Great Googaly Moogaly!

Oh my!  I did not realize that it has been almost 10 months since I have posted!  Good news I'm not dead :)  Just a bit busy.  But I am all ready to jump back on the blogging horse. 

To kick things off a short list of things I am excited about!

New favorite podcast: Good Job Brain
  This is a quirky podcast that comes out every week and focuses on trivia. 

New favorite blog: Perhaps I Should Have Been Supervised
   This is a random blog created by my cousins and me about our crafting, baking and just plain adventures.

New favorite authors: Julie Garwood, Jodi Thomas, Susan Elia MacNeal

  I seem to be on a romance novel kick right now.

Julie Garwood -- Most of her books are stand alone with characters that wonder through each others books.  Good for a quick read.

Jodi Thomas -- She is who I am currently reading.  Specifically the Whispering Mountain Series they are so cheesy but so good! You can read them like eating candy.

Susan Elia MacNeal -- She is a fun historical novel writer.  Her current series about Maggie Hope is set during WWII in England. 

New favorite YouTube video: 5 Styles for Wet Hair in Under 10 Minutes
Lets Make it Up! is a very good teacher with clear and concise directions.

My Leap Year Thoughts!

Hello!  It is one of my favorite days!  I love the special day that only comes around once every four years!  I have been trying to decide what to do with my special day and how to make it memorable.  After reading countless ideas I have a plan!   I am going to answer the questions from this website.  Place them in a box and read them in 4 years! 

I am not a stranger to the answering questions and rereading them later.  In fact when my beautiful sister was married a few years ago we pulled out the list of our dream guy qualities.  She was 14 and I was 12 when we wrote it.  Let me just say it definately made my toast a bit more fun when I read it at the rehersal dinner!! 

So what are you going to do this year to celebrate leap year?

Lazy rainy weekend!

Here in west Texas the lack of moisture last year was horrible on the farmers. But this month we have had a lot of moisture! Snow, sleet, and rain. So this weekend when I woke up to the sound of water in the streets I decided it was time to bake!

Yummy rolls!

So I have always heard how hard it is to make rolls. I found a great recipe from Our Best Bites and had at it. I love their recipes because of their great detailed directions. So instead of giving you my break down of their recipe I thought I would share some of my baking tips!

Baking tips:

• Follow the directions.
• Make sure your water and sugar mixture is not to hot. I used to kill my yeast all the time.  I just make sure it is "warm" 
• If it is cold or dry where you live place a bowl of water in your oven and heat it to 350 degrees. Turn off your oven and put your dough in to rise. Crack the door of the oven to let some of the heat dissipate. I always reheat my oven in between letting the dough rise. Make sure you remove the bowl of water when you bake your bread.

All in all the rolls turned out great!

Kip thought so too!  He snuck a bite on the way home!

Sweetheart! You shouldn't have!

So here is a special valentines edition. For all you singles I found that fun food to share makes the day a bit better.

This valentines day I made some yummy sugar cookies that looked like message hearts!

In real life I am not the biggest fan of the actual candy hearts but I do love the bittersweets from despair.com

So to begin I made up some of my sugar cookie dough. I made a double batch and ended up with around 4 dozen hearts. While they were cooling I hopped on the Internet to look up sayings for the hearts. I wanted to be authentic.

Then came the fun part! I mixed up some buttercream frosting and separated it into 4 bowls. I made three pastel colors: blue, yellow, and green. I also made red to write the inscriptions.

So here are my favorite cookies!

Click click click

That's not Santa's reindeer it's my knitting needles! I have been knitting away and wanted to show you what I've been working on.

The Saroyan

This beauty of a scarf is made out of malabrigo yarn twist and is so soft! I knit it up once but the pattern was written more for a shawl. I don't really do shawls so I just ripped it out and did not do nearly the amount of increases it called for. I love how in knitting you can tailor things to your liking!

Twisted Ribbons Scarf

This is a fun pattern and my first attempt at cables! It is in a pink cascade 220 not as soft as the malabrigo but is growing on me.

Maybe it is just me but sometimes it seems like a yarn has a mind of its own. I tried several different patterns before this one would seem to behave.

Apparently this pattern and type of yarn are a good fit. Especially with size 5 needles.

Oh the weather outside was frightful!

So this past Sunday we had winter...all in one day. So here are some pics! I love the snow!

Yummy! Homemade Lunches!

Hello!

I am eating dinner at my desk at work and wanted to share my yummy new favorite meal: Homemade Lean Cuisines! 

I watched this fabulous video and decided I had to try out my own version!

Here is the link if the video is broken  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=815tZP0zwmI



So here is the quick walk through.  Watch the video for a in depth how to.

First I found about eight containers close to the size of the lean cuisines.  Made a pound of pasta and after it cooled dished it up!

Then I sauteed all my veggies: carrots, green beans, peas, and broccoli.  Yum!  When it cooled I add it to the dish and then cut up some left over turkey and added it to the mix. 

This is the end result!  Yummy!  If you noticed at the top I went with an Alfredo sauce.  I am not to concerned with the amount of calories in the sauce because I am a little low right now on them in my diet right now! 

Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Hammocks and pumpkin bread!

So today it is beautiful out! So nice that I pulled out my hammock. I don't know about you but when purchasing it I never thought, "this will be perfect for January!"

So on to pumpkin bread!
I did not get to snap any pictures of the yummy bread but it was dense and oh so very moist. I had bought a pumpkin bread kit but when I opened the bag of dry ingredients the spices we overwhelming. Unfortunately I had already mixed up my wet ingredients. So off to magical google where I searched for pumpkin bread and four eggs. I found this recipe which is what you will find modified below.

Yummy pumpkin bread

4 eggs
1(15 oz) can of pumpkin purée
2/3 cup Oil (I used olive)
1 cup Water
3 cups white sugar
3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ginger

Mix the pumpkin, eggs, water, oil, and sugar together. Then add the dry ingredients. Mix until just blended. Pour into pans and bake.

Bake at 350 for 50 min.

I needed to let mine bake a bit longer. It might have been my pans I used 2 4x9 inch pans from Ikea. It made fun skinny tall loaves.

You might have noticed the lack of cloves. We don't use them as some family members are allergic. You can add to taste if you want.

So give it a go and see if you like it!

Friends don't let friends sew sleepy! :)

So I had a grand idea!! I plotted, planned and I prepared! I was going to make baby sheets for the plethora of under 1 year olds I know. So Black Friday I bought flannel to make some cozy and stylish sheets. And a few weeks ago I picked up the elastic. All my supplies were assembled.

Tonight I was going to make my first set. I pulled out my fabric and it measured 41 inches across instead of 45 inches! I guess I lost 4 inches in the wash? I am not sure what happened. So not to be daunted I decided to make do and switch to a small blanket.

I cut my fabric and laid it out to begin pinning it. You may be able to tell where this is headed.

I began sewing and after about 12 inches I realized that my pins were on the bottom side and hard to get out. But I kept sewing.

I finished sewing and trimming and it suddenly struck me! I had laid out my material and batting as if I was going to use binding. This was not the correct way to flip out the blanket.

Out came the seam ripper and apart came the blanket. I laid it out correctly, pinned it and began to sew. This time it took awhile because my helper wanted to help.

Finally it was done! I trimmed it, flipped it, tacked it, and cleaned up loose threads. Ta da!

Umm I think I just made a designer changing pad instead of a blanket :).

Moral of the story: friends don't let friends sew sleepy!

2012: A new year!

I just realized I have not posted in a month!  Time has flown as the holidays came and quickly went.  I have been trying to decide exactly what direction I want to take this blog and how it fits into the rest of my life. So I think there are going to make some changes and I think that hopefully it will keep things interesting. 

Some of the blogs I follow are starting the 366 pictures a year idea.  I was going to join in but realized that I don't take pictures.  So I am going to make a list of 366 things of which I am thankful.   Each week on Sunday I will post one thing from each day that inspired me to be thankful.  I encourage you to join me and leave the things you are thankful for in the comments or if you post them on your blog let me know and I will try to link them up. 

Wednesday will be Working on Wednesday.  This is the day I will add tutorials, updates on projects and new knitting instructions.  This brings me to an exciting new addition.  I am adding a new portion of my blog with step by step instructions and videos of how to knit.  Hopefully the instructions will be simple and easy to follow for all my soon to be knitting friends!

Fun Filled Friday will be Fridays post where what ever flits into my head will be the topic. 

So that is my new schedule!  What do you think?  Do you have a schedule of postings?