Oh to start the day with this much enthusiasm and excitement. This is the little face I am greeted with each morning and after each nap. I love that I have been blessed with a happy little baby. I can’t help but to smile when I see Miss Madelyn’s grin—even if it is 3 a.m.
If you’d like to make a cute little edible addition for your Thanksgiving table, let me recommend pumpkin Oreo pops. All you need are Double Stuff Oreos, candy melts, lollipop sticks and green Tic Tacs.
Here are the easy-peasy directions:
1. Open up your Oreos. I did a bunch at a time and ate any that broke. You may want to keep a glass of milk handy for this part of the process.
2. Insert a lollipop stick and close the babies back up.
3. Melt your candy melts in the microwave according to the package directions.
4. Dip the Oreo into the candy and make sure to cover the whole cookie. Lay the dipped cookie on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper.
5. After it sets just a little insert the green Tic Tac into the top. If you wait too long it will be too hard, but if you do it too early it will fall off. So, play around with it a bit. Don’t worry. You can eat any mistakes.
6. Once the cookies harden all the way, place some of the melted candy in a baggie, snip the end and drizzle some candy back over the cookies. That’s it. You’re done. I think they would be cute as place cards on a Thanksgiving table.
Oh—and, if you want to get ahead on Halloween next year, you can try making Mummy Oreo pops. I didn’t get this posted a month ago as I had planned, but since I’m a glass half full kind of gal, I prefer to think I’m just getting a jump start on Halloween 2011.
A nasty bug is sweeping our house and we’ve all taken turns with it over the past five days or so. It started with my little guy, then made its way to Madelyn and my hubby. Now I have it. I’ve decided that I need to have a serious talk with the management around here because I’ve realized that I don’t have any sick days as part of my compensation package. I have work deadlines pending and my little kiddos are still demanding my attention—even at 3 a.m.
Being sick reminds me of how I always take being well for granted. So, for now I will keep my box of tissues by my side and load up on the vitamin C while I wait for this little bug to pass. I’m going to slowly plug away on my work projects and say a little prayer asking for my kids to take it easy on me. We might order a pizza for dinner and save the roasted chicken for another night this week.
Rabbi Harold Kushner said, “One of the most sublime experiences we can ever have is to wake up feeling healthy after we have been sick. Even if it is only relief from a headache or toothache, the health we take for granted most of the time is suddenly seen to be an incredible blessing.”
Want to know a little secret? Actually, if you know me, you won’t be surprised, but I’ll tell you anyway. I’m a pack rat. I save magazines (I might want to pitch the editors one day, I reason), books (you never know when you will want to re-read that amazing novel), and a few select cooking sections from the Washington Post (I will eventually try the recipes).
I’m re-vamping the office, which means I have to sort through those stacks of papers and rows of books to bring some simplicity to my surroundings. I am making progress. Today I tossed my 2006 Writer’s Market and a year of back copies of Working Mother. Of course, I had to thumb through each copy and got caught up reading an article or two. That explains why I’m treating my re-vamp as a marathon and not a sprint.
In clearing my clutter I’ve come across some of the things I love but that I’ve never taken time to display. I’m hoping to finally frame a Jodi Picoult autographed novel and an autographed John McCain non-fiction book. I’ve always thought I would hang htem in an office “someday.” For some reason I always thought that someday would be when I had a new house with a big office, but I’ve decided there is no reason to wait. We should embrace the life we have instead of waiting for the one we might have, right?
As I sort I know there are things I can’t part with—such as my back copies of Writer’s Digest, copies of my own articles and business receipts. I’m trying to find a creative and concise way to store and organize them. I’m paying attention to where the piles accumulate and trying to figure out why. Maybe getting to the bottom of it will help me minimize those piles moving forward.
Albert Einstein said, “Out of clutter, find simplicity.” That is my motto as I finish clearing off my bookshelves and sorting through my desk drawers. It might even extend out to the rest of the house, but I’m taking it one step at a time.
The days have been flying by lately. Between a slew of work projects, a hubby who has been burning the midnight oil and my two little ones, time is passing quickly.
I’ve been so fortunate to have a steady stream of freelance projects since hanging my own shingle about two years ago. The past few months have been especially busy. It has reinforced the need to dedicate a set workspace to my work. As a write-at-home mama, it is easy to pack my laptop from room to room, but I find I am more efficient and focused when I sit at my desk.
So, I’m in the midst of a re-vamp of my home office. I’m on a budget, but I am going to splurge on a few tools that I think will help boost my productivity. Today I ordered a new wireless keyboard and mouse and a laptop stand. Tomorrow I’m heading out to pick up a fancy-schmancy desk chair. Whoo hoo.
As part of the re-vamp, I’m in the market for a desk for my little guy. There was a time when he was happy to play on the floor while I worked, but now we have a power struggle over the desktop (and laptop, but that is another story). I’m hitting a few consignment sales this weekend in hopes of finding the perfect new-to-us addition to the office.
We’ll be moving some furniture around, re-purposing items from other rooms and pulling a few things down from the attic. There has also been a steady hum coming from my shredder as I purge the filing cabinets and clean house.
I share our office space with my hubby, so we keep the space pretty gender neutral and our first priority is the functionality of the room. Luckily we both have our own desks.
I have been online looking for inspiration for our space. I found an amazing home office while blog hopping this week, but I can’t for the life of me remember the blog! I hate when that happens. I love this corner workstation on Oh Happy Day. I hope we can add an armoire for storage at some point—but that is probably pretty far down the line.
So tell me— what are your must-haves for your home office? How have you arranged your space? Do you have any inspiration rooms or home offices you covet?
Hello blogland! Where does the time go? My plate has been full of work projects and family activities. Something had to give and it was this little blog of mine. I had all kinds of fun little Halloween posts written in my mind, but they never found their way to the Internet. Darn. Maybe I’ll share them anyway just in case anyone wants to get a jump on next year.
Here is what has been demanding my attention lately:
On the Work Front: Sometimes I’m blown away about how much fun I have as a freelancer—not to mention how much work it takes. I’ve been so lucky to have several interesting assignments lately. During the past two weeks I’ve interviewed 30 or so experts and written about everything from video games (Assasin’s Creed Brotherhood—to be exact) to cargo security. I need to do a better job of updating my site with recent articles, so I’ll be sure to post a few once I get the latest hard copies.
On the Family Front: We had our fifth, and hopefully final, trip to New York for surgery on Miss Madelyn’s hemangioma. Whew. Hearing the doctor say this should be it lifted a huge weight from my shoulders. We’ll continue to watch what’s left of the hemangioma closely and head back to New York right away if it starts growing. In the meantime, I’m going to let out a sigh of relief.
My little kiddos and I have been spending lots of time in the kitchen lately, creating more of our concoctions and whipping up Halloween treats for family and friends. Pictures to come…eventually. I hope to resume a regular blogging schedule on Friday!
My cousin’s husband passed away late last week and my heart has been breaking for her ever since. I can’t stop thinking about her or her kids. I wonder how you find the strength to wake up the next day and take care of all the things you that demand your attention. I wonder how you comfort your little ones while your own heart is breaking. I wonder how she is doing and what I can do to console her from afar.
It reminds me that life doesn’t always go as we have planned and how young thirty-something really is. It makes me want to hug my loved ones a little tighter. It is cliché, but it reminds me that life is short and that making lasting memories with my family should be my top priority.
It reminds me that finding the time and energy for a family adventure is worth the effort. A game of hide-and-seek after dinner is a lot more important than loading the dishwasher. My little routine of making Evan into the bed—layering the sheets and blankets on top of him and then trying to smooth out the lump in the middle—gives him a story to tell his daddy even if it means our morning task takes longer than it should.
I would like to say I do those things as often as I should. Sometimes my have-to-do list takes precedence over my should-do and want-to-do lists. I think that happens to all of us from time to time.
So tomorrow, after I try to find the right words as I write a card for my cousin, I am also going to sit down and write out my want-to-do list. I am going to keep it right next to my to-do list and make it a point to check some things off of it, too.
–Climbing into bed on clean sheet day
–Finishing a big work project
–Dancing in my kitchen with my little guy
–Making Miss Madelyn laugh
–Having leftovers for dinner
–Laughing with my hubby
–Nibbling on candy corn
–Finding a perfect Christmas gift for Evan and tucking it away in the closet
–Talking with an old (and absolutely wonderful) friend
Today we whipped up a little batch of sculpting dough. This is somewhere between playdough and clay. It is a thick dough that dries pretty quickly. It is good for making ornaments, shapes, beads, etc. Ready? Let’s get started.
First, head to your pantry and your craft closet. Here is what you need: food coloring (Evan’s favorite), glue, water, flour and cornstarch.
Put a few drops of food coloring in a bowl. I told Evan to do four, we ended up with about eight. Life is all about compromise, right? Then, pour in 1/4 cup glue.
Pour in 1/4 cup water and stir it up.
Next stir in 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup cornstarch. It will get pretty thick, so use some elbow grease.
Once it gets too thick to stir, pour it onto the counter and knead it for five minutes or so. You’ll want to get all of the flour and cornstarch mixed in. Now is the fun part.
Start shaping the dough! You can roll it out, cut it into shapes or sculpt it. The dough does dry quickly—a little too quickly for my guy’s tastes. The outer layer starts to get a little crusty, which wouldn’t be bad, but Evan was having a lot of fun just playing. I finally convinced him we should cut out some shapes. We did Miss Madelyn’s initials, since she was being so patient while we whipped up our little concoction.
Here are a few of our masterpieces:
Evan liked this dough, but it wasn’t nearly as popular as last week’s slime. I think this would be a lot of fun for little girls making beads for necklaces. The beads dried completely in about two hours. I expect everything else will dry overnight. I will make this again during the holidays so we can create some custom ornaments for our tree.
The Recipe:
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup glue
4-8 drops of food coloring
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup cornstarch
Mix water, glue and food coloring in a bowl. Stir in flour and cornstarch. Mix in bowl until thick, then turn it onto the counter and knead for five minutes. Shape into shapes and then let dry.
My hubby’s grandma introduced me to this little salty-and-sweet treat. I had to mix up a batch for our house. The key is to get just the right ratio of peanuts and candy corn. Not only do I like the way it tastes, I also like the way it looks. These little candy corns are inspiring all kinds of baking and decorating ideas right now.
