hopeful

Halloween is a three-day affair for our family this year. It began Saturday evening, when a wonderful group of friends from around the neighborhood gathered on our front lawn then paraded to a nearby neighbor's home for a bonfire, s'mores, and hot chocolate. It continued Sunday evening, when we put the costumes on again...

An ode to autumn, my favorite season of the year. I get giddy when it is time to wear socks again. All summer long I set my sights on crunchy leaves, apple cider, and cool nights. And every October I get a little shutter crazy. So here are a handful of recent favorite images:  ...

Remember a few weeks back when I said that we don't eat much meat in our house? We don't. But we really like bacon. A Lot. I came across this recipe in a cookbook I recently picked up at my grocery store. It's published by Philadelphia Brand Cream Cheese, and they were running a promotion that if you purchased three Philadelphia...

For the last four summers, we have grown vegetables in raised garden beds out behind the garage. It's a ridiculously sunny spot and gardening thus far has been fairly fool-proof; we add some mushroom compost in the spring, plant some plants, and make sure they get enough water through the hot summer months. In the fall,...

I love to cook, and I love to cook new things, but I am not an experimenter; I am completely recipe dependent. While I occasionally adapt or substitute ingredients, I very rarely invent something from scratch. In instances when I have a specific thing in mind that I don't know how to make, I'll scour the Internet and my...

A lapful of knitting It was a blissful October afternoon. A sprinkling of clouds, abundant sunshine, and a breeze that subtly shifted from a little cool to a little warm throughout the day. And for two incredible hours, Emmett napped, Finn tossed a football around the backyard (supported by my whoops and hollers), and...

     "Are the spice bottles in your kitchen out of control? Do you end up      searching in every cabinet and going through bottle after bottle just to      find the one you want?" - from The Swivel Store website It has long been on my agenda...

I love Everyday Food Magazine. Love it. I love the handy little digest size.  I love that everything I make from this magazine looks exactly like the pictures. I love that I actually make things from this magazine the day that it comes. It is the only cooking magazine I get that I actually keep in its entirety and...

My husband Sean, who is an excellent runner, often jokes that he has a difficult time making himself go running unless he is signed up for a race. I'm kind of the same way with knitting projects; I love to plan them, I love to work on them, but I am terrible at finishing them unless I have a very specific deadline. Case...

When it comes to cooking, I am constantly on some kick or another. I rely heavily on the cookbook section of my library to support my changing moods and will post frequently here about the many cookbooks I check out. My kicks run the gamut from slow cooker recipes to low fat recipes to five ingredient recipes to meatless...

I am the very lucky mama of two boys...a gregarious, always busy four-year-old named Finn and a snuggly, curious nineteen-month-old named Emmett. I'm getting a huge kick out of watching them play together; it seems they are more interactive every day and that they sincerely care about each other. My greatest wish is...

When I was seventeen years old, I decided that I wanted to learn to sew. My mom doesn't sew (though she can work wonders with a glue gun and stitch witchery) and we didn't have a sewing machine in the house. So I borrowed a machine and signed up for an introductory class at the now-defunct Minnesota Fabrics. I ended up...

My name is Hope, and my life is incredibly, wonderfully full. For the last nineteen months, I have been a full-time stay at home mama to two boys, currently ages four and nineteen months. Before that, I was a full-time elementary school librarian by day and mama to one boy by late afternoon/evening/night/middle of the...