The Lost Post about Gift Exchange December 2012

Hello!  So, I keep participating in this Handmade Gift Exchange hosted by Linda @ Craftaholics Anonymous.  She hosts twice a year- July and December.  Apparently, the pictures I uploaded from December never made it up on the blog... or if they did they have gone MIA.

I wanted to share them with you now as I am soon going to be posting the pics of the current exchange as well!

My lovely partner in the exchange told me that she loved to cook, travel, read, and go to concerts, as well as the color green so I created the some gifts that I thought would cater perfectly to those things:

Bottle Necklace: inside the bottle is a map of where she is from cut from an atlas, the key says "journey".  On the top of the box it says "So that no matter where your journeys take you, you'll always be home."

Satin flower hair clip

I found this box at JoAnn's!  It was just the plain brown paper mache, but I painted it and distressed the edge to look like pages.  The ticket on the front was supposed to be "Life is a beautiful journey" in French because she said she wanted to travel to France one day.  I roughly translated journey though, but it comes across about the same!

Not pictured for some reason lol, is an apron I made for her where I hand painted one of her favorite phrases which mentioned something about taste and a letter for her first name.  I also used a vintage gold toned fork and bent it into a recipe card holder :).

More pictures of the most recent exchange to come soon!  Hope you can join up next time!

Things I've Said to My Dogs

So... with two Pomeranians and a cat as my only companions in this house I talk to them A LOT.  Like... yell out the back door while the neighbors are outside and probably think I am talking to another human or have totally lost my mind.  Here are some things I have said this summer to my dogs in particular:

1. Don't be a bully!
   
   
   
2. I hope she kicks your a$$!
   
   
   
3. Don't get in the litterbox if you aren't going to clean it!
   
4. You PEED the bed?!?!?
   
   
   
5. Charlie come back you have a stick stuck to your butt!
   
   
   
6. Leave the cat alone you punka$$!
   
7. Seriously?  You are going to get eaten.
   
8. Have you lost your mind?
   
   
9. You are not a cat! (to dog sitting on the kitchen table) You need to be doing dog things!
   
   
10. Stop dancing in the water bowl!

So you're single... and ya gotta eat...

Hard to believe I'm a teacher if you follow my blog because this girl has failed at blogging and documenting adventures this summer!  Why?  Well, simply put I'm not happy with changes that are being made in the world around me and I've spent this summer trying to find myself and my new happy again.  And with 13 days left until back to school... I have a to do list a mile long.

ANYWAY!

So... you're single?  Me too.  Like... epically.  So... I also HATE doing dishes... and considered a dishwasher... they are EXPENSIVE and I have beautiful handmade wood cabinets that would have to be hacked up... SO.  Here we are at my current point.  If you go to the grocery store for a single person it is really uber easy to just live off of frozen pizzas and tv dinners.  But honestly, tv dinners suck.  Like... is that really real meat?  Because it takes like really gross lol.

Here are some of my current faves and saves from this summer that any single girl or guy needs to try:

I am SUPER picky about my meats.  These are AMAZING.  You microwave them for like 3 minutes and they are to die for and perfectly seasoned.  There are times where an edge is hard from being overcooked, but it is really juicy and tender.  And low calorie!


This is also available in brown rice... I love both.  It has two servings in the little bag... you use the microwave again obviously.  I eat one serving and then roll up the top of the bag, put on a clip, and refrigerate for the next day.  I sometimes put a dash of chicken bouillon powder in for flavoring... probably only half a teaspoon for the entire bag.


Now for this one both Birds Eye and Green Giant have some single serve steamed veggies.  Green Giant have a butter sauce and come in little plastic trays.  Birds Eye comes in mini single serve bags and have no seasoning.  I prefer Birds Eye at this point because there is more variety- I love the peas and corn!

I discovered that a single chicken breast, a single serve peas, and 1/2 a bag of the rice makes a meal around 320 calories... HELLO!  And it tastes great. :)

P.S.  The chicken was under $7 at Kroger.  The other two are cheap too... somewhere around the $2 range.