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Ten Things I’m Glad We Did While Building A New Home

By: Stephanie

If you are building a new home, be sure to think about these ten things I’m so glad we did!

This post contains affiliate links to products mentioned for your convenience. 

A list of things to consider when building a new home. Some great suggestions on this list!

 

If you are considering building a new home, it might help to hear from someone who has been there and lived to tell the tale. We survived the experience of building a custom home! Yay! That means you probably will too, right? Of course! Being able to build really is a dream come true, but it can also be stressful and intimidating. It can be hard to sort through all of the limitless options and decide what is best and most cost efficient. In the spirit of helping you sort through some of the clutter, here are ten things I’m glad we did when we built our house. 

  1.  We changed the roof line. In the original plans we bought from an architect, the roof line was much more complicated, and therefore more expensive to build. Our son’s room was supposed to jut out on the left side of the house, as you are looking at the picture. Instead, our contractor suggested that we extend the roofline to make the other rooms flush with that one. That gave us extra square footage in our office and the kids’ bathroom. We use both of those rooms every day and I’m so glad we made the decision to make them larger. Even with the extra cost of materials for adding footage, it was still cheaper than doing the roof the original way that it was designed because with the new straighter roof line we were able to buy pre-made trusses instead of paying for the labor to have a custom roof built on-site. 
  2. We took windows and doors out of the design. (I know, right?!) This seems odd, doesn’t it? But we’ve been living in this house since 2013 and I’m still glad we did it. In the original design there was a door leading outside from the bedroom that our daughters share. I knew I didn’t want them to have a door now while they’re little and I definitely didn’t want them to have a door when they are teenagers. There are four other doors around our house, it’s not like that one was going to be missed by someone who bought this house in the future, if we ever sell it. So we took the door out. We also took out windows that seemed redundant or unnecessary. (For example, I didn’t particularly want a window in the toilet closet in our master bathroom. Or if a room already had 2 windows, we took out the third.) The windows we did keep we made as large as we could. Whenever we entertain we get comments about how much natural light we have, so I’ve never missed the windows we removed, but taking them out did save us a good bit of money, which let us do other upgrades. We also changed one of the windows in our bedroom to a french door. I don’t think the crew (or my husband) were too happy with me about that change because I got that idea and was very insistent on it while they were literally framing the wall it was supposed to go in and they had to do it over. 
  3. We moved the laundry room. This is by far my favorite change we made to our house plans. In the original plans, the laundry was supposed to be in a hallway closet, just off of our garage. I knew that laundry in the hallway was one thing I really was not going to love. I have three small children and laundry is a constant losing battle. I didn’t want to see baskets of dirty laundry in my hallway every day. So I asked if we could possibly move the laundry area into our master bedroom closet. And they said yes! Our contractor tucked the washer and dryer under a set of stairs, so there is a laundry closet within our closet. We were able to turn the original laundry closet into a very large pantry.  That also freed up space where the original, smaller pantry was supposed to be located, so we were also able to add a wet bar off of our kitchen with space for a wine cooler.  

    our laundry closet

    our laundry closet

  4. We thought about where the sun rises and sets and how we wanted to orient the house around it. I did not want the sun shining into my children’s bedroom’s at 5am if I could help it, and the nice thing about building a custom home is that you can help it. It is important to think about those kinds of things in advance because some things, like paint colors, you can always change in the future if you change your mind, but some decisions are forever.
  5. We decided to go with IKEA cabinets in our kitchen. Don’t let their reputation for cheap dorm room furniture fool you. You know the kitchens renovations you see on home improvement shows? Those are often IKEA cabinets in the after photos. In terms of performance and durability, they actually outperformed several more expensive brands in a study done by Consumer Reports, and they are very affordable. The money we saved by going with cabinets from IKEA allowed us to do several other upgrades that we would not have been able to afford otherwise. You can read more about our IKEA kitchen and see photos in this post. 
  6. We spent the extra money and got real wood floors. Not engineered wood or wood veneer on top of a layer of plywood. Actual wood planks that can be sanded and refinished over time, more than once if need be. The same kind of flooring that you see in 100-year-old houses. We have 3 kids and a dog, so they already have a few small scratches, but we expected that and I think they just add to the character. After all, we built this house so we could live in it. 
  7. We had our contractor install Craftsman style moldings. He made these by hand out of stock lumber. Other than the extra labor cost, which wasn’t a lot because he had budgeted to be installing trim anyway, they actually didn’t cost very much more than generic molding. It was one of the biggest differences in terms of adding character and charm and turning this house into our home. You can find a book with plans for moldings like this here: Shop Drawings for Craftsman Interiors: Cabinets, Moldings and Built-Ins for Every Room in the Home . 
    foyer
  8. We did a detailed plan for where we wanted outlets, and then we walked through the house again with the electrician. He thought about things that I never would have, like adding an outlet in our pantry to keep small appliances, like our dust-buster, charged, and we thought about things as we were doing our walk-through that we wanted to add or change. If we had just handed over the initial plans, I’m not sure I would be as happy with our final lighting and outlet situation as I am.  
  9. We added a water pump in the back yard. We have several acres of land and I knew that if I planted large gardens or raised chickens in the future (I’m still trying to talk Eddie into the chickens) that it would be a major pain to get water to that area of our property. While the yard was torn up for utilities anyway it was pretty easy and inexpensive to add a pump. Having the water pump also came in handy while we were building the house because that was hooked up far before there was any access to water in the house itself. 
  10. We took a video of everything inside the walls before they put the insulation and drywall up. This was at the suggestion of my uncle, and I’m glad we did it. Now we have pictures and video documentation of where all of the wiring and duct work is behind our walls in case we ever need to access it or try to avoid it during future renovation projects. 

The finished project is something we couldn’t be happier with. It truly did feel like home from the moment we moved in because we had a say in every single aspect of the design and construction process. I know a lot of people say once they have gone through the process of building a custom home that they would never do it again, but that wasn’t our experience at all. I loved working with our contractor and I would do it again in a heartbeat. As a matter of fact, we hired him again a year later to turn our basement into an in-law suite for my mom. 

Our finished house:

finished house

You might also want to check out how we installed our stone fireplace and how we built our floating fireplace mantle. 

If you liked this blog post, don’t forget to pin it! I would also love to connect with you on Pinterest, especially if you are also building a new home!

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Click here to see Ten MORE Things I’m Glad We Did!

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Philly Cheesesteak Casserole

By: Stephaniecomment

This is an easy kid-friendly 5 ingredient Philly Cheesesteak Pie family dinner recipe. It only takes a few minutes to throw together, and might just become a weeknight favorite!

I make no claims that a recipe called “cheesesteak casserole” is especially heart healthy, but I can tell you that it is family-friendly because the last time I made it my son took thirds. I modified it from an old Pampered Chef recipe for pinwheel sandwiches. I didn’t want to take the time to do all of that individual wrapping, so I just threw all of the ingredients together in one casserole-style dish. 

Philly Steak & Cheese Bake

2 or 3 packages of refrigerated crescent roll dough
1/2 lb thinly sliced deli roast beef, or more depending on how full you want your pie. 
Several slices thinly sliced deli cheese, I used white American
1/2 of a green pepper, diced
1/4 of a medium onion, diced

Preheat your oven to 375. 

Grease a small baking dish or pie plate or line it with parchment paper (I’d still recommend spraying the parchment with cooking spray). 

In a skillet, saute diced onion and pepper until tender.
Shred roast beef and add to skillet to heat through.

At this point you can either choose to pre-bake the bottom layer of your dough for 3-5 minutes or just lay the raw dough flat in the pan and accept that if you bake everything at once the bottom might have a little bit of a doughy, dumpling-like consistency when everything is finished. I’ve never pre-baked the bottom layer and we’ve all survived. 😉

Lay a few cheese slices on top of dough.
Pour beef, onion, and pepper mixture into dish
Top with additional cheese slices
Fold dough over mixture
Bake at 375 for 15-20 minutes or until top is golden brown. Everything inside is cooked, so you just need to cook crescent dough through. 

This pie is very dense. The first time I made it I thought it was going to be too small to feed our whole family, but we had left-overs even after some people took seconds. I recommend serving it with something light and healthy, like a fresh garden salad or fruit. 

 

IKEA Kitchen Cabinet Update: How we feel about our IKEA kitchen 2 years later.

By: Stephanie28 Comments

Posts on this blog contain affiliate links to some products mentioned. 

IKEA kitchen cabinets are a big project to take on yourself. Are they worth it? What are the pros and cons? Read what one couple has to say about their experience two years after installing their IKEA kitchen.

 

It has been two years since I took these pictures of Eddie putting together our IKEA kitchen cabinets. I still get quite a few emails asking how we like our kitchen and how our cabinets are holding up to everyday wear and tear, so I thought an update post was in order. 

I have hesitated to share the finished pictures of my kitchen on the blog because it certainly isn’t “Pinterest perfect.” We haven’t finished building our range hood and we still haven’t installed a backsplash. But I know those are dumb reasons to keep from sharing our real life with you, so here it is- fingerprints on the refrigerator and all. 

We purchased about 70% of our kitchen from IKEA. The cabinets, sink, faucet, and many of the appliances were purchased there. The flooring, counters, hardware and refrigerator were bought from other stores. In this post I will walk you through the pros and cons of our IKEA kitchen. 

IKEA cabinets customized

 

The PROs

  • When we were building our house I knew I wanted white Shaker style cabinets. IKEA offered the most affordable option with the best warranty in that category by far. 
  • They performed very impressively in a study done by Consumer Reports. The basic IKEA model outperformed ten other brands of higher cabinet grades, including names like Thomasville and KraftMaid.  Direct quote from Consumer Reports: “The ready-to-assemble Ikea outperformed much more expensive units, despite its low price. High-quality drawer hardware and doors and a robust mounting strip helped.”
  • That’s true. I really do like the drawers. They are metal and they are deep. They are strong and they hold a lot of stuff.  

deep drawers in IKEA cabinetsbeadboard to cover the side of the IKEA island

  • We were able to get all of the custom features we wanted within our budget. I wanted a pull-out trash can, a panel-front dishwasher, a separate oven and cooktop, and a double bowl farmhouse sink. I also wanted a large island with outlets in either side. And I wanted my microwave to be built-in, but away from the stove, so it wouldn’t be in my face when I was cooking. 
  • We bought our kitchen during IKEA’s 20% off sale and saved so much money that we were able to afford to get everything on my list, plus additional cabinetry to do a built-in wet bar in another part of our house that hadn’t even originally been in our house plans, and we still stayed within our budget. Plus, we were then able to afford Corian counters instead of the laminate the was originally in our builder’s quote. 
  • Out of all of the online planning tools that I tried to use throughout our house-building process, I found IKEA’s kitchen planner to be the easiest to use and most accurate. 

ikea-kitchen-plan

 

  • I really appreciated their larger options for over-the-refrigerator cabinets. We have very high, vaulted ceilings in our great room (the area that the kitchen opens into), and I wanted tall cabinets anyway. But it is a personal pet peeve of mine when cabinets over the refrigerator are sunken back, impossible to reach, and short. I think it looks dumb and it’s not practical at all.  
  • We were able to put electricity in the sides of the island by covering the sides with panels of bead board. Normally IKEA islands have a seam that runs vertically down the side if you are butting two sets of cabinets back to back, like we did in our large island. We couldn’t set our cabinets that close together because we had to leave a gap for the plumbing for the dishwasher. The bead board was an easy, inexpensive solution to cover the gap between the front-facing and rear-facing cabinets in our island. We took one of the cabinet doors to Lowe’s and had the paint department color match it. They did a beautiful job. Then we painted the sides of the island to match the rest of the cabinets. 

IKEA kitchen island

IKEA kitchen cabinets

 

white IKEA cabinets

ikea cabinets with farmhouse sink

hide the trash and dishwasher

 

  • Another thing I love about the IKEA cabinets is the hinges. The slow-close feature that costs so much extra at all of the other retailers came as a very affordable upgrade on my cabinets. 
  • I also really love that the garbage can and the dishwasher are hidden. I think I said that already, but it’s worth repeating. 
  • I LOVE my sink. Love it, love it, love it, love it. I would buy it again and marry it. It’s the DOMSJO double bowl white farmhouse sink. And if you have priced any other double bowl farmhouse sinks, you know there is no way you are finding another one for $300 that comes brand new with a 25 year warranty. My sink is huge. Each side fits a million dishes, huge pots, and I like that it is divided. It’s also deep, but no too deep. 
  • We also bought our dishwasher, stove, oven, and microwave from IKEA and so far (knock on wood) we haven’t had any issues with any of them. 
  • There are tons of affordable customization options for inside of the cabinets, under cabinet lighting, etc offered in the store as well. 

IKEA oven and microwave

Ok, let’s move on to the cons. Are you ready? 

The CONs

  • I have to be brutally honest. Just because you have successfully put together IKEA furniture does not mean that you are prepared to assemble an entire IKEA kitchen. It is a very complicated and sometimes frustrating undertaking. I felt very fortunate that Eddie is a professional engineer and we had a contractor and crew on-site during this process. Even then, and even working in a brand new, totally level space sometimes we ran into complications we didn’t anticipate, like the kitchen planning software not taking into account that we would need a space for the dishwasher plumbing in the island, which would therefore leave a gap between all of the other cabinets. If I had taken on this project by myself I 100% would have given up and hired someone to do it for me. (I say that as a woman who has confidently designed and built her own furniture and knows how to use power tools.)  Know your limits. This probably is not something you can do by yourself in one weekend.  
  • We had to think about what to do with the cabinets while our house was being built. Since they had to be stored somewhere and we were renting a small, temporary apartment at the time, we rented a storage unit to keep them in. That was an additional expense and kind of a pain. We would put together each cabinet at our rental apartment, then drive it over to our storage unit for safe keeping. We were under a time crunch to get all of the cabinets put together by the time that the construction crew was ready to work on our kitchen so that we wouldn’t slow down the progress on the rest of our house, so that our new house would be finished in time for us to move out of our rental apartment when the that short-term lease was up.  
  • This is just a matter of personal taste, but I am a little bummed that the new gray IKEA cabinets were not an option when we were building our house. I really like those and I might have chosen them, at least for an accent or in the island. 
  • There is no white base board option for under the dishwasher.  The only way to get the trim flush would have been to take the black trim off of the bottom of our dishwasher and my husband didn’t want to take apart a brand new appliance, so we left it like it was. That means there is a small gap in our trim under our dishwasher. That’s really a very minor complaint. I actually forgot about it until I saw the pictures I took today. 
  • As much as I love my sink (and I do!) I have 2 complaints about it: The first one is that it is really hard to clean all of those decorative ridges in the top. The second is that I don’t love that there is only one hole and therefore only really one option for a pull-down sprayer if I want a faucet with a sprayer in my kitchen, which I do. I really prefer to have a separate sprayer so that we can attach a water filter to the faucet for our drinking water. IKEA faucets (even the one on my wet bar) don’t seem to be compatible with Brita or similar water filters. 
  • I really, really like my kitchen. I don’t have a lot of negative things to say about it, other than it’s not quite finished yet.  I can’t blame IKEA for us never getting around to installing a backsplash, but I do wish they had some nice wooden decorative range hood options to match the cabinets. I really hate the industrial style metal ones they have in the store. They don’t match the Craftsman style look of the rest of our house at all. I don’t even really love my stainless steel appliances, but I married an engineer who does like that look, and I didn’t want an entirely white kitchen anyway. In regards to the rage hood, right now we are stuck building something custom and we just haven’t gotten to that yet because we are busy parenting three small kids. 

I know our kitchen looks like the kitchens in the IKEA showroom, which is a negative if you go by the comments on lot of message boards, but honestly I don’t really care because I like the kitchens in the IKEA showroom. 

UPDATE: 

We did get around to building a wooden range hood. I love the way it turned out! 

Build a wooden range hood with IKEA cabinets

FURTHER UPDATE:

We also got around to installing our backsplash…eventually. We chose to go with thin bricks, individually laid. (You can get the brick we used through my Amazon affiliate link here: Brick Backsplash. We followed the directions recommended by the manufacturer to install it.)

Ikea kitchen cabinets with custom range hood and brick backsplash

For more about my sink, check out how I clean it in this post: 

how to clean a white sink

How to Make a Scrunchie (and Some Memories in the Process)

By: Stephanie2 Comments

How to Make a Scrunchie

 

When my grandmother passed away last year she left behind a massive collection of decorative handkerchiefs. My sister and I divided them up between ourselves and the ones I took have been sitting on a shelf in my closet collecting dust ever since. 

with Grandy

When I started working with Nickelodeon® this year to coordinate the Middle School to the Max party for the BlogU conference, I thought about Grandy a lot. My grandmother would have loved everything that BlogU stands for. She would have loved to see the connections that women were making with each other, she would have loved that I own my own business, she would have loved the creativity and the energy and the learning, and even the “creative language” that sometimes finds its way into the presentations.

I wanted a way to take her with me this year, at least in spirit. So I took one of those fancy decorative handkerchiefs and I cut it into pieces. I knew she wouldn’t care. I could just hear her saying, “Go ahead, I was only going to blow my nose in the thing.” I turned it into a scrunchie because the theme of this year’s party was #MiddleSchoolAwkward and when I was in middle school in the 90’s I always had a scrunchie on my wrist, many of them I made myself with the very method I’m about to show you. So in honor of Grandy and her fancy hankies, here is how to make a hair scrunchie: 

What you need:

  • 2 long rectangular strips of fabric, about 3 inches thick.
  • 1 strip of elastic, the diameter of the scrunchie you’d like to make
  • 1 safety pin
  • thread
  • a sewing machine or needle

How to make your own schrunchie

  1. Place the right sides of the fabric together and sew the long sides together, leaving both short ends open. 
  2. Turn the fabric tube you have created right-side-out.
  3. Attach the safety pin to one end of the elastic and slide the elastic through the fabric tube, “scrunching” the fabric as you go.
  4. Sew the ends of elastic together and place the elastic inside of the scrunched fabric.
  5. Sew the fabric shut and you have yourself a genuine homemade scrunchie.    

Last Saturday night I took my newly made scrunchie with me and I wore it proudly on my left wrist all night during our Middle School to the Max party. We celebrated the premiere of Nickelodeon’s ® new show 100 Things To Do Before High School ™ and decked ourselves out in our most awkward gear. I even bought fake braces for the occasion. It was a blast and I was glad to have the memento with me to remember Grandy by.

 #AwkwardMiddleSchool photos

 

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Nickelodeon®. All opinions are my own. 

Five Ways to Get Involved In Your Child’s Education

By: Stephanie1 Comment

Tips from a teacher for how to get involved in your child's education

Are you looking for ways to get involved in your child’s education? 

I am excited to be an ambassador this year for the #FairFundingPA campaign that is encouraging parents to get involved and use social media to let their legislators know that the way education is funded in our state is important.

In my life before staying home with my kids, I was an elementary school teacher and a gifted specialist. One of the most frequently asked questions I got from parents was about ways they could get more involved and help their children learn. Many parents wanted to be a bigger part of the school experience, but just weren’t quite sure how to go about it. Here are a few easy ways to bring some hands-on involvement into your child’s education.

  1. Visit the Campaign for Fair Education Funding to learn more about other ways to get involved!  You can attend the upcoming rally in Harrisburg, contact your own legislator, or sign up for their email newsletter to learn about more ways to get involved. 
  1. Get Messy. Practice spelling or sight words in sidewalk chalk or in shaving cream on the dining room table. Do a science experiment together. Help to visualize math problems by adding or taking away chocolate chips, then eating them when the work is over. Find ways to take the drudgery out of schoolwork by turning it into more of an enjoyable hands-on experience.

painting

  1. Let them read what they want at home (within reason). Of course you should not give a second grader a copy of Romeo and Juliet, because the content would not be appropriate, but reading is reading. Graphic novels (more commonly referred to as comic books), magazines for kids, and books geared toward a specific interest are great ways to encourage reading. If you have a boy who loves reading Star Wars comics, don’t stress too much that he isn’t reading enough of a different genre. As we said, reading is reading. Your child is being exposed to many required texts at school. Reading at home should be as pleasurable as possible.
  2. Ask your child’s teacher how to get involved. Sometimes the best way to find out the answer to a question is simply to ask it. Your child’s teacher may have some volunteer opportunities in the classroom that you hadn’t realized were possibilities. Maybe you could stop in and be a guest reader before work one day. Perhaps the school is looking for speakers for career day, and you or your spouse would be a good fit. When I was teaching, I had a parent volunteer come in once a week and work one-on-one with my students on their spelling words. Other teachers in my school had “copy moms” who ran photocopies for them. There are a lot of ways to get involved!
  3. Use Technology to Your Advantage. It’s no secret that kids love their screen time. There are actually quite a few apps available now, like Reading Rainbow or Mr. Pencil that you could sit and do for a few minutes with a younger student on a tablet. If you are a tech-savvy parent, use that knowledge to your advantage. Join me and the rest of the #FairFundingPA ambassadors June 15 when we attempt to take over Twitter. 

twitter chat

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf o the Campaign for Fair Education Funding. All opinions are my own.

Kids Are Speaking Up About Their Schools And We Can Listen: Hear Me

By: Stephaniecomment

The Campaign for Fair Education Funding

 

 

 

I have told you before that education is a cause very close to my heart. I have been a public school teacher in three different states, and I now send my own kids to public school. So when my family got the opportunity to participate in the Hear Me portion of the Campaign for Fair Education Funding to “turn up the volume on kids’ voices,” I jumped at the chance to be heard!

My kids are fortunate that we have always had the option to choose our residence based on the reputation of the schools in the area. Living in a good school district is always our number one priority when choosing a place to live. But some families don’t have the option to just pick up and move if their schools aren’t delivering for their students, and right now the way that schools are funded is not entirely fair. 

I saw the differences for myself when I was a classroom teacher. When I taught in a high-income district, we had the money for resources like a fully stocked library, a science lab and state-of-the-art computers. We also had lower student-to-teacher ratios that certainly put our students at an advantage. Once the PTA raised $100,000 in one school year to put a shade cover over the playground. In comparison, in my low-income school the teachers were not even provided with sufficient paper to make copies for the tests required as part of the curriculum. I asked my church for donations of reams of paper, and the teachers acted like it was Christmas when they each got a pack in their mailbox. The difference is notable. A recent report by the National Center on Education Statistics found that Pennsylvania has the widest funding gap between wealthy and poor school districts of any state in the country. Per-pupil spending in Pennsylvania’s poorest districts is 33% less than in its
wealthiest districts.

#FairFundingPA

The Campaign for Fair Education Funding is proposing a change in the way that funding is distributed so that the funds are distributed more fairly and every student has access to the resources they deserve.  The campaign is made up of more than 50 organizations across the commonwealth, including education advocates, teachers, school administrators, business leaders and church groups. The goal is ensure that Pennsylvania adopts and maintains an adequate and equitable system of funding public education by 2016.  That means every public school must have the resources necessary to enable every child to meet state academic standards, be prepared for post-secondary success, and become productive, knowledgeable, and engaged adults—no matter where the student lives.

You can read more about the Campaign for Fair Education Funding here. 

But don’t take my word for it. Listen to my 6-year-old daughter, Abby, tell you about her school in her own words. Hear how she responds to the question, “How would you feel if your school didn’t have all of the things you needed?” Even a kindergartener knows that isn’t fair and it is disappointing.

 

 

If you see this text, then either Adobe Flash is not installed or you have JavaScript disabled.

In the Voice of a High Performing Kindergartener: AudioBy Abby, 6

 

 

 

 

 

Hear Me Website

We are fortunate that the only thing that Abby feels her school is missing is a slide. There are other students in our own state who are not so lucky. We are participating in this campaign for them. 

You can get involved and speak out for students across the state! Visit the Campaign for Fair Education Funding’s website to sign up for the e-newsletter for critical updates during the upcoming budget season. You’ll also find out how to contact your local legislators to urge them to prioritize public school funding and how to rally at the state capitol in Harrisburg on June 23. Plus, your child can voice his opinion, like Abby, through on school funding through the Hear Me platform.

Let me know how you are making your voice heard in the conversation about public school funding in the comment box below.

 

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of The Campaign for Fair Education Funding. All opinions are my own.

How I finally figured out how to wear white pants

By: Stephanie6 Comments

The secret to wearing white pants without them being completely see-through is really very easy.

I am not kidding you when I say that I have had several pairs of white pants hanging in my closet for YEARS and I have never worn any of them. I told you a little bit about that when I started trying my capsule wardrobe. 

Every spring or summer I would buy another pair and think this was going to be the time I finally figured out how to make them work for me. This time of year I see my friends wearing them and looking adorable and I think, “Why can’t I pull that off?” 

Then I would go home and try them, but no matter what I did, I just could not make them look good on my body. Some friends recommended buying white jeans for the thicker fabric, but I have not yet been able to find them in my size without major gapage going on at the back. (The pants in the picture are from Ann Taylor and a size 14.) 

This is how I finally figured out how to wear white pants….

What I tried: 

Granny Panties 

When I wore white pants with white full coverage underwear you could see the underwear in all of its glory. So I tried beige/nude underwear, and those still gave panty lines. Results: Nope. 

Thongs 

Some friends said they wore their white pants with thongs, but  when I tried that you could see my cellulite. That wasn’t exactly the look that I was going for and I am also getting way too old and curmudgeonly to submit to being uncomfortable at the same time that I am worrying about a whale tale hanging out every time I need to bend over to help one of my kids tie their shoes. Results: Nope. 

Body Shapers

I tried wearing some of my more expensive brand-name body shapers under the white pants (the kind that look like half a pair of panty hose and end at the thigh), but not only were they really uncomfortable because I was being squeezed in a corset, but you could still see a panty line and you could tell where they ended on my thighs. Results: Yeah, nope.

Going Commando

Not happening. I have ridiculously sensitive skin. I cannot even handle most laundry detergents touching me without breaking out into hives. I actually do need that extra layer of cotton protection because, as you can probably imagine, especially sensitive areas are, well, especially sensitive. Besides that, we were headed to a graduation party being held at a church. There was no way I was going in there without undergarments. 

Panty Hose 

I cut the feet off a pair of panty hose and tried that too. Surprisingly, that gave some of the best results. The only problem was that they weren’t quite thick enough, so you could still see a bit of a panty line. And if I was going to be wearing all of that business under my pants anyway, then I wasn’t going to bother with a thong for all of the other reasons I just listed. 

The panty hose gave me the idea for the one thing that finally did work…

White footless leggings!

 I put a pair of thin white footless leggings like these on top of full coverage underwear.  

I no longer had a visible panty line or completely see-through pants. 

This is not a trick I would recommend in mid-August in 98% humidity at an outdoor cook-out, obviously. But right now it is May. The day I wore this outfit to a graduation party it was 70 degrees and mild.  

And I FINALLY wore white pants in public. 

Mission accomplished. 

 

 

The easiest recipe for summer bbq’s and pot lucks: Lemon Sticks

By: Stephanie1 Comment

Lemon halves with peppermint sticks are a Baltimore tradition. What an easy thing to take to a summer pot luck! It is surprisingly refreshing. It tastes like you are drinking flavored lemonade through a candy straw.

Yesterday we opened our pool and had our first cookout of the season. My mom came up from Baltimore and brought lemon sticks with her. I love lemon sticks and I always forget that people who are not from Baltimore aren’t always familiar with them. 

Our friends who were visiting thought we were kidding when we told them to just drink through the peppermint like a straw. They really did think we were playing a joke on them and wouldn’t try it until they saw us do it first. But once they tried them they were hooked and said they were going to start taking them to cookouts, too. 

A lemon stick is just a half of a lemon with a porous peppermint stick in it. You have to use the soft, thick, porous kind of peppermint stick. Just drink through the peppermint like a straw and it tastes like you are drinking flavored lemonade. The juice from the lemon gets sweetened by the candy. 

It’s surprisingly refreshing and quite possibly the easiest recipe for summer of all time. 

Make sure, though, not to put the peppermint into the lemon until right before you serve them. The longer they sit out, the more the acid in the lemon eats through the peppermint sticks and the peppermint starts to dissolve after a while. 

They would also be a great addition to a lemonade stand this summer. 

Let me know if you try them!

 

UPDATE: For those of you who asked on Facebook where  you can get the kind of peppermint sticks that I am talking about, they do have them on Amazon. I’m adding a link here, although we usually just pick them up in the candy aisle of our regular grocery store. 

 

You may also like my Sweet Tea Vodka Marinated Pork Chops: 

grilled pork chops and pineapple

My Latest Stitch Fix

By: Stephanie2 Comments

What Stitch Fix sent in my latest fix

 

Lately I have earned a few referral credits from Stitch Fix. They add up pretty quickly because each time a friend decides to place an order through your link, you earn $25 in credit. Recently five people have placed orders through referral links on my Facebook page. It had been a while since I had placed an order with them, but since I had earned $125 in Stitch Fix credit, summer is coming, and I just got rid of most of the clothes in my closet, I went ahead and scheduled a fix. My friend Meredith from Mom of the Year was here on Tuesday and we played dress-up in my office while she helped me decide which pieces to keep. 

If you are not familiar with Stitch Fix, they are an online company that allows you to work with a stylist. You fill out a detailed survey about your size and your personal taste, then they send you 5 random items through the mail. You have no idea what is going to be in your “fix” until you open the box. Then you decide if you want to keep anything or if you want to send the clothes back. It’s very easy to send them back because they provide a stamped mail bag with your order. You just put whatever you don’t want in the bag and stick it in your mailbox. There is a $20 styling fee for the service, but if you decide to keep any of the clothes that $20 gets applied as a credit towards your order. 

The first few times I tried it I had a hard time finding a groove with my stylist, but I have found the more detailed feedback you provide about what you liked or didn’t like and why the more likely you are to get items that you love in your next fix. I do really appreciate not having to drag all three of my kids into a dressing room with me to try on clothes!

Here’s what they sent in this fix: 

Asymmetrical Sweater 

asymmetrical sweater

I actually really liked this sweatshirt because of the fabric, but it was super awkward. It was SO comfy and soft. I was tempted to keep it because of that. But the sleeves were ridiculously long, and I don’t think it was actually supposed to close. All of the pictures on the style cards they sent showed it open. When I zipped it there was an insane amount of extra fabric bunched inside giving me an extra pouch on my tummy. No thank you. This one got returned. 

Striped Skirt

Stitch Fix skirt

 

When I opened the box, I thought this one was going to be one of my favorites. I really liked the pattern and the fabric and the fact that it was neutral and classic. But it just wasn’t very flattering on me, so this one wasn’t a keeper after all. 

Black Shirt

black shirt

Let me start by saying that I did not like this shirt at all when I pulled it out of the box. I never would have chosen this shirt for myself. It reminds me of a marching band uniform. BUT one of the things I really like about Stitch Fix is that they get you to try things that are outside of your comfort zone. Looking at the pictures now, I think this is actually one of the more flattering pieces on me. However, the sleeves were cut very strangely and all of the buttons sewn around the elbows made it very tight and difficult to actually move your arms. So this one went back too.

The Keepers…

The Blue Dress

Stitch Fix dress

Meredith helped me decide to keep this dress. I did really like the cut, the length, the thicker material, and the fact that it just pulls right over my head with no zippers or buttons to worry about. It’s dry clean only, which is not super convenient, but I’ll live. I also like that if I continue to lose a little more weight it should still fit for a while because of the way it’s cut.   

The Floral Shirt

floral shirt

This was another one that I would not have chosen for myself. I was actually surprised to find that I liked it. But it was comfortable and fun and I thought it would be a nice addition to my summer wardrobe if I decide to continue with the capsule method (which has been working pretty well so far). 

Because I had $125 in Stitch Fix credits, I didn’t spend any money out of pocket for the two pieces I kept and I actually still have some credits left over. 

Thanks for snapping my pictures for me and playing dress-up, Meredith! 

Have you ever tried Stitch Fix? How did it go? 

“Fried Egg” Candy: Cooking With Kids

By: Stephaniecomment

These cute white chocolate candies are a perfect treat to make with kids!

Last Friday Abby had a friend visiting after school, just for about 40 minutes until her parents got off from work. When I was thinking of a fast activity that would be fun for the girls to do together, I thought about these “fried egg” candies my Aunt Charlotte used to make with us when I was a girl. 

They are fast and easy and kids love to get their hands messy making them. 

fried egg candy ingredients

All you need is a package of white chocolate chips, some pretzel sticks, and some M&Ms or Skittles.We also used a few green ones so that we could have some Green Eggs and Ham candies. These are great to throw together for a last minute bake sale item or for a Dr. Seuss Day activity. 

Start washing everyone’s hands. 😉  Then let the kids separate the yellow M&Ms from the rest. 

separate the yellow ones

 

Then heat the white chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl for 1 minute increments, taking them out and stirring between each minute until they are melted and smooth. 

Line a baking sheet with wax paper and have the kids help you drop spoonfuls of melted chocolate onto the sheet. 

Put a yellow M&M in the center of each candy to resemble to yolk of an egg, and press two pretzel sticks into the melted chocolate to look like sticks of bacon. 

cooking with kids

Kids really like making these candies because once a grown-up helps melt the chocolate it’s something they can do almost entirely by themselves. The girls thought it was hilarious to make eggs with double and even triple yolks. They were having a great time!

fried egg candy made by kids

This recipe makes about 2 dozen candies. Once your candies are formed, put your baking sheets in the refrigerator for about ten minutes to set. 

Ta-da! 

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