Cold and Tired Friday

Today's challenge at SCS was to make a card that is clean and simple. It is easy to do, but hard to say you are finished. The urge to add ribbon to my card, or dew drops, or pop up the quote is strong and hard to resist. Never the less, here is my offering. I used the paertrey Ink det, Out on a Limb.

And yesterday the challenge was to ue alcohol inks. I broke out the Ranger ink and the StazOn and made a bunch of decorated dominoes. Now I have to decide whether to add necklace bails, or make them into pins or magnets. I love how colorful they are. I used a variety of Stampin Up sets that I have carefully collected through the years.

We had another two hour delay to school today. Scott let me sleep in a bit late and he drove the first batch of car pool kids to the Middle/Intermediate School. God love him.

I recently scored some cake from my friend Nana. You know that favorite neighbor kid you had growing up? Where the parents were nice, the cooking was better than your mom's and you always wanted to play at their house? Everything was just better at your friends' house? That's Nana, she is the keeper of the cool kids' house. She cooks, she bakes, she's sweet, she's the mom of your BFF. She saves a piece of cake or lasagna because she knows you love it. Nana is the best. I recently scored a few pieces of nana cake for my family and it was so good I nearly licked the plate clean. I am so glad Nana likes me, she is the best.

We will be going out of town for a baby shower tomorrow and I hope the weather holds for our day trip. For right now I am home about to snuggle in and have some tea.

Hell

This is one of those days that I dread. School was cancelled. Thankfully I didn't have any big plans for the day, because once the kids are underfoot, any plans for the day go right out the door. The kids woke up as early as usual and were immediately bored upon hearing there would be no school. The roads are covered and Noah especially wants to go to the park to go sledding. Uh, Dude, the roads are barely passable and the park is definitely a last resort as far as snow plows go so I doubt we could even get in. Let's just go check, he says.

A neighbor girl came to play, casually tossing her snow covered boots around the front door. She lasted about five minutes before she headed back out. Then she came back to entice Noah to go out for a snowball fight. I bet he wasn't out there for more than 30 seconds before he came in as mad as a hornet because a neighbor kid had tossed him face first into the snow. Seth is working quietly on transforming a cardboard box into a throne for his beloved penguin, Mumbles.

I layed a towel by the front door so whomever comes in and out can place their snowy boots there to melt. Right now no one is here, but I expect to have a house full of kids before lunchtime again. I am working on all the laundry I could find, which looks like about 4 loads and I have already done dish and trash and dog duty.

Thank Goodness for insomnia. I couldn't sleep last night so I got up and the challenge for the day was already posted so made a card early this morning. The paper is from Making Memories and the Motorbike Riley is from Hanna Stamps, of course.

Christmas Revisited

I didn't feel like playing in the Challenge on SplitCoast today and don't have anything new to post. Showing you pictures of the not yet cooked chuck roast in the crock pot didn't feel all that appetizing so I thought I'd post a never before seen in the blogosphere photo from Christmas.

In the days leading up to Christmas Seth wrote a note to Santa Claus that he left under the tree. He asked Santa to prove that he was real by taking a photo on our camera of Rudolph and Clarice. (Clarice is Rudolph's girlfriend if you don't know your North Pole trivia.) Scott took a photo of the outside of our home and used photo shop to make Rudolph and Clarice happen.

The Clarice in the photo is from Build A Bear and lives in Seth's room. On Christmas morning Seth found both the photo on the camera and the printed photo under the tree. Seth had apparently intended to get a photo of the real Clarice, but realized that his stuffed animal Clarice had been used because "Duh...Clarice doesn't deliver Christmas presents." he was satisfied.

I was more than happy with the effort Scott put forth to give Seth a very happy memory. Dads are so cool.

Today finds me wasting time cleaning and picking up. The kids will just get it all out again, but still, I try. Oh how I try.

Ahhhh, Vacation

I should really think twice before I try to combine challenges. last friday the SCS Challenge was to use the color black as a background color and the hanna Stamps challenge was to create a beach themed card. I made a snow globe so I could dream about warm weather vacation spots. Snow globes don't have to have snow in them after all, they can have sand.

I am thinking about creating a menu plan for my family and a rotation of meals that most family members will eat most of the time. I still seem to strike out on anything that everyone enjoys, there is always one whiner. Actually I disallowed whining years ago. You don't have to eat it, but you can't complain about it. Just sit at the table and make conversation and maybe nibble on the bread or make yourself a sandwich. I don't care, I just don't want to hear it. Mealtimes are more enjoyable, but still I always feel at a loss about what to cook. Maybe if I can just look at the schedule and say "Oh, crock pot chicken night" that will take the worry out of it for me. Of course, chili night in June won't be great for anyone, so I'll have to rotate it seasonally a bit.

Crafty

Stampotique has the cutest line of goth looking people, the one above is called Crafty. I love these images and want them all. Unfortunately the closest store to me that sells them is about an hour and a half away. Maybe that is good for my wallet, though. The challenge today was to take patterned paper and add some bling to it. I doodled on the circles in the large background papaer and added stickles to the yellow paper. It was sort of a "bling out your paper day."

Yesterday's challenge was to use the sketch provided and I used Travel Hanna on my card. Hanna Stamps is having a sale till the end of January, just use the code word SUPPORT and get 10% off your order. Everyone loves a sale, eh?

I pawned off the rest of the vegetable soup on an unsuspecting neighbor family. Even I did not want to see them on my table a third time. Who says I can't make leftovers disappear?

It is finally above freezing today so I got the car washed and the oil changed and I left the house to run some errands. I am going to sit and knit for a while before I have to go drive car pool.

Leftovers

It has been cold enough that I have not really wanted to leave the house, so I am using


the abundance that we have on hand to feed my family. As a mom I make every effort to supply vegetables to the family at dinner time. I don't know why, as I am the only one who eats them. Scott will occasionally eat a vegetable, but it always seems to me that he does it against his wishes. I save all the vegetables in the freezer and make vegetable soup every once in a while. Last night was soup night. I put all the veggies in the crock pot with some browned beef chunks and tomato juice. It tastes pretty good for leftovers, and if you like soup, you will love my leftover vegetable soup.

I have a great recipe for bread, too. It is good to have the ingredients on hand so you can always whip up a loaf when you need to add something to your meal to make it feel more like a meal. here is the recipe:

3 cups Self Rising Flour

3 Tablespoons Sugar

1 12 ounce can of beer

Yep, that is it. Mix it together and toss it in a loaf pan and cook it till it looks done. It will look lumpy when you put it in the pan, but don't worry. I started keeping cans of cheap beer on hand just so I can amke a loaf of bread when I want. It is similar to Tastefully Simple's Beer Batter Bread at about one tenth of their cost of their over priced loaf.

There isn't much going on with paper crafts at the moment, the kids have been home a couple of extra days from school due to the cold and I have been playing with them. They are at school today, but I am busy with Inaguration festivities (I can't move away from the TV.) The best Obama line from the inaugural speech went something like this " We will extend our hands if you will unclench your fist." Amen, brother. It is so good to have an orator in office, instead of the last guy who spoke English as if it were not his first language, and was always grasping for correct words.

Simple Day

I made this for the challenge on Splitcoast today, make a card as simple as possible for Valentines Day. The idea was to make it posible to replicate the card 20-30 times for a classroom full of kids and to use only the colors Kraft, Black, Brown, and Red. I tried not to add too many embellishments so it would really be do able, and I love it. very simple, yet pretty.

Schools were closed around here today. I really don't get it. I pay great big taxes and expect that the schools can afford to be heated. We are not the rural community we once were, so I really don't envision a bunch of farm kids waiting for bus stops by themselves in the freezing cold. For the most part the buses are fairly new, in good condition and run on time. I really don't want a four day weekend with the kids when it is too cold to send them out to play. School is closed due to the cold weather? I truly just don't understand it.

I delivered a meal to a friend who is having surgery this afternoon and the roads were fine. I even had enough casserole left to feed a neighbor family. I am working on laundry, have made some beds and played with the pets. I don't think the kids will snuggle in for a nap with me (HA!) so I need to go find my next challenge for the day.