Remember yesterday when I told you I received a package in the mail? I’m here to reveal the contents. My friend, Vickie, sent me an antique Kodak Brownie camera! I just love her (yes, my camera is a “her”). Take a little look-see and enjoy for yourselves.
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And now I have enough for a real collection!
Now I have to find the perfect place to display them. Aren’t they cute little buddies?
So, today I received a special delivery. A very special delivery.
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Want to know what it was? Well, you’re just going to have to wait till tomorrow! Oh yeah, I just did that.
I’m submitting this photo to Wild Ginger Photography’s weekly challenge. I took this picture at the beach almost a year ago. We were in shorts, flip flops and T shirts during the last week of November. Someday I’ll have a proper fall. *sigh. But I digress.
Hop on over to her site for some other really great photos!
Been a little lazy with the Photo of the Day thing lately. Ethan was feeling my pain and made a cube with his M&Ms. He insisted that I use it for yesterday’s photo.
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And today, I decided to trim Jackson’s bangs.
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Got some cool things planned for the little blog later this week. Think: giveaway! I’ve mentioned before that I’ve got some super talented friends and I wanted to feature one of them. I’m so excited to be able to do this. Can’t wait to share it with you guys in a few days.
Have a great week & please, if you live up north, send some fall weather my way, okee dokee?
I was reading one of my favorites blogs the other day, A Beautiful Mess. She was giving tips on how to photograph your home. Most of them I already knew but it gave me a kick in the rear to actually DO it. I especially liked tip #1 – One Room at A Time. Don’t feel like you have to clean your entire house and then photograph it. Clean one room (or a portion of it) so it’s to your liking. Then look through your viewfinder. You’ll be surprised at how NOT clean it looks when looking through your camera. It’s ok to clean only for a photo shoot. As an adult, it took me some time to realize that I didn’t have to save cleaning only for times when company comes over.
Then pick things you like about your room. No one says you have to show us everything. Have unfinished projects? Don‘t photograph them. Have a broken lamp? Don’t show us. No need to show your dirty laundry (literally). For instance, my carpet isn’t finished (thanks to a breakfast bar addition) so I decided not to show you that. Of course, now I’ve told you & the cat is out of the bag. The point is to pick and choose what you want to show off and just do it! Your kids will love to have a record of what the house looked like when they were young. (There’s probably a good argument in there about documenting your life like it normally is – dirty laundry and all.) I think it’d be neat to see how my house changes over the years. I may make this a yearly thing.
This is my favorite couch I’ve ever owned. We did end up paying it off but for a while, we thought we’d have to give up our firstborn. It’s the only thing in the room (or the whole house, for that matter) that we’ve splurged on.
These chairs were the best yard sale find I’ve ever found. Ever. They were $15 for the both of them and they match the room perfectly. They’re short (which I love) and they spin (which the boys love). 
I took a pillow making class and made the pillow. The afghan is one that my grandmother made years and years ago. I love that I have it. The little basket on the two tiered table is full of books that I’ve made in my scrapbooking days. And the curtains. Oh, the curtains…they came from an estate sale. My mom found them and I think she spent less than $10. I just love the pop of color and the vintage feel they lend the room. I’ve had a few people tell me that they had curtains like that growing up.
Here’s a close up. I just love the turquoise!
These are another cheap find. I scored four of these from eBay. Here are two:
And my favorite part of the room. This little clock makes me smile. 
My dad made it for me! It was a Christmas gift a few years back and it still makes me smile every time I look at it. Unless I’m running late. Then I curse at it.
And this was another gift from my dad. I was giddy when this arrived at my house. Sometimes I think I was born in the wrong decade.
And there you have it, my little corner of the world. That wasn’t too hard. Now you try it!
Today started of so nicely. I took the boys to school and headed to the car wash. Since our car’s antennae is broken & stuck in the “up” position, we can’t send it through the regular car wash without it coming out really broken. So we get to wash it by hand. It’s probably a fix that’s under $100 but it’s WAY down on the list of important things. I mean way down there. It’s not really something I hate doing. Give me my headphones, some good music and I’m good to go. Even a 14 year old car cleans up nicely.
But even the best laid plans go awry sometimes. For instance, less than 12 hours later, my car looked like this:
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I promise you, every single time I wash my car, it rains.
Every.single.time.
It’s a good thing I like the rain.
On a brighter note, my husband found a job! In case you didn’t know, he was laid off back in August. He has had quite a bit of activity on his resume and even a couple of out-of-state companies were interested in him. But in the end, the job he was offered is right here in town. I was really praying that we’d find something that would let us relocate but I guess this isn’t the right timing. But I’m not giving up. I’m still praying that one day I’ll live in a place that has four actual seasons, is a nice place to raise children and one that I actually love. So, while I’m happy that he has found work, I won’t lie and tell you I’m not disappointed it’s local. I know, I know…I should just be happy he has a job. I know that it’s tough “out there” for a lot of people. So I’m thankful. And hopeful. Thanks for your prayers. I really appreciate them.
If you’re a photographer (and even if you’re not), you may have heard of the Magic Hour. It comes right after the Witching Hour. Usually. The Witching Hour starts (for me) about 30 minutes after the boys get home and it produces great stress and sometimes tears (the boys cry sometimes, too). The Magic Hour is the hour right before the sun sets and it produces magical light for photographers. As witching as the Witching Hour is, the Magic Hour is just as magical. Make sense? Good. Now that you’re familiar, I can continue.
Jackson, my mom & I quickly ran down to the store tonight. When we were leaving, Jackson put a newly purchased crate over his head. What 8 year old boy wouldn’t? When I looked back at my lollygaging boy, I just knew it’d make a great photo. Aaaand, of course, I didn’t have my camera. But since the store was less thaan 1/2 mile from my house, I knew we’d make it home in time to snag that great photo in the magical light. You guessed it: by the time we got home, the Magic Hour was over. The light and the magic were gone. I had to proceed inside the house. Ick. I hate taking portraits inside my cave house. There’s no sparkle in the eyes. Always, always, always use natural light if possible. So, I present today’s photo with a catch: I reserve the right for a Do Over. Hopefully, sometime in the near future, I’ll get to do this photo shoot over. In the Magic Hour.
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I’ve got an amazing recipe to share with you today! I received it from my friend, Stephanie. Stephanie is my Pioneer Woman. OK, so maybe she never lived in New York. And maybe she didn’t move to Oklahoma. And maybe she didn’t marry a rancher and now lives on ranch. And she hasn’t written a cookbook either but she’s still my Pioneer Woman and I’m sure we’ll see her on the Food Network sometime.
You may not know that fall is my most favorite season of all. You also may not know that we don’t really get a fall here in Florida. Our fall comes in January. That’s when the leaves start falling off the trees. And we don’t get those pretty red, yellow, and orange colors, either. They’re just brown. And on the ground. January is when our temps finally drop below 70 (I’ve spent countless Christmases in shorts. “Oh, honey. Thank you for the beautiful scarf and matching gloves. I can’t wait to wear them. Next time I travel up north.” It’s ridiculous, I tell ya). So, as the rest of blogland is bragging about the weather and the sights of fall, I’m here sweating. Yep. The high was 93 today. This is the time of year when I want to punch everyone in their virtual face when they start talking about how wonderful their weather is. So, onto the recipe. I’ll pretend it’s fall & you can enjoy fall while eating warm cake and sipping warm apple cider. Is it hot in here?
This is the moistest (that’s a word, right? Edit: according to WordPress spellcheck, “moistest” isn’t a word. And neither is “WordPress”. They should work on that.) cake I’ve ever made and it consists of two ingredients. Yep, just two: a yellow cake mix and one can of pumpkin puree. 
Just plop them in together and mix. 
You wouldn’t think so, but they come together nicely. Don’t add any other ingredients that the box mix calls for, just the pumpkin & the mix. The next step is very important: have a taste test because you don’t believe me that it tastes so good. I know you don’t. But that’s ok. Taste and believe. 
My recipe said to put it in a 7x11x2 pan but I didn’t have one. Stephanie assured me that it’d be just fine a bundt pan and she was right. The batter is on the thick side so it doesn’t pour all that well when you put it in the pan. As long as you make sure it gets evenly distributed, you’ll be good. Also, it’s a really moist cake. I mean really. So you’ll want to make sure you spray the heck out of the pan with cooking/baking spray. You don’t want it to stick to your pan. It would taste fine but wouldn’t be as pretty. 
Put it in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 28 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Don’t over bake. Let it cool in the pan before trying to remove it. It does not settle all flat when it’s done baking. I took a picture so you’d know what I was talking about. This is what it looks like after it comes out of the oven: 
See what I mean? If you look at the before & after baking photos, it looks almost the same. While it’s cooling you can mix up the glaze. Oh my, the glaze. You’ll need the following ingredients:
1/2 cups of powdered sugar
3/4 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice
3 tablespoons of apple cider.
Note: Before you mix up the glaze, make sure your powdered sugar is not old because it can go bad. Trust me on this. It goes bad, tastes like soap and will force you redecorate 70 cookies. Like I said, trust me on this one. So after you’ve made sure your sugar is tasty, mix up the ingredients. This is what I look like mixing stuff:
I spend 90% of my time on my tippy toes. I’m just tall enough to not be a “short person” but I think I’m too short for everything. My feet always dangle, I can never reach any cabinets and I have a hard time touching the ground even when I’m standing up!
Get it?
OK, so it’s a dumb joke. I’ll make a note of that.
So once you pour your glaze over your cake, it should look like this:
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I was rushing out of the house to take the cake to homegroup so I didn’t get any pictures of the slices. But it was heavenly. I’m sure I’ll be making it again. Maybe in January so I can celebrate MY fall weather!
Do you remember going into stores as a child and seeing these types of rides sitting outside? I can’t think of a time that I ever rode one but always wanted to. We found this abandoned one in a parking lot outside of theDairy Inn (another reason you should visit this heavenly eatery).
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I’ve been trying to decide what my blog post should be about today. My 9/11 story isn’t exciting. I don’t have any relatives that died in the attacks. I wasn’t in any danger. I do remember where I was and remember being glued to the television like most of you. So I’m going to take a moment of silence and leave you with a photo I took earlier this year. I still haven’t forgotten and never will. I’m sure of it.
Freckles and Fences 