Home Decor Blog Love

Since deciding to purchase a home I have noticed a major shift in my blog attentions. I was going through a 5 month long health & fitness blog kick, and although I still love and read those, my love is waning in favor of another genre of blog.

Source: Thrifty Decor Chick

Home Decor Blogs.

Oh my goodness. There are SO many amazing home blogs out there, but the ones I love the most are just normal couples like you and me who are making over their own homes one room at a time. And many of them do it on crazy low budgets as well! Talk about inspiration.

Since I know we'll have a lot of home improvement projects on our hands when (if) we close on this house, I figured I should start getting inspiration and ideas. And boy have I ever!

Here are some of my favorite, recently discovered home decor blogs for your reading pleasure.

-Nesting Place: This one actually isn't recently discovered. I've been reading her blog for a while now because she is a RENTER who still manages to make her (rented) home look beautiful and custom. That's quite a feat!

-A Soft Place to Land: Beautiful room re-dos and lots of great small ideas too (like hanging a hydrangea basket on your front door!) that make you say "Why didn't I think of that?!"

-Young House Love: This one I seriously fell in love with at first sight. They're an adorable couple, both of whom contribute to the blog, who are renovating their home. They show great step-by-step tutorials and lots of photos. This post on painting kitchen cabinets has me thinking that maybe we should paint ours. They also just seem like the type of people we would be friends with.

-The Inspired Room: Melissa is a design consultant who truly does inspire with her room makeovers. I love her style and her "keepin' it real" attitude.

-Better After: I love a good before and after photo for inspiration, so this blog is right up my alley. It's dedicated solely to showing great before and after transformations. Sweeeet!

-Thrifty Decor Chick: This girl seriously knows how to spy a junky looking piece at a thrift store and see it for what it could be. She transforms them into beautiful, magazine-style pieces in little to no time. And can I tell you how much I loved this post on being a "piler"? Because that's totally me. Note to self: Must work on that nasty little habit!

Hopefully with inspiration from these ladies (and one guy) I'll be a home decor professional in no time and have our house looking immaculate! (Yeah right.)

Do you have any favorite home decor blogs? What are they? I am always looking to add to my Google Reader!

Back in Action!

Good news! The first thing I unpacked was all our kitchen supplies so I could get back into the cooking/baking mode. Screw setting up the bed or worrying about unpacking silly things like clothing. I have my priorities, people! :)

So the first thing I baked was a recipe that I actually attempted before the move and failed miserably. The recipe is the extremely popular (in the blog world at least) MamaPea's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls. They're supposed to be like a chocolate chip cookie on the outside, but doughy and gooey on the inside.

Side Note: If you haven't already, please check out MamaPea's blog! She is a hilarious mom of 2 little girls who also happens to be a vegan. I'm not much for vegan cooking, but I totally love her blog and she even makes me want to be a vegan for a split second. But then I get a craving for a big juicy cheeseburger and that thought fades away pretty quickly.

The first time I made them they turned out wayyyyyyyyy too dry and crumbly...not "doughy" at all. This time I added some extra liquid to make them less dry and they turned out much better....however I still wish they were a tad bit more "dough-like" on the inside. There's always room for improvement!

Also, you're supposed to chill the dough before baking for 30 minutes in order to keep the dough balls from flattening while baking....however I am an impatient person so I decided to skip this step. To compensate for the lack of chilling, I baked them in a mini muffin tin to help them keep their shape. It actually worked pretty well and they look like cute little mini muffin cookies. :)

Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Balls

adapted from Peas and Thank You

1/2 cup softened butter or margarine

3/4 cup creamy peanut butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup powdered sugar

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

3/4 tsp. salt

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (or you can use cake flour)

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1-2 Tbsp of milk (if needed to reduce dryness)

1 cup chocolate chips

Beat butter, peanut butter, sugars and vanilla in the bowl of a stand mixer until fully incorporated. In a separate bowl, combine baking powder, baking soda, salt and flours. Slowly add the flour mixture to the mixer bowl and mix until a dough forms. The dough should be slightly crumbly but not dry....if it's dry at this point, add the milk. You should be able to form them into balls without them falling apart on you. Stir in the chocolate chips. Chill for 30 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Scoop dough with a mini ice cream scoop, roll into a ball and place on a cookie sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes. They’ll still be soft and look much like they did going in, but don’t overbake. The bottoms will be very lightly browned. Let the dough balls rest on the pan for a minute before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Major Award!

I returned from the Ranch this weekend and turned on my phone to find that I had received a blog award from the lovely Sarah at Baking Serendipity. What a nice surprise to return to! And I was certainly needing some sunshine in my life after a weekend of disappointing overcast/rainy weather at the Ranch {more on that in a later post}.

The rules say I have to pick 12 blogs to recognize but sometimes I like to break the rules so I'm only going to recognize six! I hope the bloggy police don't come arrest me! The blogs I would like to recognize with the Sunshine Award are:

-Brittany at A Healthy Slice of Life for her inspiring healthy eating and her sweet personality. She seems like someone I would be friends with in "real life".

-Shelby at eat, drink, run for her down-to-earth attitude to healthy living and inspiring running routines. I also envy her NYC lifestyle!

-Katie at Health for the Whole Self for introducing me to the world of health bloggers and inspiring me with her recipes and her well-written posts about many different health topics.

-Kelsey at Kelsey Lately for being my in-real-life coworker and fellow blogger. She hosts a fantastic blog that mostly focuses on all things fashion and beauty, which are two of my favorite things! Also I'm pretty sure Kelsey gave me this exact same award a while ago and I never got around to posting about it...so now I'm returning the favor! :)

-Kristin at The (real simple) Life for writing a fun and quirky blog about simply living her life and enjoying every moment. I know her in real life too {she was my sorority sister} and she's a pretty darn cool chick!

-Gracie at Girl Meets Health for her awesome healthy dessert recipes and the compelling posts about the pros & cons of health trends.

Can you tell I've been on a health blog-reading trend lately?!? They're just all so inspiring! If you received an award from me now you should choose recipients of your Sunshine Award. You could do 12 like you're supposed to or you could break the rules like me. :) Then, leave a comment on each of the blogs you pass the award onto to let them know about their major award. It's way better than a leg lamp! {Christmas Story reference...anyone? anyone?}

SIDE NOTE: I'm noticing that I follow exactly ZERO military wife blogs and that's really just pathetic. I've tried to get into a couple of them but I don't know...they just weren't up my alley. If I have any Army/military wife readers out there, do you have any recommendations for good military wife blogs???

Finally, thank you so much to Sarah at Baking Serendipity for recognizing my little 'ole blog! I really do appreciate it! And everyone be sure to check out her blog for some AMAZING looking recipes and baking treats!

I Wanna Win!

One of my favorite Health & Fitness blogs, Health for the Whole Self, is giving away a case of Chobani Greek Yogurt. I am DYING to win this giveaway because I can't ever find flavored greek yogurt in the grocery stores here. :::Crossing my fingers:::

Check out Katie's blog....she's truly inspiring!