The Seeds Are Sprouting!

My tomatoes and onions are coming up!! Last night there were no signs of life yet in the tomatoes but look what I just discovered!

And my onions have been sprouting for about a week now too! 🙂

I’m so excited! 🙂

Recipe: Caribbean Jerk Boneless Wings

My husband Josh loves fried chicken wings (and all other fried food! haha). But after months of having buffalo chicken wings made with Frank’s Buffalo Wing sauce (which is quit good), he was ready to try something different and I was ready to try a healthier option. 😉 Josh likes the Caribbean Jerk wings at Buffalo Wild Wings and so I searched for a recipe. I found a good one. 🙂

Caribbean Jerk Wing Sauce

3 Tbsp Butter
2 Tbsp Minced Green Onion
1 C Water
3/4 C Tomato Purée
1/3 C Honey
1/4 C Apple Cider Vinegar
1 Tbsp Tabasco hot sauce
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp Lemon Juice
1/2 tsp Cayenne Pepper
1 tsp Corn Starch (I used 2 tsp of potato starch instead)
1/2 tsp each Salt, Onion Powder & Garlic Powder
1/8 tsp each Cloves, Allspice & Thyme

Sauté the green onions in the butter until they are soft. Add all of the other ingredients and stir it well. Simmer over medium/low heat until the sauce has reduced and thickened and toss your wings in it! Check out the original Caribbean Jerk Sauce recipe here. (It’s at the bottom of the page)
I made a few changes to the original for health purposes and reduced the hot sauce and cayenne pepper because the first time I made it Josh was sweating while he ate. haha. He still said it was really good though 😉
I like to serve these with some ranch or bleu cheese dressing for dipping 🙂 Josh loves them!

To-do List

I’m always more productive when I have a to-do list, so today when I realized I was jumping from one thing to the other I took a minute to write out what I would like to accomplish this afternoon.

Now, apron on, music turned up, I’m ready to get busy. 😉

Quick Sewing Project

Yesterday I made new curtains for the large window in our living room. Three panels of white cotton for less than $15 and it took me under an hour! 🙂 I discovered 4 years ago while trying to find curtains for our first apartment that Walmart sells flat bed sheets separately. I think back then they cost about $2 for a single twin size flat sheet, and I easily made these dark red curtains, which we have been able to use in all three of the houses we’ve lived in.

I still like the color and the fabric has held up well, but I wanted to brighten up the living room and so once again I went to Walmart. I think each sheet is $5.96 now, but that’s still way cheaper and buying actual curtains, and even cheaper than buying raw fabric. Another bonus is that all the edges are already finished, and all you have to do is fold the top over and sew it to make a pocket for the curtain rod! The length of the sheet is great for standard windows… I like my curtains to have a couple inches on the ground. If you wanted them shorter it would be super easy to hem them though. 🙂
So in about a half hour they went from this:

To this:

Each sheet came in a little pocket made out of the same fabric, with a snap. These made perfect tie backs! I just cut around all the seems so it laid flat, trimmed the it to about 3 inches wide, sewed it up along the cut edge, turned it right side out so the seam was inside, and just like that I had matching ties with little snaps 🙂

I’m pleased with how it turned out. It really brightens up the room and lets in a lot more sunlight! Now I want to do the same kind of curtains for the office, guest room, and the second kitchen window. 🙂

The Whiskers in the Sink

As I was brushing my teeth this morning I looked down into the sink and saw that it was covered with the stubble Josh shaved off this morning before work. With a wave of annoyance I started cleaning, and then I thought, “If something happened to him and he didn’t ever come home again, you’d wish you had him here leaving messes for you to clean up!” I get annoyed because it seems uncaring for him to just leave a mess like that, but is it really uncaring? It dawned on me suddenly that it had nothing to do with how much he cares. He got up at 5:30 this morning thinking about his work day today, which involves balancing 20ft up in the air while building a ceiling into an old barn.

He owns the remodeling company so it’s up to him to plan every little thing that will go on today. He wasn’t thinking about wiping up the sink when he finished shaving. And you know what? He got up at 5:30 this morning without waking me, made coffee, turned up the heater so I wouldn’t be cold when I got up, and then came back to bed, snuggled up against me and woke me up with sweet kisses. Now that’s a good way to wake up! 😉
I, on the other hand, got up at 6:15, poured myself some coffee, made breakfast and lunch for him to take, and began thinking about cleaning the house. My whole focus today is cleaning the house, therefore I notice all the little messes. His whole focus is planning a dangerous day of work in order to provide for us, therefore he overlooked a minor mess. Big deal!!

~ Josh on the scaffolding in the barn he’s working on. ~
It’s always good to put things in perspective when a loved one does something to annoy you. Chances are very good they didn’t do it on purpose, that they didn’t even know they did it, and that if you mentioned it nicely they would do their best not to do it any more.

So yeah, I’m not annoyed at the whiskers in the sink any more this morning. 😉

Starting Seeds

This afternoon I started a bunch of tomatoes, peppers, onions, rosemary and lavender seeds. I am SO excited to finally be getting started on my garden! In the first week of April I will be starting a lot of other seeds including flowers for the landscape. This is the first year I will be able to grow my own garden without sharing the space with someone else, so I am really excited. 🙂 I ordered all of my vegetable seeds from Baker Creek Seed Company. They are heirloom and organic. My plan is to save my own seeds this year so I don’t have to keep buying new ones every Spring.

In an effort to save money on flats I have been saving egg cartons and paper towel rolls. The paper towel rolls didn’t stretch quite as far as I thought they would but I think I should be able to save up enough in the next couple weeks for the next batch of seeds 🙂 The undivided trays are my onions. I definitely didn’t have enough egg cartons to put one onion in each cell so I just sprinkled them in the boxes. Onions don’t take up much room anyway and they should be easy to separate when they start to grow.
I always get impatient when I’m waiting for seeds to sprout because I want to SEE progress! I’ve even been known to dig up a seed to see if the roots are growing yet. lol This year I’m going to try to be more patient. 😉

In order to keep the cats from walking on and in the seeds I set them up in the guest room, which we don’t really use right now. Josh had a roll of plastic in the garage which I used to protect the carpet and since there are two windows in that room I don’t think I’ll need to use much artificial light.

I can’t wait for them to sprout!! 🙂

Embracing Your Beauty

Laziness when it comes to our appearance is an easy trap to fall in to for any of us it seems, especially for those of us that are at home most of the time. I sometimes find myself in clothes that don’t fit well or look that great, with hastily brushed hair in a sloppy pony-tail just slogging through the day with little motivation and not feeling very creative. That is not the way God created women to look and feel. Look at the woman in Proverbs 31. You get the picture of a lady who is fit (she girds herself with strength), well dressed and put together (she makes for herself garments of fine linen and purple), and industrious (she sews belts for the tradesmen, she works with her hands in delight, she rises early and gives food to her household, she looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness). This is not a frumpy woman just putting out the fires during her day and getting little done of note.
One of the things that helps me feel more motivated and creative throughout the day is dressing nicely, putting on some makeup and fixing my hair. God created women as a beautiful part of His creation, and He also hates laziness, so why is laziness when it comes to our appearance acceptable? I think this is why we naturally feel so much better when we take a few minutes to make ourselves look put together and attractive. Doesn’t it give a boost to your whole day?
I did not learn much about grooming and makeup when I lived at home. I was a tomboy until my early teens, and then in an effort to be modest and feminine I mostly wore long skirts and shapeless shirts. I never wore makeup, my hair was almost always in a ponytail and my eyebrows had never seen tweezers. It’s kind of funny now that I look back on it. 😉
Since getting married I have been trying to learn more about how to take care of my skin, wear makeup, style my hair, wear clothes that are modest but stylish and feminine, and do all the little grooming things that women do- like shaping my eyebrows. It’s been fun! My husband appreciates it too. 😉
I am planning on writing more on this subject in the next few weeks, but today I want to share with you a really easy way I have learned to put some effort into my appearance without spending a lot of time on it. I know most ladies don’t have an hour to spend on hair and make-up in the mornings, but this can be done in about 10 minutes and will make you feel pretty for the whole day.

Ten Minutes To Embracing Your Beauty

Start with a clean face and brushed hair. I straightened mine, and it took me about 5 minutes.

I put my hair up so it was out of the way and put some moisturizer on my face.

Next, I applied some concealer.

After blending the concealer, I applied my foundation, which is a natural mineral foundation made by miss Jackie from Noella Beauty Works on Etsy. I love it and it feels like I’m not wearing any makeup at all!

Next I applied mascara and lip balm. You could apply blush as well of course, but my foundation is pretty sheer and I usually skip that step since my natural skin tone shows through. Make sure if you use blush you blend it well so that it looks natural. The look we are going for here is almost a no makeup look. Your skin will look fresh, your eyes will be beautiful, and you won’t even look like you are wearing makeup.
I usually like to emphasize my eyes more than my lips because of an old horse related injury that left a slight bump on my upper lip, so I usually just wear lip balm or a gloss or lipstick that almost matches the natural color. I LOVE to wear eyeshadow, and if you want to do that and have the time, go for it! But the point of this look is to enhance your natural beauty without taking much time.
SO! Apply mascara and lip balm/gloss/lipstick.

A bit of eyeliner before your mascara can also help define your eyes and be pretty. Just don’t go too bold or it won’t look natural. See there? None of these steps took very long, but your skin has been moisturized, blemishes are covered, your skin tone is even and looks fresh, and your eyes are defined just enough. For those of you who love French style, this is actually a classic French every day look.

Now, I just take my hair down and fix it. Today I just brushed it smooth and left it alone. I put in some earrings, and done! 🙂

Now I must make a confession. I did this today at about noon. I spent most of the morning in my pj’s and aside from making breakfast for Josh and I, I really didn’t do much. After getting dressed and doing my hair, I felt MUCH more motivated and did laundry, cleaned the kitchen, changed the bedding in the kitten’s box, cleaned the bathroom floor, made laundry soap, used a color remover to turn a dress I love from pink to white, and I just got back from a brisk 2 mile walk with my man 🙂 Too bad I waited so long!
Before I go to start dinner I want to remind you that God made you to be beautiful. In just a few minutes each day you can go from looking and feeling like a mess to looking fresh and pretty and feeling more confident while you are embracing the beauty God gave you, and adding a little beauty to the lives of everyone you meet.

Pretty Curtains

The window behind my kitchen sink hasn’t had a curtain since we moved into our house in December and it has been bugging me. We want our home to be warm and inviting and homey, and bare windows don’t give that impression at all! Since we have been trying to spend as little as possible I didn’t want to buy curtains, so I have been thinking of cheaper options. Last Saturday as I was sorting through my clothes and deciding which ones I wanted to keep (more on that later) I came across a pretty white skirt that had a few stains and a small hole. It was one of my favorite skirts last summer, and was given to me by my dear friend so I hated to get rid of it. Looking at the flowy white cotton I thought, “This would make a beautiful curtain!”

So after much cutting and stitching I have a pretty white curtain which I think really adds to the country feel I like for my kitchen 🙂

Just one step towards making our home an inviting haven for my husband, our family and friends. 🙂 Spring has been in the air lately and that always inspires me to get busy cleaning and organizing and decorating. Hopefully I will be posting more projects like this soon!