Category: Homebody

Spa by Tractor Supply

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A cool dip with a cold Topo Chico

Last year I finally got around to filling up this galvanized stock tank pool, and it may have been one of the best things I did all summer.

The water is always cool and the tank is deep enough for the water to reach our shoulders and long enough that we can both sit in it, or I can just float if I want to. I always want to. I love nothing better than jumping in after yard work and then drying off in the warm hammock.

We originally set it in the sun and the tank itself was too hot to touch after a day in the sun and the water felt like bath water. Not the refreshing dip I’d envisioned. We moved it to the courtyard and found the perfect place between the pines against our neighbor’s garage.

We decided to keep it simple and not add a pool filter or chlorine so we can hook up a hose to the spout to water the Oak Leaf Hydrangea and trees in our courtyard.

Read this article for tips on setting up a hillbilly soaking tub of your own.

With Apologies to William Styron & Guy Clark

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Would you sacrifice your summer squash to allow heirloom tomatoes to live long and ripen? I encountered this ‘Sophie’s Choice’ dilemma this weekend. Tomatoes won. For obvious reasons.

It’s simply much easier to find a nice zucchini or yellow squash than an heirloom tomato at the HEB.

I am leaving this post here mostly as a note to myself for next year when I want to plant squash. While I love butternut, spaghetti, and acorn, I feel kinda ‘meh’ about summer squash. I mean I like it, just not as much as it thinks I like it.

I know these are fighting words in the Lone Star state, but I don’t love this song, but can get behind it’s ode to one of life’s simple plaeasures.

In the legendary words of Guy Clark;

“Wha’d life be without homegrown tomatoes
Only two things money can’t buy
That’s true love and homegrown tomatoes”

You Might be A Maximalist if…

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One glance at my Instagram feed (and our home) and it’s pretty obvious that I don’t fall in the minimalist camp. Clean white backgrounds, rose gold and millennial pink seem to be the norm. I just I feel happiest surrounded by a lot of color, a room full of books, and small collections of things I love, like snow globes and vintage ephemera. Here is a small sample of my collection of vintage recipe booklets. I wonder if the booklets I received with my Vitamix and Instant Pot will appeal to someone’s sense of nostalgia decades from now. Doubtful, but perhaps these once seemed like everyday design to the consumer.

I just love the images in “I can’t believe it’s not clutter: maximalism hits our homes” from The Guardian

I’m sure some see these images and are overwhelmed by all the color and stuff, but where I find them cozy. I love them.

What about you? Are you more of a minimalist or maximalist? Or somewhere in between?

Read “10 Signs You Might Be a Maximalist“

I definitely worry less about whether things match than if they’ll fit.