Thanksgiving Favorites

Y'all!  There are only 45 days until Christmas!!  We are officially in November, and Thanksgiving is only 17 days away!!!  With holiday season around the corner, I have been living on Pinterest looking up recipes, gift ideas and decorating DIYs.  If you have never discovered Pinterest, shoot me a comment with your email, and I will totally invite you because it is in fact, amazing!!  It is super easy and a great way to find and save ideas for later.  Make it happen people!

In honor of the holiday season, I am posting a few of my favorite Thanksgiving pins!  I hope you all enjoy them as much as I do, and can incorporate some of them into your holiday!

1. Buttermilk Pie

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This one is amazing!!  I love it!  Joshua loves it!  My family loves it!  It happens!  I found this one last year from Amy of Positively Splendid, and I was super ready to make this pie!  The directions were really easy to follow and the result was wonderful!!  Joshua and I literally ate a whole pie in a day (which was not good for the whole weight loss thing, but it was a holiday right?)!  If you like chess pies, and vanilla, this is for you.  It is basically like a vanilla chess pie, so don't worry about a buttermilk flavor because there isn't one!  Believe me, it is worth it people!!

2. Dollar Store Decorations

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Sometimes, our decorating budget is a lot smaller than we want it to be.  This is why we are always looking for the best deals!  Joshua is always like, "How much did that cost?" and I really get excited when I buy things from the Dollar Store!  I can be like, "$10!"  I found this post from Rachel over at Useful Beautiful Home.  She has so many great DIY projects and they are all pretty low cost.  I don't know about you, but low cost or free is always in my budget!

3. Printables

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I love printables!  I love decorating with them too!  I hopped over to Pretty My Party with Christy, and she rounds up her favorite free printables.  I really like several of them, and the best way to use them is to save them as a picture, send them to some place like Walgreens and get them developed as pictures.  I have done that several times with several different holidays!  Simple, and you can reuse them year after year!!

4. "Thankful For" Table Cards

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I found these over at Lovesome by Erin, and she has them for things she is thankful for.  One of the ways my family uses them is as seating cards.  The cards say "Thankful For" and then a name.  We list the names of people present at our Thanksgiving table, and people we wish were still present in our lives.  It is a sweet way to remember everyone special to us on a day dedicated to giving thanks!

5. Roasting a Turkey Infographic

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I found this over at Visual News, and I love it!  I look at it as a refresher every year!  Every year, Joshua and I try to throw a Thanksgiving get-together with our friends and people bring some of their favorites.  I always do the turkey, and this little beauty is so super helpful!!  Sometimes, you just need a good base to throw a great Turkey Day get-together!  

These are my favorite Thanksgiving pins, and I hope you like them and can use them!  What are some of your favorite holiday ideas or finds?  Like I said, let me know!

XOXO,

Tricia

The Great Christmas Exchange 2014

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Hello friends!

I hope everyone is having a great week!  First note: I need to take more pictures of thing this year because as I dig through my archive of snapshots, I realize I have nothing!  Not cool.  Anyway. Remember how earlier this week I was like, "I want to be excited about the holidays?"  Well I might have just found a way!

One of the blogs I read all the time, Oak & Oats, is participating in something call "The Great Christmas Exchange," and immediately, I was intrigued.  I absolutely LOVE receiving little treats in the mail, but I also love buying people gifts!  I think that is why I really love Christmas!  You can read more details about "The Great Christmas Exchange 2014" here, but here is what I know!

What it is:  

The Great Christmas Exchange is a gift exchange by people all over the country (and possibly the world), and the opportunity to make/stalk a new friend.  You sign up before November 12, and then the bloggers in charge send you the name of your person.  It is basically like an internet friendly "Secret Santa."  Once you receive the name of your person, you try to find out as much information as you can about them without letting them know!  Then you mail your gift for them by December 10, and you should receive yours around Christmas!  Excitement!

Who can participate:

Everyone!  Bloggers and non-bloggers alike!  That is the cool part!  You could be making a new friend in another country, or three streets down from you!  The possibilities are endless!!

How much:

There is a $20 shopping limit.  You can be overly generous and go a little over, but you can't expect someone else to go over $20.  You still need to pay a little extra for shipping, but I think it will be worth it!!  

How to sign up:

You can sign up here!  Once you create your own profile, you can link up your Facebook or blog to make it easy to be stalked!  

This is something that I am really excited about!  I think it is going to be fun!  I already love gift swaps, so I will keep you all posted, but shhh!  No names or items until after Christmas!!

Are you doing a gift swap this year for Christmas?  Is this something you would like to do?

Like I said, let me know!

XOXO

Tricia 

Wedding Planning | Is This Really Happening?

Hello friends!

I have been struggling to write something that is good and something you will all like to read.  So I got thinking...what is going on in my life that you would all be interested to hear???  And it dawned on me!  I know you want to hear about wedding planning!!!  Right???  Just go with it!  My sister is actually fed up with wedding planning, which I find ironic because we have only just begun.  We still have so much more to do, but here is a look at what we have accomplished!

We finally took our engagement photos!!

Yes, in case you were confused...that is what these are!  Josh proposed to me on December 13, 2013, so we have been engaged almost a year now, and we want an October wedding, so we decided to wait until October 2014 to take our pictures, and I think they came out wonderful!!  We went to Rockford, and the Rockford General Store, and then on to Cody Creek where we really came out of our shell!  The reason I don't have a watermark or copyright on them you ask?  That is because my mom was actually the photographer, and I was the editor!!  I think they really came out great and she did a great job!  We were totally nervous to begin with (even though it was only my mom!!) but I think she loosened us up!  We had a lot more fun than we thought!!  

My Save-the-Dates are in!!!

I have been holding off on ordering/designing them until I could get our engagement photos.  The benefit of having my mom take the photos is that they were immediately mine and the ones I LOVE, I went ahead and edited.  Then I got looking up ways to print your own post cards, and that is when I stumbled onto Vistaprint.  Vistaprint was running a deal and I actually ended up getting 100 Save-the Dates for only $15!!!  Annnnndddd, I got matching stickers for the back, and matching return address labels, and a stamp.  With shipping and everything, I only ended up paying about $50 for the whole cart!  The irony?  My envelopes (we opted out of post cards) cost more than my Save-the-Dates!  Crazy!  Along with Save-the-Dates....

Some are already in the mail!!

According to my Wedding Planning app, I am supposed to have all my Save-the-Dates in the mail by November 5.  Considering today is the November 4, I don't think that is going to happen, but it was a good try!  I am still collecting addresses, and it is actually a lot harder than I thought!  Still, it is totally worth it!!!  

I am still in serious shock because now it feels like this wedding is going to happen!  I want it to be amazing, but I am also ready to start my marriage with Joshua.  I am so ready to be his wife, and start planning our adventures together!

What are you excited for today?  Has one upcoming even been occupying your mind?

Like I said, let me know!!

XOXO,

Tricia

November Goals

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Hello Friends!

The last goal I listed was in September and was to blog more consistently.  I don't think that worked out the way I wanted!!  To tell you I have been super busy is to preach to the choir!  Everyone is super busy, and my schedule is not the only one that is way too full!  This month, my goals are more or less the same, but sometimes it takes more than one try!

NOVEMBER GOALS

1.  So no pictures this time, but I did some cleaning over the past two months.  It is not finished, but I want to keep working on it.  My goal is to take at least one load of clothes to Grace's Closet and one stack of books to the Surry Senior Center Lending Library.  Both of these ministries are great ones and I want to benefit them!  Maybe that is why my goals for me don't work.  They need a better reason than just my wants!

2.  I said last time that I wanted to blog more consistently.  This time I am saying I want to blog more about things that are important to me.  I am still finding my groove to this blogging thing, and I want to find things that matter to me!  Some things I want to post about my upcoming wedding, my engagement (a.k.a., the best day ever!), and I want to start a book club!!  What do y'all think about those???

3.  Keep up my Zumba three days a week!  This is very important to me.  Every time I get involved in something exercise related, I either get injured, or something gets in the way.  Any way, doing something for my health is always the last thing on my mind, and this month, I don't want it to be.  I want my health to be one of my first concerns!  I need to be healthy because it won't be long and I will be trying on wedding dresses, and I know I cannot be a perfect size 8, but I sure would like to be a size smaller than what I am.  

4.  I want to get my Thanksgiving decor up soon!  I totally did NOT put up Halloween stuff until Tuesday, so I don't want to do that again!  I want to be better about that!

5.  Every year, I wait for the excitement about the holidays to build and every year I find myself on December 23, just getting excited for the whole holiday season!  I literally am only excited for two days and then it is OVER!  And I kick myself afterward!  I was super excited about my Halloween costume that I made, but now I need to take that super excitement and focus it toward the holidays.  After all, this will be my last Thanksgiving and Christmas as a single woman!  I need to enjoy it for what it is, and be excited to spend the holidays with my family and friends!

I am hoping this month we see a lot more of me, and I can write my posts instead of just think about them and take pictures.  I really want to be an active blogger!!  

What are your goals for November?  How do y'all feel about a book club (nothing too hard core)??  Like I said, let me know!

XOXO,

Tricia