July is Heating Up!

July is here and another whirlwind week has gone!

The second week of my rotation has gone fantastically! With the 4th of July falling on a Wednesday this year, it made for an extra short work week.  Although, when you love what you do, it hardly feels like work.  The only thing that I am finding myself adjusting to are the 5:30am mornings. Other than that - I'm loving my job!
I made these for the Butters' 4th of July Annual Picnic

**Addendum: I forgot to mention that Luke helped make these as well.  In fact, he put most of the fruit on the cabobs. :) 

They were a hit. Especially in 100+ degree weather!

A little tidbit, I found interesting - this was the 26th year that this Butters' 4th of July picnic has been held!

I painted my nails for the festivities.

Another hit. :) 

July has also brought with it heat waves and a string of bad storms - Consecutive days in a row of 100+ degree weather, treacherous thunderstorms, power outages, 80+mph winds and humidity.

People throughout the state of Ohio continue to be without power - and AC! Luke and I have been fortunate and have not had any damages where we are living, nor lost power.  Just around the corner, however, the whole street is lined with electrical poles knocked down and low hanging wires.  How we did not loose power is still a mystery to us. 

The good side to all of this crazy weather - we are getting rain!

However, my garden is becoming a lost cause because the heat is literally burning my plants. :(

Once was a beautiful green pepper...

Now is a burnt green pepper. I am watering them profusely too.  The lettuce, chives, and cilantro are complete lost causes because the leaves are burnt so bad.  Hoping my peppers and tomatoes hang on.

On a random note, I was craving these this past week.

Making them was super easy.
Eating them was super delicious.
...and easy!

I will post recipe at a later date.

How was your week? What 4th of July traditions do you celebrate?

Sunday Catch Up Day!

July 2012 has started off with a bang!

Let me begin by stating – Yes, I am aware that I have been negligent in posting this last week.  Even neglecting to post a ‘Thursday Tangents’ post.  I have good reason, I promise.

As you may remember me mentioning earlier, last week was my first week of fieldwork at Ohio Orthopedics. 

1)      I love what I do as an Occupational Therapist

2)      My first 2 days, I felt like I knew NOTHING about orthopedic rehab.

3)      I was wiped out!

So, I apologize for my lack of blogging.  I just plain ran out of time.  Seriously.  My days looked a little like this:

·         Wake up at 5:30

·         Get ready, leave before 7:00am

·         Work until 5:30-5:45pm

·         Get home around 6:30, quarter to 7:00pm

·         Make dinner, eat dinner.

·         Study all the things I don’t know about orthopedic rehab.

·         Go to bed around 11:00, 11:30.

·         Wake up, do it all over again.                             

I am still working on trying to develop a daily routine. I ask that you hang tight and be flexible as I work on developing a routine that fits my desired lifestyle that includes blogging. I have lots of new things to share.  The problem lies in finding the time to be creative and share when my creative brain is just plain fried!

In addition to learning lots of new and fun things about orthopedic rehab – We have just been informed that Ohio is under a State of Emergency due to the severe storms this weekend.

Welcome to Ohio!

Thursday Tangents: Yay for Thursday!

Happy Thursday! While most of you dread all days of the week except for Friday (or so it seems according to Facebook posts).  Be thankful it's Thursday, it's the sister to Friday! :)

What a great week!  This week has flown by way too fast. 

1.) Summer is officially here! It has been hot hot hot!  Just in time for me to start my first level 2 clinic rotation.  Gahhh!! It is here!  Good bye vacation time, helloooo adulthood.

2.) With the start of summer, welcome weddings, babies, and high school graduations.  So many summer invites! I think this is in part why the month of June feels like it is flying by! Let me give you a run down of the invites we have had - just for June!

1 Baby Shower
2 Wedding Showers
3 High School Graduations

++Plus++

Father's Day
Dad's birthday
and Pampered Chef Party

Whoa June!! Super busy! - am I missing anything??

Unfortunately, we were/are not able to make it to all of them.  But cards are in the mail/ will be in the mail shortly.

3.) Visitors!!!

The month of June has also been full of visitors!  As you remember from one of my previous post, we had my cousins down for the week to visit.  This week we had our dear friends and their gorgeous baby girl (our god daughter) visit us for the night.  What a blast! 

This little girl totally melts my heart!

She got her first "Build-A-Bear" horsey too! Love it!

4.) Enough about how crazzzyyy busy June has been... Loving this new blog FaceBaby.  So cute! If this adorable little guy does not bring a smile to your face, you may be cold hearted!

5.) My tomatoes are coming! My tomatoes are coming!!

Luke thought he bought a cherry tomato plant, turns out these might be full size.

...And we might have a TON of tomatoes!

6.) Have I mentioned how much I adore this little girl?!!?

Just in case you forgot...here's another reminder.

7.) Have you ever watched the Call of the Wildman??  Luke loves these type of shows.

At the zoo last week - we found an Alligator Snapping Turtle. 

Kinda scary looking...

I was so proud of myself that I actually knew what this animal was, BEFORE reading the sign because of the Call of the Wildman.  Yup - you never know when you will need to know this kind of information.

In the Midwest, mostly useless information unless at the zoo.

8.) I made these this week with some clearance ribbon and flip flops.

Kinda love em'.

9.) Did I mention how much little kids can eat?!!?

I was impressed! Apparently, going to the zoo and spending time with the elephants makes you think you can eat like one too! - and they did!

10.) This week has been quieter without these kiddos -  it's weird. I miss em'.

What did you do this week?

DIY Shadow Box

Wow! What a busy week! I have still been recovering from all of the activities and lack of sleep.  We have another busy week ahead of us this week as well.  I cannot believe that we are more than half way through June already.  What happened to my summer?  This time next week I will be working in the clinic full time. (Gahhh...Excitement and nervousness overcome me every time I think about it!)

For Father's Day, we spent the weekend with my parents.  We attended a wedding on Saturday and had a fish fry on Sunday.  We always enjoy spending time with my family!

In celebration of Father's Day, I know I promised a 'How To' for a shadow box.  However, I forgot to blog about it before hand.  (Again, where did June go??) I apologize.  But here it is.  Better late than never??

I got this idea when I saw Luke cleaning old lures he had gotten from his Dad. 

I wanted to do something special for him, so that he could display these lures instead of keeping them in an old rusty box. 

I was able to find the shadow box for 50% off at Hobby Lobby, the paper, pins, and cork board. 

I cut and glued the paper to the cork board to fit the size of the shadow box. 

Once the lures were cleaned and dried, I arranged them on the cork board in the desired arrangement. 

Using pins, I secured them to the cork board so that they would stay put.

It's important to either bend or cut the ends off once placed, as the pins might poke through the back of the board. 

In the end, the box looked great and Luke loved it!

I am planning on making one for my Dad too.  He has a ton of old lures!  I am waiting to get a great deal on a shadow box and get lures from him. 

You can make shadow boxes out of anything you want to display!  I think they are great ideas for displaying collections and decorating with.

Good luck, be creative and have fun!

What did you spend Father's Day weekend doing?  Have you made a shadow box before? 

Random Wednesday??...More Like Thursday Tangents

Gahh, I have failed again, for the second week in a row, on posting for 'Random Wednesday.' 

Fail.

I think I have come to the conclusion that Wednesday is not a good day.  It comes and goes too fast.  Especially when you're entertaining two pre-teens. 

Yup, that's my excuse.

This week has been full of activities!  Busy schedules, long days, and short nights.  With that being said, I am so exhausted from the events of this week that I can barely keep my eyes open while I type this.  My brain is shutting down and my eyes are closing. 

Let me re-call this week of events in a nut shell:

• Carriage Rides at Levis Commons
• Bass Pro Shop Family Camp
• Mall Trip
• Pool

• Homemade Pizza

• Made Donuts
• Park Time
• More Pool Time
• Movie Theater night
• Coldstone Trips
• More Pool Time
• and the Toledo Zoo!

It was a great week!  Now, I'm ready to crash!

In addition - I will announce that I am officially changing Random Wednesday to Thursday Tangents.  Beginning next week. :)

Good night!

A Rainy Monday and Sweet Cinny Rolls!

While I may appear to be on a roll with my second post for the day...it is only because I have finally succumbed to allowing the kids play the Wii today.  I am not an advocate for letting children play video games for long periods of time, nor watch TV all day.  It's rainy outside and the pool is not an option - nor is playing outside.  Thus, a Wii and movie day.  I am not complaining.  I needed this rainy day more than you know! 
An eleven year old boy and twelve year old girl require a lot of entertainment.  Yet, Luke seems to think they are both playing me. (This may be true).  Either way - I am exhausted and realized how much I appreciated my quiet time.  However, I have promised myself, and them, they still have a time limit on the video games - just long enough for me to blog this post! Then it's back to entertaining them again... I will relish these minutes.
The eleven year old boy is pretty easy to occupy.  The twelve year old girl on the other hand is not.  She tires of activities very quickly.  Like, in 4.5 minutes.  In that short time, she has finished or have become bored of the current activity and she's ready for a new task.  I'm running out of ideas for this child! And energy! Help!  Current list of activities she has already grown bored with:

• The Wii
• Creating a Scrapbook and Father's Day card
• Coloring
• Painting her nails

Anymore ideas?!

In the meantime, I promised them homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast this morning.
All children love sugary cinnamon treats right?  Right! (At least these two did!)
Super easy and super tasty!
Rich cinnamon taste with sticky sweetness.

Cinnamon...my favorite!

I might have glazed a little more icing on them...

Here's what you need:
(makes ~8-10 rolls)
1 package of Pillsbury Crescent Sheet
1 cup of powdered sugar
2 tsp of vanilla extract
1 Tbsp of evaporated milk
1-2 Tbsp of cinnamon

Here's what you do:

• Preheat oven at 375 degrees
• Mix the powdered sugar, vanilla extract and evaporated milk until you achieve desired consistency.  The desired consistency needs to be thick enough so that "drizzling" can be achieved.
• Add cinnamon to icing and whisk together.
• Roll out packaged crescent.
• Set aside a small amount of icing, around 1/4 cup.
• Spread the remainder of the icing onto the crescent.
• Roll the crescent up, then slice into ~ 8-10 parts.  For larger rolls, cut into larger slices.  To make smaller rolls, cut into smaller slices.
• Place slices onto baking sheet.
• Bake for 7-8 minutes, until golden brown.
• Once cooled, drizzle remaining icing onto rolls.
• Serve hot and enjoy!

That's it, so easy and so good!  They gotten eaten up fast! 

Time is now up.  It's time to put together another fun activity!

For supper, I am making them my Italian Bacon Mac-n-Cheese!

What rainy day activities do you like?  What are you making for dinner?
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Easy Peasy Crock Pot Dinners

Crock pot dinners are wonderful!

For a few reasons;
1) They're easy
2) They're delicious
3) It's great coming home after a long day and having supper waiting for YOU
and 4) I love how they make the whole home smell fabulous!

Last week I made two meals in the crock pot. Both were a success.

My first meal was what I'll title: Italian Bacon Mac-n-Cheese.  

Bacon + Cheese = Duh! Duhh-licious, that is!

The combination of cheese and noodles start off clumpy.  The milk is added to make it creamy and help combine the ingredients.  Don't freak out if your cheese is clumping.  Just add more milk at the end if needed.

 What you need:
(Serves ~4)

2 cups of uncooked Macaroni noodles

1 ½ cups of milk - or as needed to make creamy

2 cups shredded Colby jack cheese

1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

½ cup shredded Parmesan

A dollop of sour cream

3 slices of cooked bacon

½ cup of diced white onion

Fresh garlic clove - pressed or diced

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

1 Tbsp of Italian Seasoning

What you do:

• Boil your macaroni noodles until ‘slightly undercooked’ – you don’t want the noodles to get mushy in the crock pot.
• Crumble up your bacon pieces.
• Combine all ingredients into the crock pot and cook on low for 3-4 hours. 
• Stir occasionally.  Add more milk if needed for a creamy texture and to avoid clumpy cheese. 

The smell of this meal while cooking is heavenly!

The second meal I made last week was, my new personal favorite, Sweet and Spicy Sloppy Joes.  Let me just add that Luke does not care for sloppy joes...never has. 

However, I thought I'd make my own version of sloppy joes - As he does not care for canned or packaged versions.  I grew up on sloppy joes and find them yummy. 

I decided to give my grown up taste buds a new and improved version of sloppy joes - praying Luke's grown up taste buds would appreciate and enjoy them as much as mine.

The outcome?  Success!

He loved them! He even ate the leftovers!!!

[For those of you who do not know my husband, let me enlighten you on this accomplishment...Luke will eat leftovers if it is something he REALLY likes.  If he does not really care for it (but tolerates it for a meal) the leftovers will inevitably get thrown away.]

Mission accomplished!

I think this recipe is 'family reunion' worthy!

What you need:
(Serves ~8-10)

1lb browned burger
1/2 cup diced white onion
1/4 cup diced mushrooms (optional)
1 Tbsp plabano pepper, diced (or jalapeno)
2 garlic cloves, pressed or diced
4 medium tomatoes
3-4 Tbsp of Chili Powder
2 Tbsp of Worcestershire Sauce
1 Tbsp of brown sugar
2 tsp of dry mustard
1 tsp of Allspice
1 tsp of Oregano
Cornstarch - as needed
Salt - as desired
Pepper - as desired

What you do:

• Brown the burger and drain
• Place tomatoes in a food processor and process until pureed.
• Combine all ingredients into crock  pot  and cook on low for 4-6 hours.
• Before serving, mix up sloppy joe mix, add a little bit of corn starch and mix in, until desired thickness of sloppy joe mix.

Mmm mmm! Not only does it taste delicious, but it makes the house smell great! The leftovers warm up great in a pan or in the microwave.

For those who don't like it 'sloppy' we like to eat ours on open face sandwiches with a fork.  It's less messy but the same amazing flavor!

(I like to use the crock pot liners with these recipes. It makes clean up a breeze!)

I hope you enjoy these recipes! Let me know what you think!
What's your favorite crock pot recipe?