Friday Favorites

Today I am linking up with Erika, Narci and Andrea to share my Friday favorites.  I am  happy it's Friday!  This weekend is going to be a lot of fun!  I can't wait! 

1-My biggest blessing this week was spending time with  family on Mother's Day!  Ava had a basketball tournament, we talked to Brock on the phone, we had dinner together and then Graig and I went to the movies.  It was a good day!

 

2-Last weekend I found two  beautiful succulents at our local greenhouse. I'm in love with both of them. The top one is burros tail and the bottom was is called string of pearls.  

 

 

3-I got this new recipe book called the Keepsake Recipe Diary and I've been working to put all of my recipes in it. 

 

Last weekend I made one of my favorite desserts Mississippi Mud Pie!

 

4-Last Saturday was our Farm Retreat!  My friend Rachael and I have a small business called Branch and Bloom.  We do monthly craft classes. This month we decided to do something special!  It was a fabulous day!

 

5-I have been slowly getting flowers and plants for the front of our house.  I snapped this picture yesterday.  I just love spring!

 

I'm so excited it Friday!   We have a few plans and I'm hoping to relax and enjoy this long weekend with my family.

Xoxo

Home Tour Tuesday {Sunroom-new house}

Well I was supposed to post this on Tuesday but it's been a crazy week!  I am still recovering from our super fun Farm Retreat  and this week has been all kinds of nuts!  I'm so glad it's Thursday and I'm thrilled that we have a three day weekend coming up. It's going to great!

Our sunroom is my favorite room in our new house.  I just love it!  So I wanted to show you that room first :)  We eat most of our meals out in this room and I love sitting out here to read books.  We haven't gotten new furniture for this room and honestly I doubt we will get any this year but in a few years I would love to get a new table and maybe an outdoor sectional or chairs for this space.

Here is a picture of the whole room.  We have a table, my blanket bench for extra seating and a small buffet table that I use to hold food at parties.


My MIL gave us the table and chairs and they are quite comfortable which is good because were going to keep them for a while.  I got the bromeliad in the spring and because our sunroom is nice and shady he's very happy living on our table :)

 

This is the door that goes out to our garage.  I got the boxwood wreath at Target years ago.  

 

This is our side table that I use as a buffet table when I need extra space for food for meals and parties.  It has worked out well for us so far.  At our other house I use this table as a desk in our living room.

 

I have two plants on this table-lemon balm and a fern.  They are both doing well and growing like crazy.  I like to use the lemon balm when I make lemonade.  

 

This is our blanket chest and I've had it for years.  My Dad got it for me one year for Christmas.  I added pillows to the top (from Walmart)  and we use this little area as extra seating when we have people over.  

 

The only thing I have hanging up so far is  this sign I made last month.  

 I had my girlfriends over for brunch a few weeks ago. They all loved sitting in my sunroom.  I hope to have many more parties in our sunroom this summer!

Happy Thursday!!
Xoxo

Branch and Bloom {Farm Retreat}

Hello friends!  Our craft class for this moth at Branch and Bloom was a Farm Retreat. We held it on Saturday at our friend Jen's farm. Jenn has a small hobby farm and she's a yoga teacher so we thought it would be fun to collaborate and have a Farm Retreat together.   

It was a great day! The weather was perfect ☀️, the animals were adorable, and everyone had a fabulous time.  

Here was our schedule for the day:

10:30am  Welcome and Farm Tour

11:30 Yoga

12:30 Farm fresh lunch

1:30 Craft class {windowsill herb garden}

2:30 Relaxation yoga and retreat wrap up

We started the day with tours of the farm.  The animals were a huge hit! Jenn has goats, pigs, chickens and ducks.

 

 

 

 

After the farm tour we had our first yoga class outside in one of her pastures.  It was the perfect setting for yoga.

 

After our yoga class we had a farm fresh lunch.  Wraps and salad from Rachael's family grocery store. We sat the lunch up outside and people ate on picnic blankets and tables. 

 

After lunch Rachael and I helped everyone make their windowsill herb gardens.  These were simple to do we just added vinyl words to the little pots. We did thyme, parsley, and basil. 

 

 

 

Here are Jenn, Rachael and I at the end of the day.  Jenn and I bought our "plant lady" shirts and Rachael made hers.  We thought they were so cute!

 

We always like to take a picture of everyone at our craft classes so we took a big group picture before our last yoga class.

 

It was a fun day! Everyone had a good time and we were so happy when one of the participants posted this on Facebook :-). 

 

Next month we are doing a Plant and Pose workshop at Jenn's farm.  Jenn will lead us in a yoga class and for our craft we are going to plant succulents in hypertufa planters.  It should be a fun evening!

I hope you had a great weekend!  

Xoxo

Crafty Wednesday {girlfriend gift bags}

So two weeks ago I went on a beach trip with some of my best friends.  We went to Cape Cod for three days and had a great time talking, laughing, shopping and going to the beach.

Here is a picture of us from our trip.  I love these girls so much!  The weather was pretty terrible all weekend but we still had fun!

I knew we were going to be gone over Kentucky Derby weekend so I wanted to make something for my friends for the Kentucky Derby.  I thought monogrammed mint julep glasses would be perfect!  I ordered the mint julep glasses online and then I had my friend and neighbor Heidi monogram them for me.  I love the way they turned out!  I made mint juleps for everyone to drink while we watched the Kentucky Derby.  They are not my favorite drink but these glasses are adorable and they are stainless steel so we will have them for many future Kentucky Derby parties.

I told my dear friend Rachael about my idea and she decided to make the girls tote bags.  She makes tote bags and sells them in her family grocery store.  This is the one I bought from her this spring I love it!  

For our trip she made navy and pink "GO SEA DO" bags because we were going to the beach. We put all of our other goodies for our friends inside the bags.

Our friend Amy put margarita glasses in as one of her gifts and she put in a giant beach towel in the bags as well-it was so thoughtful of her everyone loved the glasses and the towels!!  I know I will use my towel all summer.  

 

Here is a peek of the towels.  She got pink and blue to go along with the bags.  

Here are the finished bags ready to be given to our friends!  This was so fun to do.  I love making gifts for my friends when we go on trips!  Last year my friend Sabrina and I made monogrammed beach bags for our friends for our Florida beach trip.  You can see how we made them here.  

I hope you have a great Wednesday!  It is HOT here and I plan to spend as much time as possible outside today enjoying the beautiful sunshine!
Xoxo

Catch up!

Hello friends.... Last week flew by!  I had big plans to blog every day.  I have so much to share but last week life got in the way.  The first few weeks of May are always so hard we have end of the year events and parties for work at the College.  It's SO fun but SO tiring.

Last week I had Bunco!  It's always fun to get together with these ladies :)

I teach a cardio/weight lifting class on Monday mornings and Tuesday's at lunch. This is my group from last Tuesday.  We are working on increasing our weights in class and these ladies have been working SO hard.  I am so proud of them!

 

One day last week I worked at graduation headquarters.  Students picked up graduation tickets and their caps and gowns in one central location.  We had snacks for them and a photo booth.  It was a fun way to spend a work day!

 

I invited these three students over for lunch on Thursday to celebrate the end of the year  I worked with them this year on the Greek Council.  I am so happy for them but I'm so sad to see them leave.

 

Graduation day was Saturday it was FREEZING cold.  I went to one of the ceremonies to see a few of my favorite students graduate.  Jessie was the President of the Greek Council for two years and she worked in my office this year.  I am going to miss her SO much next year.  I am glad I got to see her and meet her parents on graduation day.

 

G worked 16 hours on graduation day because he coordinated all of the volunteers for the three graduation ceremonies.  He was exhausted when he got home and took a nap on the couch with the three puppies.

 

Yesterday Ava had basketball so I drove her to Albany for her two games. I love watching our girl play basketball.

 

Sunday night G and I went to see The Zookeepers Wife.  It was such a great movie.  It was a moving story about a couple who helped 300 Jewish people escape from the ghetto of Warsaw during World War II.

I am reading this book about Whole 30 and I decided to start Whole 30 today. My friend Rachael is doing it too and G pretty much eats Whole 30 all the time so I am hoping it won't be too difficult for me.  I made this egg bake for breakfasts this week. 

 

That's a look at our {busy} life lately.  I hope you had a great weekend and a very happy Mother's Day!

Xoxo

Book Review {April}

 

Last month I read three books.  Each of them was very interesting and thought provoking in their own distinct way.   You can read my other two book reviews for this year here and here. 

The first book I read was Milk and Honey for my bookclub. 

 This book was different than the novels that we usually read.  Milk and Honey is a book of poetry and it’s divided into 4 sections;  the hurting, the loving, the breaking and the healing.  Each of the chapters serves a different purpose and deals with a different pain.  The first section was about abuse and that was tough to read.  It was a beautiful book and  I’m so glad we read it.  At our book club we read some poems aloud and that was really powerful because they mean so much more when they are spoken.  These are two of my favorites from the book.

“i want to apologize to all the women i have called beautiful
before i’ve called them intelligent or brave
i am sorry i made it sound as though
something as simple as what you’re born with
is all you have to be proud of
when you have broken mountains with your wit 
from now on i will say things like
you are resilient, or you are extraordinary
not because i don’t think you’re beautiful
but because i need you to know
you are more than that” 
― Rupi Kaur

“i do not want to have you
to fill the empty parts of me
i want to be full on my own

i want to fill so complete
i could light a whole city
and then
i want to have you
cause the two of
us combined
could set
it on fire” 
― Rupi Kaur

The second book was Harvest: Unexpected Projects using 47 extraordinary garden plants.

This book is beautifully photographed and has step-by-step instructions to create beautiful projects including beauty products, gifts and beverages.  The book is divided into three sections early, mid and late so you can do projects throughout the gardening season. I also got this book as a gift for my friend Jenn who loves gardening and had a birthday in April.  I love this book so much and plan to make many of the projects highlighted in the book. 

The last book I read was my favorite book this month.  It was a Handmaid’s Tale.

I wanted to read the book before the Hulu series started and I am so glad I did.  I could not put this book down.  It’s very dark and primitive.  This book was published in 1986.  You would think something written 30 years ago would be dated but it is not.  It is a haunting book about life in a futuristic society after women are denied even the most basic civil rights.  There are many similarities to our current government in this book and that was scary to read.  So many people (myself included) take for granted many of the rights and privileges that we have as women in our country.    I was a huge fan of the book until the ending.  I did not like the way she did the ending.  I started watching the Hulu series last night and there are some differences from the book but I really like the series so far-I’ve seen two episodes. 

What have you been reading?  I love getting book suggestions from people.  There are SO many books that I want to read!  I have some good ones lined up for May.

Xoxo

Girls Weekend {Cape Cod}

I just got back from the BEST weekend .  I took a girls trip to Cape Cod.  We have been planning it for months and it was a perfect weekend.  I'm so glad we were able to get away and enjoy!

 

We left Thursday right after work.  It's about 5.5 hours away and we stopped for dinner at a restaurant featured on Diners,Drive-ins  and Dives on the way out. 

 

Friday we got up early and headed to the beach.  It was cold and cloudy so we didn't stay too long but we all love the beach so we had to go!

 

My friend Stephanie is an amazing kitchen designer and she also is a photographer she took these pics (with her iPhone!) at the beach.  I think they are gorgeous and want to get a couple printed for our house.

 

We stayed at my dear friend Amy's sister in law's house in Dennis.  Ava goes to Cape Cod every year with Amy and her family.  Here is a picture of the outside of the house.  It was so cute and cozy inside.  I can't wait to go back!

 

Friday during the day we went to a winery and shopped at World Market.  The winery was adorable and the owners were great.  It was a fun way to celebrate the day.  I took pics of Patriots stuff they had and sent them to Brock because he loves the  Patriots!

 

Friday night we celebrated Cinco de Mayo with lots of snacks and margaritas!  We had most of our meals at home which was nice.  We saved money and we didn't have to go out.  We ate SO much.  I think everyone is starting their diets today!

 

Saturday morning we went back to the beach for an early morning walk.  

 

On Saturday we went to a craft show and we all got matching BFF bracelets.  Each of us got a different one which was fun.  I got an anchor.

 

Saturday night we ordered in and watched the Kentucky Derby.  We all bet on the horses and my horse Always Dreaming won!  We all brought Derby Hats and I made us Mint Juleps. I bought these julep cups and my friend Heidi monogrammed them for me.  I'm going to do my Crafty Wednesday post about them this week :-) 

 

Sunday was our last day on the Cape.  We took one last morning walk on the beach (it was finally sunny!) before heading home.  

 

 

It was a great weekend! We are all so busy with our jobs and families it was fun to have time together.

Xoxo