Easy Chicken

I have been looking on Pinterest and the Internet trying to find easy, fast, good dinner recipes. I've tried many and some passed the taste bud challenge with the family and some did not. This chicken recipe however was fantastic. It takes 4 ingredients...chicken thighs or breasts, one pkg of dry french onion soup mix, 1 small bottle of Russian dressing, and 1 small bottle of apricot preserves. Mix the three ingredients together and spoon over chicken. Cook in the oven at 350 for 1 hour. So fast, so easy, so good....

Eye Lash Curl

Found another interesting thing on Pinterest. Warm up your eye lash curler before using it.


So i tried this method, just a few things to keep in mind. It does NOT take long to use your hairdryer to heat the curler. In fact, i over heated it and almost burned my eyelid when I tried to use it. Be sure to touch the curler and see that it is a good temp before attempting to use it. YES, it did work well for me. I saw a noticeable difference in the amount of curl to my lashes!

Tub cleaner

As i've said before, I hate to come across a great idea and then try it myself only to find out it is never as easy as the blog/pin or whatever, said it was or that it didn't work as well as it was suppose to. I have to say that I've set out on a journey to try these things myself and tell it like it is.

Tub Cleaner
For those of you who know me, I've got a 15 year old son. He's a great kid who usually does what he is asked! Every weekend he and his sister have a list of chores written out that they have to do. I generally trust that they have done them when I ask. However, one day I was in Nolan's bathroom and noticed his tub looked horribly dirty. I got my trusty magic eraser out and went to scrubbing. I have to say, my arm killed me and then went numb. I was not able to get much of anything off of the tub. When confronted Nolan said he did clean his tub each weekend like I asked. Upon closer questioning, it seemed that the just sprayed the cleaner in the tub and rinsed. I jokingly reminded him that scrubbing bubbles to NOT actually spin around and clean your tub for you, you have to put some effort of your own into it.

I decided to try something i read about in Pinterest. 1 cup of baking soda, a teaspoon of liquid soap, and a few drops of an essential oil (I used peppermint), add water until it turns into a paste. Holy cow, the stuff started coming up with a little scrubbing. I eventually used my hands and spread it around the tub, let it sit for a min and then had Nolan scrub it down.
The house, not to mention his bathroom, smelled great! It worked. Should have taken before and after pics!!

If you have bad build up, use this mixture!!

WOW

Last year I bought some pom pom snow ball hanging things. They were way too cool to pass up. I've had them put away with the Christmas things all year long and then couldn't decide where to put them. I have three in all but found the perfect spot for two of them.

Snow balls outside the french doors.

My sweet boy....

Well, eight years later....it happened. Nolan was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in November of 2011. We have checked his blood sugar every 6 months when his sister Emma would go to the Endocrinologist for her diabetes, she was diagnosed at the age of 4. Nolan turned 15 earlier in the year and was insistent that he drive ALL the time. Two days in a row he complained of not feeling well and said he didn't think he should drive home. The first day I didn't think much of it, we all have sinus issues but on the second day when he said "I think I'm so tired because I had to get up twice to go to the bathroom last night", I knew in the pit of my stomach that I had to prick him when we got home. He had me do it three times but he was 322 each time. I called my husband and told him he needed to come home right away. Nolan packed a bag for the hospital, all the while telling me he wasn't going to need it...of course, he did. He is on 6-7 shots a day and is honeymooning. While this sounds like it's a good thing when it's related to diabetes...it's not. His pancreas has decided to work a little so he was hitting a lot of lows. It has been a constant changing of the novolog and checking a lot. He's actually doing fairly well with his adjustment to the new routine and Emma's numbers have improved since we've gone back to being hung-ho on the carbs and measuring.

We all did some crying, praying, and hugging that first night. God bless diabetics, they live with an unseen disease hour by hour.

I can't seem to find some of the pics I took in the ER but I'll add them later if I do.

Purity, Pancakes, and PJ's

Last night I chaperoned the Purity, Pancakes, and PJ's event hosted by the Howards. About 30-35 7th and 8th grade girls showed up. The first speaker was Colleen Conner, she frequently speaks to groups of girls about purity, God's design for us, and how boys think. I know I won't get it all correct b/c I didn't take good notes, and the ones I did take I left at the house. So here is what my old sleep deprived brain can remember....

This is Colleen talking to the girls about how boys think. She used the illustration of a guys mind being like an itouch/iphone that stores pictures, but can't be erased. These pictures are not always ones they intend to take, they are wired differently than girls. Boys are visual...girl are emotional. A boys brain will take a picture, and often "finish" a picture and this image can be pulled up at any time, and often it will pop back into their brains without them trying to recall it. She told the girls that it was proved in advertisement that one thing could get people to look at a page 30% longer, one little thing that you add to a page gets more visual time....a woman. She asked what they thought happened when girls wore a shirt that had "Juicy" or any other writing across the "girls"? It makes the eyes go to the writing. Across the butt, you have cheer, pink, or any other writing....eyes go to the writing. Why are we advertising our chest and our butt? When a girls has a thong that sticks out of her pants, it creates a V or arrow down to whats beneath. A boy will see this and finish the picture. Cleavage showing from a shirt that too low or too many buttons undone, a boy will see this and finish the picture. You may only be trying to get "the hot guy" across the rom to notice you by wearing a short skirt or low top, but you have assaulted every male in-between with images.

Colleen talked about the Gestalt theory about how your brian fills in information and forms a picture.

She asked what the girls thought this picture was. One eye and two frowns, a person with their hands up were two that came up. She said it was two parenthesis and a period, but everyone's mind made some type of picture out of it, they "finished it".

The overwhelming response to this picture was that it was a triangle. Colleen said it was three pac-man images in a pattern, everyones' mind "finished the picture".

This is how boys/men/christian/non-christian are wired, to finish the picture that they see.

She talked about how her husband is a teacher in a public school and that he is assaulted every day. The girls came up with many different ways they thought he could be assaulted..verbally, physically....but Colleen said he was visually assaulted by what the girls wore every day. Her husband has a saying about underwear..If he knows the color, shape, or size, he knows too much. She used the jello mold scenario. If you look at the pattern of this jello mold, do you have any doubt about what the jello will look like when it comes out?

When you pour your self into pants and tops, there is no mystery as to what is underneath. The boys already have pictured it.

She also took a water balloon filled with water and pricked a small hole in it each time a girl gave away her heart emotionally/physically. She pricked it maybe 10-12 times, just small pricks to represent how many times a girl from 7th to married in 30's might give her heart to some boy. At the end, the balloon was very small compared to where it began, and she asked if this was what they wanted to give their husbands, just a portion that might be left or their whole heart.

This next part really freaked the girls out....she said that every boy they knew, they dated, or came across...was someone's future husband (chorus of eewww). Would you kiss etc, someone else's husband. Nobody has the right to take from you, or your spouse, that which God designed for marriage away from you.

She said she wished she had the letter that a young many had written his pastor. It was him asking for help because even at church he was assaulted with images, the one place he should not have to worry about. He asked the pastor to please help do something about it.

Jay Shaw then spoke to the girls and gave them a boys point of view. He started out by saying that your most important relationship was with Christ. Without Christ you would not be able to say no to the schemes of the devil.

He gave them the visual of the mist that hairspray sends out, he said our lives are but mist compared to eternity and that nothing can match the love of God. He talked about how some people try to fill their hearts with people, if "so and so" just loved me, then I'll be okay. People don't fill the whole in your heart because it is a God sized whole and only He can complete you.

He emphasized that guys are visual, they are driven by what they see. He talked about 2 Samuel 11. One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, ³ and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” ⁴ Then David sent messengers to get her.

Jay points out that David did not send someone to find out what color she liked, what food or music she like, he didn't care about these things. He saw her and he wanted her. Jay asked the girls if they were taking a shower, would they leave the big window open to the outside or would they shut the shades? The girls have a responsibility also. Bathsheba had to know that she could be seen by anyone, yet she bathed there anyway. Girls need to close the shade.

He pointed out that if a guy sees it with his eyes, he has touched it with their mind.

(another chorus of ewww). There was a question & answer time, the girls could write the question down or ask Jay or Rachel.

The speakers did a great job of telling the girls that dating is not wrong, it is something to be used sparingly and with wisdom in what it opens you up to. They encouraged them to talk to their parents, or their small group leaders when they had questions.

Once the speakers were done, the girls headed outside to do smores on the fire pit.

Here is the official shot of the group

and then the silly one, you know they had to go there....

The girls then had a choice to watch a movie One night with the King (story of Ester) or go upstairs in one of the playrooms to talk. Maybe half of the girls feel asleep at some point while the other 1/2 stayed up laughing, screaming, playing pool, watching freaky friday, and I'm not sure what else. I think I may have gotten about 2 hours sleep.

Pancake time:

In the morning the Howard's were so sweet and cooked bacon and pancakes. We had chocolate chips, blueberry, strawberry, apples, grapes, whip cream, and syrup as toppings.

Some plates had quite the artistic flair.

(as you can see, a mini mustache has been drawn on her face....the price you pay for falling asleep)

It was a great time so be sure to thank the Howard's when you see them next, and be glad it wasn't you!!

My new thing

Okay, so it's not SO new. I've become obsessed with Pinterest. I finally took the time to learn how to use it and now I'm hooked. I've come across so many cute things that I've added to my boards. I love this idea that you can search through all these images and follow what your friends are doing. It's so much better than an image google search.

I found a wreath that I fell in love with. It looks like roses but it is really felt circles that are pinned onto a styrofoam wreath. I bought the items on Wednesday afternoon, cut the circles out for about 2 hours and then it took about an hour to pin it to the circle. I'm so excited that it turned out as cute as I was hoping and it was so easy.