Twilight hour watch. The boys officially start back to school (remotely) next week, and my semester starts (online). We’ve got schedules ready to go, Zoom meetings set-up, and we are as prepared as we can be.
Library and sitting room goals.
Tried whipped body butter in a Sephora sample, and love it!
Acrylic coasters, would be fun for the bonus room!
Sheet pan corn nachos.
Fall cardigan inspiration.
Grilled peach burrata salad.
Mixing styles at home.
When I was a kid some of my favorite food memories are my Uncle Todd cooking flour tortillas on the grill with melted butter and rolling them up, wrapping the bottom of them with a paper towel and handing them out to my cousins and myself. Whatever my Uncle Todd cooks, he cooks a lot and it always tastes like the best comfort food. My Mom introduced me to this recipe, and it was an instant favorite. It starts with melting butter in a pan. Then coating the chicken tenders and placing them back in the pan:
Then sprinkle with Parmesan and butter:
And cook in the oven until crispy and tender:
Check out the full recipe below and how to make the sides:
Uncle Todd’s Parmesan Chicken Tenders
Directions
Roasted potatoes and asparagus
Directions
It was all delicious!
I love cabinets. And one of my major issues in our old house was lack of cabinets. I spent years trying to organize our laundry/mud room space of our old house and now in a few short weeks (hopefully) I will have both!
We added in top and bottom cabinets with a sink and then a hanging rack over the washer and dryer was included:
And the cabinets in the mud room area will hold backpacks (there are hooks included that aren’t in yet), and other grab and go items for school, band, and sports:
And here’s the close-up of the sink, a necessary inclusion for pre-treating stains on clothes:
There isn’t really a lot to add to all this fabulous storage space, so I’ve just got a few little items on my list:
The lost socks sign I picked up months ago from Target to hold the little baby socks that were on a string in our old house. I love the idea of a pump sunscreen for the boys to remember to put on before leaving for sports practices, or school, eventually. I loved this iron and iron board holder, but we had it bolted in the wall in our old house and had to leave it behind, so I’m getting a new one. I’m also picking up a letter board to hold Bible Verses and a little frame for a picture on the corner counter. To keep the area smelling fresh, I’m ordering one of my favorite scents in a diffuser. Finally, our favorite neutral hand soap for washing hands right when we get in the door, and a laundry basket for transferring clean items back to rooms. The laundry room also gets a lot of natural day light, so I’m transferring this plant there:
In hopes that it will start flourishing again…it’s been a little sad without full light. While this is mainly a utility space, I’m excited for the functionality of it in keeping things organized and clean!
So proud of A! He played one of his best games ever this week, and he and his teammate won their part of the match! I loved not only getting to watch him play, but see how proud he was of his success. This weekend we are working on getting organized for the boys’ remote learning and how that’s going to fit in with our work schedules. Two things I’ve picked up for them is these acrylic organizers, and weekly marker board schedules. We also had our house closing date moved back again, so we are praying hard that this is the last delay. Now here are some of my favorites of the week!
I’m thinking of bringing back art in the afternoons with the boys on Fridays, and starting with this multimedia bird art.
Mixing multiple rugs in the same space.
The Lions of Fifth Avenue is next on my reading list.
The first book I’m unpacking to read with J.
My yoga practice of the week.
Started a New Testament Bible study recently, that coupled well with the start of 1 John sermons at our church.
Medicine ball workout.
Finally, fashion goals.
Ah, the midsummer reprieve. That lovely short period of time, where the humidity and temperature drop enough that we can be outside in the late afternoon, and it doesn’t feel like I’ve jumped in a pool after we go running. The boys have taken take opportunity to ride bikes:
And draw with chalk:
The upstairs room of our house was a special request (that we paid for), to make it an entirely open room (so we removed a wall), but also kept the bathroom. This (in part), my friends, is what we bought the house for. As you can see it’s a large space:
One of my favorite things about this room is the huge windows with a terrific view. The furniture in this room is going to be a lot of the pieces we already have, so my focus for this room is mainly blinds, curtains, and items for the walls. So first up, I’m using a bookcase that was in J’s old room and moving it upstairs. It’s going to have shared books and stuffed animals, and a few potted plants (that require little maintenance):
I love these amusable plushes, especially because J has been all about sushi lately. The crates are for stacking some of their shared books, and the A-Z bookends are for the Calvin and Hobbes collection I purchased them as a surprise when we move in. While living at my parents, the boys have read my Mom’s collection of Calvin and Hobbes over and over, and A told me he doesn’t know what he’s going to do when we move out and he doesn’t have them to read anymore. So, I got them the collection. This little sheep is the perfect amount of whimsy, with some fluffy succulents in it, and a little chain of pom pom garland adds color to the space. I’m looking forward to switching the books out seasonally for them.
Next up is the walls. There is a ton of wall space in this room, and I know with nothing on the walls the sound is going to echo. I have done quite a bit of print searching and these are the ones I settled on with coordinating frames:
How fun are these?? The Disney prints are some of our favorite rides, and the movie posters with the quotes are some of our favorite movies. I also picked coordinating frames from Target and Amazon. Finally, I picked up curtains and rods for the windows.
I wanted blackout curtains for the room and rods that wrapped around. I also picked up a coordinating shower curtain and curtain rod for the upstairs bathroom. The boys are so excited about this room, and I have to say I am as well! I want it to be a space where they can just play and be loud and not worry about the mess. In our old house everything spilled into our living room, and we’d always have to clean up at the end of the day because we would step on it all at night.
J is top toothless! He was bound and determined to get his loose tooth out. He finally did it with a little help from me. You wouldn’t think a missing tooth would make him seem older, but it really does. He was concerned if the tooth fairy was going to show up, but he happily found two dollars the next day and is already trying to figure out where to spend his new found wealth. And here are some of our favorites of the week!
Sea otter escape!
Garlic butter ramen noodles.
Total home inspiration.
My favorite yoga of the week.
Love this print shop! Got three for our bonus room.
Perfect summer to fall transition dress.
The book I’m binge reading this weekend.
And finally, a chicken quinoa bowl for lunch!
Hanging out in my current home office, it’s hard to determine what I could potentially need from the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale, besides perhaps my house finally being done so I could move into an actual home office space. Some years there is quite a bit I pick up from the anniversary sale, and then other years I don’t really find anything. This year I have my eye on some work from home basics, that means tops for Zoom meetings and exercise clothes. First up, Zoom meetings:
And days where I have a meeting, but also have to run to the store:
And days where B and I go run when it gets colder out:
All of these items can be found within the preview of the sale, and you can make a wish list of your favorites! Check out my wish list below:
I realized when I went to do this post that this was the best picture of the living room I had and it’s so old!
Most of the pictures I have are facing this way:
Our kitchen, living room, and breakfast area are all one flowing space, which is exactly what we wanted, but we’ve spent quite a bit of time figuring out how we are going to fit what we have in the space. For the time being we are keeping our current couch and chairs, and making just a few updates:
I already have curtains that I love and kept from our old house, and so I’m just purchasing rods for those. This throw is going over the back of the couch (an idea I got from here), that will update it and pull in all the colors in the room. Our specific living space area is slightly smaller than our other house and so our rug from there would’ve been too big. I had originally picked this Well Woven one for J’s room, but he picked constellation stars instead, so I’m going to use it in the living room. A square ottoman to give extra seating and leg space because our current ottoman will go upstairs. And finally a couple of throw pillow covers to update some of our ones that have gotten a bit worn.
Ah, Friday. Not unlike Saturday-Thursday at this point. Things are just so out of our control that I have really let go of trying to plan anything at this point. Our house being done got pushed back and the boys are now starting for at least half their first semester virtual. So, we are building tinker toy telescopes, eating take-out tacos, watching The Floor is Lava, and trying to ignore the continuing chaos swirling around us.
Rows of shelves for the library J has decided he needs.
Finding the perfect rug.
Espadrilles for days in my office. At my house.
Feels very accurate.
Love this top!
A perfect bedroom for tweens.
Finally, herb parmesan polenta fries. I feel like I could make this a meal.