• Animals,  decorating

    Vintage-Looking Animal Prints – Free Printable

    A couple of weeks ago on our trip to Oregon we visited the WildLife Safari in the small town of Winston. The highlight of the Wildlife Safari is actually driving through the safari with your windows down. In some instances the animals were close enough to the driving path for a few really great photo ops. Now, when the ostrich came a little too close and decided to peck the car, the windows were definitely UP for that encounter. Here’s a photo I took of the American Bison. His coat is looking a little sad in the original photo. Here he is all vintage-y and with a little haircut. I’m seriously considering…

  • gardening and landscape

    Decorating Your Flower Beds

    If I’m being honest, I’m perfectly ecstatic to celebrate that one-hour window where a small section of one of my flower beds is completely weed-free. I haven’t even reached the point in my feeble attempts at outdoor beautification to consider decorating my flower beds. Every time I turn around, another weed pops up. Then I give up and drink a…lemonade. Some people are in a different league. They don’t call them Master Gardeners for nothing! They create a custom stone bench and then style it with ceramic frogs and an old pail filled with blooming flowers. Of course, they do. And you know each and every one of those stones in that…

  • Family

    Happy as a Dog in a Field of Cows

    I’ve spent the last two and a half weeks happy as this dog playing in the field. No joke! I slept in my old childhood room. It’s much classier these days – no posters on the wall. I soaked up time with my family. How do my nieces and nephews grow so fast? How am I old enough to have nieces and nephews? Stop the madness! I squeezed in as much time as possible with friends. What happens on girls night, stays on girls night. Also, true friends are rare and should be cherished…especially since they have so much dirt on you! Now I’m headed home. I’m happy about that too.…

  • Family

    Caption This

    This might be my favorite photo of me EVER. It totally beats all those pictures of me in 3rd grade with a mullet. Thanks Mom. The expressions on these girls’ faces? Priceless. You know you’re doing a good job as a parent if your kids alternate between amazed and embarrassed beyond belief by your antics. I’m trying to settle on a way to caption this photo. I was trying to teach these girls how to do one of those “jump high in the air” photos. I’d say I knocked it out of the ballpark… on so many levels. Don’t be surprised if this becomes my Christmas card. So, if you have an idea…

  • Food

    Blueberry Zucchini Muffins

    Zucchini. The vegetable that grows an inch every time you turn your back on it. It’s really not my favorite vegetable. However, this recipe has me reconsidering my favorites list. I found a recipe for Blueberry Zucchini Bread on Allrecipes and it had an almost 5-star rating out of approximately 1,600 reviews. Holy smokes! That must be a good recipe. Or is it? Even with amazing online reviews, will it pass muster with my critical family? Chief critics include: the 5-year-old picky, doesn’t eat anything weird eater and the 69-year-old, life-long zucchini hater. Tough crowd. Well, I didn’t tell either of my chief critics that this muffin recipe included 2 cups of zucchini.…

  • decorating,  gardening and landscape

    Birdhouse on a Post

    This is a birdhouse post about a birdhouse on a post. (Prepositions are little, but mighty.) In this particular instance, it is not so much a house, but a bird chapel. Preach it little birdies. If you have or find or make an amazing birdhouse, you don’t always have to hang it in a tree. No sir. Bring it closer, make it a part of your outdoor decor. Stick it on a post! My stepmom secured this bird chapel her super-talented brother made for her on top of an old 4×4 fence post. To get the fence post to stand upright without putting it into the ground she cut four…

  • decorating

    Tractor Seat Art

    I’m lucky a gal. When I go “home,” I actually get to go back to my childhood home. Yep, I grew up on a ranch. Cows, hay fields and lots of memories. There are also a lot of country treasures to be found on the ol’ homestead. My stepmom rescued these 2 old tractor seats and gave them new life as wall art. She’s a clever gal! The metal flowers came off of a piece of art my stepmom found at Kohl’s – on deep clearance, of course. She liked the flowers, but said they were attached to a weird, tacky piece of tile. It took a while for inspiration to…

  • two kids hugging a horse copyright A Pretty Happy Home
    Family

    Horsing Around

    Hello, hello! I’m popping in to say there’s no real post today because we’ve been having way too much fun playing with friends and family this week. Oh, and there’s been an actual horse to swoon over too! We’re definitely stockpiling happy memories this week! Things will be back to normal next week. Maybe. 😉 Since this post was so short, I feel like I short-changed you! Try one of these! Braided Denim Pumpkin  Spiced Apple Cider Baked Donut Holes Decorating Your Flower Beds Farmhouse Pottery Barn Knock Off – Update One Year Later Share this:

  • Food

    Dave’s Killer Bread Artisan-Style

    I had the opportunity to try a bread experiment last week. I made a double batch of my Dave’s Killer Bread Knock-Off recipe, but I realized I only had 3 loaf pans and I needed 4. Hmm. This is the kind of problem opportunity I live for. Too much bread dough, too few pans. I can work with this. I mulled the issue over for half a second and decided to let my 4th loaf rise in a pie plate instead. Perhaps I’d get a cool artisan-looking loaf out of it? I greased the pie plate with shortening, just like I normally do. You could also spray it with cooking…

  • Exercise,  Running

    I Tried It: Mineral Salt Deodorant

    Aren’t you glad I do these things? Like try a deodorant and then tell you how it worked? Or have you already run for the hills? I promise I don’t smell that bad. I guess you’ll have to trust me on this one. So, my husband, who never shops for toiletries, decided earlier this year to order this $7-ish stick of deodorant because it was going to be SO MUCH cheaper than ALL the deodorant he uses. Since anti-perspirant/deodorant magically appears in his bathroom drawer, I think he thought he was using a stick a month or something. I assure you, he does not. But, he was right. It’s possible that this…