WELL THE DAY STARTED OFF GOOD.....

as some of you know, today is my bday {throws confetti}! and the day def. started off wonderful.

i had this whole bday post planned complete with pictures, a desk covered in confetti, and gifts galore, but now i am mentally exhausted.

why you ask?

b/c the gods felt it neccesary to have my car break down on my birthday.
how dare them???

so michael had to stay an extra 2 1/2 hours at work to wait for the tow company to come and pick up my car and tow it to the dealership where i will find out sometime this week what is wrong with it this time.

grrr.....

so tomorrow hopefully i will feel like posting more.

but on a side note, 29 isn't so bad ;)

i feel more patient. thus far that is, i mean i've only been 29 for less than 24 hours (and if you wanna get real technical, i've only been 29 for 3 hours and 20 minutes ;)

thanks to all who have emailed me warm birthday wishes!

AND I'M OFF....

yeppers folks, i am off to lafayette, louisiana for a grant writing school (rock on higher education that i don't have to pay for ;).

i'm going with one of my best buddies from work and we are both looking forward to the class. he's such a great buddy that he already told me that he would take me to some scrapbooking stores in the area...lol.

well today was mardi gras. i stayed on the couch watching things like lifetime movies and judge joe brown/judy. gotta love the day off for mardi gras.

so as soon as the cars get the heck off the streets, tom will be on his way to pick me up so we can head off.

we'll get back late saturday night, then i'll sleep and then early saturday morning, me and michael are getting up and heading over to new orleans for the day. that is what i told him i wanted to do for my birthday. i wanna go over with my camera (aka my lover) and take some awesome pictures, eat some beignets, do a lil shopping, and just hang out with my hubby. i love when me and the hubby get to get away just the two of us.

then sunday, we are going to have my bday dinner (greta, if you are reading, i know i told you monday, but it feels easier if we do it sunday....we're going to grill out).

then monday its my bday!!!! i'm still like a five year old. i look forward to the day all year long. its my day. a day i don't have to share with anyone. i get to do what i want, eat what i want, not do chores, its pure bliss.

alright, i just remembered some things i still have to pack.

big hugs and happy mardi gras to all ya'll :)

{DEEP SIGH}

i'm bored.
outta my gourd.

seriously.

i'm at work and its only 2pm. holy shit. three...okay, two hours left ;)

hmm...maybe i'll spice some things up with random fact friday. lets see i haven't done this in what?

MONTHS????

and i was so proud of myself too for keeping up with it.

usually i do em in themes (its a sick compulsion actually...everything has to be a theme and match in my life) but this week, i'll just do randoms since i am too bored to think of more than one thing for a theme.

{1} i've ridden a mechanical bull once and loved it so much, i wish i could put one in my backyard. i've loved the movie urban cowboy since i was little and when i did ride one, i was tempted to pull a sissy.

{2} i would have a baby monkey for a pet if michael let me. every time i see one on tv in a diaper, my heart melts.

{3}when we were younger, a cousin and i would "fake talk". i don't know how this started (but it was probably me though that started) but we would sit around and talk about people that didn't exist and make up conversations. yep, it was prolly me and my wild imagination that thought of this one.

{4} i started watching soaps in about the 6th or 7th grade (rock on young and the restless, as the world turns, and bold and the beautiful). so there would be times that when i would yawn and my eyes would water, that i would pretend that i was a soap character who was crying and taking a breaking up from a hunky soap star. (hmmm...there's that imagination again).

{5} me and my mom were recently watching some home movies from back in the day (i was about 11-12). well this one particular movie was christmas where i tore open a package and the look on my face was amazing. i had opened up some color pencils. now these weren't any color pencils, these were the kind that you buy in the art section of a craft store. the expensive ones. i still have those color pencils and think about how i excited i was about them when i got them. even on the tape i said "oh these are supposed to be good".

{6} bookstores make me happy. i mean very happy. and if i stumble into one that is independantly owned with wooden floors i'm even happier.

well i guess thats it for now. i have some bullshit going on with trying to sell the old house (and no i'm not in the new one yet) so i'm going to be on the phone with that.


hope ya'll enjoy this...that is if anyone is still reading.

NOT MUCH GOING ON!

i've haven't blogged in almost a month.
wow!

not b/c i haven't had time, okay a little b/c i haven't had time, but mostly b/c there hasn't been much to say. so i'll just try and catch up the past month in this one post and try to keep up from this moment on.

{1} me and greta decided that until i move outta my mom's every friday night is going to be our night. her hubby is working so she has the kiddos and i leave mine at home with my hubby and we drag all our scrappy stuff out and make cards, lo's, etc. well this past thursday (a week ago) we got together that night b/c we weren't going to work the next day (we ended up scrapping all day at her house friday) and
started working on these mailboxes that we have been eyeballing in the
stampin up winter mini catalog. good lord, what a pain in the ass that was. it didn't help that we were both tired. it also didn't help that i was being a total blonde that night and was messing up measurements and having the nerve to cuss her out b/c i thought she was wrong. we ended up deciding to call it a night and finish it in the a.m. well i'm glad that
we did b/c they turned out great.

here is mine, complete with some cards that i made both nights.










{2} for those of you that don't know, my birthday is the 26th of this month (if you didn't know it, you better break out your calendar and write it down :). so i decided that since my bday is on a monday that means this year i get a 3-day weekend birthday. i mean why not. it will be my last year in my 20's. it should start off with a bang right? so, i asked the hubby if me and him {only} could get up
early and drive to new orleans and spend the day over there. i want beignets, i want to look around the market, i want take pictures of what buildings are left standing, i wanna spend time with my hubby alone. so he agreed. thats the plans for that saturday before.

{3} greta is having her workshop this sunday on the cards/tins. i'm so stinkin' excited about it i can't stand myself. i'm also looking forward to spending a buncha moola on stamps and supplies. i have never really been much of a stamper until she started stampin up. but now that i have bought quite a few (oh, who am i kidding?) quite a lot of stamps, i've been using them. now i really haven't
ventured out to use them on a lo, but i have been using them for cards. if anyone is interested, you can view the catalog here and if you are interested in ordering, all you have to do is contact greta and she can have em shipped right to your house.

{4}the ever wonderful mary ann asked me if i wanted to send her up some notecards ala cat and dog and she would sell them for me at a craft/goodie fair for the human society. of course i said yes and am actually looking forward to doing them. i plan on donating part of the proceeds to the human society and the rest will cover shipping/supply expenses.
that is if i sell anything...lol.

{5} ya'll will prolly think that i am a horrible mother waiting all the way to #5 to mention that mikey has been sick all week. boy what a pain in the ass this has been. i don't understand why the schools can't just give the boy some tylenol. i mean, yes, he does have a fever, but once he has the medicine,
it breaks and he is running around like nothing is wrong. i guess i shouldn't complain too much, mom has been keeping him until 11 am and i have been working from 7-11 am and then going home to be with him. this has actually worked out great for me b/c i have been getting a lot done. got my valentine's day cards finished and out in the mail, been baking up a storm (see below), got a two page lo to submit
to the scrapbooking store for design team submissions (see below), watching a lil lifetime, buying scrappy supplies. so i guess it hasn't been too bad at all :)

{6} on monday, i got a newsletter from lisa at my local scrapbooking store and amongst all the great things she has coming up was a request for design team members. she needed a two page lo (layout) submitted by today and customers would vote on entries (from what i understand though, she will have the final say i guess). she is looking for 4-6 people and when i read this, i thought i really need to try this. i am def. not one of those scrappers that feels dignified when published, design team, etc. i like the challenge aspect of it (and the free goodies don't hurt either). i've noticed that i get a lot more
scrapping down when there is a deadline...pressure, believe it or not, is good for me. very good for me. so since i have never scrapped so many pictures of one event to already have a 2 page lo, i needed to do one. i came up with the idea to have a set of questions that both me and michael would answer about each other. rather nifty idea if i do say so myself and i'm glad that i did this b/c now i have
these answers documented and can't wait to look at them again in the future. sorry for the crappy pics, but i was trying to get em in a hurry so i could go submit them.





{7} speaking of scrapping, i joined andrea's circle journal. i wasn't able to participate last go around and decided that this time was it. due to
the fact that i was running uber late on getting mine in the mail, i didn't get a chance to snap a pic of it. but i will post pictures when i get it back. my theme is "let's eat". everyone scraps their favorite recipe. i did however get pictures of sheila's lo's i did. her theme was "happiness is...". i love what i did so much, i am going to do a 12x12 for
my all about me book. i better get to thinking of some more things that make me happy :) thanks for the inspiration shelia :)


left side


right side

disregard the bad photo. i scanned them on my scanner at work.

{8}like i mentioned, i've got the cooking bug and i got it bad. i usually do though when i am overly stressed. so the past couple of days i have made peanut brittle bars, cupcakes, raspberry shortbread bars, and sugar and spice pretzels. yumm-0!!!



don't these look good? i haven't had one yet. this is an adapted recipe from the ever wonderful nicole over at baking sheet. this girl kicks ass as far as i am concerned and when ever i wanna try a new recipe, do i turn to a cookbook? no, i turn to this girl. i found her recipe for peanut brittle bars and made them the other day. i adjusted it and used
cashews instead of peanuts. now i'm a lil miffed with the way they turned out b/c my mom's oven is wonky and they were a lil too done! but they musta been good anyway, b/c mike ate a good bit of em. i have to say they were pretty addicting. just like peanut brittle.

here's the recipe:

Peanut Brittle Bars
from Maida Heatter's Book of Great Cookies
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
2 cups sifted ap flour
1 cup roasted, salted peanuts, coarsely chopped and divided


Preheat oven to 375F.
Cream together butter and sugar. Gradually add flour, mixing at low speed, until fully incorporated.

Stir in 1/2 cup of the peanuts.
Turn batter into ungreased jelly roll pan (10x15) and, after flouring your fingertips, press batter into thin layer. Evenly sprinkle remaining peanuts into the pan. Cover dough with a piece of wax paper and press peanuts into the dough, smoothing the mixture into an even layer. Remove wax paper.Bake for 25 minutes, until golden brown.Let cookies cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then slice into bars. Let the bars cool completely in the pan. They will be quite firm when completely cooled. Store in an airtight container.
Makes 24 bars.

now you may think, that doesn't sound anything like the picture up there...well you'd be right. when i made them this early afternoon, i took about 3/4 of the batter and pressed it down firmly in the jelly roll pan and then took raspberry preserves that i got at my local hillbilly grocery store (they end up
being from switzerland but made in egypt?????? they smell delish though and i got the jar for a buck) spread it all over the top and then sprinkled what lil bit of "batter" i had left. i can't wait to dive

into them.

seriously, if you like to cook and like to read food bloggies, nicole is the way to go. i have tried

more than one of her recipes and they are the shit. seriously!!!!





the next thing i made, on another food blog
href="http://everybodylikessandwiches.blogspot.com">everybody likes sandwiches. great blog! great recipes!

this one is so stinkin' delish, i almost ate the whole pan myself. and it helped that i had everything on hand...cept for the cayenne paper. i substituted that for ground ginger. they really are good. here's the recipe:

spicy-sweet glazed pretzels and nuts
4 c combo of pretzels and raw (unroasted) nuts but keep the nuts separate so that you can roast them (step 1)
1 T butter, melted
3 T brown sugar
1/2 t ground cinnamon
3/4 t cayenne pepper
1 1/2 T maple syrup
1 1/2 t kosher salt

1. Spread nuts (if using) evenly on a baking sheet. Bake them in a 300 degree oven for 20 minutes or until toasty and fragrant. Pour roasted nuts into a large bowl and mix in pretzels.

2. In a small bowl, mix together the butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, cayenne and maple syrup. Pour this over the pretzel/nut mixture and mix well to coat. Sprinkle with salt.

3. Spread this mixture back onto a baking sheet and toast lightly for 15 minutes at 300 degrees. Or, if you're making this at one in the morning like I did, just turn off the oven and have them sit in the oven over night and it will all come out perfectly. Remove from oven and keep in a covered jar until ready to eat.


{9} the new and the old house are still in the same stages pretty much that they were in the last time i updated...grrrr! the only new thing to add is some fuckin' bastards came in and stole two ladders (one was ours/one the builders), mike's expensive paint brushes, and moved all the paint cans to the living room (?). he spent all evening on tuesday at the new house, in the dark, taking everything out.


well i guess that pretty much sums everything up. this post has taken me about 2 to 3 hours to do. on top of getting the post ready, the daycare calls and says that i need to come and pick up bella....she has friggin' pink eye!

grrrrreat!


hmmm...after looking over this post, i guess a good bit has been going on ;)

oh, be on the lookout this weekend for a post of all the mail goodies i've recd., valentine goodie preparations, stamp workshops, and cupcakes :)