Go-to meal: Impossibly Easy Chicken 'n Broccoli Pie

This is one meal that is a go-to for me when I want to cook something yummy, cheaply, and quickly. It is Betty Crocker's Impossibly Easy Chicken 'n Broccoli Pie.  It's also surprisingly relatively low-calorie.  I of course substitute the Bisquick with the Gluten Free Bisquick as recommended on the glutenfreely.com website. 

Enjoy the photos and here is a link to the recipe and nutritional info.

Getting the oven ready.

These onion goggles really do work!

Ingredients all ready!

Ready to put 'er in.

Voila!

Stamp Camp creations

I attended two Stamp Camps courtesy of Stampin' Up demonstrator Lis Ljung over the past 2 months.  We created 12 GORGEOUS projects and I just had to share with you some of my favorites. 

Altered Notepad

 Butterfly card

 These are post-its on a ring!

 Adorable gift bag (we also made a matching card).

 I just love how elegant this card turned out.

To see all 12 projects, take a looksie at my post on my craft forum, Miss Imagination, here.  PS: Membership is free to join Miss Imagination and we would love to have you!

Well the hubby and I decided to have an impromptu yard sale today, so wish us luck!

Fanciful Friday

Today is going to be about furniture, not just any furniture, homemade furniture.  I recently happened upon the most amazing site ever, Ana White homemaker. She features TONS of furniture design ideas AND the specs, tool list, and instructions on how to make it yourself! Could like get any better? I think that it could not!

I have mapped out a design idea for my currently empty living room and printed instructions for my dear hubby on the furniture I would like made.  He has said that he will build it, the question now remains, WHEN? I can be patient, and hopeful.  So fingers crossed and I will post pics if and when any of these furniture items are built!

Click on the description to go to the link.

Table and hutch

Pallet bookshelf

Side table (I want a round top tough).

Entry table

I also plan to have a pallet coffee table which I believe I have previously posted about and can't find plans to, but it looks fairly easy, I'm sure hubby can figure it out :)

Well thanks for looking! Feel free to browse her site and post here what your favorite piece is if you could build any of them! 

Thankful Thursday

This may seem a bit obscure, but today I am thankful for all of the volunteers and organizers behind the website Find A Grave.  This website's purpose is to allow people to search for graves of their family members/friends/ancestors/celebrites/etc. no matter where the grave is located in the world.

According to their website:

What is Find A Grave?
Find A Grave is a resource for finding the final resting place of family, friends, and 'famous' individuals.

With millions of names and photos, it is an invaluable tool for the genealogist and family history buff. Find A Grave memorials can contain rich content including photos, biographies and dates. Visitors can leave 'virtual flowers' on the memorials they visit, completing the online cemetery experience.

Find A Grave's primary purpose is a graves registration website.

Find A Grave's secondary purpose is a memorialization/remembrance site.

Find A Grave's tertiary purpose is a genealogical resource.

Memorial contributions to Find A Grave should at the least fulfill the primary purpose, registration of the final resting place. If a memorial contribution corresponds with only the primary purpose, it has fulfilled its part of Find A Grave's mission and is not required to correspond with the secondary and tertiary purposes. Fulfilling the other two is welcomed, encouraged and deeply appreciated, but as far as Find A Grave's mission goes, a memorial page isn't lacking if it does not.

Find A Grave has grown to be a wonderful and valuable resource for genealogy and genealogists, but that is adjunct to its main purpose.

As I stated back in June, I have been working feverishly on my family history and this website has been very helpful in locating grave stones of my ancestors which have in turn assisted me in filling in the missing pieces such as dates of birth, death, and sometimes even marriage dates.  However, this site would not be possible without the volunteers who sign up to help with photographing and documents grave sites. 

Since using the site I have signed up as a volunteer at my local cemetery.  How it works is when someone requests a photo of a particular person's grave at the cemetery I am registered with, I get an email notification and can claim it if it has not already been claimed by another volunteer in the area.  I would then go to the cemetery, locate the particular grave, clean it and photograph it, then upload the photos and any other notes from the grave such as an inscription to the website. 

This is such a great service and relies on the kind-heartedness of all of the people. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart!

Wednesday's What's Up With That?

So I love SYTYCD (for those of you living under a rock, that's So You Think You Can Dance).  Last week, Lady Gaga was the guest judge. 

I know she's strange, but she brought it all out in her appearance in which she judged the contestants last Wednesday.

I don't know about you, but I have been in the "dance community" since I was four years of age.  At no point did I ever see, or hear of anyone throwing a shoe on stage.  However, Lady Gaga insists that in the "dance community when you do a really good job, what you do is you throw your shoe on stage" and then she proceeded to take off her heinous shoe and chuck it on stage at Sasha and Melanie. 

Not only that, but her show was gigantor and probably weighed 20 lbs., if that throw had been a little off she could have hurt someone. 

I wonder who got to keep the shoe? I wonder what one would do with ONE Lady Gaga shoe... not that two would have been any better because I sure as heck wouldn't wear them.  SO what would YOU do with one gigantor Lady Gaga shoe?

I would sell it.  For sure. 

ps: If you missed the action - here is a look on youtube.

My 26 Before 27

I meant to post this on my 26th birthday (June 7th) but I was MIA to the blogging world, so here it comes now, nearly a month late.  These are 26 things I would like to accomplish prior to my next birthday.  Thanks for reading!

My 26 Before 27

1)      Furnish the Family Room

2)      Complete the Office/Craft room (heck get STARTED on the Office/Craft room)

3)      Lose 20 lbs. and keep it off

4)      Commit to at least one real “date night” a month with my husband

5)      Scrapbook more (ummmm pretty sure I am about 4 years behind)

6)      Learn how to bake bread (using my fabulous bread maker)

7)      Learn how to make ice cream (using my fabulous ice cream maker)

8)      Get $10k in savings

9)      Stain the dining room table

10)  Stain the china hutch

11)  Go on at least 2 weekend getaways with my husband “just because” (other than Vegas)

12)  Visit a CA lighthouse

13)  Plan a cruise

14)  Get a couple’s massage

15)  Read at least 12 books (hey that’s only 1 a month, totally do-able!)

16)  Remodel the guest bathroom

17)  Bake more (for the husband of course)

18)  Throw a murder mystery dinner party at our house

19)  Pay off all of our debt (including hubby’s car loan)

20)  Successfully grow some kind of vegetable (thus far they have all died!)

21)  Replace our refrigerators with energy efficient appliances

22)  Learn how to use my husband’s ipad (it’s totally foreign to me…. oh I guess this would also mean he would have to let me play with it, I’ll have to pry it from his fingers!)

23)  Try one new wine per month to expand our very narrow wine experience/appetite

24)  Eat more vegetables.

25)  Take 1 bubble bath per week to unwind.

26)  Blog more!

Recipe for Peach-Basil-Onion Salad

Since my post on Monday I have received several emails requesting the recipe for the salad.  My disclaimer is that this is NOT my recipe, but from the June 2011 edition of Martha Stewart Living. 

It is delicious and we made it again Tuesday night with some peaches I got from my great friend/masseuse, Connie.  The second time I made it I didn't really measure anything, more eye-balled it.  Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any comments/questions or if you added something that you just loved and wanted to share with me :)

Peach-Basil-Red Onion Salad
Toss 3 peaches, sliced 1/2 inch thick, with 1/4 red onion, very thinly sliced, 1/2 cup fresh basil (leaves torn if large), the juice of 1/2 lemon, 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt, and some freshly ground pepper.  Drizzle with 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil. 

Serves 4
Per serving: 81 calories, 0 g saturated fat, 3 g unsaturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 13 g carbohydrates, 140 mg sodium, 1 g protein, 2 g fiber

Enjoy!

Dinner 6/26/11

My husband and I have decided (like we have many other times, lol) that we will once again make an effort to eat more healthy meals when we are at home.  Last night was the first home cooked meal with this goal in mind and I am quite pleased how it turned out.

Pictured above is our meal of shrimp lettuce wraps and a peach-basil-onion salad.  You can also see the bottom of my glass of lemonade with vodka and mint. 

It was such a beautiful day yesterday that I thought we could enjoy a fresh summery meal on the back patio.  I had jotted down some notes of my first edition of Martha Stewart Living (June 2011) courtesy of my friend Jenny, which had some splendid menu ideas.

I made the summer mayonaise which I coated the shrimp with and we then wrapped in butter lettuce.  I also found the peach-basil-onion salad recipe from the same magazine.

Martha also had a recipe for a delightful lemonade and suggested the addition of mint and vodka for a cool cocktail.  We have a fully blooming lemon tree in the backyard, so the husband picked about 20 lemons, juiced them, and then I got to work on following Martha's easy-to-follow recipes.

The meal was a complete hit.  The only change for next time will be that we will BBQ the shrimp with some seasoning first as it needed just a bit more flavor.

The summery mayo made A TON - I was so amazed that making your own mayo was so easy by the way.  I made tuna for my husband and I for lunch today and we will have some Tuna salad for dinner tomorrow. 

Thanks for reading and I definitely recommend both recipes. 

MIA

I do apologize - I cannot believe I have been MIA for over two months! Where has the time gone!? Well a brief update/explanation and I am hopeful I will be back posting regular blogs now. 

My husband was in Japan for 3 weeks for work.  Having had a recent break in at my residence it was somewhat nerve-racking, but all is well and he is home safe now. He also spent four of the last six weeks working down South at a military base in which he stayed down there only coming home on weekends.  I am hopeful that he does not have another work related trip for a bit.

Our vacation planned for May 27th through June 8th was cancelled.  We had planned to visit my grandparents in Maine and just a few short weeks (on May 9th) he passed away.  We have rescheduled our trip for later this month in which we will be going to Toronto, Niagra Falls, and Michigan (where the hubby's family is from and we will be attending his cousin's wedding). 

I HAVE been crafting just a bit and will try to get some pics up soon.  I'm also trying out some new recipes from my favorite - Martha Stewart, and will review those soon as well. 

My biggest distraction has been genealogy research.  Many years ago I had started doing some research on my family tree in an attempt to become a member of DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution).  With the passing of my grandfather, it renewed my interest in my genealogy when I received some photo albums of his childhood and those of his parents whom I had never met.  It's actually quite addicting and I've spent countless hours doing this research.  I have a new membership on ancestry.com and have been loving the discoveries I've come across - my favorite being passport applications from the early 1900's of various ancestors of mine which include photos! Way cool!

Well I'm back - hopefully I did not lose all of my followers! HA!

Wednesday's What's Up With That!?

Although some of you are my facebook friends and may have already seen my grumpy post this morning - I thought I would repost as my Wednesday's What's Up With That!?

Why is that I have no problem falling into a deep deep sleep in the five minutes between my alarm sounding and my snooze alarm, yet lay awake for HOURS in the middle of the night? WHY!? WHY!?

I think I may be nocturnal.

Fanciful Friday - The Vintage Pearl

A fellow blogger recently hosted a giveaway of a piece of gorgeous jewelry from The Vintage Pearl.  Upon seeing the giveaway I had to checkout The Vintage Pearl for myself and I am completely in love with everything they make.  Here are a few of my favorites that I would love to have in my small yet growing jewelry collection.

(All photos are from The Vintage Pearl's website).  Please click on the photo to be taken to the product page on The Vintage Pearl's site to learn more.

Pearl Nest Ring

Messy Nest Necklace

Vintage Silver Charms Necklace (I would want T and E of course for Timmy and I)

Aren't these pieces beautiful!? Definitely on my wish list!

Thankful Thursday - Faith

My husband and I recently started attending a wonderful church, South Hills, in Corona, CA.  Not only is it a new church for my husband and I, but church is new all together for the both of us. 

Shortly after we got married we thought about how blessed we are and decided that we should start attending church.  Neither of us grew up in a family that attended church, so we in kind of blind.  Our church offered a class called First Steps which was basically an intro not only to the specific church, but kind of to religion as a whole.

Since about September 2010 we have been attending weekly and have greatly enjoyed our time thus far.  I recently read about a Bible study on a new blog that I am following (check it out here - Social Studies Momma).  She mentioned a Bible study that she picked up and invited others to join her in her study.  The book is titled For Women Only: The Bible Study (you can find it here).  Basically it is a book for women to better understand the men in their lives and guide them in providing the support the men need.  I am eagerly awaiting it's arrival in the mail and can't wait to get started.  Thank you to Social Studies Momma for the inspiration and letting me crash the party. 

My husband and I's new faith, I feel, has brought us closer together and has really taught us not only to respect each other, but how to love each other and appreciate each other on a new level.

I have also been volunteering weekly in the church's nursery since about November.  Although I joke that it's a natural birth control, I really enjoy showing the children God's love.

If anyone else wants to pick up this book I would love to discuss the contents of the study so we can learn with and through each other.

Spring Wreath (my 1st wreath)

So this is my first real attempt at making my own wreath.  It turned out all right.  I think I definitely have room for improvement though.  It does make me laugh that the eggs are larger than the bird, whom I have lovingly named Bridgett.  Thanks for looking!

2 special shout outs:
My inspiration from Craftomaniac
and
The Robins Eggs tutorial from Viv Spot

Tutorial Tuesday - Wooden Pallets

I'm so sorry I've been slacking on the Tutorial Tuesday's.  It's been a few very busy weeks for me.  Things seemed to have calmed down some, so I'm back at it. Yay. 

Well, as I've mentioned many, many times, my current family room is empty.  Completely empty.  I saw some fabulous furniture using wooden pallets and I think I just may go for it - to create a modern, industrial, yet chic vibe.  We will see.  The first step will be in finding affordable yet still in good condition pallets.  I have yet to find those. 

In the spirit of my wooden pallet quest, I thought I would share today a few tutorials on re purposing wooden pallets - which I think are WAY cool by the way!

First up is this terrific and versatile shelf.  Pretty cool, right!?

Next up is this amazing coffee table.  There are a lot of variations of wooden pallet coffee tables - just google it and you can find one to suit your own taste.  I like this one a lot - although I may leave mine in a more natural wood tone.

This vegetable planter.  Again there are a TON of planter ideas using pallets online, so check em out to find one you link, I like this simple one, plus I like that hte link includes a PDF with instructions :)

Check out this book! I must get my hands on this!

There are plenty more on the Internet and I'm not entirely certain what my wooden pallet get-up will entail - I suppose it depends on how many quality pallets I can come up with. 

As always, thanks for reading!

Another Moss Initial and a Burlap Banner

So my friend came over and stole picked up the moss initial that I had made for her which I had lovingly had on display at my house in the meantime (which I posted about here).  I decided it was high time that I make my own - but I decided to keep it a little more simple and hang it in my dining room on my new metal wall display we recently put up. 

Here it is all by it's lonesome.  Well I also have a frame hanging on the bottom that I picked up on clearance but I don't know if I love it yet. 

Well it looked lonely so I decided to make a simple burlap banner using a roll of burlap I had picked up at a yard sale.  I'm not thrilled with how it turned out, I think it needs more embellishments, but it's a start and at least adds a little more pizazz to my dining room.

The sign was simple - I printed a graphic of an isosceles triangle on my computer with the dimension that I wanted, I then cut that out and used it as a guideline to cut my burlap pieces.  I used a cricut cartridge to cute a scalloped circle and then a smaller circle and letters. 

So now, my fellow readers, I need your help - how can I improve upon this sign so that I love it? Please and thank you :)

DIY Button Egg

I got this adorable DIY idea (and tutorial) from one of my favorite blogs - Auntie Lolo Crafts (you can find her post here). 

I followed pretty much the same basic idea that she presented in her tutorial with only slight variation.

I purchased an ugly plain wood frame from the Dollar Store (which I immediately spray painted white).  I found a graphic of an egg through a google image search and traced it onto brown paper.  I then hot glued the burlap to the brown cardstock.  I realized I couldn't really see the egg outline so I took my cut out egg image and placed buttons in what I thought was an outline of an egg, then put the cut out over it and adjusted the buttons accordingly.  I glued the exterior buttons first and then filled in the rest.  I hot glued the buttons to the burlap once I had them in place where I wanted them.

Pretty easy and very cute.

A great addition to my work-in-progress Spring mantel :)
ps: I also hopped on the band wagon and got one of the adorable bunnies from Pier One which I added to my turquoise vase!

Thanks for looking!!!

Friday Five

Today's edition of Friday Five is the 5 projects I would like to finish or at least work on this weekend.

1) Another Monogram Moss wreath (the one I made here is actually a gift for a friend).

2) A Spring wreath - I've been sitting on most of the supplies but haven't actually done anything!

3) A Spring mini album - I started this nearly a month ago and have only gotten as far as covering the chipboard and printing the photos. It's time to get started!

4) Some research into wooden pallets for some possible furniture projects - strange, I know, but unique.  More details to come if I find the right pallets necessary for the project. Oh and they need to be free or cheap because I need a ton! lol.

5) Framed Easter Egg made out of buttons - an idea from a fellow blogger who I will link the tutorial up to when I actually make it.

This weekend is the first in a LONG time in which I have zero plans.  Zero.  Well, other than church.  It will be nice to perhaps get some of these crafts done and reclaim my dining room table.  Although it would also be nice to catch up on NCIS......

Friendly Friday

Want an awesome way to find great new blogs and get more traffic to your site in return!? Of course your answer is yes! Click out Friendly Friday button above to get the details! You can link up your blog below as well!

For those of you visiting me for the first time - my site is erratic - hence the name - but if you are crafter, check my left side bar for my keywords and click "crafts" if you don't want to read all of my other mumbo jumbo :)

Looking forward to meeting you!

Here are the link-ups so far!

Fanciful Friday

For my wedding I got some BEAUTIFUL ruffle bowls from Crate and Barrel that I am just in absolute love with.  I recently saw on C&B's website that they have now added a mini dip bowl and platter to the ensemble, which of course I have to have!

Ruffle Dip Bowl - for details click here. But I want like 8 - wouldn't these be adorable condiment bowls for a taco party? RECEIVED

Ruffle Platter - for details click here. It would be nice to have 2 of these on hand. RECEIVED 1

Now my mom recently was talking to me about my birthday and I suggested she check out my Fanciful Friday posts for ideas.  She made a good point in that I love to shop and often buy items for myself - so I will be updating my posts with a "PURCHASED" if I do indeed buy any of these items.  So if you are interested on my take on any items that indicate I have purchased them, feel free to ask - I always have an opinion (ha!).

"Your office is difficult to deal with"

Excuse me!?

My managing attorney is appearing at a Mandatory Settlement Conference this morning (an appearance required prior to Trials in family law cases).  Both opposing counsel and the claimant's counsel (claimant is the parties' son who is stating he has an interest in one of the residences, we say he does not), failed to show up for the last Mandatory Settlement Conference, so the Court, on it's own Motion indicated they would hear argument regarding sanctions at today's hearing.

Both opposing counsel and claimant's counsel submitted declarations that were total BS full of blatant out and out LIES. Some BS about traffic and that's why they didn't appear - oh really? Then why wouldn't you call the Court and advise them you were going to be late like we do all of the time? Also - why when I called you nearly 2 hours after the hearing was supposed to start to ask you where the heck you were - you told me you "assumed it was off calendar".  You forgot to mention that in your declaration.  You also were NOT stuck in traffic when I spoke with you. LIAR!

The attorney just texted me and said that opposing counsel told the judge that our office is difficult to deal with. HA!

Let's review, Opposing counsel has no fax, no physical address (PO Box only), no email address, and whenever we send anything by mail he alleges he doesn't get it forcing us to go to the expense of sending EVERY piece of correspondence to him by certified mail.  What else, oh ya, you lie. Constantly. About everything. 

We sent a discovery request, meaning that his client had to provide a ton of documents we were requesting for within 30 days.  After 25 or so days he calls and asks for an extra week, so it would now be due in 37 days.  On day 38, after receiving nothing we sent him a "meet and confer" letter indicating his response was now late, therefore, he waived any objections he may have had, and if we did not get the full response within 10 days we would file a motion to compel the response and request for attorneys fees.

Do you know what his response was? That he never got our discovery request.  You know, the one he had previously asked for an extension on.  Note - this was when we determined we would send everything certified mail.  We argued, filed a Motion and the Court didnt' order sanctions and gave him 20 days to comply.

After 20 days, no response.  He calls, said he's sick and needs more time.  Give him 5 more days.  He calls, now his dad is sick.  We give him 5 more days.  He calls, now his dad died.  We give him a week.  He calls, now his wife had a miscarriage, we give him another week.  He calls, said he's sick again, I say NO, we need it by the end of today period.  We finally get a box full of documents, unorganized, not in any kind of order as required. This was last month. Either this guy is the most unlucky SOB in the world or a giant liar.  I'm going with the later.

Now this mandatory settlement conference is today.  You're required to exchange a bunch of stuff 7 days prior.  We of course, get theirs and the claimants (ps the two attorneys are in bed together or something) documents YESTERDAY.  The DAY BEFORE.  Not 7 days before.  So I draft up an objection.  The rule states if the orders aren't followed sanctions SHALL be imposed.

So help me God, if the Court does not order sanctions against both of those lame-ass attorneys I'm going to scream.

Oh, did I mention the parties are in their 80's and I think the reason for all of this is that they want to keep stalling so that our client dies and their client and the parties' son can have everything? Pathetic.  Makes me sick.

YOUR office is hard to deal with!!!!!!!!!!!  I need a xanax or something.......