If your like me you’ve probably heard of a duvet and thought….must be a fancy name for a comforter. In fact…if your really anything like me you were thinking it was French for “comforter”. Well I was halfway right. The word “duvet” is French but it means “down” as in down comforter. So what is a duvet cover? A duvet cover is like a giant pillowcase for your down comforter. Duvet covers  either have a button or zipper enclosure on the bottom or top of the cover to hold the comforter in place. This I did not know until

Click here to see more…

I must say that my husband and I have a great system for organizing our bills. From the way we used to argue about how to manage the finances I could never have imagined we’d be on the same page using the same system. Early in our marriage I tried all kinds of elaborate systems especially those that included spreadsheets and programs but my husband hated them. He felt they were too time consuming and didn’t like having to boot up the computer every time we needed to manage our finances. As I learned more about his style I came

Click here to see more…

Okay, here’s the deal. I bought this label maker a few months back and after that I that I was hot stuff. I love having things organized and I love making it easy for my family to help me keep the house organized. So back to this label maker…right. With it, I was labeling cabinet shelves, refrigerator shelves and everything. In some cases it was helping like here, here, here and here but then in other cases…not so much. But then…I decided to step it up a notch because stick on labels just wasn’t gonna cut it on everything. I wanted

Click here to see more…

I was going through my budget binder this morning and thought about you all. I can remember clearly our decision to become a one income family and all the effort that went into making it a reality. One of the things that really helped us make the transition was getting a clear picture of our finances. One of the first things I had to do as a stay at home wife was learn how to budget one income. We were a two income family now living on one income so some changes had to made. The first thing I addressed

Click here to see more…

My home is not super organized but there is one room that I try to keep organized, clutter free and tidy. My bedroom is my sanctuary, a place of peace and space for rejuvenation. One of the things that makes this room being so special is my bed. I’ve taken my focus off projects around the house and made our master bedroom a priority starting with our bed. This year we made an upholstered headboard and I invested in some nice bedding. The next thing I want to do is add risers to make the bed higher off the floor

Click here to see more…

This is one of Germaine favorite recipes for the weekend. We eat fairly healthy but do set aside one day per week for fast food inspired meals. This is a great way to control the amount of not so healthy ingredients your fast food meal has in it and also saves money on dining out. Buffalo and BBQ Chicken Tenders Ingredients 6 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts 1/2 c. Flour (I use whole wheat) 2 tablespoons of your favorite seasoning (I use Lawry’s seasoning salt) 1 teaspoon of garlic powder 1 teaspoon of onion powder Cooking oil 1/2 Barbecue sauce (I

Click here to see more…

We try not to leave dirty dishes in the sinks over night because I don’t want to create an environment for creepy crawly critters. Our goal is to have everything in the kitchen and dining room cleaned up and clutter free before we go to bed. Ending the night with a clean kitchen and dining room makes mornings run much easier in our home. No one likes waking up to prepare their breakfast only to have to wash the dishes need to prepare it before they can get started. Here are 10 tips on how we maintain a clean kitchen

Click here to see more…

I have yet to meet a women who does not know how to create a to-do list. Many times I find that women are very fluent in the art of creating to-do list…so much so that they even create them for their husbands and children. While we may all know how to jot down a bunch of things on a sheet of paper what I want to know is, “How effective is your to-do list?“ Do you have a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day or at the end of the list? Do you even make it

Click here to see more…

While we did gain twice as much bedroom space by moving our master bedroom downstairs we did not gain anymore bathroom space. In fact the size is about the same with way less storage. This bathroom has no cabinets and had only one built in shelf. When we bought the house we hung a 2 tier metal shelf and called it a day. That worked great when this was a guest bathroom, however once we moved down here we had to figure out how we would store our hygiene related stuff. Here are some ideas on how we keep our

Click here to see more…

Today I’m sharing the final video in the series, ”How Do I Organize My Home Office Files?” If you’re just stumbling upon this series, you’ll want to go back and watch part one  and two first. Getting my desk as well as many area of my home organized is an on going project that I am constantly tweaking as time goes on and our family changes. Right now my office has one central location that allows me to manage my sites and my family and my home. I often use magazine folders to keep the things organized. Today I’ll show you

Click here to see more…

Now that I am getting older I am getting smarter about what I eat and what I feed my family. They don’t always like everything I cook but my goal is to feed them healthy and nutritious meals. Healthy and nutritious will mean different things to different families but for us healthy includes eating more fruits, vegetables, grains and nuts in our diet. This recipe is an easy way to get meat three of the four requirements. Roasted Sweet Potato and Carrot Soup To make this recipe I use: 4-5  Sweet Potato cut into 1-inch pieces 1 lb. of carrots

Click here to see more…

We like weekends to be a fun time for our children. It’s the two days they get to spend the most time with us and we make that time count by intentionally planning activities where we are spending time together. I’m not one to break the bank when planning fun activities for the family. In fact, I try to make it as frugal as possible. Planning a movie night with your family is really fun and it’s really inexpensive it can be as inexpensive as a dollar or as expensive as you decide to make it just depending on what

Click here to see more…

I have a big secret for keeping my office and paperwork organized and I’m sharing it in today’s video.

In an effort to distract myself until I can find a paint color suitable for my thrifted master bedroom dresser I have been working on other dresser related projects. Two of the brass drawer handles needed replacing so I replaced them with these pretty glass knobs. Replacing the knobs led to organizing my drawers, which led to me giving you a peek at how I organize my drawer. How to Organize Dresser Drawers Super Cheap My Method The first thing did was empty the drawers and line them with contact paper. I use contact paper to dress up all kinds

Click here to see more…

You don’t know how many women I’ve met who skips at least one meal a day. I’m serious…I spoke with two at length at Starbucks and Publix within the last month alone. I thought it was just busy moms doing this but it’s busy working women too!! We can all agree that skipping entire meals a few times a week is not healthy. Skipped meals lead to overeating at other meals. It can also lead to headaches, irritability and low energy levels among other things. So, I’ve come up with a brilliant plan that should help me stop skipping meals.

Click here to see more…

Today I’m sharing video two in the series, ”How Do I Organize My Home Office Files?” and next Friday I’ll share the final video. If you’re just stumbling upon this series, you’ll want to go back and watch part one first. Getting my desk as well as many area of my home organized is an on going project that I am constantly tweaking as time goes on and our family changes. Right now my office has one central location that allows me to manage my sites and my family and my home. I often use magazine folders to keep the things

Click here to see more…

We are kind of all over the place with home improvement projects but we’ve been primarily focusing on our master bedroom and bathroom since it’s gotten too hot to work on the yard. One project I’m specifically working on this is redesigning a thrifted dresser I bought off craigslist. My plan is to paint it an entirely different color. To begin the transformation I removed all of the hardware and spray painted it gold. One of the drawer pulls was broken and needed to be replaced. The existing holes are larger than I need for the new drawer pulls so 

Click here to see more…

I have been taking on a lot of large and small projects around here this year and today I’m sharing the details on how I’ve been adding gold accents to my home. In fact, I’m sharing 5 Ways to Add Gold Accents to Your Home Decor over on my other site Aprons and Stilletos. I hope you’ll hop on over to take a peek at some of the changes going on with my master bedroom update.

Over the next few Friday’s, I’m sharing three videos on “How Do I Organize My Home Office Files?” Getting my desk as well as many area of my home organized is an on going project that I am constantly tweaking as time goes on and our family changes. Right now my office has one central location that allows me to manage my sites and my family and my home. I often use magazine folders to keep the things organized. Today I’ll show you how I use them to organize our home improvement projects and ideas.   I love chatting with

Click here to see more…

One thing I don’t like is clutter especially on my bedside table. If no other area in the house is clutter free when I go to bed, I especially like to make sure my nightstand is. I have a pretty big nightstand table simply because it serves several purposes. 1. Inspiration I keep some sort of framed photo on my nightstand whether art work or family photos. Waking up and seeing images that make me feel inspired is very important to cultivating joy in my day. I like to surround myself with things that make me happy. 2. Hydration I

Click here to see more…