I'm back!

It's been a while! Over a year! Time has been going so fast lately it's incredible how quickly a year can just go by in a flash! Since I posted last August, we went on our honeymoon to France, bought a house, and adopted a super-cute puppy! Between working full-time and all of that, we've had some hectic times!

Here is a photo of Moxie, our adorable 11-week old Puppy. She is a Cavachon (part Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and part Bichon Frise).

Since moving into our house, it's been so nice having space for everything we have accumulated in tiny apartments for the past 3+ years! And I've come to appreciate just how much work it is keeping a whole house clean and nice-looking. I try to avoid clutter as much as possible...which is now even harder with a puppy running around bringing in leaves and sticks from outside!! One thing I have enjoyed doing is making my own cleaning solutions! I've been on pinterest a lot looking up natural ways to clean just about everything in the house. Combine that with my new found obsession with essential oils has actually made keeping the house clean a fun chore! I love experimenting with the different smells and finding out how beneficial all the oils can actually be! I feel good knowing I'm not filling our new house with chemicals and unhealthy junk in the process as well! I'm hoping to blog more about the cleaning products I have made, but I'll share my favorite one that I use all the time. It is just 1 cup of distilled water, 1/2 cupof vinegar, 1/2 teaspoon of Dr. Bonner's liquid castille soap (I used the unscented one) and about 5-10 drops of either lemon or orange essential oil. I learned to make sure to mix these in glass bottles since oil can eat away at plastic containers. I use this cleaner mainly in the kitchen, but it's great to clean pretty much any surface. It is a little streaky on glass, but I have another concoction for that that I'll share soon!

I've also been using oils for random other things as well, such as on bug bites and simply to relax. My favorite oil by far is the peppermint oil because it smells absolutely fantastic. As far as brands of oil, I have really been switching between 2 brands - DoTerra and Native American Nutritionals, after doing a lot of research on top quality oils. I'll explain more on why I chose them later as well.

I've still been cooking and baking, though not as much as I used to with working full time and having a puppy to take care of. I'm hoping to get back into that more soon so that I can share some of the recipes I have made. I haven't done another Stitch Fix for a while -- that is mainly for monetary reasons. After moving in to the new house, we've been putting our resources into that -- a new sofa, decorations, a repair to our basement, etc. That has really eaten up a lot of money, but it's well worth it. I hope everyone out there on the Internet has been doing well over the past year!