Oh Mr. Coffee!

Why hello there Mr. Coffee!

I'm working on a couple new projects to put on my etsy shop!  This is my newest coffee cup cozy design.  I love him...  Kind of 007 esq?  Or for when you want to bring your coffee to a black tie affair?  

Sure wish it was full of coffee and not just my demo cup full of scrap yarn...

Have a great day!  Thanks for stopping by!

  

Cupcakes!

Yesterday I was in the mood for something sweet.  So I hit up etsy.  Keywords: crochet, baby, hats.

AWWWW, so sweet!!  (except for the ones that use creepy dolls as their models, Yikes!!)

I stumbled upon a super cute cupcake hat and knew that Little Bear NEEDED one. I don't know why I couldn't have found it before his birthday.  It would have been an awesome first birthday photo prop.  Oh well...

So I started crocheting, a pattern forming in my mind.  Had to rip it out a bunch of times.  It got later and later, but I had to finish, because if I didn't I might not remember where I was going with it, and it might not turn out right, or I might not finish it at all.

1:30 am.  DONE.  Tired, but excited that it looks so adorable.  (Maybe a little girly...) Tiptoe up to bed, lay head on pillow, cue crying baby... Of course.  Ha!

Please enjoy the pictures of our photo shoot!  It was so hard to choose just one!

The Cupcake hat

Top view

My hat model

A funny blooper pic!  Looks like Ari is trying to eat the cupcake!

Had to make a chocolate chip cookie to go with the cupcake,
gave it to Little Bear so he wouldn't rip the hat off his head, but
he wanted nothing to do with it...  

The hat would look so adorable with pink "Frosting" and bright pink sprinkles, maybe a cherry on top?!  So many possibilities!!

Petition

Hoping you all can help my husband out by signing this petition.  He has worked in  a Title One school for the past 5 years, this means it is a low income school.  By working for a low income school he was led to believe he would qualify for the Stafford Loan Forgiveness Program for Teachers.  He met all the criteria for the Program except that he started schools before October 1998, meaning that he does not qualify for the Loan Forgiveness.

By drawing up this petition we would like to bring attention to what we believe is an injustice, not only to my husband, but also to the countless other teachers who did not qualify for this program based on when they started school.

The link for the petition is here. Thank you so much for your help!!

Olympic Stitches

I LOVE watching the Olympics.  I enjoy hearing the stories of all the different athletes.  And as a newish Mom I am enjoying hearing about the Mom's of the Olympians.

I especially love watching the swimming competition.  Probably because I swam in High School and I actually understand the sport.

While watching I will be working on various projects as I try to build up my shop on etsy.  I do however get nervous for the athletes while they race, and have been known to hold my breath as they complete their final lap.  I noticed this morning during the time trials that as they got closer to the finish, my stitches got tighter and tighter.  (If you crochet/knit you know that if your stitches aren't mostly uniform, the end product could look really wronky...)

Needless to say I had to rip out a couple rows.  I may want to put down my crocheting during the Phelps/Lochte 400 IM tonight!!

Lotion Headaches

I want to write about something that has irked me for a couple of weeks.  Maybe by writing about it I may not be so annoyed anymore.

Two weekends ago I got a coupon for a free 2 oz lotion at Bath and Body Works.  As someone who is trying to live more frugally it is not a store I hit up often anymore.  I had been out to the mall to visit the yarn at Michael's, so I figured I would stop over and get my free lotion.

I get up the counter, with my coupon, and of course the woman wants to sell me something else.  I politely decline. (I understand that the store uses those coupons to get people in the store so they buy more than just the free lotion.  They don't figure there will be people like me who will just get the freebie.)  Then the girl looks me up and down and asks rather harshly 'haven't you been in here earlier today?'  Here manager who was standing right there said. 'No she hasn't.'

I was so embarrassed, I took my lotion and left.  I think it bothered me because I generally consider myself a decent person.  When someone insinuates otherwise it hurts my feelings.

Eh, maybe I'm just too thin skinned and taking it too personally.  What do you think?

I will definitely think twice about going there again, coupon or no.

The worst part?  The lotion's scent makes my head hurt....  

Brownie Mistakes...

I am so mad at myself right now.  I fear I have made a huge rookie baking mistake, and I broke one of my dieting rules.

My husband's work is having a picnic tomorrow, and he asked me to make something for it.  I didn't know what I was going to make until I looked in my cabinet and saw brownie mix, I had seen this recipe for Brownie Mix cookies on Allrecipes.com and thought they looked perfect.

Here is where things went south.  I usually replace the oil in recipes with apple sauce so I used some of my homemade sauce.  I have a ton of ripe bananas and I had heard you can use 1 banana/1 egg in baking.  The recipe calls for two eggs so I mashed up two bananas and mixed everything together, dropped them onto cookie sheets, and baked them up.

They needed to be baked a lot longer than the 9 minutes the recipe said, and getting them off of the pan was a nightmare.  They all got scrunched up and crumbly.  I am not even going to show you a picture of them they are that ugly.

I ate two of them because I didn't want them to feel bad, which is how I broke my dieting rule to not eat when I am by myself.  The idea is that if I have to wait to eat with someone like my son and/or my husband, then I won't mindlessly snack.  I will also be more likely to make healthier choices because I want to model healthy choices for my son.

Ugh, my husband just got home and he didn't even like the cookies.  (and he will pretty much eat anything...) He's just going to have to bring a bag of tortilla chips and salsa, cause this chick is done with baking for the night.

Anyone have any ideas on what went wrong?  Shouldn't have mixed the applesauce and banana?  Not a good idea making cookies out of brownie mix?  Let me know what you think!

        

Peace, Love And Coffee

I have been trying to get better about planning out our family meals for the week.  I do write it down, but I always end up losing that piece of paper, or it is accidentally thrown away.

I saw this neat idea on Pinterest.  Can't find the pin that I saw originally, must not have pinned it myself.  Darn!  But the idea was to use an eight picture frame as a dry erase surface for the purpose of hanging in your kitchen so you can write down what you are having for dinner each night of the week (and a spot for notes!)

Instead of using scrap book paper, I wanted to take my own photos.  I started making shapes as I was cutting up some fruits and veggies, and thought that it would make an awesome photo.  Then I went even more wacky and wrote out words with different foods.  Peace - Peas of course!  Love - toasted oats and strawberries.  And - chocolate syrup and raspberries. Coffee - chocolate chips and a Gerber Arrowroot cookie.

I found the eight picture frame on sale at Jo Ann Fabrics (plus I had a 25% off coupon!!)  It came out to be over 50% off and cost me less than $14!

I got all the pictures together, and stuck them in the frame and fell in love.  I think it turned out pretty sweet.  I think that it looks way to cool to write on, which was the whole purpose of the project!



      

Peace Love and Coffee <3

Frame with the dry erase.

I think that I won't be using it as a dry erase board.  The writing is to hard to see and it is covering up my photos!  I'll just have to think of something else!  

Let me know what you think!