Happy Fall Y'All!

"No spring nor summer's beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face..." -- John Donne

Have I mentioned how much I love fall.  It is my absolutest favoritest season.  (Is that even a word?)  This kind of sums up why:

But it's especially the bright leaves, the cool crisp air, the burning scent in the air that is just barely there.  

It's the time of year to hop in your car and go for a ride to view the foliage.  It's different depending what part of the country you are in, but this map gives you a general guide of when peak colors are.

And aside for foliage fun, in case you are at a loss for what else to do this most fabulous time of the year, this list from Popsugar has a few suggestions for you.  

My personal favorites?  Crunching leaves, inhale the crisp fall air, stay warm in a cozy cardigan, and my personal favorite which didn't even make the list......eat some apple cider donuts!!!

From my board "The autumn poets sing."

No Sew Window Treatments

"Let fall the curtains..." ~ William Cowper

We have been living in our rental house for just over two years now.   And we've been so good about not putting holes in the walls for extra pictures and such.  But I have gotten so tired of looking at the bare windows, that I decided I would have to do something about them.  I guess that's went I've been pinning a lot of window treatment ideas lately.

The thing is,  I have nice curtains packed away in storage, so I don't want to spend a lot of money.  Cheap and easy are the way to go as far as I'm concerned.

And I am so excited about how this project turned out.  My inspiration was from sand & sisal here:  The easiest no-sew windows treatments ever

I've been looking around for napkins for a while now.  The napkins at Target,  where she got hers from were expensive.   So I finally found some at Home Goods.  $5.00 for a set of 4.  And they almost exactly match my couch.  I found some cheap curtain rods at Lowe's, and I was good to go.

I brought them home and honestly thought I could could just nail them up,  because I remember buying these kinds of rods years ago, and that's what you would do.  But of course these came with screws and I couldn't find the drill,  so I had to postpone my project for a day.  Let me tell you I wad being quite ambitious because I usually rely on my hubby to do the stuff that involves the use of tools,  power or otherwise.  So when I asked him to hang some curtain rod for me,  he didn't answer.   I'll assume it's that male-pattern hearing loss that so many men seem to suffer from.  Really. I think it's a world-wide epidemic.

Anyway,  maybe I didn't say it loud enough because I kind of wanted to do it on my own.  So I asked him to at least leave me the drill.  So he did,  and today I went to town with that baby.

Honestly, I look good.  I could almost be on one of those HGTV shows.  Almost. 

So,  I managed to get one regular window and a large transept window done.   And I am pleased to say that this worked out quite well. 

One more window to go.  And then maybe I'll try this out in the bathroom as well!

From my board "Home is the nicest word there is."

Bacon Wrapped Cheese Hotdogs

"Hot dogs always seem better out than at home; so do French-fried potatoes; so do your children." -- Mignon McLaughlin

I didn't know what to pin this under - food or bacon? (Because bacon is awesome enough to have it's own board!)

The boys were told they could each invite a friend over so we could cook food in the fire pit.  What a perfect evening - food, fire, boys.  Those are all made for each other!  We ended up having only one friend over, but that was okay.  Found on promobonuscodes.com, this looked like the perfect meal item to make

So we made ours a little differently.  Instead of slitting the hot dogs and putting the cheese inside, we just wrapped slices of cheese around the hot dog, and then wrapped the bacon around all of that.  It doesn't get much better than that! 

The finished product.  If I had died tonight, I would have died happy!

From my board "Food is essential to life."

Patriotic Necklace

"In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved." -- Franklin D. Roosevelt

It is almost independence day again.  Last year I went craft-happy.  This year not so much.  Partly I think it's because I'm a little sad that my boys are growing up.  I wish Pinterest had been around when they were younger because there are so, so many cool things I would have liked to have done with them.  Fortunately for me, I still have three adorable nieces who can still appreciate my creativity.

Thank you to Buggy and Buddy for this cute patriotic necklace.  

This was so super easy to do, I assembled them during warm-ups for a swim meet.  Everyone around me loved them!  And the beads were super cheap on sale at Jo-Ann's. 

I cannot wait to give them to the girls.

From my board "You're a grand ol' flag."

Give me patience!

Gotta remember this on some days!

Lemon Cupcake with Blackberry Buttercream

"A balanced diet is having a cupcake in each hand." - Unknown

Who doesn't like cupcakes?  They have been all the rage lately.  Cupcake shops, cupcake food trucks, Cupcake Wars on TV, special cupcakeries with cupcakes that put you in labor. 

I had seen a pin of these gorgeous cupcakes I wanted to try, but the link never worked.  They look like angel food cupcake with a blackberry frosting.  Yum!

I eventually found a recipe that might be comparable and when I just saw some fresh local blackberries in the supermarket, so I thought it would be the perfect time to try these.  This recipe for Lemon Cupcakes with Blackberry Buttercream on AllRecipes.com. 

(Not quite as pretty as the above ones, but still look yummy!)

And here was my finished product.

(I think my frosting was getting a little soft as I was piping.)

Unfortunately for my family, there were none left over to bring home.

From my board "Cupcakes take the cake."

How to fall asleep in under one minute!

"Sleeping is no mean art: for its sake one must stay awake all day." ~Friedrich Nietzsche

I'm getting kind of annoyed with these so called sponsored pins on Pinterest.  You know which ones I mean.  They say "Pinned for you" and really, they're not.  They're completely promotional.  Some days I wade through a dozen or so of these in order to see the pins I actually want to see, the ones of people I actually follow.  

Anywho......I pinned something a couple of weeks ago, and finally thought I world give it a try.  Since I work nights, sleeping at night on my nights off, can sometimes be a challenge.  Like last night, I was up until 3:30 tossing and turning.   And than couldn't wake up this morning.

It was one of these promotional pins, by higherperspectives.com, and the comment said,  "Trouble sleeping?  How to fall asleep in under one minute."  This was great.   Exactly what I could use.   So tonight I decided to try it.   And just to make sure things were definitely in my favor,  I made sure I had spritzed a lavender spray on my sheets and had my eye mask on.   I wasn't taking any chances.

So I started.   Basically,  you inhale over four seconds, hold it for seven seconds,  and then exhale over eight seconds.  Sounds easy,  right?  WRONG! Do you know how difficult it is to alter your breathing pattern in order to count like this?

The first couple of rounds, I literally thought I was going to die.   I guess with my first inhalation I didn't take a deep enough breath,  so I quickly ran out of oxygen long before I had to exhale.  So then I  panicked. Over the next couple of breaths I managed to regulate my breathing somewhat better.  By about 4 minutes in, I was in somewhat of a pattern.  But wait!  This was way over a minute to fall asleep!  So, way not worth it as far as I'm concerned.  And I kept going.  Three minutes later, I was still there wondering how long it was going to take to fall asleep.  So I stopped.  And then was asleep a couple of minutes later.  I guess I really tired myself out trying this trick.  

So, I'll just still with my lavender spray, my eye mask and just try to think happy thoughts that will hopefully put me to sleep, all by myself!  And maybe, just maybe, this won't happen:

From my board "The first wealth is health."