Teacher Style -- Confessional

January 31, 2013

I had a bit of a revelation the other day, I've been wearing the same type of outfit for four years now. 

Behold! Emily's teacher uniform:
 Or the alternate:
I have a ton of cute clothes, but nothing I want to wear to work. Being up, down, and all around...plus outside duty with 4th graders just doesn't justify chic clothes. My first year I wore more wedges and cute tops, I even wore makeup! These days I wear makeup, but just eye concealer, blush, BB Cream, and sometimes mascara. I live for comfort and optimal sleep and rarely pull out the beloved button downs I so lovingly collected my first year of teaching. 

And I'm not gonna lie, a few times this year I have been in a "bra burning" mood and wore a sports bra with a sweat shirt and a cute scarf to dress it up.

1) because it is freezing in my class
2) because I felt like it

To be even more honest...it is so stinking cold in our school that many a days I can be seen sporting a school tee with my wanna-be Northface jacket zipper nearly all the way up. 

Cute -- hardly

Passable -- it works

What are your work clothing confessions? 
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Oh How Pinteresting Wednesday!

January 30, 2013



Heart Shaped Chips for V-Day



Baking Soda Mask - put 2 tbsp baking soda in your palm & mix in enough water to create a paste. Massage into your face for about 30 secs, do not scrub. Do nightly and within a week pores will appear smaller and breakouts will disappear. 

Source: ehow.com via Emily on Pinterest








DIY Chalkboard Serving Platter




Source: ilyke.net via Lee on Pinterest




Source: ohbiteit.com via Liza on Pinterest
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Things That Make Me Say Yeay! -- a few days late

January 29, 2013

This post was initially going to go up Sunday, but due to celebrating a friends birthday I didn't get it up.   There was a time when we first moved here and that wouldn't have been a blog problem, but now a days it is a nice problem to have:)
 Y'all! You have no idea how happy these three products make me. For one I am obsessed with raw ACV, basically you can use it for everything. It is great for your health. Next up, that Raaw Cranberry Ginger juice was a life saver this week. It is about the nastiest thing I've tasted, but it kicked out my kidney infection. I drank a ton of water for 3 days and that at night and walla (you get the point), no more kidney infection/pain! Last but not least, this girl is so happy to see non-dairy creamers on the market that aren't of the "What is that ingredient" variety. Lactose intolerance is not my favorite thing on earth. 
 Nothing in the world is nicer than a day off work to make lattes and eat poached eggs. 
 If you like restaurant salsa, you need to try Pioneer Woman's recipe. I probably ate the majority of the massive container I made all by my lonesome this past week. 
 Two really fun yeays this week were that I bought the True Food book, but Jeremy surprised me and bought us both the ESV study bible. It's quite the brick, but it is so stinking awesome I just want to carry it everywhere. I have a Holman student study bible, so it was time for an upgrade, but something tells me finding a cover I like for this puppy is going to be tough. 
 Our little group of silly friends have been on quite the roller blading kick for awhile now. I've had mine for about a year, and a few months ago Sara and I started skating together. Now we are getting others to hop on the band wagon, and Friday night we had quite the little crowd at the tennis courts ha! It was a sight to see, only a few of us are any good. I like the exercise you get out of it, it works muscle groups similar to running on an elliptical (plus an hour burned 685 calories)...but tricks and all in all looking good do not accompany my skill set. 
Nothing ends the week better than a Saturday with no plans. I got up and cleaned, made a grocery list, drank coffee, and just left the back door open because it was so pretty. Later some friends called and we went to the park and played frisbee...ended up having lunch, and then kidnapped Sarah and went to  Houma. It was a nice chilled out kind of day. I just love days where there is no work involved and Jeremy is home. 
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Meal Pinning Monday & a freebie

January 28, 2013



[What is Meal Pinning Monday?]
MPM is how I meal plan for our little family. I once spent a lot of time searching the web and my recipe books hunting for new recipes and ideas for what to cook every week. Then, Pinterest came along and made meal planning much easier for me. Every weekend I look over what I have pinned the prior week and decide what I would like to cook and make my grocery list from these recipes. MPM came about as a way to share what I am cooking, and to also see what others are cooking every week to hopefully get even more dinner ideas from other bloggers. If you don't pin your recipes feel free to just share what you are cooking. 


Monday - Clean Eating Penne alla Vodka



Tuesday - Leftovers

Wednesday - Slow Cooker Pork Green Chili Stew



Thursday - Out of town

Friday - Out of town

Saturday - Out of town

Sunday - Leftover Pork Stew that I froze:)

And because I love y'all, here is the menu/grocery list I made that I use for myself during the week! Enjoy and feel free to share it:)

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The Door -- Adventures in Antiquing

January 26, 2013

I intended to post this over the summer, but like all DIY projects for me...they take months. I'm the DIYer who comes back time and time again, changing, adding a little more, wondering if someone else will finish this thing for me. It never happens. But with such a large project, it had to eventually get done. Otherwise, people would continue to ask why I had a door in my living room. One of my favorite bloggers, The Nester, did several posts a few years back about this blue door she had on her wall; since then I've been in search of a door for my wall.

Two years ago I found one just like I wanted for $20. It was beat up and weathered perfectly.

But Jeremy said no.

Then, this past summer, I found one in the trash.

It was door love at first sight.

I did what I could to stuff it into the little Smurf of a car I have, and promptly rode down the street with both back doors wide open on my tiny little blue Focus. It was a sight to see y'all! But I finally had my door, giant hole in the back and all. So I did the next thing that one would do after scoring a door out of the trash, look on Pinterest for that blue door from years and years ago. Oh those pre-Pinterest years, how everything was so much more difficult to keep up with. I could have easily scrolled through the saved posts in my reader, but that would take AGES! So I settled on this little gem as my inspiration-


Now excuse the next few pics, nothing in my brain felt the need to break out the good camera. 

The door, pre being attacked by me. 

Round one:

Something in my snapped when Peacock blue what the color of the door I was going to put in the living room. I spray painted it, by the way, and it took 2 cans to get the job done. I didn't sand it before hand, I just washed it down with vinegar to stip off the nasty. 


Now from this point I don't have many pics before the finished product, but I'll explain the process anyway. 

Step 1:
Spray painted the door a darker/brighter color--2 cans

Step 2:
Bought scrapbook paper from Hobby Lobby that looked like old wallpaper. I tore it up, like it would if it were real wallpaper that someone had ripped off the door and spent the next several months randomly walking past the door and Modge Podging another piece in place. I used a sponge brush and liberally slathered the paper in place. If it wrinkled a little that was okay, it was not supposed to look perfect. 

Step 3:
I went around the edges, and anywhere that would have worn down naturally with Vaseline. I paid special attention to put a lot over areas with the paper, while still making sure the blue had some too. 

Step 4:
I bought 2 more cans of spray paint, in a much more neutral blue and went to town. I painted the entire door yet again. 

Step 5:
After the paint dried I wiped off the spots where the Vaseline was, being sure to remove all of it. If you don't remove it, whatever you put or paint there will eventually come off. Now I was left with a blue door that showed signs of the paper and bright blue underneath. 

Step 6:
I used Valspar Antiquing Glaze following the directions on the bottle. I also watched several videos on YouTube about how to use the stuff. It worked best for me, since my door was so large, to paint the Glaze over the half the door liberally. Then I began wiping it off with paper towels and going over it with a dry (bristled) paint brush (to get the streaking paint effect). It got too dry a few times, so I just sprayed it down with water (I kept a spray bottle close to my side!) and got to work again. You have to work quick with this Glaze, it took about 10 minutes from start to finish and I was spraying my heart out to keep it from drying. 

Step 7:
I attached an antique looking door knob:)

Here is the finished product.


I'm really happy with how this turned out, for awhile it was questionable. If you have any questions about what I did that I didn't clear up feel free to comment, email me labrideblog {at} gmail {dot} com, or tweet me @labride. 
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Why You Should Be Writing in Your Bible

January 25, 2013


Lucky for me our Internet is back up, Comcast has been down. No surprise. 

There is just something about an old bible, granted it makes me nervous to open one, but they are gorgeous to look at. In a way I wish books were still bound the way they use to be. Even better than what the outside looks like, is the inner contents.

Years ago, when my great-grandfather died ( I was six at the time), my mother was given a stack of old family bibles to use for our family genealogy. Back before the days of Ancestry.com and other sites, bibles were often how families kept up with important events and records. The stack she got her hands on were a treasure trove of marriages, babies, and deaths. It doesn’t hurt that throughout the years little notes were made throughout the bibles.

I don’t necessarily know if my own mother has kept up with genealogy in her bibles over the years, but I have snagged a peek and she had noted little things from sermons over the years. That alone can be a lot of fun to look through when tracing genealogy, even though it doesn’t exactly help to determine who was who and who married who you can still get a good idea about who the person carrying that bible really was and what they thought was important enough to note over the years. When I was much younger, my mom was very active in tracing our family history; we have boxes and stacks of tin photos and letters from years and years ago. To this day I still love dragging out the photos and post cards and imagining just what their lives were like.

This week Jeremy actually surprised me by getting both of us new bibles, the ESV study bible to be exact. My mental wheels immediately started turning!

What would I do first with this unblemished book?

Highlight it half to death?

Put all 30 of my random book marks in their permanent place?

Or…

Take advantage of the completely blank pages that were just waiting to be filled in?

After highlighting all of my SSMT verses in pink from the past few years I immediately took to filling out the marriages, deaths, and births. Instead of starting at the immediate point A, I decided to begin at our marriage and mark every event from there on out.

Our wedding – 5/30/09
Nanny’s death – 9/5/09
Joshua’s birth – 1/10/10

Hopefully the only thing being added to in the next few years involve marriage and babies. While death is an important page for genealogy, I am not a fan of writing there. Now one day, years and years from now one of our great grand children or their kids will have their hands on our bibles and see all of the dates. Hopefully they will appreciate the hand written    events as much as I enjoy looking at the events in our family bibles. I hope that our future kids, grand-kids, and great grand-kids want to flip through the pages and see what scripture we marked, what dates we wrote on passages, and all of the little notes within. 

I can only hope though. 

Hope that the Internet doesn't take over so much that the interest in old personal items for genealogy's sake isn't lost; and our family stories, pictures, and documents carry on through our kids, and their kids as well. 

Because let's face it, there is nothing cooler than peeking inside a worn out old bible and seeing just what that person deemed important in their life. 
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Oh, How Pinteresting Wednesday!

January 23, 2013



18 mug desserts for when you are dying for something sweet:)

Source: buzzfeed.com via Angel on Pinterest


Considering my white one like this fell off the face of the Earth I will be needing this one *cough* *birthday* *cough*.

Source: wantist.com via Sarah on Pinterest


My mother sang this all the time when I was a kid. 









Downton Abby is back in full swing. I am only completely obsessed and mildly speak with an accent while sipping Earl Grey and eating biscuits during the affair weekly. Who's with me?






Fridge Pickles Recipe:) making this very soon...



I love this style of boutonniere for men, flowers just didn't fit Jeremy's personality so I made some similar to these. Makes me want to do it again:)

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$25 eDiaperCakes Giveaway Winner

January 22, 2013

I'm a little behind posting the winner for the $25 dollars off at eDiaperCakes, but here it is:



Congrats Kris! I will be contacting you soon about how to claim your prize!!
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Meal Pinning Monday

January 21, 2013



[What is Meal Pinning Monday?]
MPM is how I meal plan for our little family. I once spent a lot of time searching the web and my recipe books hunting for new recipes and ideas for what to cook every week. Then, Pinterest came along and made meal planning much easier for me. Every weekend I look over what I have pinned the prior week and decide what I would like to cook and make my grocery list from these recipes. MPM came about as a way to share what I am cooking, and to also see what others are cooking every week to hopefully get even more dinner ideas from other bloggers. If you don't pin your recipes feel free to just share what you are cooking. 

Monday- Bacon and Pea Mac & Cheese
(using Greek yogurt, Smart Taste Pasta, and twice the peas)


Tuesday- Leftovers

Wednesday- Chicken Tacos with PW's Salsa 
(I'm topping the tacos with shredded lettuce, 2% cheese, plain Greek yogurt, and salsa with whole wheat soft taco shells)



Thursday- Leftovers

Friday- Crockpot Lazy Cabbage Rolls


Saturday- Leftovers

Sunday- Cheat Meal
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Things That Make Me Say Yeay!

January 20, 2013

Goofy friends bugging me in line at Starbucks. Water was tossed at my car...so I may or may not have tossed an entire opened water bottle back:)
I love grocery shopping with Jeremy, it is something we've done since we started dating. There have only been a handful of times one of us went alone. I stocked up on yogurt, veggies, and fruit; while my man gathered Mac & Cheese and a bundt cake. I now have a game called "Don't eat that stupid cake!" I probably won't win. 
My aunt bought us an espresso maker when we got married and due to counter space in this apartment it hasn't been used as much as it was in Monroe. However, Jeremy was sweet enough to break it out and make me a decaf latte.
SSMT app is up for this year! Who else is memorizing with me?
BBQ date night at Big Mikes, because smoked meat in my love language. 
Parent/teacher conference day, surprisingly not too shabby. It was nice to have a kid free day...and even nicer that tomorrow is a no work day! Whoop whoop:)
Who loves puffy jackets and LaCroix? This girl! Especially in freakishly cold weather (for south Louisiana). 
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What's in your bag // Teacher Bag Edition

January 18, 2013

I'm always interested in what others keep in their purses and tote bags, and no I don't dig in them. But I'd like to. Here is a little peak into what I carry to work (school) with me every day minus the lunch box. 

I was carrying a tote I got at a Minister's Wives retreat, but decided it didn't have enough pockets. I also have a Gussy bag, but love it too much to stuff it into my drawer at work, so lately I've been carrying Vera. Honestly, I love Vera Bradley totes and purses more than a lot of other brands, and it is rare that I will spend over $25 on one without a discount, but Vera is worth it. This particular tote was part of my graduation present from my Aunt Billie when I graduated oh...9 years ago. It was part of a set with the makeup pouch and umbrella, sadly the umbrella was sucked over the side of the bridge while I was walking to work during Hurricane Katrina. Why I chose to walk to work during a hurricane you ask? I had a good parking spot at the dorms, I would swim to work to keep a good spot ha!

1. Pony Tail holders  2. Flash drive full of things I need to upload to Teachers Pay Teachers. 3. Tea, because I am trying to not drink as much coffee these days. 

4. iPhone with Otter Box  5. dental floss  6. Bath & Body Works Handi Bac in Fresh Lemon, I love their Kitchen Lemon and Fresh Lemon. Sadly I'm far too allergic to wear anything too heavily scented often. 7. Vera Bradley mini wallet with my keys attached  8. Pier One zippered pouch  9.Pumpkin Seeds  10. Erin Condren Planner  11. Kelly Minter's Nehemiah Study, I shouldn't do it at work, but I carry it around everywhere in case I have a chance to do it...and sometimes I need the mental break during planning. 12. some old peppermint
 13. bobby pins  14. Ear plugs, because you just never know when you'll need them.  15. Sea-Bands, great for nausea. I wear them every time we travel and when I just don't feel too hot. No time for sickies at work. 16. Lady items...the best tampons on earth. Playtex Sport. 17. An old Advil bottle full of Ibuprofen. 18. Oral Gel from when I had my teeth cleaned and they were sensitive...in July. I don't clean this pouch often. 19. Mucinex
 20. More tea and Nectresse (sugar from Monk Fruit) 21. Allergy medicine. 22. Trident White Gum 23. Pill box I borrowed from Mom and never gave back, I during the day it has Raspberry Keytone, Royal Jelly, Saffron Extract, B12, a Multivitamin, and Flaxseed Oil in it. To say I love supplements and homeopathic medicine is an understatement. 24. Vaseline Lip Therapy 25. Computer cord for my iPhone. It doubles for if it is dying on me or if I need to take pics of kids and send them in for the year book.  26. Pens. 27. Pier 1 Imports Paper Soap

What do you keep in your bag for work? 

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