April 16, 2018 by admin

Calming Linen Spray DIY

Being a mom of two busy boys AND a grandma, it’s safe to say that life can get CRAZY! A calming linen spray is just what I needed! Sleep is something that doesn’t come naturally to me. Unfortunately, many people have sleep issues due to the rising use of electronics.

I knew that I needed something to help me and my family sleep naturally that didn’t require the use of lots of medications. American’s tend to take pills to help them sleep and pills to keep them awake – and we haven’t been immune to that. In an effort to bring more natural products into my home so that hopefully my kids can learn better ways, this DIY calming linen spray was the perfect solution!

Creating your own is so simple – you’ll have it ready in less than 5 minutes!

I purchased a spray bottle from and removed the label so I could make it pretty. That’s a requirement in my household 🙂 I used my Silhouette Cameo to print and cut a cute sticker but you can create some cute Avery labels too.

Making the natural calming linen spray only takes two simple ingredients:

Distilled water and 6 drops of Lavender Essential Oil. If you have ever enjoyed the scent of a rose, you’ve experienced the aromatic qualities of essential oils. These naturally occurring, volatile aromatic compounds are found in the seeds, bark, stems, roots, flowers, and other parts of plants. Essential oils have long been used for food preparation, beauty treatment, and health-care practices. Lavender is often considered a must-have oil to keep on hand at all times due to its versatile uses, including calming and relaxing properties that promote peaceful sleep and ease feelings of tension. Lavender is the most popular essential oil and the most versatile!

Shake before using each night to evenly distribute the oils in the distilled water and lightly spritz your pillows and bed sheets. (Caution – don’t use to much – you don’t want to get into a wet bed). Spritzing the pillows and sheets about 10 minutes before you lay down is perfect.

Relax with the peaceful scent of lavender and catch up on your favorite book and before long, you’ll naturally drift off to a sweet sleep. And that book? It’s a MUST READ for any women!! Rachel is the girl to tell ya like it is – the good, the bad and the ugly! You can get your own copy HERE. It’s quickly become a best-seller for a reason 🙂

This is a great item to use all the ways from toddlers to adults! This also makes for great gift-giving!

Other uses for Lavender:

Keep a bottle of Lavender on hand to soothe occasional skin irritations.
Take internally to reduce anxious feelings (see website for specifications)
Use in cooking to soften citrus flavors and add a flavorful twist to marinades, baked goods, and desserts.

What are some of your favorite essential oils to use? Have you read Rachel’s best-seller?

Did you like this post? I’d love for you to share it with your friends on social media and PIN it so you have it for later! If you like what you see on this page, I’d love for you to join my mailing list HERE! When you join, I’ll send you a my FREE Home Decor Holiday Printables that you can immediately download. Just my way of saying “thank you” and encouraging you to live your best life!!

April 12, 2018 by admin

Quick and Easy Pizza Bruschetta

I love taking a traditional recipe and using it in a slightly different way just to keep dinner time exciting and a little different. This quick and easy pizza bruschetta is perfect for just that! There’s something about taking a meal that you normally eat with silverware and making it into finger food that makes everyone enjoy it just a little bit more. My boys loved these as a quick bit on the way out to baseball practices and games. And it doesn’t take any extra time than you would normally spend on making spaghetti!

Here how you can make your own Quick and Easy Pizza Bruschetta!

Using any kind of meat your family prefers (sausage, ground beef or ground turkey) brown it in a skillet and add the Prego Pizza Sauce. Did you know Prego had a Pizza Sauce? I only thought they made spaghetti sauces and when I saw this I knew that it would be the perfect sauce for what I wanted. I love the consistency of this sauce for these bruschetta bites. Prego even makes sure that it is “VeggieSmart” meaning you’re feeding your kids a well balanced meal full of veggie and they don’t even know it! That’s a HUGE plus in household with picky eaters. The “VeggieSmart” sauce provides 25% more vegetables than their regular Prego pizza sauce.

While your meat is simmering in the hearty of the tomato and veggie blend sauce, you’ll want to cut your brushcetta pieces. I used a loaf of french bread from our local bakery and it was the perfect size for this recipe. In order to create the perfect bite, you’ll want to cut the bread at a slight angle.

Lightly coat the top of each piece with olive oil.

Toss these in a 250 degree oven for about 8 minutes to crisp them slightly. When they are ready, top them with the Prego “VeggieSmart” meat mixture, shredded mozzerella cheese and fresh chopped basil. Basil is the staple herb in Italian cooking. Using fresh basil is aromatic and flavorful atop each bruschetta piece!

Serve it with a tossed salad and you’ve got a meal to satisfy any craving!

This quick and easy bruschetta recipe has become a go-to in my family when we want a quick bite full of flavor and goodness! What are some of your favorite recipes that are your go-to’s when life is busy and you’re limited on dinner time? Do you have a traditional dish that you have turned into a finger food meal? I’d love to know!

February 22, 2018 by admin

Easy Turkey Sausage Hash

I’ve got a recipe for you that isn’t fancy but it’s delicious! I made this sausage hash and my hubby was in AWE! He couldn’t believe it was so simple when I told him how it was made! This is the meal you need when you’re running short of time and need something that will keep little bellies full 🙂

This is the secret ingredient that makes it OH SO TASTY! Lawry’s Cesaro Total Seasoning! This is my go-to seasoning when I am cooking about anything. CLICK HERE to buy from Amazon. It is also sold at MOST retailers.

Dice your potatoes (I use gold potatoes) and brown them in butter (3T) and a little oil. The butter is the secret to browning the potatoes. If you just cook them in oil, they won’t get browned and crisp. Add your seasoning when your potatoes are almost done. If you add it at the beginning, it will tend top burn.

For this dish I like to use Butterball Turkey Sausage. It’s leaner than beef tastes just as cook. Slice your turkey sausage and add to the potatoes to begin browning them while adding a little bit of salt and pepper to taste.

To complete the dish, I add a can of french-sliced green beans! This makes the dish a one-pot wonder! Cook them just enough to warm the veggies and it’s ready to serve!!

This is a great dish to make when you are running low on time or just don’t want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen! I can assure you, you won’t have much for leftovers. It’s that good!

Do you cook with turkey sausage? Ever since we switched to turkey sausage we love it! It’s a great alternative when you are trying to eat healthier. Head over to BUTTERBALL and check out their others recipes featuring Turkey Sausage!

PIN this recipe and save it for later!

Did you like this post? I’d love for you to join my mailing list HERE! When you join, I’ll send you a my FREE Home Decor Printables that you can immediately download. Just my way of saying “thank you” and encouraging you to live your best life!!

February 19, 2018 by admin

Cheater Meal Planning with FREE Download!

What do you think of when someone says “meal planning”? Me? I want to bury my head in the sand and pretend it’s not a thing!! It’s the most dreaded task in my house next to actually grocery shopping. BUT, it needs to be done. When it’s not done, we tend to spend excess money It’s a budget killer AND a waistline killer because take out or dining out looks easier in the short term!

Before you start meal planning, check out THIS POST that talk about the 5 things we all waste money on – MANY of them relate to the grocery store! It’s an area that we ALL spend a good chunk of money on and an area that we can trim the easiest!

How does meal planning help you??

you can save money at the grocery store
you can save actual time
you can eat healthier
you can have more variety in your meals

I’ve made it easy to start if you are not currently incorporating this into your life.

One of the things that frustrates me the most about meal planning is deciding what to cook day in and day out. It gets old and boring to me. I ask the hubby and the kids, and they say “I don’t care”. I’m sure you get the same things. So, I sat and wrote a LONG list of things to choose from for you and me!

There are SEVEN different categories making it easy to pick a meal from each category for each day of the week! Make it a Mexican Monday… Traditional Thursday… Fast and Easy Friday – you pick!

Cheater Meal Plan (2) – you can click this link to print the full-size pages to keep handy.

I’ve also included a spot for you to put events that you have on your calendar for that night! I know for me, that is GOLD!! With constant sports, I need to know what I have going on before I plan a meal that has a little more prep time.

This ALSO helps when you are planning meals with the weekly circular ads! You can save money buy planning around what’s on sale.

This has made meal planning for me SOOOOO much easier! I actually don’t dread grocery shopping OR cooking!

Do you meal plan? What works for you? What is your favorite QUICK meal that needs to be on my menu list?

Do you need more variety to your menu? Check out these posts of EASY dinners!

Easy Kung Pao Chicken

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

Beef Stroganoff

Honey Garlic Chicken

If you try one, I’d love you to drop me a comment and let me know how you liked it!!

Did you like this post? I’d love for you to join my mailing list HERE! When you join, I’ll send you a my FREE Home Decor Printables that you can immediately download. Just my way of saying “thank you” and encouraging you to live your best life!!

February 1, 2018 by admin

Easy Chinese Kung Pao Chicken

I am a picky eater when it comes to anything Chinese and we’ve never been able to create a dish at home that was something we wanted to make over and over again! So when we got this jar of P.F. Chang’s Kung Pao sauce from Influenster to try out, I had high hopes! And let me tell ya – it delivered TENFOLD! They sent us a sample recipe to try (which you can download HERE) but with the hubby being a self-made chef, he wanted to try his hand at something that was “his own”. He knocked it out of the park, ladies!!

P.F. Chang’s Home Menu line has four sauces (Sesame, Mongolian, Teriyaki and Kung Pao) that you can choose from and so far we have sampled the Kung Pao and the Teriyaki and BOTH of them have pleased everyone in our house. I assumed that the Kung Pao would be a bit spicy due to the red chilies that are in it, but it wasn’t at all.

We started by generously seasoning our chicken thighs with garlic, turmeric, curry and ginger. You can also use chicken breasts.

You can grill the chicken or use a little bit of oil and butter and fry them in a pan. While you’re cooking the chicken, make some rice and also steam some broccoli and carrots.

Once the chicken is cooked throughly and has rested for 5 minutes, dice it into small pieces and add Drizzle some Kung Pao sauce over it.

While the chicken sits with the sauce, take the same pan and use a little bit of water and sauce to deglaze the scrapings in the pan that you fried the chicken in. If you’re not careful, you can burn the sauce. You want to cook it just enough to get the scrapings off the bottom of the pan.