my list of best gifts for newlyweds

with all of the up-coming weddings approaching just around the corner, i decided to compile a list of the best gifts to buy newlyweds. since i myself being a newlywed, i have my share of goodies that i love and am thankful to have around the house! it's hard to know what, they need, because no person is the same. one may love to cook and the other despise the thought, but even so, they still need that start to make their nest.  here's my two cents anyhow.

best gifts for de kitchen':

wooden spoons:

husby laughs at me because i use them so much, he thinks

they don't really serve a purpose, but they do! they are great

for stirring sweet tea and sneaking in the peanut butter jar at night!

tupperware:

these are great for left overs for the husb. i have them in all

sizes from the itty bitty ones for dipping sauces and the deeper ones

for soups. although they do go missing for a few days and i later find them

in the sink with three day old food, they are pretty cool to have around.

pyrex dishes:

i use my 8 x 8 square pyrex dish almost every night. it's just the right

size for a meal for two. you can find them in different sizes and the best

choice is to find them with rubber tops because it saves using up aluminum foil.

baking dishes:

i LOVE to bake cookies

but these aren't just great for that,

i use them to cook my frozen pizzas

and french fries

cookbooks:

simple easy to understand basic ingredient cookbooks. we haven't

mastered paula deen yet, church cook books are the best! most of 

the recipes that i have tried have come from good ole church cook books.

or better yet, hand write one of your favorite dishes and hand it

to us! i love all of my hand written recipes that i have received, it's so

sentimental!

wooden cutting boards:

i have several of these handy in different sizes!

great for cutting up chicken!

plastic utensils:

measuring spoons, measuring cups, spatulas, whisks,

cooking timer, etc..

if they come in plastic, they're usually great!

i am very clumsy in the kitchen so anything plastic

helps.

a simple cooking timer:

my oven timer doesn't work so i was glad

to get one of these but they are great to

have even so

good set of silverware:

i know that they are a little more expensive

but they last so long.

corelle dishes:

i am clumsy, right?

and i have dropped my share of these babies

and not one plate has broke

so i'm a firm believer in these!

crockpot:

i didn't think that i would use my crockpot, it actually sat

on the shelf staring at me for a little bit until i finally decided 

to give it a whip, and i have loved it ever since. it's great for

newlywifeys who get home late after work because supper

is already ready to eat by the time she get's home.

kitchen rags/pot holder's/mittens:

i kept every single rag, pot holder, mitten i received and

i'm glad that i did because they get dingy real quick! you can

never get too many of these!

etc gifts:

bath towel/rag sets:

you can never get too many of these either, i kept 

every set. there is always a towel handy in the smith familia

we are loaded!

picture frame sets:

nowadays everyone is making picture collages. it's great to

have a few frames that are alike but different sizes for

wedding pictures. i'm still working on getting photo's for all 

of our frames.

walmart gift cards:

if you are ever in doubt of what to get a couple

gift cards is the way to go! whatever the bride

doesn't get from a shower, she can get with these!

we used a few of our gift cards on our first

grocery run which helped out tremendously!

keepsake gift boxes:

i have two keepsake gift boxes that i love!

one has every wedding card that we received,

any pretty bows i kept, and even our dating hallmark 

cards. the other has our ring boxes and keepsakes from

our honeymoon, pic's, etc...

bedding sheets:

you can never get too many of these either!

great gift for sure because you always need extra's.

around the house supplies:

i got a basket full of soap sponges, clorox cleaning wipes, dish

liquid, etc.. these are great gifts also because they will def. be put to good 

use!

the only gift that i have fought with is:

drinking glasses

i have broke so many, by just simply washing them in the sink, it isn't funny

so since then, they sit pretty in the cabinet and plastic cups took their place

it's a sad fact, but true

well, there it is. i can bet that i have missed some good ones. if you have any additions to my list

feel free to add yours!

i hope this helps any potential gift buyers!

sunday's letters

coon: mila's favorite toy

dear God: i am thankful for the chain of events that led me to where i am now and grateful for every blessing.

dear husby: you treat me so good, never stop being the man you are.

dear mila: it's coooon!!! ( inside joke )

dear top tier of wedding cake: i want to eat you already but husby say's i have to wait until our one year anniversary... although i'm tempted to break the rules.

trigger happy

i can bet your wondering why i have a neon pink water-gun pointed at my cat, huh?

cat's don't like water, most. so i'm trying out this new technique: 

if i catch her scratching something she isn't supposed to or biting husbys feet

i'll blast her with my water-gun!

garrett says i'm having too much fun with the water gun though

trigger happy i am

watch out mila 

she wears me out

i love you too husby

miracle soup

tonight, i guess you would say i had "cooker's block". i just could not figure out what i wanted to cook and i have a fear of wasting food.. so i used the "use what you've got" method with my hands over my eyes . so i threw in a bunch of different things that were somewhat familiar to one another and i called it:

miracle soup: miracle soup because it was going to be a miracle if it actually turned out good! and it did, so that's why i'm sharing my made-up recipe, otherwise you wouldn't know anything about it... 

miracle soup

what you need:

1 lbs. ground beef

1 lbs.  (add as much as you like) pork sausage ( links )

1 can Hormel chili ( no beans ) unless you like beans

1 can Rotel tomatoes

1 pkg. taco seasoning

a pinch or two of cayenne pepper

a few shakes of ground onion flakes

a few sprinkles of Tony's cajun seasoning

salt and pepper

1 can water ( use the Rotel tomatoes can)

here's what i did:

first, brown ground beef in large skillet

add half of your pkg. of taco seasoning and onion flakes and stir

add (cut-up)pork sausage; brown also

in a medium boiler add:

can of chili

can of rotel

the remaining half of taco seasoning pkg.

cayenne pepper

salt and pepper

Tony's cajun seasoning

water

bring to a good simmer then add ground beef and pork sausage to boiler

cover then serve

ta-daaaa!

optional:

i thought a topping would make it look pretty so i crushed up a good 

handful of tortilla chips and topped that off with a good sprinkle of shredded cheese. 

i so overused the word good.

but it's good!

it starts with a -p and ends in -ms

don't worry, not all of my posts from here on are going to be pictures of our cat, mila. i would post a picture of myself, eh.. but i'm currently suffering from severe pms and i look like who done it! isn't she pretty though! her hair is beginning to darken just a bit, it kinda makes me sad because i love her cotton ball resembling self!

good news:  today i started my new job and it went great!  first days are always scary, ya know? being human, we play out scenarios in our head of how horrible it's going to be, and then once we get there it's usually not as bad as we thought it would be. in my case, it went pretty smooth, and the people i'm working with are so, so nice!

but on another note, what to cook the husby?? any ideas? i'm thinking grilled cheese sandwiches!

kidding...

friday.

mila, such a lady,  is growing so fast, she's sitting right beside me chewing on a grape flavored dum-dum candy wrapper. for some odd reason, she's obsessed with those and the upstairs bathtub, i can't figure it out. we just recently bought her a couple of cat nip (a.k.a cat crack) toys to play with, and she has been crazy ever since! so crazy that husby and i had to hide the cat nip toys from her just so she would calm down a little. she's such a sweetheart though and follows me and husb around everywhere we go and if she can't follow us into a room, she'll sit beside the door until we open it for her to come in. we love her and we're so glad she's healthy!

martha who??

i have never been the nifty needle - eyed scissor struck scrapbook cutting gal, never. it's just not my nature to attempt diy crafts, and if your wondering i am not a pinterest finatic like every other girl in the world, well until now. i just recently discovered creativity isn't so life consuming and hard, it's rather easy sometimes. although the window pane above was not pinterest inspired, creativity has a name: boredom. i actually made something off the top of my noggin' and i'm pretty proud so i had to share. this little number is going in my dining room, but for now it's simply perched on the floor waiting for it's "place".

first i distressed the window pane, which took me literally five lousy minutes. the window was already a true distressed white.. so i took an old rag and a little yellow paint, slapped it on there like i meant it, let it dry and sanded it here and there.. and wooolahh a masterpiece of my very own.

i had a little left over fabric from where my mil made me curtain toppers, so i traced out the silhouette of two love birds and taped them onto the back of the glass panes with scotch tape. no, i'm not kidding, i really used scotch tape.. you didn't think i was going to actually glue them on did you!?

but it works, and you can't see it.

so after i made the birds out of fabric, i needed a branch for them to sit on.. and i thought pages from my dictionary. i usually use my handy dictionary while writing, but it only costed me less than a dollar, i'll just buy another one later, no biggy!

lastly, i added two full pages from the dictionary, one with the starting of the "c's" for "callie" and the other "j's" for "joseph". they represent mine and husbys first initial with one of the branches having an "s" for our last initial "smith". i drenched them in dr. pepper to make them look "aged" and let them air dry over night.

i love it because it's creative but on a more sentimental level. it's beautiful, go me!!  

two months

i may not know all of the everyday quirks of husby just yet, but after two months of living with him.. i know exactly where to hide little notes for him to find.. which is, in the snack part of the cabinet beside the chips ahoy cookies! every evening when he gets home from work, he takes his shoes off, gives me kisses, then heads for either the sweet tea or chips ahoy making his way to his "man chair" where he resides for a little bit.. until he thinks of something productive he needs to do. 

today marks two months of marriage for us. they say the sweetest part of  marriage is the first few months, and then life returns to the "norm". but i refuse to believe that, i know that if we take care of this great love we have for each other, we will always be newlywed at heart. i'm nowhere close to "super wife" or "expert on marriage" but i believe a marriage is what you make it, just like any other relationship,  if you make it hard, it will be hard. if you love it tenderly, it will be easy. simple. so we're going to love it tenderly. 

i love leaving him love notes to find, many couples don't do it anymore. they would rather post it on their significant others facebook wall, which is fine if your into that i guess, but to me, you just can't get more personal than a good ol'  hand-written letter.

so now that i have my mushy love letter hidden, i can't wait for husby to get home to find it. i'm going to be crushed if he decides he doesn't want a whole box of cookies today! 

write through the ugly

writing is essential to my well being, it's therapeutic and powerful to me. every night, i write. something. a rhyme. a memory. a thought. a wonder.something silly that will make me giggle. husby will walk in the living-room and there i am: curled up in my favorite cheetah blanket with my "all my friends are nuts" notebook. except now, i have a little nugget who chases my pen as i write, mila. 

just recently, husby ordered me a copy of "writing down the bones" by natalie goldberg. i had been wanting this little book for a little bit but couldn't seem to find it in any bookstore, i guess because it is so old. but ebay has everything, right?

it is a great book, i've really enjoyed reading it. writing isn't always easy. it doesn't always come to you like a whimsical song bursting out of your inner being. sometimes you have to really pull it out of your brain by the chain, but even sometimes that doesn't work and it's simply called "writer's block". it's the same feeling as staring at a blank white wall.. nothing. it almost put's you in a zombie-like trance. 

in her book, she inspires you to forget all of the rules you learned in school about writing. "throw it all out of the window, because there is no teacher grading you anymore!" lose all education, only while your writing of course, and just let go. she says, "if you misspell a word, it doesn't matter. let your pen flow just as your mind does."and i have learned i don't have to write "perfect", because i'm free to write the worst junk in the world.

last night, one chapter really hit me like a ton of bricks. when i write, i try so hard to write what the world would have me write, what is acceptable in the world's eyes. see, the world would have me write, "the world is never ugly.. blah blah blah blah" but the truth is, the world can be ugly sometimes, in truth very regular, and it's okay to write when i'm sad or even when i'm angry. my paper is my canvas and my pen is my paint brush. there i said it!

last night, i put my emotions to practice in my writing i suppose. losing a person who meant so much to you is hard, but having to look back and still find that they aren't here is the hardest. i miss my mow-mow very much, and sometimes when someone brings her name up, i just cannot fight back that complex action that takes place behind my eyes that creates a tear. i don't hurt so much for her, because i know she's in a beautiful place, i hurt for me.. i miss her. so i wrote, for her. it's hard, but i've learned you have to write through the ugly, just as you have to live through it. 

" i thought of you today

someone brought up your name

i smiled not hearing a word they said

biting the tears as i hung my head

you would think by now it wouldn't be so hard

to think of you being so far

hearing them say " i knew"

when i wanted so badly for them to still "know"

oh, i know why you had to go

but there's not a needle left here to sew

this broken part of me they call a heart

sometimes, i just can't seem to find the switch to make it start

so i'll pack up my jar of frowns

and the memories i've again found

i'll think of you tomorrow

and smile again through the sorrow"

i love reading books that inspire me, in truth that is really all i write, word's that will inspire myself but word's that i pray inspire someone else as well. that's what writing is all about. goldberg says in her book, "inspiration = breathing in God" and i truly believe it! sometimes when i write, i become larger than myself and i look at myself and go "where did that come from!?!!" 

i know.

sunday's letters

dear God: the other night as i was weighing myself in the bathroom, i shrugged my head just as i always do when i find my weight unsatisfying. it was in that moment when i realized how much pressure i put on myself day to day. i  tell myself things like, "i'm not skinny enough" or "i wish i looked differently". but after reading a scripture for inspiration and guidance, i feel so selfish. how dare i look down upon myself when i was made in Your image? 1 Samuel 16:7 reads: But the Lord said to Samuel, " do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because i have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.) i do pray that my heart is beautiful in Your eyes. thank you Lord for inspiring me to love my body and for giving me a loving husband who tells me i am beautiful even though i doubt myself. 

dear husby: yesterday you took me to eat in natchez for the first time since we got engaged. it's hard to believe that was eight months ago, my how time has already flown by! we walked along the sidewalk near the tree where our first date was, where our "old bench" sat, now only a lonely patch of grass outside the gate and it's such a sweet reminder of the great love that i have for you. i couldn't believe how fast i fell in love with you, and i love to look back on that moment often. i have told you many times already and i will tell you a million times even more that you are a good man. i am blessed beyond words to have you as my husband and don't you forget it!

dear mila: you are going to be one spoilt kitty! i can't wait to dress you up in clothes! bless your little heart! you have a good home!

mila

this is mila

pronounced (mee-lah)

the newest edition to the smith familia

she is said to be siamese mix

but google says she is balinese mix

another breed of siamese except they have long silky hair

and much quieter than a siamese

yesterday morning as i was grazing through pets on petfinder.com

i stumbled upon this little cutie

and husby said let's go get her

so off to crystal springs we went

but never expected her to look this gorgeous

her picture on the website didn't do her justice

but we love her and changed her former name which was jasmine

to mila

i thought she needed a sassy name

like mila kunis from that 70's show 

it just fits 

we're still trying to find out her little personality

she's a curious little girl who loves to follow us around 

everywhere we go and loves to cuddle

this morning she tried to wake husby up by tickling him with 

her elongated tail

but it didn't work because he's still drooling

and she's right beside me snoozing while i write

happy saturday!

inspire me

seek above the looking glass

wonder your future but do not ask

let your far-sight be your guide

and when the wind changes do not hide

whisper a prayer beneath your breath

discover your pace yet trace each step

learn the world through your own creative angle

brush through discouragements though they be tangled

sing of love and not of war

hum the sound of hope to your very core

be the glass but not of the glass

be the future you void to ask

be the nearness of your far-sight

be the prayer beneath each breath

and the pace within each step

be the world you've wished so much for

and the hope others may too feel at their very core

- cs

you make me smile

{flowers via mil}

thank you for growing them

 the husby is cutting grass so i decided to write a little before he comes to get me so that i can cut "my spot" of the yard. you see, he's in the process of teaching me how to operate the lawn mower without potentially injuring myself while doing so. 

i can think of a-lot of things that i have regretfully left out lately but i just can't wrap my mind around how to lay it all out. i hate when i do that, it's like a tick on my back itching the stew out of me. our living-room is so full now, it doesn't even echo anymore.. which is comforting. of course, if you follow me regularly you've seen pictures. isn't it lovely!? it really came together well.. all of my gooey head full of ideas splattered right where they belonged... & we're happy with it!

since i've been currently laid-off from my job (insert your gasp here) yes, i did say laid-off.. and before you ask, no i didn't do anything wrong.. there just wasn't enough work. but it was actually for the best and i'm a firm believer in the quote "things happen for a reason".. anyway.. i've had plenty of time to decorate the house, which is nice but i'm a working girl.. and i miss it, everyday. but i know that if i will just be patient and give it all to God something will come up. garrett knows how i miss it, but he has been encouraging me to relax and give it time and i love him for that. he always knows how to make me feel better. so since then, i keep myself busy, everyday.. and this is real silly but i even go so far to set a goal of all of the things i plan to get done that day before the husb gets home.. and it makes me feel productive. i mean i'm partially running a household now and there is always something to do. whether it be organizing a certain room of the house, working in the yard (which i absolute love), baking cookies for the husb, washing dishes, washing clothes.. and i don't mean to change the subject but does any other wife out there feel as though the washer and dryer regurgitates the clothes right back out!? im only kidding though, but honestly i always have clothes to wash.. but it's all good because it is all part of it!

my mama and sister came over a little earlier and for some reason i just could not get motivated today. but honestly i know why i couldn't, and it's the hard fact that i had gotten a little sting from the discouragement bug and the depression bug. so finally before they left, i decided i needed a pick me up so i asked the husby if i could begin taking the wall paper border down from the kitchen. and to my surprise, he said yes and that was it, i was at it again. thank you husby. 

..now i have all kinds of oooey gooey ideas waiting to splatter all over the kitchen and husby is talking about what color to paint and i feel so much better now...

sunday's letters

dear God: thank you for such a loving husband. i know that i'm blessed.

dear husby: you have such sweet pillow talk and you are an adorable sleep talker.. and i love that fact that you even talk back. every night i look forward to talking to you, again. i love you so much.

dear shelly: thank you for being such a great friend all of these years. i'm so glad that you found such a sweet boy who treats you like you should be treated. hold on to him!

dear washing machine: you really scare me when you make that loud obnoxious airplane noise almost like your going to explode. i'm sorry we don't see each other much but i feel safer when the door is shut behind me. 

dear husband: i know this sounds corny but i still get goosies when i look down at my ring. 

wanna peak?

i'm soo excited to share a little piece of our home! we have made it our own piece by piece

and it is very us..

a little masculinity mixed in with a little rock in roll inspired decor

topped with a hint of elegance

our natchez bridge photograph with buffet below

cross collage in the making

pinterest is it

yeller

couchie couch

pedestal table

ta-daa!