HOMEMADE CHICKEN & DUMPLINGS // RECIPE

Okay, I know what you are thinking. Chicken and Dumplings in the middle of this heatwave, you must be crazy. And yes, I probably am, but ever since I had the sweet taste of homemade goodness a few years ago in Boone Drug, I've been craving to make my own. So here it is.

What you'll need:
Crockpot or large pot
Chicken
Flour
Milk
Crisco/Butter
Baking Powder
Salt & Pepper
Onion/Chives
Parsley
Water
1 can Campbell's cream of chicken and mushroom soup

Start by combining chicken, water, parsley, onion (I used chives fresh from the garden) salt and pepper in crockpot. Fill about halfway with water. Heat until chicken is cooked through, approximately 2 hours in crockpot. Chop chicken into bite sized pieces.

Combine 2 cups flour, 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, pinch of salt, 2-3 slices of butter or 1-2 spoonfuls of Crisco and a little less than 1/2 cup milk. Make into small balls and drop in mixture. Pour in whatever flour mixture in left in the bowl. Add Campbell's Cream of Chicken and Mushroom (or any other variation of Cream of chicken). If you are using cooked chicken, add to water mixture now.

Cook approximately 30 mins or until dumplings are done.

Put in a festive cup, pretend it's cold and blustery outside and enjoy!

GARDENS AT DAWN: DIY TUTORIAL FROM RUFFLES & STUFF // HOW TO

I fell in love with this DIY tutorial from Ruffles and Stuff instantly. As you can see, I even tried to mimic some of the beautiful photography. Though instead of gardens at dusk, I used first light to take my photos. Gardens at dawn??

Learning how to use the self-timer and positioning myself just right was almost as much fun as making this shirt. Partially because it didn’t involve a sewing machine and partially because the photos actually turned out, minus the cleaning spray which is in fact filled with homemade bug and aphid repellent, (a.k.a soap and water, shake before using and cover tops and bottoms of leaves and stems to rid of pesky bugs. It works wonders on aphids.)

The tutorial is super easy once you find a tank that suits you. I actually used an old Jockey genie ribbed tank, originally light pink, but once bleached it was the perfect shade of off white, and old sheets. I turned the tank around so the scoop neck would be in the back and chopped the tag out of it so there wouldn’t be a tacky tag along the neck line.

The tutorial also directs you to ruffle. For those of you who have no idea what this means, like me, this blogger provides a tutorial for this and its super easy and a good idea, but I didn’t ruffle this way! Every time I tried to ruffle, my thread would snap and I eventually ended up physically scrunching the fabric as I sewed. It may not be the correct way to do it, but it was a lot less frustrating.

Bottom line, find what’s easy for you. And though I didn’t exactly follow the instructions, I think it turned out amazing! And plan on making many more in different colors. What do you think? 

I also just realized the only pictures I have of the front of this shirt are with me and Lola, and they don't really show the front. So anyways, here they are, enjoy! Maybe, I'll take some next time I'm wearing this to show you what the front really looks like. Happy Thursday, TGIF tomorrow, and Georgia next week!

Flowers and Creatures.

The moonflower has finally bloomed! I cannot even begin to share with you how excited I am about this.

The moonflower is the highlight of my summer garden. This is how I feel (If you don't have time to watch the whole thing cue to minute 4 and a half and watch Mr. Wilson's face . . .): 

These pure white flowers open around dusk, with a sweet clean soap smell that attracts the most unique of characters. I can often be found comingling with the mosquitoes and moths around the hours of dusk, cold beer or iced water in hand, waiting patiently.

The first moonflower of the season. 

I am waiting for many things, for the flowers to slowly open their soft petals to face the night sky, for the scent to waft into my nose, but mostly for the hummingbird moth to make their appearance. These moths, large in size with pink stripes on their wings and a nose tight as a corkscrew until unwound a mile long to sniff the sweet pollen of the moonflower. Magnificent creatures. I plant my moonflower each year just to see these boys appear in swarms, attracted to the nighttime like vampires.

I haven’t seen one yet this season, but I’m still there every night stooped on my back porch waiting for the next bloom to attract the most wonderful of visitors. I have seen this little guy creeping along and the big daddy the next day. 

Tiny little Anole 

Mack Daddy

And on a sad note, the pumpkin died. Dry rotted it seemed. Still on the search to find the real culprit. 

Tiny Home, big world.

I recently had a friend send me an email that simply stated I want to live in a shed, with a link to an amazing 150 square foot home converted from what else but a shed. On a recent beach trip we shared dreams of the future, I, of-course, shared my five-year plan with her, which I’m not quite prepared to share online just yet (sorry ya’ll, but all in good time). But I can share, it has a lot to do with living in a tiny house. I’m obsessed. See my posts about living small here, here, here and here.

I responded to her email with a question: Are we crazy?

Living in a shed, an RV, a tiny home, a shipping cart, while the rest of the world lives in spacey, open designed mansions. Just watch HGTV and you’ll see what I mean. It’s crazy, isn’t it?

Or is it? I always said I wanted to live in a tiny home, but I never said I wanted the outside space to be tiny. Tiny home, big world. I agree with her, I think the rest of the world is crazy.  

The squirrels ate our dinner.

We have garden pests. They sneak up in the middle of the night and take giant bites out of my prized garden vegetables. I wake up in the morning to find red peppers and tomatoes left to wither on the vine, holes the size of half-dollars violently gnashed into their skins.

These pests seem to be attracted to the red color, I tried hiding them behind basil and sunflower plants to no avail. These creatures are persistent and I’m afraid to say, they are Lola’s favorite animal. They have been tormenting her lately by scurrying up out of her reach to the telephone pole and into the trees towering above her. She’s fast, but not that fast. Her barking and marking seems to make the squirrels even more excited, taunting her from above.

Last night we were supposed to have fresh garden peppers stuffed with turkey, topped with mozzarella and marina sauce, but the squirrels ate our dinner. These tree rats are ruining my garden and my appetite. Any squirrel remedies?

It looks like she's the pest, but I promise she's not!

Brand New Skirt

Confession #1: I have been working on this skirt for over 3 years. It started out as a $1 dress I bought at a roadside yard sale. The people were selling some of their grandma’s old clothes to raise money to help a dog who was victim of a hit and run. The Pup needed a brand new leg. I loved the print of the bottom half of the dress, but hated the top part as it was completely unflattering. My original plan was to leave most of the dress intact and just rid it of some of the dumpy fabric, a.k.a. I wanted to be able to show a bit more skin when I wore it. And this is how the dress stood, until about a year and a half ago, when I chopped off the top and turned it into a skirt.

Confession #2: The first time I wore my brand new skirt, my friend told me it was dumpy, which crushed me, but it helped me to realize the truth. I had been harboring it all along, I just needed an alternative opinion. Again the skirt hung in my closet, never to be worn again, until this weekend when I revamped it once more. Shorter this time and completely wearable, at least I think.

Confession #3: I bitched out my machine in order to make this skirt. Yes, I did. Lola could even feel the hatred as she came up to lick me on the leg in the middle of my bitching spell. I also told the machine I would never touch it again, if it just let me finish this skirt. At this point in our, errr, conversation, the machine decided to start working like a doll and I was finished in minutes. Though the entire skirt, which should have taken me 5 minutes (I was just sewing elastic to the top of some fabric) took me almost an hour + the three years I spent up cycling it into various different creations.

Confession #4: I lied to my machine. I told it I would never touch it again, but we all know that’s not the truth. 

Birthday number 26.

Last week I had my 26th birthday. A bittersweet day, as always, though maybe the best one yet, cause I had A by my side. Here's a few photos of the wonderful day (and by few, I mean 2, since I never take photos anymore).


Thanks to all my family and friends for making it so wonderful! And a big thanks to mom for the delicious mud pie, candles and all.

Can I afford a mortgage?

I’ve learned that living at the banks is VERY and let me repeat that VERY expensive. Compounded with very little long term rental options and a bf that’s making minimum wage, we find ourselves struggling with what to do. Either throw away our savings on a home mortgage, pinching our pennies every day to squeeze by OR throw our money away on renting and pinch our pennies every other day to squeeze by. The answer seems simple right? Invest in the house! And while I’d love to buy a little fixer upper and get my hands really dirty with DIY projects, I don’t know if I can afford it. One calculator told me I could only afford a $56,000 mortgage. Ekkk! So here I am, a 26 year old college graduate, with a good job, little to no debt, good credit and I can’t afford where I live. Heck, I can barely even afford to live. Something about this picture just isn’t right. 

Anyone have any really good money saving tips? 

Lions and Tigers and Bears - Oh My!

The Outer Banks is home to many different and unique animals.

It is the eastern most point that alligators can be found. These scaly creatures show their skin mostly in the spring time and can be found feeding in the trenches beside HWY 64 in the Alligator River Wildlife Refuge, hints its name.

But ironically the refuge was not originally create for alligators, but rather the Eastern Red Wolf. These doglike creatures make their home in the peninsula like shape of the refugee, among the alligators, deer, turtles, frogs, birds, and bears.

Yes, bears! The black bear is small in comparison,  though it’s hard to tell in real life. Yes, I have seen just over a handful of black bears in the refuge, beautiful, stunning and startling. One time I smacked boyfriend in the head as I tried waking him up to see a young bear crawling over the guardrail alongside the highway. I’m still surprised every time I see one.

Yes, there are many creatures that live here on the Outer Banks, above and below the sea.

P.S. The flounder pounder struck again, and it was delicious as always. 

Welcome Back!

Hey Ya’ll, I’m sure you noticed the absence of life around here, but for the past week, I have been living the beach life!

I’m sure you are all saying “don’t you live the beach life all the time?” - Not like this week. I took off work, pretended I was young again, spent the days under the sea searching for sea life with my goggles and sunning my skin. Yes, I’d say that is living the beach life alright.

But I am sorry to announce, I didn’t take one single stinking picture.

But don’t worry, I my creative spirits feel refreshed and I foresee a lot of fun things coming up! So stay tuned for DIY ideas and inspiration. And check out my to-do list below!