The problem originates from the start of your home decor journey. A few nice pieces of furniture were given to you by a family member and your entire home was built around them. As you had more money to spend, you started branching out and your home became a little collection of things you love and a few late night HomeGoods or Amazon bad calls. Decorating your home in this fast home decor era can be tricky. Following home decor social media accounts often feels like walking into a well curated HomeGoods. A bunch of beautiful, trendy items that look perfect but truthfully don’t match anything you have at home. You buy the recommended item, bring it into your house and realize you’ve started another stream of decor styles.

A few years into my home decor journey, I realized I needed to get a method together otherwise I was going to hate what I had in 10 years and waste hard earned money. As I started thinking through my home decor, I wondered why my favorite influencer shared a table or set of chairs completely outside of their normal decorating style and encouraged me to buy it. My question was answered when I started working with brands on my Instagram page.

Brands give influencers line sheets to choose from out of their new arrivals to promote. The new spring line may fall in with the influencers style but it also may not but they will choose to promote anyway. It makes sense from a brand marketing perspective, but creates a must-change-everything-in-my-home-for-that-new-lampshade culture.

The sales flow…

And the consumer ends up with a mess of items that don’t look cohesive and they don’t even like.

So, how do we fix our hodgepodge house without throwing everything out and starting over? I’m glad you asked! Let me give you a set of simple steps that I created for myself to help.

1. Look at the core pieces you have in your home that you are not willing to change or can’t afford to. What style are they? How are they similar to each other (the same color wood? Classic lines?)?

2. Take those similarities and start formulating a plan for the rest of your room off of that. If you look at a well designed hotel or high end designer home, you could pretty much put any piece of furniture or textile in any room of the space and it would match. Work on that in your home. You can make each room feel special, but the tones and colors should all be cohesive.

3. Set up standards for your home. Will your home have more black and brown or maybe navy and dark wood? What tone of white are you going with? A cool white is more modern and will not look right with cottage accents from the end cap at Target. What type of stripes will you be using? A ticking stripe doesn’t feel right with a cabana stripe in the same room. Don’t mistake this step as limiting creativity. You will still have a TON of room to be creative! These standards just help cull the decision fatigue.

4. Change the way you shop. Create a list of items that you need after doing steps 1-3, then use that list as you shop. Walking into a trendy home store is too overwhelming if you don’t do this key step. I promise this way of shopping will save you a ton of money.

With these tips, I have been able to move from a small colonial to a craftsmen two story and then a Southern American ranch with all of the same furniture and rugs. I hope this helps you as much as it has helped me.

Two years ago I was in a crazy hormonal cycle of water retention, cortisol spikes and extremely painful bloating. I constantly had 6 pounds of water weight that my body wouldn’t release until it was “that time of the month”. My hormones would surge, I would finally lose the water, and I would feel good again for a week or two before blowing up again.

It was the painful, puffy, why-do-my-hands-feel-like-balloons kind of bloating.

It started like clockwork during the luteal phase of my cycle and within days, my stomach felt tight and uncomfortable, my face looked swollen, and my rings suddenly didn’t fit. If you know, you know — hormonal water retention isn’t just about the number on the scale. It hurts.

And the frustrating part? I thought I was doing all the right things.

Extra water. Herbal teas. Healthy oils. Vegetables. Daily exercise.

Nothing worked. The retention kept happening.

The Barn Conversation That Changed Everything

After 6 months of dealing with this frustrating cycle, I talked to my friend at our equestrian barn who always had a natural remedy for everything. She listened to me describe the swelling, the pain, the frustration… and then gave the simplest advice.

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At this point in human existence, we are all craving individualism while looking exactly the same (thanks Instagram). And it’s crossing borders. Now-a-days it is more politically correct to be basic than to allow the American culture its own space to shine. I find that annoying.

When I started this series, I didn’t really have a plan except to investigate what was ACTUALLY American, if anything at all. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that we did have a good handful of things we’ve added to culture that are in fact our own.

You should read part one if you haven’t yet.

In the spirit of celebrating American cultural individuality, we are going to continue this series, maybe we will even beat it into the ground. Because celebrating a culture doesn’t mean you think the other ones are bad, you just like yours too.

These four cultural icons that were birthed in America remind us of slow summer days, free markets, and a little grit.

Jazz

If you would like a gauge on how much of a dork I am, I took a class in college on how music affected pop culture in the 80s and I reference what I learned at least once a month 15 years later. I signed up for the class thinking it would be an easy A to keep me on Deans list. It turned out to be a super hard class, most of my time spent researching the story of American music and how it shaped society, or more like how society shaped it.

The story of jazz is deep, entwined with civil rights movements and economic difficulty. Jazz was birthed from the blues, a genre that stems from African tribal music the slaves would sing while working on plantations, in 19th century New Orleans, Louisiana from a man named Buddy Bolden. The mix of blues, spirituals and ragtime turned into the wonderful style we know today. You can read a more about the history here.

The most mainstream jazz singer, at least in my mind, is everyone’s favorite Frank Sinatra. His buttery voice is played at every wedding, white tablecloth restaurant and Fourth of July picnic you will go to in America.

The Hamburger

Apparently the origin of the hamburger is widely contested. Some say a Danish man in New Haven, Connecticut invented the sandwich in his diner while others say a man out of Texas created it in 1880 and word spread about the new hamburger idea when “Old Dave” served it at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904 (what was it about that fair?).

The sandwich became a popular fast food option in the 1920’s. White Castle was the first to make the meal accessible to all Americans, and McDonald’s “revolutionized” the sandwich with the rise of the Big Mac.

Coca-Cola

I love Coke. It symbolizes my favorite moments in life: the beach, a burnt hot dog on the grill, a little break from a crazy day. I think we all have ways we enjoy the beverage, on ice, with vanilla syrup, in a can or a bottle.

Coke was created as a syrup in 1886 by John Pemberton and mixed with carbonated water at a pharmacy to treat headaches. It was marketed as a refreshing drink with numerous health qualities. Honestly, I still think it has them, there’s something about that high fructose corn syrup. I find the fact that it hasn’t changed much in 140 years fascinating, it really is that great.

I asked myself two questions when I started writing about Coke: “Do other countries have a drink that symbolizes so much of their country’s culture?” and “I wonder how much of Coke’s symbolism is due to marketing vs. the product’s taste?” I’ll be thinking on that for a few days.

The T-Shirt

I’m going to go ahead and say it is a little far fetched to claim America invented the t-shirt, although the facts do present a good case. The shirt was first created by men who were hot working in jumpsuits and ended up cutting their tops into what became known as a t-shirt. I would like to know how they were able to keep up their pants?

T-shirts were first manufactured as underwear for the Navy and they became their own article of clothing when Marlon Brando wore it in “A Streetcar Named Desire.” After the movie, the t-shirt became a symbol of rebellion and is still used to make statements about one’s beliefs today. The history of the shirt is quite interesting, you can read all about it here.

So, there are four more explanations of our favorite icons. Be sure to stick around for next time, I’ll dive a little deeper into cultural sayings, typeface and maybe even hit on some home design.

I have a slightly different approach to recipe creation than the average cook. Cooking, to me, is not about trying new things or expanding my palate, although I know it sounds very iconic to have that as your goal. My intention in any recipe I construct is about the moment shared in the kitchen and at the table. It should be simple, beautiful, and requested again and again.

Over the last 14 years, I have worked tirelessly to construct banana bread, strawberry shortcake, and mashed potato recipes that my family could pass down through the ages. I have always wanted to be the family that people request the meatballs or the specific cookie recipe from — maybe even have them printed out on pretty cardstock, ready to go. I should have my assistant get on that… anyway, I have solidified a good number of recipes over the years that we make consistently every season, but I have been hopelessly stuck on the most important recipe — the one that seals the deal of motherhood and puts you into a category of elite homemakers.

The chocolate chip cookie. I yearned for the comments from my husband: “This is a chocolate chip cookie recipe you created for your family? How very Martha of you.”

All kidding aside, I was frustrated with all of the recipes I had found. So many were complex, filled with 1,000 ingredients, or lackluster upon indulging. I finally went back to the chocolate chip package last month and started all over again. They came out flat, didn’t have enough flavor, and needed some life — kind of like my mom brain, if we’re being honest. I went back to the drawing board, combining all of the tricks I had learned over the years from fancy recipes and the secret baking tips shared over Bible study coffee cake, and I made a stinkin’ good cookie.

After receiving accolades from my husband (“You’ve finally found the one!” was the only gift I needed for Valentine’s Day this year), I realized that the whole point wasn’t the recipe itself. The yearly endeavor to create a token recipe my family could enjoy had nothing to do with me and everything to do with them. I wanted them to feel loved when they ate the cookie, not to think I was the best home cook in the South (although I’ll take that too).

And that thought brought me back to “home,” once again — the place we create for our loved ones to feel secure, safe, valued, and seen. Where we can relish the blessings that God has given us for that day, or even just that moment, and be together. Are we practicing that? Or are we looking at our cooking and our homemaking as a self-reflective report card of our own personal worth?

There is a big difference.

Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie

2 1/4 cups + 1 tbs all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 large egg

2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips

⁃ Combine flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in chocolate chips

⁃ Cover dough with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for at least 2 hours-overnight. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

⁃ Heat oven to 350 F and bake for 9 minutes or until golden brown.

Your personal level of toxic load is a bragging rite in the crunchy community right now, the lower the tox the better. This has seeped into just about every aspect of marketing: home textiles, wall paint, the water we drink, and even the furniture we buy. Is organic cotton really the key to living a longer life? I have no clue but I do know that the “tox community” (can we call them that?) has freaked me out.

After scaring Dave with all the information I was reading about mold and off shooting gases, he hired an environmental specialist to assess our new home. I followed the man around for over an hour, observing what he was checking and asking him about all the things I had read. Thankfully the home passed with flying colors, but it made me rethink a lot of the design ideas I had planned to make sure I wasn’t creating an unhealthy environment for my family.

The three most important things I learned:

1. Wallpaper is not your friend.

2. Luxury vinyl flooring can be a health issue.

3. A little problem only needs 48 hours to become a big one.

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When I hear the words “classically American”, I think of cable knit, rocky coasts, American flag sweaters, worn out boat shoes and hydrangeas. My New England roots run deep and have left a lasting impact on my design style. Lately, I’ve asked myself, “What does classically American actually mean?” America is only 250 years old, after all, and most styles we have are borrowed from a richer history in European and Asian cultures.

I did a little deep dive into what, if anything, has originated from this melting pot of a country and found a fun history of famous American icons that originated here.

Hydrangeas

While most hydrangeas originated from Japan, there are two native species in the United States. The varieties listed below grew in American woodlands naturally and have been cultivated in landscapes all over the country.

The Annabelle hydrangea is a smooth hydrangea with creamy white petals that loves the sun and doesn’t get too overgrown.

The Oakleaf hydrangea has a wider petal and dramatic leaf shape that loves the shade.

Iced Tea

Iced tea was popularized at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair on a hot summer day when legend has it a tea plantation owner poured the hot beverage over ice when no one would purchase his tea hot. At the time, ice was a luxury so cold drinks were not common. It was so refreshing that news of the “new” beverage spread immediately and is now an American icon.

Deep Front Porches

Front porches have been around for thousands of years, but the concept of a deep porch was created by colonial settlers in the South who were new to the heat. The porches gave them a place to cool off while not being exposed to the elements and became a cultural symbol of community and home. The marking differentiator between American front porches and European were the 8-12 foot depth that were used as outside living spaces.

Denim

While the fabric itself stems from 1600s European factories, the concept of denim was made American by 19th century American workers. We all know Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis, who created the first true pair of blue jeans when the patent was granted on May 20, 1873. The 501 is my jean of choice and I wear them at least 3 times a week.

Rocking Chairs

Fun fact: the term rocking chair was added to the Oxford English dictionary in 1787. American colonists are credited with putting rockers on chairs in the early 1700s for a retreat from work. They were placed on porches and in nurseries.

I have about 100 more items to add to this list but I will spare you for now. Here is the key takeaway: while America is a beautiful melting pot of ideas and styles, there are items that are quintessentially American. They were created to support hard labor, family and the rugged terrain this country is defined by.

Now don’t get your hopes up, the dance wasn’t for the house or the ideal lot, it’s the biggest mess I’ve ever gotten myself into.

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By now you’ve read about why we moved, so let’s talk about the house hunt and why I cried by a creek with our realtor. The process can be such a bear, can’t it? Here is the whole series:

Part 1: The Back Story

Part 2: The House Hunt

Part 3: Why We Chose A Mess and What the Plans Are

I discussed in Part 1 that the first home we looked at was close to family and how upset we were to see it fall through. That proximity had set up a vision in our mind of what our children’s childhood could look like and it made the next phase of house hunting super difficult. How were we going to find another home so close to the cousins when we wanted a good deal of acreage?

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Part 1: The Back Story

Part 2: The House Hunt

Part 3: Why We Chose A Mess and What the Plans Are

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Maybe you’ve felt it: the lack of interest in your favorite hobby, angst in a noisy environment when your child asks repetitive questions, increased hand clenching or teeth grinding.

I read a study last winter by the NIH (1) on the correlation between increased electronics use and anxiety and memory loss that scared me. The study referred to the condition as Digital Dementia, coined by the author Manfred Spitzer in his 2012 book Digital Dementia: What We and Our Children Are Doing To Our Minds. The good news is the effects are reversible with simple changes that can be implemented immediately.

The bad news: you must resist the billion dollar digital media machine whose sole job is to keep you addicted.

After reading the study I embarked on a quest to find more information, there are many helpful articles written by Stanford scholars (2), discussing the effects of an overloaded brain on memory and time. Everything I read was clearly pointing to a distinct problem with simple solutions. Just stop. I started right away making small changes to regulate my nervous system and anxiety, but didn’t take it seriously enough. Consistency, after all , is the beast in this quest to ignore the constant DING. I ended up frustrated with my half in philosophy, denying the studies findings because I enjoyed scrolling through my favorite dog videos before bed too much. I finally had to ask myself:

“What will I lose if I give up time on social media?”

(Pause on that one for a minute before proceeding.)

I am usually fairly good at taking inventory of time wasters yet I found myself justifying the unfettered “relaxation” of scrolling as a daily “need”. And for what? The answer to the question “do the moments (hours?) you spend scrolling bring meaning and purpose to your life?” Turned out to be extremely bleak. I found that I received more inspiration from reading an article or speaking to the person I was sitting next to (and had far less eye twitching).

So in June of 2025, at the expense of money and a potentially missed dream of hitting a million followers, I decided it was time to make serious changes. I turned off notifications. Stopped responding to messages at all hours of the night (I still miss this part). Didn’t look through my reels tab nearly as often and set up a time lock. It’s affected my income and my instagram statistics but I am much more patient and returning back to the hobbies I used to enjoy 15 years ago.

Here is the non exhaustive list of what we should all be doing:

• Turning off notifications on everything

• Adding important texts and emails to a notification list so that you don’t miss the things you really need to see (husband, school, work).

• Putting the phone away from your bed. We love using a sunrise alarm clock.

• Having a junk email set up for promotions etc. so that you aren’t getting pinged for things that aren’t necessary.

• Setting time locks on your most used apps.

• Getting rid of your Apple Watch (sorry guys)

• Reducing screen time once it gets dark outside (helps circadian rhythm)

And if you work in social media, here are a few extra things I implemented for my business:

• Hired a team to work for me during the day so that I wasn’t working more at night when the kids were in bed. I am giving away money but I am more present.

• Stopped scrolling as much. It reduced my views on my account but I literally felt like I couldn’t answer a question after an hour of scrolling research.

• Told myself I didn’t need to keep up with the pace of everyone else.

• Said no to gifting experiences that caused me anxiety and endless time on my phone creating content.

Atomic Habits would be a great book to read if you are struggling and need some biologically backed tips to make better habits.

*Tip: for the first week, I drink it twice a day.

Debloat Tea Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 lemon sliced thinly

• 1 orange sliced thinly

• 1 tbs cinnamon

• 1 tbs raw honey

• 1 cup hot water

Instructions

• Layer citrus slices in a glass jar. Add cinnamon and cover generously with honey.

• Mix to combine all ingredients and place in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

• When you are ready to drink, remove mixture from the fridge and place 1-2 slices of the citrus along with a spoonful of the “juice” in a large mug of hot water.

• Let this sit for about 5 minutes. Enjoy! *Store for up to 5 days in the fridge.

Stay tuned. We have some things in store.

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