Halloween Mode

Well it has been an incredibly busy weekend and beginning to the week. I have been in full party planning mode every single day and it's been very busy at work.

I've been on a search since Saturday for 20 yards of black fabric, gauze, or tulle. Well I found gauze & fabric but was looking at over $100 for 20 yards.... No thank you! Yesterday I went to my last option Hobby Lobby. Not that I don't like that store but it was just my last place to look. Anyways they had some black tulle for .77 cents/yd. Well it didn't look like much was on the two bolts but I figured I would just buy whatever was there and use it. I took it to the lady at the fabric counter and she measure it all out for me. Wanna take a guess how much was there?...... Exactly 20 yards! I was ecstatic!!! I was even more ecstatic when it only cost me $15!!!

Over the course of the week I have also found some black fabric that we used as table cloths in our wedding so that is awesome. I'm getting SO excited!

I've been going back and forth with what I want to be for Halloween. I had mentioned before that we are going to be the ghosts of ourselves and Adam wasn't to enthusiastic about that idea so he's gonna be a creepy scarecrow. I was searching google today for make-up ideas for myself if I decided to still do a ghost and found this......

This is now what I'm doing for Halloween. I don't really know what to call it other than Goth. I'm going today to a party place to look for a hat and the fake eye lashes. Tonight I'm going to practice the makeup but I'm pretty sure I can pull it off!

What do you gals think?

Friday Funny

Happy Friday!

Today is busy at the office with work stuff and I'm also doing a some searching for party ideas. The theme of our party is going to be that we are the ghosts of ourselves haunting our own house. I haven't exactly decided on a reason why we are ghosts but I'm sure I'll come up with something crazy ... any thoughts?

My menu is not very broad yet but I do know that I'm making a red velvet cake with white frosting and a black spider on top. I'll have to see which magazine I got this from and I'll post a pic. Also on the Halloween Block Party show I mentioned I got the idea to take toritillas and cut them into shapes (ex: leaves) and then bake them to make chips. I'm sure we'll have a couple kind of dips but I want a few other finger food type things as well.

That's pretty much all I have for today but I wanted to share a funny e-mail I received. These are cooking tips Martha Stewart vs Maxine. HILARIOUS!

Martha:
Stuff a miniature marshmellow in the bottom of an ice cream cone to prevent ice cream drips.

Maxine:
Just suck the ice cream out of the bottom of the cone, for Pete's sake! You are probably lying on the couch with your feet up eating it anyways!

~*~

Martha:
To keep potatos from budding, place an apple in the bag with the potatos.

Maxine:
Buy Hungry Jack mashed potato mix. Keeps in the pantry for up to a year.

~*~

Martha:
When a cake recipe calls for flouring the baking pan, use a bit of the dry cake mix instead and there won't be any white mess on the outside of the cake.

Maxine:
Go to the bakery! Hell, they'll even decorate it for you!

~*~

Martha:
If you accidently over-salt a dish while it's still cooking, drop in a peeled potato and it will absorb the excess salt for an instant 'fix-me-up'.

Maxine:
If you over-salt a dish while you are cooking, that's too bad. Please recite with me the real woman's motto: 'I made it, you will eat it, and I don't care how bad it tastes!'

~*~

Martha:
Wrap celery in aluminum foil when putting in the refrigerator and it will keep for weeks.

Maxine:
Celery? Never heard of it!

~*~

Martha:
Brush some beaten egg white over pie crusts before baking to yield a beautiful glossy finish.

Maxine:
The Mrs. Smith frozen pie directions do not include brushing egg whites over the crust, so I don't.

~*~

Martha:
Cure for headaches: take a lime, cut it in half and rub it on your forehead. The throbbing will go away.

Maxine:
Take a lime, mix it with tequila, chill and drink! All your pains go away!

~*~

Martha:
Don't throw out all that leftover wine. Freeze into ice cubes for future use in casseroles and sauces.

Maxine:
Leftover wine??????? HELLO!!!!!!!

~*~

HAVE A FABULOUS WEEKEND!!

Cooking / Halloween Countdown

Last night and this morning were SO busy / crazy!

Last night I walked in the door and started cooking. I pulled pie shells out of the freezer to thaw and started the oven literally before I even set down my purse. I cooked some chicken in the skillet (with EVOO) for Wednesday's dinner since it's our Chiropractor day and dinner must be precooked. Then I got out all the stuff to make dinner for the night intending to make baked chicken. Adam came in, saw what I was making, and said he didn't "prefer" baked chicken but it was "fine". Well then I decided to fry his chicken but had to wait for the chicken in the skillet to finish. In the meantime I had pie crusts in the oven and my chicken ready to go into the oven once those were done. I got those switched out, chicken out of the skillet, heated up oil, then breaded chicken back in the skillet. I started the mac & cheese & ranch style beans and then washed the dishes I had used so far.

All that was finished about 7 and we sat down to eat. As soon as I finished dinner I was back up and going again. Lunches made, pots and pans cleaned, stuff out to make pies. The recipe I have for my coconut pie is my Nana's and it's AWESOME. Back in the day I think all recipes made 2 pies for some reason ... probably big families or holidays. Anyways my recipe makes 2 but I needed 3. So I thought I'll just use 1 1/2 of each thing. Last time I do that! It all worked out but it took FOREVER for the filling to thicken. I think I would have been better off making 2 then making 1 and probably would have saved myself some time!

The pies turned out good and I cleaned the kitchen ... yet again. By this time it was about 8:30 and it was bed time. I got ready for bed and then crashed!

This morning I got up at 5, got ready, and then made Jambalya for tonights dinner. As much as I love to cook I'm so glad I don't have to do anymore until tomorrow night!

~*~

Today I've been in party planning mode! I saw a show on HGTV called Halloween Block Party (airs again this Saturday 10/24) and I'm so inspired. There were 3 designers and each had a party in someone's house on the block and all 3 were totally different themes. My favorite was the haunted mansion.

We've never really had a "party" at our house because it's so small but we are having one next Friday night! I'm going to completely decorate my house, move furniture, and just go crazy (inexpensive crazy). In the haunted mansion the designer took black fabric from the center of the ceiling to all four corners and draped it. I'm thinking of doing something like that if I can find inexpensive material. Also one of the other designers (he did the Sleepy Hollow house) did these pumpkins that were amazing (go to hgtv.com and search halloween block party for templates) and Adam is going to do those (I'll find pictures). I have so many ideas going through my head that I need to write them all down! As I get a more firm idea of what I want to do I'll share as I go :).

Have a fantastic Wednesday!!!!

Back In The Groove

Today is shaping up to be a great day (Please Lord let it continue!).

The weather is perfect again today and I'm feeling SO much better. I had a Ham & Cheese Hot Pocket for breakfast and it tasted amazing. It was the best thing I've tasted in over a week. I'm so glad my taste buds are back and now I'm ready for lunch!!!!

I have my computer back to about 90% normal. I brought my Office program in today to install and somehow my printer magically fixed itself. So I'm just lacking my network capabilities to access the other computers in the office but that should be fixed sometime this week.

Tonight I'm making 2 Coconut Pies to take to our chiropractor's office tomorrow. They have been so sweet to us. They let us pay out our deductibles and helped us with visits when Adam ran out under the insurance plan. Plus we are both feeling great and in less pain. I can't wait to give the pies to him :)

I hope everyone is having a fabulous Tuesday!!!

It's a Sunny Day

Today I feel like I'm on the road to normal. Not there but definately getting closer. I'm just SO exhausted. I've been sick many times throughout my life but I think I've hit a point where I'm getting older and not bouncing back near as quickly.

We didn't do much of anything this weekend. Saturday I cleaned up the house some and did a lot of knitting. I cannot even begin to explain how wonderful it feels to have a clean kitchen, dusted living room, and folded laundry. Those are my 3 basics. If those 3 things are not accomplished I feel like a complete failure and let me tell you none were accomplished last week!

Sunday I managaed to get the bathroom cleaned, do a little grocery shopping, and made some yummy potato soup for dinner (My favorite!!!). Oh and I totally forgot to mention this last week but Sunday was our 11 year anniversary. Not a wedding anniversary of course but 11 yrs from when he asked me to be his girlfriend. I really love having our Un-Anniversary. We don't buy each other gifts but we always talk about "old times" and how lucky we were to have found each other so young. It's very romantic and I love it so much. It's so great to have this time between our wedding anniversary to remind us again to appreciate our love for each other.

Outside it's absolutely beautiful today. We have had SO much rain the past several weeks and yesterday and today look to be perfect. Temps in the 70s and lots of sun!

Have a great Monday!

Ready for the weekend ...

even though my week has just begun.

I'm finally back to work today. I'm feeling SO much better but pretty tired and it's only 10:30. I'm seriously ready to go back home and crawl back into bed. Not because I don't feel well but just stressed.

I've been off work 4 days and of course I have a pile of stuff to do but in the middle of this my computer at the office crashed and had to be reformatted. Well I'm having issues getting my printer to connect, getting back onto the office network, and don't have office installed yet. On top of that I lost all of my favorites. I had YEARS of favorite websites on this computer. Very sad :(.

So that's pretty much all I have today. I plan on taking it easy today and this weekend so I don't have a relapse or something. Today I'm just down to an occasional sneeze and coughing since all that junk in my chest is breaking lose.

Hope everyone has a great Friday and a safe weekend :)

Blogging Via Home

Hello everyone!

I'm blogging from home for the first time (at 4 something AM). I'm also blogging from my cell which is pretty cool.

I cannot sleep any more so I figured I would see if I could get on blogger. You see I've been pretty much stuck at home all week. I went to work Monday but left early because I was getting a really bad cough and didn't feel so good. I made an appt with the dr thinking I could get in, get some meds and get ahold of whatever I was starting to get. So after I got meds I went home because my boss shut down the office early. My co-worker had a sick child and it was a holiday anyways.

I barely slept at all Monday so I called in Tuesday. I didn't feel horrible Tuesday but after no sleep I was very run down.

Wednesday I got up at 5 to get ready for work. I had slept pretty good to was eager to get back to work. By 6:30 I was feeling pretty bad but went in anyways. The only thermometer I own was at work so when I got there I took my temp and it was 99:4. I hadn't felt like I had fever any of the other days so I knew it was only gonna get worse. I called the dr and they told me to come in for a flu test. I ended up working for about 2 hrs to do some things I had missed and finish stuff up for the week.

At the dr I tested negativefor the flu which is great. They gave me a stronger antibiotic, predisone, and some cough med. When I got home I took all that and went straight to bed with 100.4 temp.

Adam came home after work and brought me some gatorade because everything else tasted gross and a movie to watch today (The Proposal).

He has been so awesome this week. Although I already had easy meals planned because I didn't know how sick I was going to get he has done all the cooking, cleaning, and taking care of me and the animals.

Now I'm here in the living room with a severely runny nose and drainage...another new symptom. Hopefully I can sleep later because I didn't last night. Adam has forbidden to even think about work today so I'll be either on the sofa or in bed today!

Sorry this was so long and way more info than anyone wanted to know but I'm wide awake and extremely bored.

I hope everyone has a great day and get well soon to my sick bloggy friends :)

I have found Etsy .... Addicted!

I've been hearing a lot about Etsy.com in this blog land here. Well I knew that there were treasures in this site but didn't want to actually view them for myself because I knew that I would then become addicted. Well I've resisted and resisted but .... I'm addicted.




I made my first purchase today!

Isn't it gorgeous! I purchased this from Boojiboo. Check out their store! They have to most beautiful things! I absolutely cannot wait to get it. I've never owned and apron and my husband thinks I'm crazy but oh well! I used a $50 rebate that I got from my cell to purchase it so it was my money. (This was only $31.75 so I still have $18.25 to spend).

~*~

Tomorrow my inner redneck woman will come out! We are going to see the Monster Trucks tomorrow night. I'm so excited. I love the loud noise, carnage of smashed vehicles, and the adrenaline of it all! I'm a dork I know!

I'm not sure what our other plans may be because Adam may have to work some this weekend. Hopefully he won't though :)

Have an awesome weekend!

I've Got A Pocket Full of Sunshine

Tylenol PM is my new BFF! I slept so good last night. I did wake up a couple of times but went right back to sleep. I feel like a new woman this morning!

Yesterday Adam knew my mood was bitchy PMSy not that great, so when I suggested Fried Chicken from Brookshires for dinner he offered to go pick it up for me since he was already in town getting some gas. When I got home there was a beautiful bouquet of flowers on the island (not expensive ones but just a beautiful mix of lillies, daisies, and carnations from brookshires - my fav!). Also he had made our plates for dinner and put them in the oven to stay warm. He made his lunch and cleaned up the kitchen.

He really knows how to put my world back where it belongs with those little things. They mean so much to me. Those little things combined with 8hrs of sleep and I'm ready to face anything the world gives me today :-D

~*~

Today I'm making my very first slow cooker Pot Roast. I'm pretty nervous about it but hopefully it turns out good. We are going to the Chiropractor today so I don't have time to cook on Wednesdays anymore. If this goes well I will try to do a slow cooker meal each Wednesday. It's kinda awesome to know that dinner is at home cooking itself while I work :)

~*~

Here is the Soup recipe I made Monday .... To explain how good it was I'll just say it was BOWL LICKING GOOD!

Chicken Tortilla Soup (My changes in bold)
(by Peggy Craft ~ Home Run Recipe Book from a local town)

2lbs cooked chicken or 4 breast
1 onion, diced (I omitted this)
3 cans chicken broth
1 can corn
1 can pinto beans
1 can Ro-Tel tomatos (Original flavor - I only used the juice otherwise it's too spicy for us)
1 pkg Taco mix (I use McCormick)
1 pkg Ranch salad dressing mix

Saute onion in small amount of oil. Add cooked chicken, taco mix, and salad dressing mix and stir well. Add other ingredients and simmer 30 minutes. Serve with slices of avocado and tortilla chips.

Lack of Sleep ....zzzzzzz

I have not been sleeping well at all for weeks. I honestly have no idea why. Nothing is bothering me, I'm not upset, I'm not waiting on anything exciting. Just normal every day life is going on. I lay in bed with my brain going 100mph about absolutely nothing of importance but just can't go to sleep. Then my neck starts hurting, then my back, then I can't get comfortable, and then I'm hot. I just go from bad to worse. I probably doze off around midnight but I'm in that sleep where I can hear everything. I know every time Adam rolls over or every time Lexi moves.

I'm absolute exhausted.

I think my neck & back pain are coming from being readjusted by the chiropractor. Not that he's doing anything to hurt me but he's moving things around that have been so out of place that I'm just not comfortable anymore in the way I lay or sit. I have another appt tomorrow and will talk to him about this some more.

In the meantime I bought some Tylenol PM. I really hope that helps.

~*~

On to something positive now ... BIG SMILES :-D

I made Chicken Tortilla Soup for dinner last night. It was AWESOME. I think Adam may have licked his bowl haha. I'll try to bring the cookbook to work and post the recipe. Better right it down or better yet put a reminder on my phone as my brain is no longer functioning :)

Well hope everyone's Tuesday is great! Hopefully after some caffeine I'll be a little more perky.

Happy Mondays!

This weekend was good but pretty lonely. I admit that I'm pretty attached to my husband and love just being with him. Even if he's in another room I at least know that he's there to hug, kiss, or love on whenever I feel the need to. Adam had to work ALL dang weekend. He worked at least 12 hrs Thurs, Fri, & sat and then about 9hrs on Sunday! Although we will have a totally awesome paycheck I really really missed him.

Satuday I did a lot of cleaning and organizing some different stuff around the house but by 5 I was so bored and ready for him to just be home. When he did get home around 7 he was in such a bad mood we didn't talk much. Just had some dinner and then he fell asleep. I felt so bad for him!

Sunday I got up early when he was leaving and got ready to have breakfast with my in-laws. We had a great breakfast at Cracker Barrel. I LOVE that place. I could buy all the stuff in their gift shops! I took my mother-in-law home because she rode there with me and then finished up my grocery list at home. Then I went BACK to town to get groceries ... Yes totally unprepared and wasted a buch of time!

When I got back home I popped in a movie (Batman Begins) and started cooking. I made yellow cake for cake balls and the filling for Lemon Cookie sandwiches. Those two things took however long the movie was and then Adam pulled up! I was SO happy he was able to get out of there early! I put my cooking on hold because he wanted to run in to town and just do something. So we went and got dog food, walked the mall, and got some chinese food. I think he felt better having a little bit of time doing something other than work.

Tonight I'm gonna cook the cookie part of the lemon cookies and probably do a few cake balls. I'll take pics once they are made! I'm making these to take to our Chiropractors office as a Thank You treat for them :)

Also this week I have 3 new recipes to try. Tonight is Chicken Tortilla Soup. This was my planned dinner for last night but I'll be making it tonight instead. It's kinda chilly, grey, and it's been very drizzly this weekend so Soup sounds really good!

~*~

OHHHHHH This is totally random and off subject but I have accomplished a majorly HUGE goal that I have to share!!! We have completed Step 1 of Dave Ramsey's plan and our Baby Mini Emergency Fund has been set up! Next up is paying off credit cards!!!!
(People in my family could get confused it we called it the "Baby" EF... lol)

Have a Happy Monday!

Fall Is In The Air (Brrr)

This has been a very busy week both at home and at the office! I honestly cannot remember what the heck I've done this week because it's been so crazy!

I'm going back to the chiropractor once a week because I've been having problems with my neck & back. He says I'm fixable but that it will take time. Also he recomended that I start taking calcium so I'm doing that. These problems have really been effecting my sleep so I really hope that one day soon I'll be able to actually sleep comfortably through the night!

This week I got a little crafty. These are two things I've made this week. The first is my favorite and I have it here on my desk at the office. The second is on my island at home.

Michaels & Hobby Lobby are having excellent sales on their fall stuff! I got everything half off, well except the pots.

I absolutely LOVE fall. I can't wait for bonfire and snuggling with my hunny under a blanket in our hammock!

I'm not sure what our plans are for this weekend. So far Adam is scheduled to work at least 12hrs or so on Saturday and he says that he will be working on Sunday. I really hope that gets changed!!!

Have a great weekend!