Friday is even better, doing our part

How can Friday get any better?  When the kids are off of school for a teacher workday and everybody gets to sleep in!!  If you haven't noticed by now, I seem to live for sleeping in these days.  I'm afraid, by the time I'm an old lady, I'm going to revert to my teenage sleeping habits. Sleep 'til noon and stay up to 2 am.  The only problem that I see right now is I'm not staying up until 2 am. I usually am asleep by 11 or so.

So, as I promised last post, here's my version of the veggie burger and I must admit I have really enjoyed them.  Isn't it beautiful?

 

The basic ingredients are soybeans, brown rice, chickpeas (although not in the version above), zucchini, carrots and onions.  The full recipe can be found at Cooking at the Davis'

So, in addition to all of my clean eating, I finally made the move toward going paperless in the house.   Ali Edwards blogged about this a few months ago and I thought it was a great idea.  I went shopping for cloth napkins, but the initial investment was a little too steep.  I noticed during a recent shopping trip, that Target had a slew of them on clearance. There were a slew of them so I decided to wait and hoped the price would continue to drop. 

I went back last Friday and the price had dropped enough to make them very affordable.  I bought 7 packages of 4, so there's enough for each of us to have one each night for a week.  I would like to find a more fashionable holder, but this will do for now.

If you look closely at the photo above, you can see the paper towels near the sink, but we don't use them very much at all. I reach for a kitchen towel or these large flat sponges I found, 90% of the time. (Edited: I have since moved that holder under the sink and only use them for really dirty messes or raw meat clean up.)

The only problem I've had so far, is Emily tries to put them back in the basket. "It's not that dirty." she says.  Um, no, if you used it, it's dirty. :) 

I also invested in various clothes for mirrors, stainless steel and dusting. I think they were all 3m products. Much better than using endless paper towels and the mirror cleaning cloth works very well.

As far as scrapbooking goes, I finished this layout yesterday about my one little word.  Love that I used journaling straight from the blog. It took a lot of courage for me to border that shape on the sewing machine.  Embracing imperfection here. :)  It's also a big step for me do actually scrapbook about me. I have trouble doing it.  It just seems odd.  I'm working through it though as I know the kids will appreciate knowing what was on my mind in years to come or long gone.

Trying for clean and making flowers

Recently I've tried to incorporate more clean eating into our lives. Generally speaking, I already purchased mostly organic products and rarely use processed foods in my meal preparation so it hasn't been difficult.  Not going for hard core here.  My family, besides Emily and me, just couldn't handle it and I'm not up for that fight. (Clean eating is based upon eating organic and no processed foods popularized by Tosca Reno.)  I just checked out the Eating Clean for Families and Kids book at the library and have been trying out some of the recipes.

This weekend Emily and I made hummus, which we have both always loved.  I made a few modifications from Reno's recipe, a little less fat and garlic powder.  (I was just too lazy to mince garlic that day.) It was fabulous.  Emily prepared her pita for lunch and declared I must take a photo to share on my blog! Can you believe that girl?  Here's her pita with some of her veggies.  Cute huh?  This is what food preparation with kids is about!!

She did add some more spinach, cucumbers and red peppers before she ate it. :)  We also had made yogurt cheese the day before and it was the absolute perfect accompaniment to our hummus.

Last night, I attempted to make soy burgers also from the Reno book.  I couldn't find dry soybeans at any of my grocery stores, so I used fresh frozen. I didn't realize the beans should still have been cooked for over an hour.  Once I had cooked them for 45 minutes, I was hungry and figured they were cooked to almost soft and it would all work out.  The burgers didn't really look like they were binding together all that well, but actually once they finished cooking in the oven they were sticking together much better than I first thought.  But before I realized this, I added a can of pureed chickpeas to the remainder of the burger mix and cooked a couple of those in a pan to see how that worked.  I liked those even better and will probably add the chickpeas to my final recipe. (I'll make a recipe post later in the week, as I made a few other changes as well.)

All of this is cooking was part of my effort to eat more vegetarian.  I'm not really committed to becoming a vegetarian, but eating less meat.  I recently read parts of a book called Food Matters: a Guide to Conscience Eating by Mark Bitman.  In his book, he describes at length of the environmental impact of the amounts of meat we eat.  And while I don't agree with everything in his book, I have seen the documentary Food, Inc. and it only reinforced what I thought about eating organic and closer to the earth.   Anyway, the thing that did totally appeal to me from his book was his goal of eating meat only after 6pm. I had never considered this approach to eating and it struck me as a very doable thing for me given my families eating habits. And truthfully, it wasn't too far off from what I was already doing.

It's been a fun and healthy experience so far.  I love that Emily is jumping on board as well.  She had initially balked at the idea of eating my veggie burger and asked me to defrost some soup for her to eat instead, but once they were cooked she made her burger and started contemplating how she could pack it for lunch at school!!

I did do a little scrapbooking this weekend.  I made these flowers inspired by the fabric flowers I've been seeing popping up everywhere, like the ones here. I wanted to make mine out of the same paper I was using on the layout. So, I crumpled a strip of paper up and spritzed it with water and started gluing it down.  Definitely will do it again. I love the distressed look.

Mom, I Love you so much!!

Here's a close up of the flower.

 

I'm off to enjoy a veggie burger for lunch and run some errands. So glad the snow from last night is almost all gone!!

Good, good things

Life's been really good and busy.  I'm almost done with a freelance project for one of my graphic design clients. Just waiting on approval.  That is always good!!

But the best news came on Tuesday when I was asked to be the March Guest Designer for Back Porch Memories!!  The selection came from a contest they host each month where the great Becky Fleck of Page Maps designs a sketch for them and then the current design team chooses their favorite to be the guest designer!!  How cool is that?  I had been hoarding this photo of Emily for just the right papers and mojo and here's what I created.

I can't wait for my designer box to arrive.  From the rumors I'm hearing it is going to be a bright and beautiful kit, chock full of goodies fresh from CHA!!

I also just finished this layout.  I started with the Sunday Sketch from Studio Calico, but veered from it slightly to fit my needs. The thing I love about sketches is you have a great starting point that let's you focus on the rest of the design and elements.  I tend to look at a sketch and then choose photos to fit. Choosing what photos to scrapbook and designing the layout mechanics are what take the longest.  I'm quite the paper pusher when I'm designing, so eliminating that those first steps helps me get more pages done.

The sun is shinning here again today. What a lovely sight!!  Hopefully more snow will melt to make walking the dog a little less treacherous.

The wintery mix... Ice Skating, Polar bears and more snow

I feel like it's been all things winter this weekend.

For her birthday, Emily invited her friends to go ice skating and then home for pizza and a sleep over.  Emily loves ice skating and we discovered that Friday nights are the best time to hit the rink closest to us.  It is such a tough place to photograph though.  The girls went zipping by looking very serious so I had to force them to pose for me.  They really had a fun time though and it certainly wore them out.  They were asleep by an astounding 12am.  I'll have to remember that for the next sleepover. ;)

Saturday afternoon Richard participated in the Polar Bear Plunge for the Special Olympics. Although I'm sure when he volunteered he didn't think it would be 35 degrees with so much ice on the lake the firemen would have to break up the ice for them to have water to plunge into.  He braved the cold with some of his co-workers who were dressed in a Las Vegas theme.  He and another lady were the show girls, along with cards and a dealer.  It was too funny to see these crazy, big hearted people jumping in that frozen lake!

It's been snowing off and on all weekend.  You'd think I'd be longing to scrapbook with some warmer themed photos, but I created this one based upon the Studio Calico Sunday Sketch.  I took one look at the sketch and knew I wanted to create snow flakes with mist on my version.

Tonight we celebrated Emily's birthday and Valentine's Day at Macaroni Grill.  We all love Italian food so it's our go to restaurant for any special occasion. 

The kids are out of school tomorrow for President's Day.  With snow days and holidays it seems like they've been out of school more than they've been in this month, but I won't complain. :)

Eleven years ago...

This beautiful little angel came screaming into our lives. We knew she'd have a mind of her own when we heard her arrive.  We both looked at each other and said, "Oh, my."

And then six months later, to prove to everyone in the world she was indeed an angel. I did this to my poor baby. Can you see it on her face, Mom why am I here like this?

And the sweetness continued. Would you look at those cheeks!! I think she's almost 2 here.

Then she went off to school and has never looked back. Always so grown up.  Always keeping up with her big brother.  She has been and will always be our little sunshine. 

Now, she really doesn't like having her photo taken, but I keep trying.  How can I not want to photograph my beautiful girl?

Happy 11th Birthday Em! We love you so much and are so blessed you came screaming into our lives eleven years ago.

From chilled out to busy...

So the last few days have been fairly relaxed. We had two days off for snow and then yesterday I just needed to play catch up with grocery shopping, etc.  Tomorrow is our sweet Emily's 11th birthday! So lots to do today to get ready for her celebration.

I can't believe our baby is going to be eleven.  It's quite a milestone to get past being able to see your life on your 10 little fingers. I'm sure she wouldn't believe it, but I remember this well.

I have this layout to share today.  The challenge this week at Studio Calico was to use ruffles.  How fun I thought!!  So I decided to make box pleats with the paper bags the kits come in.  Loved playing with some of the goodies that came in the Baker's Dozen kit that arrived just yesterday! 

The only thing is, I had one of those moments with this morning, where I questioned the pink. In the daylight I thought it was a little bright, so I decided to go back and mist it as you see above.  I couldn't lift the pink matte because the rub one was already on.   Now I'm not so sure.

Here's the layout before. What do you think? 

Obviously, I can't go back now but should I have just left it alone? I would love your comments so I can either stop myself next time or trust my instincts.

Too Cold Tuesday

No school again today.  The roads are just too icy and it's down right frigid.  (The snow that fell yesterday was not accumulating on the streets, it was just really wet. Add 5 degree temps and now they are iced over.)

I had a busy day ahead of me today with bible study and a meeting, but now I get to stay in my cozy flannel pajamas till noon!

Emily convinced me to drive her to purchase a toy snowboard last night. I so wouldn't have done it if her birthday wasn't on Friday.  She's waiting until the warmest part of the day to try it out. Not too sure it's going to work. It seems too heavy.  We'll see.

And just so it's not a post sans photo, here's a different angle on our snow people. Once I went inside to start dinner, Emily added the words at the bottom. Sweet!

Oh, Happy Monday!

Okay so if you've been here before you know I'm not a huge fan of Monday's but today's been pretty good. Here's a list of things making me happy!

1.  Woo hoo!! Still on a Saints won the Super Bowl high!!What a game, season and such a time of celebration for my peeps in Louisiana.  With Mardi Gras right around the corner, I'm sure it's just totally jubilation!!!

2.  Another snow day!!  Richard woke me at 6am to tell me school was canceled and we all slept in!  I love watching the snow fall.

This photo is actually from Friday. It's not as grey today.

3.  Before the big game on Sunday, Emily and I built these snow people.  Aren't they just the cutest?

4. During the game I prepared an awesome pot of Turkey and Sausage Gumbo.  Can't wait to eat it for leftovers tonight. Which means I don't have to cook tonight and while I love cooking, it's nice to have the night off. :)

5.  This layout.  I finally got sometime to use the sketch of the week at Studio Calico.  This is making me very happy.

6. It's early afternoon and I've already vaccumed, did yoga and finished washing the laundry.  Still have to fold it all, but that can wait.

7. The kids are outside sledding.  So fun!

The funk lifts on Friday

So I haven't blogged this week because I've been in an extremely tired, totally unmotivated funk.  I feel like the fog it's finally lifting.  Thought it would be pretty lame to post each day...

"I'm tired."

This morning, after a wonderful cup of Caramel Chocolate Chai Enchantment tea, straight from the Celestial Seasoning factory (thanks Felicia!), I was feeling better.  Then I did some yoga and really started to feel more like the happy human I usually am. :)

It snowed all day today. The kids got out of school early and I had fresh baked chocolate chip cookies waiting.  Lucky kids!

Fresh falling snow is a beautiful sight, if you try not to think about the black soot that will be all over your car for the next week. I went outside and took a few shots, then my camera battery died and I can't seem to find my extra.  I think I lost it on vacation.

Later this afternoon, I finally finished this layout that has been on my studio table since last weekend.  You'd think it was some complex page to take that long, but in addition to my funk, I've been kind of busy with commitments to various projects.  To make matters even worse it's actually based upon a sketch from Donna Jannuzzi at Ella Publishing.  So, I didn't have to give a great deal of thought to the placement of photos. I just followed the sketch. Crazy!! By the way, it's not crooked IRL it's just the way I had to "stitch" it together.

Anyway, so happy to have yet another Christmas layout complete and I've already cleaned my table to create something new! Yippee!

It's all good.

Isn't great when all is going right in your little part of the world? Here's a few things that are making me happy:

Miles is eating!!  It was absolutely the right thing to do to go back to the orthodontist and beg for them to do something.  They removed the bottom four brackets so he can chew again. Now what this does to his time with braces, I don't really care. I just needed for him to eat!

We had a great weekend. The kids both had their first basketball games. (Making me realize I have lots of basketball still to scrap from last year!!) Other than that, nothing exciting just one of those weekends we just chilled. Didn't get as much scrapbook done as I hoped, but oh well.

I found out on Sunday I was selected as a finalist for the Scrapbook Nook Design Team. Very honored to be chosen.  We'll see what happens, but I was super thrilled to be in such talented company with the other finalists.

I finished this layout on Friday.  I love that I resurrected these old CK foam stamps.  I used my Maya Mist sprayed on a craft mat as ink. It worked like a charm.  I think I'll have to do this again.

 

Well, since it's Monday I'm off to the health club.  I'd like to be there on time today. :)  Gotta go!