Lemon on a Pear

This is a new project and area of this blog I have been working on. It’s no secret that that over the past few months Real-Estate has quickly become my true passion. I love all aspects of it from the buying and selling, to improving the homes and property with design and landscaping. This is where Lemon on a Pear Designs comes into play. Each month we will unveil a new design board and walk our viewers through the whole process of the room, where we found the furnishings and decor and where you can score them for your own home. Exciting right?! So without further ado, I give you January’s board.

When I first started brainstorming for this project I truly wanted viewers to get a good feel of different textures in a room. Even when you don’t have a huge color pallet in an area, different textures and be what brings the whole space together. For this particular living area, I chose to go with textures of velvet, metal and leather! This trio was super exciting to pull together. (Back story, I love and I mean LOVE styles and fashion from decades past.) Now that we are officially in the 20’s I was beyond excited to modernize this classic 1920’s look and breathe it a whole new life in 2020.

The amazing velvet blue sofa was a piece I found at one of my favorite stores, Anthropology. It’s long and deep style give a sophisticated yet cozy vibe to the space. The textile rug and leather chair, I know OMGEEE, were finds at Wayfair! I always find amazing and affordable styles ranging from shower curtains to bed frames and everything in between. If you haven’t visited wayfair.com, go check it out! The flooring is “heirloom pine” and is a luxury vinyl plank floor, and can be found at Home depo. The ever faithful Zulily is where we give credit for the golden end tables that really set this room off. And last but certainly not least is the incredible leather pillow. This is a product of a locally owned and operated business, Holtz Leather Co. you can find any and all things to be made with leather (and some you wouldn’t have thought could be leather, but are oh so amazing.) at Holtz Leather.

So there we have it, our first design board. Please check out our board on Pinterest, and follow us on Facebook and Instagram for all the newest updates and exciting daily post.

Until next time, Lemon On A Pear 🍋🍐

October: A month in review.

What a busy and exciting month October was. We were completely covered up with school, birthdays, and the typical October fall festival and trick or treating festivities. So let’s get started on filling you all in on all the fun we had!
First off, many of you are not yet aware, but I spent much of September and the beginnings of October completing realtor school. I am now happy to say that this long-time dream of mine is now a reality. I am officially licensed to sell real-estate! I am looking forward to this exciting new journey, as well as bringing some real estate tips, design ideas and home decore to this blog. This is where you all come into play. I would love you guys’ feedback as to what you are most interested in knowing about and learning about.

Another exciting thing we did as a family was our first family gathering at Ninas (my mom’s) house. Where all the children got to paint pumpkins and all the adults participated in a pumpkin carving competition. We also had a cake-walk and beanbag toss for the kids. All this along with the yummy fun food made for an amazing time that left all of us wanting to make the festival an annual thing.

We rounded the month out with Halloween and trick or treating! The boys choose their costumes all by themselves this year. Maddox chose to be a ninja and George-Henry was the cutest little ghost you’ve ever seen. These choices, of course, prompted the hi-yeah and BOO throughout the evening. Noa Hazel was a snuggly little piggy and if I do say so myself, she was the best piggy of the night!
So after a very fun and eventful October, I don’t expect it to slow down going into the holiday season. We’re looking forward to Thanksgiving and all things Christmas!! I can’t wait to fill you all in on our favorite holiday recipes and traditions.

Isn’t it a wonder that just a few short week after the kiddos are off to school and all settled into their class rooms, that they are sent right back home for a whole week, that’s right fall break. Of course the kids are all so excited to have a whole week home, as parents we are all thinking “yikes! A whole week home!” No worries, I’m going to try and help alleviate some of the stresses that come with a week long break.

1. Take advantage of this time and schedule doctors appointments. Eye doctor appointments, dental cleaning or routine physicals. Now is the time to do that without having to be absent from class.

2. Fall cleaning. Now I know, this is NOT how you may picture utilizing fall break, however I promise the reward is worth it! Make a list of all those “problem areas” in your home that just nag and bug you. The junk drawer, that dreaded hall closet or your closet. Day by day do one thing on the list. It’s not as overwhelming when you only have to do one closet a day. Use this as time to pack away some summer clothes and do inventory of what will be needed for winter wardrobes.

3. Just escape! Take a day trip or a weekender! A few days away is always refreshing! Just a few weeks ago my family and I took a few days to pop over in Atlanta, Georgia. Funny how a place only a few hours away we NEVER visit. But the kids LOVED the aquarium and the visit to LEGO land!

So, wether you decide to Declutter and prepare for holidays,plan those doctors visits or just flat skip town for a few day, have a great fall break.

The air is starting to get crisp, the kids are back in school, and it’s now socially acceptable to complete every sentence with Roll Tide – That’s right it’s the most wonderful time of the year. Football season!  All our friends and family now be congregating together on Saturdays to watch colleges come together and rivalries be played out. And while this is all very fun,  coming in a close second to the game, is the game day food. The food that is served on game day is almost looked forward to as much a the game itself.

Here are a few of my favorite things to put together for a quick easy and delicious game day.

Crock pot mac and cheese.

Cook 1 lb. of pasta according to box directions. Set aside.

Cube one whole block of Velveeta cheese. Put into crock pot.

Add 2 sticks of butter to crock pot.

Put pasta on top of cheese and butter.

Cook on low for 2 hours. Stir and serve

Crock pot cheesy Chicken

4 Large chicken breasts. Trim off excess fat.

2 cans cream of mushroom soup

2 cans of cheddar cheese soup

Season to taste with salt, pepper and garlic powder. Cook on low for 6 hours or high for 3-4 hours.

Serve over rice or pasta.

Southern sausage Balls

1 (1-pound) package ground sausage

3 cups baking mix (recommended: Bisquick)

1 ½ cups of pimento cheese

1/8 tablespoon pepper

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Spray a baking sheet with vegetable oil cooking spray. Combine all ingredients in a large glass bowl. Mix well with your fingers. The mixture will be very crumbly. Form into 1 inch balls, squeezing the mixture so it holds together, then rolling it between the palms of your hands to form balls. Place the balls on the baking sheet. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes or until golden brown. To prevent sticking, move the balls with a spatula halfway through cooking. To make the dip, combine the mayonnaise and mustard. Serve with sausage balls.

Velveeta cheese dip

1 pound VELVEETA®, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

1 can of spicy Rotel

1 lb of browned sausage.

Add all ingredients to crockpot and let cook for 2 hours on low. Once cheese is melted, set on warm. Serve with tortilla chips.

Now, here’s one of the things I love the most. A lot of these recipes are multipurpose. For instance, you can go to your favorite BBQ place and buy a pound or 2 of pulled pork. Top your mac n cheese with pulled pork and bbq sauce and you have loaded mac n cheese. You can also prepare your favorite chili recipe and top it with the Velveeta cheese dip and have chili cheese nachos or chili cheese hot dogs.

These recipes are sure to please any hungry football crowd this season. Hope you all enjoy and War eagle!

Sit down, hold on to your chairs and read this carefully. Churches and Christians need to chill out and calm it way down with all the finger pointing and quick judging.

See, there. You just thought it didn’t you? ” well, I don’t do that,and my church is very excepting.” it’s a lie. We truly like to think we don’t judge people and that we love them with a Christ like sprit, when in fact we do the exact opposite. I once attended a church where them members all got their dresses in a bunch because a visitor where a ball cap during service. 

Christian who will say “Oh now I’m not judging, but you know how that girl is..” or “Well I heard that 7 years ago he/she did XYZ and I just don’t know how to think about that.” We all have heard people talk this way. We have church members, deacons, music directors and preachers who think and act as though everyone must have their whole life together before coming to church then wonder why the visitor count is low. 

There are countless stories in the bible and currently, where God used the most unlikely of people to fulfill His will. Rehab the harlot for example. Her reputation is literally in the text of her name, the harlot. Yet in the book of Joshua God used her in a huge way, and her life was blessed because she chose to obeyGod despite her flaws. 

Zacchaeus is another example of being a person that was despised and not super popular among the locals. He was a tax collector. Taxes in those days were about 80%, I know steep right? No wonder people didn’t like him. However, despite all the flaws he had Jesus choose to go eat a meal with him. Yes,the most despised among the whole town, and Jesus sat to eat with him. Can you just imagine this for a minute: You see a preacher sitting down to eat with “that” person from your town?Imagine the talk and gossip that would inevitably spread like wildfire. You see, Jesus didn’t care that little Zacchaeus didn’t have it all together, or that his moral compass didn’t point exactly due north. All the Lord cared about was helping him get his life on track. And that one meal changed Zacchaeus forever.

Don’t think for a minute that God can’t use you because you don’t have all your ducks in a row. Don’t resist helping at church, assisting in a song, or being on the serve team at church just because you aren’t perfect. No one is. Every single person in those pews struggle. Some people just struggle more openly than others. 

Imagine you’re in a hallway and all these doors surround you. Gods leading you to so many opportunities and you YOU are the only one sanding in the way of receiving His blessing. Don’t let judgie people hold you back from receiving Gods blessings. If your life needs fixing, just trust that the more you choose Him, the more He will change you. A relationship with God is no different than any other kind of relationship. It takes time. The process is gradual, but somewhere along that way you grow, you change, and you become who you were created to be. 

So church pew sitting, southern gossiping, amen & hallelujah shouting every Sunday, judgmental condescending Christians- ENOUGH. Let God be God. Let Him be the one to get “those” peoples life in order and be a blessing to these “rebels and prodigals and misfit heroes” that God chose to be story changers, to be a beacon of hope for the discouraged and weary.

At the end of a school year parents and kids are equally excited. We are thrilled about the summer reading program at the local library, loving the option for freedom at the pool and seemingly endless playdates with friends. Fast forward to a week before school starts and we are ready to send those sweet little energy sucking babes right back to their teachers. After our kids have fussed about everything from what was for dinner, to having meltdowns over having been given a red cup when they really wanted blue. Insert eye roll. If these are things you can’t relate to just let me say: stop reading now. You have clearly arrived as a parent and need no father instruction. Good job. For the rest of us, as we are preparing for that first day, super sweet (barley slow down, make your kids do the tuck and roll out the car door) back to school drop off day, here is a thing or two to keep in mind.

These same sweet little….. blessings, that drove you crazy for the past eight weeks are now about to make their new teacher need Botox and Xanax by the end of the school year. Be of assistance. Let me say it again, BE OF ASSISTANCE. If your sweet teacher needs something… GET IT. Be aware of the need ahead of time. Go inside your kids’ classroom a few times a month just to see if there is a need in the classroom. Need tissues? Dry erase markers? Sanitizer? A coffee?  Try and be ahead of the need. Trust me, your teacher will thank you.

One the first day of school, its exciting for the new teacher, but equally as intimidating to be receiving a new set of students, a new set of personalities and a new set of challenges. Make it a smooth day for the teacher. It’s always a good idea to have your child arrive on the first day with a sweet, and thoughtful gift for the teacher. Maybe a cute little wrapped bag of cookies your child helped make. Including your child with the process of getting a teacher gift will excite them for the first day. Another great gift idea if you need something a bit on the go, would be a little Bundt cake from a boutique cake store like nothing Bundt cakes. Or if coffee is you’re jam and you’re a regular at the local coffee house, I’ve never seen a teacher refuse a good stiff cup of caffeine! I have attached a few photos of the back to school teacher gift my oldest son helped pick out for his teachers this year.

So, CONGRATULATIONS moms and dads, we have made it through another fabulous summer full of fun, excitement, relaxation (ha) and quality time with our kids. And to all the teachers- Good luck and thank you!

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 Disclaimer: This post is something completely outside my normal style of writing, but I feel like there is an important message at hand here…

               So, this morning just as any other Sunday, I got up and started getting the kids and myself ready just as always. The Sunday rut. Making sure everyone is dressed and presentable for church, everyone has breakfast etc. Get to church only to realize that my middle child has somewhere between home and church ditched his shoes and they are nowhere to be found…. Thank goodness we usually carry extras in the kid’s packets. Anyway, I get the kids checked into their children’s program and I head to the main sanctuary. I was fully prepared for the norm of the Sunday service: announcements, songs and then the message followed by maybe one closing song. Yet, today was different. Our Pastor was so eager to share the message we went straight into that.

Now, for those of my readers who don’t normally attend service or have different believes and are thinking you’re about to read a sermon, don’t exit out of this so fast, I promise I’m getting to my point.

As the message started, I knew the gist of what was going to be said, after all the years of growing up in church you can pretty much pinpoint where a service is going when the preacher calls out the passage of scripture. Today was different. While our pastor did an amazing job preaching about the three Hebrew men who were thrown into a fire for disobeying the king’s orders, I noticed something completely new about this scripture that I never has before.

 ^“And the satraps, administrators, governors, and the king’s counselors gathered together, and they saw these men on whose bodies the fire had no power; the hair of their head was not singed nor were their garments affected, and the smell of fire was not on them.” Daniel 3:27 NIV

               It was that end part of the verse, “the hair on their head was not singed, nor were their garments affected” that got me.

               How many time have we gone through life with a friend, co-worker and even a family member knowing them one way, but then once they REALLY open up to you there is always that thought of “ I would have never thought they went through all that.” Because of the way the just carried on with life. This thought to me was so liberating to know that even when I am going through my own fires in life, no matter what damage, scares and wounds I think may be visible, God is always there to 1) walk with me through the fire, just as He did with the men from the Bible passage. 2)provide healing and COMPLETE restoration to the point that it would seem I had never been through it, but would never forget it.

Because just as with this story, those men never forgot what God brought them through, but it was something personal they went through with God. Something that wasn’t there for everyone to see, but I assure you they remembered it forever.

I think these are the strongest times of learning and growing in life. The times where only God truly knows what is going on and where we really are. The biggest growth spurts in life happen in the fire, behind the scenes.

For the past few weeks me and the kiddos have been keeping a BIG exciting secret! I was doing research at the beginning of the summer about fun educational things to do with the kids, and Nina ( my mom) pulled through in a big way. One night after dinner, a few weeks ago Nina came over with a big surprise…caterpillars!!! An online company called insectlore.com will send you a whole adorable butterfly garden, along with 5 tiny little caterpillars.

  Basically, all the food the little guys need is already in the container they come in. you just get you enjoy watching them grow.

As the days went on the caterpillars got bigger, and bigger and bigger until they started to cocoon!!! This was a super exciting part for my boys.

After about a week in the cocoons, the butterflies were here!!!!!! We were so stoked to be able to see firsthand the metamorphosis of the caterpillars!  So, we let the butterflies live in the garden that insectlore.com sent, for about 5 days and then we were able to release them into our front yard. These kids LOVED watching these sweet little insects that we had nurtured for the last little bit, go into nature knowing that they had a hand it the whole thing! This is definitely something I would recommend for kids of all ages, and something we will be doing again in the future!

        A few weeks ago, I enrolled in an online webinar that was all about business and how to catch the eye of your followers. At some point the lady giving the webinar started making a strong point about defining your style of clothing. She urged us to narrow down our style and choose one maybe two ways we wanted to dress so that we stood out to our audience. At first, I thought “well, that makes sense.” But the more time passed, the more I became annoyed with this narrow mindset and here’s why.

Pretty much everyone can perfectly picture what society would deem the high class, high maintenance girl. I can picture it now.  Designer purses, red bottom shoes and a magazine worthy hair style that gets blown out each week. On the flip side, society has a group of ladies that gets set in the category of tom boy.  You know, the girl who wasn’t exactly into playing barbies and could care less about her hair or makeup. Super clear right? Women ever so neatly fit into one category or the other.

However, then you get girls like me and my younger sister.  On any given day you can either find me in a cute little cotton dress, or lace shorts and cute top. Although don’t let this cute prissy look deceive you because you may also come to my house to find me in my Duluth pants and black shirt fully sporting the Kim possible look, working on my lawn mower that wouldn’t crank. Now my younger sister is the flip side of this, always in work pants and combat boots, hair in braids and probably wrangling some sort of critter, chicken, squirrel, turtle, cat, dog you name it, she’s caught it. However, give her an hour and it’s the full caterpillar to butterfly affect. She will come out with long flowy hair you would have never known she had waded up under her hat, and the sassiest outfit and shoes all girls wish they could pull off. Here’s the problem, when a guy has a wide variety of style or variety of interest, we call him desirable cause he well rounded, but when a girl does it she’s crazy and needs to work on finding out who she is.

So, where do the girls like us fit into? Where’s our neat and sweet little labeled box? Why as women are we faced with the choice to mark one box or the other?

           I personally claim them all. A divergent girl if you will. I’m adventurous, daring, life motto of “just wing it”, and in my closet you will find sparkly high heels sitting right next to a pair of Chacos. A floor length designer gown hanging next to work out clothes (that have never seen a gym) and Duluth pants for all things outdoors. I can identify with all types of women. Girls like me aren’t crazy. We don’t need to define our style and condense it down to one thing or another. Do it all, be it all. Wear it all. Check the box marked other.

As with most family’s, birthdays are a pretty big deal around here, especially when it’s a first birthday. We’ll ya’ll, as of this week my little baby girl is one year old! Although I could probably write a whole post on Miss Noas first year and go on and on about what an amazing little girl she is and how exceptionally happy she is, ill spare you all the mushy details of how perfect I think my baby is and get to my topic, an epic first birthday party. Party planning of any kid is something I have always loved to do. Disclaimer: I am VERY aware that there are much better people out there with greater decorating skills, I’m in now way claiming to be the best there is, however I am going to share the few party planning tips that may help your next gathering.

               First of all pick your theme. With Noas birthday party we went with the oh too cute “one in a melon” watermelon birthday theme. Precious right? Once your theme is locked down, I usually start looking for my decorations, and here is why. For this particular party I thought it would be so easy planning a watermelon party in the middle of summer. Wrong. I searched all the local places one would find party supplies only to walk out of a store empty handed again and again. Thank the dear lord for amazon.com. I like to have all my decoration gotten then pick a date, that way if things must be ordered you have all the time you need.

               Next is invitations. This is always such a fun part. Now generally you should get these out at least a week ahead of time just so your friends and family can lock in the date. The invitations are the perfect time to let your guest in on the theme on your party and to give them a taste of what to look forward to. Make sure to have the time of your party, type of party (birthday, graduation, retirement etc.) and address to the venue and a phone number or email for guest to RSVP. Let me take a moment and interject this though. Please, for the love of all things good and holy do not be “that person” that does not RSVP.  Give your host a heads up on whether you will be attending, or if you regretfully decline. Either way, your host will appreciate the 1) acknowledgment of the invitation. And 2) the respect of letting the host have a proper head count. Okay, small rant over, whew!

               Once you have a time locked in, you can then choose the menu for your party. If your event falls during any meal time, 11:00-2:00 or maybe a 4:00-7:00 typically anywhere in those hours make sure you are choosing food that will be that what you would expect at a meal. For Noas party the party time was 2:00-4:00 so I chose to go with more snack type food. PB&J sandwiches and chips for the kiddos and a meat, cheese and fruit tray for the parents, along with a solid variety of beverages.

               Now you get to put all the pieces together! I like to take the night before a party and get everything together. Make sure the venue (in this case our home) is nice and clean and all the clutter is put away. Then you can begin to put up decorations, the best part! Play around with this and have fun, after all it’s a party. Move things around and see where you like them best. Be sure that there is a designated table/ space for your food and for gifts if necessary.  So, we all know those awesome people with the ability to craft ANYTHING and the outcome of all their handcrafted projects is always so picture perfect, right? Well folks, this person is not me. So, my decoration consists of store/ online bought and SOME homemade, hand crafted items.

               There you have it you guys, a quick run down of party central. The most important thing of all is to just remember to not over stress. Enjoy the process and enjoy your guest, things always have a way of coming together so don’t sweat the small stuff.