Thursday, January 26, 2012

My Job is Monotonous......Except Yesterday

My job is MoNotOnous! I'm sure most people feel this way, except for yesterday. The last week of December I was on vacation and the HR over the Mechanical shops stopped by my work and told the other ladies that I need to terminate one of the employees who has been on FMLA (Family Medical Leave) due to cancer treatments. When I returned to work at the beginning of January I had to work on the year end paperwork and didn't have time to get it done. When I had year end completed I had to contact one of the ladies at the corporate office to get the paperwork started for his termination. She is now on vacation. She gets back from vacation and the letter is sent giving him 5 days to return to work or he will be terminated, the date he had to return by is January 25th. I received a phone call that he had passed away on Sunday January 22nd. Now what was so great about yesterday???? Yesterday I remembered all employees have a $20,000.00 dollar life insurance policy, paid for by our employer. God is Awesome all of the time! God worked it so that the letter would not be received until the day before the employee had passed away and his family will receive the money. Yea!!!!
GOD IS AWESOME.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Everywhere I look..... Cords

I have so many cords that hook up to my computer and they won't all fit at the same time. I have my Cricut cords, phone cords, fax cords and camera cords and to keep them all tidy I'm using alligator clips. I cut some paper to fit the clip and used Mod Podge to adhere. After it was dry I hot glued some flowers on to give it some BLING . Just squeeze the metal wire on the clip and fit the cord into the wire. Now they can hang out of my way, YEA!

Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken

My sister Jessica made this Buffalo Chicken dip and I just fell in love with it! But I thought, why not make a meal out of it so I Googled it and sure enough someone else beat me to it. I made some to take for lunch this week and it sure is good.
Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken
3 lb bag of frozen chicken
5 oz of Franks Red Hot Original Sauce
1 packet of Hidden Valley Ranch Dip
2 1/2 cup of water
1 cup of rice

Place the frozen chicken, hot sauce and

ranch dip in the crock pot on low for 7 hours. Pull the chicken out and shred it, place it back in the crock pot with the rice and let it cook on low for another hour. It is so good and I would say a medium on the spicy scale. It might be a little to hot for kids but you can't get any easier than this. It cooks while your at work and it's low fat....bam!

Heart Paperclip Bookmarks

I bought these cute heart shaped paperclips at the store and decided to make bookmarks with them. I measured about 6" of ribbon, tied a knot around the top of the paperclip and dabbed Fray Check on the ends of the ribbon and on the knot to make the knot hold. Won't these be cute to hand out for Valentine's Day?

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Jalapeno Popper Dip

I love Jalapeno Poppers but I don't like filling the poppers and wrapping the bacon around them...messy, messy, messy. So I told myself why not throw everything together and make it into a dip and that is exactly what I did. I took some to my sisters (Terri) Texans football party. I served it with celery sticks and some of the girls told me it was addicting. When I told them it was low carb they liked it even better. You can eat it with chips but that defeats the whole low carb thing. You can use low fat cream cheese and turkey bacon but I didn't have any on hand or I would have used those.
Jalapeno Popper Dip
1 stick of soft cream cheese (8 oz)
1 cup of low fat cheddar cheese
1/4 cup of Ranch light salad dressing
6 slices of cooked bacon (crumbled)
3 jalapeno peppers
1 teaspoon of garlic powder
Optional - pinch of salt

Microwave the cream cheese and cheddar cheese on high for 1 minute. Stir in salad dressing, garlic powder and bacon crumbs. De-seed and De-vein 
the jalapenos and place them in a cute little
chopper like the one in the photo and
mince those babies. Throw them in and give it a good stir. You know I think the girl was right, they are addicting!




















Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Volcano Cookies

Volcano Cupcakes
So why would anyone call these volcano cookies? Because they are overflowing in chocolate goodness. TO DIE FOR. It is a warm chocolate chip cookie with a Dove chocolate stuck inside the cookie, a scoop of ice cream and some chocolate fudge drizzled over the top. I only had one but they kept screaming my name.
Volcano Cookies
1 cup of soft Parkay margarine
1 cup of brown sugar
1/2 cup of sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons of vanilla
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of salt
2 1/2 cups of flour
1/2 cup of mini semi sweet chocolate bits
18-20 Dove milk chocolates
Ice Cream & Fudge Sauce
Pre heat oven to 350 degrees
Spray 2 muffin pans with oil spray.
Cream butter and sugars together until light and fluffy (there is nothing light and fluffy about this recipe). Add eggs and vanilla until blended. Stir in baking soda and salt, add then flour. Stir in the chocolate bits. Press 1 teaspoon of batter into each cup. Unwrap the Dove candies and push one into the batter. Place another teaspoon of batter on top of the chocolate candy and press on the batter to cover the candy. Bake for 15 minutes. When you remove them from the oven the cookie is puffed up but as they cool the center will drop to cradle the luscious ice cream. Let cool, take a knife and run it around the edge to release. OH darn, one messed up, now is the time to test it and make sure its OK to eat. Yep, it's good. You can warm the cookie in the microwave for about 10 seconds before placing ice cream inside. Then drizzle the chocolate over the ice cream....yum
By: cookieandcups.com

Knit Scarf

I saw this cute scarf on
Pinterest and I decided to give it a try. It is a no sew scarf made from knit so the edges wont unravel. The lady cut a 9" circle but then she stapled two ends together to make one strip. I thought, why not cut a larger circle and no staples, so that is what I did. This circle is 16" diameter and I just winged it like she did for the inside, I drew it so you could see how it needs to be cut. I think she said about 2" but I wanted mine thicker so I cut a 2 1/2" strip. I used 1 1/2 yards of material and I cut six strips. As you can see it comes to my knees, I used an 18" circle first but it was way to long and I had to cut some off. I did hand stitch them in one spot behind the neck so they would all stay in place. This was very easy and I will probably try it again.

Friday, January 6, 2012

Baby Boy Pages






I am working on a Baby scrapbook calendar for a soon to be little boy. The teddy bear is made from paper grocery bags. I cut them into reasonable sizes, placed them on my Cricut sheet and cut them (shabby vintage bear). I sprinkled them with water and wadded them up tightly to dry. When the pieces were dry I flattened them some, inked them and pasted them together. The next was a (Hay Ride) for October, the file was bigger than I thought so I had to cut some of the end pieces off. Next I had a page with a Popsicle stick flag but it needed something else so I added a flag steamer. The Christmas page is a moose that got tangled up in lights (X-Mas Moose), he is too cute. All of the vector files are from treasureboxdesigns.com.

Exercise

I have seen all the comments on Facebook and Pinterest of everyone going to the gym and working out, so I decided I needed to start exercising too. This is not a New Years resolution, this is just a 50 something year old woman feeling like it's the right thing to do. I'm not going to join a gym because I know I won't stick with it if I have to travel to get to a gym. So I started Monday, I got up and played on the computer for about 30 minutes and had my two cups of coffee to get me moving. Now I can't put it off any longer so I get started. The first day was rough but each day it has become easier and easier. I'm doing knee lifts, cheek lifts and backwards leg lifts. Jumping Jacks....this was the hard one. I remember it being much easier in grade school! But I stuck with it and I look the same but I do feel better about myself. I think next week I will move my routine up to 6 minutes a day of exercise.... I don't want to hurt myself by doing it all in one day :)

Thursday, January 5, 2012

My Light Box

I love my light box, it makes me look good. I bought it at Hobby Lobby a few years ago, well, maybe it was longer than that. The original price was only $9.99 and I used my trusty 40% off coupon. It is 9" x 5 1/2" and I have never replaced the bulb under it. Since I don't have a 12" wide printer I have to print the name onto a sheet of paper and trace it onto my scrapbook page. Did I tell you I am a Font Nerd? I love fonts and I have hundreds of different fonts, most I have gotten from 1001fronts.com. First I tape the copy onto the light box and then I roll a piece of tape under onto its self and place it under the scrap book paper to hold it in place. You should be able to see through it. Card stock is pretty thick and I usually can't see through it. Then I pick my pen, I have a ball point pen, an ultra fine Sharpie and a fine Sharpie. This font is pretty thick so I used the fine Sharpie. I trace it, pull it off and touch it up. It's not perfect and I don't want it to be. This font is "Girls are Weird", love it!





Monday, January 2, 2012

Homemade Vanilla Extract

I saw a recipe for homemade vanilla extract so I decided to give it a try. Real vanilla has alcohol in it, it is usually vodka but I decided to try rum and vodka. I purchased 2 vanilla beans for $4.00 and the vodka was $8.50. I split the vanilla bean lengthwise and cut it in half so it would fit in the bottle. I placed the bean in the bottle with 1/3 cup of vodka and in the other bottle 1 bean and rum. The beans need to sit in the liquor for about 60 days and you need to shake the bottle daily. The


bottle with the blue top is the rum and the clear liquor is the vodka. I mixed a small amount of the vanilla with a small amount of sugar and taste tested them. The vodka vanilla tasted just like the vanilla I buy. I didn't particularly like the rum vanilla even though I would prefer to drink the rum. Vodka and 1 bean = about $5.00