Sending Hugs and Kisses

I miss blogging! Life is crazy and hectic but I miss having little bits of it gathered in this spot, so I'm back... will I post every single day... NO, are you kidding, you all don't want to hear the total randomness that goes through my head every single day!  I will try to post three times a week and I will promise, yes promise , a new recipe every week and something crafty, that leaves at least one post open for me to ramble on about nothing in particular... I love to ramble! I'll start off this week with a crafty project.  Many of you may have seen it in my online galleries but I wanted to paste it here in my diary... so here is my version of the Embellished Paper Doily project designed by the lovely Christine Middlecamp .  It was so much fun to dig through all my gathered treasures and pick out bits to use; I rediscovered all sorts of things that I forgot I owned! The finished piece hangs right outside my bedroom and makes me smile every time I walk by. If yo...

This soup is one of my favorite fall dishes!  It is a beautiful starter for Thanksgiving or just a great warm food hug any night of the week! Apple-Butternut Squash Soup with Caramelized Sausage Croutons 1 butternut squash, halved and seeded 1 apple, peeled, cored and quartered 1 sweet onion, peeled and quartered 1/2 quart vegetable or chicken stock 1/4 cup orange juice 2 tbs butter, melted salt and pepper to taste 1 pound of sweet Italian sausage, casings removed Preheat your oven to 450 and line a sheet pan with aluminium foil. Place your squash cut side up on the sheet pan and brush with butter.  Place half of an apple in the hollow of each squash, then brush the onions with butter and arrange in between the squash halves on the pan.  Sprinkle the veggies with salt & pepper and cover the whole thing with foil. Roast the veggies for 45 minutes to 1hour; the squash should be very tender when poked with a fork.  Let the veggies cool for 10 minutes ...

Easiest Halloween Cupcakes - These simple cupcakes are always a HUGE hit with the kids and take no time to create! Cake Mix - Follow the instructions on the box! White Frosting - Get the BIG container... this is all the kids will really eat! Orange Food Coloring - You can mix red and yellow ;) Spider Rings Batty Good Bags The kiddo always helps me with these and they are finished in a flash! Halloween Stamps - I used Making Memories Black Ink - I like Ranger Pitch Black Black Grosgrain or Twill Ribbon - 3yards Paper Lunch Sacks Yellow Cardstock - Cut with a circle die cut Crop-a-Dile & Scissors Instructions can be found here on Miss Martha's website! Thanks A Bunch Card As a veteran room parent I know that many times they don't get much thanks so I plan to give this card to the saint who agreed to be our room parent this year! Patterned Paper and Bat Stamps from Cosmo Cricket Haunted! Halloween Bingo I made this for the classroom party last year when I was ...

"I want to be a writer." the twelve year old me would respond.  I have always had a love affair with the written word.  I spent hours of my childhood with my nose buried in a book; I could never get enough.  I filled journal after journal with poems and stories.  I loved to document life with words.  I like the minute details that make up our daily lives such as the many subtle shades of green that come together to create a lawn or the small lines around someones eyes that hint at a lifetime of laughter. I like details and description.  I like textures and layers.  I like emotions and the different ways in which we express them.  I like the little things. I'm not very good at seeing the "big picture". I dreamt about sitting in my home office and writing the next great American romance novel... no, not the next great American novel... a romance novel because I like happy endings.  I would sit in my old wooden...

Earlier this year I talked about taking back my blog, making it mine again, more of the domestic diary that I had intended for it to be... I started and then I got scared. Scared to talk about this broken path I've been walking. Scared to share the murky depths of my heart. Scared of the the judgement from those who read my words but comment only to my loved ones... never directly to me. Judgement is a terrifying thing because it is commonly based on a skewed and drastically inaccurate view of what has been said.   But I am really tired of hiding out and being afraid.  Living in fear is not really living at all. So here's the scoop... 2010 has contained some of my highest highs and my lowest lows.  I have reached places inside my heart that I had not visited in over a decade.  I have given and taken second chances.  I have crawled under the covers and hidden from the world.  I have stood on the mountain tops for all the wo...

*Originally Published in July 2009* by-prod·uct –noun 1. a secondary or incidental product, as in a process of manufacture. 2. the result of another action, often unforeseen or unintended. Origin:  1900–05    We had a guest speaker at church this week and he got up to talk about bravery in following Jesus.  The first point that he made was "Bravery is a by-product of love." these words were like an arrow piercing straight to my heart.  I wasn't thinking about them in the context of following Jesus, because truthfully I'm just not there right now, I'm still too wrapped up in me, the horrible honest truth is that I can't sometimes see His light because I'm drowning in the darkness that I've brought on myself... the funny thing is in all the decisions I've made this past year I thought I was being brave. Our speaker proved this point by asking the age old question... "If your house was on fire what would you grab?"  Well of course you'd...

     I was organizing and editing photos a few weeks ago and I noticed that over the last year I've taken fifty or so photos of roads.  I have pictures of everything from the busy interstate to meandering farm roads that are simply two trails of dirt leading through high grass.  After I noticed this I looked back over photos I had taken throughout my life and found that when I am in a season of uncertainty or great change I take lots of photos of the roads around me... I have Polaroids of the bumpy dirt road that leads to my grandparent's house in Maine... the only place in my childhood that ever really felt like "home". I have misty photos of the roads that I traveled over in the Yukon while on a long road trip with my grandparents... this was the summer before I went to Jr. High, always a time of transition... by the way you couldn't pay me enough to go back to Jr. High. I have photos of the drive le...