During the 50th ACM Awards, I watched Taylor Swift's mom make a speech about Taylor and beam with just such respect and pride over her daughter. From the moment I heard the news about her mother I was just so heartbroken for Taylor and her family. My thoughts and prayers go out to Taylor and her family. The speech gave me the idea to dedicate today's blog to my Mom.

Mom, you have been my best friend, partner in crime, and my shoulder to lean on for 23 years now. I've both tried your patience and made you proud. You have been the one that no matter what it was would come through for me. I can't begin to even tell you how much your friendship means to me. We're family, but we're the best of friends, and I couldn't be me without you. I wouldn't have the courage to be the young woman I am today if it wasn't for your guidance. We share the love of Country Music and we've been blessed to have went to some amazing concerts. We also have the get the travel bug from time to time and I am so thankful for our impromptu road trips. Some of my best memories are with you and Dad. I know I'm far right now, but always remember I'm not far from your heart. I love you mom. I'm thinking of you today. So go have a drink, put your feet up, and relax. Thank you again for everything that you do on a daily basis. Love you!

XOXO

Also, happy mothers day for all the other mothers day out there, sorry to all the kids I clearly have them beat for the best mother! ;) haha.

Foodie Friday's: Easy Oven Fried Chicken Recipe

One of mine and my husband's thing to do is to cook with each other, so today marks the start of "Foodie Friday's," these are some of my favorite recipes. Every time I find something new I like, I will cook and then tell. ;)

© Copyrighted The Rustic Belle. All rights reserved.

Now, to the recipe! This Easy Oven Fried Chicken is something my husband and I have made about 4 or 5 times now so we got the hang of it. It's quicker than most dinners and doesn't make a huge mess for clean up right after.

Easy Oven Fried Chicken

Prep time: 10-20 Minutes at Most

Cook time: 30 Minutes At Most

Ingredients

• 3 Chicken Breasts
• 3-4 Tablespoons Butter
• 1 Cup Flour
• 1/2 Teaspoon Salt
• 1/2 Teaspoon Pepper
• 2 Teaspoon Paprika
• 1 Tablespoon Seasoning Salt

Steps:

1.) Cut up the chicken breasts into strips.

2.) Preheat the oven to 400° Fahrenheit.

3.) Put 3-4 Tablespoons of butter on a large baking pan.

4.) While waiting for the oven to heat up, in a large ziplock bag put in the flour, salt, pepper, paprika, and seasoning salt.

5.) Make sure to zip up the bag and shake it so it mixes well together.

6.) Once this is done you can start throwing the chicken strips in the ziplock bag, one by one to coat them. Shake well to coat evenly.

7.) You may have to take a break and put the banking pan in the oven once done preheating, you want the butter all the way melted on the pan.

8.) Once the butter is all the way melted take the pan out of the oven and move the butter around to make sure all of the pan has been coated with butter.

9.) If you are done coating the chicken strips, you may now begin placing them on the baking pan evenly. (Make sure they are not too close to each other and not close to the edges of the pan)

10.) Once chicken is placed on the pan, put in oven for at least 12 minutes on one side, then turn over and bake on the other side for another 12 minutes, or until fully cooked in a light golden brown color.

11.) Serve and enjoy! ;)

Disclaimer: I didn't originally make the recipe up, but unfortunately I can't credit as I didn't save it after making it the first time. :(

Top 5 Stocking Stuffers for Men!

After I put up my top 5 holiday beauty finds last week, I got a request to do a blog about stocking stuffers and since christmas is now 6 days away! I repeat 6 days away! After a minor heart attack we finally got everyone else's but all our own gifts taken care of. Which is pretty good for us just shopping over the weekend!

• Underwear or socks - I made the comment the other day after seeing a sale at Victoria's Secret on TV that you could always use more underwear & socks, which obviously an epiphany that I needed to write that for this blog.

• Pocket flashlights - I know this is kind of silly sounding, he probably already has a million laying around in the house, but if your husband or significant other works on their vehicles or even needs one for their vehicle you'd be surprise just how handy they are even if you have like 5 of them already. ;)

• Pocket knife - this is debating on how you feel about weapons being on your significant other, and of course how he feels. I personally know around here in Vegas you never know what kind of characters you'll meet there's a variety of people day in and day out that come and visit this crazy place but I do always feel better if my husband has some kind of pocket knife on him - just in case.

• Razors - if your husband is in the military, you know shaving is an everyday chore. I dread every time my husband has to shave off his stubble after a 3 day weekend. Trust me these will not go to waste.

• Gift cards - these are not something you usually wrap, it's much more easier to just stuff them in your stocking and let them enjoy them. If they drink coffee, Starbucks. If they are a fan of food, get one to their favorite restaurant. If they are in dire need of clothes other than graphic t's also like my husband, get them a gift card to get some nice shirts ;) (let's face it: this is a little for you ladies too.)

Bonus: I can't lie a conversation with my husband sparked these ideas but he dared me to put - sex coupons - on here and if you know me I won't back down from it lol His reasoning, "who doesn't like sex?" but incase if you're already pink in the face and don't want to get too crazy then maybe substitute them for chore coupons so he can "skip" doing the dishes one night.

I hope y'all have a wonderful weekend & enjoy!

Top 5 Beauty Finds for the Holiday Season!

We're only 13 days away from Christmas y'all! I don't whether or not to freak out or be excited because I haven't finished my Holiday Shopping. All freak outs aside, I've taken the time to list my favorite beauty finds of the 2014 Holiday Season!

• Too Faced's La Belle Carousel: This beautiful carousel features five pretty palettes of eye shadows, blushes and bronzers plus our best-selling Better Than Sex Mascara for on-the-go looks or unique individual gifts.

• Too Faced's Under the Mistletoe: Get ready to pucker up under the mistletoe and drench your lips in three shimmer versions of our best-selling shades of our luscious La Crème Color Drenched Lip Creams.

• Too Faced's Melted Kisses: This holiday season, indulge your lips with four clutch-size tubes of Melted Liquified Long Wear Lipstick, our stunning new innovation in lip color.

• Urban Decay's Naked 3 Eyeshadow Palette: What You See Is What You Get: Strange (pale neutral pink matte-satin), Dust (pale metallic pink shimmer w/iridescent micro-glitter), Burnout (light pinky-peach satin), Limit (light dusty rose matte), Buzz (metallic rose shimmer w/silver micro-glitter), Trick (light metallic pinky-copper shimmer w/tonal micro-sparkle), Nooner (medium pinky-brown matte), Liar (medium metallic mauve shimmer), Factory (pinky-brown satin), Mugshot (metallic taupe shimmer w/slight pink shift), Darkside (deep taupe-mauve satin) and Darkheart (smoky black matte w/rosy red micro-sparkle).

• Benefit's Candy-Coated Countdown (Free Gift with Purchase): The gift that gets sweeter every day! Benefit Cosmetics advent calendar is filled with 24 bite-size beauty treasures. Open the sweet shoppe doors...and count down to gorgeous! This limited edition set is at the top of every holiday "luxe list."

Side Note: Today was originally Freebie Friday, but I promise next friday you'll be happy and understand why I didn't include a freebie this week. ;)

My Christmas Playlist

It's that time of the year where everyone has either already put up their tree and decorated it, or are just getting to it. It's the time of year you sip hot cocoa and cuddle under warm blankets by the fire, and finally, it's the time of the year that's also known for giving. Yes, giving is what I said. So today I'm giving you the gift of a Christmas Playlist. These are some of my favorites, old and new. You can pretty much find all of these on iTunes, or you can even make a YouTube playlist and play it while you're doing all your Christmas festivities. Enjoy!

1. Santa Baby - Nashville Cast Feat. Clare Bowen - Christmas with Nashville (2014)
2. Candy Cane Christmas - Darius Rucker - Candy Cane Christmas - Single (2009)
3. Do You Hear What I Hear? - Carrie Underwood - Hear Something Country Christmas (2007)
4. I'll Be Home for Christmas - Rascal Flatts - Unwrapped EP (2009)
5. Country Christmas - Loretta Lynn - 20th Century Masters - The Christmas Collection: The Best of Loretta Lynn (2005)
6. Silver Bells - Loretta Lynn - 20th Century Masters - The Christmas Collection: The Best of Loretta Lynn (2005)
7. Let's Make a Little Christmas Tonight - Phil Vassar - Hear Something Country Christmas (2007)
8. O Come All Ye Faithful - Martina McBride - Hear Something Country Christmas (2007)
9. Christmas in Heaven - Scotty McCreery - Christmas With Scotty McCreery (2012)
10. Christmas Comin' Around Again - Scotty McCreery - Christmas With Scotty McCreery (2012)
11. Holly Jolly Christmas - Scotty McCreery - Christmas With Scotty McCreery (2012)
12. Jingle Bells - George Strait - Classic Christmas (2008)
13. Silent Night - George Strait - Classic Christmas (2008)
14. Joy to the World - George Strait - Classic Christmas (2008)
15. White Christmas - Nashville Cast Feat. Hayden Panettiere - Christmas with Nashville (2014)
16. Christmas Coming Home - Nashville Cast Feat. Lennon & Maisy - Christmas with Nashville (2014)

            

If the video won't play please go to here for the entire playlist on YouTube. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Each year Black Friday gets earlier and earlier and most people tend to be excited about the shopping before they even get to the Turkey and Pumpkin pie. Lately, I've been very vocal on the fact that opening at 4 or 6 PM on thanksgiving is too early. As someone who has worked in retail, I completely understand why Black Friday is important for sales purposes, but as a hardworking and family oriented human being I think it is equally as important for the retail workers to be able to eat with their families. I'm not bitter over Black Friday as much as I am sad that the real meaning of Thanksgiving has become all about the sales and not about being with family and enjoying that time together. Maybe it's because I've been without family over the holidays last year and won't be with my immediate family this year, but I also know we are not always promised tomorrow. I love a good sale as much as the next person, but I love family and making memories even more.

Now that I've given my Dr. Phil-Good vibes type of talk, I thought I would keep it light and try a Thanksgiving writing prompt. My favorite class in high school was Creative Writing. It gave me an outlet and I am absolutely for anything that keeps my creative juices flowing!

The one that stood out the most to me was: Describe Thanksgiving with your five senses.

Thanksgiving smells like a full house of turkey and pumpkin pie.
Thanksgiving tastes like a belly full of food you've been waiting all year for.
Thanksgiving looks like fall colors of outside meets inside and smiling faces.
Thanksgiving hears like chatter and laughter of family in the kitchen.
Thanksgiving feels like a blessing of love and friendships made over the years.

Have a great thanksgiving everyone!

There's A Story in Every Photograph.

I realize the blog posting is a little late this week, now before I go on I must say this posting has a good reason why it was late. Passion and paying it forward. It's no secret that I've been in love with design and photography since I could practically snap a camera and learn the color wheel. I carried it throughout high school going to an academy school where I not only learned what the district required me to learn but to learn the basics and the fundamentals of this craft. I gained college credit which allowed me to skip a couple classes and ultimately finish in less time. I, of course went to the local college sadly, because of money troubles. My dream was to go to the University of South Carolina. Go Gamecocks! This is the part where my husband disagrees because he's team Clemson, good thing this wasn't a must when he picked his wife. ;) Just kidding but, over the course of the 2 years I went to this college I learned what I was made of and the side of design that I absolutely will never touch. I won't argue being out of school for two-years and not keeping up with this craft I'm very rusty. I grew less and less enthused to go out and take photos of anything other than myself and loved ones, including my furry ones. The reason why I was getting less than enthused was only because I had a bad experience with internship and one of the design teachers that expected four-year work out of two-year students. I also suffered from major anxiety and didn't believe in my work. When you don't believe in your work, it doesn't do well. This was a hard lesson I had to learn early on unfortunately.

Moving out here, honestly was the hardest thing I've had to do because I'm way out of my comfort zone. All my friends, family, (other) animals, and especially connections are all in South Carolina. Don't get me wrong, starting over kind of sounded good, but when you're not yet sure of your next move for your career or when you're gonna get your own vehicle, and start making more friendships it's scary. I remember leaving with tears streaming down my face so scared, then the guy I sat next to on my first plane ride was talking to me about what to kind of expect. I'll be honest I was still scared, but at this point I felt better. (Honestly, I should've told him thank you looking back, so thanks!) I told him how crazy it was that I have never even visited Vegas and here I was going to move in this new place full of gambling and population of over 2 million. Could you even imagine? My marriage and my love for my husband was important to me though. I have been through so many emotions and crazy things this year that I could go on forever, but I won't, moral of the story is never stop loving what you do and always do what you love. I have found when I stopped taking photos, when I stopped all together doing design, or even stopped reading I found myself getting ten times as anxious than I was before. It's an on going battle of everyday. I also kind of lost sight of who I was and resorted in being a lesser version of myself. I'm not proud of who I was and some of the choices I made or didn't make. I am very aware that I was in charge of myself and didn't have a grip on myself, but now I very much do.

I'll give you the cheat sheet version. I have decided to go back to school to become an elementary school teacher. Honestly, I love kids, I'm not ready to make that big commitment yet, although I'm constantly getting baby fever I know it will happen when it's ready to happen. It's nice to dream till then. I am very good at helping people and I have always had those few teachers that made a huge impact on me. Naturally, I'm better in english classes. I think Elementary is also the right grades for me, even though I probably could get yelled at, at some point or another for looking so young they could mistake me as a student. (I'm preparing myself for this, ten bucks says it'll happen on my first week) All joking aside, just because I've chosen a different path for my career doesn't mean I want to stop doing all the creative things that I do. Which is why once we met our friends, Rachel & Joe, we got asked to do couples photos for them. As Rachel and I were sitting on my living room floor she proceeds to tell me that got none of a proposal and none of their wedding. I honestly, fought for my photographer for my wedding (I was proudly her first wedding) and she worked me in last minute for our engagement photos. Kristy Roderick (link to her website is in her name) made us feel very comfortable and her style is favorite. The reason why I chose her, aside from her down-to-earth personality she is one of those people who just know the crucial moments to get. In some sort of way she inspired me to get off my butt and do these photos.

With that being said, I know this was important, and I talked with Rachel about what sort of styles she wanted. So far I've given her 2 teasers. So I'm posting here for a couple more about what they look like, I'm sure she's going to die (of cuteness) when she sees them because I honestly think they are the best work I have done yet. I edited with Adobe Photoshop of course, but I didn't have to do much. They were both so easily photogenic, even though the sun wasn't so much. I decided to do the photography session for free. I also decided since they are really amazing friends that I would print out all the great ones and put them in an album as well as putting them on a disc and giving them the rights to print out even more. I know it's not the most professional way to not give "notes" on how to pose and it is true that I will have to because some people really don't know what looks good and what doesn't, but I've seen some really adorable natural posing when you just let a couple be their own loving selves. I wouldn't do that with everyone, but I had hoped that they felt comfortable with me (and my husband helped) to be able to be themselves. It worked and I am more than happy with how they came out. The reason why I did it free was mainly to pay it forward, normally I would keep quiet because I'm not one to brag about charity but I feel like this would've been a good thing to reach out to those who are afraid to pay it forward. Even just doing a favor shows kindness. There is no such thing as too small of an act of kindness. :)

Hope y'all enjoyed this weeks posting! I want to constantly be inspiring on here to inspire other people. This is how people get creative, and now that you have the idea, get to it. ;)

Halloween Decor!

Boo! Hey there! with Halloween approaching rapidly (1 week away!) if you haven't put out decor, here's your chance! I've rounded up my favorite Halloween decor items from pinterest & various blogs in chance to help y'all gain some ideas...Or you can save them up for next year! ;) Sit back with some candy corn, relax, and Enjoy!!

Rustic Halloween Vignette

Halloween Spooky Burlap Table Runner

Spooky Crystal Ball Halloween Candlesticks

Or if you're not willing to put much effort, time, or money into decorating; there are cheap alternatives that doesn't require to buy anything and you can probably find them around your house!

Cheap Halloween Decorating

And finally, I decided to try my hand at a candy corn candle holder. See below for the steps & photo!

What You Need:

- Candle Holder/Hurricane Glass (as shown in photo)

- Candy Corn (enough to fill the candle holder if you choose)

- Fake Spider webs

- Fake Spiders

- Candle

- And last but not least, creativity. ;)

I originally saw the version with just the hurricane glass with just the candy corn and candle but I decided to one up it and add the fake spider web and spiders!

1. First, make sure your glass is cleaned out. Then take out middle part where candle sits if need be. (black middle piece shown in photo)
2. Then open the candy corn bag and fill it half way up to the middle part mark of where the "black middle piece" sits.
3. Next, take the fake spider web out and stretch it. The more you stretch it the better honestly. If you're like me, I like mine fluffy to fill up the extra space. :)
4. Add in a few spiders here and there. Wedge them in between the candy corn and the spider web and if you have a candle holder with a middle piece like mine place them on the sides. (tip: use your finger tips it'll keep everything else from sliding around or rather the web from going out of place every where else)
5. If you don't have a middle piece discard this step. Then you're going to take the middle piece if you have one, place it in there where it fits.
6. Place the candle inside the hurricane glass or candle holder.
7. Light and enjoy!

I hope I didn't scare you away just yet because I have an even spookier post next week! including some of my favorite ghost stories and scary movies! Have a Bootastic weekend! (If you haven't noticed I do cheesy well hehe)

Welcome!

Hey Y'all! Welcome to my very first blog posting! (I got here as fast as I could) If you're a friend/family member you know I've been going back and forth with my blog, as well as when it was going to be available for looksies, well that time is today! Since most of you will be passerby's or just generally intrigued people about my content, I figure you should get to know who I am. I've picked out 5 traits about me, good or bad, as well as things I'm passionate about and laid them out here. If you're going to continue reading my blog, these are MUST know facts about me/my life.

1. I'm an opinionated person. - Why? Well mainly because my thoughts and mind is my own. The knowledge that gets soaked up from the books, the resourceful articles, and lets not forget life's lessons; Let's me realize that I'm more than just someone to smile and be pretty. Let's set the record straight, I don't go as far as Joan Rivers (R.I.P) does when it comes to saying everything that was on her mind, but I do have a stance on issues in this crazy world. I'm not like a  Jehovah's  Witness going from door to door, I only put my input when it's needed and respectfully.
2. Even though I am an opinionated person, I try to not let the social of social media turn me into a judgemental crazy lady. Seeing as how I was bullied throughout middle/high school. There will be no room for cyber bullying on this blog, towards me or anyone who decides to comment in this blog/follow twitter/ect. This blog is my safe haven for me and for other independent women who are interested in a thing or two of what I'm interested in. (It's National Bullying prevention month, so I figured I'd work this in there.)
3. When I'm not speaking out against bullies, I'm generally at home taking care of my house hold: My husband (Airforce) and Dog (Aria). I'm a huge supporter of our Military and Animals. What can I say, my dog is my best friend and anyone who would take a bullet for me is alright in my book!
4. Speaking of books, I'm a writer. In a very loose sense, I'm currently working on my first book and whenever I'm going through something, I reach for the closest journal. It is very often that 99% of the time I am listening to Country music while I'm writing.
5. Which brings me to my next point, COUNTRY MUSIC IS LIFE. At least, it is my life. There's a song for every thing I've been through in my young age and so far throughout my adulthood. I'm a HUGE concert fan, minus all the drunk people and all the people punching you in your boob every time they move. I will camp out for concert tickets like it's black friday...I'm not even exaggerating. (You'll hear about my obsession with Nashville and Bluebird Cafe a time or two)

So if I haven't scared you off just yet with my need to over share lol then I'm happy you're here! Even though I'm all 5 of these and much more, I promise you won't be disappointed in the things to come. I'm sure y'all will be even more excited when I start designing the actual t-shirts. Stay tuned. ;)