Misadventures in love and life

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Hope everyone is having a creatively fun National Scrapbooking Weekend!  Thought I would share a fun layout I created while on vacation with my family.  Y'all know my favorite lines of paper are always the travel oriented types.  No matter the brands I usually find a way to use them in some way.  Today I'm merging two brands of paper to make this layout.  The woodgrain, stripe, and red flower paper is the new Downtown Loft Stack from DCWV.  I'm a bit of a junkie with my DCWV paper slabs.  They are always so innovative and have the best designs.  The map paper is from the Me & My Big Ideas Journey paper slab.  I found this paper last year on clearance and let me tell you I wish I would've bought several more.  This is my go-to travel paper slab.  I've made Mini Albums, Photo art, several scrap albums, and countless layouts with this pack of paper.  It's amazing.  Hope you're enjoying NSD as much as I am.  Have a great weekend everyone!!  I'm off to create a few more layouts and make time to tickle my 22-month old nephew for a bit.  He is the cutest little man ever but then again I'm a bit biased.  What do you think?

When I was in Home Ec in high school, Mrs Scott had us looking at book after book of colonial style furniture and homes.  Hmm wonder what her house looked like. We watched a woman on video giving birth which probably scarred most of the kids in the class.  How's that for planned parenthood.  Just scare them to death.  When it was finally time for us to learn how to cook and not burn the house down, I became excited.  You see this area I'm very comfortable with.  From the time I was a child I have been cooking.  When I was five my grandmother pulled a chair up to counter and said it was time I learned how to make biscuits.  She tied one of her handmade aprons on me and up I went.  The first time I put my hands in the gooey mess to mix I fell in love. 

About two weeks ago the One2One Network sent me an email to say that they thought I would be a perfect candidate to blog about a new book, Home-Ec 101: Skills for everyday living.  Good grief, here we go again...more ugly furniture.  But they know me y'all.  They sent me the chapter on cooking!!  Yep pretty great match.



The chapter I received of the book is designed to help create a weekly meal plan for your family.  I cannot praise this concept enough.  Now in my house it's just my hubby and I, but with our crazy schedules if we didn't plan we wouldn't eat.  It's that simple.  Don't be afraid to plan out your meals.  There are so many great websites out there to help with weekly planning for a family.  Just google "meal planning." Considering that the author already had a couple of weeks of meals planned out, I simply used her guidelines for the past two weeks.  Let me tell you pretty great meals were had at our house.  Easy meals.  Less than 20 minute meals sometimes.  Love it. 




I think my favorite part was when she talked about creating new family traditions.  The scrapbooker in me just jumps for joy at the thought of making new traditions to pass down.  And yes y'all, you can do this with weekly meal planning.  Her suggestions were simple, Taco Tuesday, Soup and Sandwich Saturday, Sunday Brunch, etc...  Mix it up.  Think about your families schedule and how this can be a great way to spend time together as a family.  One of my fondest memories is going to my Mamaw Slagle's house on Sundays after church.  My mother is the youngest child of 12 and Mamaw would fix Sunday dinner for the entire family.  Now there's quite a few of us.  We're talking all the brothers and sisters, their spouses and children!  Yeah that's some food.  We would all pitch in to help and prepare the big meal.  But the smile on my Mamaw and Papaw's faces when we all sat at the tables, simply priceless.  It's something I will remember forever.  These are traditions that are cherished.  That make us into better people.  That teach our kids why family is so important.  That pass down recipes that have been shared for generations. 



I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  I loved the way it was written, the ideas presented, and most of all the fun recipes.  Check it out on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.  I really think you will enjoy it too.


Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the One2One Network bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”