Happy Halloween!

It's Monday, but I'm not complaining! Today is Halloween, and in my book, it really feels like fall. Today starts the countdown to my birthday, then to Thanksgiving break, then to Christmas. It's for sure my favorite time of year. Marcus and I have been celebrating all weekend and are ready for some trick-or-treaters.

The weekend started off at a party with the folks from Marcus's grad program.  We were a little last minute, but we decided to go as Zack and Kelly from "Saved by the Bell." Because Marcus is in seminary, we added a punny little twist and passed out tracts that asked if people were "saved" by the bell.

Go Bayside!

On Saturday we joined some friends from church for a pumpkin carving party! We drove out to a farm outside of Nashville and enjoyed the crisp fall weather and a serious bonfire.

Getting started!

Hard at work.

Almost done!

The finished product.

And now we are excited to have my mom and grandma in town for a few days! We love welcoming family and it's always nice to have an excuse to go shopping. I'm excited to take a day off from work tomorrow and spend the day with them before they head out to visit my sister and brother-in-law in New York.  

How are celebrating Halloween this year? Here's to eating lots of candy!

Ch-ch-ch-Changes!

Check it out! I decided to get serious about this whole blogging thing. :) Marcus and I got rid of DVR this month, so I have more time to work on things like quilting projects and this little ole blog!

Thanks to my sweet friend, Leisha, at We Are the Shepperds, I have a new header and lots of fancy little extras.  I started this blog as a way to help all of our friends and family back in Texas keep up with all the happenings in the Womack household and I hope that this new look reflects that! I'll continue to keep you updated on our oh-so-interesting life in Nashville, but hopefully offer some things that will appeal to a wider audience.  So take a look around and please let me know what you think!

Along with the changes here, I've also been working on updating my work space as I continue to pursue this whole quilting endeavor! Although our house is quite small, we are lucky to have two extra bedrooms so I have my own workspace in our guest bedroom separate from Marcus's office area. Here's what that area looked like a couple of weeks ago:

Messy messy!

I love my little desk from college, but it hasn't transitioned very well from homework space to a place for quilting. So I started scouring Craigslist for a replacement, and I found the perfect one! It was quite the steal, and while it has seen better days, it was exactly what I needed in terms of functionality.  I hoped to paint it before putting everything in its place (I wanted to still have something black), but when we finally got it in the house and found out company would be here this weekend, I decided it was too much trouble! So last night we did a bit of rearranging and organizing and now I have the perfect workspace!

Ta-da!

I love that there is room for all my supplies, but it can still serve as a vanity when we have guests. My machines are tucked away in the section that looks like drawers and they pull out to create an extra workspace.

Hopefully I'll have a lot of new projects to share with you in the coming months. Gotta get started on all those Christmas presents!

Have a wonderful weekend and Happy Halloween!

Mom's Meatloaf

Mmmmm...meatloaf.

Not sure which one I like better.  This one...

Or this one...

Who am I kidding? Celine does it way better. 

Anyway, this post is not about that Meatloaf.  It's about my mom's meatloaf. My mom has never loved spending too much time in the kitchen, but she does have some signature dishes up her sleeve, and her meatloaf is one of those. It's not a gourmet meal by any means, but it's easy and fun to make, and oh so yummy! 

I was looking through my most recent issue of Every Day with Rachael Ray and saw her recipe for meatloaf which included two of my favorite ingredients: cheese and potatoes. I love my mom's recipe, so I decided to use hers and tweak it a little to have a Rachael Ray twist (aka add cheese and potatoes). The outcome was perfection. Marcus said it was one of the top five meals I've made so far.  I hope you'll give it a try!

Mom's (and Rachael Ray's) Meatloaf

2 lbs. ground beef

2 eggs

1/3 cup ketchup

2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. pepper

3 tbs. dried onion flakes

2 cups Italian bread crumbs

2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

6 colby-jack cheese sticks

red potatoes

Combine all ingredients (except cheese and potatoes), mixing well with hands.  Place in baking pan and flatten into rectangle. Add cheese sticks and fold edges of the meat over the cheese.  Quarter or wedge potatoes and scatter around the meat loaf. Drizzle olive oil over them and season with salt and pepper.  Bake at 400 degrees for 50 minutes or until potatoes are tender.

It should look a little something like this:

Enjoy!

Thankful Thursday

Remember the time I said I was going to join up with Megan for Thankful Thursdays and then I totally flaked? Well here I am this week, with a whole hour (eight minutes by the time I finished this) to spare!

Today I am thankful for this little piggy:

My co-worker, Kellie, stumbled upon this little guy at a cute boutique in Chattanooga. You can't tell by the picture but he only has three legs! He is a good-luck pig, an old tradition from Chile. Kellie and I shared an office for a while, and bonded over our love of cheesy 80's love jams and bacon. It didn't take long for my (not-so)-secret affinity of pigs to come out.  I've been collecting pigs since about 7th grade- it's seriously embarrassing to walk into my room and see all the pigs everywhere.  I took a few really special ones with me to college and now I only have some favorites in our house. It's fun to add some new ones to the collection every once in a while that I can incorporate into our home decor. Like this little vintage pot holder that I snagged at a garage sale last week.

You're probably wondering what any of this has to do with Thankful Thursday. I'll get to the point now. Yes, I'm thankful for these little piggies, but more importantly, I'm thankful for the stories behind them. I'm incredibly blessed to work with such fun, smart, and thoughtful people.  Aside from the little surprises, I'm thankful that I can truly consider my co-workers friends. We teach each other to quilt, and baby-sit each others' kids, and watch Conan together, and go to happy hour.  We are more than just employees of Blood:Water Mission, we are a family. And wherever I go from here, three-legged good luck pig will always remind me of my first job and the amazing people I was blessed to work with.

Other things I'm thankful for: my patient hubby who lets me drag him to garage sales and the like to find little treasures like the aforementioned pot holder. And this guy:

Don't let him fool you- he's only like this 30% of the time.

What are you thankful for today?

Doneski!

Remember that quilt I started blogging about last September? Well, after a little over a year (including a nine month break), I am so so so happy to announce that my quilt is officially complete! I still can't believe I actually made a real live quilt, from start to finish, all by myself! :) I definitely had some help along the way (thanks, Pam!), and it's definitely not perfect, but I love it. Hopefully it is just the first of many quilts to follow, and this one will always hold a special place in my heart.

In my last post about the quilt, I showed you the mini-quilt I made.  Since then, I did all the same steps, just times about 30! After pinning all three layers together (the front, back and batting in between), it was time to quilt! I decided just to stitch around the perimeter of each square.  Then I added the binding- and it's amazing how that really made it look finished (I know, imagine that. The last step made it look finished!).  The REAL test, though, was washing and drying the finished product. I was terrified that the whole thing would just fall apart.  But it stayed all in one piece and it's beautiful. :)

So do you want to see it?

Ok, here it is...

What do you think?

This is the front! 

The backing is green and white (KD colors, of course!)

Love my quilt!

I can't wait to share my next quilting endeavor with all of you! I'm also going to be joining my friend Megan for her new weekly post, Thankful Thursdays. Sneak peak: I'm thankful for FALL!