Wordless Wednesday: Sunny Faces

Photos ©2009 Anne Rains Photography, All Rights Reserved.

If you are in the market to buy or sell your home in the Bethlehem or Dacula area, I would be happy to assist you! My passion is helping people find their dream home and stepping them through this exciting journey. I serve the Walton, Barrow and Gwinnett county areas. Call or text me today!

Handy Dandy Tips Using a Sheet of Bounce

I received these helpful tips in an e-mail and I thought my readers would find this useful as well. Who knew there were so many uses for a dryer sheet?! You'll be suprised at the variety of things a little sheet of Bounce can be used for.

• It will chase ants away when you lay a sheet near them. It also repels mice.

• To freshen the air in your car - Place a sheet of Bounce under the front seat.

• Since Bounce is designed to help eliminate static cling, wipe your television screen with a used sheet of Bounce to keep dust from resettling.

• It takes the odor out of books and photo albums that don't get opened too often.

• It repels mosquitoes. Tie a sheet of Bounce through a belt loop when outdoors during mosquito season.

• Eliminate static electricity from your television (or computer) screen.

• Spread sheets around foundation areas, or in trailers, or cars that are sitting and it keeps mice from entering your vehicle.

• Dissolve soap scum from shower doors. Clean with a sheet of Bounce.

• To freshen the air in your home - Place an individual sheet of Bounce in a drawer or hang in the closet.

• Wet a Bounce sheet, hose down your car, and wipe lovebugs off easily with the wet Bounce.

• Prevent thread from tangling. Run a threaded needle through a sheet of Bounce before beginning to sew.

• Prevent musty suitcases. Place an individual sheet of Bounce inside empty luggage before storing.

• Clean baked-on foods from a cooking pan. Put a sheet in a pan, fill with water, let sit overnight, and sponge clean. The anti-static agent apparently weakens the bond between the food and the pan.

• Eliminate odors in wastebaskets. Place a sheet of Bounce at the bottom of the wastebasket.

• Put Bounce sheet in vacuum cleaner.

• Deodorize shoes or sneakers. Place a sheet of Bounce in your shoes or sneakers overnight.

• Put a Bounce sheet in your sleeping bag and tent before folding and storing them. It will keep them smelling fresh.

• Collect cat hair. Rubbing the area with a sheet of Bounce will magnetically attract all the lose hairs.

• Eliminate static electricity from Venetian blinds. Wipe the blinds with a sheet of Bounce to prevent dust from resettling.

• Wipe up sawdust from drilling or sand papering. A used sheet of Bounce will collect sawdust like a tack cloth.

• Eliminate odors in dirty laundry. Place an individual sheet of Bounce at the bottom of a laundry bag or hamper.

• Golfers put a Bounce sheet in their back pocket to keep the bees away.
  

I must admit that I haven't tried any of these out yet, so if you have I would love to hear your feedback as to whether or not it actually works! Just leave me a comment about your experience.

I hope this information has helped you! If you are in the market to buy or sell your home in the Bethlehem or Dacula area, I would be happy to assist you! My passion is helping people find their dream home and stepping them through this exciting journey. I serve the Walton, Barrow and Gwinnett county areas. Call or text me today!

Photo Credit: Mouse, Car, Cookies, Cat, Golf

Wordless Wednesday: 900 Year Old Oak Tree!

This photo was taken at the Middleton Plantation in Charleston, South Carolina. The plantation guides told us the tree is about 900 years old!! Some of the limbs are being held up and supported by cables!

Photos ©2009 Anne Rains Photography, All Rights Reserved.

I hope this information has helped you! If you are in the market to buy or sell your home in the Bethlehem or Dacula area, I would be happy to assist you! My passion is helping people find their dream home and stepping them through this exciting journey. I serve the Walton, Barrow and Gwinnett county areas. Call or text me today!

Mexican Chicken Casserole

It seems like lately I've been making a variety of chicken casseroles, maybe I need to branch out more, but they're just so easy and very cost effective. Because it's just the two of us we always have leftovers, which although I'm not a huge fan of, they do make our grocery budget go farther.

This one is a Mexican Chicken Casserole by my favorite cook (you already know I'm going to say Paula Deen don't you?!). Well this one is cheesy, creamy, delicious and really quick to make--from assembly to oven to table is only about 40 minutes!

Ingredients:

• 1 10.75 oz. can cream of chicken soup
• 1 10.75 oz. can Cheddar cheese soup
• 1 10.75 oz. can cream of mushroom soup
• 1 10 oz. can Ro-Tel tomatoes
• 1 whole chicken, cooked, boned and chopped or 4 Cups leftover cooked chicken
• 1 11.5 oz. package flour tortillas
• 2 Cups shredded Cheddar cheese
  

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, stir together the three kinds of soup and the tomatoes. Stir in the chicken.
2. In a greased 13x9 inch pan, layer the tortillas and chicken mixture, beginning and endgin with tortillas.
3. Sprinkle cheese over the casserole and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

This delicious dish serves 8 people. I served it with a hot spinach and artichoke dip that complimented it well. Hope you enjoy this! A great one to make for the family!

Thank You for Reading!

I hope this information has helped you! If you are in the market to buy or sell your home in the Bethlehem or Dacula area, I would be happy to assist you! My passion is helping people find their dream home and stepping them through this exciting journey. I serve the Walton, Barrow and Gwinnett county areas. Call or text me today!

"If You Play with Snakes, You're Gonna Get Bit!"

On Thursday night, over 6,000 churches hosted Dave Ramsey's Town Hall for Hope live simulcast and over 1 million Americans heard what he had to say. Not familiar with Dave? He's a financial expert and a Christian, which I love because what he teaches about your finances are biblically based.

He said a lot of great things last week and he really conveyed that the economy is not as bad as what the media is trying to portray. One of the best quotes of the night was: "Credit cards are snakes. If you play with snakes, you're going to get bit." Dave doesn't even own a credit card because he doesn't feel that the credit card companies play fair. He only advises using them if you can pay them in full each month! Now, I know that for a lot of Americans credit cards are a way of life, but can you imagine if you never used a credit card again how much money you would save?! Not only would you be keeping all that interest that you would accrue to yourself, but statistics also show that Americans who pay with credit cards typically spend 26% more than Americans who don't use them. Ponder that for a little bit.

Another important thing he said was that "Failure will run you into excellence. Without fear of failure you cannot be your best." I think this is also great; we shouldn't let our fear of failure paralyze us from doing anything but instead use that fear to do our best. And if we should fail that will only make us want to pick up the pieces and try again. A lot of the wealthiest people have been millionaires only to become bankrupt and then they go out and work harder and accomplish even greater wealth than before.

Dave claimed we need to learn two things: 1. SAY NO! and 2. Take personal responsibility that you caused this mess. He says we need to learn how to say no again--we live in a society that says yes to everything and no to nothing, but that must change if we're going to get in control of our finances. We need to learn to say "yes that was my fault" instead of whining about it.

I'm also very happy to inform you that Dave believes the housing industry is going to lead us out of this recession. He stated that because of interest rates being the lowest they have been in years, it's a wonderful time to buy a home. If you have extra money he also recommends investing in property as well. And he wants everyone to quit believing the media when they talk about foreclosures running rampant in this nation; did you know that 60% of the foreclosures come from only 5 of our states. And that 50% of foreclosures are in 35 counties. This shows us that foreclosures are highly localized. So, if you can afford it, this is definitely the year to buy a home!

And finally, here's a three step action plan that we should follow:

1. Get up and TAKE ACTION! Don't just sit on your couch watching Oprah re-runs wishing you made more money or the country wasn't in this recession (This is not even the worst recession we've ever had, did you know that?) Be proactive and think creatively on ways to earn more money.

2. Don't participate in LOSER TALK! Don't believe everything you hear on the media and if the news is getting you down, just don't listen to it. Think positively and when others are talking negatively walk away or find something good to say.

3. We need to learn to give again. Americans need to learn how to be generous again with both their time and money. Money really tight? Don't worry, find ways to give back to your community--maybe help serve in a soup kitchen or volunteer to read to elderly people in a retirement home. Doing things to help others will help get your mind off your problems, put things into perspective (things could be worse) and will be a blessing to you.

Lastly, his parting words were:

HOPE comes from you, me, and God, NOT Washington!!

If you would like more information, Dave Ramsey has a whole website devoted to Town Hall for Hope. Also, he's a wonderful financial advisor and has written a great book: Total Money Makeover that I would highly recommend. He teaches people how to get out of debt and to live a debt-free lifestyle.

His motto is "Live like no one else, so one day you can LIVE like no one else."

Town Hall for Hope Website

Dave Ramsey's Website

I hope this information has helped you! If you are in the market to buy or sell your home in the Bethlehem or Dacula area, I would be happy to assist you! My passion is helping people find their dream home and stepping them through this exciting journey. I serve the Walton, Barrow and Gwinnett county areas. Call or text me today!

Wordless Wednesday: Playing with Picnik

Okay…I’m breaking the rules here a little because today’s Wordless Wednesday is not exactly “wordless”. But today’s photo is one that I took into Picnik.com and added a lot of effects to…I think it turned out pretty cool. If you’ve never played with Picnik.com you should take a look at it–you can do a ton of cool things to your photos. Besides just the standard photo editing features of cropping and removing red-eye, this program also allows you to add text to your photos, enhance the colors and add borders, along with so much more.

Go ahead, try it out…you’ll be hooked

P.S. Besides playing with the colors some and adding a border, I also added the effect HDR-ish which made it really neat looking :-)

If you are in the market to buy or sell your home in the Bethlehem or Dacula area, I would be happy to assist you! My passion is helping people find their dream home and stepping them through this exciting journey. I serve the Walton, Barrow and Gwinnett county areas. Call or text me today!

Atlanta Highlights: Fox Theatre & Spaghetti Factory

My husband gave me the sweetest First Anniversary gift: tickets to see the movie Gone With the Wind at the Fox Theatre and dinner out! As most of you know, each anniversary has a gift that goes with it: the traditional gift is one of paper (the modern version is a clock…I’m not a huge fan of clocks for some reason so I’m glad he didn’t go with this!). So a gift of tickets to see my all-time favorite movie was just perfect!

We began the night at the Old Spaghetti Factory, which was absolutely delicious! In case you haven’t been there before, the food is great and very reasonably priced. I had the Crab Ravioli which was covered in a pesto alfredo sauce and tasted wonderful. The meal is also served with hot, fresh bread; a salad–they have the best dressing there: Pesto Ranch (can you tell I like pesto?!) and also for dessert: Spumoni, which is an Italian ice cream of three flavors: chocolate, cherry and pistachio–this eclectic combo tastes great together!


One of the reasons I love eating at this restaurant is looking at the many beautiful chandaliers they have hanging everywhere. The restaurant is full of various types of big, bold and beautiful lights such as the one above. Also, the furniture is all very antique-Victorian looking and is very neat.

If you are in the Atlanta area and would like a fun restaurant to eat at with great food, try this one out! It’s located at: 249 Ponce de Leon Avenue NE, Atlanta. Or you may be lucky enough to have one located near you…they have over 37 locations in 14 different states.

Next we headed over to the fabulous Fox Theatre so we could watch our movie! The Fox is an Atlanta tradition and first opened in the 1930s after being headquarters for the Shriners organization in the 1920s. This beautifully ornate building survived so much and “the Fox stands today as a fiercely protected landmark and a nationally acclaimed theater; having survived depression, mortgage foreclosure, bankruptcy, competition, television, real estate development, and above all, age.”–FoxTheatre.org

Watching this classic movie on the big screen at this amazing venue was a wonderful night out for sure! I thoroughly enjoyed the night and encourage you to look into having a night at the Fox sometime yourself. They do everything from concerts and musicals to plays and ballets–there is something for everyone.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang will be there next, but what I’m most looking forward to is seeing the Radio City Rockettes perform their Christmas show in November!

For tickets or more information visit their website: The Fox Theatre. They are located at: 660 Peachtree Street NE, Atlanta.

If you are in the market to buy or sell your home in the Bethlehem or Dacula area, I would be happy to assist you! My passion is helping people find their dream home and stepping them through this exciting journey. I serve the Walton, Barrow and Gwinnett county areas. Call or text me today!