Walmart

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Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

This was a first for me – I’ve never before made a Pineapple Upside-Down Cake! (Probably hard to believe, but true!) However, this year a Pineapple Upside-Down Cake was what my sister requested for her birthday. I had to stop and think about that one, because I normally do “layer cakes” for people’s birthdays. But why not?

I found a recipe online that I liked, purchased all the ingredients for it, and the day it was time to make the cake, I pulled up the recipe and realized that it called for an iron skillet.

I have no iron skillet.

Durn the luck.

What was I to do? (My first thought was to go to Walmart and buy one…but then I decided I didn’t want to leave the house in the monsoon that was happening outside my kitchen window.)

Thankfully, the internet is a wonderful place, and I found another recipe which did NOT call for an iron skillet. And used almost all of the ingredients I had purchased! (Except for the actual pineapple juice, which my husband rejoiced over, since all he wanted to do was drink the bottle of juice, anyways.)

So here we go.

Welcome to my kitchen!

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Prepping Your Guest Room for Visitors

We moved into the home we currently live in in April, and one of my first priorities was to get the guest room in order. We have lots of friends and family who live out of our area, and we wanted to make sure we had a space that anyone would be comfortable in anytime it was needed. Plus, hurricane season was upon us (we Floridians are well-versed in precautionary measures) and we wanted to make sure we were good to go in case we had power and others didn’t, etc.

July 4 weekend we hosted our first guests (my cousin, her husband, their three kids and the best friend of their oldest – so 2 adults and 4 kids in all). Oh, and us. So 8 people in one house. And we seriously had SO MUCH FUN.

I’ve since got everything back in order, to the point that, if someone called me right now and said, “I’m on my way to your house, I need to stay for a couple of days,” there would be no need for panic. (Except trying to lock CoCo the kitty out of here – she thinks it’s HER room.) Check it out…

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New Additions

As we get more and more settled in our new home, I pick up things in my free time (HA! What the heck is FREE TIME?!) and add them to our house. Thought I’d start sharing those with y’all! Maybe you’ll get some good ideas, and maybe you can give me some good ideas, too!

Note: I don’t bring things into the house unless I LOVE them. I don’t see a point in being surrounded by “stuff”, much less stuff that I think is “just okay”.

1. Storage Ottomans

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Fragrance Day

Did you know that today is Fragrance Day?

When I saw that on the calendar I started thinking of all the fragrances that I use in my home, and I realized, WOW! There are tons of them!

The first thing I thought of when I thought of home fragrance was a candle. I’m partial to Yankee Candle myself, but I never turn down a candle! The standard candles that I keep at home to burn are Lemon Chiffon and Sweet Strawberry. I rotate different ones out during the holidays, or in different seasons, but these are my main two.

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The Holiday Shelf – Easter!

I had to scramble this year to get St. Patrick’s Day put away and Easter in place – those two were pretty close on the calendar this time around! Whew! (I did try to take St. Patrick’s down a little early, but my husband, who “claims” he cares not about my decorations, said it wouldn’t be fair to take down the St. Patrick’s before the day – which happens to be his birthday – was over. So I obliged.) But Easter is now up!

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I didn’t want to do the same ol’ “Easter colors” deal where everything is pastels because then I wasn’t sure what to do for just plain spring! (Happy First Day of Spring to you all, by the way!) So I decided to go elegant. Cream, gold, and a touch of purple. After all, at our house, we celebrate Easter because He is risen!

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