childhood shapes who we are as adults.  Not only does our childhood shape who we are, but just as importantly it shapes our values.  I thank my mom for all the good she brought to my life as a child.

When we look at our values they  form two things in us: 1)who we are and 2)who we strive to be.

I don’t claim to be a perfect adult. As a matter of fact I often think, gosh, what could I do to be a better person, mom, wife?  However, I do think I do pretty darn well.  I am happy and content and my kids seem happy, too.  We all have our days, but in general I thank my mom (and dad and God) every day for the life I have been given and the values that she instilled in me as a child and even now as an adult and a mom.

So in honor of Mother’s Day I wanted to share 11 things (values) that I have learned in life from my mom.  Some things I think I do pretty well with and others I work on every day.   My mom isn’t perfect either, although she was the perfect mom to my brothers and me.  So here they are in no particular order……

  1. It never helps to yell and definitely don’t swear (the yelling part is hard as a mom sometimes:-))
  2. Plant a garden and take good care of it (both veggies and flowers)
  3. Always have dinner with your family (even when you are incredibly busy – find the time)
  4. Go to church every Sunday and be a good Christian (working on this one, but definitely getting there)
  5. Work hard (both at home and at work)
  6. Always put a square meal on the table (protein, vegetable and a starch)
  7. Almost always cook from scratch (but it’s ok to buy something pre-made every once in a while , too.)
  8. Volunteer (I do better at this at certain times than others)
  9. Keep your kids busy and well-rounded (not just sports, but music, drama and church activities, too)
  10. Family comes first (but take time for yourself, too)
  11. Be thrifty (even if you have money to spend)

I hope my daughters have this same list one day, too……………..

Mom

Here is the link to a collection of  my mom’s recipes on BWL.  Her strawberry pie is one of my most popular posts right now.  My all-times favorite is still her Zucchini Bread.

I love you mom and thank you for all that you have given me in life.  You are the best!

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My Kitchen Updates – Part 2

October 24, 2012 by · 4 Comments

Kitchen Window

Last year I did a post about our kitchen updates. We painted the oak cabinets in our kitchen white and that generated a lot of hits. Apparently lots of people are contemplating the same things we were and do not like their ugly orange oak cabinets.

I love the look of our new kitchen and I am very proud of how everything turned out. I love spending time in here and I feel like everything pulled together wonderfully. Since my first post we have had hand scraped hickory hardwood floors installed.  We also added hardware to the cabinets and purchased a new refrigerator.

Kitchen Window

This is a picture of our old kitchen when we first moved into our house. Bleck!!

Old Kitchen

We bought an LG Refrigerator (this one I think) and I love it…its huge and my absolute favorite part is the freezer. There are so many drawers and compartments in that thing I swear I can get as much in there as I can in my freezer in the garage. On top of the two compartments on the bottom there are two drawers that slide so there is no wasted space.

The smart cooling technology also keeps food fresher longer. I have definitely noticed that food is indeed kept fresher. Veggies and fruit don’t spoil as quickly which is a huge deal to me. I always felt like we were throwing produce away and we just don’t have to as often (if at all) with this fridge.

My only complaint is the ice maker doesn’t hold much ice. You can store extra ice in the bucket in the freezer, but I just kind of like to have it come out of the dispenser.

Kitchen Fridge Area

A kind of funny note on the subway tiles….I have always loved the look of a subway tile backsplash, especially with the white cabinets and black granite. Well, subway tile is actually pretty cheap as far as tile goes and my tile guy was trying to talk me out of it because he thought I was just trying to go the cheap route. He wanted me to buy some nicer Italian looking tile and do a fancy backsplash design. While that might also be a nice option I had to convince him that the subway tile was actually part of my overall design and not just a cost savings. I whipped out my Southern Living magazines and Pinterest boards full of white countertops, black granite and subway tiled kitchens just to prove my point. I don’t know if I completely sold him but so what – its my kitchen:-).

Just a quick note on the floor. We bought engineered hardwood and it has held up pretty well. I love the look, but it does show every speck of dirt since it is a dark wood. Just something to consider if you are thinking about dark floors. We have a dog and lots of kids running in and out of the house so it gets dirty quickly.

If you want some info on painting your cabinets I gave some more detail on my first post.

I hope you have enjoyed taking a look at my kitchen. I think the biggest takeaway from this post is that you don’t always have to completely gut your kitchen to get what you want. By painting the cabinets (vs. buying new) we were able to spend a bit more on the floor that I have always wanted. We also got a great deal on our backsplash and granite. We were able to negotiate a great price on both and I think that companies are still very willing to negotiate to get your business. It doesn’t hurt to have a husband in sales, either:-). There are still a few things we need to finish up and if we do anything else significant I will let you all know!

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Thai Style Curried Chicken Salad

November 15, 2011 by · 6 Comments

First, before I get into this recipe, I want to tell you about a great event that took place at my daughters’ school today.

I’m very fortunate because my employer offers a flexible workday so I was able to take part in this great event that is called the Family Marathon.  Over the course of about 10 weeks, every student that participates logs miles that they run or walk until they get to a total of 25.  Today they ran or walked the last 1.2 miles in front of all of the other cheering and hollering students, faculty and parents.   The participating students received medals and a 26.1 Family Marathon car magnet.  It is a very exciting event!

Ella and I ran together and she did an amazing job.  She ran the entire way and only had to stop to get some water (which she dumped over her head) and tie her shoe.   I’m a huge advocate of getting kids to exercise so I loved this event.  The particpants were so excited and I know they all felt very proud of their big accomplishments.  I know I was proud of them.

Here is a shot of Ella and me running our mile.


So, on to this chicken salad.  You can make it pretty healthy depending on how you mix up the yogurt/mayo dressing.   If you think you want all mayo it’s obviously not going to be as light   If you like a little more yogurt and you use the lower fat variety it is going to be a bit lighter.  I like it with about half yogurt/half mayo (which is how I wrote the recipe.)

I used some chicken that we grilled over the weekend.  You could certainly use a rotisserie chicken, too.

I also wanted to give a shout out to Trader Joe’s for this bread.  It is their White Whole Wheat Sliced bread and it is honestly some of the best bread I have ever had – especially toasted.      One thing I have found about TJ’s breads is that they don’t last as long as other store bought breads because they don’t have all of the preservatives.   We have been putting the loaf right into the freezer when we get it and then when we want a slice we pop it in the toaster.  Have I mentioned how much I love Trader Joe’s before?  I may have a problem actually.

So definitely try this easy chicken salad and if I haven’t said this enough times on this blog – go out and get some Thai Basil….add it to your herb garden next spring.  If you don’t have any you could probably swap it out for cilantro or regular basil.  But try to get some.  You can also make this and this and this with it.

Enjoy!

Thai Style Curried Chicken Salad
 
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Author:
Recipe type: Salad

Ingredients
  • 2 cups of chopped chicken
  • 2 tablespoons mayo
  • 2 tablespoons low-fat yogurt
  • 1 tsp curry powder (more if you really like Curry)
  • 1 tablespoon orange chutney (or marmalade if you don’t have chutney)
  • Handful of Thai Basil – cut in a chiffonade
  • dash of salt and pepper to taste

Instructions
  1. To make your dressing combine the mayo, yogurt, curry powder and chutney. Whisk to combine and then pour over the chicken. Toss with the basil and then add salt and pepper to taste.

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My newly painted white kitchen cabinets

August 29, 2011 by · 7 Comments

**Update:  to see my more recent post on our updated kitchen, please take a look at this post.  I hope you enjoy (we are!)

Before we moved down south we had completely remodeled our kitchen in our 1920′s colonial home. I loved the maple cabinets, deep sinks, silestone countertop and new floors. Nine months later we sold our house and moved down south.  Leaving that kitchen was kind of sad and this was the kitchen in our new house.  I didn’t trade up in the kitchen that’s for sure.  The appliances were actually white and black when we bought the house.  We brought the stove and purchased the dishwasher and microwave when we got down here.  I like the layout of this new kitchen but I am not a fan of this type of oak.  The countertops in the picture are a light gray – not real pretty.

The cabinets in this new house were actually in decent shape so we didn’t really feel that we needed to replace them.  However, I had read about people painting their oak cabinets white with much success.  There are forums after forums talking about the steps for this big  job and many different ways to get the job done.  So when we decided it was time to paint we had our steps figured out and it took a weekend to get the job done.  It really wasn’t too bad at all – and I love the results!

So here is a picture of my inspiration and dream kitchen.  It’s actually the kitchen from the movie “Something’s Gotta Give,” and if you google white kitchen/black counter tops this picture is sure to come up.

Ok, so I don’t have a viking range or an island the size of New York City, but I just love the black countertop,white cabinets, stainless steel appliances with the white subway tile.  I also really like the pendant lights over the window and the beadboard behind the hutch on the right there.  The dark floors are my other love and that is our next little (big) project.  I am hoping for handscraped hickory or something darker, but we will see if we can swing that.  I just love everything about this kitchen.  I think this would be considered modern country – which is definitely my style.

So here is the kitchen painted.  We still need to put on the hardware.  The drawers will be the brushed nickel pulls like you see on all the drawers in the inspiration picture and the doors will be knob pulls.  I also want to put some trim up on top of the cabinets to finish things off.  There are some cabinets on the other side of the room along with my fridge that just aren’t in this picture.  I am not sure if you can see it in this photo, but the backsplash is white subway tile and the counter top is a black granite that has some flecks of brown in it.  I really love how it has turned out so far.  I just love my white kitchen.  It is so bright and airy and it really reminds me of a country farmhouse kitchen from the 1920′s with a modern twist.  I always imagine my grandmother cooking in here and it makes me happy:-).

I will post more updates as we have them.  The hardware should be on sometime in September and the floors will probably be a couple more months.

If you would like some information on painting your cabinets white you can go here or here, but here are the basics of what we did.  The color we used was Sherwin Williams Basic White and we used their latex semi-gloss.  Jim removed the drawers and doors from the cabinets and set up some saw horses in the kitchen to do the painting on.  It was too humid and hot outside otherwise we probably would have done this out in the garage.  After lightly sanding them, we used a product to degrease the wood.  We then primed with an oil based primer with one coat.  We used a small roller to paint the doors and then went over that with an angled high quality brush.  Jim did all the trim with a smaller angled brush.  We did two coats of the paint and that was plenty.  We also emptied all the cabinets before painting because there was some dust flying around.

When I was in Sherwin Williams I asked the girl working there what she recommended and she was a great help in determining what products to buy all the way from the brushes and rollers to the paint and primer.  So don’t be afraid to ask the people at your paint store for opinions or advice.

If you are one of those people who cringe at the idea of painting cabinets let me just say this.  I probably wouldn’t paint cherry cabinets or nice maple, but the orange-oak is not nice wood – sorry.  There is some oak that is nice, but the cabinets up top were not those.  Don’t be a hater of the white cabinets!!!  Embrace the white.

Has anyone ever painted their kitchen cabinets before?  How did they turn out?

 

 

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Healthy things my kids love – homemade applesauce and Camelbaks

August 5, 2011 by · 5 Comments

When there are healthy things that my girls really love, I tend to love them too.  Applesauce is something that my mother always made us growing up and now she makes it for the grandkids.  If you have never had homemade applesauce you are really missing out.  It’s nothing like the stuff you buy in a jar at the store.  Nothing.   It’s also easy peasy to make – which is why I love it even more.  The most tedious part of making it is running it through the food mill (or a strainer if you don’t have a food mill.)  Still, that’s not even very hard.

Here is another great secret about making applesauce.  Does your grocery store have marked down produce sitting off by it’s lonesome in shame in a dark corner?  Do you ever look at it?  Sometimes I’m like – Huh?  It usually looks perfectly good to me – and it usually is still fine.  It might not be at it’s peak, but if you slow cook it, roast it or grill it, very often you will never know the difference – cross my heart. Plus, it’s usually at least half the price of the regular priced fruit and veggies… So, when I want to make applesauce I head straight for this rack and grab several of the packs of fruit.  I will usually get more than just apples, too.  I am pretty sure you can  throw in any fruit that you can get your hands on.   The sauce in the picture actually has bananas (that were a bit overripe), pears and a peach.  The pear might give it a hint of grittiness, but the banana makes it a bit creamy. You could also add strawberries or even some mango – yum.

Another thing that my kids love are their Camelbak Mini M.U.L.E.’s  We like to go on hikes and ride bikes and we find that if we  keep the kids hydrated and fed throughout the trip they can pretty much keep up.  Jim always carries his own Camelbak and they love drinking out of it.  So, as they got a bit older we decided we would get them each their own.   It was actually a great present for Grammy and Grandpa to get them for the holidays.

Now when we go on hikes or bike rides they can get a drink when they would like and it’s easy for them to grab their own little snack.  They feel like explorers with them strapped to their backs and they each have their own cool colors (pink for Taylor and blue for Ella.)  They are a lot smaller than a regular backpack so you can’t store tons of stuff in it, but things like a snack, sunglasses and maybe a hat can all fit in there perfectly fine.  Plus, as most Camelbak products, they are made really well.  Now our hikes and rides last a lot longer and are much happier:-)

This is my oldest daughter, Ella with her Camelback.  We are at Duke Gardens and this is my birthday weekend.  I always choose to go here for my birthday:-)  It’s one of my favorite places.  Oh, by the way, don’t you love Ella’s color blocking??

So, back to this applesauce.  I should also tell you there is no need to add any sugar to it.  I might add some cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice, but other than that, its pure fruit.  If you have never made it at home – I urge you to try it.  Honestly, it just couldn’t be  easier to make and your kids will eat it like ice cream – I promise!

Crock-pot Applesauce

6-8 Apples – any variety you have

Cut and core the apples, leaving the skin on and throw into the Crock-pot

Add any additional fruits you want to try (pears, banana, peaches), but I usually have at least 50 percent apples

Cook on low for 6 hours

Let cool and run through a food mill or a mesh strainer to get rid of the skins.  Add cinnamon, nutmeg or pumpkin pie spice to taste.

Enjoy!

Note- the opinions on the Camelbak’s are my own.  This is not a sponsored or paid post by the maker’s of Camelbak.

 

 

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