Happy Homemaker Monday

Happy Monday to you Friends😊

It seems like we are flying with lightening speed through yet another month! This past weekend we celebrated some birthdays. My son's was last week and my Dad's is this week. My son came up to stay with us this weekend (his partner Jill was out of town with friends). So we celebrated both bdays together this past weekend. To me, their birthdays are always a sign of how late into summer we are - and how close September is coming. 

It has been such a dry summer so we are also already seeing moments of leaves changing color around our area. And the geese have been flying over, or gathering on the bay, in abundance. More signs of Autumn in the air. 🍁

I have the windows open today as it's only in the high 60's and partly overcast with a nice breeze. It feels heavenly! I was cleaning up from our birthday party fun from the weekend this morning. And doing my morning workout. Now that my back is feeling better I've been back to it (gently). And it sure feels wonderful to feel back to myself. And I know many kiddos started back to school this week. Including my Annie away at college. I think the local public schools here start right after Labor Day as well. So there is that back-to-school feeling in the stores and everywhere now too. I just sent Annie a fun goodie box to wish her a happy new school year and to send a few cute things for her new apartment. I always loved this time of year as a kiddo myself and I still embrace that  fresh start feeling in everyday life. I've been organizing some things in my bathroom and office. And the next job I will tackle will be our pantry cabinets in the kitchen. I guess that's my version of jumping into the start of a new season. 🍎❤️

THE WEATHER OUTSIDE IS:

ON THE BREAKFAST PLATE THIS MORNING:

 

I fasted this AM and just had iced coffee

ON MY TO DO LIST THIS WEEK:

errands, run things to my Mom & help her with Fall decorations, lunch and walking with a friend, groceries, cleaning projects, hospice work

THINKING ABOUT: 

how fun it was to catch up with my Aaron and how I hope Annie has an amazing school year ahead

THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY:

sitting outside on the rocking glider with a cool breeze reading my book and hearing geese fly over

CURRENTLY READING

I still need to finish my latest book but not sure what I'm going to dive into next?

 

ON THE TV TODAY:

Big Brother, Ted Lasso, I am watching Sanditon I never watched it when it was on PBS, we may start Widows Bay in the future? we still need to go back and finish this season of House of the Dragon though too

ON THE MENU THIS WEEK:

    MONDAY - french onion soup and leftover pasta salad & veggies from the weekend

TUESDAY - fried eggs with chili crunch on toast or protein pancakes, berries

WEDNESDAY - slow cooker honey garlic chicken (new recipe) with jasmine rice, green beans from the garden & broccoli

THURSDAY - sesame ginger chicken crumbles over cauliflower rice, veggie spring rolls

FRIDAY - out for dinner or leftovers

TO RELAX THIS WEEK I WILL:

work on holiday projects, read 

TIPS OR SOMETHING TO SHARE:

 

FROM THE CAMERA:

It's been fun picking things out of our little garden to add to our dishes. The green beans are really coming in and we have had several meals with them as our side dish already. I pick a handful like this almost every couple of days. One night we had a yummy garlic & herb pork roast and with it some zucchini & the garden green beans sauteed with garlic and oregano from our garden too. Also, roasted potatoes that included rosemary from our garden. Love that part of this time of year. :)💚

We set the table for our birthday celebration and my Dad and step Mom came over. We started with some appetizers and then Matt grilled steaks, burgers, & corn on the cob... and we had veggie pasta salad, and melon too.

the card I got for my Dad (gnomes always remind me of him)

I made Ghiradelli brownies for Aaron and I made these apple dessert bars for my Dad. I made a short bread crust and baked it a little, then apples I tossed with sugar and cinnamon etc on top of that... and then I added a streusel topping and baked the bars until they were done. I topped them off with salted caramel sauce before serving. They were a hit! I will share the recipe in the future.

I follow a gal on social media that makes the best overnight oats recipes and she recently made a peach cobbler one - so I made that today to have tomorrow. They look &smell so good! I will share that recipe in the future too. Basically I cut up a peach and sauteed it in a tiny bit of butter with a tsp of maple syrup, vanilla, and cinnamon & nutmeg. And the oats have vanilla protein powder, milk, greek yogurt, chia seeds & a tiny bit of maple syrup, cinnamon & nutmeg too. 😋 Tomorrow I will stir it up and top with a little bit of granola or crushed graham cracker.

pretty late summer on the bay:

PRAYER LIST:

 For an end to the conflicts all over the world and anyone living in war & fear, especially everything going on in the middle east right now. For peace and unity in this country, especially from hate and shootings or violence.  For anyone sick, suffering, in pain, fear, loneliness etc ... that God bring them comfort and peace. For a friend that recently went through a break up :(

For the Lord's love and peace to fill all ❤️'s.

For Christ's Light and Love to cast out the darkness everywhere and help the world find its way to loving our neighbors as ourselves. 🙏🏻

PRAYER, INSPIRATIONAL QUOTE OR DEVOTIONAL:

I wish for you many of those wonderful unexpected moments my Friends. 

I'm sharing this with Sandra of Diary of a SAHM for Happy Homemaker Monday.

Cooking Thursday: A Couple of Yummy Quick Breads

 

Hello beautiful Friends!

It's a cozy rainy Thursday here and I've been soaking up the vibes. I got a new blackberry jam candle at bath & body recently and it smells so good! I have that going and a pretty early Fall scene playing on the tv with pretty piano music.

*I love that the lid of the candle looks like the top of a jam jar 

(it's the little things 😊)

 

And one thing I love to do on cozy days is bake. I recently made these 2 breads (about a week apart) also on gray cozier days. The first one I want to share is for an apple cheddar bread I made a few weeks ago before Annie left. She thought it sounded delish so I gave it a go. 

I had found the recipe at gimmesomeoven.com 

It's a pretty straight forward quick bread and I didn't use the sage it called for and used thyme instead and I also added some cinnamon. I just measured with my heart on both and didn't add a specific amount. I also just cubed up the apple and didn't shred it in.

We all thought the flavor was amazing and this would be such a great bread with soup in the Fall. It had a very kind of biscuit texture to it. My notes on this were that I think next time I'd use a little less flour and I would shred some of the apple in and cube the rest. I think it would make the bread a little less biscuit-like and more moist. Either way though we gave it a thumbs up! Of course it helped that I made a cinnamon honey butter to top it with too. 😉

The next bread I made more recently. I had a can of pumpkin in the cabinet and wanted to use it up...so I thought August was close enough for our first loaf of pumpkin chocolate chip bread. 🎃  I found the recipe at sallysbakingaddiction.com (she has the best baking stuff!). It turned out amazing and the only thing I did was add milk instead of orange juice (I didn't have any oranges and that was her suggestion if you didn't). And I did add the chocolate chips (because of course I did 😋) and some chopped pecans I needed to use up. Total 10 out of 10! It tasted so good to have my first taste of something pumpkin!! I brought some to my Mom and step Dad too. Definitely recommend this one for Autumn. 

Have you started any Fall baking yet? Do you have a go-to you like to make on rainy days? 

If you try these I hope you enjoy! 

xoxo

Happy Homemaker Monday

Hello dear Friends!

Happy Monday to you. 💗

I can't believe we're already to the part of August where my Annie is beginning to pack up and head back to her college in FL. Her boyfriend Kristopher was up visiting and just went back to FL last week. She is leaving later this week and I'm not ready for my sweet baby Girl to go. But we were able to have a lovely 1:1 weekend together this past weekend. 

An old family friend was visiting Matt's folks at the lake so he felt like it would be good for him to go see them...and he wanted to let Annie & I have good girlie time. He's such a thoughtful sweetheart.😍  So Annie & I had a great time hanging out, watching shows, playing cards, planning her new apartment, and we may have even done a bit more shopping too. 😉

Saturday night I went to mass, and there was a scary moment. One of the parishoners had a medical emergency during the service. Father didn't miss a beat though. He led us in a rosary and we said prayers for that person as they waited for the ambulance to come. We then continued mass after that and I just pray that the person is okay. 

Then last night my former SIL, Julia,  (the one that carried Annie for us) came over for dinner so we could have a catch up with her before Annie leaves too. I made a big Italian themed dinner (Julia is traveling there next year!) and then we played some ladderball in the yard and had dessert on the deck. Obviously, she's an extra special Auntie and if you click here you can read a bit about our special story. 

It was so fun to hear about things in her world. Her oldest son (Annie's cousin) just got married. My kiddos were at the wedding too. She also just bought her own home and is having it renovated. She divorced my ex's brother several years ago. She shared about her folks and siblings too. And she is now in the dating world and it was fun to hear about those adventures as well.  Overall she just seems so healthy and happy and I'm so glad we've stayed in contact. She wants me to go check out her new place once it's all done. 😊

THE WEATHER OUTSIDE IS:

ON THE BREAKFAST PLATE THIS MORNING:

 

iced protein coffee

ON MY TO DO LIST THIS WEEK:

errands, Annie's hair appt, help Annie with final laundry and packing up, check-in meeting with the designers and construction for our future bathroom reno, yard work Matt & I want to do, hospice work

THINKING ABOUT: 

That I'm so excited to see where this year leads Annie...but also my heart hurts thinking of her going. She is my baby and I'm sure you fellow moms understand that. 

THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY:

catching up with an old friend while sipping good wine and having yummy nibbles 

CURRENTLY READING

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion by Beth Brower volumes 1&2 (I was bad about reading last week - need to finish these)

 

ON THE TV TODAY:

We have been all over the place with shows and have mainly been watching old and new episodes of Big Brother. Ted Lasso is back (yay!) and we watched the first episode of that. Also, I think the Pack plays preseason football this week so we will watch some of that too. I may start Seeking Persephone

ON THE MENU THIS WEEK:

    MONDAY - naan bread pizzas with mini pepperonis & hot honey (a rare occasion Annie will eat meat), leftover pasta & salad from last night - we also have some peach pie leftover I made yesterday to have a la mode

TUESDAY - orange dijon grilled chicken, roasted red potatoes, lemony asparagus (a couple of Annie's fave side dishes)

WEDNESDAY - probably eat up any leftovers or if Annie requests anything

THURSDAY -  Mexican street corn tacos

FRIDAY - maybe out for dinner

TO RELAX THIS WEEK I WILL:

hopefully read, hang with Annie, work in the yard

TIPS OR SOMETHING TO SHARE:

 

FROM THE CAMERA:

Before Kris headed back home we took a pontoon ride out on Lake Superior - you can tell the FL boy thought it was a bit chilly though. Lol 

The rest of the pics below: some summer scenes from around the house, a couple of cute black cat Halloween decorations I found when shopping with Annie, green beans finally ready for picking from our garden, and Annie did some fun and crazy gel nail work on me. 

PRAYER LIST:

 For an end to the conflicts all over the world and anyone living in war & fear, especially everything going on in the middle east right now. For peace and unity in this country, especially from hate and shootings or violence.  For anyone sick, suffering, in pain, fear, loneliness etc ... that God bring them comfort and peace. 

For the Lord's love and peace to fill all ❤️'s.

For Christ's Light and Love to cast out the darkness everywhere and help the world find its way to loving our neighbors as ourselves. 🙏🏻

PRAYER, INSPIRATIONAL QUOTE OR DEVOTIONAL:

I hope you have a great week ahead! 

I'm sharing this with Sandra of Diary of a SAHM for Happy Homemaker Monday.