DIY Hanging Pom

This pom is SO easy to make (though time consuming) and pretty cheap!

When my employer asked me to decorate their daughters room I was ecstatic! I had an idea of what I wanted to do but needed to figure out how to implement. So of course I began searching Pinterest and found this tutorial. It was exactly what I was looking for! Mine looks a little different from hers because I don't think I put my quite as close together as hers. Although I don't have it hanging yet, I'm planning on using turquoise ribbon to really make both colors pop.

Here's the how to, but you can also follow the link above for directions.

What you'll need:

• Glue Gun
• 6" paper lantern (bought on Amazon)
• 1 yard of a light (I used a cotton) fabric (bought at Joannes)
• Ribbon to hang the pom from. 
• 3" circle template cut out of cardboard 

Directions: 

Step 1: Trace A LOT of circles using the cardboard template. After tracing, cut them out. 

Step Two: Fold the circle in half, put a small dab of glue on the bottom, in the center; then fold in half again. 

I know I really need to repaint my nails! :-/

Step 3: Put glue on the bottom and transfer to pom. Make sure to face the fabric different ways. You'll also want to make sure they are somewhat close together so you don't end up having some of the pom showing. 

Step 4: Completely cover the pom, hang from ribbon and your done! 

Thanks for stopping by!

Pintip: Sweet Aroma

Do you ever have those moments where no matter how clean your house is you still feel like it doesn't smell great? I've been having one of those moments... All weekend. It's been driving me crazy! So I decided to try a Pin that I saw, on Pinterest of course.

It's working great! My home is already smelling so good.

All you need is:

• Fresh Rosemary ( a few sprigs)
• 1 Lemon 
• 2 tbs Vanilla Extract

Directions:

Fill a pot 2/3 of the way with water. 

Cut and add the lemon.

Next add the rosemary, and vanilla extract. 

I gave it a quick stir just for good measure. 

Let simmer.

If you want to let it simmer all day just add more water and lemon as needed. 

Enjoy the sweet aroma that will fill your home!

 

Chicken Cacciatore (crockpot)

My favorite recipe site is Skinnytaste. It has some very yummy recipes AND they're all healthy! She also lets you know how many calories meals are, WW points (both old and new), plus more! Most of the recipes I've tried have been very delicious. I've decided to start sharing recipes that I try off of the website (whether good or bad) as well as my own! I'll also rate them on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the best).

The first recipe I want to share is one of Tim's and I's favorites from skinnytaste, Chicken Cacciatore.

I rate this one a 10 for it's yumminess and ease!
Prep time: 15 minutes or less
Cook time: (high) 4 hours, or (low) for 8 hours.


It's only 126.2 calories per serving, 3 pts old ww, and 4 pts new ww.

Below is the recipe. If you would prefer to go to the skinnytaste website for the recipe go here! If you try it let me know how you like it! That way I can change the rating if need be.

Ingredients:

• 8 boneless & skinless chicken Thighs. 
• 28 oz can crushed tomatoes 
• 1/2 red bell pepper (cut into slices)
• 1/2 green pepper (cut into slices)
• 1/2 large onion
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 bay leaf (or 2-3 small ones)
• salt and pepper 

First, put the chicken into the pot, add some salt and pepper on top.
Next, add the rest of the ingredients! After you've added the ingredients, put a little more salt and pepper on top.
Once you have all of your ingredients in the pot give it a stir.
Finally, turn your crockpot on and let it cook! Cook it for 4 hrs on low or 8 hrs on high


Enjoy!

Nanny McB

Sadly for this post I don't have a picture but oh well....


    When I first married the love of my life and moved to Ga I thought that I wanted to take a break from being a teacher/babysitting. As much as I love kids I've been working with them since I was twelve. So again, I thought I wanted a break before we had our own. I worked for a retail shop for a short time before my time there ended in February. So I began trying to figure out where I wanted to work. After a couple interviews and the things falling through I really began trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I wasn't upset about the jobs I interviewed for falling through because I kept hearing God whisper to me "I have something better for you." I wasn't sure what could be better than the jobs I applied/interviewed for, they both would pay really well. I started feeling a little push telling me to care for kids again. I knew I didn't want to work in a school setting again for various reasons. So, I decided to become a full time Nanny. As soon as I made that decision I felt an enormous sense of peace. I could hear God saying "This is what I want you to do. This is what you need to do."

So I joined Care.com, I thought that would be the best way to begin searching for a family to work for. Within just two weeks I received numerous emails from family's interested in me, as well as positive replies to emails I initiated. I had my pick! If after receiving more details about the position I could choose to interview or not. Although some paid more than I ever imagined I could make (I mean a lot) 
I didn't want to just work for a family because I made a lot of money, I wanted what would be a best fit.

Within about a week and a half I received an email from a family that wished to interview me over the phone and to discuss the position in more detail. After speaking on the phone we set up an in home interview for the very next day. The interview went really well, and I already felt good about the family. They had a couple more interviews and wanted to call my references before making a decision. Just four days later I received a call from the mom offering me the position! I did not accept right away because I had an interview with another family on Saturday. The family on Saturday was very nice, although I didn't feel as much peace about working for them as I did with the previous family.

So the following Monday I officially accepted the position. The offered me a certain amount but I asked for a little bit more. They wanted to discuss it first and then would let me know if they could meet my asking price. A couple days later they called and told me they would meet it! They also asked me to begin the following Monday.

Before I received the job offer I had a different family contacting me asking me to work full time for them just until I received a full time position. I agreed and ended up working for them for about a week (since I soon received a job offer). That part time job gave me the money to buy supplies that I wanted to use, a calender, sing spell read and write curriculum etc.

It is amazing the amount of doors God opens for you when you are following his plan.

It's been about three weeks now since I began caring for Birdy (thats the nickname I gave the little girl. Because of confidentiality reasons I can not disclose her name or post pictures, etc.), it's going great!! I love my job, I love Birdy, and I the family is so nice and I feel very appreciated.
Just this past week they asked me to design/decorate her room! I'm so excited! I'm hoping she'll allow me to post before & after pictures but I'll just have to wait and see.

I am working Monday- Thursday. It's so nice having Fridays off! It helps me catch up on anything that I may need to, and gives me time to run errands so I don't have to do them over the weekend. However, last week I  received an email from the family I was working part time for asking if I would work for a couple hours on Friday mornings for this month, which I accepted.

God's certainly been blessing me, and I am more than happy to be receiving those blessings!

Sunday Citar: New Car!

Join Sunday Citar here!

"Close your eyes and turn your face into the find. Feel it sweep along your skin in an invisible ocean of exultation. Suddenly you know you are alive."


I have a new car! Not just any kind of car but a convertible! I'm so excited! I cannot wait to feel the wind on my face and in my hair. There's always been something comforting about the wind for me. My guess is it reminds me of Hawaii and it's constant breeze that I would feel growing up.

Sunday Citar: Celebrating One Year

"I have found the one whom my soul loves." Song of Solomon 3:4

   Our first year anniversary happened to fall on a Monday this year. So we decided to celebrate the Friday before. But before I talk about our night let me give you a little bit of back story of events that took place. Tim's parents were nice enough to keep our cake topper in their freezer and then ship it down to us. We thought it would be ok, apparently Fed Ex ships items like that all the time. They put dry ice in there to keep it cold. The wed. before our celebration our cake arrived. We opened it to find the cake almost completely destroyed. All of the icing had fallen off, and some of the actual cake had come apart as well. As you can imagine I was quite upset, and many tears fell.
So, what did my knight in shining armor do? He printed out a picture of the cake from our wedding and ran around trying to find someone to make a replica, with success! Of course I still wished our actual cake wasn't ruined but I appreciated it and I was happy to have something nice for our celebration. We decided to use our new cake for the night we went out, and still enjoy some of our old cake for our actual anniversary.
 We decided to spend a night in downtown Atlanta, and just go to a nice dinner. We didn't want to spend a lot of money but wanted to do something nice. Tim had enough points that we could get a nice room for FREE at the Hyatt so that's what we did. I loved our view! For dinner we went to a place called Peasant Bistro. We were both able to have our favorite dishes, mine was lamb and his was duck. Sadly, I forgot to have a picture taken of us at dinner but that's ok, I will always remember it.

  After dinner we went back to our hotel room to enjoy our cake (as you can see the ladies did an amazing job!) and some wine & cheese that the hotel sent up as a congratulations. It was so nice to have a night out. We felt as though we went on a trip somewhere far even though it was only a twenty minute drive.
One of the best parts? The king size bed! I don't get very much room in our own, especially with Jet always being cuddled up next to me. It was SO nice being able to spread out as much as I wanted.
And of course we shared a kiss or two, and cuddled up together to talk about the past year. It was a great night that I will always remember.

Join Sunday Citar here!

PinTip: Swiffer!

   I've become addicted to Pinterest. I'm on it all of the time, looking at cleaning tips, crafts for kids, DIY, etc etc. A lot of times I will come across a pin and wonder if it actually works, I'm sure I'm not the only one that goes through that; so I thought I would share which ones work and which ones don't as I try them.

Last fall Tim and I moved into a new apartment, it has wood floors which of course I LOVE. However, every bit of dirt and fur shows up and looks ten times worse than it would on carpet. One of the first items we bought was a Swiffer. It worked great, I did/do however have to Swiffer every other day (ah the joys of having a dog) so naturally I would go through a lot of the Swiffer wipes and at $8.00 a box the money spent can add up fast.

One day on Pinterest I came across a pin that suggested making a reusable Swiffer cloth by crocheting. I happen to have pot holders that I never use so one day I just attached one to the Swiffer and it worked great!

As you can see (I know gross) it works just as well if not better than Swiffer wipes! It's a great money saver, and all I have to do when one is too dirty is switch it out with another one and wash it with other cleaning cloths or towels. I know we've easily saved over $20 over the past few months if not more! 

One Year Later

.... And a couple weeks late. I've been meaning to blog the past couple weeks but I have been busy looking for a family to Nanny for & going to interviews. It's been a year now since I married my other half and it has been a great one! It's crazy how fast the year flew by. I feel like it was the day before yesterday that I was proposed to, and yesterday was the day of our wedding.

In the months leading up to our wedding I had person after person telling me that marriage is work. It was like a broken record, sometimes I even felt as though they were saying "Hey marriage isn't fun or enjoyable it's just work." But I have to say this year has been a lot of fun and a lot of enjoyment. Yes we both had to make adjustments, and we had to get used to each others little quirks that we may have found annoying; we just make sure to communicate.

I don't think it's just luck that we've had a great year, and I know there may be other years that may be a little tougher but I know we can meet them head on. Here are my reasons why I know we had such an enjoyable, fun, successful first year, and what I know we need to always do or not do in the future...

#1. Put God first! Any time that we weren't putting God first there would be a strain that would begin to develop. We would have small arguments here and there. Once we realized that the reason was because God wasn't first we would pray, and make sure to bring him back to the center.

#2. Communicate! It does so much more hurt for a relationship if you are not properly communicating. There was a time here and there in the beginning when something would be bothering me, if I didn't communicate that with Tim then it only made things worse. More than half of the time after I told him what was bothering me I would find out that I just misunderstood and had no reason to be upset. The other half of the time we would talk through the issue at hand, there was no name calling, or words that were said to purposely hurt the other person.

#3. Be willing to change some habits! This involves communication as well. When Tim and I are annoyed by something the other person does we tell each other. For example, Tim would leave his shoes right in front of the doorway so when I would come home I would end up tripping over them (something that could even be deadly for a person as clumsy as me). So, I asked him to please move them off to the side because it was really annoying (and hurt sometimes) to be tripping over them all of the time. And you know what? He began moving them off to the side. I have the habit of leaving clothes behind the bathroom door, he asked me to work on that, I have been. If you have open honesty about those things it can be a lot less annoying to live with that person. We also make sure to have a sense of humor about it. There's some things that are just habits that aren't able to be changed, Tim and I will just talk to each other about it in a jokingly way and laugh! You have to learn to just accept those habits or traits for what they are.

#4. Go to sleep! There's going to be times when you're just not having a good night, you're having small arguments here and there, or maybe a big argument about something for a reason you don't even know. Those are the moments where you should either just go to different rooms, or just go to bed. We had a night where for whatever reason we just kept having small arguments, we ended up just going to sleep and the next morning we felt completely fine and happy. Those moments will happen.

#5. Have fun! Get out of the house and do something together! There's usually something you can find to do for cheap or even free if you need to. One thing Tim have I done is climb Stone Mountain together. We've only climbed it twice so far but it was a lot of fun. I've also began researching free and cheap things to do in ATL with success. If you don't feel like doing something active then do something at home, play a game video or board, or watch one of your favorite movies together. Just do something!


Those are 1st 5 reasons that popped into my mind. That has all been part of our successful first year of marriage. If you have an tips or suggestions feel free to share! What do you like to do for fun with your man?

World of Coke

After being away from Tim for two weeks, and then spending the following weekend with his parents we finally got to have some one on one time. It had been the first time I was away from him since being married. To say the least I missed him, and I was ready to have some time to ourselves. So, saturday morning I woke up happy that I would have him all to myself. He asked me if I had any plans for the day laughing I said "No, do you?" He replied back "No.... Want to go to the World of Coke?" And of course I replied yes. 

So after putting on some makeup and doing my hair we were off! After an initial presentation about the company we were able to walk off on our own. I was a little surprised by how much they actually had to look at. At one point I was able to talk Tim into pretending to buy a glass of "coke" from this guy....
I love when he does things just for my amusement.

One of my favorite things about the World of Coke? The art. This one was my favorite. 

We also went to a 4D movie that they show, and just to amuse me more we had our picture taken with the Cola Bear. The coolest part of the world of coke is they have a room where you can try different cokes from around the world. Some were really really yummy where as others.... I thought they made me drink carbon dioxide as a joke. The first coke I tried from Europe was the last. I couldn't brave any others. 

After putting all kinds of sugar and different kinds of pop into our system it was time to put food in our bellies. So, he took me to The Varsity, the largest fast food restaurant in the world. It was pretty good, I think I liked it more than other people do. 

Needless to say, it was a good day. 

10 days

Here I am sitting in the airport terminal with my yummy banana strawberry smoothy waiting to board a plane. A plane that's going to take me to see people I love and miss so much for 10 days. I'm not just going because of that reason though. One of my friends is getting married this weekend and I'm throwing a baby shower for my BEST friend Crystal.
Of course its going to be hard to be away from my husband and my puppy but it will be worth it. It's a vacation I very much need, it couldn't have come at a better time!
For the first time in going to be able to feel my baby nephew kicking around in Crystals tummy. I can't wait!!
It's going to be a great trip!!