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 :)