Trying to Make a Recovery

I have been so very busy and things have changed for me a lot.  I really want to get back to blogging and to chronicling the things I am doing and trying and working on.  Over the past several months I have been working on several new things I hope to put down in the blog soon.  I made homemade dog treats for Echo.  I have made several recipes for DIY bath and beauty products and home remedies.  My focus has totally become Essential Oils with doTERRA, Real Food, Natural Remedies for Health, getting rid of toxins in our home and creating everything I can from natural ingredients.  Stay tuned for more to follow!!

Whew!!

Gifts have been delivered, food has been cooked, and our Christmas Tree is ready to go:

I wanted to take a minute to wish a Merry Christmas to my 4 followers :D

I am still very new to this blogging thing and my New Years resolution is to blog more often and make it more interesting.  I am so excited for 2012.

2011 was a great year and we have much to be thankful for and much to be recognized.  Today I want to thank my Santa's Helper, DK, for all her help this holiday season.  We managed to wrap gifts for 12 family members, bake goodies for the neighbors, make homemade ornaments and keep our sanity.  I could not have done it without my dear daughter.  She is amazing.

We will be adding our ornaments to both of our blogs and I will update as soon as that is done.  They would be great projects for 2012 Christmas.  I am so excited to get started on crochet projects for 2012 as well as all the sewing and crafting projects that are on my list.

But...today is Christmas!  A day for family, friends, food and fun!  Right now my dear husband has a fabulous smelling Christmas breakfast in the oven.  We found this recipe and adapted it slightly to be done in the oven instead of the crock-pot.  It smells divine!!  Here is the finished product - Egg Brunch Casserole

Not only did it smell delicious it was delicious. 

Here is the link to the recipe:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXYIoHsJ4aazDdgFNs1aF3dLsa2Ds5nZfTtuqeWTTaHIfViudDPmOJomwqjUVUjCYHpmo8HbfZfzF15p_TrBnPr_oFzl3Uee1VsfxQYVxh0lYmqCfXt7zgYFytv42-wRXBZ-qYhqIEmqDi/s1600/untitled.bmp

(I still need to figure out this link thing)

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy Hanukkah, Blessed Kwanza and Happy Yule :D

Wow been a long time...

Since I have only two followers I am sure neither of them have been wondering what I have been up to however...I still want to blog and have not done it in a very long time.  We have been so busy with the holiday preparations and with just life.  I have also had some pretty bad fibromyalgia weeks.  I had a great day today though and so thought I would sit down and write a bit.

What I have done today:
1.  Bundled sage - made 6 sage sticks
2.  Made a very large pot of turkey carcass soup
3.  Made a bottle of Gourmet Poultry Seasoning
4.  Worked with a teen on his attitude
5.  Made a bunch of cookies - my homemade Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies (from dough that I had in the refrigerator)
6.  Made rolls to go with the soup

That is along with all the other things a mom does during the day. :D

It was lots of fun and I feel accomplished.  I am planning on posting pictures and recipes later tonight or tomorrow.

Tired...yet Thankful

I still only have one follower but that is OK.  She is one of my most favorite people in the world ;) love you sweetie.

Today and the last few days have worn this mom out.  Busy, busy, busy...  Today I remembered the value of friendship.  I spent most of the day at the courthouse with my best friend as she was going through a personal very hard day.  But amongst this very hard day was family...three generations of moms and sons and daughters and sisters and brothers and grandchildren. 

It reminded me that no matter what when you have the love of family you have a remarkable gift and a remarkable responsibility. 

Because I was at the courthouse I was not home to do my normal momming things.  Thank goodness I have a remarkable DH and GK and BR who all held down the fort and began the Thanksgiving preparations.  DH made a red velvet cheesecake that I will be sharing the recipe for after we get a taste of it.  GK made 4 pies which I will also share recipes for after we also taste them.  I did get pics though :D  Also I noticed tonight that all the veggies were chopped for the stuffing and the cornbread prepared for BR's sweeties cornbread.  We want all of our thanksgiving guests to feel welcome and to feel that they have a part of their traditional Thanksgiving at our table.  When BR invited his sweetie to Thanksgiving last year we told her to bring a family recipe or two and we would incorporate it into our celebration.  She brought her grandmother's cornbread stuffing recipe and it was delicious and the kids are looking forward to having it with our traditional bread stuffing at our table again this year.  We love our traditional foods but we also love trying new things.  This year our new things are the red velvet cheesecake and a pear pie...YUM!!  We are also cooking our turkey on DH's new Green Egg. 

So I want to post this tonight and am excited to share these things with you over the next few days.   I am so thankful for being a mom and a wife and a friend.

Fall Wreaths from Dollar Store items

Hi all,

I am so excited about this post. I was at the a dollar store during the first weeks of fall and they had such pretty things I got very excited and inspired about putting together wreaths from items only from the dollar store.  We did not have that many decorations that were simply Fall or Thanksgiving and not Halloween.  I thought some pretty wreaths would be just the touch.  I spent about $24 in supplies including the grapevine wreaths, flowers, leaves, tiny gourds, larger gourds and pumpkins and a bag of colored natural elements.  So far I have made two large grapevine wreaths and two small wreaths and have two medium size ones left to craft.  I decided to share the completed ones with you now and hope it gives you as much inspiration as the elements in the store did me.

The store had several different colors and sizes of sunflowers and so that was my first inspiration.  I have to admit I did not get the wide ribbon from the dollar store.  They only had narrow ribbon so I picked up some wider ribbon at a craft store for 50% off.  Here is the Sunflower wreath.

I love the fall leaves and the variation of colors.  Also this store had a couple of different types of artificial leaves.  The two small wreaths were done in leaves and ribbon and flowers.  They are tiny grapevines but I think the results were awesome.  Both very different.  ;) maybe that is because GK made one of them.

What do you think?  I love them both :D

Lastly, I saw this Pumpkin Patch sign and knew I could do something with it.  It fit right across the large grapevine and I used the tiny gourds and the colored natural elements and some artificial grass to create this beauty.

We had so much fun creating these new fall decorations for our home.  It was also lots of fun working with my daughter and seeing her creativity.  Momming adult kids is so awesome and we do have so much fun together.  Also just to let you know of that $24 of material I definitely have tons left.  Probably enough to do 4 more wreaths.  It was a great investment.  I think next year they will make some nice gifts too. I will let you know if I get any more wreaths done for Fall but I am now thinking with Christmas on the way and the snow falling in Colorado I am probably more likely to do Winter/Christmas decorations next.

Have an awesome weekend. :)

More you should know about me

Since I only have one follower this might not be pertinent at all but there are just a couple of things you should know about me and my momming. Oh and sadly I realized today that I did not coin the word momming. While doing a search on Google I found the word used by several fabulous moms and in several blogs. So...I did not coin the word but I still think it is a fabulous word and it describes well what we moms do every day.
So the first thing you should know about me is that I am not fancy. I am real and a bit plain and will give you real honest information and in plain language, with plain ingredients and will use and share ideas with you using normal fabrics and craft supplies.  There are plenty of blogs and moms who use top of the line and that is so wonderful for them.  However in our house we are not trying to keep up with anyone including the Jones’s and we love to find a bargain, create from what we have, save money and stretch what we have.  So, on this blog you will find the normal and every day.  You can make beauty from the normal and every day and that is what I try to do.

Next thing you should know is that this blog is as much for me as for anyone.  I will share a little of this and a little of that and it won’t be all of one thing or another.  I will share the things I love and the things I do every day.  Some of my loves include…well first of all my family but after that…Good food and drink, crocheting, crafting, sewing, fairies and fairy gardens and houses, stuffed animals (right now I have an unhealthy obsession with Pillow Pets), gardening, my hot tub, feeding the birds in my back yard, saving money, making things from other things, rescuing objects and using them in something beautiful, my dogs and cat, my front deck, the mountains where I live, rain and snow, Kewpie dolls, Troll dolls, ladybugs, mushrooms and toadstools, dragonflies, and flowers.  Whew!!  And I know that is not all.  I hope as you follow that you will share with me the things you love too and if you have any questions I can answer please let me know.  All of these loves don’t make me crazy then just make me well-rounded :D

You should also know that I have been momming for a very long time.  I am the oldest of 10 children and was a foster parent for several years in the 1990s and now again.  I am the Aunt to over 50 nieces and nephews and of course we have 7 children now.  I love children and love teens and love being a mom and an aunt and a friend.  I have a girlfriend now who is expecting a baby any minute and I just can’t wait.  And the day I have grandchildren…well that will be a wonderful magical day.

So that is all I wanted you to know today.  Have a wonderful Thursday tomorrow.  Hugs!

In Progress

Busy day today.  Shopping for Christmas with DH, enchiladas from the freezer, put there when I made a pan of them for dinner two weeks ago, and working on my current crochet project.

My son BR's girlfriend found a Nyan Cat Scarf and wanted one lots.  So I am attempting to make her one for Christmas.  If you don't know who Nyan Cat or the Poptart Cat is...YouTube Nyan Cat.  It has become quite the YouTube sensation.  I found a pattern from Kelly Freeman at Ramen Needles and I saw this one by Master Planner at Deviant Art. 


I love the colors of Master Planners so i am using the pattern from Kelly Freeman and the yarn that Master Planner used and I am almost done with the rainbow portion.  Here is a pic of my work in progress.

So it is a work in progress but I will be sure and update the blog with the finished project. :)
Also...I figured out how to name the URL so I don't have to have the whole thing typed out.  Yay!!  A little bit everyday.