So...boring...

I’ve noticed that my blogs have late (while sporadic) have been about the same things. A new craft I made, a box I’ve decorated (which, I guess, runs under the craft things), a new recipe I’ve tried, or a new decorating thing I’ve done. I think what I’m trying to say is, this has probably gotten a little boring to read of late. But sadly, nothing is really going on in my life to warrant entries. My time is full of doing…nothing of note. I mean, there are soccer games on the weekends, work during the week, and the occasional scouts meeting, dentist visit, etc. So it’s not that I’m neglecting telling you, my faithful handful of readers, anything, it’s that I just don’t have anything to tell you! That’s pretty sad. Maybe not sad, but…I can’t think of another word for it. Sometimes things seem so busy, but then when I recap it in my head, there’s not a lot that’s happened. Oh well.
Recently, and I’m sure I’ve said this before, my brother and his wife moved into my neighborhood, so I see them a lot more than I did. (Before they moved in, I saw them maybe once a month, and now its weekly, sometimes twice a week) So last night, I was on the way out, to go get some froyo, and my brother and Zeke (whom I have spoken of here before) stopped by. We all chatted for a bit, and then Zeke decided that doing my hair would really be the best thing to do. So he gets behind me, and works with my hair for a while, pulling it, twisting it, etc. And with every movement he’d do, he’d ask if I felt it. Of course I did! If I couldn’t feel it, I feel like something would be wrong with me. So after a while of attempting to do it, he just gave up and then he decided that maybe it was time to go home, but not before his dad got this picture of us.

He snapped the pic, and then Zeke got off, well, fell off the counter, hitting his head on the way down. (He’s 5, BTW, turned 5 this past weekend.) He got up, dusted himself off, and said goodbye. I was glad he didn’t cry or anything, just got up like it was no thing. Ha.

That’s about it of late…and hopefully as the summer goes on, I’ll have more things to share.

Someday, I'll eat again

I hate the dentist. Hate, hate, hate. I try not to. Growing up, I always had bad dentists that were total douches, and were mean, and I was always in pain. So I never went to the dentist, and my parents never made me, so I successfully avoided the dentist for a number of years. Of course, now I’m paying for it with all of my dental work that I have to get done. But, the end is in sight. I’m nearing the end…is what I thought. I spoke before of the bone graft I had done back in March, which was painful enough. But now, I’ve mostly healed, and my implant surgery is now on the calendar (July 11, in case anyone wondered) and I figured that I would be totally finished.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a minor toothache in a tooth on the opposite side of my mouth than the bone graft. I figured I had just been overworking it, since I can only chew on that side. So I let it go and go until finally, I called my dentist and went in. On a side note, I love my dentist. I hate going, but this guy is a good guy who really helps me out, so that’s a plus side at least. Anyway, so when I went in, I had a checkup/cleaning, and they found the culprit, I have a fracture in my tooth. So, my dentist suggested this experimental procedure (that he’s only done on 1 person before!) and I said ok. I mean, it was either that or lose the tooth, and I’ll not do that. So I had this done, and was told not to eat on that side of my mouth, lest I mess up any of the work that they just did. So…now I can’t eat on that side, and I can’t eat on the other side, (having had the bone graft/I have no teeth over there right now) so…eating is a problem. Now that it’s about a week later, I am sick of eating things that have no substance. I am hungry all the time, because when all you eat is applesauce, soup, pudding, and yogurt (with the occasional ice cream/shake, froyo), it doesn’t really fill you up and you’re hungry again about an hour later. I’ve not had any meat since the Wednesday before my surgery, and I miss it. Yesterday, Husband came home from Tucano’s, and I could smell the barbecue-ness on him, and I thought, holy cow. I must be so crazy wanting meat that I can smell a little bit of meat on someone else’s clothes.

But it gets better. My stitches came out on Monday, and even though there is still a hole in my mouth (it didn’t really stitch up before they fell out, sheesh), I feel good about it healing. They told me I can start eating on that side once it stops hurting, yay! But sadly, there is still pain. It’s not as constant as it was, but when I touch the tooth, there is pain. I am definitely feeling confident that in less than a week, I will be eating solid foods again. And when I can, I’m eating nachos. And a burger. Some ribs. BREAD, I miss bread. Cookies. Basically anything. I can’t wait for this to happen.

New Photo Box

With the recent joining of my card club, I have an influx of cards. Of course, it only happens every other month, but that just means that instead of getting 3 cards a month, I’m getting 3 cards a month plus 10 cards every other month. I definitely needed some more storage room for these. So, naturally, I made another card box. This one was pretty simple, it’s just holding the “thought of you”-type cards. So I have plenty of those, and they all fit in here pretty well. And now, in all it’s glory:

Looking pretty good, right? I’m not in love with the letters that I used to spell out “Cards” but not every box can be a winner? But I’m pleased with the end result, and it holds the cards, which is really all I’m expecting from it.

HoHo Kebas

For scouts this week, they boys were earning their Fitness badge. So for our lesson, we learned about food, healthy ones versus bad ones, the food pyramid (which is now a plate!) and things of this nature. Now, of course, I worked on my lesson all week, and had to bring along a treat for the boys, since when I teach, I like to bring treats. I wanted something healthy, but kids don’t always like only healthy things, so I found this on Pinterest (where else!) and decided it was perfect.

You start with some fruit – strawberries, pineapples, and bananas.

Add some HoHo’s, and you’ve got yourself the fixings for a HoHo kebab! It’s literally as easy as it sounds. Cut the tops off the strawberries, cut your pineapples into chunks (its better to cut your own pineapples. The pre-cut ones in the cans aren’t big enough for this), and cut your bananas into pretty big chunks as well. Cut the HoHo into half, and then string them all onto the sticks, in any order that you want. Here’s one of mine:

I should have taken more pictures, probably, but I was in the biggest hurry of my life to get these made and get to scouts on time, so didn’t. But they were really delicious, and I totally recommend these to everyone, and they’re relatively healthy, which was nice. Plus, the scouts loved it, which is always a good sign!

Colossal Reese's Pieces Chocolate Chip Cookies

I found a recipe on Pinterest the other day for some cookies, and they looked so delicious, I thought, I have to make these. So on Saturday, I got the ingredients for it, and set out to make them yesterday. These would Colossal Reese’s Pieces Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Sounds impressive, right? And they look it, in the picture with the recipe. I started making them, and they were looking really good. Then, I added all of the dry ingredients, and the chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, and Reese’s Pieces, and all of a sudden, my dough was no longer dough, it was all crumbles! See!

So I went to work mashing the dough together, trying to make some semblance of dough. It took forever, and I had a ton of dough under my finger nails, but at least they were sticking together…sorta. They were all in balls, but if you touched them, they sort of fell apart. But this is as good as I could get them.

They baked in the oven, and I thought they looked pretty good, but they were nowhere near as colossal as I thought they’d be. I guess I just didn’t make the balls as big as I could have, but they seemed as big as I could get them without them falling apart completely.

I had one a few minutes after I took it out of the oven, and it was pretty good, so at least that worked out right. They’re very peanut-buttery, which I always love in a cookie. And in case you want the recipe for yourselves, here you go, and I wish you more luck than I had.

Colossal Reese’s Pieces Chocolate Chip Cookies
3 ¾ cups flour
1 ½ tsp baking soda
¾ tsp salt
½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup light brown sugar
¾ cup sugar
2 eggs
4 tsp vanilla extract
1 ½ cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup peanut butter chips
1 cup Reese’s Pieces

Preheat oven to 350. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper (it actually took me 3 sheets, so…take note), set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt, set aside. With an electric mixer on medium speed, cream together the butter, peanut butter, and both sugars until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the eggs and vanilla and beat until combined. Reduce the mixer speed to low, and gradually add the flour, mixing until it has almost all been incorporated. Add the chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, and Reese’s Pieces and mix briefly (about 20 seconds) to ensure that they are evenly distributed. Roll a ¼ cup of dough into a ball and place on a baking sheet. Repeat with the rest of the dough, you should end up with about 18 cookies. With your fingers, press down on the balls of dough to flatten into disks. Bake the cookies for 12-15 minutes, just until the edges of the cookies are brown. Remove from oven; cool.

See, easy peasy. Does my failure to make this into dough mean I’ll never make these again? No, but I’ll probably add more liquids this time around, or less flour, or something. Maybe I’m just not as good a baker as I think I am and no recipe will ever work out for me exactly as I think it will. Oh that’s a sad thought. Lets not think about that. Onto the next baking project!

Nails, nails everywhere

I got to work yesterday, on Friday, and after I’d been there for a few minutes, a coworker came to tell me that I had a flat tire. What the?! I said, and went out there to look. Yup, there it was, a flat, on my passenger front side. I couldn’t believe it! The guys at work said they’d help me put the spare on there, so I could go to my local Big O and get them to fix it. Of course, it rained cats and dogs all day, so they couldn’t help me out. Luckily, one of the maintenance guys had an air compressor, so we filled the tire, and I drove to Big O, praying the air would hold.

I got there ok, and one of the guys looked at my tire, and found a nail in it! Curse you, construction! You’re ruining my tires! Luckily, it was in a spot where they could just patch it up and fix it, and not replace the whole thing. I also had them change my oil and rotate my tires, since I was there anyway. I was there for a long time, though. I read all their magazines, watched their TV channel of great commercials, and played all the games on my phone. I was psyched when I finally got to get out of there. When I got into my car, I saw this:

Ha ha I loved it! I usually just have the computer print-out, telling me when to come back, but with this handwritten note with the little thank you on it? Just made my day, and I was glad that I came to this Big O to begin with.

And now I’m fixed, and all the tires are full, and the oil is good. I’m ready to keep going…until August, when I need to go back for my next oil change. Drive on!

Foto Friday

Here’s today’s:

I found these chips in a gas station yesterday. I couldn’t fathom how they even made these, let alone what they would taste like. So I tweeted out this picture, and I got a tweet reply from my father, saying he was going to go buy these, and see what they tasted like. He brought them to the office today, so I could taste them.

THEY WERE AWFUL. Seriously, they tasted so bad! I don’t recommend them. Stay away.

Scout Oath and Law

I’m finally getting into the groove of things with my scouts. I’m understanding how badges work, what kinds of activities we need to have, and the things we should be teaching these kids. We’re trying to get a few of our boys their Webelos badge, and boy do they have to do –and memorize- a lot. I looked over the list, and decided that one of the things I could help them memorize were the scout oath and the scout law. So after some input from Chelle (Because I ask her literally every time I need help with anything in my calling/church related items) I made these.

This first one is the scout law – I wrote them all on 3x5 cards, and affixed them with Velcro. Then I pulled them off, and had the boys put them on in the right order. I gave them a mnemonic sentence to help them try to remember the order. The sentence was Tommy Let His Fish Carry Kids Over Chocolate Turtles By Collecting Rope. So, the scout law is (A Scout Is) Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean and Reverent. I think it helped them, but I’ll make them play the game until they have it down pat.

The second one is the Oath, which reads as:

On my honor, I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.

So I wrote this down on a poster board,

and then Chelle helped me cut this board into puzzle pieces (which I should have taken a picture of, but didn’t!) and I numbered the backs (just in case). Then after cutting it, we put it back together to make sure the boys could do it. Sadly, we didn’t get a chance to do it at scouts, but we will next week, and I’m looking forward to them doing it. Hopefully they can put it together, and quickly!

Wall Hangs

Pinterest is freaking amazing. I’ve talked about it before, and I’ll likely talk about it and use it again. I found this on there, and decided to make one myself.

It’s pretty self-explanatory, but I’m not sure if you can read all the little lines under the numbers. The numbers are Husbands birthday, my birthday, the day we met, and it ends with our wedding day. The final words at the bottom say “What a difference a day makes” and I really liked it, so I took it. On Pinterest, instead of the day this person met, it had their children’s birthdays, but since I don’t have these, I had to improvise. I put these on a wall with a few other printouts from Pinterest, and I really liked how it turned out.

I tell ya, I’m getting more and more into decorating my home. Pinterest is both a curse and a blessing in this regard. I can’t wait for more ideas!

Craft Earring Holder

I have been getting into jewelry lately, but I’ve talked about it before, so you know. After I hosted my party a couple of weeks ago, my jewelry that I ordered from it (and got most of it for free – seriously people, host a party) arrived! I unwrapped all my boxes, and looked at all of my new things. I love them. Of course, after they arrived, I realized, I don’t have places for this stuff to be! I already had my necklaces on hooks, but I got more necklaces, which meant more hooks. Luckily, I just had a thing I bought at Target for those, so I bought another. I needed something for my earrings, but I couldn’t decide. I had some ideas, and finally (stealing an idea from Chelle), Saturday, I bought all the things I needed.


First, I bought this plain frame:

And this chicken wire:

And I got to work on Sunday. I painted the frame:

Husband helped me cut the chicken wire to fit it:

We stapled it onto there:

And then, I put all of my hooky earrings onto it, just looped them right into the wire. For my smaller earrings, ones that need the backs to keep them into my ears, I wove some ribbon through the wire, and pierced the earrings onto the ribbon. And behold, the final project:

I'm pretty pleased with it, actually. I like it, and put it up on my wall next to my necklaces. I couldn’t believe how easy this was – and I look forward to making improvements to it as I think of them.

Mother's Day

Happy Mothers Day, everyone! For this auspicious occasion, I went up to visit my amazing mama, to give her a gift and say hello, that sort of thing. We were all hanging out, and I wanted to see if I could put this tiny hat on the bird. I couldn’t. She didn’t care for it, she didn’t like it, and she didn’t want anything to do with it. So instead, I changed my mind and put it on Troop. It was hard, because while she’s not a quick dog, or anything, she just doesn’t like to do what I want. So mama and I worked together for quite some time to get this picture:

And it’s not even very good! But it still makes me giggle, because that hat is so small. I wish the dang bird had just been cool with things and let me put the hat on her head. Maybe someday…

Photo Booth

I blogged a few weeks ago about going to my ward carnival, and all the awesome activities therein. We did the photo booth, and I’ve been waiting so much for the pictures to come back to me. Waiting…waiting…waiting. Finally, last night, I was opening my email, and lo! There they were I was excited for it to come, and because they had taken so many, I was excited for the possibility of lots of pictures. So I’m looking and…they had only sent three! What the junk! And of course, the only picture of Husband and me that they sent, I have a dumb look on my face. We raided the props bin that they had, thinking we could take some good pics with them. I think they worked out for us.


So here for you to enjoy, the pics of us.

See, look how dumb my face is!

I told Husband to put on this tutu, and I wish the wings had been more visible.

I think I look so smashing in this hat.

Cute, right? I wish they had sent more to us, or at least ones where my face didn’t look so dumb. Oh, well, there’s always next time!

A recap of my not-so-busy busy week

Holy cow you guys. This last week has been insanified. I originally was going to blog about everything on the day after, but that just didn’t work in my favor, plus I didn’t really have a lot of things to say about my crazy week, plus I didn’t take any photos to document any of these events. And while to some people, it might not seem that crazy, to me, it definitely was. So here’s a mini-recap.

Monday night, I went to a play for my sweet Sister in Law, Bonanza. She was the Baby Kangaroo in Suessical the Musical (Jr). It was a lot of fun, holy cow. It made me want to see the real play, the whole enchilada. So now I’ll be keeping my eye out in case it happens to come here to UT. Of course, after the play was over, we cheered and screamed her name and made it known that we were there for her. I love doing that to kids/teens, because they both love it and are embarrassed by it. And if there’s one thing I love to do, it’s embarrass people.

Tuesday night I had my Scout Pack Meeting, and I said goodbye to 3 of my favorite scouts, they were turning 11 and therefore, moving on another scout group. We had a little ceremony, handed out their last patches, (is that what they’re called? My only scouting knowledge comes from the movie Troop Beverly Hills) and gave them all a round of applause. After wards I skipped the refreshments (which were bags of fruit snacks) and went home and just ate some ice cream. Delish!

Wednesday was my fiesta. For those that don’t know, my good friend, Chelle, is now a Park Lane director. She’s selling Park Lane jewelry, and it is all fab stuff. I had been to a couple of parties thrown by her, and bought some stuff, but this was a party that I hosted. So I invited a load of people over, and Chelle gave her presentation, and it was great. We all had treats, some ordered jewelry, and the night was over. It was so much fun, I hope everyone else enjoyed as much as I did.

Thursday night was my only free night! So what did I do? Oh, I put on my PJ’s as soon as I got home, and just vegged out in front of the TV. It was awesome. A top night.

So there it is, my busy-for-me week. I both hated and loved being that busy. I do love being busy, but boy do I hate not being able to relax and just chill. Hopefully I’ll get some of that this week to come!