Modern Homemaking Made Easy
Good morning friends. Today I wanted to share with you one of my favorite pastimes lately: walking the yard. Whoever landscaped our home (we purchased last summer) had a passion for gardening like I do. There is always something in bloom in our yard, even through the winter. My husband and myself really enjoy spending…
I get a LOT of emails from blog readers that struggle with meal planning. It’s one of the top struggles I’ve heard about in my 7 years of writing this blog. Today I made you a quick video to explain the process I use to meal plan. I break down how I decide what meals…
I don’t know about you but my family can get exhausted from the “grind” of everyday life. School, sports, and all of our other commitments can make us feel constantly rushed and honestly, we can forget to cherish those special little moments with each other. That’s why at least once a month I try to…
The other night my husband and I were sitting around, him watching some horrible cheesy movie I’m sure, while I tinkered away on my laptop. I started looking at Zillow and randomly pulled up the listing of the very first house we bought after we got married. As we took a little walk down memory…
Today is going to get really honest, y’all, and it’s going to be long. I know everyone is spouting off about eating healthy and exercising in the new year and that’s not what today is about. I just wanted to get really, well, real, with you all about what I’ve been going through and…
Happy Friday! I’m really excited today to share some updated pictures of the home we bought last summer when we returned from our year abroad in England. To refresh you, we found out last spring that we were being stationed near Savannah, Georgia which totally caught us off-guard. We never expected for the Army to send…
It’s been about a year and a half since I was first able to share with you all that we were officially 100% debt-free (woohoo!) Now, I wanted to give you a little update on what life looks like now and how the process has gone after we reached that goal. First, I’ll give you…
Computers have really changed everything, haven’t they? Those of us old enough to remember life before everyone had a laptop and smartphone remember the big effort it took to learn something new. Going to the library, looking up a book in the card catalog, pulling out the trusty encyclopedia. It’s crazy how times change, isn’t…
A lot of people I know are surprised to learn that I’m not a naturally organized person, in fact, my nickname as a child was “messy Missy!” My poor super organized mother was just at her wit’s end with my creative chaos! When I was in my twenties I finally became a little more on…
Thank you to Pine Mountain for sponsoring this post, as always all opinions are my own. Ever since we moved to Georgia this past summer I’ve been so lucky to have met an amazing group of ladies in our new neighborhood. Our kids go to the same school, we see each other at the community…
You guys! Today is the day I’ve been waiting for-our household belongings are being delivered from England! I left our home there July 12 (see our home tour from England here) and I’m so excited to see my things again-I feel like a kid on Christmas morning. It’s been driving me crazy not being “settled”…
School started last week, can you believe it? It had only been three short weeks since we moved back to the US from England so I had been very busy getting ready for the new school year and getting my three boys set up for success at their new school. (And to be honest, getting…
Okay-if you read yesterday’s post then I know you’re wanting to see how we changed the paint colors in our new house. To catch you up, here are some pictures of what we were working with, starting with the dining room painted in a deep burgundy just off the front entryway: The dining room from…
Happy Thursday my friends, I’m so happy to be writing a blog post for the first time in over a month. I’ve been blessed to have some beautiful bloggers guest posting for me while my family has been in the process of moving from England to Georgia (check them out-summer desserts, hand lettering, one pan…
No recipes or tips today-just life! You may have noticed that it’s been a bit crickets here on the blog the past few weeks, honestly I’ve been overwhelmed with life! After nearly a year our time in England is coming to a close. Today I’m writing this surrounded by boxes as our first shipment is…
No fancy tips or yummy recipes today-just a little personal update for those of you that have been reading the blog for a while now. For anyone new here, our family has been living in England since last July so that my husband could attend a United Kingdom military course. His course has students from…
The Happier Homemaker started in it’s first incarnation about eight years ago as a book. I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone that (other than my husband.) When I was a young mother bogged down in the weeds of life with a one and two year old I started writing about homemaking. I loved my…
I can’t believe that we’re already half way finished with our year here in England. The time has flown and there’s so much I’ve been wanting to write down, remember, capture. We’ve made so many memories here already and met so many amazing people from all over the world-it’s been such an life-changing experience. I…
This post/product review is sponsored by Pine Mountain but as always, all opinions are my own. I know I’ve been talking a lot about our trip to Scotland with friends over Christmas lately, please forgive me. To be completely honest when we first started talking about a snowy vacation I wasn’t entirely on board. Growing…
I’ve been meaning to show you our new home in England for weeks now but I’ve been putting it off thinking “oh if I just wait a little bit it’ll look better, more organized, etc.” I finally realized this week that homes are really always a work in progress, especially when you move every 1-3…
I hope you all have been following along on Facebook and Instagram with our travels-it’s been one heck of a week! I wanted to post a little bit about the process of actually getting overseas with the kids and cat (that might help some other military or civilian families making similar moves) and also about…
I had a system I used to plan out my grocery trips, sitting down before I head to the store and planning my meals for the week and adding the ingredients to the list. Recently I realized I needed to tweak it a bit because I was forgetting to add things that I realized I needed…
As spring and summer approach many military families like ours are getting ready to move-after two years here in DC we are having a whirlwind of activity preparing for our upcoming move to England. While moving is excited for our family-we love exploring new places-it’s also inherently stressful. As we embark on our ninth move…
Get ready guys, this is going to be a long, picture heavy post! Many of you know that we’re a military family and if you’ve been following on social media recently you’d have seen that my husband was getting promoted at the beginning of this month. This was a pretty big deal, as an Army…
It was this time last year that I first made the decision with my husband that we were going to get serious about getting out of debt. Between credit cards and car loans and student loans we just weren’t making great decisions and we definitely weren’t setting ourselves up properly for retirement. A friend had…
If you’ve followed along with me on Facebook or Instagram for a while you’ll know that our family LOVES to go on cruises. I’m a beach girl at heart and nothing is so fun and relaxing to me than cruising away to the tropics with those I love the most! We just returned this past…
I’m a math girl-I love math. I used to actually enjoy doing my taxes (I know, I know-I’m a weirdo!) but that was back in my twenties when I did a nice short little 1040EZ and would pat myself on the back after an hour of number crunching. Fast forward ten years and I’m a…
Like I mentioned last week we are going on a vacation later this month and I’m working really hard to eat healthy in preparation for all that pool side time. I usually eat pretty healthy but like many people the busy holiday season tends to lead to getting off track. Many people make New Years Resolutions…
Are you still shopping for Christmas? I’m trying to finish up (very late for me) so I thought I’d throw together some things I’d been looking at for my three boys lately. I don’t know about you but I’m SO tired of buying my kids toys and having them tossed aside in a couple of days….
Ladies, consider this your early Christmas present from me! I don’t know about you but in my family it always seems like the women are the ones doing the holiday shopping. Every year I see my husband’s eyes light up frantically about two days before Christmas with the realization that he alone is responsible for…
I know it’s early y’all but I’m a planner. Our schedules get packed as the holidays approach so I’m very big on finishing my Christmas shopping EARLY-or at least planning on what I’m going to buy early! (See this post to print out my holiday gift planner to help you plan your gifts!) As part…
When I left off yesterday I was in Labor & Delivery about to be wheeled back for the C-section of my third son back in 2011, just a few months after starting this blog. My husband was in Kuwait on his way home from Iraq and he waited in line to get to a payphone to…
I’m not sure why really, but I’ve been wanting to share lately the path I’ve taken to get to this point of being what I consider a “professional” blogger. I also recognize that in the big picture of the blogging world I don’t share very much about myself personally compared to others. Part of that…
I know you all read “Non-Newtonian Fluid” in this blog post title and were just jumping out of your seats with excitement, right? No? Well, I actually have to admit that I didn’t know what Non-Newtonian Fluid was either (despite my undergrad degree in science and post-grad research), but as we were playing with what…
5 Baby Steps to Start Eating Clean
The Simple Things
