Thursday, September 22, 2011

Teething :/

I have two kids under the age of two and they are both teething at. the. same. time. Ugh . . . 

I've been trying to get some wool soakers and side snapping covers made so that I can (finally!) start a test round but noooo, Baby girl and Little man and proving that they can drive their mother insane in only one short afternoon - help!

OK, I feel better now. :) They are actually both napping right now (knock on wood) so I need to get busy, wish me luck.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Curried Chicken Salad

"How's the diet going?"
Ugh, don't ask. Have I mention that I hate dieting and have no willpower?
I did pretty good the first week, fell off the wagon the second week, and here we are on the third week. So far I've lost 7, then gained 3 back. Ugh, I really need to stop eating ravioli and old Easter candy.
Ok, enough complaining, today for lunch I ate the yummiest Curried chicken salad and it was super easy!

I made buffalo chicken chunks a couple days ago and had enough boiled chicken chucks to make this as well.
I didn't measure anything so everything is a guesstimate.

2 cups cooked chicken chunks
3/4 c. mayo
1/4 c. whipping cream
1 1/2 T. Curry powder
1/2 sm. onion

Throw chicken and onion in a mini-food chopper or food processor, whichever you have on hand.
add mayo, whipping cream, and curry powder and mix well. Eat and enjoy!

Thursday, September 15, 2011

E's new coat!

This morning, after I woke up, I told my husband I didn't feel like being a grown-up today and wasn't there someone else who could be the mom for awhile?
He just laughed at me. How rude.

Seriously though, it's been a rough week. I've been sick, the kids have been sick, the house looks like we've been sick.

I'm finally feeling better through, tired but better. Hey, I even managed to finish sewing E's winter coat, which is a good thing considering it's been hoovering around 65 all day.

E's coat was a  mess to make, I enjoyed making it but it felt like a mess. I drafted my own pattern, used two layers of fleece for warmth, an old micro suede dress shirt of the hubby's to line it and some super cute monster/peace printed corduroy to accent the (cheaper) green corduroy. I do plan to make baby girl a coat in the next couple of weeks so I'll try to pull the mess together and post a tut at that point.

 The whole she-bang! E's in bed so no modeling pic's :(

 A side-ways close up of the front - buttons are from on old (fake) fur coat of mine.

 Sleeve detailing

 A pocket

 The inside, right-hand side of the coat. I cut the lining to include to pocket from hubby's shirt.

The lining of the coat

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Yvonne's Chicken Curry

My husband trains new hire classes, up trains employees and much more at his job.
 At the end of every new hire class they have a food day, aka potluck dinner. This recipe was made by one of the trainee's, Yvonne, for the last classes food day.
My husband, who is not a big fan of Indian food, loved it so much he asked for the recipe. I've tweaked it a bit but the main recipe is the same. I love Indian food and this recipe does not disappoint!

Yvonne's Chicken Curry
2 T. Olive Oil
2 Med. Onion, chopped
3 Cloves Onion, diced
1 t. Salt
3 T. Curry Powder
1 Med. Jalapeno, diced
2 lb Boneless, Skinless, Chicken Breast, Chopped
16 oz. Frozen Cauliflower
Small bag Frozen Peas
2 Cups Whipping Cream
Salt to taste

1. Saute onions in oil on medium heat until golden brown.

2. Add garlic, jalapeno, salt, and curry powder. Stir well until onions have taken on the color of the curry powder.

3. Add chicken, cauliflower, and peas. Cook until chicken is no longer pink and all water has evaporated, approx. 20 minutes

4. Add 2 cups of whipping cream and simmer for 15 minutes.

Serve Alone or Over Rice. This is especially good over Coconut Rice which can be made be cooking rice with 1/2 part coconut milk and 1/2 part water.



Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Willpower and Garlic Parmesan Sauce

The hubby and I started the Atkins diet today, this is his second go around with it and it worked great the first time. I was preggers w/baby girl the first time so I didn't do it with him.

If today has proven one things it's that I love to eat junk and I have zero willpower, absolutely none!

The Atkins diet is pretty simple, eat less than 20 net carbs a day eating mainly green vegetables and meat. Limited dairy, no fruit, and no sugar. Translation: no fun.

Back to the no willpower thing;  along with my "allowed foods" today I also ate, 3 packs of fruit snacks, 2 regular, full-sugar pops, several Belgian mint chocolates, and 1 white chocolate candy bar.
Ugh, no wonder I need to lose 74 pounds :(

In other news, while trying to come up with a delicious garlic parmesan wing sauce tonight I inadvertently made the most amazingly delicious parmasean garlic alfredo sauce, this stuff is awesome, I'm talking standing at the stove eating it with a spoon awesome!

While I didn't take any pictures I did remember the recipe. So, here ya go!

1 stick of butter
1 med onion, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 cup whipping cream
1 T. corn starch
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper

In saucepan saute onion and garlic in 1 T. butter until golden brown.
Add remaining butter and bring to a boil over medium heat.
Meanwhile stir 1 T. corn starch into 1/2 cup whipping cream until dissolved.
Add parmesan cheese to butter mixture.
Add cornstarch and whipping cream to butter mixture, stir quickly and then remove from heat. Sauce will look very thick at this point.
Add remaining 1/2 cup of whipping cream. Season with salt and pepper to taste

You can serve this over pasta or do like I did and toss the sauce over 4 pounds of cooked chicken breast chucks, spread on baking sheet and place in oven. Broil approx. 10-15 minutes until golden brown.

Enjoy!

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Smoke gets in my eyes

Today I put a frozen pizza in the oven for lunch and soon after my kitchen started filling with smoke. Oh yeah, I thought, I need to clean my oven. Well, technically I just need to turn on the self cleaning feature of my oven and then sweep it out, but you get the idea.

So, after my pizza was done cooking I locked the oven door and turned the know to clean.

Not my brightest idea.

You see, if your oven is smoking while cooking a pizza at 400 degrees is going to go overboard when it starts to clean itself at 500+ degrees. About 10 minutes after "turning the clean on", I'm sitting the the living room enjoying my pizza, well actually the pizza isn't that great, and I realize my house is filling with smoke, not just a little smoke but there is literally a haze everywhere! Lucking, E is napping and the door to his room is closed so he has escaped the smoketastrophe of 2011. I, however, am having trouble seeing as my eyes are burning like crazy. So, I get up open all the windows and doors, turn on the ceiling fans, and turn off the oven.

Fifteen minutes later and there is still a little smoke left.

So now I've got a smoke filled house and a dirty oven. Crap.

Friday, April 1, 2011

Just some thoughts.

Tomorrow we will be celebrating E's 1st birthday with family at a local park. It's been chilly all week but the forecast kept promising me warmer days and it has finally warmed up today! Whew, b/c there is no way I can fit 22 people in my tiny little living room!

I lost our dogs Wednesday evening, I was putting things away, I stuck a piece of plastic that had broken off the recliner in the coat closet (you know, in case my husband want's to gorilla glue it back on) and it must have hit the garage door opener w/out me realizing it b/c when I took the trash out later that evening the garage door was wide open and the dogs were nowhere to be found.
I felt really bad about it but it was an accident so what can you do?

I'm currently working on a crazy-complicated project, recovering a kids chair for E's b-day tomorrow . . . keep your fingers crossed for me!

Alright, I need to get off my bum, switch out the laundry and get back to the chair reupholstering.

Have a wonderful Friday!

Sunday, March 27, 2011

"Leashes" for kids

It seems like there is a 50/50 split between the, to leash or not to leash, crowd.
I've heard people say things like, "My child is not a dog, I would never put a leash on them!"
Yes, I agree, your child is not a dog. However, why do you put your dog on a leash when you go for a walk? Most likely to keep them safe and out of danger. Well, that's why a lot of parents choose to use a child harness (PC term), to keep their kids safe and out of danger.

I've always thought child harnesses made sense. When my brother was little my mom had a wrist strap, it velcro'ed to his wrist and then she held the other end giving him freedom to roam about. After searching on Amazon I was surprised to learn you can still buy that kind. Personally, I think the child harness that buckle over a child's chest are safer b/c they can't slip off and your child can't hurt their arm if they pull too hard. Oh, and it's NOT like a dog leash/collar b/c it's not going around the child's neck.

Child harnesses, like so many things, need to be used for the right reason, the parent that drags their child along is not (imo) using them for the right reason.
I think this article really sums things up well.

I love what she say here:
"Parenthood is hard, and complicated, with curve balls coming at you all the time. Every parent chooses his or her own solutions to problems. Just because someone’s solutions are different from ours doesn’t mean they are wrong."

I think it would do everyone good to keep that in mind in all areas of life!

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Enjoying the silence

I love the quiet time I have after I've put E to bed before N comes home.
It's my time when I can sit and enjoy the silence, no one needs to be fed or change, no one is practicing their screaming, the kitchen is clean and the laundry is waiting to be folded and while I will be getting up in just a few minutes to start supper for N, switch over the laundry, and pick up the bathroom from E's bath for now it's peaceful ad quiet and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Weekend Ramblings

We woke up at 7:15 this morning to go to a local elementary school's PTO sale. We got a lot of great deals on baby items last year, this year there were almost no baby items to be found. It's a g ood thing we don't need much this time around. :)

We bought some toys, games, and a brown grocery bag full of kids clothes. I grabbed all the warm decent looking boys 4&5T things I saw. my bag wasn't quite full (it was $7 a bag) so I tossed it some adorable little girl items. I don't know if I'm having a girl so if I find out (on Wednesday) that this baby is a boy then I've got some cute girl things that are going to need a new home.
I hope I get to keep them but I will be thrilled with a healthy baby, boy or girl, I just want this baby to be healthy.

I bought a new blow dryer today. It's pink, sort of a salmon pink. I love it.

I'm hungry. We ate Burger Kings for lunch, I got an A-1 steakburger, my favorite! It gave me gas :( I ate some cheese and crackers earlier but I was feeling queasy so I didn't eat much. Now I'm hungry. Really hungry.

E has a bad diaper rash, we finally took him to the Dr. and have a prescription antibiotic cream to use on it. It should get better in a week. I hope it gets better fast; My heart just breaks for the poor little guy. :(

We had a potluck and game night tonight. Only 2 of the 5 people that were supposed to come showed up. That's okay, we played Super Mario Bros. for the wii. I kept dying but it was a lot of fun.

I think I should eat something and then go to bed.

G'night.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Lap Desk Tutorial

A couple weeks ago I read an article about how if you use a laptop you have the chance of getting minor burns on your legs/lap if your laptop isn't getting adequate ventilation.
That led me to researching lap desk online and I couldn't find anything I liked that was in my price range. I started thinking about what I could make and I remembered these lap desks that my sister and I had when we were little. They had cardboard dry erase tops with bean bag bottoms.
With those in mind I made up my lap desk today (for some reason the pictures are really dark)

Step 1: Gather your supplies
board
fabric cut 5" larger than your board. i.e. my board is 15" x 22 1/2" so I cut my fabric to be 20" x 27.5"
pen or pencil
tape measure
glue gun
staple gun
hammer
ribbon
fill, I use poly beads but you could also use regular stuffing/batting

























Step 2:
Mark the middle of each side of your board and piece of fabric















Step 3:
Starting in the middle of the longer side staple your fabric in place. Repeat on the other side.















Step 4:
Wrap the ends around the shorter sides and staple in place. Leave one side open. On the other side match up the marks you made indicating the middle of the fabric and board. Staple in Place





























Step 5:
Pour you poly-fill beads or insert your stuffing into the open end of you fabric.
Match the middle of your fabric and board on the open end and staple in place.
















Step 6:
hot glue your ribbon around the edge of your board to cover the staple.















Step 7:
Enjoy!















I'm linking up here:




NightOwlCrafting
















Misc. 4:30am ramblings

I finally did it.
I redid my layout/design.
Big news. I know.

I've been having trouble sleeping at night so I guess this is proof that while sleep-deprived, yet unable to fall asleep, I can accomplish stuff.

I've read that you can take unisom while pregnant and while I try to avoid medications, especially while pregnant, I'm so tired I'm ready to do just about anything so I can get more than 5 or 6 hours of sleep. You see, I'm one of those, I need 8-10 hours of sleep a night kind of girls so this is just not cutting it for me.

In other news, I've got a couple of fun DIY projects up my sleeve, One I've been contemplating for about a week now and one I just found tonight. Hopefully I'll get those finished in a week or so and then post tutorials.

Also, I've been cleaning out the basement, mainly my mess of a craft area, and once that is done I plan to post pictures. It's nothing to drool over but I love looking at other people's craft areas so I figured I'd share mine for whoever is interested.

Alright, my show's almost over (Grey's Anatomy, I just started watching it and am addicted!) so I should try and get some sleep.

Night all!