Edie Wadsworth

My (not so) Storybook Life

June 23, 2012 by Edie Wadsworth 114 Comments

I’ve got the perfect summer read for you! And I couldn’t be happier to tell you that my very long time blog friend , Liz, is the author! I started blogging in May of 2008 and I think I found Liz’s blog about 6 months after that. She blogs at Mabel’s House and you should definitely add her to your blog roll. I was first captured by our mutual love for turquoise. I love everything about her style and use of color in her home.

She is a collector of all things vintage and I’m a wee bit jealous of her delicious pyrex/jadeite filled hutch! And her vintage salt and pepper shaker collection. Let’s just say I’ve loved her from the start.

And I feel like I’ve literally watched her blossom. She just became a mom to beautiful Jane and has written so beautifully and honestly about becoming a mother.

I love little Miss Jane’s nursery!

I could show you pictures of her family and home and you’d never tire of it so after you finish this post, head over to her blog and be inspired.
The reason I’m so excited today is that Liz has written a book. She’s one of those people whose blog you read and then you say to yourself, “She should write a book.”
Well, she did and I couldn’t be happier to tell you about it so you’ll have time to pick it up in time for that beach trip.

One of the things I love about Liz is her love for great literature and classic movies. She’s read everything. She’s watched every classic movie and she has spent her life being inspired by the greats. The influence of those great authors on her life and writing is profound. She has literally sat at the feet of the best and learned the art of writing. And did I mention she’s hilarious? She’s got it all!

Her book, My Not So Storybook Life is about her journey to find faith and friendship and contentment but with just the right amount of hilarity sprinkled throughout. She weaves in her favorite literary heroes in just the perfect way as she opens each chapter with a modern retelling of an old classic. In her effort to achieve domestic perfection and tranquility, she and her husband Matt are a modern day Lucy and Ricky Ricardo as they endure countless home project disasters. In the midst of her plumbing and decorating woes, her dearest friend Angela is diagnosed with cancer and they walk a very dark but sweet road together.

It was so amazing for me to read Liz’s book after reading her blog for four years. What a treat! And I know you’ll love it too. Thank you, dear Liz, for using your gifts and following your passion. We are blessed by your sharing and wish you many happy years and many more books!

You can purchase My (not so) Storybook Life: A Tale of Friendship and Faith or leave a comment to win a copy! Tell us your favorite summer read so far! Both my giveaways will close tonight at midnight.

The ART of Enjoying Summer {with kids}::Creatively Made Giveaway

June 22, 2012 by Edie Wadsworth 129 Comments

A heartfelt thank you to my friend Julie for the beautiful hydrangeas. Summer is always better when your friends visit and bring you flowers:)

I’ve written about this topic before. But I know this is a challenge for most of us so I wanted to update my thoughts and give you some tangible encouragement.

And you might think that since I homeschool, I should be used to being with my kids 24/7 and so summer shouldn’t present a challenge.

But it can be difficult to find the right blend of free time and structure. I want them to have plenty of time to nurture their creative selves but I die a little on the inside when I feel like we’re wasting time.

My goal this summer has been to find one fun project to work on each week with the girls. They are old enough now to do more involved arts and crafts so I wanted to find projects that would take 2-3 days to finish and would inspire them to think creatively.

The first week we made fairy gardens. And oh my word, it was so much fun. We found beautiful examples online and then began scheming and collecting little trinkets to add to them. We scoured our local antique store and found great stuff and then hit the jackpot at a local little shop called the Nest that had a whole section devoted to fairy gardens. They even had the most beautiful handmade fairies. We also collected moss, lichen and stones around the yard to add the ‘forest’ touch. We invited a friend over to do them with us and the girls worked for a couple of hours putting them all together. It’s been such a source of pleasure for us all as the girls water and tend the miniature little gardens. We keep them on the screen porch for our viewing enjoyment!
By the time we looked for inspiration, found supplies and made the gardens, it was a three day ordeal but totally worth it.

I was working on finding more ideas for the coming weeks when Jeanne Oliver emailed me about her art class. She’s an amazing woman who has followed her creative dreams and is using her gifts to the utmost. She has a four week art class where she encourages women to do the same. The girls and I took the first week of the class in two days and the girls spent 5 or 6 hours in the workroom making the most beautiful journals.

We were all so inspired by Jeanne’s creativity and her soothing, encouraging words. It looks like our next 4 weeks are perfectly planned! And my philosophy for the last few summers has been to splurge a little on supplies for arts and crafts in lieu of sending my kids to camp after camp. I like having them home and then we can work on fun projects together. For the last few years, we’ve found lots of inspiration from Patty’s site and used her supply list to keep our art closet stocked! We actually made the watercolor fish before 9am this morning. Yay, for summer 🙂

Jeanne’s class is a mixed media class so we’re learning about all kinds of art media that we’ve never used before.

There’s nothing wrong with summer camp and we might do one but summer is gone before you know it and I want to stretch out the lazy days and enjoy the kids while they’re still here. I know from my older kids that it goes too fast. As Nester reminds us, you only have 18 summers with them and I get a little teary eyed when I think I only have 7 left with Emme and Elea. We’re gonna make this one count!

Jeanne has graciously offered to give away 10 free art classes to lifeingrace readers!!! I couldn’t be more thankful and excited. You (and your children) are going to love this course. And if you don’t win a spot, it’s only $48 for the four week class. That’s much cheaper than a camp and you can do it at your own pace.
To enter to win, leave a comment on this post telling us your favorite summer time activity with kids and I’ll pick 10 winners this weekend. This giveaway will close at midnight on Saturday, June 23rd.

Oh and here’s a little trick to increase your chances—-you can enter extra comments for tweeting or face booking about the giveaway.
So, leave your first comment about your favorite summer activity. THen, tweet about the giveaway with a link and come back and leave a comment that says, “I tweeted it!” or something like that.
Then go share the post with your Facebook friends and come back and leave a comment that says, “I facebooked it!” and then you’ll have 3 comments entered for the giveaway.
Good luck and hope you win 🙂 You’re gonna be sooo inspired.

Garden Update, week 6

June 18, 2012 by Edie Wadsworth 29 Comments

Morning sunshines! Hope you had a good weekend. I woke up extra early this morning with a whole host of things swirling in my head. I’m having about 10 house guests for the fourth of July week and have so many things I need and want to do. I’m beginning to think it’s not humanly possible to do everything on my list. So, this morning, I retreated to my garden to calm my busy mind. I harvested a bunch of basil this weekend and need to add “make pesto” to today’s agenda. Do you have any new recipes that would make good party food? I’ve started a 4th of Juuuuly board of patriotic food and decor ideas here. Do you have some fun Pinterest party food and decor boards that you want to share? Link to all your good ideas in the comments and I’d so appreciate it.

It’s a beautiful morning here in East Tennesssee! The sun is just peeking over the trees. Hope you have plans to enjoy it today:)

We’ve declared it an official Pearl Jam summer here on the lake. Add this one to your playlist and you’ll be happy you did.
Mwahhhhhh!

Cherry Chocolate Chip Cookies {and other threats to your thighs}

June 15, 2012 by Edie Wadsworth 22 Comments

I blame this all on Sara.

She brought these cookies to our house on the 3rd of June and I’ll never forget the look in her eyes.

She knew what she was doing to me and she did it in cold blood.

And I was skeptical at first. Cherry? In my chocolate chip cookies? I don’t know about that right there.

And sprinkled with salt? (okay, fleur de sol but whatevs)

Where I come from we don’t sprinkle our cookies with salt.

But I’m here to tell you that this cookie connoisseur didn’t know what hit her.

I haven’t been quite the same since.

Whatever you do and for the love of all things toned and slim, do not, and I repeat DO NOT make these cookies under any circumstances.

If you ever hope to wear a swimsuit in the full light of day, you’ll take me at my word.

Now, for the rest of you, here’s the recipe. Make at your own risk.
I don’t want to hear your sad stories of how your husband found you in your closet hunkered down with a plate full of these.

I’ve got my own cherry chocolate chip cookie problems to deal with.

Thanks a lot Sara 🙂

(The recipe is apparently from Metropolitan Bakery in Philly!)

Ingredients

1 Cup Rolled oats

3 Cups All-purpose flour

1 3/4 tsp Baking powder

1 1/2 tsp Baking soda

1 1/4 tsp Salt

1 1/2 Cups Butter

1 1/4 Cups Sugar

1 3/4 Cups Brown sugar

3 Eggs

1 1/2 tsp Vanilla

3 1/2 Cups Chocolate chunks

1 1/4 Cups Dried tart cherries

1 1/4 Sea salt

Directions

Grind oats into fine flour (food processor)

Sift flour, baking soda,and baking powder.

Add oats and salt.

Using mixer, cream butter and sugars until light in color and texture (about 3 minutes).

Add eggs one at a time.

Stir in vanilla.

Add flour mixture until combined.

Fold in chocolate and cherries.

Sprinkle each cookie with sea salt.

Bake @ 350 for 15 – 18 minutes.

Take a little journey to cookie heaven on first bite.

Hey girl…..

June 12, 2012 by Edie Wadsworth 55 Comments

Edited to add: I joined my friend Rhoda’s summer porch party and added a few pics of my screened porch to this post!

In case you’re on the fence about homeschooling this year, I thought this might help push you right over the edge.
You’re welcome.

Homeschoolers? Bringing sexy back. One over due library book at a time.

And btw, Ryan Gosling? Homeschooled.

🙂

xoxo

Here’s more where those came from!

Our (slightly nerdy) Summer Plans

June 8, 2012 by Edie Wadsworth 37 Comments

My girls just finished 5th grade. That means I’ve homeschooled them for 4 years—-even through a family tragedy—–and somehow managed to keep us all alive. I was hanging on by a thread at the end of this school year. I wanted it to be over. I wanted to do anything but finish. But we plowed through and we did it. Can I get an amen? Can someone do a hitchkick for me?

In most subjects, we finished our 5th grade books in March and started new books. Even so, I think I was done in March. But then summer quickly comes to the rescue with her water sports and lazy garden mornings and perfect June nights. It took 2 days for me to realize that I don’t do free time very well. So, I’ve got a (slightly nerdy) plan.

We will be studying the ancients next year in history (the Isrealites, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans) so to prepare for it I enrolled the girls and I in a Greek Mythology class offered online by Duke University. (Thank you for the recommendation Miss Kimmy!) We started it this week along with reading the Odyssey. We try to do our reading/mythology along with our house chores in the mornings and then we have the rest of the day to play. The Odyssey may in fact be the greatest piece of literature in the Western tradition. I’m gonna highly encourage you to read it this summer. I sweet talked my book club into reading it with me too. C’mon, you know you want to.

Well, to my girls’ great delight, the course we’re taking deMANded that we watch My Big Fat Greek Wedding as part of one of the lessons this week. And as much as I loathe tv, we did. LOVED it all over again.

To prepare myself for this years’ teaching, I’m taking some online courses myself. The web site is called The Great Courses and offers lectures in almost any area of specialty you can think of—taught at the college level and self-paced. I’m currently taking Ancient Egyptians, The Odyssey, The Night Sky (the girls and I are doing astronomy next semester!) and Classical Mythology. I stayed up until midnight last night (which is UNHEARD of for me) to finish my 2nd astronomy lecture and gaze longingly at the night sky. The lectures are fantastic and I’m giddy about all this scintillating information.

But then again I’m nerdy like that. I hope we can still be friends.

To balance it all out, I listened to Pink on my run this morning and ate cherry chocolate chip cookies for breakfast.

We’re also listening to the Hobbit when we jump in the car to run errands in preparation for its December 2012 movie debut.

Besides that, we’re doing a lot of free styling in the arts, crafts and water sports categories.

We’ve also taken to some serious popsicle eating.

And when we can’t be found on the screened porch reading or eating popsicles, we’ll be down at the basement porch in one of the rocking chairs. I’ve got it set up all Cracker Barrel style down there with the rockers all in a country row. Come on over and sit awhile!

I could talk Odysseus all day long, baby 🙂

xoxo,

your geekiest friend ever,

edie

p.s. I’m registered for the Circe Conference in July (in Louisville, KY) and wondered if any of you are going? It’s 8 tickets away from being sold out. I think it’s going to be epic. This talk by Andrew Kern called “You Are What You Behold” is so inspiring and pushed me over the edge of wanting to hear more of this same life/educational philosophy. Hurry and register!