You know you’re getting old when…

by Natasha on January 1, 2013 in Uncategorized

…you go to CVS on New Year’s Eve and buy a cardboard rocketship for your kids to play with because you’re totally gonna be completely hungover the next morning & this type of entertainment might just save your life. You & your husband are gonna rock it like your 20 year old irresponsible selves used to. Yes, you may be stuck at home because finding a babysitting on New Year’s Eve is harder than getting a poo stain out of a white onesie but that’s ok, you’ve got some bubbly, some amazing munchies & the minute that melatonin kicks in & those little limp bodies are tucked in their beds that livingroom is gonna be hotter than times square. Aww yeahhh…

But then you pop that bottle of bubbly open a little early, like 7:45 early & you know what happens next…it’s 9:30pm & the post buzzed tiredness has kicked in & somehow you’re both completely down to having a mock countdown, toasting, giving a quick peck on the lips & being in bed by 10. Yup, you’re getting old. Or moreso, you know you have young kids…

The girls did go to space this morning anyway. I told them to go put on their ‘space girl suits’ to buy daddy some time while he was assembling 28,542 different pieces of cardboard. This is what they came back in, boy has space travel changed since I was a kid…

(Discovery kids shuttle from CVS for $19.99, it’s also here on Amazon, Discovery Kids 5 Ft Color Me Rocket Ship, for $48! I have no idea why the difference in price)

P asked me last night what my resolutions were and I couldn’t believe it, I hadn’t even given it a thought. You have to understand, I am a die-hard New Year’s resolution kind of girl. Clean slate, lots of goals & a hit the ground running kind of attitude. In 2010 I wrote that I wanted to “keep coming up with fun projects & helpful posts to break 1,000 followers“, then in 2011 I blogged that I wanted to be a better wife, mother & person but more importantly my goal was to “gain a basic understanding of html code”. Good to see I had my priorities straight. Finally last year I went bananas, I posted an entire list…

1)plan a date with my husband at least once a month

2)find physical activities with Sam that we can do together

3)get back to running

4)blog, blog, blog. I love Little Pink Monster & I want to nurture & grow her

As I read these old posts from New Year’s past I’m realizing something. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing that I don’ t have any resolutions this year. I mean, it’s great that I had goals & honestly I accomplished most of them but this year I just want to be. I want to enjoy my life one day at a time. I want to be a lump of clay & see how the year moulds me. If it turns out I run again, then great, I look forward to that day. Same thing with blogging here, would I love to get back in a groove of blogging 4-5 times a week regularly? Of course, that was awesome when things were cranking but here’s the thing, I just don’t know if that’s where I’m heading. Things have changed so much in the last 6 months & I’m still convinced it’s because it’s preparing me for something.

This year I’m not going to resolve to be what I think I should be, instead I’m going to resolve to be open. Open to wherever my life leads. I just have a feeling that God’s plan might just be a heck of a lot better than what I have had in mind. And believe you me, that kind of attitude does NOT come easily for me, I’m a planner & a doer. I have always believed that if you want something big it’s up to you to work hard & make it happen. Anything is possible with dedication. To sit back & just see where life leads goes against all of that driven babble crap. But that’s what being sick has taught me, life doesn’t care about your big plans & maybe that’s a good thing, even when we think we’re dreaming big we could be incredibly short-sighted & blinded by our idea of what should be happening in our world.

This could/should be an interesting year…I guess we’ll find out together. Happy New Year friend.

Facebook

Twitter

Google+

The Story of the Sad Sparkle-less Sheep

by Natasha on December 20, 2012 in tutorials

Today was Sam’s school play “The Missing Tarts”. It’s about a Queen who has lost her tarts and has to visit all of the different nursery rhymes to find them. Miss Samantha was cast as one of Little Bo Peep’s sheep. Unfortunately for Sam she did not look over her contract to see what the costume would entail…

At first she was just a bit unseasy that there was no pink & no glitter, but at least she was super cute & we had made a big fuss over her. Then however she saw what her sister was wearing…

Sophie was only attending the performance so she chose to wear her sparkly, furry, twirly & overall amazingly fabulous Santa dress. With sparkly tights & glitter gold shoes mind you. Sam began to cry “Whyyy is SHE so sparkly and I’M JUST A SHEEP!”

As you can see Sophie took no joy in the situation.

Lucky for the little sheep her teacher has a soft spot for girls that love the glitter & she found a sparkly snowflake for each of the little sheep to wear. Much to the joy of all who attended the Show Went On!

Here’s a little snipit of Sam’s big part, and yes, I may be a bit bias but I really do think the sheep stole the show.

On my Instagram last night (samstermommy) I posted a picture of myself stitching sheep ears. In case you ever find yourself in a situation where you’re needed to make a flock of sheep costumes & aren’t able to get to a fabric store because you’re hopped up on pain meds from your surgery the day before here’s what to do…

Take one fuzzy blanket & cut it into 6 pear-ish pillowcase shapes (one front & back for each of the three sheep), stitch along the top leaving an opening for the head & stitch down the sides leaving openings for the arms. Also cut a 3-4″ slit down the top back so their little heads can easily pop through. Take the easy way out & use iron on hem tape to hem all unfinished edges. Stitch some cute ribbon to the back so the slit opening can be tied shut once the costume is on. For the ears I made an elastic headband & then cut out the ‘ears’ from leftover blanket scraps. Sheep are one of those animals that nobody really knows what their ears look like when asked. I suggest googling it for inspiration, I sure had to. A little bit of hot glue to attach the ears & wah-lah, SHEEP!

Oh, I forgot the most important part! Wagging their tails behind them… I cut out two little tail shapes (once again, google it if you can’t get a sheep butt image in your head) stitched them right sides together, flipped it right side out & insert a pipe cleaner to make it stand up. I cut a small slit in the back of the costume & then stitched the end of the tail inside.

I don’t know what she was such a pill about, this is hands down cuter than any Santa dress any day! Shh, don’t tell Soph.

Facebook

Twitter

Google+

A bid of farewell to ye gallbladder & appendix

by Natasha on December 16, 2012 in Uncategorized

I don’t know why but I always think of organs as speaking in Olde English.

Ar, but thoust did not know her toil & troubles were caused by the speck of an organ in the brewing of ye young lasses’ belly.

Ok, an Old English pirate. Who might be drunk & have Scottish witch tendencies but whatever, ye gets me point.

With my health I had gotten to the point where it was time to have a general surgeon poke around & see if he could find the source of my abdominal pain laparoscopically. During our consultation however he noticed that I had yet to have a gallbladder functionality scan. So this past Friday off I went to be injected with radioactive dye & within an hour I was anxiously watching my little day-glo gallbladder on the screen. ::Pump Pump Glug Glug::: The little sucker was working it’s arse off but none of the dye seemed to be emptying into my bowels as it should. After about an hour & a half we called it quits because 1-my poor little gallbladder was looking like a sad hamster stuck in an eternal wheel & 2- the CCK hormone they gave me to make my gallbladder contract had brought on one of my attacks. The same attacks that had landed me in the hospital twice in the last last six months.

This meant of course that I FINALLY had a conclusive test! (Cue choir) It also meant surgery…

And you’ll never believe what they found when they were relieving lil’ miss gallbladder of her duties. My appendix was one foot out the door too! (I’m going for a record in how many analogies I can put in this post, I betcha it’s highly correlating to the number of pain meds I’ve requested today)

He said it was ‘Chronic Appendicitis’ & basically the appendix flares up just enough to cause mild to moderate pain & fevers without enlarging enough to be detected on a CTscan. Sneaky little buggers my organs are.

I came home from the hospital today & have spent the last few hours being on high alert as to Sophie Monster’s proximity to my healing stomach. Fast as lightning that one is.

I’m very cautiously optimistic that this may be a huge piece of my medical puzzle, but we’ll just have to wait and see…

Thank you so much for all of your prayers, well wishes & happy juju that’s been coming my way. You make me feel very loved.

Facebook

Twitter

Google+

The Land of Happiness, Joy & Maxed out Credit Cards

by Natasha on December 4, 2012 in Uncategorized

*I started this post one week ago. One week people! No, there are no crazy intriquisies, no complicated photo editing, I didn’t even include step by steps in my DIY for the dress, I went for the lazy blogger collage. It’s just been that kind of week people. Strep, sinus infections, exhaustion…and that was just the girls. My goal used to be to post 3 times a week, now it’s more like once a week that makes me feel good but sometimes you just have to take your goals and say SCREW IT.

In fact that’s going to be the title of my wildly popular self help seminar

“Achieving True Happiness by Taking Your Goals & Shoving ‘Em!”

So I give you, two weeks after the fact, our trip to Euphoria…aka Magic Kingdom.

First off, thank you guys so much for all your well wishes & personal stories last week. Someone commented about how lovely it was that I put it all out there in hopes that it will help others & then you guys put it all right back with your comments & those greatly help me. It’s like a circle of helpfulness. Lovely.

If you follow my facebook, instagram or twitter then you saw how I was scrambling to finish Sam’s Belle dress for our Thanksgiving Disney trip. I’m happy to inform you that I eventually finished the bottom half and she was not the inappropriate princess.

This was my first time sewing something by solely draping & pinning the fabric on a mannequin first. It made life much easier for constructing the bodice but the skirt still screwed me up multiple times.

The dress served it’s purpose well. Most importantly, of course, dancing lessons with Cinderella…

(Soph’s dress is Sam’s old knit DIY Cinderella dress from this post)

Also on the royal itinerary, photographs with Aurora & hugs from Rapunzel…

The carriages were all tied up for the day but luckily her majesty’s dress was comfortable enough for Daddy shoulder rides.

(Yes, yes, I know P is on his phone but you have to understand he has a rare condition where he has to receive life saving nutrients by being connected to his iphone constantly. It’s a condition people. Don’t judge.)

If you’re looking for a more in depth tutorial on making your own Belle dress this all knit one from Adrianna at Crafterhours is awesome. To make it poofy like mine just substitute some frou frou fabric for the skirt and/or add a crinoline underneath.

Otherwise here are a few more photos from our trip to Magic Kingdom & Epcot with Grandma & Grandpa, they’re just so sticky sweet I can’t stand to not share them.

(Hula hooping is one of those things that you assume, foolishly, that you can still do because c’mon, you were so good at it when you were young, until you try it out in front of a large crowd of people…then you wish you’d stop assuming so much.)

What you don’t see with pictures like the lovely one above…

She could tell how excited I was to take a picture of her with a giant pink sucker in that frilly Minnie Mouse dress & purposely kept giving me her back. Such a gem that one is.

The castle was truly magical. I’ve never seen it decorated for Christmas before, they had ice lights hanging off all the edges & it was lit in the most amazing glacier blue. I seriously couldn’t stop staring at it & found myself daydreaming I could live there…Disney really does bring out the little princess in all of us. Until you see how much a bottle water costs, that’ll snap you back into adult reality pretty darn quick.

And much like any good vacation with small children every good day must end with a meltdown. I think their little brains just end up short-circuiting with joy.

We’ll just choose to remember the smiles…(in case you’re curious all of our photos were taken with an iphone and edited with picmonkey.com)

Next up, I think tis’ time to break out the Christmas Crafting…

Facebook

Twitter

Google+

the high road of thanksgiving

by Natasha on November 29, 2012 in mommy blog

My Dr appointment did not go as I had hoped last week. Well, kind of…

I had hoped the MRI would show some definitive evidence that would support a concrete diagnosis. It didn’t. It didn’t show squat.

My rheumatologist & I sat down and reviewed everything that has happened over the last year & she thinks I have Fibromyalgia with some secondary Sjogren’s sypmtoms. But here’s the thing, like so much in my life her diagnosis is vague. I meet all the criteria for Fibro but that wouldn’t explain my fevers or a few other random symptoms. It seems like I have some Sjogren’s symptoms that come & go but they’re not vivid enough to be the main cause of my pain. This realization does seem to be a part of the puzzle so in theory I should feel some relief. But I don’t…at least not how I had expected.

I thought once I could put a name on what was making me sick I could then get some medication & make a game plan for feeling better or at least one for thriving with my new life living with ____. I’m starting to realize that’s not what I need.

There’s something bigger at work in my life & I know now that I won’t find resolution by getting a diagnosis. Something is changing within me besides my physical ailments. I see now that God is using my pain to mold me into something new. A new creature who depends on him. By breaking me down I believe he is teaching me that my own strength is not enough. I’m relearning to walk, and it’s to walk blindly holding His hand for guidance.

My daily devotionals this week have been about being thankful for all of the trials in your life…

Walk with Me along the high road of thanksgiving & you will find

all the delights I have made ready for you. To protect your thankfulness you must remember

that you reside in a fallen world where blessings & sorrows intermingle freely. A constant focus

on adversity defeats many. They walk through a day that is brimming with beauty

& brightness, seeing only the grayness of their thoughts. How precious are My children who

remember to thank me at all times. They can walk through the darkest of days with joy in their

hearts because they know the Light of My Presence is still shining on them.

-Jesus Calling App

I am in so much pain today. I want to do so much but instead I’m going to listen to what God is saying to me through my body & rest. Sometimes you just have to Be Still. If you’re like me than you’re constantly running in your brain. As you’re doing one task you’re planning out the next. When you’re driving to accomplish one errand you’re already thinking of what you’ll do after you complete it. Go, go, go. Do me a favor, sometime today just stop. Just be still & listen. Whether it’s 5 minutes in the closet while your kids are occupied or the silence of a bathroom stall at your office just BE STILL. Think of the Light & warmth in your life. Focus on the blessings. Be thankful.

Trust me, I know how wonderful it feels to ‘get’ this type of message & feel all warm & fuzzy in your thankfulness only to be completely distracted & sucked into a stressful situation 10 minutes later. It’s amazing how quickly we forget, how quickly I forget, but I’m still going to try, we have to start somewhere right?

I’m terrified to publish this post because I think I sound like a tutti frutti emotional nutcase, but then comes the neat part. I happened to be reading Momastery the other day & Glennon wrote about the book ‘Daring Greatly’ by Brene Brown. I took a chance, ordered it on Amazon & 2 days later was reading it for myself. I’ve only read the first chapter but my goodness, it was like getting hit with a mac truck of inspiration. She explores our fear of vulnerability & how by embracing vulnerable situations we can do great things. You have to get past the fear & try.

So this is me, and what I’m feeling, what I’m learning. I’m going to add thankfulness & courage to my list, I hope that by sharing it helps you think of a hard time in your life a bit differently today. Here’s to the warm fuzzies.

Facebook

Twitter

Google+

Blinged out party dress for a pity party for one

by Natasha on November 18, 2012 in mommy blog, tutorials

Actually no, it’s quite the opposite. I blinged out the dress instead of attending a pity party for one. So the title should have been “Blinged out Party Dress Acts as a Cancellation for Pity Party for One” But who the heck would’ve known what that meant, right?

I’ll explain more about the pity party details in a minute, I didn’t get the diagnosis I wanted at my Dr’s appointment but the good news is I’m working very hard on having patience & a healthy outlook on the situation. Before I get into that whole shenanigan though let me go ahead and share with you the project I did when I got home from the Dr’s. I wanted something sparkly to lift my spirits & while glue on crystals didn’t solve all my problems they certainly gave me something pretty to look at.

Pretty but plain Thanksgiving dress for Sam purchased at Target for $20:

Blinged out Little Pink Monster version:

The crystals change from peacock blue to emerald green & then a soft rose pink. Yeah, I know, pink is not the typical color to throw in that mix but her majesty would not have been happy if I hadn’t put in a bit of pink.

I used this Tulip Heat Setting Tool to apply the crystals & bought everything from JoAnn’s with a 40% off coupon on my iphone. LOVE that app. PS- I suggest using a little tool like some tweezers to hold the crystals in place while you set them with the heat tool so you don’t burn yourself. Learned that lesson pretty quick.

This was a fun little project, I’ll definitely iron on crystals to some other random clothing but maybe not ones that have as pronounced seams as this dress does, it was a big pain in the butt to balance the crystals while I waited for them to set.

Oh! I just have to show you Sophie Monster’s Thanksgiving dress right quick. It’s also from Target. It’s black velvet with the sweetest little tuxedo bib detail, Gwen Stefani’s Harajuku Mini of course, so cute, and $25! Mad Target love.

Ok, so here’s what’s going on with me personally…

For the last year you guys know I’ve been bouncing back & forth from healthy & picking up new activities like running to down & out sick as a dog. In the last year I’ve been to 3 primary care doctors, 3 infectious disease doctors, 1 endocrinologist, 1 urologist, 1 neurologist, 2 rheumatologists & even 1 psychiatrist. I’ve had MRI’s of my head, neck, abdomen & ankle. There have been x-rays, catscans & countless blood tests. I tell you all this not so you’ll feel bad for me but to give you an idea of what it’s really like to try and get a diagnosis when something is wrong with you that’s not as concrete as a strep test or broken bone. I sure didn’t know it would be like this.

Perhaps the biggest lesson I’ve learned throughout this experience is that medicine is grey, not black & white. Doctors have all the infallible qualities of humans, one of which being the capability of being wrong. They do not know everything & unfortunately many of them think they do. Some of the best advice I have ever read was “if you aren’t feeling well & a doctor tells you it’s just stress or just in your head then politely say, ‘thank you’, walk out of their office & find another doctor.”

The rheumatoligist I’m seeing now is AH-MAZING. I know this because at my last visit when she told me that my bloodwork still didn’t show any conclusive results I told her that my fear was that the lab tests were never going to show anything. My fear is that no one can tell me what is wrong with me & without a diagnosis there is no treatment, without treatment you probably won’t feel better. She looked at me and said “You deserve a diagnosis.” Having a doctor say that almost brought me to tears, it was a huge relief to say the least.

Here’s the short of what I do know…

My rheumatalogist believes that my Lyme test last year was a false positive. Yep, she thinks I never had Lyme.

They usually do two tests to confirm Lyme, the first is a standard blood screening & the second is called a Western Blot test. Both of mine have always been positive but that’s actually the red flag that perhaps it wasn’t Lyme. With true Lyme after you go through treatment your Western Blot results should change. Yes, in the initial screening you will always test positive for having the Lyme antibody however after treatment the second test should change to negative. Mine has never changed. My Dr. says she has treated countless patients with my exact situation, they thought they had Lyme but never got better. Turns out the antibodies your body makes for auto-immune diseases often show up as positive Lyme antibodies. If all that makes your headspin then here’s the nutshell, she thinks I have Rheumatoid Arthritis and/or Sjogren’s Syndrome. RA is a systemic disease that can affect all of your systems, this would explain why I have such random symptoms as continuous low grade fevers, fatigue, bi-lateral joint pain, morning stiffness, headaches & GI “issues”. Unfortunately 30% of RA patients tests negative for the RA factor, a test used to diagnose RA. My tests are negative.

The treatment for RA is not something you want to put your body through if you don’t have the disease so my understanding is that my doctor needs to build an overall case to make the conclusion that I have the disease in spite of the negative blood test. On Friday I had an MRI done on my left ankle to look for arthritic evidence. Remember when I fell & sprained my ankle last year? Well, I’ve done it twice since then & it just never seems to get better. We decided that would the best place to find some joint damage evidence. Since this upcoming week is Thanksgiving everyone is off & I won’t get the results until the following Monday. RA causes permanent joint damage so if all looks good & healthy on the MRI I’m not sure where that will leave me with getting a diagnosis but that’s where the attitude change comes in…

I know God is trying to teach me something great right now.

I don’t speak a lot about my faith on here which is a shame because it’s such a massive part of the way I lead my life. I think I’ve always been afraid of scaring off non-Christians so I kind of brush over the whole spiritual thing so as not to offend anyone. Also so many people try to smother others with their religious beliefs & I just can’t stand that so I’ve probably swung too far in the opposite direction of tip-toeing around & basically saying nothing. There’s also so many assumptions made about a person the minute they say they’re of one particular religion…but let’s not get into that now, just know things aren’t always what you assume.

Wow, that was a tangent. Where I was going with the God thing is that I know this is all for a reason. I just don’t know what that is yet. In the meantime I’m working on two things that apparently don’t come too easily for me, Faith & Patience. Faith that all things will happen when they are supposed to, faith to believe even though it doesn’t make sense in my little head & faith that it is all in my best interest if I can just hang in there. That’s where the patience comes in…

This is the part in the blog post where I’m babbling & it’s time to hit publish & go shove my mouth with the bagel bites which my nose is now telling me are starting to burn around the edges of those awkwarkdly square mini cubes o’ cheese. I’ll catch you on the flip side my peeps. Have a lovely Sunday.

Facebook

Twitter

Google+

DIY Candy Cane Play Dough

by Natasha on November 13, 2012 in tutorials

Please please tell me I just caught you scratching your computer monitor because that would totally make my day (:

You know, sometimes you just have to shirk all responsibilities and force yourself to do something fun. Don’t talk yourself out of it because you’ll have to wash the extra dishes afterwards or you really should be folding clothes instead. Just do it. And if it’s something fun you can do with your kids even better.

I got to that point recently, I’m still having flare-up symptoms of whatever random sickness I have, (say a little/massively big prayer for my visit with my new rheumatoligist this Thursday, she did some bloodwork that I somehow haven’t had done yet this past year & I find out the results on Thursday. At this point a diagnosis would be the best thing Santa could bring.) and I’ve been stuck in the rut of do I spend my precious free time resting, doing neglected housework (hellooo, we’re almost at a severe panty deficiency!) or blogging/crafting/fun for me activities. Even though I’m dead-dog tired I chose the latter because honestly it’s making me super bummed out to not be creating.

I have to say…I made the right choice. This Candy Cane Play Dough is a great activity to get you & your kids feeling all sorts of festive, the secret is the peppermint oil & glitter. The whole house smelled amazing!

You can find my original homemade play-dough instructions here, to make your dough “candy cane” simply add a few drops of peppermint oil to the dough while you’re kneading it. Then divide your dough in half & add a good bit of red food coloring to one half & silver glitter to the remaining white half. For a great gift idea you can twist the two together like The Artful Parent did below, so cute right?

img via Artful Parent

This recipe made enough dough for little gifts for a couple of the girl’s friends, a good amount for her school class to use & a nice tub for Sam & Sophie to keep at home. Oh and best idea ever, I put two little tubs in my purse for restaurant entertainment because nothing, NOTHING, is a better feeling than being able to whip something out of your purse that makes your kids squeal with joy & immediately get up off that dirty floor & oh yeah, make that old couple behind you stop shooting you nasty judgmental looks. Mom. Of. The. Year.

Facebook

Twitter

Google+

My kid eats Play-doh. (an all natural play dough recipe)

by Natasha on November 13, 2012 in tutorials

**This is a past post from my radio blog…I’m posting them on here now so you can find them in the archives!

My kid eats play-doh.

No matter how many times I tell her no she still sneaks a lick as soon as I turn my back. It wouldn’t be very fair to Sam if I banned all doh from the house & I can’t very well give it to one and not the other so I figured why not make an all-natural play-doh that if she does take a chomp out of it’ll just be flour, water & salt. (mostly)

Below is my recipe for play-doh (you can find 100’s online, I like this combination however), photos of our endeavor and some video evidence of Sophie Monster. Enjoy.

“Hey Soph, don’t eat the play-doh, ok?”

“Don’t be sad. Just don’t eat it.”

Two minutes later.

“Sophie no!”

“Noo, don’t pout little one. Just DON’T EAT THE DOUGH.”

Two more minutes, she waited until I was talking with Sam…

“SOPH!”

“C’mon babe.”

She’s like an addict who gets bummed when she falls off the wagon.

Homemade Play-Dough (feel free to cut this recipe in half for one child’s portions)

4 cu white flour
4 cu warm water
2 cu fine salt
2 tbs cream of tartar (optional but adds elasticity)
2 tbs vegetable oil
food coloring

Combine all ingredients in a pot and continously stir over medium low heat until dough is no longer sticky & has thickened generously. If you think it’s done but then find your dough to be sticky it’s not done. Keep stirring over low heat until you think you’re arm is going to fall off. This stuff is THICK. Let cool a bit and then scoop it onto your counter-top. Knead in a few drops of food coloring to each ‘ball’ until you get your desired shades.

Here’s a quick video showing you the consistency the dough should be when it’s done…

A few things to note…

Store finished dough in an airtight container and it should stay good for a week or two.

Although I tried an all natural food coloring (made from vegetable colorants) it really didn’t work well for this project. Even with a ton of dye the color vibrancy didn’t come to close to brightness the regular grocery store brand food dyes. Ah well. A for effort.

Facebook

Twitter

Google+

Kitty Condo

by Natasha on November 6, 2012 in tutorials

Bored children? UPS deliveries blocking your front door? Introducing at least one hour of entertainment…

KITTY CONDO!

Even if you don’t have a small animal to take advantage of your child’s mad architect skills there’s always Barbie…

I had two rectangle boxes that were the exact same size. One box seemed a bit small for Rose but two, two was a Meow McMansion.

I taped the boxes shut & then cut a hole out of the top of one box that was big enough for her to slip through & then a hole in the bottom of the other box in the same general area. Then I taped the heck out of the two boxes until they were one secure building. This way Rose could go from one story to the next. After that I let Sam loose with the paint but I have to say, next time we do this project we’re going to use markers. For who knows what reason she was obsessed with painting the inside of the box. (future interior designer perhaps?) The problem with this is it doesn’t dry very quickly on the inside, especially when kids are doing their typical ‘glob application’. We ended up with pink paint kitty paw prints across the floor. NOT awesome. But luckily very washable.

Just a quick little nugget from me to you because you know as well as I do that no matter how many amazing toys you have in your house you’re still gonna hear, “I’m borrred!“

Facebook

Twitter

Google+

Beginner’s Salmon: Lemon Butter & Thyme

by Natasha on November 4, 2012 in dinner 101

Everyone knows how good fish is for you but in reality a lot of my friends don’t cook it because they ‘don’t know how’. Come to think of it I was intimidated by the thought of cooking something that came with scales on it until I tried this salmon recipe of my mom’s. It’s a great way to get your feet wet. ((modest pun intended)) In fact, it’s so simple I almost went with the title “Can’t Screw it Up Salmon”.

Go to your seafood counter and if you don’t know how much to order just ask, they should be more than happy to help you. And if they aren’t than poopoo on them, they’re a jerk. The usual recommendation is 8 oz per person so for two small children & two adults I order 1.25 lbs. If scales creep you out big time no worries, just ask them to take the skin off. Here’s a tip however, if you leave the skin on then after your salmon is done you should be easily able to slide your spatula right between the meat & the skin. Skin stays in the pan & nobody ever sees it. If your butcher takes it off you might lose a bit more meat than if you had removed it after cooking.

Beginner’s Salmon: Lemon Butter & Thyme

1.25-1.5lb atlantic salmon
2-3tbs butter
Fresh or dried thyme
zest & juice of 1 lemon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly coat a glass baking dish with olive oil, place salmon in center. Season well with lemon juice (I like to always add my juice first otherwise you could ‘rinse’ off your seasonings if you add it at the end) salt, pepper, thyme, lemon zest & several pats of butter. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the salmon easily flakes apart when touched with a fork. Using the side of a spatula divide salmon into portions then slide the spatula between each filet & it’s skin for easy removal. Spoon pan juices over salmon after plated if desired.

For me this was an all oven meal & I love love love when that happens because a.) I hate scrubbing pots & pans & b.) I hate cleaning my cooktop. Basically anything to encourage avoidance of cleaning I’m down with. HOTY. Housewife of the Year.

While the salmon was cooking I also roasted some baby potatoes in a separate glass dish with chopped onion, garlic, coarse salt & a good drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Then on a baking sheet I did the same thing with a bundle of asparagus spears. I probably tossed the veggies once or twice throughout the process. If the potatoes are tiny enough the 25 minutes should suffice but if they’re larger you might want to toss them in the oven 10 minutes before the fish. If the asparagus is on the very bottom rack it should be fine for 20 minutes but I wouldn’t go much longer or you’ll get some droopy spears. And nobody likes a droopy spear.

So what do you think, have I tempted any of you fish virgins to give it a whirl??

Facebook

Twitter

Google+

Next Entries →

← Previous Entries