#20 Learn to make apple butter

1. Buy a house

2. Have a second baby
3. Get married
4. Open a storefront
5. learn to sew.
6. Learn to dance.
7. Grow a garden.
8. Eat out of the garden.
9. Get a gym membership... and use it!
10. Keep my house plants alive. (I killed a cactus last summer!)
11. Have a real Christmas tree in the house.
12. Have a proper studio for my creations.
13. Get to my 1000th blog follower. (this seems like such a far stretch at this point)
14. Fly in a hot air balloon.
15. Get my kicks on Rout66 :) I want to take a roadtrip through the country.
16. Ride the train to Dallas
17. Limit eating out to twice a week.
18. Make a list of books to read. (minimum of 30 books)
19. Read the list of books.
20. Learn to make apple butter.
21. Start communicating with out of state/country friends through handwritten letters and packages.
22. Get rooted in our church. Be part of a community.
23. See a ballet.
24. Take Fern to New Zealand to see my old friends.
25. Be featured on somebody else's blog.
26. Have a booth at a local craft show.
27. Increase my product list to 5 varieties. ie: mobiles, dreamcatchers.... etc.
28. Sell my first item on etsy.
29. Own an english bulldog.
30. Host Thanksgiving dinner.

I get to tick one off! I get to tick one off! Above is my 30 before 30 list, and slowly but surely I'm ticking them off the list. 

A couple of my very favorite ladies didnt get to attend my (very last minute) bachelorette party. Which consisted of bottles of wine, dance music in Marek's living room, and falling asleep to "Bridesmaids". Party Animals.  Since they weren't able to make it, they thought it would be nice to hop on my 30 before 30 list and have a little girl time doing one of the things on my list. Well wouldn't you know it, Brooke makes rosemary apple butter every year. She's a regular Ree Drumond in the kitchen. 

It was such a wonderful evening. I just love spending time with those girls, and it was so special that they took the time and thought to mark something off of my list. 

I got a babysitter for Fern, we met at Brookes house and got to work. Our blood (mostly Jordan's), sweat and tears (of laughter) went into that apple butter, and what a rewarding labor it was! I'm forever grateful for those ladies.

In the end, it wasn't even that I got to mark something off of my list, or learn a new recipe, or even that I know how to can things without all the expensive gadgets... It was about my sweet friends making memories with me before I was a married woman. Taking time and energy to do something special for and with me. Gosh I'm blessed. 

November favorites

It's time for my monthly favorites list from etsy! The whole idea of this monthly post is that you can see my inspirations and wishlists, similar to pinterest, except they're all from etsy. I love to support small businesses and when you find treasures like these, you just want to share them. Here they are for November:

1. Gold wood bowl by The Vintage Vogue  || 2. Live Simply Print by Gus and Lula
3. Scallop necklace by Asme || 4. Salted Maple headboard by Dzierlenga Furniture
5. Kids wooden toy by Friendly Toys || 6. Crocheted Coasters by Table Top Jewels

OK in a box

Hey friends! I'm so very excited to share something special with you today! Last week, I got a very special package in the mail from a new local company here called "OK in a box". Here's how it works:
OK in a box is a monthly subscription. Every month you get all sorts of fun local goodies from all around Oklahoma delivered right to your doorstep. Every month has a new theme! The box I received, I'm proud to say, is their first month's box! Being their first month, the theme is appropriately titled "Landrun". So great, right?

In my box this month, I got:
-Cinnamon Sugar Pecans from Valley View Pecan Co. in Shawnee, Oklahoma (that's my hometown ya'll) 
-Gourmet Apple Spread from Southern Okie in Edmond
-Onion and Garlic instant meat marinade by Daddy, Hinkles in Cleveland, Oklahoma
-Spunky Spuds Potato seasoning mix and Holey Guacamole! guacamole seasoning mix from Maria Rae's in Enid, Oklahoma.

As you can imagine, I couldn't wait to bust out these treats! For dinner last night we had steak and asparagus: seasoned with Daddy Hinkles, potatoes: seasoned with Maria Rae's spunky spud seasoning, and biscuits with Southern Okie apple spread. After our fantastic dinner, we munched on our Cinnamon Sugar Pecans while we cheered the Thunder on in their first game of the season. 

It was all incredible. I would highly recommend any of these treats, but getting them all together in this box was an even better treat. Go. Sign up for Ok in a box now. I'm tellin' ya.  The best part is, OK in a box ships to all 50 US states. You'll see on their website you even have the option to give this as a gift. What a perfect gift for anyone you know may have moved away and might be homesick for the homestead. (<-- I couldn't help myself)

I'm going to give a subscription to my grandmother for Christmas. She's the woman who will spend hours digging through every ornament in Wal Mart to make sure she bought one that was 'made in the USA' (not many are, folks.. not many at all)  The closer to home it is, the more she loves it, so I know this will be a perfect gift for her.

Wait, there's more! OK in a box is so generously offering all of my readers who subscribe, $10.00 off their first order! All you have to do is CLICK HERE and your discount will be applied when you check out.Now that's a real sweet deal. You have the option to subscribe to 1, 3, or 6 months.

Our Colorado honeymoon

We're back, we're back! I had such a wonderful time reading the girls' guest posts the last two weeks. Aren't they just the best? I hope you got a chance to visit each one of their personal blogs and get to know them a little better, because truly, they're just the most wonderful women. If you haven't, I encourage you to do so. You won't be sorry. 

Now... I know you all want to see photos from the wedding, but they're just not quite ready yet. Until they are, though, I'd like to share a bit about the places we got to visit on our honeymoon! This post may be a bit photo-lengthy, as I usually try to stick to between 1 and 3 photos per post. It was just so beautiful, this time of year. I couldn't help myself. Enjoy!

Where we stayed: 

We stayed at a little lodge a little ways up the mountain called "Boulder Mountain Lodge". We had no cell phone reception, and no wifi. It was perfect. The first photo in the collection of three, above, was taken along the road up the mountain to our lodge the day we arrived. As you see in photos above; while we were enjoying our crisp afternoon in our private hot tub, a doe and her fawn came to visit. It was magical. We sat quietly for nearly 20 minutes in awe of them. They noticed us, but didn't seem to mind that we were there. 

What we did:

We visited several places while in Colorado. Denver, Boulder, and Nederland were the three towns we frequented.

 While in Boulder, one of our favorite things to do was to hop coffee shops. If there's anything that isn't hard to find in Boulder, it's coffee and pizza. A few of our favorite places to stop for a cup were: Boxcar Coffee Roasters, The Laughing Goat, and The Cup. We ate breakfast at Snooze, which was incredible; I had a breakfast pot pie, and Tristan had a sweet potato pancake. Of course, we also had our fair share of pizza as well from Beau Jo's and Backcountry pizza. We went on a brewery tour at Avery Brewery, which was so fun and educational. We now proudly display our "A-hole" sticker on our vehicle. We also got to go to Boulder's Dinner Theatre and see "The Full Monty", which was hilarious and so so good. We tried to visit Boulder Falls, but due to falling rocks it was closed for the season. That's what the sign said. Later somebody informed us that it had been closed for years. 

We went into Denver, and I have to admit.. I did a lot of shopping. Mostly at forever21 which is so lame, because we have two here in OKC. What's a girl to do? We also got to hit up H&M which was a treat, because we don't have one of those.. yet. We spent our day shopping and roaming 16th street mall, and in the evening we walked Larimer Square (second picture, above, in the collection of three) and ended the night at Punch Bowl Social where we indulged in some adult beverages and spent all of our quarters on old arcade games, bowling, and Tristan taught me to play darts. There's even a rather embarrassing photo somewhere of my impeccable (not at all) aim. :: Spoiler:: I hit the scoreboard. 

Later in the week we decided to take a trip up the mountain to Nederland, a small hippie town that looks just like Frontier City with mountains for a background... and no rides of course. We had coffee in a little sidecar called Buffalo Bills, which was adorable. We spend the rest of our trip traveling up the mountains. Just exploring. Most of my more scenic photos are from that trip. I can't tell you how many times I made T pull over on the side of the road so I could capture the perfect photo.

Weather:

The weather was incredible last week. There was a light snowfall the first day we were there. Perfect. It looked like powdered sugar being sifted all over the rocks and trees. The rest of the week was just chilly enough to wear a sweater, but usually not cold enough for a coat until the sun went down. I wore tights, and sweaters and boots and scarves all week long and it was  b l i s s . 

Most importantly, I got to spend some good quality time with my husband. Something that we rarely get due to our opposite schedules. Our scheduling conflicts are our choice, so that we can each spend time with our daughter, but still... It was so nice to have him to myself for five days. I loved Colorado. I loved time with my husband ...

... but my goodness, You can't know how good it is to be back to this. 

Guest Post: Rivers and Roads

hello! i'm meg and i blog over at Rivers and Roads. it's a lifestyle blog full of pictures, mini adventures, my faith, and DIY projects. i was so excited when shayla asked me to guest post and then i freaked out a little because i wasn't sure what to post about! don't worry, i figured it out. i did this paper flower project a while back, and i loved it so much, i wanted to share it again! out of all the various paper flowers i've made, this one has been my absolute favorite! mostly because one of the main ingredients is glitter. sparkly goodness.

what you'll need:

cardstock // color of your choice

scissors

circle cutter // i tried both a 1" and 1 1/4" circle and ended up liking the larger circle better

hot glue gun

glitter

step 1: cut circles from your cardstock. i wanted to try out the ombre effect, so i have a different color for each layer of flower. i used approximately 8-10 circles per color. you'll use more depending on how full you want the bloom to be.

step 2: take your scissors and cut a slit halfway up each circle

step 3: put a dot of hot glue on the left side of the slit and slide the right side on top of the left. this will form a cone. repeat.

step 4: put a dot of hot glue near the seam of one cone and place a second cone (usually the flattest side) on top of the seam.

step 5: repeat steps 3 and 4 over and over and over. you'll want to make the cones less severe as you go so that the flower looks more open once you're finished.

step 6: smother the center in hot glue and cover it in pixie dust. if you don't have pixie dust, i guess you'll just have to settle for regular old glitter ;)

i hope you all enjoyed this little tutorial, and i hope you try it out! it really is very cute and simple.  happy honeymoon to shayla! thanks so much for having me this week! i cannot wait see pictures from the wedding!!