A couple people emailed me over the weekend asking if they could still get in on the sale on blog banners. (you can!) Good news! Because I've been having a grand time making new headers for you guys, and because everyone I've worked with has been amazing, I'm extending the $15 custom blog header sale until this Friday, May 3rd. Yay! Now you have a few more days to mull it over, and if you were regretting not jumping on it last week- jump on it now! You totally should. It's super fun and we get to be email pen pals, and your blog looks all shiny and new when we're done. 

1. Documenting a birthday blizzard. Possibly a once in a lifetime experience.
2. Adding orange zest to these pancakes for extra awesomeness.
3. That our girl is old enough to have movie nights! She'll actually sit and watch a full flic. She's definitely my daughter.
4. Finding out that my instagram friends are also making dinner at 4 o'clock in the afternoon or earlier! I'm almost always chopping something as soon as Grant gets home from school.
5. Puffy post-nap eyes! Watching the blanket of white disappear. Again. Will this be the last time? For real? As fast as it fell on Monday, by the next day the snow was already sagging, and today there's green grass everywhere! and the promise of 70 and sunny over the weekend!
6. Tossing an alphabet salad. Her favorite letters are A, H, M, O, F, and X.
7. Michael Buble + Reese Witherspoon, doing this catchy little duet. 
8. Late night strawberries and chips+salsa with my man. Talking about mushy relationship stuff and loving it.
9. Cheering about the NFL draft last night. Anyone else watch it streaming live while folding laundry?
10. The last sweet stretch of April before the uproar of busy-ness in May.
11. Finishing this book. (Read the rest of the series first, please!)

Happy weekending, friends! What are your plans?

Welcome to my headquarters for the week! This desk is where it's at since I announced the $15 custom blog header sale on my birthday. The past two days I've been stationed here, hearing the mail chime and opening up your emails and writing your names on post-its, and sifting through a dozen Photoshop tabs. Thank you! It has been a blast and a blessing to be so busy. In between making lunch, chasing bouncy balls, giving piggy back rides, and switching laundry, I'll be sitting here, with some jazzy beats as my design soundtrack. I'm so grateful to you guys for letting me in on your fun projects! I've even been recruited to make cute icons for a sweet new site, and also did some rush-order invitations yesterday morning. And yesterday afternoon I actually ventured out, away from the desk, to hit the gym, grocery store, and post office (to mail more 50 Promises to you). It was fun, but the whole time I was gone I was thinking of ideas for your new header. :)


In other news,

• I'm roasting a squash and my house smells like Thanksgiving at the moment.
• I need a good recipe for beef short ribs!! Send help. I want to make them for dinner (supper) tonight.. will I still have time? Are they the kind of thing that need to cook all day?
• Just found out that To Your Health Sprouted Flour Co. sells sprouted rolled oats! Totally bought a a 5lb. bag this morning. Granola will be back in my life very soon. As well as oatmeal cookies. 
• We finally found some stainless steel baking sheets (as opposed to aluminum) that got good reviews and aren't too expensive. Hooray! One thing I've learned from my husband is to invest in good quality pots and pans when you can. And I think they'll definitely be worth it, considering that I roast vegetables practically every night. 

Hello, friends! Thank you all so much for the birthday wishes yesterday! I love being reminded of all the wonderful people in my life on my birthday. You guys are great. Thanks for reading and caring. I had a marvelous and cozy day, and the snowstorm was one of my favorite parts. So pretty and peaceful. Plus, Grant was sent home early from work because of the roads! Bonus.

In case you missed it, I'm offering a SALE this week: a custom designed blog header for only $15!!! Do you have a blog that you've been wanting to spruce up? I can help! I had a few orders come in for custom headers last night (thank you so much! I'm so excited to get started!) and a couple people emailed to ask me how the whole process will work. Yes. Great question! So I'm here to answer that for anyone who might be interested today. I also have posted below a few examples of headers -and a couple logos- that I've designed earlier this spring. Hope they might help you get an idea of things you like/don't like/possibilities for your own space.

Ok, here's how it would work.

1. You send me an email (summer.harms@gmail.com) letting me know that you're interested in a brand new look for your blog.
2. I will write you back (probably very quickly, I check my email like 200 times a day) and say "Yay! Let's get started." :) And then I'll ask you these questions.

• What colors do you like? Feel free to be specific. 
• What kind of style are you interested in for your header? Minimalistic/fancy and elegant/colorful and fun/simple and clean/bold/modern/vintage/quirky/ etc. Your header sets the tone of your entire blog, so if you have a vision for your space or you know you want it to "feel" a certain way, please tell me!
• What size would you like it to be? (I just need to know how many pixels wide to create it.)
• What is your blog url?

3. You send me your answers and I'll send you a paypal invoice for the $15. I'll start designing a handful of options for you. I'll email the options to you to see what you think, ask if you have a preference, and then you have the freedom to ask for any changes you want! We'll email back and forth until we get it just the way you want it.
4. You put your new blog header in place and when you are perfectly happy with it, we're all done! I'll be here if you need any adjustments, or anything at all. Doesn't it sound so fun?! It really is. I've loved everyone I've worked with.

You could be next! :)

I woke up early and excited this morning, of course, because today is my birthday! And I want to wish a very happy birthday to my awesome twin sister, Haley! It still blows me away that we were in the womb together. Insane.

The night before my birthday I like to straighten the house, empty the kitchen sink, fold my clothes neatly, and generally do all the things. So I did that last night. I think it's my attempt at a "perfect" day- where all the work is done the night before. :) Birthdays just make me want to get all my affairs in order. Anyway, now that I'm sitting here at the desk, things are in order, and it's the morning of my birthday, I just want it to last and last. But since that won't happen, I'm going to record what's going on and where I'm at in life right now. A real diary entry. I hope I can think of things that I will laugh about someday.

• My hair is longish, layered, and no bangs. My nails are a minty turquoise color, and so are my toenails. 
• Signs of aging: I wear inserts in my tennis shoes. I take supplements and get lots of sleep. I weigh less than I did in high school. I look different than my wedding pictures. And I've forgotten almost all of my foreign language vocab/grammar. (See also: what I did with an afternoon off and what I may use my birthday money on. Found below.)
• This week I have been wondering about getting bangs again. I've been showing Grant pictures of possibilities. 
• I have my slippers and black leggings on. Which has been my daily wear this entire winter. 
• My day started out with a reading a devotional with Grant in bed, texting my twin, then rescuing a soaked toddler from her crib and popping her in the tub, then a phone call from Mom and Grandma.
• I ate a birthday breakfast of orangey pancakes and eggs.
• We're going to be living and working at Camp Shetek again this summer! Praise the Lord!
• I recently bought some clothes on Instagram, my first ever #closetsale purchases.
• There's more school on the horizon for Grant!
• We're refinancing our house on Thursday. We still only have one car and we still have stock in Apple. 
• My little shop has been fun, fun. It's still going strong! We just had to re-order more 50 Promises. And I'm daydreaming up a new set of memory cards for the future. 
• It's snowing!!! It has never snowed on my birthday before! They're predicting 4 inches today and 2 more inches tonight!
• Possibly spending some birthday money on... a 5 lb. bag of sprouted rolled oats, magnesium oil, a good maxi skirt, or new sunglasses. I'm part foodie, part old lady, and part twenty-something with a soft spot for Target. 
• I just had to get my 3rd drivers' license since moving to Minnesota 5 years ago. 
• Hadley is so cool. She has the heartiest laugh you've ever heard from someone her size. She knows almost all the letters of the alphabet. She likes to say "Is that a DUCK?!" Right now she is playing with an animal sounds app on the iPad. 
• We're "going out" to celebrate my birthday this weekend, since it is going to be snowy tonight and any restaurant worth going to is far, far away. (Plus, it's a school night.)
• When we get to the city this weekend, we'll probably do some thrifting, eat some coconut fried bananas at The Brazilian Grill, and see a movie. 
• I'm debating between making tacos or curry for my b-day dinner tonight, also trying to decide between birthday cake or cookies. 
• Grant gave me the afternoon off this past Saturday as part of my birthday gift. I used the time to clean the bathrooms, dust for cobwebs, soak in the tub, paint my nails, make cookies, and practice the piano. I like a good mix of work and play. (It's amazing how fast you can be when you're the only one in your house. I was racing up and down steps and flying through my to-do list.) 
• I cannot wait to go out to the mailbox today.
• The Lord is teaching me. About loving Him best. About nibbling at the table of the world. About taking refuge in Him and what it means to "fear" Him. About today's mercies being for today's troubles. And most of all, about how He keeps us from the "pit", in our case this has meant a place of complacency, pride, and self-reliance that would lead to a wasted life.
• It's been a great year; the Lord has saved us greatly. And I only hope that I can love Him better than all of His good gifts to me throughout my life. 

P.S. Because it's my birthday, and because I love you guys, and because I think designing blog headers is super fun, and because we're still snowed inside.... Blog Headers are going ON SALE! This week, a custom blog header is only $15. Yay! $15 for a custom blog banner designed specially for you, by me, where I provide at least 3 design options for you to choose from. Email me if you're interested! summer.harms@gmail or use the contact form in my shop.

Let me tell you about my current go-to meal. It's a basic meat 'n' potatoes supper, but for me there's something perfect about the way it tastes right now. It involves ground turkey, red bell pepper, red wine vinegar, garlic, and roasted sweet potatoes. Mmmm.

Some of these are children's books, but still wonderful, and I'm trying to think of books I would love to see Hadley enjoy someday. And currently on request at the library.. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, Unbroken, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and The Hidden Art of Homemaking. Thanks to you guys who recommended some of these to me!

image sources: mary poppins, little women cover, the hobbit cover

This week I'm liking...

I've been mentioning to you guys that I recently re-read Farmer Boy, one of the much loved Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I have fond memories of this book in particular, because as a little girl I was completely fascinated by their simple (but hard-working) life and their good food. And Farmer Boy is chock-full of amazing food! While reading it this time, I took notes on all of their meals and methods so I could google them later. I couldn't help it; every piece of information felt so valuable. How to make wintergreen extract? And what are watermelon rind pickles? Vinegar pie?! I have to try it. Now that I know a bit more about traditional food, I'm hungry for more knowledge and I love how it's presented in the Little House books; simple enough for a child to understand, or someone living in 2013. I liked reading about how each season held its own jobs, from tapping trees to berrying, from sowing seeds to butter-making, from harvesting to threshing, from butchering to candle-making.


I have a sweet next-door neighbor. Our kitchen windows face each other, and I often wonder if she wonders if I ever leave that room. She must see me in there all the time! Every once in awhile I have the fleeting thought, "I spend too much time in the kitchen. I should try to make faster food so I can get more things done, other than our meals." That simply couldn't have been the mindset of the Wilder family, because their life was built around getting dinner on the table. This was what was so enchanting to me as a little girl while reading these books! Life was so simple. You work to eat. Food = life and life = food. Everything they did was to ensure that they'd have enough food to last until next year, and enough energy to do the work. Overall, I came away from the book refreshed by this thought. It re-affirmed that the time I spend in the kitchen is anything but wasteful. I recently stumbled on a staggering fact:

“Americans spend a smaller percentage of their income on food than any people in history—slightly less than 10 percent—and a smaller amount of their time preparing it: a mere thirty-one minutes a day on average, including clean-up.”

excerpt from The Food Movement, Rising. I cannot imagine what Almanzo's mom would have done if all her work for the day were finished in half an hour, but it may have been an appreciated holiday... for a few days. After a while, work is welcome. This is coming from someone who has been snow-stranded for for 4 days and is a little anxious for routine to return. I do know that the Wilder family seemed to really enjoy the fruit of all her hours-long labor. You should hear what their meals consisted of!

Oatmeal with cream and maple sugar, fried potatoes, buckwheat pancakes, sausages, doughnuts, apple pie, ham, baked beans, mashed potatoes and turnips, stewed pumpkin, bread with butter and strawberry jam, plum preserves, pumpkin pie, creamed carrots, apples and onions, chicken pie, roast beef, beet pickles, birds nest pudding, ice cream, egg nog, popcorn, cider, cranberry jelly, baked squash, fried parsnips, cookies, apple turnovers, and cream pie. Oh my. They worked hard and they were hungry.

So, anyway. Lately every time I'm in the kitchen, I find myself thinking of Mrs. Wilder and how she  probably would have been working on dinner for a few hours already. I've been thankful for the reminder that time I spend in the kitchen, especially upwards of the 31 minute average, is time invested in a worthwhile thing. Also, lately I'm really in the mood to make big meals and pie. :)

I love evidence of how great God is. This week's April ice storm has been a good example. I've never seen ice quite like this before. We are on snow day no. 3 here and doing fine- we still have power and some groceries. Thank you, Lord!

Look at this awesome photo from a local newspaper! A lot of the towns in our neck of the woods are in a state of emergency, so it feels like a fitting day to post something that I've been wanting share for a few days. Something I read in my devotions last week.

From the Piper Devotional App. Romans 8:28 We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 
If you live inside this massive promise, your life is more solid and stable than Mount Everest. 
Nothing can blow you over when you are inside the walls of Romans 8:28. Outside of it, all is confusion and anxiety and fear and uncertainty. 
Once you walk through the door of love into the massive, unshakable structure of Romans 8:28, everything changes. There come into your life stability and depth and freedom. You simply can't be blown over anymore. The confidence that a sovereign God governs for your good all the pain and all the pleasure that you will ever experience is an incomparable refuge and security and hope and power in your life. 
When God's people really live by the future grace of Romans 8:28- from measles to the mortuary- they are the freest and strongest and most generous people in the world. 
Their light shines and people give glory to their Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:16) 

I hope this will be as encouraging to you as it was to me.

Hooray for an April snow day! There's lots of ice-rain-sleet-snowy stuff outside our house today, and school cancelled at 10:00 am. Such a fun surprise. April storms that bring my husband home early and keep us cozy inside are fine by me. The ground is getting whiter as I type this! 

Due to the snow day holiday, I'm postponing the post I had planned for today- a recipe for something yummy! So watch for that one tomorrow. It's always hard to blog when Grant is home, we get to talking and doing together and time flies. So I'll make this a quick one. Enjoy your Tuesday! We are keeping busy making popcorn, unplugging the shower drain, cleaning the bathtub, wrestling with Hadley, and mailing out shop orders. :)

I have a story to tell you. A story that I may tell my grandkids someday. If you follow me on instagram (@summerharms) you probably know what I'm about to say. This week I had a new experience and it involved.... a tongue. You're either going to be proud of me, or write me off forever by the end of this post! Remember back in the fall when I told you guys that we bought 1/4 of a grass-fed cow? I forgot to mention that along with steaks, roasts, and ground beef, we also got the liver, the heart, and the tongue. Ha!

So, inspired by my recent reading of Farmer Boy, where they used every single part of every animal they raised, I decided to break out one of the more unfamiliar (scary) cuts of meat from our freezer. I couldn't let it go to waste, and I knew I had seen this recipe for Tacos de Lengua (Spanish for beef tongue tacos) from Cheeseslave, and apparently Martha Stewart is a big fan... so tongue tacos it is! It sounded easy enough. (It was!) It took me awhile to muster up the courage to go grab it from the freezer in the basement, and then for a couple days I just stared at it thawing in the fridge. I purposely did not thaw any other meat, so that the tongue would be our only option for dinner Wednesday night. There would be no way out. I was doing this!

Wednesday afternoon I started a pot of water boiling and added several cloves of garlic. I unwrapped the white butcher paper package and surveyed the content: a hunk of meat covered with black leathery skin. It... wasn't that scary, I guess. I quickly grabbed it and dropped it in the pot, added some salt, put on the lid, and walked away. Pretty soon my house smelled amazing. I let it simmer away for a few hours. It really wasn't bad at all so far!


When it was time to eat, I took the tongue out of the pot and laid it on a cutting board. It looked basically the same as it did when it went in, but it smelled good. Like roast beef. Grant helped me peel away the thick outer skin (it wasn't hard, but I just wanted someone else there with me for moral support). I sliced the meat into chunks and added it to a cast iron pan with sauteeing onion and garlic, and then seasoned it with cumin, oregano, salt and pepper.


By the time we got our tacos assembled (with dollops of salsa, guacamole, and a little sauerkraut) the tongue meat was pretty coated with familiar flavors and it was hard to determine how different tasting it actually was. To me, it was faintly like corned beef. It was very tender! Hadley was obsessed with it. She ate about 4 bowls full. It was an adventurous, resourceful meal and I'm glad we did it. It was good! I'm not planning on buying a tongue every time we go to the grocery store (I don't even know where to find one) and I doubt that you are either, but in case you ever find yourself with a beef tongue in your freezer, you can keep these tacos in mind. :)

Happy weekend, everybody! Enjoy your meal a little extra tonight, knowing it's not scary at all!

Hello friends! Want to read about me elsewhere today?! :)
The lovely people at Mommypage featured an interview with me! They asked me a few questions about my experience with the GAPS diet and eating gluten and (mostly) dairy free. I also talk about why I love cooking so much and share some of my favorite easy recipes. Come on over and see me!

And a few items of business to discuss...

1. Thank you so much for all the views yesterday after I announced the spring line-up in my tiny print shop! It was fun to make some lighthearted, playful kind of things for you guys. (I'm secretly hoping you'll want to decorate a corner of your house with one of them!) ;) I'm trying to decide which one to get myself. A friend emailed me yesterday telling me she knew right away which one was perfect for her and how awesome was it to hear that? Is there one that you connect with? I'd love to know! (you don't have to buy it!)

2. Yes, I'm still receiving and taking more orders for The 50 Promises memory cards. They will be available a bit longer yet, so feel free to grab a set! We are currently on Week 12 of this little game, if you're playing along.

3. I have lots of posts bobbing around in my head, so stay tuned for Tacos de Lengua, coconut pecan slab cookies, local dairy source found (!!), non-cereal breakfast ideas, and what I learned from reading Farmer Boy. Lots of good things to come!

Be prepared- this post is loaded. New nail color, new month, new pickle batch, new prints in the shop. Everything's new!

Ahhhhh. April! I never pay much attention to the few days of spring in March. It's April that always flips the switch inside me. Time for things to start afresh. Now a new season will begin. As Grant said to me over the weekend, "it's straight on till morning." We made it! Winter is over, the sun came out, and the snow is (mostly) gone from our yard. Grant went back to school this week to get cracking on the last 38 days of the school year. So exciting! Can you feel it? It's the 4th Quarter! April is in the air.


And I'm ready for it.
Nails painted. Hair cut. Library books read and returned. Getting back in the saddle and practicing piano again. Swimming suit purchased. Stroller out. John Mayer album broken in again. Legs shaved and detached from leggings. New batch of spring pickles made. Gmail inbox cleared. And shop stocked. I emptied a few shelves of my shop to make room for some new items I've been working on over the winter. It's time to give them a debut! If you have a second, please go check them out!
Item #2 On The Up & Up 8x10 

Meaning 1: If you are on the up and up, you are making progress and doing well. Yay!
Meaning 2: If someone or something is on the up and up, they are legit, honest, and respectable. Yay!
Either way, a really rosy print for spring.
Item #3 Learn To Use Apostrophes 8x10

I'm a grammar girl at heart. This is good advice straight from my parents, who taught us well. Plurals and possessives are not the same thing.