Wordless Wednesday--so powerful

Sadly I missed out on my friend, Natalie's,The Blessing Box yesterday.  However, my hubby shared this video with me...and I was powerfully reminded of the most precious blessing I have in my life...salvation.  I pray that God moves your heart and soul through this video.  Let it be a precious reminder of His deep love for you.  As always, don't hesitate to contact me if you want to talk about a personal relationship with Jesus...it will transform your life.

miscellany monday

It's been too long...so I'm very excited to be linking up with the lovely Carissa today!

One-Yikes.  I am a bad, bad blogger lately.  Even some of my mom's friends have commented on the fact that I'm not posting lately.  (To those friends and others that are thinking it...I'm so sorry! I promise I have some ideas coming...and I am re-prioritizing my life a bit which will lead to more posts.)  Honestly, blogging is my outlet.  I love it and how it allows me to free my thoughts.  Seriously, if I don't write...I'm so unsettled! Thanks to those of you that are so supportive and kind enough to inspire me to keep up the blogging!


Two-Contentment.  One thing that is really, really lacking in my life right now.  Whew...advice would be more than lovely on ways you have overcome times like this in your life.  I'm feeling it like I never have.  However, I am so thankful for one thing in this season...that I have the steadfast promise of Christ's love and His grace in my life.  He loves me through all seasons and all soul battles and I know He loves me far too much to leave me in this struggle for too long and He definitely won't let me come out of this unchanged in one way or another.  (Um, yep, that's a run-on sentence from this 4th grade teacher and daughter of a grammar-crazy mother.  Forgive me, Mom...I'm leaving it that way.)

Three-Thanks to those of you that joined in on the link-up.  I've always enjoyed joining them myself...and it was equally fun and encouraging to read all of your great posts you linked up! You gals are so creative and inspiring! Hope to do the same thing for the Christmas season!

Four-I mentioned back a couple months ago that one of my goals this year was to take things a day at a time.  Surprisingly (well not...because it's totally through God's grace and help), it's working.  I have had moments of pressure and stress thinking ahead this year, but for the most part, I have taken it a day at a time! It has been such a blessing to see how it has changed my daily perspective in the classroom and how I approach each lesson (well mostly) with eagerness and excitement.  It's also caused Fall Break to sneak closer and closer without me really noticing....I love that!

Five-We've decided to get a security system for our home (well besides our vicious pup)! ;) I'm excited that it fits in our budget.  It's something I definitely want when we have kiddos, so we've decided with the great pricing they're offering right now, we're going for it! What do you all think about your security systems? Anyone out there have them and have positives/negatives to share? 

Isn't being miscellany so much fun? Feels good for the soul! Happy Monday y'all!

Fall Link-Up...Today!

Welcome to the party and Happy Fall! Grab the button, link-up, and write about anything Fall!

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For a few weeks now, I have been tempted to break out the fall decor. Rationalizing it in my mind...I decided there is really only October and November left before Christmas...and I like to start decorating for Christmas right after Thanksgiving, so I decided it was time.  Time to break out the fall decor! (Does anyone else play mind games like these in their head or is just me?)

I was delighted to be able to walk straight to my "Fall Decorative Items" Rubbermaid tub in our basement.  It's moments like those, where I am so thankful I take the time to try to get organized (by no means is it a perfect system) as I decorate for different seasons and put decor away after each season.

I even keep items like decorative towels for each season in the designated tub so that they're out of our way during the rest of the year, but handy when we need them for the season!

Something else that I find helps me stay organized as I decorate for different seasons and times of the year, is to have a Rubbermaid container that is dedicated to home decor items that I don't have room for during a special holiday or time of year, but plan on bringing them back out once the season is over.  (Another option to this dilemma is to re-purpose items around the house.  For example, I moved a vase that usually is next to our television to another table so that there would be room for this wonderful decoration...one of my favorites that I bought at an arts and crafts fair last fall.)

On with the actual decorating...

Who doesn't love using a wreath to say "Welcome to our home"? I took a long strand of flexible berry garland and wrapped it around a grapevine wreath to create this look.  I've had it for quite a while so it's showing a little bit of wear...but I'm always a sucker for a grapevine wreath.

Another fun idea is to leave the items you normally have out...but decorate around them so that they fit in with the new season or holiday.  One example are our candles that sit on a table next to our entertainment center.  I left them...

But added a little fall color to the table.  (With help from a place mat I found on clearance at Kohl's...I have a thing for circular place mats.)

I also did this with our magazine rack in the living room.  I simply traded out fake moss around the candle....

For a gold candle holder to add an orange-y (yes, I made that word up) glow to the corner of the room.

Of course, I also had to change over the kitchen table decor.  I dispersed the lovely flowers (that I talked about here) around the house in different locations.

The materials:  large vase (from our cabinets), fake leaves (from the fall tub), candle (from another room in the house), two place mats folded in half and layered, our lazy susan, and the canvas table runner I talked about creating here.

I'm loving the layered look with the varying stripe patterns.  Plus, the orange-y (there's that made-up word again) colors are fun and add a pop with the other neutral tones.  Again, here I am using place mats.  They honestly are hardly ever used for their real purpose in our bungalow.

Since we don't have a fireplace or mantle, I tend to use our foyer table as my decorating outlet.  It gets "spruced up" with every new season and holiday.  It recently went from this...

To this...

The materials:  a fall runner, a vase we had, a pumpkin I purchased a couple years ago that I love (it says "Trick-or-Treat" on the other side...so I will turn it around closer to Halloween), some fake fall foliage, and a scarecrow that my grandma gave us (Boone barks at this little man quite frequently).

I simply stuck the fake foliage into the already existing house plant.

And turned this orange-y (I'm sensing a trend) vase upside down to elevate the pumpkin for a little more "pizazz".

Fall decorating is fun for me...and I really don't overdo it, because I feel like our bungalow nestled among so many trees, already lends itself to this time of year.  Our home decor colors are very earth-toned and include pops of yellows, reds, and oranges all year long.  Fall just seems to "fit" our home.

And as us southerners like to say....Happy Fall y'all!

 

Don't Forget!

Link-up tomorrow to our Fall Party here at theblessed life where we are celebrating all things Fall! Grab the button and link up anything fall! Look forward to seeing you then! Enjoy the last day of summer!

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bunches of blooms

Last week my hubby brought me home a sweet bouquet of flowers.  Just because.  Those are the best kinds of flowers! I wanted to try to do something different with them...so I decided to group the bouquet in three different bunches.  The trick here is three different sizes of vases too.  Love the way it turned out!

 

How have you uniquely displayed flowers? Got any creative ideas or do you just prefer a regular vase...plain and simple?

Fall Link-Up Fun

I've been thinking.  I do that a lot.  Not sure if it's a good thing or not.  Anywho.  I've noticed quite the anticipation of Fall when reading your blogs!

It's a season that reminds me of God's amazing beauty and how He passionately romances us to draw nearer to Him.  The colors of the leaves, the cooler temperatures, pretty mums, and bright orange pumpkins.  That's something worth celebrating!

So in honor of the first day of Autumn on Thursday, September 23rd let's have a party! Come back here and link-up with a Fall post.  It can be celebrating your favorite things about the season, where you see God's beauty in Fall, decoration ideas for Fall, Fall craft ideas, Fall recipes, or anything else that you would like to share with others about this season.

So light your Caramel Apple Spice candle (or whatever gets you in the Fall mood), grab the button, and link up next Thursday!

See you then!




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wordless wednesday

My mom and I were shopping the clearance at Wally World last week and found this...

Religion.

Really? Religion has a scent?

So if you're looking for religion...it's on clearance at Wal-Mart. (Weird...but we couldn't help but get a laugh out of this!)

The other side...

of blogging world.

The teacher side of blogging world!

My lovely friend, Jessie, got me hooked on blogging for my classroom.  What a super easy and fun way to keep parents updated and kiddos excited about seeing their own faces amidst their learning on the world wide web.

So in preparation for random spouts of being absent from my first love, this blog, I wanted to share with you another place you may find me. This is the blog where I don't just play Cait amidst a blessed life, but I play Mrs. Gentry, a 4th grade teacher, passionately teaching kiddos and praying to transform their hearts and minds in a positive way.

Stop by and visit when you get a chance! We'd love to have you take a glimpse into our classroom!

Mrs. Gentry's Class Blog

Happy weekend!!

basket-case

This I am....

for baskets.

Or maybe in life in general.

Sometimes I think I have a serious problem when I'm sitting on my couch relaxing on a Saturday and my eyes wander to the bottom of the entertainment center and it's cluttered mess.

Does anyone else have this problem?

This is what I saw.

And my thought?

Let's fix this.

So I went to the corner of my living room where we have a basket that held two pillows just for decoration.  Well the pillows aren't conducive to Boone's shedding habits.  So the pillows went downstairs for use at another time and the basket calmed me by catching all the extras that are housed in the bottom of our entertainment center.

There.  It's fixed.  And now my mind can focus on the current reality show of choice (and their messy lives) that blares from the TV instead of a mess in our entertainment center.  Much better.

great lengths

This picture is what caused me to go to great lengths.

My sweet, handsome hubby's hair.  The length and the shaginess.  Well shaginess for him at least.  His lovely, fine hair only grows one way...straight out.  It doesn't lye down.  It only wants to stand straight up.  And it demands to grow fast. 

So in all my thriftiness glory, I decided to take it upon myself to go to great lengths to cut this man's hair.  $12 a pop just doesn't "cut it" for this Dave Ramsey family, especially with how often he needs his hair cut.  So for $23 we purchased a clipper set so that I can start cutting his hair at home.  (That's less than two hair cuts!)

And after reading the directions very carefully so we didn't reenact the hair cutting experience from our pre-wedding days where I cut his hair way too short, I successfully cut Justin's hair.  No bleeding and no gaping holes in the cut.  Plus, he was even happy with it.  And he's not always so easy to please. :)

How about you ladies? Do the men in your life trust you with clippers? Have any funny DIY hair-cutting stories? Let us hear 'em!

storage DIY

We have this little nook between our living room and kitchen that is a perfect spot for this chrome shelving we bought from Target.  However, it stands out as an eyesore when it stashes our soft drinks and Justin's lunchbox.  So a three-day weekend this past weekend led to a DIY project with some materials I had around the house.

Remember my DIY curtain project I posted about here? I had some canvas material left over and thought it would make the perfect material to create panels that would cover the bottom of the shelving.

The materials:  canvas material, velcro, Heat-n-Bond, measurements, and an iron.  I talked about the amazing Heat-n-Bond in my curtain post mentioned above.  It's simply wonderful! (Especially to those of you a little timid to sew like I am.)

I cut my three panels (one for the front of the shelves and one for each end) and then hemmed them using the Heat-n-Bond.

Next, I added the material to each of the three sides (adhesive side down).

And mid-project I discovered that my awesome velcro found on clearance at Wal-Mart only had one adhesive side (boo) which meant I would have to sew the velcro onto the panels.  Um, nope.  And since I am one that is a little OCD and must have a project completed once I start it (really, it drives me crazy to leave something unfinished), I found fabric glue in our office and glued the velcro to the panels.  (Adhesive would have worked better, but this worked well enough.)

And, finished.  (The wrinkles will fall out...they did beautifully in my curtains.)  I love how this pulls the little nook together, hides the uglies underneath, and allows us to conveniently lift each panel to pull out what we need from the shelf.

So how have you gotten clever with DIY storage in your house? Do share...I'm always up for another project idea!

the blessing box

Blessing one--Contentment.  I've seriously felt God's presence this year in how He has given me contentment with my job.  To be honest, teaching is a struggle for me at times as far as trying to figure out if it's truly my calling.  It's mainly an emotional and spiritual struggle because I have felt so natural at it and things have gone so well as far as feedback on my teaching.  However, that's where the battle comes in.  In the past, I have wondered fiercely why God would have something seem so natural, yet be so not at peace within me.  Well this year, He has gifted me with contentment.  I hope it lasts.  I pray it lasts.  I just want to be in His will...wherever it may be and I want to be content.  Thank you Lord for answered prayers.

Blessing two--My mom and dad.  My sweet momma commented sarcastically the other night that they haven't been mentioned as a blessing yet.  I was getting there.  I know she was joking, but I wanted to make sure to mention how much of a true blessing they are in my lives.  Oh my...every child should have parents as supportive and caring as mine.  I can't even express how grateful I am to have the relationship I do with my parents.  (Hope this shout out suffices, Mom...you know I can't put my gratitude into words....it just doesn't do it justice.)

Blessing three--Time to clean my house and catch up on life.  What a wonderful refreshment to be able to have ample time at home to catch up on cleaning, laundry and organizing.  This weekend was just what my heart and soul needed.  Nothing's better than time at home.

I've mentioned a few times about the blessing I have in my husband.  I'm blessed right now that we both have some time together at home, so it's time to wrap up computer time.  So, this week's post is short, yet the list of blessings in my life sure aren't.  God is so mighty and so good.  I pray that you're able to find blessing after blessing in your life this week that reminds you of His passionate love for you.

Now, go join the lovely Natalie and share your own blessings!

caramel

With Fall on the horizon, I am loving all things caramel right now.  Caramel is my second favorite sweet next to chocolate.  Mix the two together and that's pure heaven.  Here are some caramel or caramel-inspired things that I'm lovin' right now:

Caramel Apples--Don't these look amazing?! I love the idea of trying out different types of toppings.  The possibilities are endless.

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Toasted Caramel Sugar--I won a Scentsy from the sweet Natalie at Extraordinary Love.  The first scent that we have tried is Toasted Caramel Sugar.  Yum, yum!! It makes the house smell like a bag of caramel candies...almost as if you could eat a piece of the air.  I love how the light adds a soft glow to the corner of our living room too.

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Land's End's Leather Ballet Slippers--The color of these flats look like the inside of a Rolo or a caramel-filled Dove chocolate.  Plus comfy flats are a teacher's staple.  These would look so cute with tights and a skirt, dress pants, or even capris and a light sweater.  The sole makes these look super comfy too...cute and comfy.  That gets the grade in this teacher's book!

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 So have any caramel loves yourself? What is making you crave Fall?