Recent Posts

With football season around the corner, you may be interested in Riunite’s Ultimate Chili Challenge, a nationwide chili cook-off culminating in a Grand Prize trip to the Super Bowl next year. Home cooks around the country are spicing up their recipes and popping open bottles to compete for the best chili creation and Lambrusco pairing.

To help me become a part of the Riunite Ultimate Chili Challenge, I was sent a few things to get my chili cooking started:

September happens to be National Preparedness Month. It’s not something I think about a lot when it comes to being prepared for severe weather, because we’ve been fortunate enough to never have gone through a natural disaster. We’ve been snowed or iced in for a few days, but we’ve never been without power or heat for any length of time.

Greenwich-based chef, author, and hostess extraordinaire Victoria Amory presented her all natural condiment collection at the Summer Fancy Food Show in New York earlier this summer.  The Victoria Amory condiment collection features three creative ketchups, including the Smokey BBQ Ketchup, chosen from over 180,000 products as one of the Smokin’ Innovations at the acclaimed food show.  Inspired by the flavors and aromas of Spain’s ancient and rugged La Mancha region the Smokey BBQ Ketchup includes ingredients such as Smoke Paprika, Brown Sugar, Red and White Wine Vinegar and Olive Oil.

The fall usually brings me to a place where I start to look for extra ways to save and make money…because the holidays are coming y’all!  I plug away at various online programs where I get rewarded for clicking links, taking surveys, watching videos and completing offers, and I just learned of an app like that called Instant Rewards.

After you fill out an easy registration (nothing more really than your name, e-mail and a password), you can complete ‘tasks’ for various amounts of credits.

Back in June you might remember that I posted about Goodyear’s all-season model of their Eagle Sport tires.  Well we also recieved a set to review for my husband’s VW Jetta.  We’ve had them on his car for a few weeks now and I wanted to share with you all how they are performing.

Unfortunately we haven’t yet been able to test the tires under wet conditions here, as rain in North Texas has not been much of a weather occassion lately 😉

A couple of weeks ago I was sent the book Dark Hope, the first book of the Archangel Prophecies series, by Monica McGurk to read.

Here’s the synopsis of the book from the back cover:

For years, Hope Carmichael, survivor of a shocking child abduction, has lived a sheltered existence under the protection of here fanatically religious father.

Well it’s been almost a week since we dropped our daughter off at university.  It’s been a rough start for all of us.  I’ve already had to mail her money due to the irresponsibility of someone else and today we’re making a trip out to the dorms to drop off some supplies that she needs for tomorrow (that she was only told about yesterday).  We’re hoping these are our biggest worries of the semester and everything else will go like clockwork and she’ll keep her grades up.  The great thing is she is making lots of friends!

Unless you live under a rock I bet you’ve seen that essential oils are a big deal lately.  There are plenty of them on the market and one of the ones that is really versatile is melaleuca oil also known as Tea Tree Oil.   Tea tree oil may be effective in a variety of dermatologic conditions including dandruff, acne, lice, and other skin infections.

Last month I shared with you all how the Women’s Ministry in our church was doing a Pinterest Party each month where they’d choose a craft and we could all come and make it with our own twist.  While it was supposed to just be a program that they were going to do over the summer, there was so much interest and so many women signing up that they decided to continue doing it year round and they are calling it “Beautiful Things.”  In July we did some Pallet Art.  August’s project was a Wood Clip Frame.