A patio upgrade, a hair update + ALL my favorite things!

Wednesday, August 7, 2024

My DIY tree swing was last week's project... this week, we officially hung patio lights!

Thanks to a fantastic Facebook Marketplace find (we got these contractor-grade string lights for a steal) and some gigantic posts from my parent's old backyard batting cage, this project was super frugal and helps our backyard feel even more magical!

Have you done any DIY projects this summer? I'd love to hear about them.

simple food.

It's peach season -- which means our favorite easy and delicious peach almond crisp is on the menu. Oh, and it's gluten-free!

get my recipe -->

organized home.

Over the weekend, I spent 20 minutes organizing + decluttering the medicine cabinet, and then restocking it with a few things we were out of. It's a great quick project to tackle BEFORE cold and flu season arrives (hint, hint!)

learn more -->

**Tips to Organize Your Medicine Cabinet**

intentional living.

For the last 12 years, I've shared A Few of My Favorite Things at the beginning of each month... this month, I thought I'd link to ALL my past favorites. 😉

keep reading -->

In other news...

School Supplies ✏️

The kids got their class list and found out who their teachers were last week... and they just couldn't wait any longer to get school supplies!

We had almost everything needed in the house, but we made a quick trip to pick up the remaining few items and now their backpacks are fully stocked and ready to go (2 week early -- whew!)

Debt-Free College 💰

No, the Dekker family isn't ready for college loans just yet... but I know many of you are in the thick of college prep with your teens, so I wanted to share a fantastic article I recently read on MoneySavingMom.com.

How to Graduate from College Debt Free offers 10+ tips to save a little (or a lot) on college tuition -- a few of which I wouldn't have thought of on my own. I'm mentally filing these tips away for 5 years from now!

A True Story 📖

I read the book Heaven Is For Real over the weekend (it's a super quick read) and it was SO good.

It's a true story, written by a pastor whose 3-year-old son almost died on an operating table, apparently entered Heaven for a few minutes, and shared vivid memories and very specific stories when he eventually recovered from his surgery.

I realize there might be some fabrications to the story, but it was an excellent book and very inspirational if you're looking for a quick read (Nora read the entire book yesterday!)

A Hair Update ✂︎

Apparently I haven't shared enough pictures of myself lately because many of you are asking if I'm still growing out my hair and/or how long it is.

Yes, I'm still growing it... slowly but surly. I chopped 2 inches off in early June (I wanted to even up the ~~mullet~~ layers 😄) but the current plan is to keep growing it out.

Here's a picture I took the other day, just for you curious ones.