The Apprentice Puppeteer

Noelle is involved in puppet ministry this year and really enjoying herself.  She got her "hood" last night and has been having fun creeping us out, lol.  She put the thing on my head when I wasn't paying attention to her and, yes, you can see through it, but I would have liked a proper warning :-P

Pepperoni Pizzaz

Here's what we had for dinner last night.  I'd never made it before, but some similar, and we have decided that this ones the best!  I also got to use my Home and Garden Party cranberry bean pot for the first time (I only got it a year ago, lol).

The recipe came from a Quick Cooking cookbook, though its not really that quick (unless you have a food processor, which I do) but is worth the time spent.

Pepperoni Pizzaz

8 ounces medium tube pasta, cooked and drained (do this while mixing other ingredients so pasta stays warm)

1 jar (28 ounces) spaghetti sauce, divided

1 jar (4-1/2 ounces) sliced mushrooms, drained

1 package (8 ounces) sliced pepperoni

1/2 cup chopped green pepper

1/2 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

1/8 tsp crushed rep pepper flakes

1 can (8 ounces) tomato sauce

2 cups (8 ounces) shredded mozzarella cheese

Combine 2-1/3 cups spaghetti sauce, along with next 9 ingredients, in a bowl.  Add pasta to sauce mixture and mix well.  Transfer to a greased 3-qt. baking dish.  Combine the tomato sauce and remaining spaghetti sauce; pour over top.  Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes or until bubbly.  Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese.  Bake, uncovered, 5-10 minutes longer or until cheese is melted.  Let stand 5 minutes before serving.  Yield:  9-12 servings.

As usual, I didn't follow the recipe exactly.  Pizza is usually topped with what each family likes best so I only did what we liked and had on hand ;-)  I left out the mushrooms, halved the pepperoni amount (and cut the pepperoni into small pieces), and upped the onion and pepper amounts. I also didn't have the red pepper flakes so used hot sauce instead.

If you make it, let me know what you think.

Hard Drive Failure

No, I didn't have it backed up. Yes, I lost a lot from the last couple years (a lot of my pictures have been preserved on Flickr and Picasa, PTL for that, but the videos are gone). The hard drive was so dead that I wasn't even charged a fee by the computer shop for trying to retrieve my files. Some lessons in life are learned the hard way *sigh*

I have a new hard drive now. I've also resolved to buy an external hard drive to do back ups on, as well as continuing to use online sites for storage. I'm trying not to be paranoid about the whole thing, just going to do what I should have been doing all along.

What caused the failure? I didn't get my firmware update accomplished in time. If only life didn't get so busy that many things get put on hold until "a time when things aren't so busy". That's my excuse anyway ;-P

Oh well, moving on....

Decorating?

Yesterday, we spent an interesting evening helping friends decorate for the Oil 150 celebration going on this week. There is a contest and let me tell you, they are out to win! An oil derrick in their front yard, no less! We started at 4:14 PM and finished the helping out part somewhere around 8:30 - 9:00 PM. We had people slowing down to get a good look (some also turned around to get a second look) and a few even parked to watch, lol.

Videos take too long to load so here are some stills from the many videos I took.

Rainbow

Noelle was washing dishes last evening. She looked out the window and saw...

I thought I lost these

But I found them! Yeah!!!


I miss you dad!

Wagon Wheels West

This past weekend, July 31st and August 1st, was the culmination of Noelle's hard work this summer. Kyle was involved as sound man as well. Thought I'd share the memories :)



Getting ready to go on:

Life Right Now

My life feels so strange lately. I'm sure it has a lot to do with my dad dying from cancer and him not knowing the Lord. But there is so much else that I don't share with anyone but God. Sometimes I feel trapped by my life. Most of the time I just keep moving along and leaning heavily on my Jesus, or like now, just letting Him carry me.

This morning, I was reading a book that was recommended to me. I'm not particularly fond of this author's writing style, it comes across as rather offensive in some areas. However, there is a lot of truth in what she has written. This book was supposed to enlighten me on educating my teens but instead of that, it made me realize the many chains I have on my own life. They are chains that I have no way of removing either.

With this realization, I was struck by a major need to get out of this house and go for a walk. To be out in God's creation. So, I got dressed, grabbed the leash, the dog, a water bottle and my camera. There is a route that I walk sometimes that is about 2 miles long and in the woods for most of it. It was very peaceful and Owen was grateful for the exercise as well.

The first thing we saw that made me get out my camera was this doe. She stood there and watched me get the camera out of the carrier and after the first picture decided to take off.
Trying to take pictures with a dog attached to you is a little difficult, hence the slightly blurry pictures. Here are some of the different views along my walk.Owen loves the woods, so many new smells and so little time with mom dragging you along (or keeping you by her side).I have some video I took as well but its taking too long to upload them. I'll try again later.

Sometimes getting out and about really helps you refocus and recharge.

15

Kyle turned 15 yesterday. His requests for the day were a brownie ice cream cake and eating dinner out. Oh, and of course, family to share it with :)

Pymatuning

On Saturday, we decided to go to Pymatuning Reservoir.

We stopped at the car wash on the way and the kids and I took some goofy pictures.
We had originally planned to go to the deer park (actually a small zoo) but the place was crowded beyond belief (we'll go back on a weekday). We were hungry anyway so headed into Jamestown for some lunch. Then we drove over to the dam to explore.
Next we drove to the other end of the reservoir to feed the carp. Noelle has a joke she tells about how to cook a carp: Take a pine board and nail the carp to the board, cook in a 350 degree oven for 4-5 hours, take out of oven and throw out the carp, eat the pine board ;o)
Here's a couple videos of the hungry buggers:

We stopped at Family Ties on the way home and ate dessert instead of dinner. I mean come on, who has room for dessert after eating a meal? ;o)

To top off the day, we went for a walk to see how progress was coming on the community swimming pool. The plaster crew came all the way from Texas and they were swarming all over the place trying to get things finished for the opening in a few days.

All in all, a very busy day!

New Ride

I really like my 2008 Pacifica. The color is called clearwater blue pearl (reminds me of the waters around a tropical island) and changes color with the light. It has a lot of gadgets but no DVD screen (we can play DVDs but can't "see" them, figure that one out). My favorite feature, that I played with and set yesterday, is the seating memory. Since Kirk is 6'2" and I'm 5'4" its really nice to not have to readjust seating every time I get in ;o)

Short But Sweet

We've only had it since March. The kids and I have enjoyed it while we've had it.



We are moving on to something better though and I'll post pics in the next couple of days.

Randomness

Our favorite "room" and impatiens.




Some things Noelle has identified.
Owen's new kennel pad, with a zip-off cover I made from an old flannel sheet.

Memorial Day Weekend

Saturday the 23rd

I decided I needed to reclaim my front porch after doing the deck the day before. I hauled everything off, swept up all the leaves so Noelle could dump them over the creek bank, then put everything back in place and made room for our bicycles so they were ready for use.

Kirk cleaned out the fire ring so we could have a fire later in the evening. Then he and Kyle raked, mowed, weed whacked, and cleaned up the chairs for on the front porch. While the guys were doing that, Noelle and I took a planter back to the dollar store to get a smaller one for the deck table.

Dinner was eaten on the deck and it felt so good to have our *outside* room all set up. After clean up, Kirk made a fire and we enjoyed cherry mountain pies with a dollop of vanilla frosting. Mmmm...

Sunday the 24th

We decided to stay home from church and really spend time with just the family. Kirk ran to the store so I could make us all a big breakfast. Waffles, sausage, and eggs eaten on the deck. Beautiful morning!

Tom and Jeannette (Kirk's parents) took us out to lunch for an early 50th birthday present for Kirk. Then we headed over to the cemetery to place flowers on graves and walk around. We saw Great Aunt Jane there and talked with her a while. The kids and I also noticed that the cemetery was loaded with wild strawberry blossoms and began being careful where we stepped ;)

On the way home we stopped at my mom's house for a visit. My mom showed me the bluebird babies in the nest box and then bluebird parents began dive bombing us. I grabbed my camera and attempted to get a picture of one of them in the willow tree.

We were told to come back at 7 pm for a fire/cookout. It was a really nice evening!


Noelle, Larissa, and another little girl ran all over looking for critters and just having a blast together.

As everyone was getting ready to head home,
my mom decided we should all come back together and do it all over again Monday evening.

Monday the 25th

I needed to do some paperwork for the kids' homeschool evaluations on Thursday so Kyle and I stayed home while Kirk and Noelle went for a drive to look at trucks. The two of them also ate a late breakfast at a restaurant. Ky and I are home bodies for the most part so this was fine with us.

The fire/cookout was earlier than the night before. The great thing about the whole weekend was the beautiful weather! It usually rains (it did a little at the cemetery on Sunday but that was it) most of the weekend.

More About CQing

Here's an update on my CQ square.
I still have a lot more embellishing to do.

The day before Mother's Day I bought a bunch of different colored costume satins out of the bargain bin at Walmart (Who can pass up $2/yard?) and some trims.

Another great resource for fabrics and trims are yard sales. Especially little girl dresses. I found this one on Friday for $1 I have accumulated a lot of buttons, threads, fabrics, trims, batting, needles, ribbons, beads, etc. over the years this way.

Yesterday

Owen is now 4 years old. Isn't he handsome? We think so. We could have done something special for him but I don't think he noticed :-)
I carved out a corner in our multipurpose room for my sewing space. Its nice to have a place all set up and ready to go. I got the table at a yard sale last year.
In a post last March I said we were going to make this room into our bedroom but it just never happened. We need a new bed and it has to be taken through the window to get it down stairs, so we're waiting until we get a new bed. Hopefully that will be soon as it really is shot and it doesn't help with Kirk's back and neck problems. He gets up and goes to work everyday even though he's usually in a great deal of pain. Prayers for him would be appreciated.

I finally finished the sewing portion of my first CQ block.
Now I need to do the embroidery over the seams and any embellishment I want. You can see a finished example here. I joined an online group called CQembellishers because that's the part I'm looking forward to the most. They refer to it as eye candy. I use to cross stitch before the kids were born and when they were little. I always meant to learn other embroidery stitches and they are what you use in CQs.

For dinner I made what we call Breakfast Pizza. Its really simple but good!

Breakfast Pizza

1 tube crescent rolls
1 pound sausage, cooked and drained
4 eggs
2 tablespoons milk
3/4 cup shredded cheddar

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Press crescent rolls into the bottom and slightly up the sides of a 9 x 13 inch pan. Spread sausage over crust. Whisk eggs and milk together, pour over sausage. Sprinkle with cheese and bake for about 15 minutes.

I actually did a variation on this yesterday. I used bacon, cooked and crumbled, in place of the sausage and used shredded swiss cheese instead of the cheddar. It was really good but I think I may have to increase the amount of eggs to 6 or decrease the amount of bacon to half. I served it with fruit and yogurt.

Picture and Video Sharing

I've been on Blogger for over a year now and just discovered Picasa 3 photo/video software. I think it may be because I use to get Flickr Pro for free with my ISP (quite irritated that I now get almost nothing extra for all the money I pay them). I didn't want to lose access to my photos original sizes (which you don't have with their free version) so bought a one year subscription. It will take me at least that long to remove the over 3,000 photos I have on there. Since I have my blog on here I thought I'd do a little exploring of Picasa and really like what is offered. I will be switching all my photo sharing to Picasa Web Albums. Keeping everything in one place should make my life a little easier. Oh, and thanks to our new computer I will be able to store my photos and video originals on DVDs.