"Picture" Perfect

Remember that little case of 'house envy' I was having a couple of weeks ago?  Well...Let's just talk about it for real okay?

I love to peruse magazines and watch television for home décor ideas. Yep and I like to look at home bloggers as well.   Too often I begin to focus on the perfection of everything and start to feel as though my own home doesn't measure up...and truth is, it doesn't!  But it's not at all the lack of big bucks to spend on my home, and I mean that sincerely.  It has a lot more to do with professional stylists arranging and refining before shooting photos with perfect lighting.

I know this....but why it doesn't stick in my mind is beyond me.  No, I look at that perfect picture and my heart is just plain filled with loathsome envy for a moment or three.

I have followed a couple of bloggers who have lovely homes.  Not big pricey homes but lovely little homes that they have lavished with all their inspiration and care.  Three of these have been featured in magazines over the past couple of years.  Do those magazines portray the rooms I've come to know so well?  No....Yes, I said 'No'!  The stylists come in and rearrange and remove items the owners have used and put in new items, alter the pillows, add rugs, sometimes even paint the walls (and then turn around and paint them right back to the original color!).  They add flowers and fruits, remove light fixtures, clear surfaces...That magazine spread bears some resemblance to the bones of the room but it's no longer the blogger's inspired room, it's a stylist's vision of the same space.   Well really it's not that different than having a professional makeup artist and hairstylist dress up an other wise pretty girl and make her over as a glamour queen for a photo!  Anyone remember Glamour Shots?

Iced Tea Chat:

Hello dears...Do sit down and let's just relax a bit, okay?  I'm tired.  I mean that I've worked hard and studied hard and I'm weary but more that the world is too much with me, and that makes me tired.  I find today especially that bad news makes me wanta weep  but good lovely things make me feel a sob rise up from way down deep...

It's not the world I want to be in at the moment and it's not a world I can embrace.  I've never been an 'all is sunshine and love' sort of person, but I am a positive person.  I SEE things, same as anyone with half a mind can see if they only look.  Life can be hard enough if we only focus on our lives but it can be awfully difficult when we see the world through news reports and television and facebook posts.  That's chaos and confusion and drama and a horrible tangle of nasty things.  The day to day world I live in, is much the same as it's always been.  Young men hold doors open for women and it matters not if we're black or white.  People still smile and wish one another a pleasant day.  I cannot reconcile the world I see on the television set with the world as I know it, but I doubt my world these days.  I wonder if I'm not seeing rightly.  And I've seen how it affects others, too, when someone across the aisle from me looks warily upon me for a moment and then tentatively smiles.  A smile is a big thing these days.  Especially when one is black and the other is white.  What a messy thing life has become when we cease to be people and see color first.   We had come so far.  Now we're back slidden.

In My Home This Week: I Got Sunshine....

In my home this week:

...It is mid-July as I write this and we are well started on the second half of this year.  Does that stun you as it does me?  I vaguely recalled the first weekend of July I let the idea that the year was half finished sort of slide through my mind.  I suppose the truth is that I've just been so busy that it only barely registered at the time.  Now that I've taken a short breather, I realized that here we are.    I haven't taken time to review my goals for the year nor to see how far I've gotten in achieving them.  Indeed, I'm not even sure I've been working on my goals at all!  But I am sure that I've been productive thus far. **I went and looked them over and I've done very well indeed.  Whew...there's always the thought that I might have gotten lost along the way and sidetracked myself.

Frugal Boot Camp continues.  I'm currently reading two more books from my shelf.  I am enjoying this reading as it does focus me on what I want to accomplish and that's what I needed.  Sometimes I lose sight of the biggest part of the picture.  It's not merely to make the ends meet but to live well while I'm doing my very best to improve our lives.  Since most of the books I've been reading date from 1930's to 1960's, I've been immersing myself in a culture and time that believed in the business acumen and absolute creative genius that was required to be a homemaker, something that is sadly lacking horribly in today's mindset about women in the home.  Of course, I'm blessed to have so many people in my realm of acquaintance who are homemakers in the truest sense.    Working women who work outside the home and in it both, women who are solely employed in the art of homemaking are absolutely needed in this world and frankly, I believe they are more needed than ever.

We are the fortress builders, the restorers and the sustainers.  We have a duty to our family, to our husbands, to our neighbors to be those very things.  Let no one mistake our calling or the vital importance of our place in this world at this time.

Now let's us move forward into the week:

Weekend Reading

I loved this set of photos of  France.  Running Errands is a lovely photographic record of yesteryear.

I don't know why this appealed to me, but it did.  St. Josemaria's Signs of Humility .

I don't do all of these, but 1, 2, 4, and 8 truly are the basis of the beginning of my days.  I find that I am a more productive person altogether.  Read this list from MoneySavingMom.

This looks like an interesting Bible study.  I haven't looked into it thoroughly, but it just seems like something I'd like to do now that I've read through the New Testament chronologically this year.

Weekend Pizza: Sam's Recipe

When Sam and Bess moved in, I wanted very much for them to have their own routines and foods they were used to as well.  I knew that usually on the weekend Samuel made pizza and I asked if he'd do the same while he was here.

I'd had his pizza before and it was good but he'd fretted and fretted over it's 'not turning out right'.  I couldn't for the life of me understand why he kept saying such, because it was delicious.  However, during this stay he made pizza all but one weekend and each time the pizza crust was pillowy and slightly chewy but tender.  The first pizza he'd made for us had been crisp and thin.  As he walked me through his recipe and his process I understood what he was going for in pizza dough. 

I don't have a single picture of even one of those many pizzas he made while he was here!  We were all too eager to come right to the table and eat them.  From start to finish it takes roughly an hour and a half if all the other ingredients are prepped ahead.  The kitchen smells awesome the whole while. 

Sam's Pizza Dough

There's nothing radical or unusual in this recipe.  It's standard ingredients and nothing more, it's how the dough is handled that makes all the difference in the world.

Frugal Friday: Left, Right, Left...Frugal Boot Camp Continues

This happy dog is a very fluffy dog, with a heavy triple layered coat of fur.  On these really hot days she's miserable.  I've given her a pool of water to lie in but she won't go near it except to drink.  So I let her dig holes in the flower beds in the shady places and plant around her spots so she can get to them.  I also give her pupsicles,  just frozen chicken broth really, which she enjoys greatly.  Love my Maddie and want to keep her as comfortable as I can.

Saturday:  No big deal today.  It's almost always a quieter day in our home and that is what is most needed.  A very simple breakfast, watered the plants that needed it, fed the pets.  Dinner is a crock pot meal that was already assembled in the fridge.  I just needed to pop the crock into the liner and heat on high for 1 hour and cook it for 3 more on low.  Salad and dessert were made yesterday.  I'll rinse and stack dishes and we'll call the day a great one for rest.

Took time this morning to have a brief 'beauty hour'.  I freshened my mani-/pedi-cure and used a mask on my face, deep conditioned my hair, shaved and exfoliated my skin.   It really took only about an hour at the very most and I felt fresh as a daisy.

Received my order of sample fragrances from Fragrance.Net and they included another perfume sample, an emery board, an eye cream sample and coupons for next purchases. 

Received my free Fiber One Mint Chocolate Brownie in the mail.

While on Pinterest this afternoon I read a few posts on frugal living. I took notes and will share in my next Frugal Boot Camp post.

Looked at Pinterest boards to see how I might wear my black maxi skirt.  Honestly with the ideas I'd already saved and the ideas I found today I could wear that outfit every day for nearly two weeks and just change up the accessories, change the shirt, etc. 

Ordered a nightie today, much needed.  That gift I mentioned receiving is funding this purchase.

Frugal Boot Camp: What I Learned from Pinterest Last Weekend

Who doesn't love Pinterest?  I know I enjoy it, though I did hear a recent pundit that said it was just hoarding online.  Well maybe it is.  I edit my boards quite often because I have a real horror of having thousands and thousands of pins.  How on earth would I ever find what I'm looking for once more?

I have been rather strict with myself.  I generally visit Pinterest only on one week night if I'm terribly bored and every Saturday afternoon.  It's my 'mindless wandering' sort of time and a nice break in the usual week.  I've always 'worked' a little on Pinterest though, seeking and reading countless frugal posts as well as looking for outfit, home décor and recipe ideas to pin to my boards.  This weekend I took notes as I read a few posts and I thought I'd share the ideas here with you, since it truly was all part of my Frugal Boot Camp exercises.

Now I did get all of this from Pinterest.  I just failed to notate what websites these belonged to and I didn't pin the posts so I can go back to find them without doing a whole lot more work than writing, so I apologize.  But I will be sure next time to note down a link to each pin so you all can go examine them for yourself.  I unearthed my bit of treasure but perhaps you'd find still more than I did.

The first post I took notes on was about ways to save without feeling the pinch.  I was surprised at some of the suggestions.  They were good!