The Sunshine Studio: giveaway!

I am so very excited about this giveaway from The Sunshine Studio (remember that great jewelry from Friday's Links?)... It's not only a chance to win some beautiful jewelry, but an opportunity to meet a neat lady too. I learned about Lory because she just happened to be the 100th person to follow my blog. I went to her blog and her etsy shop and was just blown away at both locations. Her blog profile story is so very touching and struck a chord with me. Definitely spend a bit of time reading that before heading over to her lovely blog. Enjoy the music there and pretty things. Next visit her shop and take a peak at her jewelry line. Be inspired by it all.

And lucky for us, Lory has offered to give one of her rose rings, in your choice of color, to a PS reader.

To enter just become a follower and leave a comment about your favorite piece from Lory's shop. I'll announce the winner (via random.org, if I can keep it on the down-low from the kids) in a week, on Tuesday, July 7th. Be sure to stop by and say hello to Lory at The Sunshine Studio's shop and blog.

Monday Meal Planning: My NEW Planner!

We don't have a super thrilling menu planned this week, but I am pretty excited about my new menu planner I made this weekend. Due to a power outage at our house last night, I didn't get to upload and ready all the pictures to show my little diy project, but I will. In the meantime, here's our meal plan for the week on my new write on/wipe off planner (insert: giddy grin):

I'd love to hear your plans for the week!

Hop over for some Simple Summer Fun...

I'm guest blogging over at Mostly Mod for this fine Sunday. Hop over there for our ideas on some simple summer fun.

End of the Week Links

A few of the neat things I found around webtown this week:

Have you visited The Sunshine Studio yet? I am in love with her jewelry. At the top of my wish list is this ring and these two necklaces. SO pretty!

I am so tempted by these mod stem markers. Seriously, for under ten bucks, this would be a perfect gift paired with a bottle of wine. I'd have a hostess gift or a it-snuck-up-on-me birthday present ready to go.

A $13 playroom makeover: Really. This room was whimsically transformed with a pad of scrapbook paper.

I so love inspirational words to place me back in the right frame of mind just by reading them. Here's an inspirational download to do just that.

I totally don't need a stylish set of rubber bands, but these are so cool I kind of think I do now.

Olivia at MooMama is Paying it Forward. Last I checked there was still room to comment to get a little surprise from her and the opportunity to keep it going. Here's a peak at the others from my Pay It Forward post: Thanks, Rhianne and Joyce, for posting your goodies up! I thoroughly enjoyed sending them to you three gals.

And these pretties:

{images via here and here}

Have a glorious weekend!

Awesome Book!

I just finished a book that I completely recommend. The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch is not your typical summer beach read, but it's chock full of life lessons and inspiration. And it's surprisingly light-hearted and easy to read, not at all what I'd anticipated.

The book was inspired by the author's lecture he gave as a college professor called "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams". It was about "the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment because time is all you have... and you may find one day that you have less than you think." The author knew all about this, as he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. This book is a collection of Randy Paucsh's philosophies on living, including life lessons he wanted to pass on to his kids.

With chapters titled Don't Obsess Over What People Think, Tell the Truth, Look For the Best In Everybody, and A Bad Apology is Worse Than No Apology, there are valuable lessons to be learned through his anecdotal life stories. One standout piece of advice is one he wishes to pass on to his 18 month old daughter: "When it comes to men who are romantically interested in you, it's really simple. Just ignore everything they say and only pay attention to what they do." It's one straight-forward nugget of wisdom after another, written without preaching at all.

It got me thinking of the life I'm living and the lessons I want to pass on to my kids. Does the life I'm living exemplify what I think is really important? Is my example the one I want my kids to remember? It definitely has me marinating in my thoughts quite a bit. It's a good book to do that. It just hit the spot.

Any suggestions on what to read next?

Spending Hiatus: Virtual Shopping

Okay, so it's a known fact that I have exactly no money right now, and I'm really okay with this. I'm surprising myself with the lack of urgency I feel toward future spending. So far, simplification has really been quite nice. (Really.) I truly hope that when the money is actually flowing again, that I can keep this frame of mind and limit the money I allow to flow back out.

With that being said, I do daydream of shopping sprees... Here are some sweet pieces that are doing little sugarplum dances in my head right now:

wardrobe wants by PS~Erin featuring J Crew

So some are outrageously priced and some I could probably scrape the change together to purchase today. It doesn't really matter at the moment because this virtual shopping spree was oh-so-satitisfying. I think I can make it until, say, next week's checkpoint. What items would be on your shopping spree list? Thanks for indulging with me!

Announcing a Winner and a Download too

The winner of the 8x10 print from inspiration board is:

And because I just don't like not being able to choose everybody, I made this page of downloadable quotes available to you if you'd like. They are just some of the quotes that I've used in previous posts, and I thought they'd make the perfect pocket-sized inspiration. Being about the size of a business card, they'll easily fit in a blank spot on the bulletin board, make a nice card drops, or even serve as gift tags. Just print them on some cardstock, cut out, and use. Enjoy:

Thanks to everyone who entered my giveaway! And thank you to Amy for sharing her beautiful photography with us. I can't wait to see which photos she puts in her shop next!

Meal Plan Monday

{image from Real Simple July 2009}

This month's Real Simple magazine has some delicious looking "20-minute summer meals". Our Friday/Saturday was inspired by the above picture. I've ripped out several others from this issue for future weeks, like the grilled pork chops with maple syrup sweet potatoes and the grilled bread with zucchini, ricotta, and basil. They all looks so delicious! Here's how our week looks and an easy, recipe to follow:

Monday/Wednesday:

chicken salad (yu-um store-bought sonoma brand & it was on sale!)

hawaiian rolls

green salad

Tuesday:

mac & cheese

(Try this trick I just learned of: mix in baby food sweet potatoes. They've no clue!)

fruit

Thursday/Friday:

chicken skewers on the grill

cucumber/tomato salad (see way easy recipe below)

grilled corn

Saturday/Sunday:

spaghetti & meatballs (a budget-friendly, go-to meal for us)

What is on the menu at your home?

And don't forget to enter my giveway for an 8x10 print from inspiration board. I'll be announcing the winner tomorrow morning!

End of the Week Links

Here are some things that caught my eye this week:

Knit dresses: Aaaahhhh! Any of these dresses from J.Crew would be welcome in my closet. They just say summertime comfiness to me.

I love looking at other people's houses, so when I visited Paula's blog yesterday to find a whole slew of links to home tours, I was quite satisfied. This mirrored hallway is perfect in every way to me.

While doing a search for silhouettes on etsy, this great jewelry shop popped up. These necklaces would be the perfect accessories for my vast collection of white Ts. So uniquely cool.

I found the greatest tumblr site (via makeundermylife... Thanks for the directions!) called What I Wore. You really should go check it out. So fun and wardrobe inspiring.

Here's a list of some good children's books about dads. I have to add My Daddy and I to the list because my daughter gave my hubby this book on his first father's day. It's a good one, as are all P.K. Hallinan's books. This particular one is one of my son's current faves. (I'm sad to say that My Mommy and I isn't making the cut right now.)

Remember that great wardrobe consultation from this End of the Week Links? Well, there's one being given away over at Kotori... Tonya will be announcing the winner on Monday. And don't forget to enter the one over here from yesterday.

Good to remember and warming my heart:

Have a good weekend!

Happy Father's Day to all those wonderful dads out there!

Oh Wow: A Giveaway!

I love this photograph:

A few weeks ago I highlighted a necklace on my End of the Week Links from the b-line shop. While chatting with the designer about her jewelry (which is so, so cute!), I learned that Amy recently opened another shop, inspiration board, selling her photography "inspired by the beauty in the world around us". This incredibly talented gal (Oh, and she's a teacher too!) has offered to give one of the prints in her new shop to a Perfect Sentiment reader. How great is that?! The winner will get their choice of an 8x10 print from Amy's shop, inspiration board.

Take a look at a few more of her shots:

To enter just become a follower and leave a comment about your favorite print from Amy's shop or the photo from her flickr photostream you'd most like to see become a print in her shop.

I'll announce the winner (via random.org, if I can keep it on the down-low from the kids) on this coming Tuesday, June 23rd. Be sure to check out Amy here (where she's got a giveaway going on too!), here, and here... You won't be disappointed!

Spending Hiatus: Filling the Gaps for Free

What can you do when the decorating budget is at $0? Why rearrange, of course! This is a little habit of mine. I tend to rearrange our house a lot. It always satisifies some need I have. In this case it's my new sofa/reupholstered chair need that we're trying to ward off. Let me know what you think... Here's our family room from various angles before I scooted the furniture around and after. 

Honest opinions welcomed! I'm not settled on anything, and chances are, it'll be different by the end of the week, but my itch has been scratched for now... And it didn't cost a thing!

Other free activities planned for the week:

• Go to the library. We've been hitting up this joint for book, cds, and movies. It's a gold mine!
  
• Ride bikes: My daughter is officially two-wheeling it and can't get enough. Remind me to take a picture of what we've rigged up for the little guy since he has to ride too.
  
• Write and mail a letter to sweet Aunt Doris. We'll probably throw in some artwork as well.
  
• Swim. Thank goodness for good friends and a grandmother with pools!

Any other free (or very inexpensive) ideas to fill our time and help curb potential spending in the entertainment department?

{For any new readers, here's a little background... I'm currently on spending hiatus due to this. I made it official here, and you can look at my journey thus far here. So far, so good. I will continue to attest that being on spending hiatus when you have no money is quite simple. I know it will get tougher when our income changes. (I sure do look forward to those challenges!) In the meantime, I'm enjoying the simplification process and working to change my mindset toward spending and things.}

Sure! I'll Play Along

I'm not sure what makes "tags" all together different to me than email-forwards, but for some reason I really, really love reading these. I'll delete a FW: in a second, but I'm sucked right into a tag. Go figure. If you don't share the love for these, I completely understand... My apologies for today because I just had to play along with a few...

Alek at From the Right Bank to the Left Coast passed along 6 uninteresting things that make me happy. There is much to choose from, but here are the first 6 uninteresting things that brought a smile to my face as I thought of them:

1. cheeseburgers

2. middle names (Mine's Leigh. What's yours?)

3. multiple cups of coffee

4. reality tv (I have to admit that I miss this genre the most during this stint without tv. Sad, but true.)

5. pinot noir

6. vegging at home with no plans

That was way too easy. I really should look into getting less uninteresting.

And Kristin at BonBon Rose had a long list of tags to pass along/choose from. I thought this one was especially fun: Open your first photo file and post the 10th picture from it. Now I had already resolved to kinda-sorta cheat and go check my old laptop if I came across a not-so-becoming picture, but I was safe. My first was a whole folder of transferred over pictures of my sweet, sweet miniature schnauzers. I've mentioned them before as being our first babies. We so miss them (one passed away 2 years ago and the other not quite 8 months ago). Meet Sherman Munson and Ruthie Belle, (arguably the cutest and best dogs ever):

I especially like Kristin's Friend Award she received and passed on. I haven't seen it floating around as of yet. As stated, "These blogs are exceedingly charming. These bloggers aim to find friends and be friends. They aren't interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who then choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."

If you've ever left a sweet message on this here blog, please accept this award. It's so nice to hear your feedback and support, and I really do appreciate it. And go ahead and choose a tag (or two) while you're at it, and play along. Be sure to let me know or link back because I'd love to read more about you.

If you got to this point (phew!), thanks for hanging out with me. Be sure to check back because I'm working on a little giveaway that I'm excited about. Happy Tuesday to you!

Monday Meal Planning

{image from here}

We're continuing on with the grilling and salad trend, as to minimize use of our oven. I baked brownies this weekend and I swear the whole house was 5 degrees hotter. Baking must be done because, well, it's delicious, but I'll cut down where I can.

This week will be a good week on the grocery bill... We have ground buffalo in the freezer for the burgers. We're making the cheater's version of fish tacos (Thanks, Tonya for the head's up on these!) with The Ultimate Fish Sticks (from Costco: de-li-cious!) that are already in the freezer as well . The only meat needed is chicken and then some fresh fruits and veggies. That makes me happy!

The Club Salad with Guacamole dressing is from Rachel Ray's 30 Minute Meals. It does take me well over 30 minutes to prepare, but I'm not the best multi-tasker in the kitchen. It's a yummy one though!

Our week looks like this:

Monday:

Club Salad

Guacamole dressing

Tuesday:

mac and cheese

fruit salad

Wednesday:

BLTs

Thursday:

Fish Tacos

Friday/Saturday:

buffalo burgers

salad

Sunday:

family bbq

What's cooking at your house this week?

Eleven Years Ago...

I was doing this:

As wonderful as that day was, today is even better. I had no clue then the capacity of love I had to give or the amount that would be given to me. It's a bunch of hard work, but I wouldn't want to do it with anyone else.

Miss Aimee guest posted here about "How to Have a Wonderful Marriage". She's right on. I'm still working on #7, but that's what makes it so sweet. A favorite quote of mine by William Shakespeare sums it up. When you give to someone, you get back more than you can even imagine.

Happy Anniversary Hon! Love you!!

End of the Week Links

Good stuff I stumbled across this week:

Have you been to The Lettered Cottage blog? She has a bazillion readers, but I'm just discovering her. I'm blown away by her photo consultation service. Take a look at her visions by just rolling your mouse over the picture. Amazing!

I don't think I'll ever tire of chalk board paint. I'm not sure if I could convince my hubby to sign off on this use for it, but it would certainly be a frig update for us. Love it!

I love discovering new blogs... This one, kindovermatter, is especially nice because it's all about being nice. How nice is that?! (Thanks, moomama, for directing me there!)

I'm in love with these dining chairs... The numbered (or stenciled?) fabric is just so perfect! It just might very well be replacing the tired old toile currently on my dining chairs, if I can find something similarly cool.

I'll be paying it forward by sending a little surprise to each of these three kind ladies: Joyce, MooMama, and Rhianne. Yay! Everybody feel free to keep it going around the town.

I'll end on this thought and image:

Happy Weekend!

Simple Delights and Paying It Forward

Jill over at at The Good Life For Less put together a neat little swap recently. The theme was simple delights, with the emphasis on "simple, simple, simple... to inspire one another and make this really fun!" We were to put together a small package containing a little something to brighten our partner's day. I was excited to be paired with Christina because reading her blog is one of my daily simple delights. When my package arrived, I have to admit that I was already smiling before I opened the package. (It's so nice to get a big, puffy envelope in the mail!) Inside were three vintage scarves, a set of postcards, and a sweet handwritten note, all of which were so delightful! Thank you Christina! You can check out what I mail to my sweet partner here, and a couple of the other exchanges here and here. Thanks, Jill, for organizing this. Count me in on the next one too!

While reading another blog, BonBon Rose, I came across another great way to spread some joy. Here's a fun take on Paying It Forward: The first three people who leave a comment on this post today will receive a little surprise from me. The only catch is that you have to pay it forward to three more people. You don't have to have a blog to do this, just promise to keep it going by surprising three more people however you'd like. I wasn't quick enough to make the first three on their post, but I thought it was too sweet to not pass along.

Both are such simple ideas yet so delightful. Some of my simple pleasures are... drinking coffee... getting mail... shopping with no time constraints... sleeping in... toddler leg hugs... Aaahhh! What are yours?

Spending Hiatus: Oops!

Okay, so I fell off the no-spending wagon. I was doing so good. I was attributing my success to two things: 1) Staying out of shops/malls/super stores and 2) Not having any extra money to spend anyways. Well, the latter reason unfortunately still holds true, but this week I had to go to Marshall's (LOVE this store!), my favorite mall, and Target. 

It was a string of tests... I faired pretty well at Marshall's. I did stop in the shoe department to adore some wedges, but I managed to only make the gift purchase that had brought me there. Then a few days later I had to go into the mall to price some paper supplies. I planned this out by checking the online directory to be sure I went in through the closest entrance, as to minimize potentially hazardous window shopping. I was in and out. It was only slightly painful. Then yesterday I took my daughter to Target to get some flip flops (could her foot already be a size 1?!) and that's when the breakdown happened... I could feel myself weakening. I managed to make it out of there with just a pair of $2.99 rubber flips (for me) and a hair accessory. (I'm not really sure how the clearance red tagged hair accessory landed in my basket, but it sure is cute!) I spent all of $5, which I know is nothing, but the weakness showed. And that led to an etsy purchase later that evening. (How does one pass up on a piece of art I already loved made by one of the nicest artist / bloggers who is currently having a 50% off birthday week sale? I certainly do not know!)

I really have no guilt at all about it (should I?). It actually felt soooo good. I just hope it doesn't start a downward spiral for me. I do admit that I secretly wish that my breakdown had happened at Marshall's so I'd quite possibly walked away with those wedges rather than the flips... Maybe a little guilt would be good thing. 

The Comparison Trap

{image via here}

Have you ever walked into a friend's home for the first time and immediately felt envious? Have you eyed a completely put-together woman with her immaculate child politely walking next to her, and wondered why you're not as put-together as her? When reading a blog, have you ever thought, "Wow, I wish I could do that?" It's the comparison trap.

I've been thinking a lot about this lately, about how we as women tend to compare ourselves to other women and ultimately judge how we're measuring up by these perceived standards. When we size up the other women to see how we fare, one of two things happen. We either deem ourselves inferior or we conclude that we are superior. Neither one feels very good to the soul.

I remembered reading about just this thing recently and I finally dug it back up. Stephanie at Stephmodo so eloquently wrote about this topic here and posted a follow-up here. Both of her entries are so worth the time. 

I like that she hits upon blogging in her follow up entry. She states that "judging a person by his/her blog is even more inaccurate... remember a blog shares edited information". This is so true. 

It's good to remember that age old saying, "you can't judge a book by it's cover". There's always more to the story. At the same time as we are allowing ourselves to pale in comparison to someone else, another person could be elevating you in their eyes. Let's even the playing field and see our own worth. It's huge.

Meal Planning Monday

It's the start of the first official week of summer for our household. We spent the weekend outside and plan to do lots more of that. It's going to be a week of as little cooking as possible to help ease us into our new norm, and I'm so looking forward to it. Here's goes:

Monday/Wednesday:

Pasta Salad (recipe below)

Tuesday:

pizzas (just me and the kids)

Thursday/Friday:

grilling out something (whatever's on sale this week)

spinach and strawberry salad

french bread

Saturday:

BBQ with friends

Sunday:

anniversary dinner out (Thank you so much, Lindsey, for the gc!)

There could be various combinations of this pasta salad, but here's the one we'll be having this week. How can you go wrong with avocados and bacon?! It's a tasty one:

And a few pictures from our weekend... This was one of my favorite moments. I had just come out from putting my son down for a nap and convincing my daughter to "rest" in preparation for a later-than-normal night, and my husband said that he'd made an appointment for us in the backyard. He'd set up a game of washers (seriously, so fun!), poured a couple of adult beverages, and had a nice compilation of tunes playing. It felt like a little mini-getaway.

I want more of that this week! 

What's on your menu for the week?

End of the Week Links

Goodies from this week:

Have you seen the new love stamps? They really helped smooth the news that stamp prices had gone up again. These little works of art make me smile.

Here's a hair tutorial on how to get those beachy waves that I've tried and tried to master on my own hair. I'll be giving this a go and hoping I turn out looking just like Emily. Now wouldn't that be something?!

I have this sweet, little necklace saved as a favorite. Don't feel bad about snatching it up ... I'm sure this talented lady will make more!

Jill at The Good Life For Less has started offering a wardrobe consultation service. Jill's style is impeccable and she has a knack for putting together looks on a budget. Check out some of the wardrobe inspiration boards she's put together thus far.

How cute is this cap?! My sweet hopefully-future-sister-in-law got us both one. It's going to make me a hat girl, I just know it.

I found this article a good read approaching our new summer time "routine".

I've been reading and rereading this quote and working on my current frame of mind, namely the delicious part:

And what better way to kick off our official summer vacation than this photo:

Happy HAPPY weekend to you!

Dreaming of... Breakfast Bars

I'm a sucker for a kitchen with a breakfast bar. It just says family to me... with the kids pulled up doing homework or helping with the cooking. It also makes entertaining a breeze as well, with plenty of places to lay out food. My future kitchen will have a breakfast bar. Any of these will do:

And of course, I'll need some fabulous barstools to go along with said breakfast bar!

{I think all of these images are from Metropolitan Home or Elle Decor via here.}

Spending Hiatus: Nature's Provisions

We are so excited that our plum tree in the backyard decided to bear fruit this season. We lived here six years before we realized we had a plum tree, as it had never developed ripe fruit (or at least that we'd noticed... We don't have the greenest of thumbs around here). 3 years ago we had big, juicy red plums to eat. Last year nothing. And then this past weekend, it happened again. They aren't quite as robust this year... I'm sure it has something to do with the temperature/rainfall/etc. They are mighty tasty though! 

We had a marvelous Sunday picking plums and eating them as we went. My 6 year old claimed that this was one of her "favorite days ever". (This is the same child that has been exhibiting some my-parents-are-no-longer-cool tendencies.) Something about the whole experience was magical and no one wanted it to end. Well, no one except for the squirrels. We had to battle a few and decided we needed to pick a few almost ripe ones because these furry guys were getting them before we could.

I also got to see a side of my husband I didn't know existed. My big, hunky man who was climbing trees to provide for his family apparently has a bit of a squirrel phobia. There was a stand-off or two and I'm not quite sure I'd have bet on my guy. Pretty funny.

We ended the day having satisfied our daily fruit intake, with a load of plums, and a smaller grocery bill for the week. Gotta love that!