Illumination

I would have to say two of my new favorite obsessions are mason jars and lace. Can you tell I'm liking the country look? When I went to the Goodwill the other day I found exactly what I was looking for. They had mason jars (for only 20 cents!!!!), lots of dollies and lace. But after this project I did decide that I needed more doilies, I need smaller ones and prettier ones.

Just take a doily (or lace by the yard) and spray with craft adhesive, then place on the mason jar, yup that is it! I rolled my mason jar on the doily to get a nice wrinkle free fit. My doily was also a little bit bigger then the mason jar so I left the top to go over my ribbon. Next time I will use twine and burlap. I just keep using what I have at home, since I am already buried in craft items!

 I just love the way the little battery operated tea light makes the whole jar glow and the reflections the lace puts on the wall. The idea is to make about 5 of them and put them on a shelf in my room for a nice country look when off, and a soft romantic light when on :)
Off to Value Village I go for more! Love the excuse to raid their stuff!

Eggs in a Muffin Pan

If you know my husband, you know picky he is, I don't mean just a little picky, I mean off the charts ridiculous picky! Breakfast is probably our favorite meal, I think because it always occurs on the weekends! Even though I love going out to breakfast, eggs are a whole nether level of crazy pickyness for Dennis. He wants his eggs a very specific way, over hard with the yolk broken, sounds easy, but he wants it extra hard, and not touching anything else. He wants it to resemble an egg mcmuffin. Some restaurants can fill this tall order, some fail and his attitude towards the poor wait staff gets worse.
I have attempted to make his perfect eggs at home, every time they turn out not to his liking. He wants them perfectly round too! How am I supposed to do that?
Then the wonderful world of Pinterest came in handy, it can turn anyone in to a craft goddess and a chef. I found a recipe to bake eggs in a muffin pan. Pure ingenious!
Yesterday Dennis stayed home from work because his allergies were getting really bad, so I used that opportunity to try out my new egg trick.

Simple enough, I slightly greased my muffin pan

(thinking we would sell our house alot sooner we packed up a ton of stuff, including my real muffin pans, so the foil ones will have to do for now!)

Cracked the eggs in and stuck them in the 350 degree pre-heated oven for 20 minutes.

For normal people 15 minutes will be plenty of time, I just had to make sure they were extra hard.

About half way through I was instructed to make sure the yolk was broken, I don't think I needed to, but I would rather be safe then sorry, thanks hunny!

In the mean time I toasted some english muffins, put some ham and provolone cheese on top.

(Remind you of dinner the night before?)

After eggs are done, pop them out (I was super surprised how easy it was to do this)

Place them on top of the muffins and bake again until the cheese melts (approx. 5 minutes).

I thought they were delicious, just like a non greasy egg mcmuffin, and even better then the Starbucks breakfast sandwiches. But the ultimate tester to please is the hubby....

So did he approve? Yes he thought the egg was perfect and very good! Phew!

You can enjoy them right away, or stick the left overs directly in the freezer (still on the cookie sheet) for an hour to freeze all the moisture off, then take them out and wrap them in freezer safe bags.

They will last over a week. I froze my extra one and took it to work. The biggest thing about reheating them, is don't use a microwave if you can avoid it. We have a little Otis Spunkmeyer oven at work, I stuck it in there for 15 minutes, and it was even more delicious then the first time, all warm and crispy. Mmmmm. In fact I'm making one for me right now!







Ham Roll Ups

I must have been hungry at lunch time, and I was even eating! I found myself pinning a ton of food to Pinterest. Motivated to make something different, on my way home I hit the grocery store.
This is the original pin Ham and Cheese Crescent Rolls and here is m y variation:

Very simple, very yummy

Take a package of crescent rolls and keep two triangles together

Add slices of ham and a slice of provolone (or any cheese of choice)

Okay here is where I did my own variation

I added a sauce on before I rolled them:

 1 stick butter (softened)
1 Tbls brown sugar
1/2 Tbls yellow mustard
1  Tbls poppy seed
1 Tbls Worcestershire

(this was plenty of sauce, you can make double the  rolls and have enough)

I didn't want it melted so I just softened the butter and spread it on top

Roll them up with the seam on the bottom

Bake for 12 minutes at 375 degrees

Served with sweet potato fries

They are a little messy so you probably want to eat with a fork,

but they are Dennis approved, and if you know my husband that is not an easy task!

Enjoy!









Knots

I am very familiar with back pain, not quite sure why but I get pain in my lower back alot. This has been happening for for almost 10 years now. I can't sleep to long, I can't lay in a funny position, I can't wear too high of heels, otherwise I'm in pain for the next day.
But the back pain I had the last few days, now that is new to me. I have had pain in my shoulder for about a month now, but this weekend it got worse and worse. I could actually feel a large lump under my skin, I can touch it, but when I do the pain shoots down my arm and makes my elbow numb. Of course in my true fashion I started to overreact and go straight to the worse case scenario! Surprise!
I started googling what it could be and was disappointed to keep coming up with just a muscle knot. As I have never had one before I didn't think you could actually feel the knot.
Dennis of course knew that I was in crazy mode and blamed the pain in my shoulder with the new "exercise" equipment we got.

We got an As-Seen-On-TV over the door pull up bar! And Dennis looks just like that when he uses it! :) I can't even pull myself half way up, how could I have injured myself?
So to humor him, I decided to treat it as a muscle knot. Off to the store I went.

I got heat wraps and Aleve, after the first patch I was still in pain, the darn knock off brand didn't even get hot or actually stick on me.
But when I woke up this morning the pain was way less. I can still feel the large knot, but when I touch it, it doesn't send any pain down my arm. Still not positive if I really injured myself on a wimpy attempt at a chin up or not, but at least the pain has subsided.
So off to work I go, I will still monitor my large lump, but hope that it goes away. If not, I do still have a free 1 hour massage gift certificate, what a good time to take advantage of that. I'm sure they can tell me if that is normal. (Cheaper and feels better than the doctors!)

Man of God

After attending an amazing celebration of life for a friend's Grandfather on Sunday, I felt moved. As I didn't know the late Reverend when I walked in the door, I felt like I was apart of him after leaving.
Everyone continued to refer to him as a Man of God. We celebrated his legacy, his life, and what he left behind for his family, a chance to follow Jesus.
It was the most beautiful, heart wrenching funeral I have ever been to. Watching the intimate and sad moment that his wife of 59 years had to say her final goodbyes. The way she clutched her bible and sobbed. She knew where he was going, but in that moment it doesn't make it easier.
Hearing that at his bedside right before death, his grandson accepted Jesus Christ for the first time. Learning of his life, Reverend, Navy, Missionary in Mexico for 10 years, Doctor of Theology, Pastor, Chaplain, Father, Grandfather, Faithful Husband, and Man of God.
I can't help but think, how will I be remembered? What legacy will I leave, will I be thought of as a Woman of God. It makes you stop and think of everything you are doing, is it significant? Are you living your life fully, are you living it to the Glory of God. That is the life I want to live. The legacy I want to leave behind, and I want to be referred to as a Woman of God. But what does that look like?
All I know is that you can only live in today, but make sure that everything you do, you do it to the fullest.
I don't have the answer to this question, I'm just pondering it, but writing it down always help me to think it through, it is in writing, now I can truly live up to it.
So ask yourself that question, how will you be remembered, its not about what they say at your funeral, its about the life you lived, the impact you left, and your legacy to follow.

My first yarn craft!

I have been at it again! I have always wanted to learn how to crochet or knit, but today is not the day. I did however have some yarn experience for the day.

Yarn Monogram:

Cheap and easy project, all you need is Paper Mache Letters, one skein of yarn, I used Jiffy Yarn

and my favorite tool the hot glue gun!

Glue the tip of the yarn around the base of the letter and wrap very tightly around, once you wrap the whole thing (the corners won't be fully covered), go back and wrap it again, you should only need two times around

I added a left over flower from my Felt Flower Scarf and a little bit of ribbon for color

Hang it on your door, put on your mantel, or use as a wall decoration.

I really liked this project, I foresee these as gifts :)



Melted Crayons

Since I have this overwhelming addiction to Pinterest, I have made an effort to actually do all the crafts I have been pinning. Some turn out good, some are a bust, I think this project was fun, but I would love to do it again and perfect it.

We did a melted crayon art project, super easy!

For this project I had a little helper, I swear he wanted to be there, he just hates his picture being taken :)

First we organized the crayons, Dennis picked the colors, he wanted dark blues and purples, but if you were to group more colors next to each other it would have worked a little better

Hot glue each crayon to the top of the canvas, the easiest way to do this is to glue the canvas then put all the crayons on it, but we had to learn that :)

Thanks hunny :)

Dennis is a perfectionist, he wanted to make sure all my crayons were lined up correctly

After all are glued, turn a hair dryer on high and hot and start melting

Again, we learned some lessons, you only want to heat the top of the crayon, the lower you go the more you will spread the existing melted crayons and merge the colors together

Get the hair dryer nice and close to the crayon top and just melt, you ca also move the canvas around to get the desired drip

It looks like a mess and it sort of is, but I know the next one we will do a little better :)

I'm almost embarrassed to show you the pin that I got the idea from! But here you go:

Its perfectly melted, perfectly straight and all that! A. she used lots of the same colors in a row (good idea), B. she melted from the top, C. she did this before. D. she is just way better at it then us!

But we had a good time doing it together and will do another, why not we have extra canvas' and lots of crayons left! (and next time I will control the hair dryer, Dennis didn't let me hold it once!)