Tara, Jorjanne, and I got a chance to hang out with our friend Carey this week to get a lesson in boiling peanuts. We had a ball spending the morning with him on his back porch, learning how he has perfected his methods of this very old, southern tradition of boiling peanuts.  

If you have never had boiled peanuts, then I would say you are missing a real treat!  My dad, on the other hand, would tell you something entirely different! (But he is technically not a southerner, so we'll let that pass!) My husband, Matt, can eat his weight in them.  It is a good thing Carey keeps a freezer full because Matt will tell you that boiled peanuts are best eaten on Carey's back porch.  

Many folks where we live will gather up their boiling peanuts straight out of the field.  While these are delicious, this method requires a little more work, like pulling the peanuts off of the vines and washing them really well!  If you want to skip the hard steps, you can buy raw peanuts at the grocery store during peanut season.  We got ours from our local Harvey's grocery store. They had already been washed but still required a little more rinsing to get most of the dirt off.

We picked out the bad nuts that were not worth boiling and any stems that were still in the bunch.

You will need a large stock pot, filled with enough water just to cover the peanuts.

We cooked ours outside, but you certainly don't have to.  Put your pot on the stove, turn the flame up, and just wait for them to boil!

Carey's secret ingredient is ice cream salt.  Just kidding!  He used it because that is what he had, but you can also use regular salt.  You will start with about two cups.

And so we wait....

Tell a few stories......

Tell a few more stories..... 

When the peanuts came to a boil, we let them cook about 30 minutes.  After thirty minutes we gave them a test.  They weren't quite tender enough so we let them cook a little longer. 

Just in case you have not eaten them before, to eat a boiled peanut, you will bite or crack the shell open to to reveal your juicy warm peanuts!  You will need an extra plate to collect your empty shells.

Carey likes to cook big batches so he has plenty to put in the freezer.  After letting the peanuts cool in the pot for a little while, we dipped them into gallon bags and set them out to cool a little longer.  

When you are ready to enjoy your peanuts from the freezer, pull them out and put them straight in a pot with some water.  You don't need to let them defrost. Bring them to a boil and just let them cook for a couple of minutes, and they'll be ready to eat in no time!

While the end product is delicious, the best part of boiling peanuts is the company!  The act of boiling peanuts is meant to be social.  A time to visit with friends, relax and enjoy life!

It's still warm outside here in the South, but there is a change in the air and we know that fall is on its way!  Time to spruce up those front doors and welcome in this pleasant time of the year. I thought it would be fun to help you make a beautiful fall wreath for your home.  If you are feeling crafty, then grab your hot glue gun and let's get started!

Here's what you'll need to get started:
-hot glue gun
-scissors
-wire snips
-floral wire
-floral tape
-grapevine wreath
-fall floral picks
-ribbon

All of these supplies will be available at your local craft store. For this wreath, I used two colors of wool grass (two stems of each color), two picks with fall foliage, one pumpkin pick and one gourd pick. You are free to choose whatever fall stems that speak to you! The design concept will be the same, even if you choose something different than what I have used today. 

First, you need to wrap your wire with floral tape.  This will make your wire much easier to work with. Learning to wrap your wires with floral tape is life-changing, and you will never want to work with naked wire again! Start by wrapping the tape around the top of your wire and then pull the tape as you twist it down the wire.  

The tape is stretchy and will stick better if you pull/stretch it as you wrap the wire.  Cut your taped wire into two pieces, one to use for your hanger and one to use for your bow.

To make a hanger for the back of your wreath, lay the wire over two fingers, pull down, and twist, creating a loop at the top.

Wrap the straight end of your hanger around a chunk of the grapevine on the back of the wreath, pulling the straight end up, and wrapping it around itself. Make the hanger extra secure with a little dab of hot glue.  

Next, you will need to break down your floral picks. By breaking down your picks and stems, and cutting them into smaller pieces, you will make what you have go a lot further. In the end, this will make your project less expensive to make.  

I am starting with the long wild grass that was part of my wool grass stems.  Start by gluing a piece of the grass down and work your way around the wreath, continuing to glue the sections of grass. *Helpful Hint: Put glue on the end of your stem and then shove it down into the wreath, rather than just gluing to the top.  This will make your stems more secure and help hide your glue!

Next, add the wooly tops. Divide your wooly pieces in half, using half for the first layer and half for the second. Glue the wool grass to the top surface of the wreath, alternating colors as you work around it.  The first layer will all be glued right along the top. 

As you start the second layer of wool grass, start to fill in on the outside and the inside of the wreath base.  This will help build out the shape of your wreath and make it look more full.

Now that all the wooly pieces are attached, go back and fill in with the extra foliage that you separated out when you took the stems apart.  

You can see how the wreath is really starting to take shape and fill out.  The trick to this type of wreath is to build it up, layer by layer.  We've laid the foundation, now let's add the fun parts!

Next, add the bow.  You will need about 2 1/2 yards of ribbon to make a simple bow like this.  Start by leaving a tail.  At the top of the tail, make a small loop that will be the center of your bow.

Pinch and twist the remaining ribbon before making your next loop, which will be a little bigger.

Continue making loops, making sure that you twist the ribbon between each loop.  You should end up with five loops total, one small one for the center and four larger loops.  Find the center of your bow, where it all started.  You will have three loops on one side and two on the other. Lay the taped wire across the center of the bow. Tightly pull the wire to the bottom of the bow and twist it on itself.  

After securing your bow with the wire, you can fluff up your loops.

Some folks would add the bow at the end, but I like to go ahead and attach it now, so that I can work around it as I fill in with the rest of my fall foliage.  I decided to place my bow off center, which meant I needed to move one of the wool grass tops.  This is no problem!  If you decide you don't like where you've put something, just clip it out, move it, and re-glue it.  

To attach the bow, wrap the wire around a chunk of the grapevine and twist it on itself until the bow feels secure.  

Fluff your loops up and place your tails where you want them to hang so that you will know where to start placing your next layer.

Next, add the different elements of the deconstructed fall picks.  First, I filled in the bare spots around my bow with the leafy greenery.

Next, decide where to place the pumpkin and gourd. I placed one on the top of the bow at the center and one on the bottom.

Fill in with some extra grass.  Something like this will be available to you at your local craft store.  This grass just helps to make the wreath look a little fuller, while also adding to the wispy-ness.

Now, start to build out the base of the wreath, out from each side of the bow.  I added fall leaves to each side. 

Next, add in some fall colored paper grass and berry pods, again building out on each side of the bow.

Fluff up your bow one last time and voila!  You have a beautiful fall wreath for your door!  You can see in this picture how I used all the extra pieces to build out the bottom of the wreath around the bow.  The top of the wreath is just the base of wool grass that we started with.

If you are running a little short on time, or if your creative juices are just not flowing, you can buy one of these beautiful wreaths that I've already put together for you!

If you're feeling crafty and would like to take on this project, we have made the elements we've used available to you!

​As we continued the tearing out process, our next focus became the walls. The walls in our home were covered in a particle board-like material. (Almost like thick card board--but much heavier!)  I have been told that this material was used before sheet rock became popular in the forties.  It came in sheets, much like sheet rock, except the seams were covered with 2 inch wooden strips.  Since we wanted to add insulation and give the home a more updated look, we decided to tear all of this out.  Boy, was this a job -- a job that lasted weeks!  This material covered every inch of the walls and ceilings in the house.

We started tearing out in the living room, which was where we discovered the beadboard walls!  We were so excited at the thought of keeping some of the originals walls in the house to add to the character.  As we revealed more and more of the beadboard walls we discovered that some were patched and some were solid.  This means that we would be able to keep some (the ones that were solid) but not all.  
​
The patched walls are the ones you see so full of color--what a terrible feeling tearing it all out!  The colors were so inspiring that we decided to keep a good bit of the beadboard for future projects.

After tearing out the first layer we were able to assess our situation and decide what was salvageable.  Unfortunately, most of the walls had been patched and there would only be a few we could keep.  The other bad news is that we would have to tear out all of the beadboard that we would not be keeping due to issues with trim fit and ease of insulation.  This was WAY more work than I had expected, but little by little we were able to see it through.  

Bedroom #1 (not pictured)
​The Pantry (not pictured)
The Kitchen

* A Helpful Tip: If you find yourself having to remove wallpaper or any other glued substance from the wall like I did, here is a great trick!  Mix equal parts of liquid fabric softener and hot water in a spray bottle.  Spray over a manageable area and let sit for 5-10 minutes (don't let it dry!).  Using a scraper or 5-in-1 tool, start loosening the edges and scrape away!  For my personal situation, this worked perfectly! (And gave our house a nice smell :) You can clearly see the path in which I scraped in the bottom right picture.  Also, I was gifted the electric kettle you see below as a wedding present--and boy did it come in handy!  I wouldn't have had any other way to access hot water in our house!

In bedroom #1, we decided to keep something really special.  As you now know, our entire home was filled with multi-colored 100 year old beadboard.  I LOVE the unique colors in each piece and so wished I could keep a little piece of the fun.  Once all of the walls were down, I noticed how the wall above the fireplace was a perfect little sample of what filled the whole house.  After sweet talking Phillip, and a few other folks thinking I was crazy, we decided to keep this little section of patchwork as a fun reminder of what once was.

Now, fast forward weeks upon weeks to where we are today.  With a clean slate to work with, we were able to tell what would need to be changed in the floor plan.  One major change we knew we wanted to make was to remove the closet in bedroom #2 in order to open the hallway back up to its original width.  ​

We knew we wanted to add a master bath off of the master bedroom, so we took measurements, planned it out and framed it up!  (Planning a bathroom was much harder than I ever imagined!)  The bathroom pushed into what was once the back porch, but was enclosed by previous owners.

We added a master closet as well by pushing into the hallway and relocating our bedroom door.

We removed the exterior door in the kitchen in order to give us more wall space, and brought the window up to give us room for lower cabinets.

​In addition to all of this, Phillip had to go through each room and check each stud.  Since this house was built 100 years ago, it wasn't built to today's standards!  This meant Phillip had to add a great deal of studs to the existing walls in order to get ready for sheet rock.  He had to frame out every doorway, old and new!  The walls were (what I believe to be) our toughest challenge yet, but also the most rewarding. What you find in the walls bring light to the history of the home and those that lived there before you.  ("If Walls Could Talk"--a blog coming soon :)

Phillip and I were so overwhelmed by the amount of work there was to do and how long it would take.  Most nights we left feeling defeated.  More tired and dirty than we had ever been before, but just where we were meant to be.

​We broke it all down just to build it all back up again--isn't that how life feels sometimes?  We couldn't get to where we were going without ripping out every board one by one--and let's not forget the nails!  It was painful more times than not, and much harder tearing out than putting back in.  But that's the beauty of it all.  The Lord has taught us so much in the little time that we have been working on this house, and I know that He will only teach us more.  

Remember when I said that we kept a good bit of the beadboard to use in future projects?  Well here are a few!  First, we decided to build new table tops for The Cafe!  Don't you just love them? ​

We were so inspired by the tops that we then decided to create something else that we could make available to you!  If you'd like to take a special piece of our home home with you,  check out the picture boards we've made out of the beautifully colored beadboard that covered our walls!  

Each display board is unique in color and size.  The beadboard and the trim came out of our Beech Street Bungalow.  Share in celebrating the history of our home by choosing one to take home today!

​Check out more Beech Street Bungalow renovation stories here!

After much research (read: way too much time spent on Pinterest), I created a system where they can pack their own lunches. I had everything all set up at the beginning of last school year, and it worked great! For a couple of weeks. Then, my car decided to wrap itself around a tree. Since I had just stocked everything, my system worked well for my husband who suddenly found himself playing the role of “Mr. Mom.” Then, suddenly, the baskets were empty. And, since my loving church family kept bringing food so my family would survive without me in the kitchen, there was no room for baskets in my over-flowing refrigerator! I couldn’t drive or work, so I didn’t have any place to be at any particular time. Because of that, packing lunches didn't stress me out like it once did, and that was one thing I could do to be helpful.

Here we are, a year later, and I’m trying to get my system back into place. Now that my older son is in middle school where there are more options, and all our schools now have free lunch (high-fives all around!), he usually eats in the cafeteria. That helps me tremendously! My younger son tends to be a little more picky. Not like he’ll only eat chicken tenders and french fries, but more like he sometimes wants all fruit in his lunchbox. He usually doesn’t care for his foods to be mixed together, although he loves nachos. And, texture plays a big part in whether or not he likes a food - french fries and oven roasted potatoes are fine, baked or mashed potatoes are not. He has eaten a whole tomato like an apple and entire containers of cherry tomatoes, loves chili and spaghetti, but doesn’t like “cooked” tomatoes. Somehow, all his food preferences make sense to me, but because the school cafeteria that has hundreds of kids to feed every day doesn’t tend to cater to what one child likes, if I don’t want him to go hungry, then we’re packing his lunch. 

So, my system is pretty simple. I fix the “entree” of his lunchbox, whether it’s leftover taco soup in a thermos, a turkey bacon ranch wrap, a chef salad, or his all-time favorite, the old standby, PB&J, with Southern Mercantile Jam (any flavor, he loves them all!). Sometimes, on super busy mornings (or when I’m moving especially slowly) he’ll just grab a nachos or pizza Lunchable. Really, I’m just trying to give him something with protein that will fill him up. He also really likes cheese (real cheese, not string cheese) and yogurt, so I encourage him to grab one of those if I think he needs a little more protein or dairy. 

Next, I have a basket of fruits and veggies from which he can pick two. I try to prepare ahead of time and have bags of cut-up celery, baby carrots, or grapes ready to go, but there are also apples and clementines..