//get most recent rss
//get most recent rss
function recent_rss($display=0,$url='', $description_limit = 0) {
	$itemArr = array();
    $doc = new DOMDocument();
    $doc->load($url);
 
    foreach ($doc->getElementsByTagName('item') as $node) {
        if ($display == 0) {
            break;
        }
 
    $description = $node->getElementsByTagName('description')->item(0)->nodeValue;
 
    //if limit passed in, truncate string
    if($description_limit > 0) {
		$description = substr($description, 0, $description_limit)."..."; 	
	}
 
        $itemRSS = array (
            'title'       => $node->getElementsByTagName('title')->item(0)->nodeValue,
            'description' => $description,
            'link'        => $node->getElementsByTagName('link')->item(0)->nodeValue,
            'pubdate'     => $node->getElementsByTagName('pubDate')->item(0)->nodeValue
        );
 
         array_push($itemArr, $itemRSS);
 
        $display--;
    }
    return $itemArr;
}
 
//example use
$recent_post = recent_rss(1, 'http://houseplansblog.nelsondesigngroup.com/index.php/feed/', 0);
var_dump($recent_post);

<div id="rss_container" style="width:250px;">
 
	<div id="rss_title">
		<a href='<?php echo $recent_post[0]["link"]; ?>'>
			<?php echo  preg_replace('/[^(\x20-\x7F)]*/','', $recent_post[0]["title"]);?>
		</a>
	</div>
 
	<div id="rss_pub_date">
		<?php echo $recent_post[0]["pubdate"];?>
	</div>
 
	<div id="rss_description">
		<?php echo $recent_post[0]["description"];?>
	</div>
 
</div>