trace's

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DIY succulent garden

A modern succulent garden can be a quick affordable DIY. I love the lines of this bowl for our mini indoor/outdoor garden. Even though it doesn't look it, it's a melamine bowl from Target. (more…)

july 4th starfish cookies

I've been given the happy job of baking kid's July 4th treats for a beach party this week. Anything sticky was out of the question...that's just asking for a sandy snack! I chose this easy sugar cookie recipe and found a fun starfish cookie cutter in my collection. (more…)

slow cooker turkey chili

OK, I'm a little bit in love with my slow cooker. Now I'm on the hunt for healthy summery meals I can create in the morning and look like a hero at night. Apart from anything else, I want to eat this way. It's healthy and so packed with great veggies and vitamins that it will fill you up, taste amazing, and give you all the energy you need to get out there and do your thing. This turkey chili…

styling your coffee table – links

A rectangular tray is one of the best ways to style your coffee table, keeping the items you're displaying contained and organized (source: mariakillam.com) I have long found styling the surface of my coffee table to be a bit of a mystery. I'd put one big plate in a corner, or a vase of flowers in the middle. It never looked right. It wasn't until I began to study photos of beautifully styled coffee tables and really looked at the…

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DIY indoor orchid garden

Beautiful containers filled with multiple orchids can run into the hundreds of dollars but they look amazing. This arrangement was put together for a fraction of the cost of one created by a florist and took hardly any time to put together. (more…)

lamb with olives and potatoes

Life has been hectic lately. It always is, but with Alan away filming the Syfy series "Dominion" in South Africa again, and the end of the school year, it seems to have moved into high gear. The first casualty is healthy home-cooked meals and after a particularly bad weekend for fast food (we've been on the road at sports events 3 days straight), everyone at my place is craving delicious dinners. I keep forgetting my slow cooker, but that's the…

what are your daily diet stumbling blocks?

A mid-morning muffin? An afternoon cookie (or 5)? A late night bowl of ice-cream slathered in Midnight Moo? If you're anything like me, you make an effort to eat well, trimming your portions and choosing a salad at lunchtime but you get derailed by the daily pick-me-ups that you can't seem to do without. It's great to get on track when it comes to eating well. The benefits are vast and even if you don't want or need to lose…

the art of the thank you card

I love sending and receiving thank you cards. It's an old fashioned but sweet thing to find in the mail and a very easy way to stand out from the crowd. Hardly anyone sends thank you cards any more. I think we want to but when it comes down to it, you have other more important or more urgent things on your to-do list. I don't think It's really about what you write on the card. Keep it short, warm…

25 pretty great years

More than one friend has joked that the reason we've made it this far is because we spend quite a bit of time apart, and by apart I mean almost 10,000 miles apart for months at a time. Yes, we spent our 25th wedding anniversary on opposite sides of the planet this year. Maybe that is the secret to a long and happy marriage but I prefer to think that we've stuck it out this long in spite of the…

master bedroom make-over

I love my new bedroom. I'm sleeping in a lovely, serene haven after months of remodeling and years of not getting around to remodeling. The soft greys and fresh clean white walls really envelope me at the end of a long day. In the small building extension, I added about three feet to the length of the room but lost a foot in width (from the bathroom remodel). However, with the help of a few decorating tricks I was able…