The kidlets and I are super excited for tonight’s movie night. On NBC tonight the new made-for-tv movie called the Jensen Project will air at 8pm EST.

Like the first made-for-tv movie brought to you by P&G and Walmart, Secrets of the Mountain, I know this will be a movie that everyone in our family will be able to enjoy. Along with the “viewing kit” I received from P&G/Walmart, I hope to make a memorable night with my family as we all munch on our favorite snacks. If you need ideas for creating movie night snacks, check out Walmart for some movie snack specials (my family and I love the Marketside pizzas in the deli section).

Speaking of a memorable experience, some of my fellow Walmart Moms got to travel to the movie set of the Jensen Project to mingle with the cast and experience behind the scenes life.

Jenn, Erika, and Merlene look as if they had a lot of fun meeting Kellie Martin, Patricia Richardson, and LeVar Burton (these are people I grew up watching on TV) just to name a few of the awesome cast members in this film. Check out what all they saw and did in the youtube clip below:

Links for Family Movie Night

• become a fan of Family Movie Night on Facebook
• check out Family Moments with the Jensen Project on walmart.com
• Follow some of the cast of the Jenson Project on twitter like @levarburton and @kellie_martin. Or see the conversation surrounding the movie with the hashtag #jensenproject.
  Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter too (if you haven’t already) @thedomesticdiva




Are you watching the Jensen Project tonight?

How do you make movie nights special for your family?

Disclosure: I am one of the Walmart Moms. P&G/Walmart provided me with a viewing pack for my family and I to enjoy tonight during the movie the Jensen Project. Despite receiving the viewing pack and my involvement in the Walmart Moms program opinions expressed in this blog post are my own. I have not been paid or told what to say.

I don’t think I talk enough about my kitchen or rather the acts that go on in there. My kitchen is my haven. My retreat. The place where my creativity is unleashed. Dinnertime is the time of day just for me. Yes, I’m primarily in the kitchen to whip up something delicious for the family to eat but my family is also my inspiration to create in the kitchen. Since my family doesn’t eat out that often it’s important for me to find new dishes to prepare because let’s face it the same 5 or 6 dishes can get pretty boring after a while.

After neglecting housework for the day, I spent the majority of my afternoon whipping up delicious desserts. It started with a box of brownies that had been talking to me for about a week then moved to the cookies in the fridge the husband has been begging me to bake. The simple desserts sparked a hunger, a desire for something different. Scanning the cabinets I came across a can of pumpkin. Mmmm pumpkin. I hadn’t had anything pumpkin since the bitter, cold, winter months. But I didn’t have the ingredients to make a pumpkin pie. So I took to the interwebs looking for a pumpkin recipe. Browsing I stumbled upon several oatmeal cookie recipes instead, with them all looking mouth-wateringly delicious I couldn’t decide on just one plus the lingering desire for pumpkin was ever so present in the back of my mind. What if I added pumpkin to the oatmeal cookies? Would it come out right? What started off as a oatmeal cookie, pumpkin pie mash up ended up being more like an oatmeal pumpkin coffee cake of sorts. Satisfying and delicious it was exactly what I was looking to create.

What I learned from my adventure in the kitchen today is one valuable lesson.
Always keep a notepad and pen in the kitchen.
Had I written down the ingredients and steps that I took in creating the “pumpkin coffee oatmeal cake” then I would have a recipe to share with you all today. But sadly, in my mistake I do not have this delicious recipe to share with you or myself for that matter. I don’t exactly remember what all I put into the “pumpkin cake” but it sure is tasty. I look forward to having a square in the morning with my coffee for breakfast. I hope to again attempt to make the recipe, probably with less oats. And I will make sure to write down every step and ingredient in order to share it with you, my readers.

Yes, it seems that I have been neglecting my blog lately but it isn’t on purpose. I think about you blogging all the time. My problem right night is TIME. I just don’t seem to have much of it lately. Aren’t summers supposed to be lazy? I don’t think I got that memo. I’ve been super busy doing various DIY projects around the house and getting a head start on cleaning out the clutter (I hope to get it all done by the time fall/school starts).

I don’t know where I picked up this ohmygoodnessimustcleaneverythingthatisee bug from but it’s like a sickness that won’t go away. Once I get one room cleaned, organized, and decluttered, I look around to all the other rooms and think to myself….that could use a coat of paint….we just don’t use that, we should donate it….wow that floor is dirty, gotta give it a good scrub. Just thinking about it all makes my head spin.

I’m not complaining about the urge to clean that has come over me, in fact it isn’t something that is long over due, but by the time I’m done tackling a project, at the end of the day I’m just plum exhausted. Have you ever been so tired that you can’t even think of a single word to write? I will sit down to try and form a sentence but the sentences just won’t come to mind. All that I can think of is how tired I am. (except for today, I made a point to squeeze in some “blogging time”).

My schedule has changed so much in the last couple of months that I can barely keep up. I feel like I’m constantly going all the time. There always has to be something that needs to be done in the house and my to-do list gets longer by the minute.

PHEW! It feels good to just get a moment to sit and blog a bit. I do miss it and you guys, my readers.

Since ya’ll know what my summer is looking like (filled with cleaning and DIY projects), I’d love to know…

what you are doing this summer?

Do you have any plans? Trips? What are you doing to entertain the kidlets?

Spill it in the comments, I’m curious to know what you are doing as well.

The other day I was telling my Mom how I thought a storage bench would look nice in my office. Not only will it provide additional storage but a nice, NEW place to work from. Well after I ran the idea by her, she was out doing what she loves best…yard sale shopping…when she stumbled upon a coffee table. After looking at it and comparing it to storage benches we had already looked up online she decided to get it for me in hopes that we could transform it into a storage bench.

The piece was very sturdy (good solid wood) so it can definitely hold my weight, all it needed was a fresh coat of paint because the wood tone wasn’t working with my color scheme.

After several coats of fresh white paint, it was time to bring the “bench” into its new home. Would it fit? How will it look?



Perfect! It was absolutely beautiful in its new space but needed some finishing touches. I grabbed a couple pink storage crates I had laying about the office, my pink rug, damask pillow, and skull blanket. While the finished look was cute it still needed a bit of personal touch so I “painted” a heart on the side of the bench with a Sharpie Paint marker in black to resemble a carved heart (like you would see on a tree).



Voila! A DIY Storage Bench made from a $10 coffee table find from a yard sale (thanks MOM).

What have you DIY’d lately?

Disclosure: I am apart of the Sharpie Squad 2010. Sharpie has provided me with various products to use as I see fit. This post is just one example of how I have chosen to use Sharpie.

I thought this would be perfect for today’s Whipped Up Wednesday post, tonight Paula Deen will be announcing the winners of “the Real Women of Philadelphia” contest.

If you would like, you can watch the event LIVE from your computer at http://www.realwomenofphiladelphia.com/rwoplive starting at 8pm EST.

We love Paula Deen and wish all of the finalists the best of luck. The live event will be streaming from Savannah, GA, so even though I can’t be there in person, I like that I can sort of “feel like I’m there” through the wonderful internet world. I hope I’m able to snag a few minutes tune in.

Disclosure: information and image provided by Rogers & Cowan. This is NOT a paid post, I have not been compensated in any way just wanted to share this event to those who may be interested.

A blogging friend of mine, Andrea from dreawood.com, emailed me the other day about feed readers. Since I thought others might have the same kind of question, with her permission I’m posting the question and response for those that are curious.

What is a good blog reader thing, like to put all my blogs I read and keep up?

-thanks, Andrea

I use Google Reader. Using Google Reader is only a recent obsession of mine or rather I say a forced one. After going through several feed readers only to have them either not be supported anymore (i.e. company stopped updating the application or dropped it completely) or started charging a monthly fee for access to use the program, I found that having to import/export or even worse type in every feed url by hand after a failed reader can be devastating. In a perfect world there would be a feed reader and desktop application that automatically syncs with google reader but as of now I haven’t found that perfect program. I have, however, learned to embrace Google Feed Reader and its many perks. The things that keep me using Google Feed Reader are the following:

• 1. I can check on any computer
• 2. Can read on my mobile with either google app or mobile web browser
• 3. Can share my fav blogs and their new posts on my blog (i.e. Blog Wall)

I am never seen only using one device, so having programs/apps/web stuff synced across various platforms not only is a nice little perk but is also a necessity for me. This rule couldn’t be more true, especially for something that I’m constantly using daily or various times through out the day (gotta stay up to date on my favorite bloggers).

Since I’ve been on the quest to keep my online life organized, (I like to believe that) Google Reader is helping me stay a step closer to my organizational goal. With the ability to make “folders” for blogs I’ve subscribed to, I can easily read the blogs that I’m “in the mood to read” and save the others for a later date (which is usually the ones that require a longer amount of time to read, vloggers, etc.).

What feed reader do you prefer to use and why?

Today is Whipped Up Wednesday and although I don’t have a new recipe to share with you I do however have word on a new site dedicated to recipes. I recently received a tip (via email) about the launch of Yummly a social media like site for recipes. There you can make a personal profile dedicated to your specific “taste”. Yummly is smart in the way it learns what you like and don’t like based upon your taste profile and makes recommendations for new dishes accordingly.

I’m a visual person, so the only recipes that I’ve added to my “favorites” (a.k.a. the one’s I would like to try) are the one’s with pictures. But the PR folks* that sent me the info on Yummly stated that you can do the following things with Yummly:

• 1. search 500,000 recipes from leading cooking sites like Epicurious, All Recipes, The Food Network, Gourmet, Food + Wine, Bon Appetite, and more.
• 2. filter searches by ingredients, allergens, prep time, price, meal courses, and more.
• 3. set searches for specific diets like vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, gluten-free, and more
• 4. share your favorite dishes on Facebook

Yummly is very new, with its official launch being June 22, so right now while there seems to not be a whole lot going on at the site (i.e. when I do a search one website seems to be the main source of recipes) it looks to be promising. As the database at Yummly grows, I could see the site becoming a great asset for recipe lovers.

*Bhava Communications provided me with information about the launch of Yummly. I have not been paid or compensated in any way for this post. Opinions however are my own.