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My life is one big jumble of kids, pets, crafts, friends, food, home and business.

Christmas and looking ahead

Another Dec survived! 


Ok so I know we have a few more days but really doesn't Christmas feel like the end of December to everyone? That extra week is just a formality because as soon as you open those gifts, if you are anything like me, you start thinking about de-Christmas-izing your house and plans for New Year's Eve and of course all the big things you are going to do in the next year.


2010... This is going to be a biggie for me personally. My son will turn 14, just one year away from legal (with an adult) driving. My sweet sweet baby girl will turn TEN! And the biggest of the bigs is that we will be buying a house and moving... hopefully for the last time ever! 


I want to set down roots and plant things that I will see grow. I want a place that my kids can call home, and this apartment is not going to work for that.  The first week of Jan we are going to contact our realtor and lender and see where we stand and get this ball rolling along. :)


But more of that in the weeks to come...


I hope you had a great holiday no matter what you celebrate. I'm sure most of you have seen them so I'll just put a link to the pictures in case you missed them. Enjoy your last few days of 2009, make them count. 


Christmas Kids 2009

Making pasta is kinda hard

I did it on my own with no helpful tips or anyone to tell me how wrong I was doing it. And I don't (yet) have  pasta machine so they are ugly, I know, but the taste was AWESOME.


Homemade Spinach Ravioli with Alfredo Sauce


ravioli


I would like to practice more with pasta... having actual counter space in my kitchen would be a great start. Feel free to share any pasta tips or links to pasta machines you love. ;)

Peanut Buttery Goodness

Buckeyes are a gift from the dessert gods... they are simply AMAZING! 


There would be holiday mutiny if I did not make them so that's what I did today. I thought I'd give you a little pictorial. Here is the recipe I use... Buckeyes


Get your ingredients ready:
buckeyestart


Here is your pb dough:
bedough


Roll your little balls and place them on wax paper then stab them right in the head:
bestab


You have to freeze your pb balls then melt your chocolate
bemelt


Dip your frozen balls into the chocolate, chill to set then ENJOY!
bedip


And we had "rat-patootie" for dinner. My kids refuse to use the real name thanks to Disney's Ratatouille movie. lol
rat


ratrice

Dinner: Partial FAIL

Tonight we had falafel and tabbouleh, both from mixes I found in the greek grocery.


The falafel was fine, the tabbouleh not so much..  no, not so much at ALL. A photo...






















So it's almost Christmas, and then almost 2010... where does the time go? Not just "wow that year flew by" but 2010, holy crap!!!  I swear as a kid I thought we were going to be living like The Jetsons by the year 2010 but here I sit with no jet pack or flying family car.  


I'm getting the last of our holiday stuff tomorrow and I dread the stores but I will survive and of course bring back any crazy stories.

Holiday Greetings

My sweet girl at our homeschool holiday party.


festive

New blog home

Just in time for the new year... seems fitting.

I've imported all my old posts but since I'm no longer really a fiber goddess and I don't blog about knitting I figured it was finally time for a change. Enjoy the new digs and make yourself comfy. :)

Calling all cooks...

That hummus was HORRIBLE... maybe the garlic?

If was just off, flat... not right.

Do you have a hummus recipe that you love? Please Share

Well that's a new twist

Cooking when you can't smell or taste (except for super strong odor/flavor) is really hard.

so I made hummus today and I have NO idea what it taste like. lol But here is the process with a basic recipe that can be turned into any flavor you prefer.

I started with dry beans and an over night soak then cooking the chick peas. Once you have that done you can start. Or you can just buy canned, whatever works.

2 c chick peas (garbanzo beans)
3 cloves garlic, minched
3 T lemon juice
1/4 c water
3 T tahini
1/2 - 1 t cumin
1/2 t paprika

Step 1: Place cooked chick peas in your food processor with garlic lemon juice and water process for about a minute, until smooth. If too thick, add more water.h1

Step 2: Add spices
h2

Step 3: Add tahini
h3

Step 4: Adjust to your taste and Viola!
h4

GERMS!

gah, we've been under attack this past week. The evil head cold has kicked my butt so the cooking thing has pretty much not happened. It's been all easy meals and clean out the fridge nights.

This is a great easy meal, so easy the kids or your husband could do it. ;) I kid, I kid. lol But it's really easy peasy. this is a great option if you are off pasta/carbs.

Spaghetti Squash

cut in half lengthwise, scrape seeds, bake cut side down for 30-45 min @ 350. Scrape threads, add sauce and fresh parm. cheese and enjoy.

squash

So fresh you wanna smack it

Today's dinner that is... Fresh corn chowder.

dec2

Kid requests for next time... less corn, puree more of the soup and less jalapeno (they are heat wussies I only used one). But they ate without real complaints because they knew this was waiting...

nanatrifle

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/banana-trifle/Detail.aspx

Today was made of yuck

I am a southern girl... I was born in the south and I've always lived here. I do not enjoy cold, windy, rainy days... at ALL! But that is what I got today and I had to go out in it multiple times.

My daughter, Teagan, is not feeling well so she couldn't go with me and had to stay home with the 13yo. Here she is later in the day hamming up the pitiful while

drinking her tea.
sickie
A head cold never looked so cute.

As far as food, it was basically meat free fast food.
Total crap comfort food otherwise known as Cincinnati Chili

dec1


Here is how I ended the day

cocoa
homemade hot chocolate. yes my oversized mug says Princess... you gotta problem with that?

Lazy Dinner

ok so tonight was not very exciting. just a simple breakfast.

pancakes
home fries - SO GOOD!
morning star maple flavored sausages - I personally do not want to use lots of "fake" meats but sometimes it's just easy and I'm not above it at all. lol

nov30

Meat Free Mania

We are now a meat free house but its kinda complicated.

Ok if you read in order you just read about my internal organs trying to mutiny. Well I'm not cool with that so I made a pretty drastic decision... NO MORE MEAT for me or soda or fast food (at least for the most part, I'm not going to be a militant weirdo that freaks if you get a french fry near me).

So my daughter has been a veggie for almost a year and I figured that even if I did get my gb taken out you have to change your diet so I might as well try to change my diet now because what do I have to lose... Well Chris took it one step further and decided the whole house should go veggie. He will not be fully veg when he is on the rig because it is really too hard at this point but all the meals I make are veggie or vegan.

Going to share our faves and not so faves here. :) so expect lots of food posts in the future.

Red Bean Burgers


So good! I just made another batch for the freezer but actually made 12 patties instead of 6 because they were so huge you could barely finish one.
redbeanburgers

Mock Tuna Salad

tofuna

tuna melts
tofunamelt

eh... still working on this. won't call it a miss just yet but it needs some doctoring

Thanksgiving

tgiving

Not even a full month between posts

I'm getting better. ;)

Ok so... lets see what I have to catch you up on.

I had a bad gall bladder attach on the 14th, it lasted about 3.5 hours and it sucked wind! But I survived and the next day (the 15th) I got up and felt better... until round 2 started! I've never had back to back attacks like that and it was horrible. I know, I know... you are screaming GO TO THE DR AND GET IT CUT OUT YOU FOOL! right about now but I refuse for a few reasons.

1) I don't want to lose any organs until I really have to.
2) Lots of people have side effects from removing the gb
3) You can still have problems with gall stones even if you remove the gb.

To make matters more fun, on the day of my 2nd attack I had to go to the grocery store because the boy had a stomach bug and it was not pretty. Neither was me walking through the store hunched over and shuffling. lol

on the 16th I turned 34! and the boy was better but still tired and the girl got the bug... GAH. and I was off solid food trying to baby my gall bladder. And of course, did I mention that Chris was working in Texas through all of this. Sigh

There has been another huge change but I'm going to give that it's own entry...

Halloween

How cute were we. :D

10

Teagan's hair went a little flat but it started off super cute and she got new glasses.
vamphairh

Have a fling!

One of my coolest friends is having a big Fall Fling Sale!!

http://tastyjewelry.blogspot.com/2009/09/fall-fling-sale.html

She makes the most awesome stuff, you must go grab something... or lots of somethings!

Go get 40% off!

There is NO excuse for my behavior.

It was June when I last updated... seriously?


Let's see. We had a Teagan birthday DSCF1654

the rest of the pics are here... http://www.flickr.com/photos/itsvenus/sets/72157621702460697/

New school year started aug4

We've adjusted our activities a bit, now we are doing... Cam = golf lessons, Teagan = Girl Scouts, Both = Chess, Bowling.

All of the curlies in my family have given up shampoo, you can read a bit about that and see our updates here. http://www.flickr.com/photos/itsvenus/sets/72157621708652510/ I might do a whole post about this in the near future.

I've made a few toys but mainly goofed off on facebook. :D

Inability to deal with stress

It is interesting to be faced with a flaw we didn't realize we had. I tend to thing I'm a fairly strong, stoic person. Can you say DENIAL? I know you could.

Man it stings to be so wrong. I haven't even had that bad of a day. This is how it all went down...

Hit the grocery store which is always kinda tiring, IMO.

Had to drop the hammer on the kids for constantly breaking the rules. I hated that. I hate feeling like the bad guy even when they basically drove me to the bad guy store and bought the outfit for me. Then after they were in for the night they tried to weasel more perks out of me. ARGH!

The dog barking at everything, every knock, every movement out the window... it HAS to stop. Her bark is brain piercing and sets me on edge faster than anything.

I got my first two orders through my new site. YAY! But then... "omg I have to do 6 toys and find the right socks for them and have them perfect" set in and I started feeling overwhelmed.

Chris will be home in 24 hours and the house needs to be cleaned and organized. And then I start feeling panicky about all the stuff we have to get done during the times he is home. And he is really tired when he is home so I often feel like his weeks home, which I first thought would be like time off for me, are even more stressful than the weeks he is gone.

The dog is STILL not figuring out the house training thing. I do not think she gives a shit. If we manage to get her out when she feels like going that's fine but if not it doesn;t bother her to go right on the floor. She esp. can't be trusted near carpet. So we are "tomato staking" her right now... leash on and with a person 24/7 or crated. So I go in my room and Teagan had her leash on the doorknob, went to get water and left her alone on my carpet... yep you guessed it. At least it was only pee.

That was my last straw, I was on the phone with Chris and I yelled at the kids and dog (BAD MOM!) and shut myself in my room and got all teary. Yes, there are some um, hormone issues going on right now too but seriously I HATE that I am this shakable. Ugh, it may well be time for happy pills because I'm not sure how I will do when/if the time comes that Chris isn't just gone for 7 days but maybe 14 or 28.

Now I have to try to find some bit of happy and perky and get ready to do INUIY in 2 hours. Or at least tap into the bitchy side of it all instead of the whiny. lol

I'm so bad lately!

We've been busy busy busy.

I've been planning the new school year and I'm almost ready for the purchase part. That is always the most exciting (and often nerve wracking) part of the school year. And then the boxes start arriving and you get to go buy new school supplies... sigh, it is just bliss.

Or, I'm a weirdo... that's also possible. lol

Things are going well in Casa de Fibres.

I'm having a website made, that's my big news. WOOHOO! The husband is getting back into the swing of work after the 6 week layoff.

The little found dog's former owners never searched for her as far as I can tell and after seven weeks I am no longer searching for them and I finally feel like she is ours.

We have a moving update... the new plan is to move when our lease is up in November and rent a house there. It's foolish to buy (IMO) without living there for a while anyway and if we have to rent regardless, we might as well rent there and make sure we like it before setting down roots. I will miss the fabulous friends I have made but I guess that's to be expected.

Ok I think that is it for this quick update... I'll be back soon with a link to my brand new website so stay tuned!

Frustration

We are planning on moving, not sure if I have blogged about that but I think I did. We are moving to TX. We were hoping to move by the end of the year. Our apt lease is up in Nov. and we can go month to month but we would have loved to have that be a short term option. But it seemed like pushing the move until Spring 2010 was more realistic.

Now the time off work is eating our savings and pushing back the prospect of moving even further. It is so frustrating. Our apt is small and at first it seemed fine but as time goes on I swear it feels like the rooms are shrinking in on us. I'm so tired of not having my own washer/dryer, esp. today after having a pukey girl last night. I'm sick of putting quarters in the loaded machines to find out after the fact that they are broken. Ugh so many other little annoyances. I do not know how we can possibly live here for another year, year and a half... TWO?!

I'm so tempted to start researching the rental market in TX and just heading out when our lease expires.

Has it really been THAT long since the last entry?

Wow, bad blogger indeed!

I've had a bunch of orders. You can head over to Sole Mate Toys to see some of my recent orders.

There is also a long story involving a new addition... The kids found a dog, so far we can't find the owner so she is here at least for now. We are calling her Pepper.

this is the day they found her
apr11

After grooming
apr16


I've become the mother of a teenager since my last post. Wish me luck.

I ordered some business stuff from vistaprint and I LOVE IT!
mar30

And last but not least... my husband has been home since March 16 with no end in sight. This layoff might be the death of me. ;)

My lolcats

mar26

My furry girls.

Would you like to touch my monkey?

monkeys

Zombie Monkey
zombie

Serious Monkeys
mar25

creative energy

A local real life friend helped me out yesterday. I needed my biz cards tweaked. She is awesome and if you need any graphics work done or website design... or anything you should go to Cara Creates now!


mar23

Clint Eastwood is stealing Gorillaz from myspace...

RULES:

1. Put your iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. on shuffle

2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.

3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS.





IF SOMEONE SAYS 'ARE YOU OKAY' YOU SAY?

stop me if you think you've heard this one before - the smiths




HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?

mr.vain - culture beat



WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?

whoomp! there it is - tag team



HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?

step on - happy mondays



WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?

missing - everything but the girl



WHAT'S YOUR MOTTO?

i ran - flock of seagulls



WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?

space oddity - david bowie



WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?

just like honey- the jesus and mary chain



WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?

the ballad of peter pumpkinhead - xtc



WHAT IS 2 + 2?

stigmata- ministry




WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?

nemesis - shriekback



WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?

yellow - coldplay



WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?

cannonball - the breeders



WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?

the hardest button to button - the white stripes



WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?

good vibrations - marky mark



WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?

smack my bitch up - prodigy



WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?

i wanna be adored - the stone roses



WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR?

velouria - the pixies



WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?

take me out - franz ferdinand



WHAT DO YOU WANT RIGHT NOW?

my favorite game - the cardigans



WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?

relax - frankie goes to hollywood



WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?

clint eastwood - gorillaz

SIGH

Doing my "homework"...

mar21

I just wish the actual start of the process wasn't so damn far away. September is when we tentatively decided to get serious and get a lender and agent involved.

Friday 5

Stranded!
It's the "stranded on a desert island" question! You can only take one thing from each category. What is it and why are you taking it?

1. A food that can be planted and regrown.
2. A person you haven't seen in a long time.
3. A book you (were) read as a child.
4. A celebrity.
5. The entire episode run of a television show (it's a very nice desert island).
(sic)


My Answers...

1. hmmm rice, easy to grow and to cook
2. Angie, she has a green thumb and is pretty resourceful
3. Lord of the Flies
4.Bill Nye or Ed Begley Jr... they are geniuses and can totally hook up our hut.
5.McGuyver.. DUH!

http://community.livejournal.com/thefridayfive/

Productive Day

stack


tfp

getting through the day...

this helped... YUM

the result... elmoturtles

I have one more turtle to finish for this order.

Irish Eyes

mar17

today can totally...

natalie dee
nataliedee.com

Happy Pi Day

march 13

too cute not to share

dinomonk

I guess I shouldn't skip again

Twice in a row is poor form. I'm working on orders. Last night I went to bed at 9pm with a headache. Tomorrow I'll be back to my usual updating.

Clover and Japanese Plums

clover

japaneseplum

jplums

Bridge

mar9