New Fave Summer Weekend Outfit

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That is my sigh of happiness. Clothes can't make you happy, but you feel great if you like what you are wearing + are having a great day. So I am happy!

I found this shirt at Kmart while picking hubby up one of his birthday presents. I found this peacock-feather one and a lilac one with a watercolor painting of a flower and butterfly. I LOVE these! They are artsy and cute without being trendy. This is very "Etsy-style. "

I paired it with my white capris and am using my college-days hemp backpack. I love this thing. I don't use it often anymore, but I am never throwing it out or getting rid of it. It is so "weekend me".

Off to grocery shop and then clean up this apartment!

Top: Kmart
Necklace: Work
Pants: Target
Shoes: Birkenstocks-Gizeh @ Zappos
Backpack: Forget-Me-Not Shop in Johnson, Vermont

4 Sale

For Bookworms

I found the coolest website! It is called "Library Thing" and it is for people who love to read and share their books and interests with like-minded others. You can join for free and make your own profile and then add the books you are reading. You can also check locally to see what bookstores, libraries, and book-related events are going on around your area. I mean, how long has it been since you've been to a poetry reading (if ever)? Or an author signing? (so I've never been to one of these, but when somebody in this current age writes something I love, I will do it. C.S. Lewis won't coming back from the dead to sign my book, unfortunately).

I just found a library near me that I wasn't aware of, and two used bookstores (love these) that are right down the street!

Go get your book on. (Yes, cheesy, I know!)

Make me Catherine again, please!

I really would like to change my middle name back to my original middle name. When I got married, it was family tradition for the women to take their maiden name initial and use it as their new middle name and then take the man's last name. This was easy pre-1980. My mother has "L." as her middle name, and my grandmother has "W." as hers. I went along with this because I just thought it was the way it should be at the time. I thought having "B." would be no biggie. It was tinily symbolic and I like traditions.

Now, 4 years later (well, I have been thinking about this off and on for the past 4 years!), I am really pissed I did this and it would be a nightmare to change my middle name back to "Catherine" like I want to.

The whole "using the maiden name initial" thing didn't work out since we have such security issues in this country these days, so they (*the IRS, DMV, and SS Office*) basically changed the initial "B" to the complete maiden name. Now I have my first name, full maiden name, and husband's last name all together-- not hyphenated, but all there. So now I look like one of those women who have beef about dropping their maiden names, but I am SOOO not into that. I am an old-fashioned girl. When I married hubby, I fully became Mrs. H. I didn't want to drag the old me into it, but my old name (that is hard to spell, too) is still in my life because I didn't realize what I was doing at the time. GAH!

I have inquired to the SS Office about changing a middle name, so we'll see if they ever write back. It is pretty much a given that it will make the rest of my life torturous every time I want to open a bank account, get a loan, credit card, etc. since that is how this country operates with security.

Have any of you had experiences with this name changing stuff?

Sneak peek...

Here's a little peeky-boo into what I was crafting tonight! I am preparing a new debut of grosgrain ribbon key fobs for my Etsy shop. They will hopefully go up tomorrow night once I finish them up and photograph them. So excited! :)

I hope these sell as well as they used to! I know there is a lot of competition on Etsy for these, but I haven't seen any in this ribbon style. Fingers crossed...

Linguini with zucchini and chickpeas

Here's what we had for dinner tonight! Another successful Real Simple Magazine recipe. I love their dinner ideas. They are simple, healthy, and hubby loves them! They always have some in each issue, and they also have a ton online. All it takes is a little chopping of the zucchini and throw in a can of chickpeas, boil the pasta, add some parmesan, and presto!

Here's the finished result! Very filling and good for you. Yum.

Cookie Secret!

If I am going to share something, it has to be this!

I never heard of this cookie trick before until my male-baker friend told me about it!

Do you like your cookies to be soft? Do you hate it when you buy a package of chocolate chip or oatmeal cookies and they are hard and crumbly? Transfer the cookies to a tupperware-type container with a good lid and place a slice or two of regular old bread in with the cookies. The cookies will soak up the moisture from the bread and take on a soft, bread like quality that is to die for! And no, the cookies don't take on the taste of the bread, thankfully! Even the hardest cookies will become soft. Keep replacing the slices of bread as they dry out and enjoy!

Yum. :p

Blog = Heart+Brain Throwup

This is my 1,004th post, readers! Woo! I have posted quite a bit in the past 3 or 4 years!

Which is a good segway to today's post topic: I feel like I need to have a specific focus for my blog. It is all over the place and definitely follows the way my brain operates (scatterbrained). But I know that can leave me feeling like the blog has too much of my personal information and not enough focus on a specific subject or field for the reader. There are a lot of blogs that are specifically about families, fashion, childrearing, writing, etc. I would like to have mine be about a category such as one of these. But I am a Jack-of-all-trades, master of none sort of gal, so I am stumped.

I could just post an outfit a day like many do, but I don't always have an interesting or well-put-together outfit on, and oftentimes am in too much of a rush to get a picture taken.

I could just post the things I buy, but that would get very materialistic and I could see that annoying myself.

I could turn this into a completely Christian, Bible-studying and commentary blog, but that isn't what it started out to be.

I guess what it boils down to is that this blog is like heart + brain "throw-up" for me. But I am not happy with it being that because I am often left feeling like I share too much with people I don't know on a personal level, and I should keep it to acquaintance-level chit chat. I am going to think on this and hopefully come up with a solution soon so I can re-vamp and organize my blog life! :)

Do you have any thoughts or suggestions?

Toodles!