I bought a calendar two weeks ago. I realize we're almost halfway through the year, but after trying a few electronic calendars on my phone and my laptop--it just wasn't working. (How old am I?!) It could be because growing up, my sisters and I got a calendar every year for Christmas and we had […]
I have recently retired from offering mood boards after making them for hundreds of clients for the past two and a half years. There just isn't enough time these days and I would love to focus on other projects. In those two and a half years, I've learned a lot. I've hunted a lot. And […]
I've received a few questions about olive oil lately that I thought I'd take today's post to address. See, whenever I'm explaining my dishes, sometimes I say stuff like, "Use light olive oil - not extra virgin" or "Use a fruity extra-virgin olive oil." The question I've been receiving is, "What's the difference?" This is a […]
This weekend I brightened things up in our formerly dark gray-brown bedroom. Now that we are getting settled into our style, we are revisiting rooms that we painted/decorated quickly (and cheaply) when we first moved in and...tweaking--which I actually highly recommend. Yes, you might end up painting a room twice, but when you're just getting […]
For Mother's Day dinner, Jules requested "a good salad in a big bowl." I like salad as much as the next guy (as long as that next guy doesn't really like salad), but salad just sounds so boring. So I walked up and down the produce section of our local grocery store and found a […]
Last week, we took a couple hours and finally tackled a project we've been meaning to for years-- Raised garden beds!! Chris and I both grew up in homes with gardens, and we're happy to be on our way to one of our own. This article from BHG goes into a lot of the perks […]
Roasting potatoes is something that everyone needs to know how to do properly. They're so easy to make, as well as versatile, but some people don't like roasting potatoes because they often stick to the pan, have a gummy texture, or are too oily etc. etc.. Well I'm going to change all that for you […]
I found this picture of the living room from exactly one year ago. Crazy, right? The living room just keeps evolving. But today we're specifically talking about those curtains because this window has been a struggle to dress since we moved in. As you can see from the photo above, I felt like the rod […]
So... we started that whole "Julia Loves Chris" blog, and then realized it was kinda pointless to have two separate blogs. So I'll be posting my food stuff 3 times a week here instead. As promised, I'm gonna share my crispy pork belly and roasted potatoes recipe today, but I'm gonna do it in 2 […]
If daisies are the friendliest flower (ahem, Kathleen Kelly)--then I'm going to declare roses the unfriendliest. Lining our front yard we have 6 pain-inflicting rose bushes that have shown no mercy to their victims--which have sadly, mostly been the neighborhood kids running from yard to yard in our cul-de-sac. Two of the six are mini […]
All right, quick rant. You know what drives me up the wall? When people talk about liking one ingredient, but not another, as though they're supposed to be interchangeable. Miracle Whip and Mayonnaise, for example. "I like Miracle Whip!" "Well I like Mayonnaise!" Um... they taste nothing alike. Let's see, what do they have in […]
As I mentioned on Friday, we are turning our attention to our exterior while the weather is warm and the weeds are abundant. Our whole yard needs some TLC, but this weekend we started tackling the patio--specifically staining the patio. Staining the patio was a one-day project (love those!) and took this: To this: We […]
Cinco de Mayo is this weekend. Now there's an obscure holiday. I have no idea why it's a holiday, and I'm not even interested enough to do a Google search. All I know is it's an excuse to make sweet pork barbacoa, so felicidades! I have a couple versions of pork barbacoa, but I think this […]
I know, I know we said that our bedroom and bathroom are next--but the weather is warm and we want to take advantage. And to those who are emailing me about the kitchen tile--that's coming, too. It's on backorder so we're moving ahead until it arrives and we install it in record time because we're […]
Sweet and sour chicken - a dish about as Asian as I am, but available at nearly every Chinese restaurant in America. I often wonder how certain dishes become labeled as part of a cuisine. Another example is pizza. Nobody really knows if it originated in Italy, but it's branded Italian, so let it be […]
A full year ago, we opened up spots for advertisers in our sidebar and then three months after, I decided to close them. At the time we decided to take a sponsor hiatus, we had a good amount of sponsors, but something felt forced. Honestly, I found myself mimicking one style of accepting advertisers and […]
A few weeks ago, our DIYed wainscoting (or paneling--whichever!) was featured on Apartment Therapy and one of the commenters mentioned that maybe the grid of pictures competes with the wainscoting wall too much and that it might just be too much geometry. Of course we don't read every suggestion and change our house accordingly. That […]
A couple weeks ago, Jules and I were in Idaho visiting family. I made dinner one night - roasted potatoes and crispy pork belly- and I knew it was gonna sit pretty heavy. See, the difference between a "meh" meal and a great meal, is the way each course builds on each other, and how […]
Sometimes, even when the level says it is level--it is just barely off after you already drove in your anchor and the screw and hung your frames next to each other and looked back. Perhaps one of life's biggest frustrations. Sometimes it is due to driving your screw into the bottom or top of the […]
We have some really, really exciting news to share--the sister husband site to Chris Loves Julia has just launched and it is appropriately titled Julia Loves Chris. I have been nudging Chris to write a food blog for a long time, and then recently--he came up with the idea himself. I pounced and the coding and […]
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