Gone Greek

This weekend has been pretty crazy. While my daughter has been rushing to get into a sorority, we have been rushing to get the things she needs. Between here and there and help in between, We were able to accomplish the task. I mean really. How many girls just so happen to have a white dress and white shoes in the middle of the winter at college?

She is pretty excited about getting in. She is now a Kappa Delta!

She is on the far left of the picture. Doing there little signature hand sign of KD

My daughter is seated sixth across on second row beside the girl with the yellow notebook.
We are all proud of her. We are excited for her to take this opportunity to make new friends, get more involved on campus and keep up with her grades. [brag alert!]-she made chancellor's list last semester.
She has always been a blessing and we have always been like best friends. Its is so fun having a little girl. Its fun to watch her grow into a mature young lady.
Way to go Ashley!



Diet Soup and wedge

My husband knows I've been trying to loose some weight lately so he whipped up some of his special soup. We haven't come up with a name for it besides "Nick's Vegetable soup" or "Cabbage soup". No matter what we name it, its still called "Good".
It worked out great for a cold day and since we are both fighting a cold,  It hit the spot. I know, It does not look or sound very tasty but it is.
It's made up of mostly cabbage with a tomato base. Chicken, celery and onions are added. Best of all, it barely has any calories (if any at all), so you can eat all you want while your trying to loose weight and it will not matter unless you are like me and have to add a muffin or crackers with it.  It really is good. There is not a "recipe" for it. You just throw it together according to taste and add a little salt and pepper. I like to add hot sauce just to give it a kick. You should try it!

While I'm talking about vegetables..........
I had another salad the next evening and my favorite way to eat a salad is beside my steak and that I did. I like to do the "wedge" when I can. This photo is not the best (excuse the fact that the salad seems to be staring back at me) but it was actually better than it looks.
The first time I ever had a salad like this, was at the Old Stone Steakhouse. I found it odd and different but really liked it. Since I prefer my salad on a plate instead of a bowl, this works for me.

Socially Awkward

[None of this is proven facts or focused toward any person.. It's all  just my opinion.]

Do you feel socially Awkward? Do you feel like you just don't fit in no matter how hard you try? I know I do.

With Social events such as visiting colleges, Valentines day dances and proms approaching, many young girls and boys will experience this. No matter how friendly you are or how good of a friend you would make to anyone, you just cant seem to be accepted. You feel left out and ignored and just can not get into the "click". You will often find your self talking to someone one minute and all of a sudden standing alone.

Most of this problem is due to the lack of self esteem. You feel as if you can not compete with others. The word is "Intimidated". There is always that one out spoken girl or guy that's loud and bubbly. The one that everyone just seems to love to hang out with but still they never approach you (and you dare to approach them first). Then there is the ones that look like super models in your eyes, the ones that are really cool and fun, they have the cars, the clothes and cool technology and just seem to have it all together and know every thing. Even thought you may have some or all of these qualities, you still cant seem to mingle and if you did mingle, you feel odd and everything you say and do just seems to come out all wrong so therefore, you just keep to yourself and if anyone wants to talk to you, they can come to you . Right?

You need to over come it! No one is better than you. The ones that are out going do not understand why you are standing alone. They have a different personality. If you find yourself in this situation....
  • Do not make yourself look like you don't have friends.
  • Don't look sad or depressed.
  • Don't look bored.
  • If you find yourself alone in a corner, act like you want to be alone while maybe counting guest or fixing something on your outfit, have something in your eye, reapplying your lip stick or fixing your shoe.
  • Smile at everyone that looks at you as if you are glad to see them.
  • Walk around with you head held high (you are one of a kind).
  • Do not snub anyone (remember, we are all the same and you also are no better than anyone else).
  • Walk by others and just pat them on the back and say hey and walk on. This gets you noticed but your not overdoing it. They will just know your nice and available for conversation.
  • You can start a conversation by complementing someones something.
Now that I'm over 40 I still find myself being a social outcast no matter what I do. But at my age I refuse to work so hard to keep a friend or stay in a "click". I found that just being nice to everyone, eventually they will confide in you when all others fail them. I love everyone and choose to be friendly to everyone no matter their background or lifestyle. I am very easily intimidated but I have learned to look at the intimidator in a different way and will often still find them interesting and no different than me. I will now go up to the ones that I see having a problems socializing and will start the conversation and try to make them feel comfortable. Heck, at my age you don't care if you say anything stupid or not. Just make some fun out of it. If I get embarrassed, I laugh it off.

So, all of you out there that just cant seem to make friends or meet everyone else's expectations, Remember, we are all special and beautiful and all you have to be is friendly and caring and if no one wants to have anything to do with you, then its there loss and they are the ones with the problem. If you are not invited to the next get together, Its not because they don't like you, Its because they don't know you. So be patient. So what if your not the sports fanatic at the next Superbowl party, That's just not who you are so defend yourself and be yourself. Yes, just be yourself. You will be suprised at how many people will like you just for that reason. Eventually they will come around.

Am I wrong on this? Am I right? Leave a comment, Id like to know my readers opinions.

DIY T-shirt Scarf #2

I got busted going through my husbands closet looking for another t-shirt to slash up. He came into the room and saved one or two that was just about to be transformed into "me" something new to wear. He then helped me find one he doesn't wear any longer and it was perfect.
This one requires no assembly. Just cut and snip and you have a cute little fringed infinity scarf to wrap around your neck. These scarfs are light weight and are great for fall or spring too. I like the way scarves look with tank tops.

Here is how I did it:
1. Get an old t-shirt that does not have side seams (large does better).
2. Lay it flat and cut from arm pit to arm pit.
3. Cut off the hem
    Now you have a tube.
4. On each "open" ends (where you already cut), just cut about one inch wide strips about 3 or 4 inches long.
5. Take each cut and stretch it. This will narrow them and make them fringier. (Is that a word?)
Thats all!!! Have fun with it, you can't mess it up.

I had made my first t-shirt scarf a few weeks ago using a different style you may like also. You can see it on a previous post HERE . I like it and I actually do wear it a lot.

Salad in a Jar

Trying to eat healthy can be creative and fun. So the other day I had a salad with Mr. Mason (jar). I got this idea off  Pinterest a few weeks ago and thought i'd give it try. It was delicious! Well, about as delicious as a home made salad can be I guess.
You can make them any way you want to and with any dressing. I started out by adding Italian dressing on the bottom (my least favorite because I like the creamy fattening stuff) and then layered it with everything I could find for a salad, from cilantro to mushrooms. When I was ready to eat it, I just shook it up and dug in. This will be a great idea for my camping trips this summer. You can make them the night before and put them in the refrigerator or cooler until ready to eat.

The leafy parts of the salad may become a little soggy in the dressing so try adding other ingredients on top of the dressing first before adding the lettuce.
This is why the jar is better to use than a bowl for making-ahead salads. A bowl is to shallow, allowing all the lettuce to soak in the dressing to long.

"So, what are you going to put in your jar?"

DIY covered bracelet

I recently ordered my daughter a "Lilly Pulitzer" scarf  off  the Internet. Thought I was getting a silk scarf but failed to read the small print where it said it was cotton. When it arrived, it was no more than a bandanna.

I didn't know what I was gonna do with it. I didn't pay much for it (I should have know at that point I wasn't getting what I expected). I remember seeing my cousin Kristin at Christmas and she had on the cutest little bracelet that she had wrapped in a floral fabric. So, I found an old bangle, got the scissors and started cutting.
With a little ribbon and glue. I had made my daughter a "Lilly" Bracelet. I think she will get more use out of this than a bandanna and I have leftover fabric to make more if I want too.

Weight Loss Challenge

Ah ha! Available to the Internet world.....my weight. Yes, check it out to the right with a little widget to help me reach my goal. I like how its taking me to the beach. I am somewhat ashamed of the number but I'm gonna work on it. I don't think its all that bad but considering I was always a tiny person it does bother me. I weighed a big whopping 94lbs at 21 years old and after having a child, I left the hospital weighing 110lbs. I wanted to gain some weight because I felt unhealthy and wanted to wear big girl clothes. Little did I know that after the "30's" hit, My weight would not stop exceeding! Now I want to get back to 125 to 130 lbs.
So, I joined a weight loss challenge team at my zumba inspired fitness class. It consist of teams of 2 to 5 people. Weight-in was Monday the 16th and final weight-in will be on March 19th. The team with the greatest percentage of weight loss will win a prize. I'm hoping this will challenge me to eat better and lighter.
I'm not sure how I'm going to do it but I will start with eating smaller dinner portions and wean myself off bread. I love bread! I also plan to attend more dance classes. Maybe this blog will help me too by sharing my progress. Hope my readers stay tuned!

Crochet experiment

I have been doing some more crocheting on my free time. Its relaxing and and doesn't require sewing or glue to create something. I'm having fun but I don't know how much longer I will do this. I mean, what good is the stuff I'm making? Its just for fun. I like the scarfs I made for the winter but you can only have so many of them.

Last week I learned a couple new stitches and learned to make circles. After I made the circles (which were sloppy by the way because I never got the hang of it) I didn't know what to do with them so I experimented......
and made these cute little fortune cookies from the crochet circles.

I also learned to slip stitch while learning to make circles.....
and made these neat little pillow hearts. I added some fragrant inside of them and now they are little sachets that smell like vanilla. I have one more started. I have just been trying to use up my left over yarn and then may put the needle down for a while. I don't want to turn into a crochet geek. Summer is around the corner and there will be more outdoorsy things on my mind.

Linked on craft-o-maniac

Mini-Cinnis

This is what happens when I get a sweet tooth all of a sudden and there is no cereal in house. Thought I'd experiment a little with a can of biscuits I found in the fridge. We were also out of butter so I found an ignored stick of "light" butter and figured I give it a try too. Then found some sugar/cinnamon and did the thinkable.
With each biscuit, I smashed it out on a piece of wax paper, brushed it with melted butter, sprinkled it with cinnamon/sugar mixture, rolled it up, cut it in half and put each piece in a greased mini muffin pan.
Bake according to the directions on the can and wait.

3......

2......

1.......

They were pretty good! Not real sweet but sweet enough if you drizzle some glaze on top. I went the more healthier route and just dipped mine in homemade apple butter that my friend Robin brought me from the Apple Barn. Apple butter is a fruit, right?

WARNING: you can easily eat a whole can of biscuits and not even know it.

Linked on
 full plate thursday at mizhelenscountrycottage ,
sweets-for-saturday on sweetassugarcookies

DIY Boxes

One of the hardest things to find when you need one is a little box. Sure you can find big boxes everywhere but its hard to find a small box for things like jewelry, candy, cookies, etc..
Well, while I was looking around on Pinterest and other blogs, I found this one smart and generous blogger who offers free box templates you can download and build yourself.  Visit it here
I was just playing around with these to see if it works and it does. Since I like to doodle, I just had to color some. I used regular paper but you will want to use card stock paper or they will be flimsy. Another idea would be to use one side of a printed folder. If you have school kids, then you probably have a lot of old ones laying around not being used.
There are many different template styles and sizes to choose from. The largest one I saw on the site was 3x3. My mission now is to redraw a template for a slightly larger "cupcake" size.
These would make great candy boxed for valentines day.

Toddler and a tutu

First Birthdays are the best! You get a big party, over the top cakes, lots of presents, lots of friends, all the attention and wear a tutu!
 
My grand niece just celebrated her first birthday today. A family friend made her this cute little tie on tutu and hair bow to wear on her big day.
Wow, It does not seem long ago, we were just giving her Mom a baby shower. They will grow into little princesses before you know it.
There was no problem getting her to dig into her personal little cake. 3 minutes after this picture was taken, she was the same color as the icing.
 After cake and clean up, It was time to open presents.
  Time goes by so fast. In just a blink of an eye, we will be celebrating her sweet sixteen.

To Facebook or not to Facebook

I recently deleted my facebook account entirely in September of last year. I was an active facebook guru for about 2 years. I initially thought this would be a good place to connect with family and keep up with my daughter while she was in college. But unfortunately, my family still never spent time communicating with me on there and well, me and my daughter text all the time. What Facebook did was took a lot of my time away from the things I needed to spend more time on such as house work, family time and, yes, even my full time job. Since my job requires me to sit in front of a computer all day long, it was just way to tempting to log on and see what everyone else was doing. Usually, after logging on to the famous social site, I would be disappointed in most of the updates everyone would post.

I just got really tired of all the drama and distasteful updates I would come across. Most of the time Facebookers would post depressing post and never happy about life. They had to tell everyone about how sick, tired or poor they were. There were even couples that would argue back and forth about personal conflicts and then I felt like I was in a courtroom. Some would post bible verses (which I love spiritual quotes ) but then would live life differently. This really bothered me. Love one day, hate the next, bla bla bla.
Then there were the ones that had to tell everyone where they were all the time and what they were doing. They should be glad that out of the1000 friends they have, none are thieves.

I felt so good when I finally left facebook. It was nice not being tied down to everyone elses business all the time. I felt a since of freedom and security. It kind of felt like I was in hiding to live a normal life.

Since being off Facebook, I have accomplished some things. I started this blog, did a few crafts on my free time, spent more time talking to my family about "us" instead of everyone else in the Facebook world.
Some people would ask me "why not just deactivate your fb for a while then come back later?"  I didn't think that would work with me. My fb really needed to be cleaned out and I had to completely delete it so I was not tempted to log back on.

Now three months later, I'm debating on whether I should make a new account or not. With the demand in this day in time, its almost impossible to get involved with anything unless your a facebook user. I have missed out on alot of things such as activities I could get involved in, whats going on with my dance class, I miss my close friends and I want to join Pinterest. Ha!

I'm holding back as long as I can but really thinking about joining again. I would be more choosier on my friends, and better control my account. Maybe just leave it open to only the information that I need and only "friend" the people I want to stay in contact with. Im still enjoying my privacy but who knows, maybe ill be back on.

Crochet Cord Bracelet

Here I go again playing around with yarn. I had seen these cute little knitted bracelets on a website the other day. They are not really my style but I thought they would be something fun to make. So I went on you tube to learn to do the "cord" stitch. After a few attempts, I was able to create these bracelets.
                                          Pin It

I'm thinking they will look really good with a sweater or matching scarf during the winter. This is a good Idea to do with my left over yarn from other projects. I purchased the vintage wood buttons off EBay. I was pretty excited to find them. I had no idea how hard it is to find old wooden buttons.
The seller said they were over 40 years old (so I guess that makes me vintage too. Oh my).

Linked on made by me 24-linky-party-and-features at jaqsstudio

Less Wisdom

We had a pretty interesting start of the day. My daughter had four wisdom teeth removed this morning and is now resting. She did really great with no swelling or soreness and as of eight hours later, she still has no pain. I did the same way when I had mine removed and it was not even by the same doctor.

She has beautiful straight teeth and her dentist was afraid the wisdom teeth would mess them up. Even though they ended up coming in nice and straight also, They were still afraid with time, it would cause problems. So after putting it off for a couple years, she finally had it done.

While in the waiting area, we were all pretty nervous about the whole procedure. There was tons of paper work and questions to answer. While I was busy filling out her life history (and mine) she came across the instructions to go by after the operation.
After the first instruction listed here. She was really excited about the whole thing and was ready to go back. Its a wonder she didn't try to pull them out herself after reading this.

So, after it was all over, we went to the nearest McDonalds and got her a chocolate milkshake for lunch.
We are hoping she will be 100% better by Monday when she heads back to college.

Twenty-Twelve

Another year is gone and a new one has just begun.
As I sit here thinking about the new year, I was thinking back at the first of last year and the resolution I made. It goes something like this...."eat less, dance more, and pray often".
Can't say I really accomplished any of those, However, Here are a few things I did accomplish last year.
  • I lost 10 lbs
  • made new friends
  • created this blog
  • Tithed regularly
  • read a whole book for the first time
  • visited the beach more
  • deleted my face book account
  • learned to like sushi
  • started drinking water at meals
I have been pretty busy this weekend getting things ready for new years dinner. I have twelve to fifteen people over.
First, my daughter made some toffee apple cupcakes from scratch for the first time.
 While she was baking, I was busy washing and cutting up collards and sorting through the black eye peas to get things ready for my traditional dinner I make every new years day for my family which includes: eight bundles of collards, two bags of black eye peas, fifteen lbs of meat (usually pork), ten lbs of mashed potatoes, crock pot macaroni & cheese, thirty rolls and two cobblers.
 Ill say it again....."eight bundles of collard greens"
We cook them outside. If any of you have ever cooked collard greens then you can imagine why.
After the family left with full tummys, me and my daughter found time for a little game of  tennis while the weather was nice.

Now that its a new year, I will also make new goals for myself. Here are a few of them:
  • loose at least 20 lbs
  • better manage my money
  • stop interrupting in the middle of a story someones telling me. (I caught myself doing this a lot)
  • be at work on time
  • attend zumba classes more than my regular 10 times a month
  • eat healthier
  • complain less
  • keep my house cleaner
I can hardly keep my eyes open right now so I'm ending this post now. "I wish all my readers a Happy New Year all year!"