The blessing of being welcome

I talked with the receptionist in my doctor's office this morning.  She was helpful and friendly, and when I thanked her, she answered cheerfully, "You're welcome."

I was stunned at how glad my heart was to hear these simple words.

You don't hear them much any more, do you?  People say "thank you" a lot, but the reply is usually "No problem," "Sure thing," or maybe "My pleasure."  Very few people use the traditional reply  of "You're welcome."

It occurred to me that it's sad for "you're welcome" to have fallen into disuse.  Why?  Because I need to be reminded that I'm welcome.  For someone to make space in his or her life for me--to help me, to assist me, to encourage me, to accommodate me--those things are all important.  Those are the kinds of things to which I might say "thank you," and rightly so.   Somehow it's very reassuring to me to hear that I am welcome in that person's life and space.


I need to hear it from God, too.  As I consider all his blessings, I can't help but thank him.  I need to be reminded that he's glad to bless me, glad to make room for me, glad to share his life with me.   I need to listen as his gentle voice says, "You're welcome."

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above,
and comes down from the Father of lights, 

with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning" (James 1:17, NKJV).

What about you?

**I'm joining Vanessa and Heather At the Picket Fence for Inspiration Friday 

and Amanda at Serenity Now for Weekend Bloggy Reading.**

Grace at Home No. 28

Welcome to this week's Grace at Home party!

This is where we celebrate and share all the ways we make our homes places of grace.  With lives full of the bounty of God's love and grace, we're privileged to share that grace with our loved ones. Here are a few of my favorites from last week's party.

Amanda from Serenity Now created an adorable back-to-school tablescape.  I love this way to savor the season and transition to fall--perfect for September!



Melissa from DaisyMaeBelle is so creative--and these owls she made for her girls are just the cutest!  She gives step-by-step instructions for making them.



Rebecca from You Are Talking Too Much found this darling chippy table for $10.  Doesn't it just inspire you to create beautiful autumn decor for your home?



And speaking of autumn decor, just look at the beautiful touches that Carol from Carol's Heirloom Collection added to her outdoor spaces.  So pretty!

Grace at Home is a place for you to share anything related to making your home a place of grace. I invite you to link posts about

• DIY projects
• decorating
• recipes
• hospitality
• homemaking tips
• parenting
• marriage
• faith
• self-care

Whatever you do to make your home a place of grace, I'd like to hear about it.  Please link to your specific blog post, not your home page, and include a link in your post back to this party.  And please visit at least a couple of the other party participants--a party is so much better if everyone mingles!

Autumn mantel

My living room mantel tends to stay the same, season after season--except for Christmas. Christmas changes everything! I don't usually do seasonal mantelscapes other than for Christmas.

But this year the call of Fall was just too strong to resist, so I put together the simplest of Autumn mantels.  Here it is:

 Very simple, isn't it?

Fall leaves in a vase filled with wine corks.  Plus a giant pine cone.

Our yard is full of pine cones, but this is the only giant one I've ever found.  Not sure how it got in my yard, but I like it!

We'll be lighting the fire soon, but for now the hearth is warmed up a bit with a few fallish elements.

These bundles of sticks remind me of sheaves of grain.  So far, though, they've mostly ended up as a playthings for my 15-year-old as he sits in the club chair to watch NFL.   One stalk at a time, my sheaves are dwindling.  Oh, well.  I'd rather have the boy than the sticks.

How's the Fall decorating going at your house?

I'm joining some fun parties:

It's Fall Y'all at Centsational Girl

Tips and Tutorials at Home Stories A to Z

Goose Creek Candle Co. Winner

Hello friends!

Thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway for a scented candle from Goose Creek Candle Company.  I used random.org to generate a winning number.  And the winner is. . .

Kim from Canaan Bound Brigade!

Kim, email me (RichellaP (at) gmail (dot) com) so that we can get your candle mailed out to you!

For everyone else, don't forget that you can use Coupon Code #1050 for 25% off your entire order through September 30.  Just visit Goose Creek Candle Company for lots of choices!

Grace at Home No. 27

Welcome to this week's Grace at Home party!  This is where we celebrate and share all the ways we make our homes places of grace.  With lives full of the bounty of God's love and grace, we're privileged to share that grace with our loved ones.

I usually share some highlights from last week's party here, but this week I'm out of town and have limited internet access.  So sorry about that!  So on to this week's party!

Grace at Home is a place for you to share anything related to making your home a place of grace. I invite you to link posts about

• DIY projects
• decorating
• recipes
• hospitality
• homemaking tips
• parenting
• marriage
• faith
• self-care

Whatever you do to make your home a place of grace, I'd like to hear about it.  Please link to your specific blog post, not your home page, and include a link in your post back to this party.  And please visit at least a couple of the other party participants--it's not a good party if people don't get to know one another!

 

Goose Creek Candle Co. Giveaway

Yesterday I posted my prized recipe for the world's best pumpkin bread.  Oh, how good the house smells when it's baking!

I can't be baking pumpkin bread every minute, yet I still like for my house to smell good.  One of my favorite ways to fill my house with fragrance is by lighting scented candles.  I must tell you, though: I'm picky about candles.  Honestly, most of the candles I've tried through the years have been big disappointments to me.  I want a candle that smells good but not too strong, does not smell too "perfumy," burns evenly for a long time, and doesn't produce too much smoke.  I'd like for it to look nice, too.  No ugly containers, thank you very much.  And I don't want the scent of the candle to give me a headache.  I told you I was picky!

I'd heard good things about Goose Creek Candle Co., and when they contacted me about hosting a giveaway of one of their products, I was eager to try their candles--but I was unsure whether I'd actually like the product.  Still, I had heard enough praises to be willing to give them a try myself.

Y'all.  These candles are just lovely.  First of all, look at how nice this candle looks just sitting on my countertop.  No need to hide these away!

They burn cleanly and evenly.  I like big jar candles, but too often I've ended up with a lot of wax around the perimeter of the jar and a tunnel right down the middle.  I'm not sure how the Goose Creek candle makers bring this about, but the wax of these candles melts evenly all across the top.  I've burned my samples for hours, and you can barely tell I've used them at all!

And most important of all, these candles smell heavenly.  They're heavily scented, but they don't smell "perfumy."  The scents are more subtle, more natural-smelling.  And they don't give me a headache!

 I tried the Orange Clove scent and the Whipped Pumpkin Latte candles; they're both gorgeous candles and smell great. The Whipped Pumpkin Latte one smells so good that I think I'd like to try others that have similar fallish names--Mulled Cider or Apple Bourbon, maybe?

I'm betting you'd like to try one of these beautiful candles for yourself. And you're in luck, because Goose Creek is giving away a 16-ounce American Heirloom jar candle to one of you!  To enter, simply visit Goose Creek Candle's website (click here), then leave a comment tell me what scent you'd most like to try.  Anyone can leave a comment simply by clicking on the word "Comments" below and following the prompts.  (If you're reading this in an email or a reader, you'll need to click over to my blog to leave a comment.)  I'll choose a winner on Monday, September 24.

If you'd like to go ahead and place an order with Goose Creek, use Coupon Code #1050 for 25% off your entire order now through September 30.

Visit Goose Creek Candle Co. today and choose something you'd like to try!

The kind folks at Goose Creek Candle Co. provided me with candles to sample, but I received no other compensation for this post, nor was I obligated in any way to provide a positive review.  Opinions stated here are 100% mine. 

The very best pumpkin bread

Whether you base your change-of-seasons attitude on the weather or the calendar, it's time to celebrate Autumn, for it will officially arrive this week.  Autumn is the perfect time to make my favorite of all baked goods:  pumpkin bread.

I bake a lot, and this is one of my most requested recipes.  I know there are lots of recipes for Pumpkin Bread, but this one?  This one is special.  My Aunt Laura gave me this recipe back in the 70s, and I've made it hundreds of times over the years.  And over the years I've eaten pumpkin bread made by lots of different home cooks as well as many different bakeries.  I'll tell you the truth:  this is the best pumpkin bread I've ever tasted.

Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients

3 cups sugar

3 1/2 cups flour

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 Tablespoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 cup vegetable oil (I use canola oil)

4 large eggs

2 cups pumpkin purée (I use Libby's solid pack pumpkin, 15 oz. can)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Optional: 2 cups chopped nuts (I use walnuts or pecans)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. If you're including nuts, spread them on a baking sheet and roast for about five minutes. This will make them a much tastier addition to your bread. Coarsely chop toasted nuts.

Stir all dry ingredients together in mixer bowl. Add all liquid ingredients. Mix well. Stir in chopped nuts if desired. Batter will be very thick, and to be honest it's not very pretty. Never fear. All will be well.

Pour batter into prepared loaf pans. I use four inexpensive oblong pans, each about 3 1/2 inches x 7 1/2 inches. This recipe is perfect for four loaves of this size, six "mini" loaves, two or three large loaves, or lots of muffins. You can grease and flour the pans if you like. I just spray mine with nonstick cooking spray.

Here's a trick: If you have a kitchen scale, weigh each pan as you're distributing your batter. Your loaves will play nicely together in the oven if they're all about the same size. Don't stress over this; just make each pan weigh about the same as the others.

Depending on the size of your loaves, bake 40-60 minutes at 350 degrees. Bread is done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. This is the most important thing: DO NOT OVERBAKE. For these medium-sized loaves, I usually time this bread for 45 minutes and start testing at that point. Even if you have to sacrifice many toothpicks and test your bread every couple of minutes, that's better than overbaking. If it's not done, the toothpick will be goopy. If it's done, the toothpick will be completely clean or perhaps have a couple of crumbs on it, but no goopiness. Remove the bread from the oven just as soon as a toothpick comes out clean.

Q: Why is testing the bread so important?

A: Because of residual heat, the bread actually continues to bake just a little after you remove it from the oven. So if you leave baked goods in the oven too long, they'll OVERbake after you remove them from the oven.  Believe me: it's worth the effort to watch the bread and remove it from the oven as soon as a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Here's how your loaves will look fresh from the oven:

Cool in pans for five to ten minutes, then remove from pans and cool completely on a wire rack.

See how neatly the loaves come out of the pan when you just spray the pans with nonstick cooking spray? No sticking and no flour residue. I bake a lot, but I never grease and flour pans any more.

When completely cool, wrap individual loaves in foil. If you don't need all loaves right away, they freeze beautifully. I like to keep a couple of these in the freezer. A loaf makes a great gift for a neighbor, a teacher, a new mom--just about anyone. One of my favorite hostess gifts for autumn is to pair a loaf with a package of pretty beverage napkins.

One more thing about this amazing bread. If you like, you can make this bread do double-duty as a yummy dessert simply by adding a simple cream cheese frosting.  Here's a simple recipe:

Cream Cheese Frosting

1 lb. powdered sugar

1 stick butter, softened

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

8 oz. cream cheese

Mix all ingredients together. Add roasted and chopped nuts if you like. Spread on bread or cake (or just eat with a spoon--it's that good!).  Store in refrigerator.

Or you can make a simple cream cheese glaze which is also really tasty: click here to read about that.

Scout's honor: this is one recipe you really should try.

I'm joining Beth at Home Stories A to Z for Tips and Tutorials.

Autumn at my front door

Even though Fall doesn't officially start until September 22, it's already Autumn in my heart--and now it's starting to look like Autumn around my house!  Here's a peek at my outdoor decor.

Our front door is bare during the hot weather, but I like to make a wreath for Fall.   This year's wreath is pretty simple.  I just used fallish elements from my craft stash and hot glue to create it.  I started with a straw form that I covered in moss.  Then I glued on a bunch of colorful silk leaves:

With that as a base, I then poked and glued in fallish elements--seed pods, pine cones, sweetgum balls, sheaves of grain--anything I could find in my craft stash that looked fallish got added to the wreath.  I did go through several sticks of glue, but I'm happy with the result.

I hung the wreath on the front door only to find it completely covered with dew the next morning. I mean, it was dripping.  So I let it dry thoroughly and then gave it a coating of clear spray paint.  I'm hoping the clear finish will keep it from mildewing. The spray paint gives it a glossy finish, but that's okay with me.

By the way, I hang my front door wreath from a wreath hanger.  My hanger sort of blends in with the color of the door--I highly recommend painting a door hanger the same color as the door so that it doesn't detract from the beauty of your wreath.  Wreath hangers tend to be a little too short for my taste, so I use wire to hang the wreath a bit lower.  You can't really see the wire, and my wreath ends up where I want it.

Mums flank the front door along with with some pumpkins and gourds.  I'll be excited to add some real pumpkins to the mix in a couple of weeks.  By then the mums should be in full bloom, and then it WILL be Autumn!

The sitting area to the right of the front door is one of our favorite spots to relax in the Autumn.  I made simple autumn leaf pillows for the loveseat.  You can read about those here.



The tabletop holds a very simple vignette--a couple of pumpkins along with a plant and a "Welcome" sign.  Simple but good.



Officially or unofficially, it's Fall at my house.  How about yours?

I'm joining these lovely parties:

Countdown to Fall at Sand and Sisal

Weekend Bloggy Reading at Serenity Now

Inspiration Friday, At the Picket Fence

Grace at Home No. 26

Welcome to this week's Grace at Home party!  This is where we celebrate and share all the ways we make our homes places of grace.  With lives full of the bounty of God's love and grace, we're privileged to share that grace with our loved ones.

Here are a few of my favorites from last week's party.

Suzy from Worthing Court made these adorable, colorful pumpkins and gives a step-by-step tutorial on how to make them.  So cute!

Shenita at Embellishments by SLR makes every inch of her home a welcoming space, including her powder room.  What a gracious hostess she is!

Speaking of gracious hostesses, Marty from A Stroll Thru Life is such a great example!  Her son will be staying with her for a prolonged visit, so she's made her guest bedroom more masculine--including a quilt that she made herself years ago.

Meredith from Wait 'Til Your Father Gets Home crafted these bookmarks from big paper clips and scraps of ribbon.  Very cute and very useful!



And Donna from HoliMess shared a wonderful story of grace inspired by one of her favorite New York landmarks.  Lovely!

Many thanks to everyone who linked up.  Now for this week's party!

Grace at Home is a place for you to share anything related to making your home a place of grace. I invite you to link posts about

• DIY projects
• decorating
• recipes
• hospitality
• homemaking tips
• parenting
• marriage
• faith
• self-care

Whatever you do to make your home a place of grace, I'd like to hear about it.  Please link to your specific blog post, not your home page, and include a link in your post back to this party.  And please visit at least a couple of the other party participants--it's not a good party if people don't get to know one another!

Early Halloween decor?

Salutations!

Look, I love all kinds of creatures. And I really don't mind finding different kinds of critters around my house. But I've discovered that I have to draw the line somewhere--somewhere short of finding this friend in my garage:

Even with its legs curled under, this thing is 2 full inches across.  Now, I know that's probably no big deal in some parts of the world, but this is my house.  And with all due respect to Charlotte A. Cavatica,  I just don't do big spiders.

What about you?  Any creepy-crawlies around your place?

 

Simple fall craft: autumn leaf pillow

I love Autumn, and I truly enjoy getting my house ready for the season. Today I want to show you how I created some super-easy Autumn Leaf Pillows for my front porch.



Some time ago I made some of throw pillows out of drop cloths.  I've used these same pillows to decorate my front porch in different seasons:  autumn, Christmas, Valentine's Day.  The pillows had gotten a little yucky from being outdoors, but running them through the washing machine with a little bleach cured that.

I'd made Autumn Leaf pillows before by cutting leaf shapes out of felt.  They were cute, but I always wished that the leaves were a bit bigger and more intricate.  This year I planned to buy large pieces of felt and make more detailed leaves.  Then when I was at HomeGoods recently, I spotted this placemat:

Here's the tag.  HomeGoods has these in several colors.  I chose the dark brown to coordinate with my new front porch.

And here's the best part:

I probably would have spent that much on a large piece of felt.

To make my Autumn Leaf pillows, I simply hot-glued the placemats onto my dropcloth pillows.  Voila!

I may want to add more traditional autumn colors as the season wears on, but for now I'm still enjoying the fresh blues and greens of my porch.

I found the large green ceramic pumpkin at TJMaxx; the small brown one is from my collection.  I spray-painted my "Welcome" sign to complement the throw pillows.

 Just the tabletop:

Here's how the porch looks most mornings.  It's a favorite place to sit and enjoy a cup of coffee.  Wish you could come have a cup with me!

One bit of autumn decor down, 99 to go!  How are you preparing for Fall at your house?

I'm joining these parties:

Fun Fall Crafts party at Domestically Speaking

Inspiration Friday, At the Picket Fence

Show and Tell Saturday at Be Different, Act Normal

Saturday Seven at Positively Splendid

Grace at Home No. 25

Welcome!  I'm so glad you're here for this week's Grace at Home party!

Last week's party included lots of wonderful links, and I thank everyone who participated.  Here are just a few of my favorites.

Shelly from Life on the Wild Side wrote a letter to her daughters about pressure.  I wish someone had shared this wisdom with me when I was a young woman.  Shucks, I'm glad for someone to share it with me now!

Kristin from Vignettes shared some really valuable tips on preparing for the weekend.  Around here we always have big hopes for our weekends, but our weekends often turn out to be not as restful or as much fun as we'd hoped.  I need to follow Kristen's advice.



Melissa from Daisy Mae Belle shared a great idea--painting her daughter's closet door and using the door as a way to communicate fun messages.  Love this!



Alana at Domestic Bliss Diaries shared an interesting perspective on blessing your home. I like this idea.

I do love reading all the different ways y'all make your homes places of grace!  Now for this week's party.

Grace at Home is a place for you to share anything related to making your home a place of grace. I invite you to link posts about

• DIY projects
• decorating
• recipes
• hospitality
• homemaking tips
• parenting
• marriage
• faith
• self-care

Whatever you do to make your home a place of grace, I'd like to hear about it.  Please link to your specific blog post, not your home page, and include a link in your post back to this party.  And please visit at least a couple of the other party participants--it's not a good party if people don't get to know one another!