Fresh Air {take two}

Simply Living {And Rambling}

Sometimes I swear I could just live in my bathrobe. 

Making a shirt from scratch is more time-consuming than I thought. But I am persevering. Maybe you will get to see it one day.

I made the MOST. COMFORTABLE. PENCIL SKIRT. EVER. {tutorial soon!}

My little bro graduated high school.

How is he even that old??!

At primary last week a little 5-year-old very seriously stated as he shook his head, 'Man, I hate dying."

{seriously. dying is just the pits, isn't it?}

It was just about the most hilarious thing I've ever heard. 

Despite only needing one house out of all that are being sold, it is impossibly hard to find that one. House-hunting for 4 months now and I say ugh. 

How does life go by so fast? June is over! But that means my birthday month is almost here. {Yippee!!!}

I want an awesome one-piece swimsuit. Suggestions?

Bright & Sunshiney

Happy Anniversary to us! 

Our official anniversary is on May 29th, but because it fell in the middle of the week this year, we decided to celebrate the weekend before by taking a much-needed vacation to California. And it was fantastic!

We started off with the San Diego Safari Park.. 

They have this awesome train that takes you around a 100-acre preserve full of animals! Besides that, you can walk around the rest of the park and see a ton of other exhibits. 

My feet were incredibly tired after that day.

That was about as adventurous as we got. The next few days we planned to do nothing but beach.

Corona del Mar is gorgeous.

That was our first beach. After chilling there all day, that night we headed over to a cousin's wedding.

Sorry, we we were too busy dancing to take any pictures. {true story.}

The next day, we decided to try Laguna Beach. We spent the first half of the day walking around the hundreds of little shops that surround the beach, eating eclairs and cream horns from a sweet little bakery.

And then it was just beach and more beach.

With the occasional pause.......

....to enjoy the water.

And then we found this awesome lookout point and wanted to get a picture. But since the only people to ask were a homeless man and a hippie doing a drug deal, we decided to improvise.

Not bad. 

All in all, we got sunburned, ate too much food, drank too much ginger ale, got to play with my aunt's two crazy dogs, and had a great vacation.

 

Three years, and we're still pretty much in love {pretty much}. 

Easy & Delicious Avocado Egg Salad

I must tell you, this recipe is delicious.

And with summer coming {one day} {i'm hoping} easy sandwich recipes are my favorite for hot days when I don't feel like cooking. I tested this one out a few weeks ago for a road trip to Price. 

Have you ever been to Price? Its.....small. And I really don't want to live there. 

But on the bonus side of things, we had delicious sandwiches to eat while we drove!

Ingredients {makes 2 sandwiches}:

4 hard boiled eggs, diced

6 {or more} strips of bacon, cooked and crumbled

1 avocado, mashed

1 green onion, chopped

1/2 tbsp lemon juice

1/2 tbsp mayonnaise

1 tsp black pepper

1/4 tsp Dijon mustard

pinch of cayenne pepper

pinch of salt


Directions:

Take everything and mix it all together. Swipe a taste and adjust ingredients as needed--I added a little more Dijon and a little more bacon {who can resist adding more bacon??}

Lightly {lightly} toast 4 pieces of bread. Spoon egg salad over toasted bread, and top with some fresh lettuce.

Yummmmmm.

DIY Summer Scrap Scarf

Okay, so up until this point I have not categorized scarves as to-be-worn-in-the-summer. 

But I ran into this post over at Putting Me Together. {so cute, btw.}

And after bemoaning my lack of wardrobe skills and shedding a few tears over her adorable outfits {which i cannot seem to ever accomplish}, I decided to give summer scarves a try. 

{i mean, come ON. she looks fantastic.}

At first I fixated on this beauty from Downeast:

And then this one:

And then I decided I was too poor for either of them, and made my own.

{yes, just like that.}

It's easy. I'll show you.

You'll need:

1. A few contrasting fabrics and a sewing machine. 

 I used 3 different fabrics: one was an old man's shirt, one an old woman's shirt {old shirts, not shirts from old people} {in case that was unclear}, and the third was leftover fabric from a pillow cover. 

The beauty of it is, you can use anything you have!

I cut up my fabrics into various-sized rectangles, then sewed them all together. I used what is called a flat-felled seam {or so the internet told me} to attach the pieces. It's where the two fabric edges are wrapped around each other so that each raw edge is encased in a fold of the other. I discovered it one day as I was unpicking an old skirt. It's really useful. Hopefully this picture helps. 

It does require the use of an iron. If you need more detailed instructions on how to create this seam, google it. I'm not that technical.

Once I had connected all my pieces, I ironed the long sides under twice to hide the raw edges and hemmed.

It's not perfect, by any means, but who cares?!

No one can even tell. 

And it's so pretty.