Firestarter

I came home from work the other day and Bri and Sarah were there making CDs. And they were kinda quiet. Which makes one start to worry. Then all of a sudden they come running out of the office and they start wrestling!

Then Sarah sits on Bri and Bri is yelling at her to give her the lighter!!

Lighter??

Sarah is a pyromaniac??


Finally Bri is successful and gets the lighter away from Sarah!!

And she slips it into my pocket without Sarah knowing.

Yep Sarah, that's where it went!


Then Sarah went crazy!

And thinking Bri still had it she attacked her again.


And again.


And then they left and I made cookies :)

The end.

The Princess!

Edited to add: If you're interested in any of the recipes on this post click on the hightlighted name of the recipe (not the picture) and it will take you to where I found the recipe :)

This is my dirty, old, unorganized recipe binder. I kept thinking that I would make a pretty cover for it. But I never did. Probably because I knew that this wasn't how I wanted to keep my recipes.

I would pull the pages out of the binder and leave them on the counter as I was cooking. They inevitably would be covered up by ingredients or splashed on.

Eventually I even stopped punching holes in the pages and would just throw them in the binder. There was a silver lining to that though. While searching for a specific recipe I would have to shuffle through all of them and I'd get to see recipes I'd forgotten about!


Then I found this Martha Stewart recipe tin. In RED!! I love it so much!


It holds tons of 4 x 6 index cards and I've been busy writing all my recipes on the hundreds of cards I bought to fill it up.

One problem though, now it's 4 x 6 index cards getting covered up on the counter while I'm cooking. So I had to come up with a solution.


Enter the Princess! I found her at Hobby Lobby. She was faded black and that just wouldn't do in my kitchen so I spruced her up with some pretty red spray paint. Stuck a couple of magnets on the bottom of her feet and she stays nicely on top of my lovely red box.


And her crown holds my recipe cards perfectly!! And high enough for me to still see once I have all my ingredients and junk on the counter. I'm so in love with her!!


When I said I've been busy writing all my recipes on the 4 x 6 cards I wasn't exactly being truthful. I've really only finished about 15. But, those 15 recipes are delicious!

These Shrimp Tostadas were yummy. I found the recipe on PW's Tasty Kitchen. I liked that the tortillas were baked and not fried.


This Pico de Gallo and Guacamole is the best I've ever had. Courtesy of Pioneer Woman. And the awesome thing about it is that it makes a ton and I'm the only one in the family that eats guacamole. More for me!!


Chicken & Dumplings in the south is not the same Chicken & Dumplings that I grew up with. Whenever we go to Cracker Barrel Bri orders them. But I kept thinking they looked wrong. Turns out that here the dumplings are more like noodles, not biscuits. But I found this recipe on Tasty Kitchen and made it one Sunday night for Duane and I. The real Chicken and Dumplings. Loved it so much I made it again the next night when the girls came back home to us!


And then we have the Individual Scalloped Potatoes. These are the ones that Blaire loves so much that she wants to marry them! Another find from Tasty Kitchen. If you haven't visited that site, you need to. So many delicious recipes. And on the TK Blog right now, Pioneer Woman is generously counting down the 7 days before Christmas and you could be one of the lucky recipients of her generosity. Run, don't walk, on over there, if you know what's good for you!


Today I was using the Princess to hold my Sugar Cookie Icing recipe. I got it years ago from All Recipes and it's the best sugar cookie icing ever. It dries hard and shiny, so you can stack the cookies once they're dry.

Which reminds me... I have cookies to decorate!!!!


Merry Christmas to you all!!

Frogs

I used to have 2 frogs that lived outside. One Gray Tree Frog and one Green Tree Frog. I had been told that they make noise when it rains, but I never heard them. Until one night Duane and I were in the kitchen and we heard this loud croaking and the next thing I knew the green frog was gone. GONE. After I left the light on over the kitchen sink for it every night, attracting bugs for it to eat. AND HE UP AND LEFT ME! That croaking must have been him saying sayonara.

Whatever.

I think the gray frog got lonely though, because this is what I found tonight:

Least Favorites

Emptying the dishwasher has to be my least favorite job. It's not like it's hard or anything, I mean, when I load the dishwasher I position everything so it's really easy to put away. Like all the spoons are in one cubby, the knives have their own too. You just grab a handful of stuff and whisk it away to where it goes. I just don't like it.

And that's why in my house it's not my job. Yay! If the dishwasher doesn't get emptied, it doesn't get filled. Which is still my chore. But not if someone hasn't emptied it :)

A close second is washing dishes by hand. And the reason I don't like that is because I'm too short for it! I have to stand really close to reach and I always get my shirt soaked. Like it is right now.

I'd much rather be the garbage taker outer. Even if raccoons were to get into the garbage and throw it all around the yard...I'd rather that be my job.

What is your least favorite?

Catching Up

It's been a while since I've posted on my blog so I'm going to catch you up on one giant post!

On October 17th, 1989 , there was the Loma Prieta Earthquake. It was a 7.1 on the Richter Scale and practically in my back yard. It was pretty scary. Things I remember are: I was washing my coffee pot at 5:04 pm that day, when it hit. It took my mom forever to get home from work in Watsonville that evening. A man named Dale was killed on the freeway when his car hit spooked horses. There were huge aftershocks all night long. We Christmas shopped in huge white tents that year. Downtown Santa Cruz was in bad shape and the merchants had to move into the tents to stay operational. Frightening times.

On October 17th, 2009, 20 years later I bought these new bar stools! Can't wait to see what they look like up against that bar when it no longer looks like wood paneling. Someday. But I know for sure it will be way before 20 years passes. We sold our old dining room table and bar stools without having replacements. We still don't have a dining room table, but we've got our bar stools!

This is Courtney and Blaire on October 17th. They had just gotten back from shopping for their Halloween costumes. They're so cute you'd think they would want to be princesses or fairies.

Nope. I don't even know what you would call them, but they weren't cute!

They got the costumes to wear when they went camping with the girl's Mom and Mr. Gene. It was supposed to be a fun weekend of trick or treating and costume contests, but they all got sick with a stomach virus while they were gone and the fun was cut short. Fortunately for Bri it was Homecoming weekend and she didn't go camping. Instead she stayed with us and avoided the virus!

On October 23rd we finally had our Grand Opening at work. The building took a year to build and we received money from the state because we were moving our labs and management from Rhode Island down to Louisiana.

Governor Bobby Jindal came and spoke and cut the ribbon with our CEO. The ribbon didn't want to cut though and it was a pretty comical moment. Perhaps ribbon without wire would have worked better? It was a fun day! We even had customers come all the way from Sweden to celebrate with us.

October 24th was the Homecoming dance. Our Central Wildcats had beaten Walker the night before, bringing them one step closer to becoming District Champs. Thomas, Sarah, Bri and Zach looked fantastic and had a great time! These 4 are the best of friends. You would think that they were all dating, but no. All 4 of them say they are not. Although Sarah and Thomas are always together and so are Bri and Zach.

So cute!! And since I'm such a slow poster I can now say that they are dating! Officially as of October 31st! Yay!

Bri and her daddy! He is so proud of her and we couldn't be happier with the choices she makes and the friends she chooses to have in her life.

My new cubicle! We moved into our new building on September 9th, but didn't get our cubicles until October 5th. And then I didn't get around to decorating it until October 28th. See, I'm not only a procrastinator with my blog. I'm a procrastinator with a lot of things.

I blame my sister :)~

The week of October 26th was Spirit Week at Blaire's school and on Wednesday it was Crazy Hair Day!

Half her head was pink and half was blue. And my fingernails were blue too!!

I made Pretzel Sticks for the guys at work for Halloween. They turned out pretty cute and yummy!

On November 1st Blaire and I made these cute little bite sized pumpkin pies! We got the recipe from Bakerella and they were delicious!

We only made 12 though because after the first batch was done we started eating them right out of the pan and our bellies got full and we didn't feel like rolling out more dough and smushing it into the mini muffin pan.

This is my new cornbread skillet! Duane got me into using the cast iron skillet for making cornbread but we decided that it has a greasy taste to it because we use the same skillet that we use to cook meat in. Then I found this cornbread skillet and knew our greasy tasting Golden Sweet Cornbread days were over!

Then on October 31st I bought a new car! My very first new car ever!! The brakes went out on my beloved Malibu and during the week that it took to get fixed Duane and I started visiting car dealerships.

It came down to this 2010 Toyota Camry SE and a 2009 Honda Accord. They both were silver, but the Toyota dealership was more persistent. Which is something that would normally push me in the other direction, but I liked the Toyota salesman better. He was pretty funny! First we drove a red SE, but I wasn't that into it. It had light colored fabric interior and I didn't fall in love. Then our salesman told us about the silver SE that his Sales Manager was driving and asked if we were interested in a demo. We were. So we went out and looked at it on our way out of the dealership and I liked it. We went back a couple days later and sat in it and we both fell in love. It took a few more days before we could agree on a price, but it's now mine!!

And I bet I wouldn't have gotten this cool key if I had bought the Honda!! Now I won't have to have the remote entry thing hanging off my keyring. It's right on my key!!

*sigh* My Bu. She was a good car the last 4.5 years. Until she started costing me money. Duane got her cleaned up really nice and we only had the For Sale sign in her for an hour before we got our first call and sold her! I hope she makes her new owner happy. We go to the Notary tomorrow and seal the deal.

I'll miss my license plate. It was so easy to remember! I don't think that this pelican license plate will look good on my still nameless Camry though, so I think I'll be getting an LSU Geaux Tigers specialty plate. Unless I get a cool generic license plate like STF 619. That's not going to happen though because Bri got SWK 918, so I know we're past STF.

We don't get much of a season change here in Louisiana, but I noticed that the leaves are changing color on my Red Maple today. Just one little section though. The rest is green.

Speaking of seasons, Hurricane Season is supposed to be over. But Ida is headed our way and the Governor declared a state of emergency today. She's supposed to turn right when she gets up close to us though so keep your fingers crossed for us that she does. Duane says he doesn't think the gulf is warm enough now for her to get really bad. I suppose I should be thankful that Ida is also a procrastinator and waited until after the weather turned cold to show up.

Happy November, hope you all have a great one!!

Love,
Stephanie

Finally.

Gas. It's a beautiful sight. I've been dreaming of this day forever and Duane made it come true for me. Duane and my Gramma and friends at UTi and my bonus from work. Eventually I'll post a picture of the entire stove, but for now I'll be giving you tiny glimpses of it. Because what Blaire and I did with this wonderful appliance is really the bright spot that should be focused on.

First, you should go take a peek at what kind of cupcakes our decrepit old stove used to churn out. You can view one of them here.


I didn't know that Duane was going to have the stove completely in today and therefore did not do any meal planning to prepare for it. We pulled the old stove out a week ago, so I haven't been able to do any cooking since then.

Blaire and I decided to make yummy rainbow cupcakes after I showed her the ones I found on Our Best Bites. But we didn't have any cake mixes, so we pulled out the cute cupcake book I bought and never used.


The texture was so far from what we're used to with the boxed mixes. It was thick and sticky. Not the easiest to get off of the spoon and into the cupcake papers.


Much easier to just lick it off.


Look at that beautiful oven! Sparkly clean. And that rack that is pulled out... it slides out like that when the door is opened!


With the old stove you couldn't peek into the oven without opening the door. This picture was actually taken with the door closed!! I'm in love!!!


So is everyone else. We stayed in the kitchen the whole time the cupcakes were cooking.

It was like watching something we've never seen before.




I have never seen anything so beautiful come out of the old oven. Would you just look at those perfect cupcakes?

The colors!! We used Wilton's gel coloring in the batter and then layered each color into the paper wrapper.

To me, there are no words to describe these next three pictures.

And Blaire told me that since we made cupcakes....we didn't have to make dinner :)

I'm thinking I best get some sort of yummy meat and potatoes cooking tomorrow though. Especially after Duane installed a gas line, tiled floor and called in lots of favors, just to make me the happiest girl in the world.

Thank you Boo! I love you :)