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At The Picket Fence with Vanessa Hunt

Where Ideas for your Home Meet Inspiration for your Heart

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February 28, 2011

Blog of the Week-Quit Eating Out


This week’s At The Picket Fence  featured blog is someone Heather met early on in her blogging journey with Gourmet Meals for Less.


In fact she sent out a request for a guest poster for her awesome Saturday Swap Recipe Party,  and Heather  said, “I’ll do it! Pick me! Pick me!” (okay so Heather didn’t really say that, but it’s what she was saying inside..grin) and they’ve become foodie blogging buds!

She has a great site promoting cooking at home as an alternative to eating out so much!

The motto for her blog is: “Recipes to Make Dining Out A Choice, Not A Chore!”

She has been so supportive of both Heather’s former blog and now our latest venture with
At The Picket Fence.  She is 

Kim 


at



If you are looking for alternatives to the I didn’t plan ahead and now I have to eat out syndrome, than we highly recommend you pay Kim a visit over at her great site!  If you have a food blog then you definitely need to link up to her Saturday Swap! 

To visit Kim just click on her button in our sidebar! She’s a great hostess, she’ll love it if you take a moment to drop by and say, “hi!”


We would also like to take a moment to welcome a new friend to At The Picket Fence:

We are so excited to have formed a partnership with The Simple Stencil.  Trust us when we say you’ve never seen a store quite like this!  The Simple Stencil has everything and we mean everything you could ever hope to find in a stencil..and if you happen to be looking for something more than..well…everything…they can custom design it for you!  Watch for an incredible giveaway coming up soon At The Picket Fence courtesy of The Simple Stencil! 


Love from the girls at the fence,

7 Comments Filed Under: Featured Blogger

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Comments

  1. Yvonne @ StoneGable says

    February 28, 2011 at 4:20 PM

    I just found the Picket Fence! WOW! what a great blog you have. It is like a wonderful clearing house for all things delicious, useful and very pretty!
    I’ll be back often! Now off to visit some of your featured blogs!
    So nice to stop!
    Yvonne

    Reply
  2. Sonja says

    February 28, 2011 at 4:53 PM

    What a fun blog! I just came over from… not sure where I came from! But I have enjoyed looking around, so many good, fun and interesting things to see. I’ll definitely be back! 🙂

    Reply
  3. Kim @ Quit Eating Out {Recipes to Make Dining Out a Choice, Not a Chore} says

    March 2, 2011 at 3:10 AM

    Thanks Friends for featuring my blog this week! What a fun blessing. I wish you so much success with At The Picket Fence. {hugs}

    Reply
  4. ❀ⒹⒺⒺ❀ says

    June 14, 2011 at 1:32 AM

    I’m a new blogger. I came over from debbiedoos.

    Dee
    Your new follower

    Reply
  5. andrea says

    September 29, 2011 at 12:57 PM

    I love how your photos on the side bar show you both in serious blog writing mode! You both look hard at work! Thanks for stopping by my blog, I’m adding you to my blog roll. Have a great day! andrea @ townandprairie

    Reply
  6. Curtains In My Tree says

    November 11, 2011 at 2:23 PM

    Well you know it is not healthy to eat out .
    My daughter just recently got ecolli poison from a national
    chain
    Sam’s

    I am scared to eat at any salad bar because of this

    Reply

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  1. Let The Fun Begin.. Opening The Doors For The Chapel Market - Forever Design says:
    October 22, 2013 at 6:09 AM

    […] Thistlewood Farms has us all smiling. Can I tell you how much I love that girl. Thanks for spreading the joy Kariann. (on left)  and Heather (right) from The Picket Fence. […]

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The month of June is coming to a close and it has The month of June is coming to a close and it has been JAM packed! The highlight by far though was my son's graduation from high school. When I started blogging, he was only 6 years old and some of you have been apart of my community here for that entire time. Now, he's 19 and there is a reason parents are told not to blink because the years truly do go faster than I ever could have imagined. He has become such an incredible young man we are so excited to see how God is going to unfold the next chapter of his life. We celebrated with parties galore (SO many open houses to attend!) and made memories we'll forever cherish. My mama heart was filled to bursting with the joy of it all! Now we're taking some time to just enjoy these warm, summer days making even more memories because, when you’re at this stage of parenting, you know all too well how much you need to grasp every opportunity to spend time together.

I hope your summer is off to a great start too dear friends! 🪴
“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts o “And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.” F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Happy first day of summer dear friends!! I can’t believe it’s been so long since I posted something new here but life has been crazy. I’ll have some new photos of house projects and life events to share with you soon but, got now, I’m just going to enjoy this gorgeous first day of summer after our ridiculously long, wet spring. ☀️
“It was June, and the world smelled of roses. Th “It was June, and the world smelled of roses. The sunshine was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside.” (Maud Hart Lovelace) 

Welcome June!
“No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom “No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation.”
General Douglas MacArthur

Grateful today and every day for those who were vigilant to the point of death in the preservation of our freedom. May we honor their sacrifice by being vigilant too. #memorialday
“Those who know your name trust in you, for you, “Those who know your name trust in you, for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you.” Psalm 9:10
This is one of my most favorite projects from my b This is one of my most favorite projects from my book Life in Season! 

Because, if heaven has a fragrance, I’m fairly certain it smells like lilacs.

I think that somewhere along the way the verse in the Bible that said, ‘heaven will smell like lilacs’ just got lost in translation. But it HAD to have been in there at some point, right?

When I bury my head in the blossoms (which I absolutely MUST do every single time I walk past them), I immediately feel a stirring in my soul.

It seems like I wait forever for my lilac tree to bloom. Every year I anxiously watch as the buds begin to form on the branches and then when the blossoms finally burst forth I begin that agonizing process of deciding the absolute perfect moment to snip them and bring them inside.

And then, after all of that waiting and watching it’s just over…done. Because, unlike heaven, lilacs don’t last for an eternity. So, making my own lilac room spray seemed like the perfect way to enjoy their fragrance long after the blossoms have faded.

Here’s how to make it! Ingredients: Water, Vodka, Lilac fragrance oil. Directions: Fill spray bottle with 50/50 ratio of water to vodka. Add 12 drops of lilac oil. Give it a shake, spray and if the scent isn’t strong enough, simply add a few more drops of lilac oil.

Once you’ve made this lilac scented room spray you will be very tempted to spray it in every room in your house. And someone may want to use it in the bathroom to cover up other less…ummmm….pleasing aromas.

But, do not, I repeat do NOT, let them.

You’ve captured the fragrance of heaven in a bottle and you wouldn’t want to go and tarnish it now would you? 😉
We had two back to back days of sunshine (the most We had two back to back days of sunshine (the most we’ve had in a LONG time) and now we are back to pouring rain. This has officially confirmed what I’ve know to be true for awhile now.

I’m a MUCH better version of myself when the sun is shining! 🤪 So I’ll just be over here today plotting and planning how my husband and I can be snowbirds someday when the kids are out of the house.

If you could spend your winters (and apparently most of spring too!) in any part of the country, where would it be?
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Two of our bathrooms are also in need of major makeovers. And we’ve saved up enough money over the years to tackle those projects. But, for the most part, we made the decision to use the bulk of that money in another way. While we knew that it was financially wise to invest in our house, we also knew that the greatest investment we could make was in our children. 

I’ll admit, there are times where I see other people doing massive overhauls of their entire home in a matter of months and I feel a prick of envy. But, we decided that if our choice was between waiting a bit longer to enjoy a renovated bathroom or going on adventures as a family, we would choose adventures every time. And we don’t regret that decision for a single second. It’s not that we haven’t tackled home projects (we’ve done a lot!). It’s just that it’s been a slow and steady process. 

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We have many years left to remodel our home but only so much time left to make memories with our children.

And, while I’m always happy to look around my home and see rooms that are updated and more reflecting of our style, it doesn’t compare to the joy I feel when I look around my home and see the people I love the most who have been shaped by the many adventures we’ve experienced together.
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What’s the weather like where you are?
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