Some Cold Weather Stew

Remember (if you read it) in my last post I said I cooked up a wonderful stew using a new recipe? Well, I'm going to post about it today. It seems snow is hitting every region of the country and this is perfect for that kind of a day.

I've only been following Wearing Gackey's Apron for a few months but her recipes are delish and I took her "Snow Day Stew" for a whirl and I loved it, as did everyone else.

Here's her recipe and directions, as they are on her blog.

Crock-Pot Beef Stew

1 1/2 lbs stew meat, cut into chunks
1/4 cup butter
1 (10 1/2 ounce) can tomato soup
1 (10 1/2 ounce) can water
3 carrots cut into chunks
3 large potatoes cut into chunks
2 stalks celery cut into chunks
2 onions cut into chunks
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 cup red wine
2 bay leaves
Nature’s Seasoning (to taste)

Directions:Brown the beef in the butter over medium high heat in pot or skillet on top of stove.

Transfer to crock pot. Add the soup and water and stir. Then add the rest of the ingredients to the crock pot.

Cook on high for about 5 hours.


*So I didn't have Nature's Seasoning and instead added garlic powder and it tasted good.*  Definitely try this recipe out and check out Miss Brittney's recipe blog!

What A Week To:

Last week was uneventful untilll Thursday:

-Chris's mom and her husband drove down from New Jersey! While they enjoyed the sights of Graceland on Friday we

-Went to see a daycare ("school") for Logan, which, he absolutely LOVED!! He didn't want to leave, and this was just a tour. My heart felt better knowing that my baby was going to do ok so that I could work full-time hours at my job. After the daycare tour, we did our final walk through of the house and CLOSED on it!! So exciting and overwhelming at the same and I'll post some pictures soon! If the day wasn't already overwhelming we threw in adopting a puppy! Yes we adopted a puppy!! Crazy?! Absolutely!

Introducing "Missy", or what she's known for right now. We're not really sold on Missy, but sorta kept it because Logan was able to say it so clearly.  She's a 6 or 7 week lab/border collie mix and we adopted her from a local shelter. Logan loves his new puppy but we definitely have to keep an eye on the two of them. One will hurt the other without meaning too. It's like toddlers x 2! To add a little more change to my life, I went and got a haircut. My long hair now short but some much more manageable and it felt so much better! I'll post pics of that soon!

-Saturday we spent most of the day at the Memphis Zoo with Chris' mom and her husband. Logan was beyond crabby and it was cold but it beat sitting at home, which is what we did on

-Sunday! Yeah it was a complete veg day! As was

-Monday. Except Monday we started moving stuff over to the new house and I made a delicious stew, in the crock pot, of course! I used a different recipe that I will definitely use again. I'll post that later too!

-Today, I made a pit stop to Home Depot, picked out some color swatches for the house, and taped away! So there's a lot to show, a lot to blog about, and I still haven't found my camera chargers!! Grrr. Maybe I'll videotape a tour of the house...At least I can find that charger! Hope you guys had an awesome weekend ♥

Painting & Packing Again!

Honestly, I feel like I just painted and packed not that long and really it hasn't been that long since we moved to TN!

image via

And I would love to take pictures of the progress going on both here and at our new house (which will be ours on Friday!!!) but I've lost the charger to not one but of my cameras! I'm going nuts! Hopefully while we're packing (and painting) I'll find them, or at least one of them!

Pretty Closets.

Recently I've seen some pretty closets! I've always overlooked my closet, it's just a functional space to store your clothes, shoes, bags, hats, and anything you're trying to hide! But our new house has a great walk-in closet and I want to make it pretty. So this is what I've come up with, sort of, because it could possibly change:

It's just preliminary but I definitely want a mini chandelier in the closet. I want to pull up the carpet and put down some fake wood floor. I also want to stencil one wall like Jesse, from Good Girl Gone Glad, did in the above picture. Paint colors I'm still unsure of, but it'll probably be light only because it is still a closet! Chris didn't see the need to pretty up a closet. I told him to just let me do it, especially, since he claimed the garage and the shed!

Here are some other examples of pretty closets:

Jolie, from Shopping Candy for My New Home, made her coat closet a mini-library! I would love this!!

Jordan Ferney, from Oh Happy Day, converted a closet to be her son's room! It's super cute!!

Jessica, from Lavender & Lilies, renovated her hallway closet into built-in shelves!!

The above closet I found in an issue of Country Living!! I LOVE this closet office and it's where I got my chandelier idea!

How pretty (and super organized) is this closet!! (source: Real Simple)

Hope you enjoyed looking at some pretty closets!

O.W.L.

No, it's not a Harry Potter reference! It's actually an acronym for "One Little Word", which I was inspired to write about after reading Liz's "OWL" in her blog, Perfect Chaos. 

After reading her post, I started thinking what my one little word would be for 2011. I don't make resolutions and, sometimes, I'm even afraid to set goals, as the two are often synonymous for me. But I really thought about this and today while I was showering I thought of my past go getter attitude, my drive, my MOTIVATION.

So for 2011 my goal is to become motivated. I don't know where or how I lost my motivation but I have a few theories.  Maybe I got lazy because my current relationship is a lot easier and more loving than my last, but every relationship needs constant work, even the good ones. So I need to motivate myself to give 100% instead of 90%. I need to focus on motivating myself in not only pushing myself to get everyday, mundane activities done, but also to achieve friendships and connections in my state. I need to motivate myself to get to church and find myself spiritually instead of pushing it off.

I realize that I'm still going to have those lazy tendencies but I want them to be few and far between instead of almost daily. I usually give up when the going gets tough because it's easier to give up then keep going. As I type and re-read this I'm panicked because it looks like a tall order for 2011 but I'll take it a day at a time, start slowly and hopefully have achieved where I want to be by the end! I wish everyone good luck for those with goals and resolutions for 2011!