Discovering Why You're a Perfect Match...

Last night, after a long weekend spent helping a friend prepare for her Sunday afternoon wedding, Skyler and I finally sat down on the couch to relax and enjoy snuggle time and What's Eating Gilbert Grape? (a great movie, btw.)

It was about 9:30 and I had just finished making sourdough coffee cake (recipe to come soon!! it's amazing!) to bring in to work today, and the movie had just finished.  Skyler and I were lounging on the couch and talking about going to bed.  You should know that with me, I have about a 10 minute window between "Boy, I'm getting tired!" to "ZZzzzzzzzz".  It drives Skyler nuts. :)  And you should know that when I want to go to bed, I want to go to bed.  I've never been one to take my time getting ready for bed - washing face, putting on face cream, etc. (whatever it is that girls do to take SO long getting ready for bed....I DON'T do it. I just wanna go to bed.)  Also, Skyler is THE most clean person I have ever met, and the most meticulous flosser and tooth brusher ever.  Most nights, I feel guilty almost that I start brushing my teeth after him and finish before him.  I feel like he's going to be disappointed with my lack of time spent brushing in comparison to him. 

Well, last night Skyler just matter of factly stated, "Sometimes I wait for you and watch to see if you're going to brush your teeth..and sometimes I hope that you won't so we can just go to bed and I won't feel as guilty for not brushing my teeth either."  I laughed and declared, "I always brush my teeth because I feel guilty that YOU always are so good about brushing YOUR teeth! And sometimes I wish that you just wouldn't brush so I wouldn't have to!!" We are a perfect match.  We both hate doing it, but we both do it anyway to please the other.... :) 

We laughed over the idea of telling our kids in the future that we both detest brushing our teeth.  But we decided we cannot tell them when they are young that we hate it, because we do not want to give them any reason to not brush their teeth...so we decided we'll keep it a big family secret and disclose it to each child on their 18th birthday...we'll play it up their whole lives like we have an awesome secret that they'll finally be privledged to hear when their 18..and then when we share it, we'll get a good laugh out of it.  And our kids will probably groan and say, "Are you kidding me?! that's what I waited my whole life to hear?!?!" lol...yes.  We will be awesome parents... :)

Thanks for listening to my ramblings. hehe.
Love, K

Picture Frame Earring Hanger

First of all: look at me!  Blogging 2 days in a row!  (Now if I can keep this going....)

Second, I had finally had enough.  Enough of digging around in my bathroom drawer every morning at 6:30 frantically trying to find the other match to my earring that I wanted to wear for the day before I had to scurry off to work.  Not to mention, I felt like I was wearing the same two pairs of earrings every day because I didn't have it in me to dig for any others.  Know what I'm talking about?? Anybody else have a bathroom drawer that looks something like mine? (I know, it's awful.)

(Shh, don't tell my mom this is what it looks like...)

Well, I had an idea to remedy my frustration.  I remembered back to a time in early high school years when I had an ugly butterfly earring holder.  Much like this little number:

I have long ago gotten rid of this piece, yet I remembered fondly how easy it was to see all my earrings and how nicely it kept them.  Recently, while wandering around a huge church garage sale, I came across this little hideous picture frame that was painted blue with pink and green splashes.  I saw the solid bones in it though, and figured for .50 I couldn't really go too wrong.  My idea was to take some leftover screening that we had in the closet (from when we screened in our porch so our kitties couldn't jump and escape) and adhere it to the back of the frame to hang my earrings from. 

I took the frame down to my dad's house, left instructions for dad and Skyler, and while gone at a baby shower, dad and Skyler spray-painted and stapled the screening to the back of the picture frame just like I'd asked.  Like so:

When I brought it home, I hung it up in my bathroom and hung all my earrings on it!  At first, I wasn't sure about hanging it in the bathroom for all to see because I thought it might look a little tacky.  Turns out, I LOVE it hanging in there and almost looks like a piece of art being in that picture frame!  

So there you have it -- a solution to my frustration that nearly brought me to not wearing earrings on a daily basis! (GAH! Can you imagine?!) The best part: it cost me only 50 cents!!

Update...

I really want to utilize this blog this time! I started a few blogs in the past, and let them die out...and I'm determined not to do that with this one!  Plus, it'll keep me on top of starting craft projects, and FINISHING them! (hehe).  So often I get all revved up to start a project, get well on my way with the crafty goodness, and then one thing hinders me from finishing it...and it sits for 6 months.

I say NO MORE to that way of life!! :) (I'm sure Skyler thanks me for not letting my stuff sit around forever).

With that said, I will be working on a project this weekend...PILLOWS!! I found this darling fabric that i just fell in love with (I'm a sucker for romantic white fabrics.).  Our "couch" (futon) currently has 2 mismatched pillows, one of which I really dislike. So I'm set out to remedy that! Watch for it!

Also, I re-created two bedside lamps a couple weeks ago and haven't posted those pics yet. I'll do that soon!

-K

Strawberry Wontons

Ok. I'm going to tell you something. I did something amazing. Well, I made something amazing. I'd like to tell you that I created it all on my own, out of my own imagination but now that I get online, I see that there are other recipes out there too...But I did come up with the idea on my own without seeing or hearing about it before! So that counts for something, right?! :)

It started with me making wontons for Skyler for dinner (a family favorite). I always end up with some left over wonton wrappers and usually leave them in my fridge, determined to do something with them, and then end up throwing them out a couple weeks later. Not this time - I HAD to salvage them. (I've been in this "use everything up in my fridge" mode lately, and I'll say it's actually worked nicely!)

Strawberry Wontons, is what I came up with. You know, deep fried, strawberry pie filling, wonton wrapped goodness.

This is what you need:

  - About 2 cups strawberries (diced would've probably been better, but I always have whole strawberries in my freezer)
-Cinnamon
-Sugar
-Vanilla
-Wonton/Potsticker wrappers
-Egg








1.) Put about 2 cups of strawberries and 1/2 cup of sugar sprinkled over them in a glass bowl.

2.) Microwave for about a minute. Remove, stir, put in for another 45 seconds.

3.) Add a tsp or two of vanilla and a tsp of cinnamon to the strawberries and stir around.

(At the "remove and stir" part, I also added about 1/2 cup of cream cheese, and it tasted alright, but I think next time I won't use cream cheese.)

4.) Put the bowl into the freezer for about 30 min to firm up the mixture.


5.) Put a spoonful of the strawberry mixture in the middle of each wonton wrapper.

6.) Crack an egg and keep the egg whites in a small bowl; discard the egg yolk.

7.) Dab your finger into the egg whites, and smear egg whites all around the edges of the wonton wrappers. Add another wonton wrapper to the tops and "smoosh" the two wrappers together (the egg will act as glue).

8.) Add some oil to a pan and warm up on Medium heat. (make sure NOT to put oil on high! Oil gets too hot and will immediately burn whatever you put in it and cause EXTREME amounts of smoke to fill your kitchen and/or home....I speak from long ago experience...)

9.) Throw your strawberry wontons in the oil for about 5 minutes each - rotating the sides faced down in the oil with a pair of tongs.




10.) Put on a plate, add whipped cream and/or chocolate drizzle, and ENJOY!!

Hindsight: 1.) I would not have used cream cheese.  It tasted ok, but didn't blend in well enough and you'd get a too-big-for-goodness glob of cream cheese in your mouth periodically. 2.) I would've used diced strawberries. 3.) I would not have left those wonton wrappers laying out on the cookie sheets, on top of the stove, while I had something BAKING! Left me with crispy edged wontons, so I couldn't smoosh and wrap the wontons up on the edges as I would've hoped to...

P.S. Skyler and I each ate only 4, and I had about 10 extra.  I kept the un-fried ones that I didn't use on the cookie sheet and threw them in the freezer for about an hour.  When they were firm, I scrapped them off and put them in ziploc bags and back in the freezer so I can pull them out and make again at a moments notice! :) (I love treats that have this options...lol)