The Ways of Her Home

Embracing the homeward call

Hello Again!

Happy Friday, friends! It's been a while since I've written in this space because I've been over at my new blog site Her Lovely Common Life. Over there, I try to keep a posting schedule of Tuesdays and Thursdays unless I have a tech issue or I just don't have anything in particular to say that day. Yesterday I shared details and photos of my latest little project: a book and tea cabinet! You can click here to read about it. It was a really fun post to write! Here's a little sneak peek..... So, I'm popping back over here today because I've had several friends tell me lately that they can't find my new blog. I know the big reason for that is because I don't have a built-in subscription ... Read more

I Have a New Blog Home!

Hi, friends! I'd like to invite you all to join me over at my new blog Her Lovely Common Life! But first, before you head over there, you might be wondering why I'm starting a new blog site, so let me explain. This year marked my tenth year of blogging! I began in 2015 at Happy is the House. I closed that blog three years later to start The Work of Her Hands which eventually morphed into The Ways of Her Home. I've always enjoyed blogging until this year when the technical side and the yearly fees became a little too much. Since my start, I've used WordPress and worked hard to keep up with the changing technology by researching, googling techy terms, figuring things out, and asking for ... Read more

Texas Thanksgiving

We had a fun Thanksgiving week with our daughter and her family in Texas! We rented an Airbnb that would be spacious enough for their little family to join us and eat and hang out together. It was perfect! The kitchen was everyone's favorite. It was decorated so nicely and was super clean! The den offered plenty of comfy seating for us to sit around and talk and watch movies and YouTube. We even had our own porch kitties. It's become a joke with our family that the animals always seem to find us wherever we go, hahaha. But this little turkey was even sweeter than the cutest of kitties! Everyone had so much fun playing with him all week. He's grown and changed a ... Read more

Dining Room Refresh for Fall

I've been chipping away at a fall project list which included painting my dining room. I was ready for something fresh and colorful but not trendy. So instead of consulting Pinterest, I just went into a paint store and picked out a color that I thought was pretty. The color is "Retreat" by Sherwin Williams and it's a soft cross between blue and green, almost like a eucalyptus. I was happy to have the room finished and ready for a little company recently. Some friends came for tea and scones one afternoon and my daughter and I were excited to set a fall table in our “new” room. I love setting a table with fall colors and textures! Rustic woods with cozy knits. ... Read more

Fall in LOVE with Autumn

Happy fall! I have some photos to share of the season so far, and they are some of the reasons we all fall in LOVE with autumn over and over again each year. Corn fields.... Cotton fields..... Sunflower fields! Pumpkin patches..... Pumpkin French toast and a sweet Pumpkin kitty! Cool nights at the football field. A fall porch with a freshly painted front door. Fall flowers!!! Coneflowers are my new favorite. Starry walks! A first fire with my morning coffee. Always coffee. The cats are getting snuggly. A mama bird nesting one last time for the year? I've read that in our warmer climates they will lay eggs as late as ... Read more

Blog Update

Hi, friends! Just want to let you know that I've made a couple of (hopefully) temporary changes to my blog while I work on some behind-the-scenes issues. Spammy comments are at an all-time high and even though mine all go to moderation where I can trash them before they even post, the amount I have to go through each week is crazy. At the start of summer, I was dealing with 30 a day. Now it's well over 100 in a day. I'm also getting emails from the same weird bots. So, for now, I'm turning off all comments (so I won't miss one of yours in the midst of the hundreds of spammos each week) and I've taken down my contact page. Since my blog is a hobby and not a job, I'm not in a rush to fix ... Read more

Snapshot Saturday: Fourth of July Fun

Our neighborhood puts on the best fireworks display each July 4th! And since so many neighbors around us shoot their own fireworks now, Crazy Joel has retired from his yearly shows, and we just enjoy everyone else's! It works out pretty well for us, haha. This year our friends walked over to eat hotdogs and watch fireworks with us. It was the best night! We let the kids swim while we waited for it to get dark. Joel and I commented to each other the next morning about how sweet it was to hear so many happy little voices in our pool. My son enjoyed grilling with Joel and I think he now has a new hobby. We had a couple of kinds of hotdogs with toppings and our friends brought ... Read more

Delicious Muffin Mixes (with my own spin)

I’ve found a couple of new muffin mixes recently that my family loves! These are gluten free if that’s important to you but that's not why we eat them. They're delicious! That's why. The Bettergoods brand is Walmart's knock-off of the more expensive healthy brands. It's still about $5 per box but that's $2-$3 cheaper than the name brands. And, did I mention, delicious! I first tried the Banana Nut mix while helping my daughter and son-in-law after the birth of their son, that sweet baby 🩵. I made it in the loaf form for something sweet after our dinner and leftovers for their breakfast or midnight snacking. And 2 am snacking because newborn nights….poor mama! You can make it as ... Read more