I’ve told you before how I find much of my home inspiration from catalogs…Pottery Barn is one of my favorites…but have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in those catalog scenes?  Well, I stumbled across the site Catalog Living today and all I can say is HI-LAR-I-OUS.  Here’s one of my favorite scenes:

“Hi Nancy, it’s Elaine.  I’m going to be a little late for lunch.  I can’t find my hat or my back-up hat.”

Pretty funny, right? Here’s my other favorite:

“Greta, the invitation specifically said to bring a yellow or white food or drink.  Now, please remove your brown cookies at once.”

And one more…

Sweetheart, the Turners will be here any minute now!  Did you put the plate of figs under the table?

To enjoy more, visit Catalog Living!

I had a wonderful weekend in Missouri! I spent time with family and friends and watched as my mom was ordained as a Presbyterian minister!  Congrats Mom!!! This is her with her siblings right after the ordination service.

Today, I thought I’d share with you some of my favorite things about where I’m from! I love the house where I grew up…why?  This is the view I woke up to every morning:

And we’re surrounded by trees! Lush, green trees!  Living in CA, I get used to a lot of brown, so it’s always refreshing when I go home to see so much GREEN!

This clock sits on our mantel.  It’s an old wind up clock that has been passed down in our family.  The key to wind it disappeared when I was in junior high, so it hasn’t worked for years, but my dad recently got a new one…so now it works!!!  It was a throwback to hear the little chimes from the clock the whole time I was home. I loved it!

This is the photo that is currently hanging above the mantel. That’s me and my sister Caroline. This was supposed to be the ultimate childhood picture.  And then the week after we took the photo, my mom found out she was pregnant with my youngest sister Sydney!  So now we have this gigantic photo of Caroline and I, but no picture of Sydney!  Poor Syd!

And my mom found this lamp a few years ago (her name is Doris).  My mom has such a fun sense of style!  Just when you think she’s getting a bit too predictable,  she throws in a lamp like this!

This is a pew from an old church that we’ve had in our house as long as I can remember.  I love it!

For a long time, my mom’s kitchen was cow-themed…so she painted our kitchen table (an old post office mail sorting table) to match!  We LOVED it growing up. My mom’s been trying to repaint it for years, and my sisters and I opposed it for years. I think we’ve all finally grown up enough to let it go (she has already purchased the paint!) but part of me is still a little bummed to see it changed! I know…not exactly design hall of fame…but it’s part of my childhood!  Anyway, without further ado…the cow table:

And last but not least…my cat Black Jack. I got her for my 12th birthday from my best friend Leslie.  She’s now 14!

Okay one more, speaking of Leslie…here’s her at my mom’s ordination service with her daughter Kinley (who was quite upset). I LOVE this picture:

So there you have it! A wonderful weekend!  What are your favorite things in YOUR childhood home?

I’m currently trekking back to Northeast Missouri for my mom’s ordination as a pastor on Sunday. I’m so excited!

But boy has it been a crazy day.  Everything seemed to be going smoothly…my flight from LAX to Denver (my layover) seemed to be getting off to a great start…that is, until a lady on our plane went berserk and the LAX police had to be brought on board! And when she started ATTACKING them (she scratched the cornea of one of the guys!) she had to be tasered, handcuffed, and physically removed from the plane! Seriously! After that, the flight attendants a few pass-angers on the plane had to give their statements to the police about the whole thing.  Even with all that, we only left 20 minutes late! I was psyched to be back on track…but when I FINALLY arrived in Denver, I found out that my flight from Denver to Kansas City was delayed two hours!

I complain, but actually, it hasn’t been that bad. I’m actually sitting in the USO (a club for military members and their families found in big airports), as I type. So I really can’t complain TOO much. But wow…what a crazy day!

Since I’m not at home to craft, decorate, cook, or bake this evening, I’d like to share with you the dinner my hubby made for me last night!

My hubby is a fabulous cook.  And one of his favorite dishes to make (and my favorite to eat!) is his spicy shrimp.  It’s an evolving dish that he changes a bit every time he makes it. He starts with shrimp (these were pre-cooked):

Jalapeños seeded and cut into slices:

Cheddar Cheese cut into small strips:

Bacon cooked until it’s very crispy and cut into squares:

And this was a new addition to the dish, cilantro:

Place the shrimp on top of the bacon, and then the cheese and jalapeño (and cilantro if you’re using it) on top of that.

Bake at 425 for 4-6 minutes (if you’re using raw shrimp, bake for 20-30 minutes and add the cheese halfway through). This is the result:

Gooey, spicy, goodness! Yum!

No…not those kind…this kind!

This rustic tart is my new favorite dessert to make.  It’s soooo easy! All you need is a refrigerated pie crust, cornstarch, sugar, egg, and whatever fruit you have in your fruit bowl (I used strawberries and a nectarine).

Start by laying out the piecrust on a cooking sheet and preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Next, chop up the fruit into bite-sized pieces, and stir with a tablespoon of cornstarch and two tablespoons of sugar.

Pour the fruit mixture into the pie crust and begin folding the pie crust edges around the fruit.

Finish folding until all the pie crust is folded around the edge. Brush with egg and sprinkle with a bit of sugar.

Bake at 425 for 12-15 minutes until golden brown. It should come out like this:

Serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream! Enjoy!!!

The thought of a lucious bouquet of roses or peonies or snap dragons, sets my heart aflutter. I just love coming home to a full bouquet sitting on my kitchen table!

But sometimes I want something a little simpler (and cheaper!). And that’s when I go for the cheapest flowers I can find in the grocery store plopped into bud vases or bottles or whatever I can find. Something like this:

(Photo courtesy of Jena D Events)

Or this:

(Photo from Country Living)

Or any of these from Ms. Stewart:

Or this one from Centsational Girl:

Don’t you just love this look?!?  And the best part? You can get away with only buying a small bouquet (there’s usually a $3.99 one a my grocery store!). What do you all think?

Weird fact number 4859 about me: Since moving to Southern California, I am almost always a bit chilly.  Odd.  When you hear “SoCal” you think HOT, right? Well, at least I did until I moved here.  And where we live, it’s almost always 60-75 degrees out (with no humidity)–I’m almost always cold! My hubby, being the amazing guy he is, knows this about me.  So what did he get me for my birthday? A weekend at a spa. In the desert (where the average temp is above 100!!!). I was sooo excited! He booked a weekend for us this past weekend at the La Quinta Resort in Palm Springs. And boy did I need it after that crazy alumni weekend!

It was awesome.  We had a beautiful room overlooking a pool (one of 40+ on the property!) with a fireplace, sitting area, beautiful Spanish-tiled bathroom, and a private patio.

And party of my present was a treatement at the spa. I chose the “Detox Trilogy” which included a scrub, a wrap, and a massage.  In-cred-i-ble. Although after an hour and a half of scrubbing, wrapping, and massaging, that therapist has seen more of my body than I’d care to admit! Afterwards, this is how I felt:

It really was just what I needed!  I’m now ready to take on a trip home, two weeks of family staying in our house, and a possible trip to Disneyland in the coming weeks! Whew!

Thank you so much, dear hubby!!!!

I’ve had such a productive day! After work I got my hair cut (for the first time in SEVEN months!!!), ran a bunch of errands, and then we had our friends Jana and Wade over for dinner!  I made my new go-to fast dinner: pre-marinated Carne Asada from Trader Joes (LOVE it!), baked asparagus, and roasted rosemary potatoes…with flourless chocolate cake for dessert. Yum. It was such a nice evening!

I forgot to take pics of the dinner to share with you, so instead, I’ll show you one of the projects I worked on for our reunion dinners last weekend. We needed a way to mark the tables so the various reunion classes knew where to sit.  We found these paper mache numbers online for a few dollars each:

and I found these fence post toppers at a hardware store for a little over a dollar a piece:

I screwed the numbers to the post toppers with a wood screw and then spray painted them alternating white and blue.  These were the finished project:

and

and THIS is what they looked like on the tables:

I just LOVE how they turned out (the white numbers went on tables with blue tablecloths). I’m guessing not a lot of you have a need for class numbers on tables, but these would also work quite well for table numbers at any wedding or other big event!

Last weekend, we had alumni weekend at the school where I work.  This is me (in the middle) with my two cohorts in planning, Hallie (left) and Jenn (right).

It was a wonderful event, but so draining!  I worked almost 40 hours in just Friday-Sunday alone…and I recruited my hubby and my sister to work as well, so our whole household was pretty wiped out.

On Sunday afternoon, after we finished clean-up from the event, my hubby, my sister, and I all drove up to San Francisco for a dear friend’s wedding! We couldn’t have missed it…but, boy, was I EXHAUSTED…we didn’t make it to San Francisco until almost midnight.

The happy couple were married on the flight deck of an old aircraft carrier. It was a small wedding, and very intimate–a nice change from some of the monstrous weddings going on these days!  After the wedding and a celebratory lunch, we did a quick tour of SF (my sister had never been). We drove through the city and visited Ghiradelli Square–where we saw this fleet of Segways:

Then we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and headed home.

We arrived back home around midnight on Monday night. Yes folks, that’s 12 hours in the car in two days.

Yesterday was my sister’s last day here in Cali before she heads back to Missouri to start her summer internship.  So I took off the day, and we tried to make the most of it! We went to lunch, went shopping, and then cooked a fabulous meal!  I crashed around midnight, and then had to get up today at 3:45AM to take her to the airport shuttle.  Yikes!  We’ll miss you Caro!!!

Needless to say, I’m still a little wiped out.  Luckily, because I started work at 5am, I got off super early, so I’ve been trying to recuperate this afternoon. I’ve had a long nap, and two bowls of fruity pebbles (one for lunch and one for dinner), and I’m finally STARTING to feel somewhat normal.

So on that note…I’ll see you back here tomorrow!

Loyal Readers,

I just wanted to pop in to let you know that I have a crazy few days at work  (it’s alumni weekend at the school I work at).  And because of that, I’m going to take a few days off from This American Wife.  But I’ll see you back here early next week!  Have a GREAT weekend!!!

Love,

This American Wife

Okay, maybe it’s not actually summer…but here in our house it sure feels like it!  I decorated for Spring a few months ago. And it was lovely then–so fresh and inviting. But that decor has been up for a few months now, and I was definitely ready for a change!  Here’s what I had to work with:

(Do you see my faux coral in there?!?)  I started by taking all the Spring decor down and putting it away.  This is what my mantel looked like ne-ked. It’s so empty!

Then I decorated the mantel. It took me a while to finally settle on this:

I love how it turned out!

Next I started working on the bookshelves:

Here a few of the details up-close:

And here’s me as the Fourth of July Fairy… I may have been a bit slap-happy and this point. Just maybe.

And there you have it! My Fourth of July Decor. I’m now officially in summer mode!  How about you? Do you change up your home decor with the seasons?