Spicy - Organizing spices

Minced Garlic, Parsley, Chipotle Peppers, and Paprika make up part of the front row

I've been reorganizing the pantry. It's an odd processes, but it's made me feel better about the whole kitchen.

I had hoped it would be ready to share today, but alas - it's not. Instead, I'm here to talk to you about spices! Or, more specifically, the organization thereof.

Up top, you can see the method I went for. Since I have the space, and love the colorful look, I went with half pint mason jars.

Tip: We buy almost all of our spices in bulk and if you haven't, consider it, the savings are phenomenal!

What I love about this method of storage is that you have the ability to use the natural beauty of the spices to add some extra color to your shelves. And, because I'm able to place them on a shelf that is jus below eyelevel, it's super easy to read the labels on the tops.

I do it this way because I have the space and because I buy in bulk... but there are other options if you don't have the space, and if you keep you spices in the bottles/tins they come in from the store.

1. This magnetic spice rack from Practically Functional
2. This awesome use of an IKEA drawer organizer from It's The Life
3. This awesome use of the side of your cabinets from Confessions of a Serial Do-it-yourselfer

Happiness in Haircolors

Over the years, Allison and I have gone through several different hair colors.

First, let's talk about where we started.

Weren't we adorable? (Allie's dressed for normal Oregon Coast weather and... whoever dressed me as an angel/fairy/princess had no idea what I'd grow up to be.)

Allison has always had a beautiful mix of color that was mostly blonde and I've always had dark brown hair.

But because we live in a world where hair colors are changeable, these are not the only colors we've had!

Allie - 

As I started this blog post, I realized that I've only ever been around Allie as a blonde. We were in (different physical) places every time she decided to move away from her (admittedly beautiful) natural color.

While Allie is a gorgeous blonde, she'd done a brilliant flaming red in homage to her grandmother who's natural hair color was as vibrant as they come!

However, her part as Jo March in the EOU production of Little women forced her to dye her hair brown to match. 

She played with brown a few times after, with a pixie and some fun highlights too!

Amy - 

So for the most part, I've spent the vast majority of my life in some variation of brown, from copper to black brown, to what I'm at now (basically the picture that has the least of my face in it)

But I had the crazy notion to go red in 2012... and I LOVED it. (You can see in the bottom small picture that the color lasted well enough for me to get a rather unfortunate amount of grow out)

I don't really know why I dyed it back? But I did go back to a dark brown (Actually, I think the picture in the bottom left corner of the browns - purple shirt - was post red).

And then I decided I wanted to go Silver! And I did... for all of 3 days. And Blonde isn't the best look on me, so I tried again, and it just wasn't going to work, so I had to live with the blonde, blown out hair.

The second to last picture is me CRAZY happy because I got do do a dark wash on my hair the next day. The result was not the best thing ever, but it was better than nothing.

Fresh and Shiny New Start

This morning, I'm sitting down to write this with a big cup of Red Velvet tea and staying indoors. Earl and I went to our favorite cocktail parlor in Phoenix for a NYE party and at about 10pm, it started to snow.... in Phoenix! It didn't stick. In fact, it melted almost before it touched the ground, but it was really cool.

2015 is here and I'm excited to be back at work on this blog and to get things rolling again. For the time being, posts will go up on Thursdays and other days of the week will slowly be added on.

Happy New Year!

On Hiatus

One of the things this blog is about is living life to its fullest. And often, that very thing gets in the way of writing the blog. It’s a cyclical beast.

Because of this, we’ve been on hiatus, and we’ll likely prolong it for a little while further.

Hopefully we’ll be back up and running after the first of the year.

Enjoy your holiday season!

Absens Makes the Heart Grow.... {Amy}

I tried to think up a clever title for this and totally failed.

So, we've been gone a bunch. With the exception of wedding posts, we've been awol a lot. But that should be changing here soon. No more head in the clouds, back to serious business!

Allie's been busy with work and all the extra hours her job demands, I've been recovering from the wedding and working on publishing books. But we're both going to work toward getting more focused and hopefully over the next several weeks that means we'll hit our stride, figure out a schedule and be on top of all the things.