Stroke of Genius

I'm always looking for more ways to get organized, especially when it comes to my kitchen.  Anything that can make my life simpler gets my vote.  Plus, I'm teaching Ms. AniBelle how to cook and organization not only makes it easier for her, but it gives her a good starting point for when she has her own kitchen.  Hopefully it won't take her the 15 years it took for me to learn these lessons.  

I try to buy most of my baking supplies in bulk at Sam's Club.  In order to not have to drag out the ginormous bags each time I wanted to bake, I bought several Rubbermaid containers to hold more manageable amounts.  I also made chalkboard labels by spray painting printer labels with chalkboard paint.

 Another habit I try to keep up with is doubling one or two meals a week and freezing the second portion.  First, it is very convenient to have meals prepared that I can just thaw and pop in the oven on busy nights.  Second, it's helpful for my hubby on occasions that I'm in the hospital or feeling too ill to cook.  My man is wonderful at grilling things but cooking anything beyond simple basics is not up his alley.  The problem I have with the meals is keeping track of what I have.  A dry eraser board solved that for me.

 Last week, my daughter was foraging through our pantry cupboards to find some nonperishable items to bring in to school for a food drive and I had a stroke of pure genius.  As she was pulling out items, I realized that there were plenty of staples hidden in the pantry that I didn't realize I had which meant I was buying them with regularity.  To solve this issue, I painted the insides of the cupboard doors with chalkboard paint (it may or may not be an addiction folks!).  Now I have each item listed on the doors.  When I use one, I erase it or change the quantity, and when I buy more, I update the list as well.  Voila! 

 

Cheater Caramel Frappucino Cupcakes

I have a dirty little secret to share with y'all.  Don't tell anyone, but I infinitely prefer box mix cakes, cupcakes and brownies.  Oh, also store bought frosting. I'm a heathen, I know!  While I'm at it, I might as well admit that I prefer instant mashed potatoes to the lumpy, dumpy real ones.  Please don't hate me.  Maybe it comes from growing up eating only box mix cakes and instant mashed potatoes.  My mom, while she enjoys cooking does NOT like to bake at all unless it's simple and easy. I suppose I am passing this legacy on to my children.  I know all about the additives and preservatives in these quick mixes but I just can't help myself.  It's like trying to resist a bag of Laffy Taffy's in my cupboard, impossible.

I myself love to both bake and cook but sometimes I have no patience for the intricate cooking required on more complicated recipes.  In addition, I lack some of the proper equipment.  Cooking tools, like my crafting tools, are something that I have to accumulate one piece at a time.

All those excuses aside, I'm always on the lookout for recipes that I can adapt by substituting my precious box mixes instead of going the fully homemade route.  Today's recipe is one of those.  I surfed my favorite source for inspiration (Pinterest of course!) and mixed and matched ingredients in several recipes to come up with one that would work for me.  So here it is:

Cheater Caramel Frappucino Cupcakes

 Start with a box of chocolate cake mix (I prefer devil's food cake) and prepare it according to the directions on the box but substitute one cup of fresh brewed coffee for the water.  

Bake as directed and once the cupcakes cool, cut a hole in the top with a knife and fill with caramel frosting (recipe to follow).  Then pipe some of that store bought yummy frosting on top and add some chocolate shavings.  Voila!  

Caramel Frosting

1/2  cup butter

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup heavy whipping cream

1 teaspoon vanilla

1-1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Put the butter, brown sugar and whipping cream in a sauce pan.  Bring to a boil over medium heat and then cook & stir regularly for 2 minutes or until thickened.  Remove from the heat and add vanilla.  Once the sauce has cooled to lukewarm, whip in the powdered sugar until it reaches the consistency of spreadable frosting. 

 

A few small projects

While I've been MIA from the blogging world, I have been keeping myself busy with several projects both big and small.  Redoing our master bedroom would be one of the bigger ones but I thought I would share a few of the smaller ones today.

I had a great find recently at our local Dollar Tree of small glass jars.  I knew they would be perfect both for my crafting purposes but also for some of the homemade Christmas gifts I will be doing so I bought the entire lot of them.  For my craft storage, I painted the lids with chalkboard paint and now they are holding supplies like buttons, pom poms and googly eyes.

I also used Mod Podge and some adorable gray chevron scrapbook paper to cover my light switch and plug plates.

 And finally, I took three 12x12 canvases from Michaels and covered them with fabric.  Two canvases are covered in a black chevron and then I painted wooden letters to glue in the center and the third canvas is a print (tactfully called "busy" by my mother-in-law heh).

Stay tuned, I have a ton of projects in mind for the near future!

Bedroom updates and a DIY craft desk

In all of the years we have lived in this house, and all of the room updates we have tackled, we somehow always skipped our master bedroom.  Now that the chemo treatments seem to have curbed some of my crazy hospitalizations, I finally decided enough was enough and began to work on our room.

A few before shots

It is not quite finished yet (I decided to retain my sanity and only paint one wall at a time) but here is a sneak peak into the progress.

 In addition to painting the room and adding new curtains, I also built myself a crafting table (one my bestie is entirely too envious of!).

 

 The desk was very easy to make.  I took two 6 cube ClosetMaid storage cubicals from Target and a 2x4 project panel from Home Depot that I painted black.  Viola!  I debated on using Liquid Nails but for now, I just have the 2x4 resting across in case I want to move the desk in the near future.  If I need more stability I will use Liquid Nails and some screws.

Bedskirts and Pugs, Pugs, Pugs

A few posts ago I mentioned that we redid our daughter's room in order to make it a bit more age appropriate.  Recently I decided her bedroom was missing something...a bedskirt.  And being the new crafter and Pinterest addict that I am, I found a cute idea and ran with it.  

Since the bedskirt is directly attached to the bed frame, I had to spend hours upon hours on the floor in AniBelle's room tying on the tulle.  Of course, no project like this would ever be complete without the pugs!

Two things of note that I learned during this project.
        1.  With a trundle and an attached bedskirt, it becomes a pain to put the trundle away.   You have to pull out each piece of tulle after you are done.
        2.  Never ever use tulle with glitter on it when doing a project that will be touched and moved often.  It looks like it snowed glitter in my daughter's room on a regular basis.         

Mother/Daughter Craft Day

One of the many (many, many, many) blessings of being able to stay at home is the time I have had to devote to hobbies such as baking, cooking, and crafting.  My bestie calls me Betty C2 (Betty Crocker Cooking & Crafting) but she's just jealous of the time I have to do those things...as well as of my new craft desk but more on that later.  Anyway, a few weeks ago, my best friend & I got together with our daughters for an afternoon of crafting. 

Our first project was some wall art with the girl's initials:

This one was super easy, even for a crafting novice like myself.  We simply used a 12x12 piece of MDF from Hobby Lobby & mod podged some scrapbook paper on it.  Then the girls painted their wooden initial and I used a hot glue gun to attach that and the little black flower embellishment.  This one belongs to my daughter, Annika. 

And this one is Ali's (my besties kiddo):

After that, we made some flower headbands for the girls following these instructions:

The headbands were super easy, if a bit time consuming, to make.  The girls love them.  

All in all, it was a fun afternoon and we've already got a slumber party craft night planned for later this month.  I love the fact that this gives me something to do with my daughter so that we can continue to build a strong and loving relationship.

There and back again......

A chemo tale....  

So...even though I really meant to do much better at my blogging, here I am.  Almost two months since my last post.  Have I ever mentioned the kid fast-forward syndrome?  Once I had kids, it was like my life was on permanent fast forward.  The older they get (and consequently the busier they get), the faster my life seems to fly by.  This year we have a senior in high school, two eighth graders and a sixth grader.  The first six weeks of school was filled with getting back into the swing of things, after school programs, cross country practices and meets, robotics, youth group, retreats, bible studies, etc.  Now that most of those things have settled down and we've ditched a few of them, life seems to be evening out.  Of course, that's when I got to start my next round of chemo.  I did round 1 of the infusions two weeks ago and it was not pretty.  They increased my dosage and I was hit pretty hard with some awful headaches, shaking and nausea.  I did my second infusion yesterday so we're praying that the side effects are better this time.  It usually takes 2 to 3 days to start seeing the worst of them so we will see how I feel tomorrow. 

In the meantime, I've had a few fun projects and activities.  Our baby girl is starting to grow up and will be a teenager soon so we decided it was time to make her bedroom a little less girlie.

Before

After

  

We did the updates while she was at a retreat for church last weekend and she was so very shocked and pleased when she came home.  I still have some art work for her walls that we need to craft and hang.  We are also going to get a few of these baskets to store her stuffed animals in.  She has finally pared her stuffed animal collection down to the bare bones...the ones she or we bought for her on our trips to Florida, her Nightmare Before Christmas ones and her Skelanimals.

We surprised my parents with a 40th wedding anniversary dinner.  They knew we were taking them out but we added some of their best friends to the guest list.  It really made their night.

And finally, one Saturday while Aidan was at robotics Jimmy & I took Ani to Rockford for their fall festival.  It's such a beautiful little town.  I could totally see living there once the kids are out on their own.  

I'm looking forward to the next few weekends and the fun they will bring.  This weekend my bestie & I are getting together with our daughters for a day of crafting.  Then Ani's new BFF will be spending the night and we'll go see Monsters University after church on Sunday.  The following weekend both of our other daughters are planning on coming out to join us for our annual football/Halloween party and then after that is Halloween at Abby's and then the Michigan/Michigan State game at Lea & Tod's.  I do love the fall...the time of year, the holidays and the time we spend with our friends and family. 

Back to School Prep

With a little less than a week before school starts, the back to school frenzy is kicking into high gear.  Registrations (this year, I registered nine kids for school...two of my own and seven refugee children), orientations, pictures, school shopping, supply shopping, hair cuts, and weeding out the clothes from last year that no longer fit.  And in order to make my life easier, I am also doing some food prep so there is less hassle once the busyness of the school year begins.  

I started with strawberries.  My husband drinks a protein shake every morning that consists of soy milk, peanut butter, and frozen strawberries.  When I can find a good sale on fresh strawberries, I cut the stems off, flash freeze them and then put them in serving size baggies so he can just thaw one bag each day.

 

After the strawberries, I made egg sandwiches & English muffin bread.  I found the breakfast sandwich recipe here and adapted it.  

Freezer Egg Breakfast Sandwiches

12 light multi-grain English muffins

12 eggs

12 slices of American cheese

1.  Preheat the oven to 350.

2.  Split the muffins open and lay them all on a cookie sheet.  Bake for 8-10 minutes until toasty.

3.  Spray a jumbo muffin pan with canola and crack eggs in each one.  Use the tip of a knife to pierce the yolks.

4.  Bake eggs for 10-15 minutes until set.

5.  Remove eggs from pan and allow to cool.  Season with salt & pepper.

6.  Assemble sandwiches with one slice of American cheese and an egg between the English muffin.

7.  Wrap in saran wrap & freeze.

8.  To cook, microwave for 1 minute on 50% power.

And finally, I finished off my day of food prep with some freezer rolls.  This recipe makes enough rolls to last us about 6 meals so I only have to make a batch about once a month.

Whew!  That's a lot of work for someone who needs two naps a day to get by.  As a nice little break, my baby girl & I did a mama/daughter date yesterday and went to see Mortal Instruments: City of Bones.  It made Ani's day as she has read all of the books and loves them.  It was very good and neither of us can wait for the next movie.

Sjogren's....the gift that keeps on giving

My posts have been few and far between lately, and since God has blessed me with a meningitis-free summer so far, there has not been much health news to report.  But, with Sjogren's Syndrome being the wily autoimmune disease that it is, it would be too much to hope for a completely symptom free summer.  Sjogren's symptoms include dry mouth, dry skin, dry eyes, and at least in my case, reoccurring aseptic meningitis.  My worst symptom by far this summer is dry eyes.  My left eye is currently so dry that the vision is blurred due to erosion on my cornea.  See, I don't produce enough tears and tears are what removes the grit from underneath your eyelid.  If my body is unable to remove that grit with tears, it scratches my cornea giving me blurred vision and an uncomfortable sensitivity to light.  The ophthalmologist is not able to get me in until October so for now I'm continuing to use eye drops, ointment and warm compresses for comfort.

 Beyond the dry eyes, lately I've been suffering from insomnia (which goes hand in hand with my Fibromyalgia and which is why I am wide awake at 2 am on a Tuesday night) and some meningitis symptom flares, mainly headaches and nausea along with some dizziness.  At the end of last year my rheumy, Dr. H, decided that my next course of treatment would be Rituxan, a chemotherapy treatment used in some cases of lymphoma and rheumatoid arthritis.  Understandably, I was concerned about the idea of an IV chemo treatment (I was already on the pill form of Methotrexate) and I sought a second opinion from a rheumy in Ann Arbor.  My pesky little B cells are the reason Rituxan was recommended.  It is theorized that the B cells in my body are somehow egging on my immune system to continue to attack my body which results in the meningitis.  Rituxan is supposed to deplete my B cells and give me a period of less systemic issues.  The negative (well beyond the obvious whole chemo thing)?  It does not permanently deplete my B cells.

 Yes, it's true, they do make an E-Card for absolutely everything!

This informative article discusses the relapse rate (about 80%) for those who are treated with Rituxan.  My rheumy explained that my treatments would be once, two weeks apart, every six months.  We are now nearing the end of my first six month period and that is likely the reason I have been having so many symptom flares as of late.  After my first round of treatments, I started to feel hopeful and definitely caught a case of selective memory.  Now I recognize that this is likely my reality for a very long time, so I just need to get used to the ups and downs.  I can bear any ups and downs as long as I remember that God is with me and will be my strength in all things.

I can do all things through him who gives me strength.  

Philippians 4:13 

More Summer Fun

We have been kid free for nearly one week and in that time I have been a complete and total bum.  Yes, I did some chores.  Some laundry.  Some grocery shopping.  But what I've mostly done is read, and Pin, and nap, and read, and maybe Pin a bit more.  I'll admit I needed the down time and some space to unwind but I feel like a sloth.  

In order to placate my sense of guilt I did my chores this morning, made a batch of granola and decided to post some more summer updates, photo journal style.

Celebrating the 4th of July

Zoo for AniBelle's birthday

Visiting Mom & Dad at the campground

Summer movies

Family beach day at Millennium Park

Bowling with the whole gang

Third Annual Bauer/Chase Trip-Chicago Bound

Eating in (not so polite) style at Ed Debevic's

Best father/son shot of Tod & Cam-photo by Jimmy

Whew!  We've had an amazing, busy summer and it's not over yet.  My kids come back next weekend and then it's time to cram in some more summer fun in between back to school shopping & way too many registrations and orientations to attend.