Meh.

I finished the bag I was crocheting. I'm not happy with it, though. I made the body waaaaaay too long. So I'm going to make a few changes and crochet another. Luckily I can just re-use the flowers and strap I made. They bag was really the easiest part. =)

Went back to work on Monday. Promptly started feeling sick on Monday evening. I don't know what was setting off my allergies. Maybe the construction they're doing on our patios. Maybe the construction they did inside one of the classrooms. Maybe just something in the air ducts. Regardless, it's now a full-blown infection and I am SO not liking this. I hate going to the doctor for it because there really isn't much they can do besides give antibiotics. And if I took those every time I had sinus problems, they'd probably end up ineffective or giving me a different kind of infection. Making friends with my tissue box, Mucinex, and a neti pot.

The worst part of being sick is having to stay away from my husband. =( We sleep in separate rooms if one of us is sick because I catch everything too easily and when he does catch something, he gets it BAD. Ly. Badly.

I'm pretty excited about this next school year. My two co-teachers are wonderful in every way. We are going to be laughing a lot this year! Our room is set up a little differently than usual and I'm curious as to how the children will react to it. I like it, though. =) We have a lot of older children this year. That should make it a little more challenging... in a good way.

Ugh, I'm pooped. Hasta la pasta.

Project Crochet Bag Beginning

Um, hello. Three months have passed since I last updated. I've been wasting a lot of time lately doing... nothing much. Facebook, game apps on my phone, watching movies. I came to the realization that I've been lazy as all heck lately and am trying to get out of the habit.

How? Projects!

I got a new crochet pattern book full of super cute ideas, some yarn, and a few new hooks and started on a new bag today.

I don't think I've ever crocheted anything so... 3-dimensional before. Obviously it's not done yet. The bottom is a circle and, well, I'm new to the whole crochet language (5 ch then 3 hdc in 3 ch sp... confusing, huh?), so it wasn't what it was supposed to be. At one point, I should have had 10 loops, but I had 15. Oops! But it's not really noticeable unless you reeeeeally examine it. The other part of the bag (the body?) was supposed to have this fancy pattern of random spaces and it looked pretty neat. However, since I wouldn't have even been able to get past the first row by following the pattern, I decided to just make it a double crochet the whole way up.

Unlike this picture, it is actually a really pretty mint green color. When I finish it, I'll probably crochet some little flowers or something to make it a little cuter and less plain. It's going a lot faster than I thought it would, though. I did all that in about three hours.

When I'm done with this project, I'll start another. Anything to keep me from wasting my life away. 

Projects: Lotta Projects...

Wow, I fail at being consistent.

I've been doing quite a few projects, few of which have been worthy of pictures. But some have.

Project Elmo Cupcakes.

Should have made fondant noses. Now I know. And now I also know that I need to stick with the other method of marbleizing cupcake batter so I don't crease the papers and make them all different sizes.

Project Friggin' Delicious Kahlua Frosting.

The recipe called for a few tablespoons of Kahlua. I put in about 1/3 cup. =) And I looooved the box. I wish I had more of those stickers.
Project Cute Little Cake.

I think this is one of the cutest ones I've ever done. =)

Project Yo Gabba Gabba Cupcakes.

Soooooooo fun to make!!

Project Yo Gabba Gabba Cake (obviously same project as above).

The little robot guy (I believe his name is Flex) was my favorite. =) Random tidbit of information, our housemate looks and acts like a Hispanic version of the guy on this show. And I love the word "tidbit."

Project 'Nother Flower Cake.

I loved the little rose buds on the bottom two tiers, but man... that bead border! And I still have no idea how the pros make their buttercream completely smooth. This is why I need/want to go to school to learn. (Although I did make my most amazing bead border a few days ago... and forgot to take a picture of that cake)

Project Music Cupcakes.

I made the notes out of milk chocolate. So much yummier and easier than fondant! I'm trying to start doing more with melting chocolate. Kind of expanding my hypothetical portfolio.

Project Guitar Cake.

This was the size of an actual guitar. I had a mental breakdown in the middle of it, but I was quite happy with how it turned out. The knobs are Rollo's. =) This was my first cake that required an actual piece of wood as a base. Yay for Home Depot! I was going to use embroidery floss for the strings so they were straight, but the floss was all creased and it was to late to iron it. So I ended up just piping them with frosting. And I got to use food coloring spray paint. When I can afford it, I want to buy my own gun for the food color spray, but they cost too much for the moment.

Project Surprise My Mommy Cake.

...This is the one I forgot to take a picture of. I made white chocolate daises for it. Her favorite. =)

Project Cake Pops.

These were fun! You make a cake, crumble it up, mix the crumbs with the frosting, form it into balls by hand, jam in the stick, and pour melted chocolate on top to help secure the stick.

Not everything has been cake-y, though. I've also started cooking and cleaning more, but no pictures of that. It's not as cute. I've been trying to spend more time with people, too. Been seeing my family. Going out with my bff now that she's back on this side of the country. Oh, and I'm back working with the youth group at my old church. Those kids keep me young. =)

Project: Flower Cake

My mom asked me to make a cake for her friend's birthday a few before she needed it. It was just for a small crowd, so I agreed. I wasn't going to make it difficult, so I planed on not using any fondant (I always forget how long it takes to knead it to the right consistency). I didn't really try any new techniques for this cake, but I had never made a monochromatic-ish one before.

I ran into a snag with this one, though. I wanted to start the cake the night before the delivery so I didn't have to wake up so early to frost and decorate. However, I discovered that I left the eggs out overnight and forgot to leave the butter out overnight. Fail. So I was the second person in the nearest grocery store in the morning.

I was pretty nervous about getting it done in time, but I tried to keep reminding myself it wasn't a hard design at all. And, as always, I finished it on time.

Overall, I was very happy with it. It was pretty last-minute, but the birthday girl almost cried happy tears when she saw it. It got a lot of compliments, too. My mom's friends boost my decorator's ego. =)

Next week is going to be full of cake and cupcakes. Two orders!

Projects: Lots o' Baking!

I've been a busy lady with baking these last few days. I had an order for the banana cupcakes I made awhile ago. A co-worker wanted two dozen for her son's first birthday. She provided the liners and picks and asked for just a little icing. So I whipped some up really quickly. My goodness, I wish all orders could be so simple and fast! I'm sorry the picture is so dark. No excuses, really. It just is.

The same night, I also made four dozen mini cupcakes for another co-worker's farewell. She's moving on to teaching at a school district. As sad are we are to see her go, we are all happy for her new opportunities. I made some chocolate banana cupcakes with the same recipe as the banana cupcakes above, only using a milk chocolate mix. The banana didn't stand out so much since the chocolate had so much flavor. Next time, more bananas! I used the same buttercream that I made for the baby's cupcakes. Just colored it her favorite colors. Then I mixed up some matching fondant and made simple decorations. I was quite please with how they came out. And I think it was the best buttercream I've ever made.

I had also bought a box of no-bake cherry cheesecake. I got to it the next morning and made cherry cheesecake cupcakes for that co-worker to take home since the mini ones were for everyone. Didn't take a picture since I didn't really do anything to them... and I finished them at work on a break.

Yesterday, I was in a grumpy mood for various reasons. I vented to my husband about it. Blogged about it. Prayed about it. But I needed to do something to get my mind off of it. So I made some snickerdoodle cookies. They were amazingly simple and amazingly tasty. Two dozen vanished in less than 24 hours.

Four different projects in three days. I'm spent. However, I am very likely going to be out of a job soon for an undetermined amount of time and, if/when that happens, I'll have a lot more free time to do things.

Speaking of my job, please go here to show your support for Head Start, federally-funded preschool that comes free to low-income families and families with children with special needs. And not for me. I can find another job. But for the hundreds of thousands of parents and children that depend on it.

Project: Attempting to Duplicate a Restaurant Meal

For Valentine's Day this year, Billy and I agreed that we wouldn't buy each other presents since we don't have a lot of money to throw around right now. We said we would figure out another way to celebrate. (He got me a beautiful bouquet of daises and other flowers [which is technically a present, but I still love them] and took me to a movie and out to dessert.)

I decided I would make him dinner. In our entire relationship, I hadn't made him a V-Day dinner. Time to improve my wife-ing skills! I thought about what I was going to make him and the first thing that I came up with was the best: his favorite meal from a beloved restaurant that closed about a year ago. He has mentioned ever since it closed that he still craves a Turkey Eater, so I thought I'd try to duplicate it.

What I made slightly resembled a Turkey Eater, but it tasted nothing like it. It was still good, though!

It is essentially a turkey sandwich on sourdough with cheese, slathered with butter, and lightly cooked. As you can see, I cooked it too long. But I also didn't use as much butter AND I totally guessed wrong on the cheese. He loved it, but I really think he liked Turkey Eaters more. I also made Parmesan zucchini and asparagus. Never cooked asparagus, either. It was pretty good. And, for the third day in a row (blame camp), I cut up a whole pineapple. We had all of this with a glass of wine. And since we are totally uncultured, we didn't enjoy the wine at all, haha. I don't know what inspired me to buy that particular kind, but it was no bueno. So we had some cherry limeaide instead.

All in all, I didn't capture the buttery deliciousness of the Turkey Eater very well, but I made a deliciously fancy grilled cheese dinner for my deserving husband.

Project: Salsa Chicken

I found a recipe on Spark Recipes that looked easy and had very few ingredients. Just how I like it. So I tried it out today. It uses a slow cooker and, despite the fact that I own two (shower/wedding presents), I don't know if I've ever used one. And, of course, we are out of the liners for it so I'll have some scrubbing to do pretty soon. On to the project!

Slow Cooker Salsa Chicken

Ingredients:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 cup salsa
1 package reduced sodium taco seasoning
1 can reduced fat cream of mushroom soup (condensed)
1/2 cup reduced fat sour cream

The chicken was defrosting in the microwave when I took the picture. Then I decided this was a pretty dumb time to use the fancy camera app since you can't frame anything well.

Directions:

Add chicken to slow cooker.
Sprinkle taco seasoning over chicken.
Pour salsa and soup over chicken.
Cook on low for 6 to 8 hours.
Remove from heat and stir in sour cream.
Serve with rice.

See? Easy peasy. The chicken breasts were ginormous, so I added some extra salsa. After everything (except the sour cream) was in there, I started to doubt if it was going to taste good at all. It looked like diarrhea.

But I let it cook because you never know how something is going to turn out until the end.

Hubby told me Mom-in-Law doesn't like sour cream, so I left it on the side and we just added it to our plates. When the chicken was done, it was SO easy to shred, which I wasn't expecting. We ate it over brown rice with steamed veggies on the side. But all three of us were a little concerned because it smelled spicy.

General consensus? Delicious! It was moist and flavorful. And unlike most shredded chicken plates you get at Mexican restaurants, it wasn't greasy at all. I hate greasy food, ugh.

I will definitely be trying this recipe again. I want to try adding black beans, corn, or peppers. This dish would be great for anyone that doesn't have a lot of time to cook dinner. Just add instant rice and microwaved veggies. And, if you get low sodium seasoning (or make your own) and reduced/low fat soup and sour cream, it's pretty nutritious as well.

Here is a link to the recipe, but I don't know if it will work without a SparkPeople account.

http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=672711

If you have any recipes that are quick, tasty, and have few ingredients, I'd appreciate any suggestions. I'm trying to cook more and eat out less, but I work until 5 every weekday and am pretty exhausted from chasing the kids around all day.